Chapter 8

PUTNAM HAD been a mistake. Almost as big a mistake as Old Bridge had been, and Old Bridge had nearly cost him... well. Old Bridge had nearly cost him everything.

One day he would learn to ignore his instincts, no matter the pull on his mind and sanity. They seemed to be a little too intent on his destruction, even more so than--

Wil gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the strap of his pack. No good could come of letting his mind wander there, so he slapped it in its cage and closed a lock on it. He hunched down into his thin, scraggy coat and walked on, mouth set in a hard, grim line and eyes to the ground. The chill had already worked its steady way into his bones, and exhaustion kept whispering treachery in the guise of reason--'rest, close your eyes, only for a moment'--but he locked that away too. There weren't nearly enough miles between him and Putnam yet.

A lawman. Wil snorted, soft and bitter, and rolled his eyes. A *lawman*, for pity's sake. How... predictable that the Coimirceoir would choose a mask of righteousness and safety.

'If it's so predictable, why were you so eager to stumble into the trap?'

He growled.

Stumble. Ha! He'd all but run into it, blindly following his feet, giving himself over to the pull as though his heart were whispering cryptic suicide to his mind, and he'd been too stupid or desperate--likely both--to notice his own betrayal.

Perhaps he really did want to die.

His eyes stung, and he blinked.

He didn't want to die. He didn't. He only wanted... save him, he didn't even know. Just not *this*.

Hunger and weariness and fear--they welcomed him back like old friends. Two weeks this time, one of the longer stretches in memory, of a full belly instead of a gnawing pit of emptiness that sapped strength and will and even thought when it got bad enough. An actual bed, with blankets, not hard ground and fending off snakes and rodents for the best place to lie up for a night. People who actually spoke to him and looked at him when they did it, with kindness and the closest he'd probably ever come to respect, and not with a predatory gleam in their eyes and murder behind them.

One second of panic, one momentary loss of control, and all of it gone. Just... gone. A wisp of smoke, water sluicing through his grasping fingers. Damn it, he knew better. Perhaps it wouldn't have hurt so much if he hadn't almost talked himself into believing it could last this time.

An owl blatted a mocking cry and whizzed past his ear, its dinner still squeaking a helpless agony in razor talons. Wil jumped, brushing at his ear, and shivered. He decided it probably wasn't the good omen he would have once thought it.

Pausing, he peered to all points around him, then strained his ears and listened. He hadn't been paying attention for who knew how long, and anyone could've been creeping up behind him. His mind conjured blond hair and dark eyes boring into his soul from behind the camouflage of a kind, handsome face.

'It is possible that I could help you, if you would but trust me.'

Ha.

Ha bloody ha!

Help. What a laugh.

Anyway, what the bloody hell was the Gniomhaire doing in Putnam? Why wasn't he in Lind where he belonged? Bastard. And the great oaf probably believed what he was saying too. And would go on believing it until... what?

Wil stopped, frowned. How could he not know? How could he be what he was, born to a destiny as dark as his, and not know?

He shivered and glanced at the moon to gauge the time. He started walking again. Two more hours until sunrise. Best he find somewhere to hole up before then. The thickness of the wood was diminishing, and hearth smoke was more frequent on the air now. He was closing in on a more populated area, and the chances of running into some random traveler or hunter--or worse, a not so random traveler or hunter--were growing steadily higher. He'd have to chance a market or go begging at a farmstead soon, if he didn't want to starve, but coming up on someone in the dark--or having someone come up on him--was too great a risk, and he didn't dare travel by day.

An inn, he decided. His flight from Putnam had taken him through the fens that skirted the north of the city, and the rank, moldy stench still clung to his boots and trousers. He'd just about kill for a hot bath but would settle for a stream or rain barrel to wash his clothes. And filling his water skin would be helpful too--only a few mouthfuls sloshed around in its near-empty bladder, and the scent of rain was notably absent from the night air. All good and well for sleeping, but not for growing thirst.

He'd been able to snatch up very little when he'd fled. He'd made it last for six days now, and that was pushing it, but it hadn't been much and it wouldn't last much longer. *He* wouldn't last much longer. Trekking cross country with only three sausages, a crumbled handful of cheese, and two apples for fuel wasn't enough for even a day, and his body was starting to feel the lack. Game was almost nonexistent, and he didn't have time to stop and hunt at any rate. Anyway, he'd left his sling behind at Ramsford's. Idiot. He deserved to starve to death for that one.

Frost had set in early this year, so there wasn't even a stray patch of wild onions to scrounge through. The only good thing, to Wil's mind, about the fast-approaching winter was that it meant the nights were longer and he could cover more distance. Which wasn't going to be a whole lot of help if he didn't find at least some water soon.

A rivulet--even a puddle, for that matter--would be a blessing, but he judged an inn the more preferable alternative, if he could find one. His lips were cracked and dry, his gums were sore, and he'd stopped pissing two days ago--he was starting to really worry and almost ready to chance a city center, should he happen upon one, though that was hardly likely out in the middle of nowhere as he apparently was. A small village would do, and an inn would do better. Head down, eyes to the ground, gold between his fingers--if he wasn't forced to actually speak to anyone, and he didn't linger, he might slip through unnoticed.

He dug into his trouser pocket, fingered the few gilders and billets he had left. Shook his head on a snarl. Damn it, two more days and that pocket would've been much more encouraging. Two more days. The timing of it all nearly broke his heart.

"Fuck you, Constable Brayden," he muttered, teeth clenched. And fuck you, Palmer and Orman too, while he was at it.

The loss of his papers was going to be a serious problem, but he'd managed before. It was an unbelievably lucky stroke of chance that he'd come away from his encounter with the Coimirceoir still alive--so incredibly lucky that he still almost couldn't believe it had been as easy as it had been, even for the terror--so the loss of the papers was a small thing, comparatively speaking.

Still, the loss of the name was a blow. It was the first one he'd ever had, and he'd let himself get attached to it in the few years he'd borrowed it. It was the one thing he could read, that name, and he'd liked the look of it on those papers, the clean black strokes on the cream-colored parchment, once he'd learned what those strokes said. Peaceful river, or something like that, that's what the name meant. He'd often let himself imagine that he'd end up there one day--whatever quiet place Wilfred Calder's parents had named him for--staring down into slow churning water and not having to listen for the sound of footsteps behind him, not having to look over his shoulder every ten seconds. Not running.

His hands clenched into fists on the straps of his pack, and his jaw tightened again. Damn them. Damn them all. Tears of rage crowded his eyes, burned beneath his brow, and he stubbornly blinked them back.

The rage was what kept him going sometimes, he thought. The injustice, the unfairness, and his seeming inability to buckle to either. Mutinous little badger, that's what Siofra used to call him with a mix of disgust and that repulsive greed in his narrow, pointy face, and Wil supposed the name fit well enough. It explained the black joy that had moved through him when Siofra had snarled those words from between bloody teeth, clots and rivulets of scarlet sliding from a broken nose. Wil had paid for that one, a price that still set him shuddering when he let himself remember, but he'd laughed through the agony until it sounded too much like screaming, so he'd stopped. Anyway, 'mutinous little badger' was probably a more accurate name than 'peaceful river,' but he liked the sound of the latter better.

In the end, neither name was his to keep, so he supposed it didn't matter. Though until he found a new one, he'd hang on to Wil, at least. It was, after all, the only way he knew how to refer to himself.

"Myself." He laughed a little, sardonic. "I wonder what that is?"