Darkwalker

CHAPTER 9

The rag in his mouth was sour with someone’s sweat. Zach would have gagged, but his tongue was immobilized. His lips were raw and chapped, and he was desperate for water. But he hadn’t seen anyone in a long time. Hours, probably. It was almost as if they’d forgotten about him—which was weird, considering how much trouble they’d gone to in bringing him here. They had actually been pretty careful with him up until now, almost as if they were afraid of hurting him. But they weren’t taking any chances either; his wrists were bound so tightly that his arms had gone numb behind his back. He’d long since given up trying to work at the knot. It was too tight, and anyway he had only his fingertips for leverage. He had dragged himself along the floor of the room, heels to bottom, in search of a loose nail or something else he could use to cut himself free, but that hadn’t worked either. It was too dark to see, and groping along the floorboards with the flats of his hands turned up nothing.

Zach didn’t know what they wanted from him. He hadn’t asked, and no one had volunteered the information. The Adal who brought him here had said he needed help on his berry farm, a few extra hands to pick the remaining fruit before the first frost. He’d offered money, but not too much—not enough to make Zach suspicious. It had sounded like easy work, and it wasn’t as though Zach had other commitments. There was Lenoir, of course, but the only payment the inspector ever offered was food. That wasn’t a bad deal, but it wasn’t the same as money. Zach could spend coin of his own on the food and drink he liked, not the greasy, tasteless stew Lenoir insisted he should eat, or the sour wine the inspector insisted he should drink.

Still, Zach was angry with himself for not realizing it was a trap. The Adal hadn’t been the first to try to lure him somewhere, after all. Besides, he should have known that an Adal wouldn’t own a berry farm. The Adali never stayed in one place long enough to till fields, and anyway, the townsfolk wouldn’t have stood for it, not when there were so many local people without land of their own. But none of this had occurred to Zach yesterday when he had climbed aboard that ugly carriage. Then he’d thought only of the coin he would earn and what he would spend it on. A new hat, first of all, and then some shoes. And after that he would take his friend Kev to an eating house—the Courtier, maybe. And Kev would see that Zach really did know a big-shot inspector, and Lenoir could tell Kev about how important Zach was to his work. Then Lenoir and Zach would teach Kev how to make up stories about people, stories that were true and that you could tell just by looking. And then maybe Kev would want to be a hound too, and they could be partners someday.

Zach’s throat started to close a little, and his eyes misted. He swallowed hard, determined not to cry. There wasn’t anyone to see him, but still.

A loud bang sounded, startling him. A door had been slammed shut in the room next door. Muffled voices came through the wall, and the creak of someone’s weight traveled along the floorboards to where Zach was sitting. Turning his back to the sounds in the next room, Zach inched along the floor toward the wall until his shoulders were up against it. The voices came through more clearly now, and thin blades of light flickered in and out of view as shapes moved about in the other room.

Zach’s heart sank as he realized the voices were speaking Adali. There were at least three of them, he judged, and maybe more. They sounded excited, but maybe a little nervous too. Zach strained to hear every word, even though he didn’t understand any of it. Then there was a new voice, a boy’s voice. That was strange. Zach tilted his head so his ear was against the wall, closing his eyes and concentrating on the boy’s voice. He didn’t seem to be speaking words, and his voice sounded strangely stifled. He was probably gagged too. Not with the others, then—a captive like himself. So he wasn’t alone here.

He listened for a long time, but he couldn’t make out what was going on. Then after a while something strange happened to the voices. The men—they all sounded like men—started chanting, or so it seemed to Zach. Their voices dropped into a low monotone, and they all uttered the same unfamiliar words. This went on for a minute or so, and Zach wondered if they might be praying. And then the boy cried out, a single word that Zach understood perfectly even through the gag.

“No!”

The boy started screaming. The chanting grew louder, and there came a strange, frantic thumping noise, maybe from the boy trying to escape. Then more screaming, the boy’s voice ripped open by terror. Somehow it was even scarier for being muted by the gag, as though it trapped the horror in the boy’s throat.

Zach wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn’t move his hands. He hunched up his shoulders, but it didn’t help. The screaming went on and on, it wouldn’t stop, and now sobbing, and Zach was sobbing too because he couldn’t shut it out. It filled him up, drowning his insides; it was all he could hear, he could even taste it in his mouth. And when finally the boy’s voice died away and the house fell silent, Zach was still sobbing, his body trembling like an aftershock.