The Things We Bury by Kaleb Schad

Author:Kaleb Schad [Schad, Kaleb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kaleb Schad
Published: 2019-11-10T22:00:00+00:00

40

It had been eight years since Evan Malic had felt this angry at life and wasn’t at all surprised to find Daveon Therentell at the center of it all.

There the fucker was, sitting on that bay of his, a little blond girl all full of mud and fear in front of him, three extra horses behind him. Tied to that sumpter horse was something Malic had never thought he’d have to see in this life—the decapitated head of a Fletcher. He knew that’s what it was. How could it be anything but? All those years in the Falcon’s Sweep, all those raids they’d pulled, and Malic had never had to face a Wretched and that was just how he’d wanted it. Now this fucker, this Therentell fucker, had brought one to him.

“Stop screaming,” Malic shouted. He stormed across the courtyard and out into the street. Daveon had stopped in the town square. He was dismounting now and pulling the girl down. She couldn’t be much more than eight summers, probably the same age as Daveon’s oldest whelp.

One of the women who’d been wailing her gods-damned lungs out stopped when Malic cuffed her against the back of her head. Her husband, Rickton Westwind, shouted something, but Two Fingers shouldered him aside.

“It’s coming,” Daveon shouted over the crowd. “The king’s messenger was mistaken, the wall is closer than he’d said. A week, maybe less.”

“How do you know?” someone shouted.

“The Skets. I went there to get back two horses I’d studded out.” He glanced at the girl, paused to choose his next words. “There were Fletchers there. They’d destroyed…everything. Fletchers. At the Skets already. If they’re there, you know the wall isn’t more than a week behind them.”

“Now hold on here,” Malic called. He held his hands up and Two Fingers roared. For a half-orc, he’d snagged the better part of that breed’s throat. The square fell silent.

“Daveon,” Malic said, “it’s good to see you. Was getting worried.”

“Evan,” Daveon said, “the wall, it’s right behind me.”

“Now just stop that nonsense. What you’re settin’ down folks don’t need to be picking up.”

“Is that Miria Sket?” Elliot called out. The bar tumor had followed Malic and Two Fingers out of the Stop. Malic shot him a glare, but the old man didn’t see it or didn’t care, take your pick. “Where’re the others?”

“It is, Good Elliot,” Daveon said. “The Sket family…” He shook his head.

He kept looking out over the entire crowd. Malic thought he might actually be enjoying the attention. With that wench Isabell and her plaything (though he’d looked like he’d lost whatever game they’d been at) riding through just moments ago, half the damn town was out and circling them. Malic needed to shut this down and right quick. Whatever that thing was on Therentell’s sumpter horse and whatever it meant for Fisher Pass, Malic knew he wasn’t going to let it split apart at the seams now. Not when he and Two Fingers’d just started settling in.

“You got a story to tell, I can see that,” Malic said.

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