Nettle & Bone(37)

“Different how?” asked the dust-wife sharply.

“Colder. Darker. Different … things.”

“Things? Do you mean people?” asked the dust-wife.

“I mean that when my captor sold a tooth, the thing he sold it to looked like a woman, right up until it bit the tooth in half like an apple.” His voice was very calm, and he did not look at either of them as he spoke. “Then it pounced on the first person that walked by and left them dead on the floor of the market. And that yellow-eyed bastard only complained about the mess and called someone to haul the body away.”

For the first time that Marra could remember, the dust-wife looked very slightly abashed. “Ah. Dark of the moon. The goblin market is at its worst then.”

“I’m sorry,” said Marra.

Fenris looked at her then. His eyes were bleak, but he forced half a smile. “I was, too. For all of us. There were a few other humans, I think, working in other stalls. It’s hard to say. We would nod to each other, but we did not get a chance to speak.” He drew a deep breath and straightened his back. “Well. If that was the dark of the moon, then I suppose I was there for three months. I would have guessed it was more like a few weeks. The days seemed very long, but not like that.”

“What did you do?” asked Marra.

He shrugged. “Thought, mostly. Turned over all the ways that I had failed, and all the places I could have turned aside from my path. Thought about escaping.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t able to talk to anyone else but the Toothdancer. He was not so bad, for all his looks. But it was a cruel place.” He exhaled slowly through his nose. “And I, being a selfish bastard, thought only of getting free. Perhaps I should have told you to take someone else in my place. I deserved my captivity.”

“You’re the one we needed. Or that the moth said we needed.”

He shrugged again.

“Perhaps when this is all over,” said Marra recklessly, “perhaps we could go back. Find the others there.”

The look he gave her this time was surprise. “Will you sacrifice a tooth for each of them, then?”

Her skin crawled at the thought, but what was a tooth compared to someone’s life? “If I have to.”

The silence went on too long, and then he offered her his hand, not to hold but to shake. Marra did. His fingers were callused against her skin.

“So,” said Fenris. “Now that we have pledged to one another’s hopeless quests, may I ask where we are going on yours?”

“The Northern Kingdom,” said Marra.

“I have not been there,” Fenris said. “You must warn me if there are any customs that I do not know that will lead us all into difficulty.”

“I don’t think there are any,” said Marra. She racked her brain, trying to think of anything useful. “But I don’t know if I’d know. I grew up very near there, so my people would do the same thing, I suppose. Um. Don’t hit anyone in the face with a glove?”

Fenris’s expression was indescribable. “Is this a thing your people do often?”

“No, not unless we want to fight duels. Which we don’t. I mean, I don’t.”

“Might save time,” said the dust-wife. “We send him to duel the prince and get it over with.”

Marra considered this. Fenris was a little older than the prince but a great deal larger. Did that matter? “Hmm…”

“A prince, eh?” Fenris glanced at her for acknowledgment. “And you want him dead?”

“Is that a problem?” What if he leaves and tells the prince? No, we didn’t say a name, and he’s never even been to the Northern Kingdom. He can’t know it’s Vorling, and anyway, Vorling’s the king now …

“Does he deserve to die?” asked Fenris, as if they were talking about the weather.

“Very much so.”

“Then it’s not a problem. Do your rulers accept challenges from strangers, though?”

“No…” said Marra. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “No, I’m pretty sure they don’t.”

“Good. It’s a foolish way to choose rulers, even if it does make things less convenient for us now.”

“They allow it in Hardack, as I recall,” said the dust-wife.

“They do,” said Fenris. “It’s foolish there, too. You get a competent, judicial man who knows the names of each of his vassals, who can balance the needs of the clan against the needs of individuals … and then you get a brute whose only skill is swinging an axe. And like as not, the man with the axe wins, and then it’s his boot on the clan’s neck until someone sends to the Fathers to sort matters out, which half the time we can’t.”

“I’m beginning to suspect you’ve dealt with this before,” said Marra.

“However did you guess?” He gave her a wry glance. “Yes. I’ve seen four clans ruined by it. One saved as well, but we could have found other ways. What did this prince do?”

The question was delivered in the exact same tone as the rest, and it caught her by surprise, like a blow. She missed a step and Fenris moved to catch her, then stepped back when she caught herself on her own.

“He killed my sister,” she said. “And my other sister … his now wife … he…” Her throat tried to close up again and she forced the words out. “He hurts her. He leaves marks and she … she stays pregnant so that he will not beat her, but she will die of it eventually. Then he’ll take another wife and do it to her again.”