Crow-Memweck laughed again. “Stop lying on the grass like a dribble of filth, mighty Murderer! It’s unsightly and boring too. The worst offense a man can commit is to be boring!”
“I promise to be more interesting if you give back all the people you stole.” I raised my voice as loudly as I could stand. “You give them up first. Then I’ll tell a joke or two.”
The crow laughed again.
“Show some courage, Floppy-Ass! Maybe Lutigan will be impressed and add a mile or two to your prison.” I was starting to pant, which hurt worse than talking.
Instead of laughing, Memweck bobbed in flight, dropped a bit, and said, “Who in the name of Krak’s best suit are all the dead people?”
“I like to travel with a few of my victims,” I said. “My enemies can see what their existence will be like soon. It’s polite, don’t you think?”
Crow-Memweck cackled and flew faster. “Do you mean that to be an understatement? Or does the cracking great number of ghosts count as hyperbole? Come visit me, Murderer. We can drink wine and argue semantics before I yank off your head.”
The crow flew higher, still circling us. Something began falling from the sky, and I thought it was rain. It wasn’t wet, though, so I decided it was hail. Then I realized it wasn’t hard.
I picked up something that bounced on the grass next to me and examined it.
Bea screamed.
I was holding a human finger. In fact, it was a child’s finger. They were still falling. Hundreds of them must have fallen already.
Bea was clinging to Halla and hiding her face. Pil had nocked an arrow and was aiming at the crow. She fired, the arrow missed by one hundred feet, and the crow laughed louder. Whistler stood hunched in the shower of fingers with his face tight and pale.
At last, Memweck flew away, and the shower of fingers stopped. We met each other’s eyes, but none of us spoke. I can’t imagine what we would have said.
Whistler walked up beside me. “Why didn’t that thing try to peck off your face or something?”
I snorted. “I would say not to give Memweck any ideas, but apparently he wants to slay me with his own holy little hands. I don’t guess beaks, or claws, or tentacles count.”
Everybody mounted, with Halla boosting me up behind Pil. I then spent eight hours on the back of Pil’s horse, hanging onto her waist and wishing I would hurry up and die. A couple of times she laughed about how just a few days ago she had been forced to ride behind me, but now I was the one who had to bounce and hang on. Her fun-poking seemed forced, though.
We traveled at the head of the great, glowing herd of dead people, and we didn’t halt to camp. Leddie wouldn’t interrupt her pursuit to build fires and roast rabbits, so to stay ahead, we pushed hard toward Fat Shallows. We paused to rest twice, and both times Manon stood with her back to me.
During a pause late in the night, Halla touched my shoulder. “You should repair Pil’s face.”
Everybody turned to look at us.
I said, “It’s not a crippling or fatal wound, so I prefer to husband the power for other needs. I’m sorry, Pil.”
Pil held up both hands. “I agree. I won’t be able to enjoy a nice face if the rest of me is bled out, or crushed, or burned up. And if I’m disintegrated, it won’t matter anyway.” She grinned around at us. “That part was a joke. People can’t get disintegrated by sorcery.”
Halla narrowed her eyes. “Who has traveled to the northern kingdoms before?”
“I stopped in a few nasty, sinful port towns, but that’s all,” I said.
“Pil, you have never been there?” Halla asked.
“Never.”
Most of my pain had eased away by that hour, so I clapped Halla on the arm. “Woman, I recognize your words, but your meaning is too subtle for me. Stop wasting our damn time and speak plainly.”
“Most men in the northern kingdoms—”
“They’re dogs!” Whistler laughed. “You’re right—they’re randy-ass dogs. They’d chew granite and drink lava to impress a woman. It’s how their fathers have done things forever.”
Halla nodded. “But they are dangerous. They can be brutal if they do not get what they want.” Halla turned to Pil. “A beautiful woman can help us in many ways. We will protect you. But you could still be hurt.”
Pil said, “No.”
Nobody spoke.
“I’m joking!” She smiled, showing the gaps in her teeth. “I’ll do it. Those boys will be so in love with me they’ll be ruined for any other women.”
“If we can get some answers when we need them, that’s all the love we’ll ever need,” I said. “You don’t have to leave broken hearts all the way north to the ice.”
I glanced back toward the ghosts before I mounted, thinking maybe I’d see Manon’s face. But she was gone, along with all my other victims. I had thought they might remain longer, and that I could speak to her again, even if she wouldn’t forgive me. Nine hours must have been their limit. People kept talking until it was time to ride again, but I didn’t hear any of it.
We rode on toward Fat Shallows, a nasty smuggling town with no dock at all. All cargo was rowed between ships and the beach. The place boasted one warehouse, an inn for sailors, and a dozen haphazardly painted shacks. Storms would blow the whole place down every five years or so, but it was so primitive that the residents rebuilt everything in a couple of weeks.
Fat Shallows was named for its broad, shallow harbor, which was just deep enough for small vessels at low tide and not much deeper at high tide. The harbor entrance was enormously wide, over three miles. The wind blew
