Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) Read Free

roll a strip of wool wadding around one of the iron projectiles and jam the slug deep into the barrel with the stick.
    I continue my journey, stopping at every stable I see, but I have little hope of finding a horse. The afflicted have an uncanny ability to find life and to take it. The horses I do come across are little more than ribs and hooves. Sometimes the plaguers leave a skull.
    The land here in East Anglia is supposed to be flat. So flat, they say, that a man can watch a horse run away for two days. But here, near St. Edmund’s Bury, this is not true. My ankle feels every hill and valley. I will have to find a horse soon or my journey will end in Suffolk.
    My wrist itches. I slide the steel gauntlets off and stare. The world spins. I look away, take several deep breaths, then look back again. It is the same. I am cut. A small gash across the top of my wrist. Hardly noticeable.
    But I do not know how I got it.
    I search my memory of the encounter with the two plaguers in the tunnel. Did either of them get close enough to bite me? Could the man in the doublet have caught me with his teeth while I hacked him to bits? Sweat dampens my entire body. I study the wound. It is probably from the metal of my gauntlet. Or perhaps I scraped it on the crude rungs of the ladder when I first entered the tunnel. Maybe the gauntlet slid forward and I ran my wrist against the stone walls without noticing. I look away, then back again. Nothing has changed.
    I am cut.
    I continue southward and cross a field that is littered with cattle bones.
    Perhaps I scratched myself with my nails and broke the skin.
    Another farmhouse lies ahead, and a stable. It will be the fourth stable that I search. When I am twenty yards from the structure, I see a man dressed in a tattered robe on his hands and knees in the grass, his arse in the air. A tuft-eared red squirrel stands on two legs a few paces from him, nibbling at something in its paws.
    Maybe I brushed my wrist against the edge of the wheelbarrow .
    My foot snaps a twig and the squirrel’s keen ears catch the sound. The animal drops the morsel and scurries off. The man rises to his feet and runs after the squirrel, but it is a hopeless chase. The animal disappears in a quicksilver dash up an elm trunk. The man throws his arms skyward and shakes his hands.
    “What you ask is impossible!” he screams toward the heavens. “Send the demons! Take me now, for I cannot do it, oh Lord, I cannot do it!”
    He hears my footsteps when I am only a few paces away and he whirls to face me. His head is more beard than face, and his eyes grow wide when he sees me. He runs in the same direction as the squirrel, throwing his hands up and shouting, “I am sorry! I will do it! I will do it! Mea maxima culpa! ”
    He trips on the dangling fabric of his robe and falls to the ground. “I am sorry! Oh, Lord, I am sorry!” He sobs and makes no attempt to rise.
    I remove my helm and kneel at his side. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I say.
    The man rolls on his back, his eyes shut tightly. “Do it. Finish me. Bring an end to my pitiful life. I can strive no longer. Mea maxima culpa .”
    I recognize his Latin from mass: “my most grievous fault.” He is riddled with guilt, as every good Christian should be.
     “You want me to kill you?” I relegate the wound to the cellar of my mind and give the man my full attention.
    “Plunge your fangs into my throat. Rend me with your claws. Burn me with your fiery breath. I am ready.”
    “I have a sword,” I say. “Will that do?”
    He opens one eye.
    I shrug. “I could light you on fire, but it will take some time.”
    “Are you a demon?” he asks.
    “That depends on whom you ask,” I say.
    He sits up. His robe is soiled by grass and Lord knows what else. “You are not here to take my life?”
    “I’ve killed enough today, I think. Maybe I’ll keep you around until tomorrow.”
    His eyes grow wide again and I smile, then feel a storm of guilt for