Canticle by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Tor Books

Neb

Neb slowed his run as he crested the rise and sucked in his breath at the view ahead. Renard waited there, bent slightly with his hands on his knees, drinking air as he surveyed the landscape that stretched out beyond them.

Overhead, the sky washed itself in a blush of dusky rose as it emptied itself of birds.

Neb joined Renard, shielding his eyes from the reflection of the fading sun upon the jagged forest of rainbow-colored glass that stretched as far as he could see in all directions but the one they’d come from. Distant and moving across that treacherous ground, he could just make out Isaak’s metal form.

Renard followed his gaze, drawing his waterskin and passing it to Neb. “We don’t need to catch him,” Renard reminded him. “We only need to follow him, and he’s leaving us a good trail. He’s far better equipped to handle his so-called cousin than we are.”

For four days now, he’d wondered exactly what Renard had whispered to Isaak that sent him sprinting into the night. And he’d also wondered just how this Waster knew his father. Last, he’d wondered what had possessed him to abandon his squad and take off after their strange guide—and why it had seemed so easy, so natural to do so, despite the fact that his own men were in the midst of ambush. He’d chewed the root himself and followed after, the shouts of surprise fading behind him as he fled the battle.

As the bitter juice took hold, he’d felt a surge of strength and speed, easily catching up to Renard.

He told himself that his service to the light required it—that he had to stay near Isaak and that fleeing with Renard was the only way to do so. He told himself that Rudolfo and Petronus would both concur, even if Aedric did not. Still, it gnawed him. He’d thought all this as he stretched his legs into a full sprint and felt the breath of betrayal and desertion on the back of his neck like a wolf on his heels.

Of course, the ambush had been faked by Renard and his drunken friends, but he’d not learned that until yesterday, when Renard had told him with a casual chuckle in the face of Neb’s consternation.

They’d run that first night all the way through in silence, and then another day before they stopped to rest and to nurse water from the hidden places Renard showed him. But Isaak hadn’t stopped, and when Neb moved to go after him, Renard had stopped him.

“You’ll kill yourself in the dark or lose his trail,” Renard said. They were his first words since leaving Fargoer’s Town. “We sleep now until light. Then we track your metal friend easily. Eventually, he’ll lead us to the other.”

Two more days of racing full-sprint across the jagged, uneven ground, and each day they came within view of him just as the sun sank.

Neb took a pull from the tepid water and swished it around the inside of his mouth before handing the waterskin back to Renard.

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