CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
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Urman Gant
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29th of Decepter, 935 PC
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Urman’s eyes felt like they did after one of his mum’s big dinners. All they wanted to do was shut and take a rest but the thought of him and Harlow sitting at their granddaddy’s bedside when the old man was sick kept running through his mind. Three straight days they’d raced to their grandparent’s house to see if the old blacksmith had survived the night and every morning the old man would greet them with lazy eyes like the ones Urman had now. Never made any sense. Seemed like if he was that tired he should take a nap. Made Urman think he was scared of something he could see when his eyes were closed. Scared or not, on that third morning granddaddy’s eyes got so heavy they fell shut and never opened again. If Urman had to reckon, that same kind of nap had come knocking on his door now because every time he closed his eyes he saw Harlow standing on the wrong side of the golden gates waving him into the afterlife.
He gathered every ounce of air in his lungs and blew out a whistle – short and sweet. About the size he expected since his lungs were as tired as his eyes. Didn’t even know who he was whistling at, really. Kathar he supposed but he was awfully far away for that much luck. He’d dumped Tessille over the cliff and hunted for the westerner’s trail for hours. Just wandered through the woods thinking about all the things he was going to do to the cunt when he found him.
If he could turn back time he might not do it like he did. He might just sit down with Kathar and take turns hugging that little boy who had no business dying so young. He might just lay that little boy in the dirt so his daddy didn’t have to. He might just listen to Kathar cry for as long as he needed to. He probably should have done that. He probably should have stayed there and tried to be as good a friend to Kathar as he was to Urman. But instead he dug a hole that wasn’t even deep enough and stalked off to do some more killing.
Made sense at the time. Like him or not, the westerner had wits about him. No way he wouldn’t have been a problem at some point. And with help most likely.
He tried to tell himself it was better he did it the way he did it, while there was only one prick to deal with. Too many pricks and things get messy. Hard to believe he’d made the right choice though when he ended up with holes in his legs and buried in snow.
He gave the night sky one more of those looks you give it when you’re trying to see more than just stars. Now would have been a good time for The Creator to peel back that black blanket she slept beneath and wave him into bed but she was a tough nut to crack. No reason to expect anything but being ignored. Not like she’d ever given him any sign that she had any good feelings toward him.
Welp, that does it for Urman Gant. The cunningest commoner there ever was. A name known in all five realms. Guess if I had to reckon, I think things might have been as good as I could have hoped for in some sick, twisted way. Not like every man makes a name for himself.
The more he thought about it, the more he came to terms with it all. Except for one thing. “Sorry, Harlow. I gave it my best try.” There weren’t any other words to say on that matter.
Silence. One he figured he’d better get used to.
He tried to die but he couldn’t do it. Went on like that for some time, closing his eyes only to find himself opening them again a few minutes later. Over and over again he’d shake the gates to the road home as loud as he could but no one would answer.
Who knows how long it had been when suddenly there was a crunch of snow that would have made him jump to his feet if he could. Truth was though, he wasn’t sure he’d even heard it. Might have just been something in his cloudy head. But then there were hands on him, rummaging all around his chest, poking and prodding at the wounds on his thighs. He grunted and groaned but whoever it was knew their way around a wound about as well as a bear. Three hells, was it a bear?! His eyes shot open. No. Not a bear. Something stranger. A black-haired woman with chains hanging all over her like she’d climbed right out of the three hells and she needed them to drag him into the flames. They hung across her chest, over her shoulders, around her waist. Or maybe it was one big chain. No way to tell right now with this foggy head.
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“Urman Gant,” she said. Course she’d know him and he’d have no fucking clue who she was. He didn’t answer. He knew right away she was the kind of woman you didn’t give facts to, even if she already knew them to be true.
He watched the formula he’d worked so hard for disappear into her pocket through the narrow slits in his heavy eyes. Watching it go emptied him of all the importance he’d felt while carrying it around. He hadn’t even noticed the feeling was there until it was gone. Now, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more. Reminded him of Harlow in a way.
“Lay down,” she said. He thought he already was. But then he was being lowered. Groaning too. Lots of groaning. Lots of pain in all the parts of him he knew should hurt and several he didn’t. Strong lass. Hands like a man. They told you what they wanted you to do and made you do it.
Words kept dying on his lips like soldiers charging into battle.
“Don’t speak.”
He nodded like a schoolboy being punished. She put his hands over his head. He barely noticed the chain wrapping around his wrists until he heard the clink, clink of the wrought iron arguing with itself.
Then the chains were tugging at the skin on his wrists as he slid through the snow. The only thing he could think to do was open the door and let that nap come wandering in. So he did.
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Must have been a different fella knocking on his door than the one who came for his granddaddy because he woke up looking at the sunrise through the bare branches of a whole lot of trees. Bashful little guy this morning, peeking out from behind a couple puffy clouds. Would have been peaceful if his wrist weren’t burning and his body wasn’t aching to no end. No way he would have remembered how he got there if he wasn’t tied to a tree by an iron snake. There were no signs of the woman in black though and he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. Figured since the chains weren’t breaking any time soon, it might be bad. Especially with the grumbles in his stomach roaring like a lion.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey!” Good to have his voice back, scratchy as it was. Though, when he looked at his thighs he decided he’d trade his voice for some legs that worked. The Creator had never made his path an easy one but at least he could walk it before. “Anybody out there?! I’m hungry!” His shoulders slouched.
The sun had gotten to know him well enough to step out from behind its chubby buddies by the time the woman came stomping through the snow. It wouldn’t have been all that bad to still be seeing her as a blur – scary-looking thing. Imagined that’s what people thought of him most of the time. All the time?
He’d been on both sides of situations like these enough to know there was no point in waiting to get to introductions. “Who are you?” he asked.
“No name for you.” Guess she handles these things differently.
“Didn’t need the chains, ya know. I ain’t goin’ nowhere with these things.” He nodded toward his legs.
It wasn’t until she was good and ready that she brought a handful of mushrooms over to him and shoved them in his face until he opened his mouth.
She walked around the tree. “I know of you. Can’t trust you.” She was from out west like that cunt he’d killed but not DuVale. Her accent was too thick and she tried too hard to make her words sound right for DuVale. Must have been further west, Yile maybe, or Turlef.
“I was thinkin’ it would be awful nice of ya if ya just left me here.” He knew first hand plenty of men had gone out with worse views than this. Most of the ones he’d sent out ended up on their bellies with a faceful of dirt. Tried to make sure of that the first few times he’d taken lives. Never knew why exactly but if he had to reckon it was because good men were laid to rest on their backs, looking where they were heading. Eventually killing got to be nothing more than killing though and how men fell meant nothing as long as he wasn’t the one falling.
“Can’t. You must be in Locke.”
“Who sent you?” Has to be Styner. He’d almost forgotten about that bastard with all the killing and dying he’d been doing.
She snuck up on him somehow. He jumped when she popped up right in front of his face and he’d known where she was all along. “Walk?”
“Do I still got holes in my legs?”
She started wrapping the chain around his ankles. Something his raw wrists wished she’d done the first time.
“Couldn’t bring a horse?” he said.
“Horse died.” She stood, his iron leash hanging limp from her hand. “We go now.”
“Get on with it then.”