A World Without Heroes - Brandon Mull [67]
CHAPTER 11
FERRIN
The following morning Jason awoke to something tickling his face. He brushed his cheek and sat up quickly. A shiny red centipede longer than his middle finger lay upside down on the ground beside him. The creature wriggled over and disappeared under a root.
Jason shivered. How long had that thing been crawling on him? One of the little drawbacks to sleeping out in the open.
Sitting up, he looked over at Rachel, sound asleep, wrapped in her cloak and blanket. Had she ever awakened him for his watch? He didn’t think so. Could she have fallen asleep on guard? She looked pretty and vulnerable, lying there serenely. He felt a sudden desire to protect her.
Famished, Jason started rummaging for food. Although he tried to be quiet, the noise disturbed Rachel, and she sat up, gasping and blinking. After looking around for a moment, she turned to Jason. “I’m so sorry! I don’t remember falling asleep!”
“We survived,” Jason replied.
Rachel squeezed fistfuls of her blanket, her jaw tight. “Take off your socks,” she said bravely.
“It might be hard to get them off. They feel pretty stiff.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Seriously, I might need your help. Some of my blisters popped yesterday. The socks feel plastered to my soles.”
“I feel bad enough. You don’t need to rub it in.”
Jason had to admit she looked miserable. “Tell you what. We were exhausted. And I got a warning the first time I fell asleep on watch. You deserve one also.”
Rachel scowled. “I don’t deserve a break. I could have gotten us killed.”
“Next time you blow it, you will smell and taste my socks. Same goes for me. No mercy from now on. Have some breakfast. We should get back on the road.”
As they proceeded, the forest dwindled to meadowland, still interspersed with groves of trees, but primarily featuring broad expanses of brush and wild grass. From the position of the climbing sun Jason could tell that the road was generally bending northward.
Around midmorning Jason and Rachel came to a crossroads. This was no footpath branching off the main thoroughfare—it was the junction of two major roadways. A tall post with a crossbeam lashed near the top marked the intersection. A bag hung from the crossbeam, well out of reach.
Jason paused, hands on his hips. The roads joined at right angles, and all looked to be in good repair. “Which way?”
“West would take us back toward the Blind King,” Rachel said. “And we came from the south. So north or east.”
“Ned called this road the Overland Loop. That might mean if we continue north, it will circle back to where we started following it.”
“Hello?” called a weak male voice, startling both of them.
Jason turned in a circle. Nobody was in sight, and there did not appear to be any cover for a good distance. “Who said that?” he asked sharply.
“Praise the fates,” the voice cried, gaining strength. “Help me. I’m up here.”
Rachel shared a befuddled glance with Jason. “Could that have come from the sack?” she asked.
“Sounded like it.” Jason stared up at the bag dangling from the crossbeam. The sack looked barely large enough to hold a bowling ball. Jason raised his voice. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ferrin,” the voice responded, muffled by the bag. “I’m a displacer. A gang of ruffians robbed me and left me here to die. Please get me down.”
“How do you fit in the bag?” Rachel asked, baffled.
“Like I said, I’m a displacer. I understand you may not be terribly fond of our kind, but please don’t leave me here to rot.”
“We come from far away,” Jason said. “We don’t know what displacers are.”
“It’s unkind to tease the helpless.”
“We’re serious,” Rachel assured him.
“They chopped off my head and buried my body. Things like that don’t kill displacers. Parts severed from my body remain linked by cross-dimensional connections.”
Jason gazed at the sack in disbelief. “So just your head is in there?”
“Yes, and I’ll be just fine once you reattach me to my body.”
“Where is your body?” Rachel asked.
“Hard to say. I can feel that I was buried. I could tell they didn’t take me far. Look around.”
Jason and Rachel searched