Cursed by Tom Wheeler
Author:Tom Wheeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241376652
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00
But they laughed only once.
Her size was an advantage. That was how the Melted Man won so much gold, tossing Iris into the ring with men twice her size and laughing away as she bit and sliced and gouged them down to her level. Iris despised that laugh as she loathed everything about the Melted Man. He was still the only thing in the world she feared: his monstrous body and face of boils, his stick beatings, his threats of terrible curses, threats of selling Iris to the black network and their secret terrible gods. But he’d taught her to fight and taught her to hate, and now she could use those talents to serve Father Carden.
His face was wide and smiling and cracked with wrinkles like an old statue weathered by storms, as beautiful as the Melted Man was ugly. Almost every night she dreamt she was Father Carden’s true daughter, that he took her aside and whispered the truth to her: you’re my real child. And she would wrap her arms around his neck as a true daughter could.
For now it was enough to be his Ghost Child. One day she might even surpass the Weeping Monk as the favorite in his eyes. That thought warmed her more than the flickering fire she held aloft with her right hand.
The wolves were making a bloody racket with their howling and their chains. Iris shot a look back at the shepherd, who snapped his short whip at the beasts, quieting them down.
Iris was on edge. She did not want to disappoint Father Carden. He seemed more tense of late, the burdens of his task showing in his stooped posture and flashes of temper. The Wolf-Blood Witch was on all their minds. Sister Iris wanted to kill the witch so badly she could practically taste her blood. She so wanted to ease Father’s burden by cutting the witch into pieces and consigning her blackened soul to the glorious pyre.
In time, Iris prayed, for now she had to focus on tonight’s raid.
The village was quiet as they entered. That was good. Sister Iris counted twelve mud huts. These were Marsh Folk, so the air thrummed with frog chirps and the buzz of mosquitoes. For a moment, Iris grew concerned the huts would not burn in the damp air. With her left hand she readied her sling, feeling exposed as the other paladins peeled away to encircle the village and she alone—the First Fire—led her horse to the village center. She was surprised by the lack of dogs, by the lack of any scouts or night watch. Only a single pig rooted through a garden of chard and cabbages. Where are the dogs? she wondered.
Sister Iris turned in a few anxious circles outside the Chief’s Hall, the largest of the huts, its roof a tangle of swamp branches ringed with animal skulls. She wound up and hurled her torch through the open hatch at the front, then spun and freed her two-bladed sword from her saddle, ready for whoever ran out.
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