Servant: The Dark God Book 1 by John D. Brown Read Free Book Online

his sword and picked up his spear. Foss, their hunting dog, rose to go with him, and Barg opened the door.
    The smoke in the room curled out into the night. Barg pointed at the children. “You do your chores and get to bed and when you wake up in the morning, we’ll be off.”
    “To the river or the beach?” asked his oldest.
    They loved the beach. It would be a long day, but it would give them something to think about.
    “The beach,” he said. “We’ll roast crabs.”
    Then he shut the door behind him. He took a long drink of water from the bucket at the well, then set off down the path that led to the Smith’s ruin, Foss padding along at his side.
    Smoke from the fires still hung heavily in the air. At the other end of the village, the last remains of Sparrow’s house smoldered. The fires had burned low, but they still cast enough light to silhouette the barn and outbuildings of the house next to Barg’s.
    Barg glanced back at his house a few times as he walked. The shutters were latched and snug. His wife had barred the door. They would be fine.
    As Barg got closer to the site, he looked about for the others. There were supposed to be ten men on each watch. Perhaps they were all bunched up behind the barn. But when he rounded the corner of the barn, he found his wife had been right: nobody was there.
    A few small fires still licked the last remains of Sparrow’s house and smithy. Barg skirted around the wide area of ash and burning coals, for the whole mess still produced a blistering heat. A small flame rose at the edge of a blackened log close to him only to disappear moments later. He paused. All was silent except for the crackling and popping of the fire. He looked at the surrounding houses of the village.
    Cowards.
    He’d roust them out of bed, every one.
    Then something moved in the shadows at the edge of where the house had stood. Barg peered into the swallowing darkness. A tall man moved aside a charcoal log, kicking up sparks. It looked like the miller. He reached into the hot coals and pulled something out.
    “Ha,” Barg called to him, “it’s good to see there’s more than one stout heart among us.”
    Foss stopped and began to growl.
    Then the man straightened up and turned, and Barg got a look at him in the firelight.
    That was not the miller. He was taller than anyone Barg had ever seen, but his arms and legs weren’t proportioned like a man’s; they were thicker than they should be. And his face—it was all wrong. He had a mouth that was dark, ragged, and huge. A mouth that seemed to crack his head in two.
    That was no man.
    A tuft of hair on the creature’s arm caught fire. It flamed brightly, then receded into red and yellow sparks that fell to the ground. And Barg realized it wasn’t hair. It was grass. Patches all along its arm had burned, some of them still full of dull red sparks. A clump of smoldering grass fell from the creature’s arm to the ground.
    Barg saw what the creature held. It was Sparrow’s scorched leg, reduced almost completely to bone.
    The creature flung Sparrow’s leg aside and began to walk toward Barg. The ashes and coals of the smithy stood between them, but the creature did not walk around them. It walked straight into the blistering coals, over a tangle of charcoal logs, and through one of the remaining fires. The long ragged grass about its legs began to burn and smoke, but the creature did not waver or cry out.
    Gods, Barg thought. Keep your calm. Keep your calm.
    The thing’s mouth gaped like a cavern. Its eyes. Lords, where were its eyes? And then he saw them—two pits all askew.
    Filthy rot. Filthy, twisted rot! Regret himself had sent this thing.
    Barg brought his spear up, took two steps, and, with all his might, yelled and hurled the weapon.
    The creature did not flinch or step aside, and the spear buried itself in the creature’s chest.
    “To arms!” Barg shouted and unsheathed his sword. “We’re attacked! To arms! To arms!”
    There