Chapter 35 Torches and Pitchforks
They set out in the gray dawn, beneath a sky streaked with red, needling clouds like the bloody gouges left by a Cryptic’s claws.
Rolan looked up, shuddered, and then kept his gaze trained on the ground.
The track to the Arcanist’s house cut a pale scar through the high, yellow grass, bending and twisting through the hills.
He hadn’t spoken a word to Anaya. They hadn’t given him the chance. One glimpse of her, that was all they’d allowed. One glimpse to break him to his pa’s will.
Now here he was, tramping along at the head of an awful procession.
His pa walked beside him, with Cabbot behind them.
A half dozen more followed, some from Rabb’s gang, some associates of Cabbot.
The only person who seemed as repulsed by the company as Rolan was Hoff, who brought up the rear.
The man was walking strangely, moving with a lumbering, uneven gate, as if he were injured.
He kept his hood pulled low over his face and avoided talking with anyone.
From what Rolan had gathered, the former guard captain hated Luc only a little less than he hated Rabb Strider.
He wondered if, when they were done with their business today, the two might turn on each other like dogs loosed from their leashes.
If they did, he didn’t want to be caught in the middle.
He had to go back for Anaya. That was all that mattered.
He couldn’t think about anything else. Luc would have to look after himself.
Eight men had to be roughly equal to one large Cryptic, right?
Surely Luc could handle them. If he was recovered from his injuries, that was. Rolan had left him in pretty bad shape.
He pressed his lips together and told himself to stop thinking about the Arcanist. Luc wasn’t his concern anymore, the man had made that clear. It was Anaya who needed him now.
“I knew you’d come around,” Rabb said, his arm sliding over Rolan’s shoulders. “See? Isn’t this nice? Father and son working side by side. The way I always knew we would. When we’re done here and we go back, we’ll put this business behind us and start fresh.”
Rolan shrugged off his father’s arm. “Don’t touch me.”
“Your problem, my boy, is that you’ve gotten too uppity for your own good. It’s that Arcanist’s fault, of course. Well, when you see him humbled before me today, you’ll change your tune. You’ll see who the biggest man in Crisanth is.”
We’re not in Crisanth anymore, Rolan thought. Aloud he asked, “Why did you murder Luc’s family?”
His father stiffened, raising his cane to his chest. Rolan flinched away instinctively, but Rabb didn’t move to strike.
Instead he drove the cane into the dirt, stabbing at the ground.
“So the Arcanist knows. He’s the one who told you, I assume?
I figured that’s what this was all about.
Him taking you as an apprentice was just to get to me. ”
Rolan bit his tongue, hating that his father was right.
“I was warned he was getting wise to the truth,” Rabb said.
“Is that why you’re doing all this? Posting secrets around the city, getting Luc blamed for it, now hunting him down? Because you’re scared he’ll come after you?”
His pa stopped dead and gripped Rolan’s collar, dragging him up to his toes. “Listen to me, boy,” he snarled. “I ain’t scared of nobody. I’m just finishing a job, that’s all.”
“To protect your own skin,” Rolan growled.
His pa released him, his lip curling in disgust. “Maybe I was wrong about you, boy. Maybe you’re not ready for this life. You’re as weak and cowardly as a whipped pup.”
“I’m not the one going around murdering children!”
“That was a long time ago, before you were born. It was a nasty business and I didn’t enjoy it, if you must know. But a man has his work, and when it comes down to it, he buttons his lip and gets on with it.”
“I hate you!”
“Oh, boo hoo. Throw a tantrum if it makes you feel better.” His pa rapped his cane against Rolan’s shin.
“But save it for later, boy. We’re almost to the traps, and remember what I said: Whatever damage my men take out here, I’ll visit on your pretty girlfriend. So make sure we come to no harm, eh?”
Furious and terrified in equal measure, Rolan continued up the track, seeing no other course.
His pa was right. They were very near Luc’s house now, and he began to see signs of the Cryptic traps.
The thin wires were nearly invisible, except to Rolan who’d strung some of them himself.
He briefly considered leading them all into a pit, and leaving them trapped inside.
But they were tall enough to climb on one another’s shoulders and escape.
He showed the group where to step and where to duck, feeling like a dirty traitor every time. This was just like in the forest, when he’d led the Cryptic straight to Luc. Only this time he knew what he was doing, and he pressed on anyway.
Anaya, he reminded himself. Anaya.
“You’re not going to hurt him?” Rolan asked softly. “You swear?”
“I told you before,” his father replied thinly, having dropped all pretense of friendliness. “We’re just gonna have a chat, like reasonable gentlemen.”
Rolan’s heart was as hard and shrunken as a pebble clattering around in his chest. Maybe Luc wasn’t even home. Maybe they’d run into a Cryptic and it would eat all his father’s nasty friends.
Maybe.
But as they rounded the hill where Luc’s pit trap had once caught Rolan, he knew he was out of luck. He could see a thin, weak thread of smoke twisting in the distance, marking the Arcanist’s home like a beacon, confirming he was inside.
“Just a chat,” Rolan whispered.
Once the house came into view, looking smaller than Rolan remembered it, he began to tremble.
Where was Supper? His last hope had been that the goat would raise its noisy alarm and bring Luc thundering down on them like a storm, or fleeing into the forest at least. But there was no sign of the goat, and this made Rolan queasy with dread.
Luc had made no more progress in reconstructing the burned section. The windows of the house were gray and lifeless. If it weren’t for the smoke, Rolan would think the place had been abandoned for weeks.
“You did good, boy,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now stay out of the way.”
“Don’t hurt him!” Rolan cried out.
“Quiet,” hissed Cabbot, shouldering him aside.
Then the men did something that made Rolan’s blood turn to ice.
Each one took a small item from his pocket—a claw, a talon, a feather.
Relics. They were using relics!
Rolan waited in dread for them to crack the glowing blue objects with their knives, though he wondered where and how his father could possibly have learned how to find the Hollow Path. The idea of Rabb Strider calmly meditating for hours seemed ludicrous. So then how—
“Just bite down,” Hoff said. “It don’t taste good, but it’ll do the trick.”
Rolan gaped, speechless, as his father and his cohorts lifted the Cryptic parts to their mouths and began cracking them with their teeth, as if the relics were crayfish plucked from the riverbank.
Flashes of bluish-white light erupted where the pieces splintered apart.
The men ground and crunched the monstrous bits, sounding grotesquely like a pack of dogs chewing a pile of old chicken bones.
This was not at all how Rolan had been taught to use Arcana. Luc had never said anything about this.
“Eugh,” Cabbot groaned. “Tastes terrible.”
“You gotta swallow it all,” Hoff replied, wincing as he ground a claw between his molars.
The motion made his hood tip back a little, and Rolan saw an odd, scabby mark down the side of the man’s face.
It looked almost like scales. But when Hoff saw Rolan looking, he snarled and yanked the hood down again.
“Do it,” ordered Rabb. “All of you. You’ll need the strength. That Arcanist is more monster than man.”
Rolan took a step back as his father’s eyes began to glow blue, like Luc’s did when he drew in the magic.
But the Arcana didn’t stop there. Dark blue lines spread outward from Rabb’s eyes like spiderwebs.
They traced jagged lines across his forehead, cheeks, and temples, giving him an appearance far more monstrous and terrifying than Luc had ever looked.
What was this? Eating relics to obtain Arcana? It felt wrong. All of this was wrong wrong wrong and Rolan had no idea how to stop it.
“Now we’re ready,” Hoff said, narrowing his eyes to glowing blue slits. He and the other men also had dark spiderwebs of magic crackling across their faces like horrible masks. “Told you lot these would come in handy.”
“It burns,” gasped Cabbot, gripping his ribcage as if he were about to be sick. His eyes also glowed blue, and veins of Arcana bulged under his skin.
Rabb drew his knife. Its metal was still dull, untouched by the magic that hovered in pale wisps over the man’s skin. “Stop whining and let’s finish this.”
They went on to the house, a grim, dark knot of men with glowing blue eyes.
Rolan stood back helplessly, his hands opening and closing into fists at his sides.
What could he do? He thought of Luc. Of Anaya.
He considered running into the forest and never returning.
He considered screaming at the top of his lungs.
He remembered Luc’s warning about Arcana falling into the wrong hands, and if there had been any food in his stomach, he’d have thrown it all up then and there.
He didn’t understand what sort of magic this was, but he knew it was twisted and wrong.
After another moment’s useless waffling, he decided to follow his pa and the rest. They’d reached the back door and found it unlocked—another bad sign. Why hadn’t Luc locked the doors?
Maybe it was a trap. Maybe Luc knew they were coming, and the warrior was waiting for them. It could all be an elaborate ruse. That had to be it.
If it was, he needed to see it play out.
Heart in his throat, he tiptoed inside, past his old bedroom door, and peered around the corner to the main room of the house.
At first, he felt a surge of relief.
Luc wasn’t there. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe—
Then he saw the lump in the great bed, the same lump his pa and Cabbot and Hoff were slowly approaching.
Luc was asleep.
Rolan nearly tore out his hair.
How could he be asleep? After all his lectures about staying alert, never being caught off guard? To be caught snoring now?
They just wanted to talk, Rolan reminded himself. He knew that really meant they wanted to hold Luc at knifepoint while they poured threats in his ear. But still. They wouldn’t hurt him. They wouldn’t.
But they weren’t talking now.
They were quiet and very grim. They looked as puzzled by Luc’s state as Rolan was, but they made no effort to wake the Arcanist. Instead they gathered around his bed like ghosts. Ghosts with eyes flaming with Arcana.
“Truth,” whispered Hoff. “He looks half dead already.”
Then Cabbot reached into his vest and drew out a knife.
“No,” Rolan gasped. “LUC!”
His pa cursed as the Arcanist sat up with a start. Rolan saw then why Luc had been so oblivious to their entry. His face was pale, his hair soaked with sweat, his eyes bloodshot.
He was feverish, probably wrecked by some infection he’d picked up after the fight in the cave. That or the Cryptic venom had overcome the truth salve.
Luc’s hand moved to his pillow, but he seemed slow and delirious. Cabbot plucked the knife from beneath the pillow before Luc’s hand could close around it.
“Looking for this?” Cabbot taunted.
Luc ignored him, his eyes fixing on Rabb Strider.
“So,” he rasped in a voice like scraping stone, “come back to finish the job, have you?”
“That’s right,” said Rolan’s pa. “Thanks for looking after my boy, by the way.”
Luc’s eyes strayed, picking out Rolan across the room. He looked so small, so sad and helpless, that Rolan’s heart crumbled in his chest.
“Fight back,” he whispered. “C’mon. Fight back.”
He envisioned Luc leaping out of the bed with a roar, taking up his sword, and driving them all away. Then they’d ride back to Crisanth on Apple and rescue Anaya.
But Luc only shuddered weakly. “Who taught you to use Arcana? Who?”
“We’re wise to your secrets now, Arcanist,” Hoff said, taking Luc’s dagger from Cabbot and watching the blue light swirl in the steel. “Or should I say, your lies. Keeping all this power to yourself. Tsk tsk. I always knew your kind couldn’t be trusted.”
They were powered with their twisted version of Arcana. Even if Luc were not sick, he was facing eight men with the strength, speed, and senses equal to eight Cryptics.
Rolan felt sick.
“Don’t let him see,” Luc said to Rabb. “That’s all I ask. Don’t let the boy watch.”
“Get him out of here,” his pa said grimly.
“NO!” Rolan screamed, bursting into motion. Luc’s great sword lay by the fireplace. Rolan ran for it, but he was intercepted by Hoff.
The former captain wrapped an overpowered arm around Rolan’s middle and hauled him bodily out the back door. He tossed him onto the grass, Rolan landing hard and rolling. He looked up to see the man’s hood was thrown back.
Those were scales on his face.
“Run home, whelp,” Hoff growled, his eyes burning with unearthly blue light. “Stay clear of this business, you hear?”
He slammed the door shut and locked it.