Page 119 of The Tainted Cup

Kitlan wheeled her horse around to him and demanded, “What kind?”

“Blood, ma’am.” The Apoth raised his face and sniffed the air again—his nose was large and violet-hued—and pointed south. “That way.”

We followed the Apoth until he stopped at what appeared to be an undistinguished patch of meadow. But he pointed down, and I saw a large splotch of blood resting among the rocks.

“Wet,” said Miljin. “And fresh. But is it Ditelus’s?”

“Don’t know, as we don’t have his scent,” said the tracker Apoth. He pointed south. “But I smell more that way.”

We wheeled about and headed south.

—

WE FOUND HIMwithin an hour.

He was easy to spy, a huge, shambling, shifting form just on the horizon, trudging south. Yet even though we were still so far from him, I could see there was something amiss.

The figure in the distance didn’t move right. He limped. Staggered. Hobbled along, like he’d broken many bones in his feet, perhaps.

Miljin sensed it, too. “Don’t like this,” he muttered. “Something’s wrong. Is that really him? Where’s he going? And what’s he running to?”

“Could have worms,” mused Kitlan.

“You goddamned Apoths always think it’s worms.”

“That’s because so many people have so many fucking worms.”

Kitlan and Miljin led the way, spurring their horses on but pursuing the figure carefully. When we were a quarter of a league away, Kitlan raised a hand for us to stop. Then she and her people pulled bizarre, complex helmets from their packs: the helms had glass bubbles for eyes and were conical in shape, giving them a wasplike appearance, and they ended in what looked like a small brass grate that was packed with moss.

“Warding helms?” I asked.

“Yes,” Kitlan said. “Uses suffused mosses and materials to filter out contagion. It will keep us safe as we approach.” Then she tossed one to me. “It buckles about the neck.”

I pulled mine on and buckled it. The world grew muffled and hot and dark immediately, and I had to squint through the glass bubbles to see. I hoped I didn’t wander off blindly and get lost out here among all the horrors aboutme.

Kitlan waved a hand and we proceeded, gaining on the distant figure hobbling across the wretched wilderness. As we grew closer I came to comprehend the size of the person we were following. He was enormous, nearly as tall as one and a half of me, and as wide as three of me standing shoulder to shoulder—and I was no small person. His black-clad back was as broad as a carriage, and his feet made tremendousthumpsas he staggered across the Plains, his giant boots churning up the grass and mud before him.

And he was bleeding. From something on his front. I could see the blood dribbling down from between his knees, rills of dark red threading over his thighs.

We rode on until we were within fifty span of him. Then Miljin bellowed through his mask: “Ditelus! Hold!”

The crackler didn’t stop moving. He just kept hobblingon.

“Stop where you are, damn you!” said Miljin. “By order of the Imperial Iudex, I command you to stop!”

He did not stop.

“Militis,” said Kitlan in a warning voice. “We are here from the contagion crew. If you don’t comply, and if we can’t determine your state, we will have to set you alight. It’s up to you if you’re alive or dead while you burn.”

Still, he did not stop.

We all looked at one another. Then we spurred our horses on until we were alongside Ditelus, though we rode at a safe distance.

Unlike his body, the crackler’s face was surprisingly normal. His pale gold hair was cropped close to his dark, sun-tanned scalp, and his eyes were small and sad. Blood poured from his lips down his chin and his neck, soaking through his black shirt and dribbling between his legs. He wheezed and gasped as he walked, his massive lungs gurgling and clicking with each breath. Every now and again his face spasmed with pain, like he was putting weight on some bone broken within his foot.

“Ditelus! Where is Captain Kiz Jolgalgan?” demanded Miljin. “Is she here?”

The crackler said nothing. He just shambled on, his giant boots making athump-thump.