Tarek spent the first week in the caged cart certain that he was going to die. The wound between his shoulder and clavicle swelled like a fist under the skin and wept a yellow, stinking pus. He couldn’t see the matching hole in the back of his shoulder, but from the hot, tight feel of it, he was infected all the way through. He’d seen the old hunter Quentyl die like this when he was a boy, and the smell was the same.
He kept falling into unconsciousness as he sprawled on the wooden floor of the cart, his neck shackle chained to a thick staple in the back corner, his hands and feet chained together with only a few handspans of links for slack. He wanted to think of it as sleeping, but it was too strange and inconsistent for that. He’d be looking over the low boards of the cart’s side between the bars, dully watching the formless sea of grass roll by, and then suddenly he’d be back in Mahela’s tent, the tetchy old Catori healer sniping at him as she dipped the end of a stick in some kind of herbal mash and jammed it forcefully into his wound. It was excruciating, and when he resurfaced to reality some unknown time later, the pain remained, but the herbs were gone. He knew the healer’s tent wasn’t real, that his infection was simply giving him fever dreams, but he dipped in and out of consciousness so often that he started to wonder if the cage was the dream and Mahela’s ministrations were the waking world.
The men with spears threw hunks of dry bread at them at intervals Tarek couldn’t quite make sense of, and once a day one of them unlocked the cage door and entered with a bucket, letting each of the prisoners drink a full ladle’s worth of brackish water. The first time the man had come in, Tarek had grasped his captor’s ladle hand with his one good arm and said, “Please. I’m hurt.” The blank-faced man merely batted his hand away, poured the water into Tarek’s face, and moved onto the woman to his left. He was not given more water. After that, he made sure to drink the water. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to die thirsty.
He played the moment of his capture over and over in his head, berating himself for not seeing the truth of the situation from the first glance, and even more so for not attempting to use his blood magic to change the outcome in his favor. He’d already killed with his magic when he commanded Xochil to die; what damage could it do him to command some bad men to leave him alone? But even in his fevered self-recrimination he knew there’d been no real chance. It had happened too quickly, and he’d been too confused. He couldn’t make himself think clearly enough to figure out how he’d gotten to this strange sea of grass, even as he cursed the luck that had led him to the caged wagon. Only one thought was clear to him, and it came back a dozen times a day: Find a way to get some blood. Use the magic. Don’t hesitate. He hoped he’d get a chance to make the thought reality before his fever overwhelmed him and he died of the rot growing in his blood.
One of his irregular wakings brought him into a midnight that showed the green moon Shaka shining down on hills of loose sand peeking through the tall grasses. The weedy dunes rose on all sides. A quick scan of the cart showed the three others asleep in their chains and no sign of the spear-wielders or their leader. Tarek heard a scuttling that wakened memories of the time of flooding he’d lived through every year of his life and made his muscles tense: there was a rat in the wagon. There wasn’t a single one of the Catori that hadn’t wakened to a soaking wet rat scrabbling in their sleeping furs as it sought refuge from the flood waters outside their huts. No doubt this one was bone dry – he hadn’t seen so much as a single cloud in the sky since he’d been captured – but he had no interest in getting his toes or fingers nibbled, as some of the bolder rats were wont to do during the lean flood season.
The scampering sound stopped, started, stopped again, and then grew louder in a rush as the little creature came at him. Likely the smell of blood and pus drew it. Rats might prefer a juicy lizard or water-hopper, but they had a nose for corruption and no compunctions of cleanliness. He could hear the click of its tiny claws, and the thought of it crawling on him filled him with revulsion. He wanted to lash out, to knock the vermin away, but the seed of a thought stilled him. It’ll come for my shoulder. That’s not far from my mouth.
Through slitted eyes he watched the rat approach. When he first saw it, he wondered if he was dreaming again, because it looked like no rat he’d ever seen. It was the right size, with a body as big as three fists in a row, but it shone sleek and scaly in the moonlight. Its scales were the same color as the sand, rough-tipped and curved, making it look like it had its hackles raised. Its head was flat and tapered, its long, narrow jaw ending in an absurdly small mouth that put him in mind of the shambling ant-eaters of the jungles of home. Its tail was flat, almost like a beaver’s, but not so broad and covered in those sandy scales. It was hideous, and he wanted it.
Tarek let his head fall to the side facing the rat-thing as if he were shifting in his sleep. It scurried back at the movement, but the smell of his wound was too powerful for the carrion-eater to resist. Fingerlength by agonizing fingerlength it crept toward him, finally sniffing at the gangrenous sore in his shoulder. A narrow little tongue darted out to taste its prize, and Tarek felt it like a needle in his flesh. He bit the inside of his cheek and did not move.
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Finally, as he’d hoped, it reared up on its back legs, putting its front paws on Tarek’s shoulder to either side of the suppurating gash. Its claws dug into his skin, and he bore it. He felt a bite right at the edge of the diseased flesh and he clenched his fists against the pain, digging his fingernails into his palms. The minute movement scared it, but whatever this rat-thing was, it liked the taste of him enough that it barely shifted away before biting again. Its teeth were sharp and sank easily into the weakened meat of his wound, and he swooned for a moment, his body losing all coherence. His feral tormenter tucked its head against him, its rough, scaly body nestled in the space beneath his chin as it fed on pus, water, and flesh.
Wrangling his mind and mustering his strength, Tarek moved as whip-fast as he could and clamped his good hand over its head, trapping it in place. It squealed and pulled away from him, but he lunged at it mouth-first, his teeth clamping down right over its spine. It screamed and thrashed, and the uneven edges of its scales tore at his lips and cheeks, but he bit down with all his might. He could feel his jaws creaking as he sawed his teeth back and forth savagely, shaking his head like a panther to keep it dazed and helpless. He couldn’t taste anything of it through the dirty shale of its scales, but with it squirming in his face, he could smell its fear and desperation.
Finally, one of his eyeteeth punctured a scale with a faint pop and sank through the skin beneath. Its efforts redoubled with the first prick of pain, but it was already too late. The faintest thread of blood wormed past the broken scale and diffused into Tarek’s mouth. He convulsed with the taste, that sweet taste he’d longed for, dreamt about, and hated for so long. It wasn’t human blood – it had a musk and bitterness to it that reminded him of the tar pits at the edge of the Catori lands – but the rat-thing had enough life in it to instantly bring him strength, and his jaws snapped shut like a fishing turtle’s, severing the rat’s spine. Hot blood gushed into his mouth and down his chin as the thing went limp, and he gulped down the hot soup of its life with greedy gasps.
Sticky, foul infection forced its way out of his shoulder in a painful rush, and the wound sealed itself shut with a searing abruptness. The sudden wetness beneath him meant the same had happened on his back. He could breathe deeply and move his left arm for the first time in days. He laughed, the rat corpse still clenched in his teeth, and used both hands to hold it close so he could suck out the last of the blood before it got cold. Its death had been the barest whisper of a thing, a thread that snapped so quickly that he’d hardly even noticed it go. Thank you, little friend. Maybe I should feel bad about killing you, but after all, you’d have been happy to do the same to me. No half-hearted twinge of conscience could combat the joy of sudden health coursing through him.
He sat up and spat out the scaly husk of the sand rat. The two men at the far end of the wagon were fast asleep, but the woman to his right was up on one elbow and staring at him like he’d just crawled out of an open grave. Which, now that he thought about it, he kind of had. He doubted he’d have lasted beyond a few more days with that infection.
“Nice to meet you,” he said as gently as he knew how. She wouldn’t understand him, of course, but a kind tone would help. “I’m Tarek.” He touched his chest and repeated it. “Tarek.” She looked away, her face a study in disgust and fear. Of course. Your face is covered in rat blood, and she just watched you suck it dry and come back to life. Best look for friends elsewhere. The woman rolled over and feigned sleep, and he sighed. Now that he wasn’t on the verge of death, he missed having someone to talk to.
His shoulder ached, and he felt at it with his right hand. A twisted knot of scarring remained, and the seed of pain deep beneath it told him his healing was incomplete. The rat simply didn’t have enough life in it to mend the terrible wound completely. He tested his chains, but they were solid. Likewise, no rat’s blood would strengthen him enough to break them. He didn’t think even human blood would give him that much power. Health, yes, increased vigor without a doubt, and control over the person he’d drunk from, but not strength beyond what a man could possess. Maybe if the person I drank from was very strong. Does it work that way? Ugh, why didn’t Xochil teach me anything about this?
And in that moment, sitting under the light of the green moon in an inexplicably foreign land, it hit him like a thunderbolt out of the clear night sky. Xochil did this. He put me here for trying to kill him. He hadn’t had a moment’s clear thought since he’d been speared, and he’d barely been awake enough to put two and two together before that. Now, though…
No doubt the old viper was keeping an eye on him. I should have known he wouldn’t give up on me so easily. Xochil wanted him to rule the Land, and who knew what else besides, and a small setback like Tarek using blood magic to command his death wasn’t about to get in his way. How did he survive? Can I not force someone to die with my power, or did he have some way to get around it?
There was only one way to find out the things he didn’t know. Tarek was going to have to experiment with his power if he was to have any hope of standing up to Xochil when the old snake showed his face again. He had a good idea who to start on, too, if only he could figure out how to manage it: the man who’d put a spear through him, the one who brought them food every day. Tarek would be patient, he’d be watchful, and soon enough, he’d be free. All he needed was a drop of the man’s blood.
The next morning, though, the woman beside Tarek, the one just outside the reach of his chain, began her moon bleed, and he quickly descended into madness.