Read Online The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet - Free Book Online Page B

the reeds away. The rowboat’s sides had been smashed, but the remains still worked as a raft.
    “So we gotta finish what we started.”
    “Finish?” Kar-balter glanced over his shoulder, then followed. “Maybe you’ve not noticed, Rescue, but our adventures here are over. Beastmen are swarming back to the Core like flies to … well … We’ll be lucky to get away alive. The Strongbreed have arrows as thick as tent stakes and spears heavy as flagpoles. They came over the rise and attacked. Thought sure I was dead, but Nella Bye, she …” He paused, trying to wipe at tears, but poked himself in the eye with a twig glued to the back of his hand.
    The ale boy clutched at his chest. “I don’t want to know.”
    “She stepped in front of me. Arrow hit her hard.” Kar-balter pointed to a purple lump over his left eyebrow. “Back of her head knocked me overboard.
Splash! Splat!
Arrows. Arrows everywhere.”
    The ale boy knelt and pushed the makeshift raft back into the stream.
    “You were an Abascar ale boy, weren’t you?” Kar-balter stepped carefully on and crouched down, ten fingers splayed on the raft’s wet wood, while the boy lifted his long, spiked pole from the bank. “Know where I could get a drink around here?”
    “Nothing fit for us to drink.”
    “Remember those days? You’d bring juice to the top of the wall. I’d bother you for something stronger.”
    “I remember.”
    “You were a torment, flaunting wines and liquors and even the king’s blasted hajka. Thought I had it bad back then. But now … to have just one more day pacing Abascar’s wall—that’d be grand as a birthday party. Wish I could stuff King Cal-marcus’s skull with—”
    “Don’t go blamin’ the king for Abascar’s collapse,” the boy growled.
    Kar-balter quieted for a moment, then cupped his hand into the dark soup, sniffed it, and cast it back. “Ballyflies! I’d suck down water like it was sweet cream if I could find some.”
    “Throw yourself into the abyss, and you’ll find some.”
    “What’s that, boy?”
    “If we stick together, maybe we can find some.”
    They drifted along the river’s edge, leaving daylight behind. Kar-balter beganto weep. The ale boy understood. This was like falling back down the throat of a monster that had just coughed them out.
    “Tell me again why Jordam can’t come to us.”
    “He’s at the dock collecting what we need to save the rest.”
    “The rest? They’re dead! The only slaves alive in this hole are Bel Amicans and …” Kar-balter pulled his hat of branches slowly off his head. “No. We’re not gonna risk … no. We couldn’t even save our own!” Kar-balter sank lower. “Not even Cal-raven could manage a rescue.”
    “It wasn’t Cal-raven’s fault!” the boy shouted. “Don’t ever say that!” Then he seized the pole and attacked the water as if it had offended him. “It was me. Don’t you remember? We’d almost escaped. The rafts were moving out. I tried to slip away. I didn’t expect Queen Jaralaine would come after me. But she wasn’t right in the head. She thought I was her son.”
    The raft spun slowly.
    “Then Cal-raven came after her. And you all got caught by beastmen. Everything was spoiled except for them that got away in time. And now …”
    Kar-balter awkwardly embraced the boy, branches on his arms and legs crackling and poking. “No, no, Rescue. It’s not your fault. Sometimes your heart’s so big it gets in the way, that’s all.”
    The raft carried them quietly until a soft splash turned their heads.
    The river’s skin, barely visible in the soft shine of glowstones, seemed troubled to a cold boil. Waves splashed the banks. A tentacle broke the surface, spiny and tall as a cloudgrasper. It strained to touch the ceiling, then slid down the wall until it slapped the stony bank opposite them.
    “Prowling,” said Kar-balter.
    “Shh,” said the boy. He could almost swear he heard it sniffing.
Beastmen aren’t