The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [128]
“It’s not that we don’t want to help, or we don’t think you deserve—” Ysabel began, but then she picked up on Awa’s thoughts and went respectfully silent as her mistress approached her and Johan. She hugged them until their ribs groaned and Johan’s clavicles popped out of their sockets, and then released them.
“Let’s get you both tucked in, then.” Awa smiled, and the three friends dug two graves by the river.
“Wait!” said Johan just before Awa released their spirits, and, clawing at the side of his grave, he soon dug his way through to Ysabel’s. He stuck his arm through and they joined hands. “Right. If you need some relics you know where to dig.”
“Goodbye, Awa,” Ysabel said. “Live.”
Then they were gone, so much bone in a shallow grave. Awa let herself sob then as she filled in the holes, terrible, painful sobs, for the two of them and Alvarez the bandit chief and Halim the eunuch and Omorose and her little bonebird and the heartless sailor and especially herself, who was again alone, alive but alone. The very notion of her finding living people who could understand her, or even want to, was ludicrous, but she nevertheless made ready to free the last creatures she carried with her.
She built a huge pile of brush, and after dumping the salamander eggs in the center tossed down the box and cracked her knuckles. Her tutor had told her there were almost none left, that if they hatched finding more would be impossible, and that made her smile. He would find her, and he would destroy her, but he would not have these six innocents to warm his kettle with. First, though, she stripped off all of her clothes, so that as soon as the inferno was ignited and her skin warmed she could leap into the shallow river and wash away the fear and frustration of the last few years.
Awa opened her mouth to address them all, to be their mother and ignite them and set them loose into the world, but then a branch snapped behind her. Before she could spin around someone tackled her into the brushpile, the sharp branches slashing and stabbing her as she flailed. A hairy arm was around her waist and she grabbed it, his spirit fat and stupid and right there to sever, but while it recoiled from her touch like a large rat struck by a small viper it did not fade immediately, and she heard metal sliding on metal as the man latched the iron chain in place around her waist.
She struggled and his meaty fist was punching her in the back of the head. Then his hand was over her mouth, his fingers pinching her nose, and as she began to swoon Awa wondered if the necromancer would not have a living body to take after all. As she went limp the mercenary Wim clumsily slid the sack over her head and down her body, wrenching it underneath the chain around her waist and fitting a second chain around her neck. The man had not believed in witches until she had touched him but now he felt feverish and queasy, a black lump rising on his arm. He dared not disturb the witch’s belongings, lest they be cursed.
Wim spit on the half-conscious Moor. “Von Swine didn’t pay extra for you kickin I’d gutcher wicked belly, bitch. I don’t doubt killin you’d make the angels sing.”
XXVIII
A Happy Reunion
“She needs our ’elp, ya fuckin lump!” said Monique, and Manuel reddened to hear her preferred term for true degenerates fired at him.
“We’ve given her more help than Moses gave the Hebrews,” said Manuel. “She’s more than capable of looking after herself.”
“Maybe fore she fell in with us,” said Monique. “You ain’t seen her since ya painted’er naked in the park with us, an’ that’s years past—lose interest once you’ve seen some ass, Manuel? Friends stop meanin more’n coin once you gander their bush, lump?”
“I’ve been busy, as have you and she, else you might have called on me instead, yes?” said Manuel, only mildly more angry at her than at himself. “As you point out, I was the last to visit, meaning custom would