Child of a Dead God Read Free

throat clench in reflex. Before his body slid down, he was jerked through the air again.

    A second impact, and a third, and he heard but did not feel the fourth. Only half-aware of the grips around his throat and twisted arm, he cried out as both released suddenly.

    Chane felt an instant of weightlessness as he tumbled through the dark. He collided roughly with the floor, edges of stone scraping at him as he flopped over and over. When all motion ceased, he weakly rolled his head.

    He lay in the entry room near the bottom of the stairwell and firelight flickered off the stone walls. A deeper shadow in blood-soaked boots stood at the top of the stairs.

    “Servant beasts should obey,” it whispered in Welstiel’s voice. “If they want to be fed . . . and have their wishes fulfilled.”

    Chane’s eyelids sagged closed. Something inside him cowered in anguish, like a chained beast with hands instead of paws. It had fed on gristle and joints for too long, while its master had just feasted on fresh meat.

    Chane opened his eyes when a cold breeze rolled across his face.

    Firelight danced over a stone ceiling above him. When he turned over, he found a congealed puddle of viscous black fluid where his head had rested, and he touched the back of his skull, wincing.

    Looking about the entry room, his gaze passed over the withered remains of the young priest.

    How long had he lain here unconscious?

    The hearth’s fire still burned as if recently fueled. A tin kettle rested near it, faint wisps of steam rising from its spout. And the cold breeze . . .

    The front door was ajar.

    Chane glanced up the dark stairwell. Not a sound came from above. All was silent but for the crackle of the flames and the cold air spilling around the open door. He struggled to his feet.

    Twice risen, Welstiel had said, only in his first year of death. Less than a full season past, Chane had been beheaded, and Welstiel had somehow brought him back. The only evidence that it had ever happened was the scar line around Chane’s throat—and his forever maimed voice. Some among the dead would say he had been fortunate indeed.

    Yet he had just tried to face an experienced undead freshly gorged on life.

    Despite festering resentment, Chane acknowledged his own foolishness.

    He tottered and bent over to brace his hands against his knees. His left shoulder and elbow burned as if filled with embedded needles. And now he was truly hungry. His dead flesh ached for life with which to repair itself.

    But why was the front door open?

    Chane stumbled over, pulling it wide. Falling snow swirled in the darkness outside, and he heard a grunt off to the left.

    Welstiel knelt in a drift, still naked to the waist. Thin trails of steam rose from bloodstains on his arms and chest. He leaned down, scooping armfuls of snow, and splashed it over himself, scrubbing furiously. He repeated the process over and over.

    “Why?” Chane asked.

    Welstiel lifted his head. Flakes of snow clung to the locks down his forehead. When his gaze landed on Chane, his expression shifted from numb horror to startled wariness.

    “Awake, are you?” he asked quietly, and rose to his feet. “And reason returns once more . . . for the moment . . . but always with one foot perched upon the Feral Path.”

    “What are you babbling about?” Chane rasped, though that last strange reference seemed familiar.

    He tensed as Welstiel approached, but he was in no condition for another fight.

    “Perhaps I should not help you reach your sages,” Welstiel went on, but he stared into the gorge, as if alone. “Monster with a mind . . .”

    Chane hesitated. Welstiel had promised him letters of introduction to gain acceptance at one of the sages’ main branches, across the sea—in exchange for Chane’s obedient service on this journey.

    “A beast,” Welstiel whispered mockingly, “sent in among the learned of the cattle .”

    That last word, which Chane had used so often, suggested