The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [142]
“Yah,” Aspar said.
“Haudy saw it,” the boy confided.
His sister popped him on the back of the head. “Aethlaud,” she snapped. “I’m too old for that nickname. I’ll be married by next year, and Mom will send you to live with me, and I’ll make you eat kalfsceit if you call me that.”
“Mom still calls you that.”
“That’s Mom,” the girl said.
“You saw the woorm?” Winna interrupted. “West of here?”
“No,” she said. “That’s it coming back, I think.”
“How do you mean?” Aspar asked, leaning closer.
“It was back before Yule,” she said. “I went with my mom’s brother Orthel to Mael to have some rye ground. That’s on Fenn Creek, what flows into the Warlock. We saw it in the river. The people around there, a lot of ’em took sick, like you.”
“Before Yule.”
“Yah.”
“So it did come out of the Sarnwood.”
“Oh, yah,” the girl said, her eyes rounding. “Where else would it come from?”
That lifted Aspar’s spirits, if only a little. He’d made one good guess; perhaps the rest of his “maybes” were true.
“What do you know about the Sarnwood?” Aspar asked.
“It’s full of ghosts and alvs and booygshins!” Aohsli said.
“And the witch,” Aethlaud said. “Don’t forget the witch.”
“Do you know anyone who’s been there?” Winna asked.
“Eh…no,” the girl replied. “ ’Cause anyone who ever went—they never came back.”
“ ’Cept Grandpa,” the boy corrected.
“Yah,” Aethlaud agreed. “But he’s gone west t’ the wood.”
“Is that where you’re going?” Aohsli asked Aspar. “The Sarnwood?”
“Yah.” Aspar nodded.
The boy blinked, then glanced at Ogre. “When you are dead, may I have your horse?”
Ehawk, not usually given to outbursts, exploded at that. He was laughing so hard that Winna caught it, and in the end even Aspar found himself grinning.
“Now you’re wishing for things you’d might rather not have,” he said. “Ogre might be a little much for you.”
“Nah, I could handle ’im,” Aohsli said.
“How much longer do you expect it’ll take you to get to Haemeth?” Winna asked.
“Another two days,” Aethlaud said. “We don’t want to walk the fat off ’em.”
“Is it safe, just the two of you out here?”
Aethlaud raised her shoulders. “Used to be safer, I guess.” She frowned, then continued a little more defiantly. “But there’s not much choice. There’s nobody else to do it, not since our father died. And we’ve done it before.”
Winna glanced at Aspar. “Maybe we could—”
“We can’t,” he said. “We can’t. Two days—”
“A moment over here, Aspar?” Winna asked, gesturing with a toss of her head.
“Yah.”
There wasn’t anyplace to go except away, and Winna was having trouble moving, so they didn’t go all that far. But whispering made it feel a little private.
“You aren’t as sick as I am,” Winna said. “Something happened when the Briar King saved your life, something that made you stronger. You don’t really drink the medicine you got from Fend’s man anymore, do you?”
He acknowledged that with a small nod. “I still feel it,” he admitted, “but yah, I’m not so sick as you.”
“How much farther to the Sarnwood?”
He considered. “Three days.”
“At the pace we’re traveling, I mean.”
He sighed. “Four, maybe five.”
She coughed, and he had to catch her to keep her from falling.
“I’m pretty sure I won’t be sitting a horse in two days, Aspar. You’ll have to tie me on. Ehawk’s got a little longer, I’d guess.”
“But if we dally here…”
“Just me and Ehawk, Aspar,” Winna said. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “If I’m only going to live a few more days, I’d rather use them helping these two get where they’re going than chasing after some cure that isn’t there.”
“It is there,” Aspar insisted. “You heard ’em: Fend got the woorm in the Sarnwood. I’m sure he got the antidote there, too.”
“I also heard them say that most everyone who has ever gone into the Sarnwood never came out.”
“That’s because it’s never been me before.”
She shook her head wearily. “No,” she said. “Let’s take them to Haemeth. You can ask questions there, learn more about the witch.”
“We can do that, anyway, without dallying to drive cattle.”
“I want to help them, Aspar.”
“They don’t need help,” he argued,