The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [99]
She was slight, even for a Sefry, with violet eyes and black bangs that dropped almost to her eyelashes. She had loosened her cowl so she could speak unmuffled, and he could just make out the sardonic bow of her lips. She looked young, but he guessed by the set of her eyes she wasn’t. She might be as old as he was, or older, but Sefry aged young in the skin and lived longer than Mannish folk.
He wondered how he could have ever thought she was Fend, even at a distance.
“What things would those be?” she asked.
He could see both her hands, and they were empty. He relaxed slightly.
“You’ve been leading me around,” he told her. “Playing with me. I don’t like that.”
“No? You didn’t have to follow.”
“I thought you were someone else.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Ah. You thought I was Fend.”
The name jabbed him like a prickle. “Who the sceat are you?” Aspar hissed.
She put a finger to her lips. “I can explain that later,” she said. “You’ll want to watch what’s about to happen.”
“You know what’s coming? You’ve seen it?”
She nodded. “It’s the slinders. See—there they are.”
“Slinders?” He looked back, and at first all he saw was forest. But the trees seemed to be shivering oddly, as if a wind was blowing through them in just one place. Blackbirds swirled up in clouds against the silvery sky. The monks stood like statues, frozen by the moment.
Then something came from the trees, creatures loping sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two. There were ten of them, and their baying became more frantic as their feet hit the clearing and they saw the monks.
At first Aspar thought they might be smaller versions of the utin or some other ugly thing from boygshin stories, but when he understood what they actually were, the shock went cold through him.
They were men and women. Naked, scuffed, dirty, bleeding, utterly mad—but Mannish, just as Ehawk had described.
As the leaves began to rustle in a strong autumn wind, the main pack of them came behind the leaders—twenty, fifty—more than he could count. He guessed at least a hundred. They moved strangely, and it wasn’t just that they sometimes dropped to their hands. They ran jerkily, frantically—like insects, in a way. A few carried rocks or branches, but most were empty-handed.
The majority looked to be relatively young, but some were stoop-shouldered and gray-haired. Some were little more than children, but he didn’t see any that looked as if they had seen fewer than fifteen winters.
They spread to encircle the monks, and their cacophonic yowling settled into a hair-prickling sort of song. The words were slurred and broken, just sounds really, but he knew the tune. It was a children’s song, about the Briar King, sung in Almannish.
Dillying Dallying
Farthing go
The Briar King walks to and fro
“Those are the slinders?” he asked.
“It’s what the Oostish have taken to calling them,” the Sefry said. “At least those who haven’t joined them.”
As she spoke, the slinders began to fall, quilled black by arrows. The monks were firing with inhuman speed and precision. But it hardly slowed the wave of bodies. They poured around the fallen like a river around rocks. The monks drew swords and formed themselves into a ring fortress—only two kept their bows out, and they were in the center.
Almost without thinking, Aspar reached for his own bow.
“You’re not that foolish,” she said. “Why would you fight for them? You’ve seen what they do.”
Aspar nodded. “Werlic.” The monks deserved what they got. But what they were facing was so weird and dread, he’d almost forgotten that.
What was more, he had forgotten the greffyn. He remembered it now as it let out a low unearthly growl. It stood pawing the ground, the spines on its back stiff. Then, as if reaching a sudden decision, it turned and bounded into the forest.
Straight toward him.
“Sceat,” Aspar mouthed, raising his bow. He already felt the sickness burning in the thing’s eyes. He let fly.
The arrow skipped off the bony scales above its nostrils. The greffyn glanced his way, and with blinding speed changed direction, bounded off into the