Rakon half-rose from his seat, careful of his vial, but not before the huge eunuch grunted and lurched toward the door, toward Nix, still wearing the same vacant smile. He pulled his knife free as he advanced.
'Help us!' a woman cried, and a stabbing pain exploded in Nix's temples. He screamed, recoiled as the eunuch reached for him. He stumbled backward, spitting a shout of pain between gritted teeth, his head feeling as if would split asunder. He tripped on a rock, fell backward into the scree, and hit the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.
The eunuch leaped awkwardly from the carriage, knife raised, still smiling stupidly. Nix heard the tread of feet on the rocks as the other guards closed on him, too.
'Nix!' Egil shouted.
Nix raised his hands defensively as the hulking form of the eunuch loomed over him, all dumb smile and sharp edge.
Rakon appeared in the carriage doorway. 'No!' he shouted, and at his utterance the eunuch froze, the huge chest rising and falling like a bellows, the light rain glistening on his face and bald head, and those eyes, those vacant, unblinking eyes. He lowered the knife to his side.
The pain in Nix's head subsided, leaving only the ghost of agony to haunt him. He lay flat on his back, the rain falling softly on his face, the hard earth of the Demon Wastes digging into his skin.
Some of the other guards came around him, blades bare. One of them pulled him to his feet.
Rakon stood on the rail of the carriage door, his face floating above the head of the eunuch and the guards.
'I just wanted to see them,' Nix said, his words inexplicably slurred. His head felt thick, sluggish, stuffed with cloth. 'Your sisters. I needed to see them.'
Rakon stepped down and picked his way past the eunuch and guards. He stared at Nix as if he were a pile of dung. 'I told you they were dangerous.'
'Needed… to see them,' Nix muttered.
Rakon looked back into the carriage, then took Nix's face in his hand. 'You needed to see them why?'
Nix's tongue seemed made of sand, which was just as well. He could not have answered. He had no idea why. A compulsion had driven him, as strong as Rakon's spellworm. It had come from nowhere. He uttered the first lie that popped into his head.
'Thought you were lying.'
Rakon sniffed and pushed him back into the arms of the guards. 'Now you know better. Let's get moving.'
While Rakon and the eunuch boarded the carriage, the hands gripping Nix turned him around.
Baras glared at him, eyes hard, bleeding from the mouth.
'Sorry,' Nix said. 'I don't know what happened.'
'Apology accepted,' Baras said, and punched him in the jaw.
Nix went down in a heap, sparks exploding before his eyes. He heard Egil shout in anger but couldn't make out the words. Baras's face appeared over him, a grizzled moon against the gray of the sky.
Nix blinked in the rain, winced in anticipation of another blow. Instead, Baras took him under the armpits and lifted him to his feet.
'I give as good as I get,' Baras said. 'Fair is fair.'
'Well enough,' Nix muttered, swinging his jaw from side to side on loose hinges, tasting blood. Without warning, he vomited again, directly onto Baras's boots.
'Sorry,' Nix said, wiping his mouth. 'Came on of a sudden. You're not going to pay that one back, are you?'
Baras shook the vomit from his boots and handed Nix off to Egil. The priest had a red mark on his left cheek.
'Jyme catch you?' Nix asked.
'Pfft. One of the others joined in mid-scrum.'
'Ah.'
Egil kept Nix upright until he'd recovered enough to handle his own locomotion. Soon, the caravan was moving once more, cutting through the Wastes.
'Seems silly to have brought the wagon and carriage,' Egil said.
Both vehicles struggled over the terrain.
Nix grunted agreement.
'What was that all about?' Egil asked. 'With the sisters?'
Nix shook his head. He rubbed his jaw, his head, his backside, and stared at the carriage, wondering the same thing. 'I'm… not sure. It was odd, Egil.'
'Odd, aye,' Egil said. 'And stupid. You saw them, though, eh?'
Nix nodded slowly, seeing the older sister's green eyes so clearly in his mind's eye they might as well have been graven into his brain. 'They're sick. Rakon spoke truth about that. Beautiful, too, as much as I could see.'
'Well, there's that, then.'
'But…'
'But?' Egil prompted.
'Did you… hear something when I cracked the carriage?'
'Something like what?'
'Like a shout for help. A woman's shout.'
Egil shook his head. 'Not that I heard. You heard it?'
'I thought. But maybe not.'
Egil eyed the carriage. 'One of the sisters crying out in a fever dream?'
Nix shook his head. 'I don't think they can speak. They look very near death.'
Egil grunted.
'Rusilla and Merelda,' Nix said. 'That's their names.'
'Had time for introductions, did you?'
Nix shook his head. His thoughts were muddled. 'Wait… no.'
How did he know their names? Were those their names?
'What?' Egil asked.
'Nothing. I'm… still a bit muzzyheaded, is all.'
Egil eyed him. 'You're bleeding.'
'I know,' Nix said, massaging his jaw. Baras had caught him clean. He'd be feeling it for days.
'No. Your nose.'
'Huh?' Nix put a knuckle to his nose and it came away bloody. 'Shite.'
Egil chuckled. 'You're slowing down, Nix.'
'Must be,' Nix agreed, though he didn't remember taking a blow to his nose.
How odd. He stared at the carriage.
'I think Rakon said something else truthful, too.'
'And what's that?' Egil asked.
'His sisters are dangerous.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Within an hour, Dur Follin had vanished from sight behind them. Broken, rust-red earth extended as far as Nix could see in all directions. The ground became more broken as they advanced. It looked shattered, as if the world had bucked, the lower strata trying to shed the disease of the upper. Deep valleys and cuts scarred the terrain, steep rock walls, sheer chasms, hills of jagged rocks, fields of large boulders.
Bits of tenacious scrub, the fronds thin and sickly, grew here and there. Lichen the color of mellowed piss clung on the shade-side of many of the boulders. Low mountains rose in the east. The air carried an acrid stink that
