Servant: The Dark God Book One (Volume 1) by John Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

backed into the house.
    The creature chuffed behind him.
    Barg spun around, holding his sword at the ready.
    The thing stood not ten paces away. The fire had risen and burned its shoulder and head.
    Courage, Barg told himself. All he needed was a bit of courage.
    There was movement in the village. Men began to shout, but they ran the wrong way. They ran to the smith’s.
    “To me!” he cried. “To me!”
    The creature opened its mouth wide and drew in a hoarse breath. It turned its head toward the door of the house.
    Barg thought of his daughter, his son, his excellent wife just behind the door. “No, you won’t,” said Barg. “You filthy abomination, you’ll feel my steel first!” Then he let out a yell, and, for the second time today, charged, his blade held high.
    The creature turned back to face him.
    Barg brought his blade down in a cut that would have cleaved a man from collar bone to belly.
    But the creature simply grabbed the blade in midswing, reached out with its free, rough hand, and took Barg by the face.
    Barg struggled in its stony grasp. And then he was slipping, twisting, falling into another place entirely.
    * * *
    Miles away, Sugar crouched in the moon shadows at the edge of the forest and looked across a river at the farmstead of Hogan the Koramite. The man she knew as Horse.
    “Is the water deep?” whispered Legs.
    “I don’t know,” said Sugar.
    “Do you think he will help?”
    “This is where Mother sent us,” said Sugar. But in her heart she knew the chances of him helping them were slim. If Horse harbored them, he put his whole family at risk. But if he delivered them to the hunt, he, even as a Koramite, would earn a fortune.
    “I think I’m wicked,” said Legs.
    “You’re not wicked,” said Sugar.
    “I should have listened to the wisterwife.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Sometimes, when I held the charm, she would call to me like I was lost.”
    Sugar looked at her brother. She’d never heard of such a thing. “She called to you?”
    “In my mind. I could see her. She was beautiful. And sometimes I could see something else with her. Something made of earth, dark and wild and . . .”
    Sugar waited while Legs found the words.
    “Something in her voice,” he said, “it was horrible and wonderful. Every time I heard her, fear stabbed me because I didn’t want someone to think I was like old Chance. I didn’t want to be mad and taken to the altars for hearing voices in my head. And so I never answered. She said that the fullness of time had come. She promised to make me whole. Promised all sorts of things. Lunatic promises. But I was too scared. I think she wanted to help.”
    She thought of Mother and her horrible speed, her terrible secrets. All this time they’d thought the wisterwife charm was a blessing, a gift. It was an annual ritual for most people to fashion a Creator’s wreath and hang it above their door to draw the blessings of the wisterwives. The wreaths were fashioned with rock and leaf, feathers and bones. Many set out a gift of food or cast it upon the waters. But Regret had his servants as well. So who knew what this charm really was? That charm could be anything. “You think it was real?”
    “I don’t know what to think.” His voice caught. Sugar couldn’t see his tears in the darkness, but he held his head the way he always did when he was in pain.
    Sugar wanted to cry with him, wanted to feel overwhelming grief. But she was empty, as desolate as rock. And that pained her as much as anything else. What kind of daughter was it that had no tears for the butchering of her parents?
    And what kind of daughter was it that ran? She’d had her knife the whole time. Furthermore, she’d been trained how to use it.
    “Da always said you were an uncanny judge of character,” said Sugar. “If your heart tells you to be afraid, then let’s trust it. Da would have.”
    Legs leaned into her, and she took him into an embrace, putting his face in