Читать книгу The Last Musician - Jason Peterson - Страница 7

Darkness covered the forest like moss over a stone. It did not matter what time of day or night it was, the darkness held fast, and this was why Alistair Vull liked the forest so very much. He loved the darkness.

Alistair drew a long, sharp blade from his belt and wedged it between two of his long, sharp teeth. He pulled out the squishy remains of lunch – a bunny he and Ogg had stumbled across earlier – and flicked it to the ground.

“You not finish?” Ogg said, picking up the discarded piece with his club-like fingers and tossing it into his mouth. “Ogg finish.”

Alistair resisted the urge to gag. He may have been a cold, ruthless killer without conscious or scruples, but he was not a barbarian. Ogg, however, was.

As the two walked through the forest, Alistair contemplated just how he had gotten mixed up in this business in the first place with this horrible, horrible creature next to him.

The instructions from the figure in black had been simple: find someone whose strength far outmatches his wit. Retrieve a heavy bag from the muses on the outskirts of Greenwood. Do not open the bag under any circumstances. Bring the bag to the Forestbriar Inn. Get paid. Handsomely.

Alistair had not questioned the instructions when they had been given to him. He was a mercenary, plain and simple. He was good at what he did, and what he did involved doing some of the vilest things anyone in the forest could ask of him. But dealing with this giant was almost too much to bear. He could not wait to be done with this job.

Ogg belched and farted at the same time, and Alistair was nearly knocked over from the smell.

“Ogg not feel good. Ogg need to push.”

Alistair grimaced. Surely he could have found someone for whom the difference between strength to wit was not this great. Surely.

“Very well Ogg, very well.”

Alistair leaned against a nearby tree, watching as Ogg set down the bag and rumbled his enormous self deeper into the forest. He tried to whistle, hoping to cover up the soon-to-be awful sounds of a gargantuan relieving himself, but strangely, no sound came from his lips. Strange. He was usually a fine whistler.

Alistair focused his attention on the bag. It was more of a tarp, really, an unruly thing bundled together and tied at the top. It had not stopped moving since he and Ogg picked it up from the muses. It was a gentle movement though, a sort of swaying. Hypnotic, really. Alistair wondered what was in—

No. He stopped himself mid-thought. Wondering led to curiosity, and curiosity led to bad things. He was not paid to wonder what – or who – was inside the bag, only to get it from point A to point B. Nothing more. That was why he was the best at what he did.

Ogg returned and picked up the bag. Such quandaries probably never entered Ogg’s feeble mind, Alistair thought.

“Ogg pushed good,” he said.

“Glad to hear, Ogg,” Alistair said, trying to stop thinking about what could be in the bag, moving and swaying as it did. Trying to stop, and failing.