The Last Sacrifice by James A. Moore

Author:James A. Moore [Moore, James A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85766-545-4
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2016-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

They buried Doug one day after they left the lodge. Despite all that they tried, the young man died in his sleep. As he’d been blinded and maimed, Niall felt it might well have been for the best. He didn’t say that of course. The man’s family was in mourning.

Niall dug the hole himself, while huddled in a thick shawl and shivering. Temmi wept and Scodd lay burning and feverish, the wounds in his arm and hand deeply infected. Niall had cauterized the injuries, and the bleeding had stopped, but deep red lines ran from the burn marks and showed where infection was growing. He did not like the man’s odds of surviving.

Tully would have helped, but someone had to keep an eye out for the He-Kisshi. They had only seen the one, but one was enough.

The rains had not stopped. If anything they were worse than before, and when Niall had finished burying Doug he found several very heavy stones to lay atop the man’s grave in an effort to keep the waters from washing him back to the surface.

All of which seemed like fine enough ideas in civilized times, but part of him wanted to be done with the entire affair. That demon was still out there, likely watching them and readying to strike. It felt wrong and ungrateful to have thoughts like those, but ultimately he was a gardener and not a brave warrior. He wanted to be home.

As soon as Doug was buried it was time to move on. The beast would certainly be back and the waters were rising around them. Stay any longer and the wagon could not avoid being washed away.

Besides, no one wanted to be near the lodge any longer.

The whole of Scodd’s family lay in the wagon as they moved. Tully kept watch and Niall sometimes drove the wagon and other times urged the horses on through areas where the road was simply gone, washed away by the rising waters.

The skies above them were nearly as black as night. Occasionally, in the far distant west, they could see spears of light fall down and cut holes in the clouds, but not often.

“Where will we go?” Tully had asked that question even as they’d started packing the family and their supplies into the wagon.

Niall had considered that while making the poultices for Scodd and wrapping Doug in a shroud of canvas. “We cannot go north. We cannot go west. South and east are our only choices.” They agreed that Saramond was not the right place. Stuck as it was on the plains, the rain would surely cause disasters there soon enough. “We could make for Giddenland, but it’s a long journey and like as not we’ll have to head for Hollum first.”

“Hollum I know well enough.” Tully looked down at the ground as she spoke. “I can get us there, I reckon. A map would make life easier, but I haven’t found any on the wagon as yet.”

“Get us to Hollum and I wager we can find someone to sell us a map if we need it.

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