Murtagh

There are soldiers searching the fields, but none of them have sighted or scented me.

Despite his words, Murtagh felt Thorn nestle deeper into the rosebushes and the pain as spines tore at his delicate wings.

All right. Stay where you are, and I’ll come to you once I can.

A deep hum came from Thorn’s mind. Be careful.

Always.

They separated their thoughts, and then Murtagh wrapped his cloak around his arms and settled into a more comfortable position. Somehow he had to get Silna to Carabel. There were too many guards on the bridge and in the streets to risk going out, but if he waited too long, the sun would be up, and he’d lose his chance, and he didn’t want to wait for another nightfall. Eventually, someone in the guard might think to check the grate where they were hiding.

He looked at Silna. The kitten blinked and stared back at him.

“Why did they want you?” he asked. “What did they do to you?”

The werecat’s fur bristled, and she looked away.

Murtagh didn’t know why he’d expected anything else.

He closed his eyes for a second and then thought better of it. No sleep for him until Silna was safely with her own kind and he was long gone from Gil’ead. Besides, he didn’t think he could relax enough to sleep.

In his mind, he could still hear Esvar asking, “Why, why, why?” Murtagh ground the heel of his hand against his temple, trying to press the voice from his head. He couldn’t. And he worried that he wouldn’t be able to for days to come.

To distract himself, he pulled out the compendium he’d appropriated—What an elegant word for “stole”—set the tiniest red werelight burning above the pages, and started to memorize the ancient language words. Already he’d found dozens that he could envision being useful. The realization filled him with fierce determination. The compendium alone was worth all the misadventures he’d endured over the past two days. With it, he could begin to bridge the gaps in his arcane education, a prospect that he welcomed most devoutly.

Silna sniffed the corner of the book. Her nose wrinkled.

The dull ache returned to Murtagh’s left forearm as he read, and because of it, he was slow to notice a tickle on the back of his wrist and hand. At last, it became strong enough that he looked down.

A large black spider had crawled onto him. He forced himself not to react, though it took the full strength of his will. If he could not control himself, then he was prisoner to circumstance, and he refused to accept such helplessness.

Nevertheless, his gorge rose, and revulsion made him want to fling the spider away.

With tiny steps, it crossed his hand and passed onto the pages of the book. The creature’s hooked feet made a faint scrabbling sound against the paper.

He tipped the book against the wall and let the spider run onto the stone. It stopped a few inches away, a huddled fist of legs. Silna eyed it, seemingly without interest.

For a moment, Murtagh again felt the weight of dozens of fat-bodied spiders moving across his skin. Their bites had burned like fire and, when left unattended, festered into greenish sores that took weeks to heal. The creatures had bedeviled him every night in that cold underground, making it impossible to sleep, and he had been unable to do more than shake himself in a futile attempt to throw them off….

He reached out and put his thumb down on the spider and pressed it flat. Yellow ichor spilled from its abdomen as it split like an overripe grape.

The werecat’s ears angled backward. She stretched out her neck and nosed the dead spider.

Murtagh returned to reading.

He listened to the city as he scanned the columns of runes. When the streets quieted for a time, and he heard no sounds but the babble of water and the flutter of nightjars chasing their morning meals, he extinguished the werelight and put away the book.

“Be ready,” he whispered to Silna, and edged forward.

The metal bars of the grating were no different from those he’d encountered before. “Kverst,” he said in a quiet voice, and drew a finger across the cold and pitted metal.

The bars parted with bell-like tings, and he lifted the grate out of its setting and placed it to one side. He listened for bystanders and passersby again—he didn’t dare use his mind to probe the area—and then pulled himself out of the tunnel and dropped several feet to the muddy bank below. He turned back and reached up for Silna.

The cat stared down at him without expression.

“Come on,” he whispered, and wiggled his fingers.

At last, the werecat kitten walked to the lip of the tunnel and allowed him to pick her up and place her on the ground next to him.

“Worse than a dragon,” he muttered. He wedged the grating back into position and then said, “Thrysta,” using the spell to force the metal into place. It would take a hammer and chisel to break it free again.