Children of the Black Glass by Anthony Peckham

Author:Anthony Peckham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

24

From her hiding place—a smaller pile of firewood than was comfortable—Wren took in a scene she could scarcely believe. It was intimately familiar and yet utterly wrong.

Exactly as they would up the mountain, the men she’d known all her life sat in a circle around a meager fire, working raw black glass into useful objects. But they weren’t telling stories or teasing one another, as they would at home. They were slumped and silent, and far more alarming, they each had a thin strangler noose around their neck, each noose anchored to a big slab of cut rock behind them, with just enough slack for small movements. A circle of cruelty around a fire barely worthy of the name. And there was still no sign of the chief.

Something familiar jiggled Wren’s brain, but she couldn’t think what it was as Hammerhead’s voice claimed her attention.

“Work faster, you mountain scum! We need to be done by daybreak!” Hammerhead stalked the edge of the circle, breathing heavily, peering at their work with unkind eyes. Tucked under one arm was a clay jug of wine from Rumi’s house, which he slopped into a mug next to each man’s place. After each slop, he’d take a slug for himself. He wasn’t drunk yet, but he was working on it. Hammerhead and drink were a bad pairing.

One time, Wren remembered, Hammerhead had gotten hold of a gourd of apricot brandy and began destroying a hut rock by rock, yelling and screaming, chasing after anyone who came near, hurling the rocks at them. The entire village had had to run away up a steep slope of scree until he passed out in the middle of the half-destroyed hut. It was his own hut, so no one cared. But a drunk Hammerhead was to be avoided even more than the sober version.

As Tell joined Wren, Hammerhead paused over Curas, the village’s best hunter, and watched him closely. Curas paused as well.

“Did I tell you to stop?” Hammerhead growled, a slur in his voice.

“I can’t work with you watching,” Curas replied quietly.

Hammerhead leaned down close to Curas’s ear. “Get back to work. Now.”

“Then move on,” Curas said. He was a calm man, which was why he was a great hunter, but there was an edge to his voice that neither Tell nor Wren had ever heard before.

“Are you telling me what to do?” Hammerhead asked belligerently.

“I’m telling you what has to happen if you want me to keep making weapons for your new masters,” Curas replied in an even tone.

Hammerhead let out a roar of anger and yanked hard on the strangler cord, cutting off Curas’s breathing. Wren bit down on her lip to stop herself from crying out as Curas quickly turned blue. Hammerhead’s anger turned to bewilderment as he realized what he had done.

But what happened next sent a rush of mountain pride coursing through Wren and Tell, for the first time since reaching Halfway.

Curas did not panic. Even as he was dying, he felt on the floor for the right shard of black glass.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.