The Pain Merchants. Janice Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ too great either.

      “Look,” I said, “I wasn’t going to steal her. She was blocking the eggs.”

      The night guard nodded like he understood and turned to Heclar. “She’s just hungry. Maybe you could let her go with a warning?”

      “Arrest her, you idiot! She’ll get fed in Dorsta.”

      Dorsta? I gulped. “Listen, two eggs for breakfast is hardly worth prison—”

      “Thieves belong in prison!”

      I jerked back and my foot squished into chicken crap. Lots of it. It dripped out from every coop in the row. There had to be at least sixty filthy coops along the lakeside half of the isle alone. “I’ll work off the eggs. What about two eggs for every row of coops I clean?”

      “You’ll only steal three.”

      “Not if he watches me.” I tipped my head at the night guard. I could handle the smell if I had cute company while I worked. He might even get extra pay out of it, which could earn me some goodwill if we ever bumped into each other in the moonlight again. “How about one egg per row?”

      The night guard pursed his lips and nodded. “Pretty good deal there.”

      “Arrest her now!”

      I heaved the chicken. She squawked, flapping and scratching in a panic. The night guard yelped and dropped the rapier. I ran like hell.

      “Stop! Thief!”

      Self-righteous ranchers I could outrun, even on their own property, but the night guard? His hands might be bad, but his feet—and reflexes—worked just fine.

      I rounded a stack of broken coops an arm-swipe faster than he did. Without slowing I dodged left, cutting up a corn-littered row of coops running parallel to Farm-Market Canal. It gained me a few paces, but he had the reach on my short legs. No chance of outrunning him on the straight.

      Swerving right, I yanked an empty market crate off one of the coops. It clattered to the ground between me and the night guard.

      “Aah!” A thud and a crack, followed by impressive swearing.

      I risked a glance behind. Broken crate pieces lay scattered across the row. The night guard limped a little, but it hadn’t slowed him much. I’d gained only another few paces.

      The row split ahead, cutting through the waist-high coops like the canals that criss-crossed Geveg. I veered left towards Farm-Market Bridge, my side throbbing hard. Forget making it off the isle. I wasn’t going to make it off the ranch.

      More market crates blocked the row a dozen paces from the bridge. The crates were knee high and a pace wide, with tendrils of loose, twisted wire sticking up like lakeweed. Didn’t Heclar ever clean his property? I cleared the crates a step before the night guard. His fingers raked the back of my shirt and snagged the hem. I stumbled, arms flailing, reaching for anything to stop my fall.

      The ground did it for me.

      I sucked back the breath I’d lost and inhaled a lungful of dust and feathers. The night guard crashed over the pile a choking gasp later and hit the ground beside me. Dried corn flew out of the crate and speckled the ground.

      I hacked up grime while he swore and grabbed his leg. He’d left a good chunk of his shin on one of the crates and his bent ankle looked sprained for sure, maybe broken.

      He glanced at me and chuckled wryly. “Just go.”

      I dragged myself upright, but didn’t run. He’d lose his job over me and I’d guess he didn’t have many options left if he was working for a cheapskate like Heclar. I knelt and grabbed his hands, my thumbs tight against his knuckles, and drew.

      For an instant our hands flared tingly hot from the healing. He gasped, I groaned, then his pain was in my hands. I left the bad leg. It was a good excuse for letting me go and, Saints willing, he’d keep his job. If he didn’t, then at least I’d healed his hands. It was hard enough for native Gevegians to find work these days and bad hands wouldn’t help.

      Knuckles aching, I turned away before he realised what I’d done. It wasn’t the first time I’d healed someone out of pity, but I tried not to do it often. Folks tended to ask questions I didn’t want to answer.

      I took a step forward, but something large blocked my escape. Heclar! He swung at my head and I ducked, but not fast enough.

      Pain slammed into my temple and I thudded back to the ground. Heclar floated in the silver flecks dancing around my eyes, a blue-black pynvium club in his hand.

      That cleared me straight. I was lucky he was so cheap he only hit me with it instead of flashing it at me. The weapon was too black to be pure pynvium, but blue enough to hold a lot of pain. I didn’t want it flashed in my direction any more than I wanted to go to prison.

      He scoffed and pointed the club at me. “Bunch of thieves, both of you.”

      I grabbed the night guard’s shin and drew, knitting bone and yanking every hurt, every sting, every wince from his ankle. His pain ran down my arm, seared my leg and chewed around my own ankle. Yep. Definitely broken. My stomach rolled, but there was nothing in it to throw up.

      I seized Heclar’s leg with my free hand and pushed. The agony the night guard hadn’t revealed raced up my other side and poured out of my tingling fingers into Heclar. I almost gave him the knuckleburn, but that would make his hands clench and a hard, sudden grip on the pynvium club might be the enchantment’s trigger. Be just my luck to accidentally set it off.

      Heclar screamed loud enough to wake the Saints. To be truthful it was worse than he deserved, but sending me to prison for eggs I hadn’t yet stolen was worse than I deserved. The Saints are funny that way.

      I left both men lying in chicken feed and feathers and sprinted for safety. Just five paces to the exit, then another five to Farm-Market Bridge. Once I crossed the bridge, I’d be off the isle and in the market district on Geveg’s main island where it was easier to hide. If I didn’t pass out first.

      At the foot of the bridge, two boys in Healers’ League green were staring at me in wonder. I skidded to a stop and glanced over my shoulder. I had a clear view of the night guard and the blubbering rancher. The boys had seen me shift for sure.

      “How did you do that?” one boy asked. Tall and skinny, but with hard eyes for a boy so young. Too young to be an apprentice. A ward then. The war had left Geveg with plenty of us orphans about.

      “I didn’t…do anything.” Breathing took more effort than I had. I held my side as I edged past them, checking for mentors or escorts that stuck to wards like reed sap. If either had seen me shift pain…I shuddered.

      “Yes, you did!” The other boy nodded his head and his red hair fell into his eyes. He shoved it back with a freckled hand. “You shifted pain. We saw you!”

      “No I didn’t…I stabbed him in the foot…with a nail.” I leaned forward, hands on my knees. The silver flecks were back at the edge of my vision, sneaking up on me from the sides. “If you look close…you can still see the blood.”

      “Elder Len said shifting pain was just a myth, СКАЧАТЬ