Path of Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

Recruiters. A leader, they announced, and took her…but in truth he had offered her up to them. Sold her. Now he witnessed the result of the transaction.
    What else had been done to her? He looked on his daughter and forced himself to smile, and was rewarded with a wan smile in return, breaking his heart. She had been willow-thin two years ago, but now she was large, possibly twice the size she had been. Her eyes, once so clear, were dark holes in her face. Lines, folds and open sores covered her skin, which seemed that of an old woman. Her hair was gone completely: eyebrows as well as scalp-hair.
    What was left? Oh mercy, Arathé was still there, buried somewhere within that awful disguise, he could feel it. Alkuon be thanked, something remained.
    ‘What happened to you, Arathé?’ Anomer stood beside him, his first movement since the truth had been revealed. ‘Can you tell us what happened?’ His voice was clear, calm, soothing.
    ‘Aaa…waaah…ahhhn,’ said the tongueless mouth. Eyes begging for understanding. Noetos had no idea what she meant.
    ‘Andratan?’ Anomer hazarded, and was rewarded by a quick smile, a faint echo of the sister she’d once been. ‘They did this to you in Andratan? Why?’
    ‘Nnooh…obaay,’ she replied, every sound an effort, her mouth moving in exaggerated fashion to form the words.
    ‘You wouldn’t obey them?’ The boy’s eyes were bright, as though solving one of the wooden puzzles he’d loved as a child. His sister nodded again.
    Then she raised her hands and began to speak further, using her palms and fingers to make the sibilant and fricative sounds she could not manage with her mouth. Noetos was drawn into the puzzle, his mind whirring to learn the keys to this new language of mouth-vowels and hand-consonants, while behind them on the couch his wife sobbed unconsolably.
    ‘Maay (clap) me (hand signal) eernnh mah (two-finger flick on thumb) (clap).’
    ‘Make me learn…’ Noetos shrugged. His daughter nodded.
    ‘Maah (finger flick) (clap).’
    ‘Magic!’ cried Anomer. His sister nodded, tears running down her cheeks.
    ‘Fff…eww (tap on cheek) baaah (fist into palm).’
    ‘It felt bad. The magic made you feel bad?’ She nodded again to her brother.
    ‘(Fist into palm) aaaynn (two-finger flick on thumb),’ she said, pointing behind her to the door.
    ‘Danger!’ Anomer said. ‘Danger? Someone comes?’
    ‘(Rub hands together) Oon!’ Soon!
    ‘The Recruiters? You have escaped from the Recruiters?’ She nodded again, soberly this time.
    ‘They made me their slave,’ she told them, in a series of halting sounds and hand signals. ‘They brought me south with them, not knowing this is where I come from.’
    ‘Why did they take out your tongue?’ Anomer asked her. To Noetos it seemed as though the years had peeled away like scales, and his son and daughter once again played the word games they had delighted in as children.
    Oh, if only.
    ‘Not them. I refused to learn magic, even though I had the best Voice they had heard in Andratan foryears. It felt foul. It kept making me sick. I told them I would not learn it, so they cut out my tongue and made me a slave for anyone on Andratan to use.’
    The fisherman’s mind went white for a moment, then cooled again. Unspeakable cruelty in the place they had been taught was an island of grandeur, of greatness.
    ‘We don’t have time for this.’ Noetos tried to work out how long his daughter had been here. Minutes, just minutes. ‘Surely they will be coming after you?’
    No, she explained. Not yet. She had tried what she believed she’d never be able to do again, and forced her clumsy mouth to shape the magical Voice she had learned in Andratan. To her astonishment she had been partially successful, turning the Recruiters’ early afternoon sleep into something more substantial, but still a long way short of the deep unconsciousness she had willed. She had taken up one of their swords, ready to slay them all;