Darksoul. Anna Stephens

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       DOM

       Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

       Road to Rilporin, Wheat Lands

      She’d told him to cross at the West Rank’s harbour, and he had. She’d told him to walk southeast, and he had. She’d told him not to stop unless he must. He hadn’t. Now he was a week’s walk, maybe less, from Rilporin, from where he needed to be.

      Dom’s feet were blistered and the muscles in his legs kept twitching even after he’d sat down, but he was close now. Close to them. Close to Her. His left hand was healing well from the knife the God of Blood had rammed through it, and although the fingers remained stiff and slow to close, it wouldn’t stop him when it came to a fight. He could always tie his hand to his sword if necessary, as long as he remembered not to scratch his arse with it afterwards. Or his throat. He snorted.

      The fields were quiet, the winter wheat golden-brown and growing, but few people were working the land this close to Rilporin and the enemy. Dom wasn’t sure whether they’d fled or merely cowered in their homes, but their absence had encouraged the wildlife, and rabbits and hares hopped among the stems, nibbling the sweetest. Dom sat ten paces outside the edge of the field on a hard-packed track, waiting for something to jump into his snare. He had a few sticks ready for a fire and a ragged, soot-stinking blanket from Watchtown. A waterskin. His weapons. And the gods.

      Watchtown. Home of Wolves and of Watchers. Heathens. Traitors. Murderers. Dom crammed his right wrist into his mouth and chewed, gnawing away at the itch, gnawing away the scars of his blood oath. Despite the divergence of their paths in the last months, Dom had lived with the Watchers his entire life, and so he’d done what he could to lay out the dead before She had commanded him to leave. He could still feel their skin, crispy from the fire, crumbling in his hands, sliding away in the grease to reveal pink flesh, flesh that peeled in slabs from charred bone. It was still on his hands even now, fat melted into the bandage on his left, the stink still in his hair, his clothes. There was a good chance he’d never wash it off, no matter how many baths he took.

      A squeal and kick brought him back to the fields and he hurried over to his snare and killed the rabbit, ripped it from the thin cord and reset the trap. Food that wasn’t his own arm. Dom giggled. Need my strength, don’t I, my love? You said I will and look, here I am, ready for rabbit.

      He unbandaged his left hand while the rabbit roasted in the top flames and poked at the sealed wound, sniffed it for signs of the rot, then splashed it with water and let the sun dry it. The smoke from his cookfire attracted attention, and he could see figures peering in his direction, armed with sticks and pitchforks, a few scythes that should be in storage until the harvest came in. So they were still there, then, watching their crop be destroyed.

      Dom unbuckled his sword belt and made a show of putting it on the ground on the far side of his fire. Then he sat with his back to them. They wouldn’t hurt him; She’d said so.

      He hummed as he prodded the meat with his knife, his stomach growling in counterpoint. Too long since he’d eaten enough to fill him, and too long since anything other than meat had passed his lips. What he wouldn’t give for a hearty leek and cabbage stew. His hum descended into a groan at the thought. Still, he’d be there soon, and they’d have supplies to share.

      ‘Travelling to Rilporin, stranger?’ The voice came from behind, gruff but with the tightness of fear beneath it.

      Dom gestured, not turning. ‘You need to tend these fields; rabbits are making a right mess of your crop. Work the land so that when the war’s over you’ve got food to eat and sell. You’ll be dead otherwise.’

      The man came around to face him, and Dom knew there were others at his back. The stranger was tall and broad, a lifetime in the fields honing his arms and shoulders and back. He planted his feet either side of Dom’s sword; Dom’s eyes flickered towards it and away.

      ‘We’re like to be dead soon anyway, those Raider scum come this way again. They’ve taken everything we’ve had put by; you’re not the only one living off rabbits.’

      ‘Ah. Is that the problem?’ Dom asked. ‘You want my rabbit?’

      ‘What? СКАЧАТЬ