Free Boys of Blur by N. D. Wilson Page A

moving air. Then he hissed between his teeth.
    “Desann.”
    The panther dropped out of the tree, landed lightly on the log in front of Charlie, and then leapt toward Lio. Her tail brushed Charlie’s arm as she went.
    “I am not strong here,” Lio said. “I will tell you more where the land is free.”
    “Let me guess,” Cotton said. “Over the dike?”
    Lio nodded and moved quickly toward the shack that had become a bone house. At the doorway he dropped to his knees, and his panther sat beside him. While the boys watched, Lio began humming slowly, and then he raised his head and sang. The words were unknown to Charlie’s mind, but not to his bones. A shiver swept across his skin and sadness tightened his throat. Lio’s voice matched the trees and the breeze, it matched the cat beside him andthe old sword in his belt, his song was the sunlight sliding between high branches and the shadow he cast when it found him.
    When he stopped, the panther beside him raised her head and yowled, long and slow. Then Lio touched his head, both shoulders, and his chest. He stood.
    “We go,” he said. “And quickly. The Gren is not far.”

Lio didn’t run, but his strides were long and quick. Behind him, Charlie and Cotton walked, then jogged, then walked again, struggling to match his pace toward the lake and its tall dike.
    In front of them, the panther loped along easily, her shoulders swaying, her tail swinging. At least until Lio hissed a command and she darted ahead, or doubled back and ran behind, or slipped into the cane on one side or the other.
    “Could have cut closer to the church,” Cotton said. “Faster.”
    Lio ignored him. The panther shot ahead and then paused, waiting.
    “Where did you get the sword and helmet?” Charlie asked.
    “I am Lio. I did not
get
them. They were given.”
    “Okay,” Charlie said. “So who gave them to you?”
    No answer.
    “What did you mean the Gren is made of man?” Charlie asked.
    “Flesh of man,” Lio said. “Soul of all that muck rots and mounds gather.”
    “Smell of skunk,” Cotton said.
    “Can you kill him?” Charlie asked.
    “I have killed the Gren many times,” said Lio. “When he is weak and young. But when he is ancient and strong, he fells me.”
    “I don’t know what kind of roots you’ve been chewin’,” Cotton said, “but you should stop. You’re not even making half sense.”
    “I am only the Lio of now. Not the Lio of then. There have been many.”
    Cotton laughed. “And lots of Stanks, too?”
    Lio looked back over his shoulder and stopped. “The Gren is many, but all of one soul and one Mother. Many devils, but one hunger, one hate. One Gren.”
    The air had continued to cool and the breeze had become a wind. As the cane walls swayed and rattled around them, Lio dropped into a crouch and scooped up two handfuls of soft, silty black muck.
    “All places have
lespir
.” He pressed the two handfuls together and let the dark earth trickle slowly between his fingers. “
Soul. Spirit
. The words are well but not perfecttruth. You see the darkness of this earth? It is rich, men say.”
    He focused on Charlie, deep eyes almost hidden in the shadow beneath his helmet. “Rich with death. With life made silent, pooled, sleeping, and waiting to rush into any vessel—green cane, the iron tree, two boys. A dead man made
diab
—a devil. So many lives, where the many waters brought them, laid them down, and made them black earth. Every creature now breathing beneath the sun could fly from flesh and sleep in these earth beds, and the muck would grow no darker.”
    He brushed off his hands and stood. “Trees feed on slaves and kings. Cane rises up from forests and flocks and peoples. Where so much death is, life waits, and there is much power.”
    Lio inhaled slowly and leaned his head back, eyes closed, feeling the wind. The panther had disappeared while he was talking.
    Charlie shivered. He wanted to laugh and pretend like none of this could be