Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2)

Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2) Page 273

“Lie down, Carsina,” I suggested to her. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at me. She was breathing through her mouth. “You look like my first fiancé. Only fatter,” she said. Before I could reply, she commanded me imperiously. “Fetch me a drink of water, and then please tell my husband to come in to me.” Of her own volition, she lay down. I helped her lift her feet onto the bed and tried to put my blanket over her. She angrily kicked it away.

“Very well.” I saw no sense in upsetting her.

My water keg was empty. I damped a clean cloth in the dregs and put it across Carsina’s brow. She did not open her eyes. She was fading rapidly. I caught up my bucket and headed out to the spring. I’d fetch water first and then saddle Clove and ride into town to find her husband. I wondered how I’d locate him.

Outside my cabin, the pitch torches around the unburied bodies had burned low. Dawn would soon come. I started toward the spring with my bucket and then turned abruptly back to the torch circle.

No bodies rested inside it. A single shroud, probably Carsina’s, lay in a tangle on the ground. The other six bodies were gone.

Horror and panic rose in me. The bodies had been stolen. I spun around, scanning the graveyard in all directions to see if I might see Specks still carrying the corpses away. What I saw was more frightening. The torchlight did not carry far, but it picked up the figures stumbling toward my hedge. Their shrouds trailed white behind them. As I watched, one fell away and the woman who had been wearing it stumbled on. Numbly, I counted them. Six. All six of them were walkers. Seven if I counted Carsina.

It was not a coincidence. It was the magic. Why? What could it mean?

I snatched up a torch from the ground and hastened after them. “Come back!” I shouted foolishly. “You need help. Come back.” I ran after them, torch in one hand and water bucket in the other.

None of them paused or even looked back at me. The smallest one, the boy, had already reached the hedge. I saw him halt there. Slowly he tottered around. He reminded me of an arthritic dog walking in a circle before it lies down. Awkwardly, he sat down on the earth by one of my trees. Then he leaned back against it. He crossed his arms across his belly and was still. The foliage of the little tree rustled as he sat down against it. I saw the boy give his head a shake. Then his legs twitched, and the tree rustled more strongly.

As the others reached the hedge, they each selected a tree, turned slowly, and sat down against it. A horrible suspicion filled my mind. I recalled the body I had had to retrieve from the forest. “No!” I cried as I raced toward them. “Get away from there! Don’t!”

The young trees shivered and trembled as if a strong wind were running through their branches, but the summer night was still and warm around me. The walkers twitched and jerked like puppets. One of the women cried out, a high shriek cut short. I dropped my bucket and torch as I reached her. I reached down and seized her hands. “Come away from there,” I cried, pulling at her hands. She did not resist me, but neither could I budge her. She looked up at me, eyes open, her mouth stretched wide in a silent cry of pain. Her hands closed on mine and gripped tight with the strength of terror. I pulled with all my strength but could not lift her. Her legs kicked wildly against the earth. Not far from us, the boy gasped suddenly and then sagged limply against the tree that gripped him. Then something not his own muscles lifted his head from his chest and pressed it back against the tree. In the light of the torch guttering on the ground behind me, I could see black blood trickling from his nose and mouth.

I still held the woman’s hands, and she still gripped back at me. “Please!” she gasped. I stooped, seized her shoulders, and with all my strength, I tried to pull her free of the tree. She gave a long, agonized caw of pain, and her head suddenly rolled limply forward on her chest. Her hands, which had been gripping my forearms, fell away. “No!” I cried, and again heaved at her inert body.

“No way to treat a lady,” a voice rasped hoarsely behind me. “You scoundrel. You raping bastard!” I let go of the woman and turned, smelling earth and rot and quicklime.

Dale Hardy stood, legs spread, at the edge of the torchlight. He held my wooden bucket by the bale. “I warned you!” he shouted as he charged at me. As he came into the light, I could see that the quicklime had eaten half his face away. He could not be alive, I thought wildly, he could not be a walker. I took a stumbling step backward as he swung the heavy wooden bucket in a wide arc. It was coming too fast. I could not avoid it. It hit the side of my head, and I exploded into light.