Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) by Shaun O. McCoy Read Free Book Online Page A

nodded. “Not a bad deal at all. Well, bathe yourself, boy, and I’ll see you for dinner. Did you run into anything on the road?”
    “No, sir. Not many dyitzu about, and there usually aren’t any corpses near the road anyways.”
    Galen looked back towards the forge’s fire. “Run along, boy, let me finish my work before Rick gets hungry and eats without us.”
     
    Arturus ran his finger along the edge of the table, feeling one of the depressions on its edge. Rick had outdone himself with Galen’s return meal. He had ground down hound meat, bone, and gristle, and baked it between crusts of honey covered flatbread to make a meat pie. The meat’s juices filled his mouth with every bite, dribbling down his chin. The gristle caught between his teeth, but crunched satisfactorily as he chewed. They ate pickled knowledge fruit and salted devilwheat which had been soaked in dyitzu blood. Rick had wrapped up devilwheat seed in leaves from a hungerleaf tree, and then boiled and salted the wrap in hound’s blood. He’d left spider eggs deep in the Thames for half the afternoon to keep them cool, and served them in small ornate stone bowls which Arturus had last seen during one of his birthday celebrations. He pretended he could feel the baby spiders crawling in his throat as he ate them. They drank cool water and warm hungerleaf tea, sweetened with honey. Arturus ate until he felt he might burst.
    “We’re eating like Citizens,” he told Galen.
    “Better,” Galen said, “for Rick has a far fairer hand at exotics than Patrick the Foodsmith does.”
    “We should eat like this every night.”
    Rick gave Arturus a sharp look as he scooped out some more meat pie with two of his fingers. “I’d rather have my second death,” Rick said, not at all joking. “And besides, you’d be a beggar within the week if we kept eating like this.”
    “But I’d be a fat beggar,” Arturus said.
    Galen laughed, and leaned back in his chair. There was plenty left on his plate. When he traveled for just a week, he would return as hungry as a hellhound. But sometimes, when he’d been gone too long, it would take him a few days to regain his appetite.
    “Did you fight any devils?” Arturus asked.
    Galen smiled, but it was Rick who spoke. “Galen tells you enough stories. You can’t ask a man to make light of his own life and death.”
    “But Galen likes to tell me stories!” Arturus pressed on. “Did you find anything on the road? A pack of hounds? A Nephilim?”
    “Shush! Galen’s trip was important.” Rick pointed a hungerleaf wrap at him angrily before turning to the returned warrior. “Did you find the Minotaur? Any news?”
    “So Turi can’t have his story, but you want yours?” Galen asked with a smile.
    “That’s the way it works,” Rick said.
    Arturus took another bite of his meat pie to make sure that he didn’t respond. Again the juices dribbled down his chin. He laughed and wiped them away with his sleeve.
    Galen cleared his throat. “I traveled as far West as the Pole and circled back both North and South of Harpsborough until I came as far as the Carrion. I found nothing. The devils were light everywhere. You almost have to go looking for them to find them.”
    “It is a Minotaur, then?” Rick asked, worry in his eyes.
    Galen shook his head and looked towards the spinning axle that came through the wall from the water wheel. He watched it turn for a few moments. “At first I thought so. I could practically smell a Bullman out there. Every place I looked was full of people and short of meat. But if there was a Minotaur drawing the devils to him, then the devils should have been going somewhere. There should have been a place near the Bullman where they were thickening. I asked around at the Pole, at Riverled and Macon’s Bend to find where they had gone. I even went as far as Carlsbad. I heard nothing but silly rumors. It’s as if all the dyitzu and hounds have just vanished.”
    Arturus munched