The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [140]
The soil was poor even when the land was drained, and what few people lived in the area were mostly river fishers or goat herders, but there wasn’t much sign even of them. He vaguely remembered hearing something about the land having been cursed during the Warlock Wars, too, but he’d never paid much attention to that sort of thing, though in hindsight maybe he should have.
Something caught his eye: not movement but something weird, something that ought not be there…
A sick prickling crept up his shoulders as he realized what it was. Black thorns had sprouted from a dead cypress and had clawed their way into nearby trees. He’d seen such thorns before, of course, first in the valley where the Briar King slept and later as infestations in the King’s Forest. And here they were, too.
Did that mean that the Briar King had come this way? Or that the briars were now spreading everywhere?
He shuddered, then went dizzy and nearly fell from his roost. He clung desperately to the branches, his breath coming in fits. Spots danced before his eyes. He’d only pretended to drink his fraction of the medicine for the last few days, and that was starting to take its toll.
He had to catch Fend. Where was the sceathaoveth going?
Something had been nagging at him, and he suddenly realized what it was.
Before he could think much about it, movement caught his eye. Barely breathing, he waited until it resolved itself into a doe. Calming his shaking hand, he took aim and put an arrow through her neck. She bolted, and with a sigh he climbed down from the tree. Now he would have to follow her for a while.
“I’ve got a new plan,” he told Winna and Ehawk, as they roasted the venison. Winna looked even worse than she had earlier in the day, and she clearly was having trouble eating. “But seeing as how it concerns all of us, I’ll want you two to mull it over.”
“What?” Winna asked.
“It’s something Leshya said, when we first met her. She said she’d heard that Fend had gone to see the Sarnwood witch.”
“Yah,” Winna said. “I remember that.”
“And the fellow we captured—he said that’s where Fend got the woorm. She’s supposed to be the mother of monsters, so I guess that makes sense.”
“You think Fend’s going back there?” Winna asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not. That’s not my point, though. If he got the woorm from the witch, he probably got the antidote there, too.”
“Oh,” Winna said, looking up.
“Ha,” Ehawk said.
“Yah. Maunt you both, we’re not catching this woorm. Not before we die. It’s days ahead of us, and yah, it may go slower on land, but I’ve seen it move, and it’s still as fast as a horse. And if it takes to another river…”
“So instead you want to go find the mother of monsters and ask her for the remedy for her child’s poison?” Winna said.
“I wasn’t planning on asking Fend for it,” Aspar replied. “I won’t ask her, either.”
“But we know Fend has it.”
“Not really. Or, rather, if I know Fend, he’s just got enough for himself.”
“Or maybe there is no antidote,” Winna went on. “Maybe Fend is like Stephen, and the venom doesn’t eat at him at all.”
“That’s possible,” Aspar admitted. “But Mother Gastya had a real remedy. Mother Gastya was a witch, so maybe this Sarnwood woman…” He trailed off and shrugged.
Winna considered that for a moment, then smiled weakly.
“It’s worth going just to see you chase a kinderspell,” she finally said. “I’m for it.”
Ehawk didn’t answer for a long time.
“She eats children,” he finally said.
“Well,” Aspar replied, “I