Timo moaned softly.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, pulling back his shirt.
“You’re my sister.” He coughed, and blood bubbled to his lips.
She found a deep gash in one of his shoulders, and the edges of the wound where the claws had ripped through his flesh had already started to blacken.
She scooped her brother up. He was heavy for her, but Imogen was strong enough that she could carry him. She needed to bind his wound, then get him out of the forest. Maybe the fallen bodies they had come across earlier would have something on them that would help.
She carried him and set him down when she reached the path near the three bodies.
Timo looked up at her, grabbing her arm. “Get moving before it returns.”
“Do you think I fear it coming back?”
Timo coughed again, blood pouring down the side of his mouth. She didn’t have much time, and she didn’t want to waste what little she did have. She wished she would have accepted more of the magic offered to her when they’d left Yoran. She had been too proud—and too much of the Leier—to take any truly powerful magic with her.
That had been a mistake. She should have known better.
In her time outside of her homeland, Imogen had come to learn that magic wasn’t what she had been trained to believe. There was not the same darkness in it that she had come to think was true all those years she had spent at home training with her people. All those years hunting sorcerers as the First of the Blade.
There were aspects of magic that were beneficial. Useful, even. That was what she needed to acknowledge, and even accept.
Timo grunted, and she looked over to him. He grabbed his shoulder with one hand and squeezed, as if he could push whatever poison had been on the creature’s claws out of his skin.
Imogen hurried back over to him, crouching down and shaking her head. “Relax.”
She pulled out her flask of water. They needed to conserve what little they had. In this part of the world, it was possible that whatever water they came across was contaminated as well. She did have an enchantment that could purify it, but she would need to use it without her brother noticing.
“Don’t,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m not letting you die here.”
“Don’t,” he said again.
She forced him down, and he was too injured to resist. He shook and cried out as she poured the water into the wound, and it pooled on the ground beneath him. Steam wafted up from his shoulder, almost as though the wound itself steamed in the cool air.
At least Timo began to appear more relaxed. Rinsing some of the poison out of his injury seemed to have helped.
“Hold this,” she said, tearing a strip of fabric from his shirt and pressing it against his shoulder. “I’m going to see if these three have anything on them that might be of use to us.”
“Don’t,” he said, though there was no real conviction to his voice this time.
She ignored him as she headed to the fallen figures.
They were all older. One of them had a shock of black hair and a thick beard, and he was dressed in a heavy wool cloak. An expensive cloak, she suspected. The creature had been feeding on him, ripping flesh from his neck, though there wasn’t nearly as much blood around him as there was around Timo. Another was a woman with graying hair, silver at her temples, and her pale-blue eyes stared upward as if in shock. A chunk of her neck was missing, and blood congealed where the creature had peeled the flesh away. She had on a blue dress, the quality of the fabric quite fine, and a matching blue cloak. Both of them appeared to have money.
The last was older than the other two, with balding hair. A walking stick that had been trampled rested on the path nearby. He was shorter than she was, probably by a good foot, and his body contorted. A claw had been ripped across his belly—the only sign of injury.
Imogen looked through his pockets first, desperate to find something that would help Timo. Anything.
The man gasped.
Imogen froze, backing away. He was still alive.
He coughed, and his eyes fluttered open. They were a pale silver.
“Who are you?” he asked, trying to shift. With the injury across his belly, he wasn’t going to be able to move quickly.
“My name is Imogen Inaratha, I am—”
“Leier,” he mumbled. “Damn adlet sprung out on us.” He looked up at her as he gripped his injury. “I need you to rinse the wound.”
“Is that all it will take?” She flicked her gaze back to her brother.
“It’s a start. The adlet have poisonous claws. Keeps the blood from clotting, you see. If you can rinse the poison off, for the most part you can survive the wound, but it’s still tricky.”
She ripped his shirt open, revealing the massive gash across his abdomen. He was pale-skinned, but his skin looked even paler with the flesh torn open the way it was. She couldn’t see any of his intestines, though she wouldn’t be surprised if the creature had ripped deep enough to harm them.
Was she willing to sacrifice their limited water?
She needed answers, or at least she wanted answers, and this man seemed to know something about the creature that had attacked them. That was a good reason for her to help.
She poured some of the water into the man’s wound, causing him to cry out. She paused, and he shook his head.
“Keep going,” he said.
Imogen poured the rest of her water on the wound. “I’m afraid that’s all I have.”
He leaned forward and peered down at his stomach. “Damn,” he whispered. “I thought I was better protected than this.”
“What do you mean?”
He tried to move one of his arms, and when it didn’t respond, he looked over at it and shook his head. “Fucking arm doesn’t work either.”
“What do you mean?” she asked again.
“He must have gotten me in the shoulder. I’m going to need you to roll me over and see if there’s anything there you can pour more water into.”
Imogen shrugged. “I don’t have any more water.”
“Well, damn,” he muttered. “You said that already. My mind isn’t working the way it should.” His voice had seemed to grow in strength the longer he was awake. She found it surprising he was even able to be this alert, especially given what he’d gone through. But there was a strange strength to him. “See if Nanija there has any water on her. She shouldn’t have lost it in the scuffle. She isn’t much of a fighter after all.”
Imogen went over to the fallen woman and pulled back her cloak, finding a leather waterskin draped over her shoulders. She peeled it off and shook it. It was still about halfway full.
She brought it over to the man, pulled the stopper off the top, and tried to figure out how she was best going to roll him. Any way she moved him would cause him pain, especially with as injured as his abdomen looked to be.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man said. “Just get it over with. Roll me over, pour the water into the wound, and then we can get on with it.”
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “We?”
“You do want to bring that creature down, don’t you?”
“I have no feelings about that creature,” Imogen said.
The man grunted. “Just roll me over, would you?”
She glanced over to her brother. He was still breathing regularly, and though his eyes were closed, he seemed more comfortable than he had been before. She was now less concerned that he was going to die from his wounds. Besides, if she helped this man and he pulled through, she would have somebody to ask about this creature and for information about what else she would need to do to help Timo.
She grabbed the man and pulled, rolling him off to the side. He cried out, and as she slowed, he shook his head.
“Just keep doing it,” he said.
She flopped him onto his belly and realized that she probably should’ve put something underneath him so that his wound wasn’t
pressing against the hard-packed path. But it was too late for that now. Imogen peeled back his shirt and saw that he was right. He had been gouged in the shoulder, though this one looked different than the other wound, a deep puncture wound that was bleeding heavily.
“Well?” he said.
“You were stabbed in the shoulder.”
“Stabbed? More like poked. Fucker got me, it did. Must’ve been lonely out here in the forest and decided that it was going to make a special mate of me.”
He coughed, and Imogen held the bottle up and began to pour the water onto his shoulder. Where the water touched the wound, it seemed a little bit better, much like it had before. The man cried out and began to pound his other hand on the ground. She hesitated but then continued.
When she had poured all the water out, she covered the wound again and rolled him back over.
“What’s your name?” Imogen asked.
“How is it one of the Leier doesn’t know who I am?”
“Who are you?”
He started to sit up. He winced, clenching his jaw tightly, and shook his head. “Why, I’m Benji the Elder.”
Behind her, Timo hissed.
Chapter Six
Imogen crouched in front of Benji, keeping one hand near the hilt of her sword, though she didn’t think he was much of a danger to her. He had a kind, round face, with ruddy cheeks and the hint of a beard. As he squinted through his silver eyes, there was something almost soft about him. But she had also seen how he had reacted when she had rolled him over, the way he had withstood the pain when she’d moved him, so she knew he was stronger than he was letting on.
“Sounds like he’s heard of me,” Benji said, chuckling. He pushed on his uninjured arm and managed to sit up, then swung his injured arm around and pressed it against his belly.
“Let me get that bandaged for you,” Imogen said.
“Bandaged? There’s no damn reason for you to bandage this. It will be fine in time.”
“I don’t want you to bleed all over the road.”
He let out a small laugh. “It’s not often that a Leier wants to help my kind.”
“I’m afraid I don’t even know what your kind is.”
“I am a Porapeth.”
Imogen felt as if the blood drained from her body. The Porapeth were mythical creatures, beings of magic and power who were said to speak words of prophecy, to control kings, and to destroy wherever they traveled. They were well-known to have magic—much like other races of beings did—but theirs was different. Not sorcery, but adjacent enough that it made her people unsettled.
But the Porapeth were also known as something more.
Benji chuckled. “There it is. That’s the reaction I was expecting out of you. Of course, I thought you would’ve recognized it sooner. You might even have stabbed that sword into my chest at the first opportunity.”
“Would it have killed you?” Imogen asked. She flicked her gaze to her sword, half-tempted to drive the blade into the man’s chest anyway.
“Perhaps,” he said with a chuckle. “But I suspect you didn’t know that.”
He brought his arm down, though it still didn’t seem to work quite as well as it should. He looked over to it, frowning deeply as he did before glancing down to his belly. The wound there had already started to knit together, the Porapeth’s magic healing him despite the wound being far worse than anything Imogen would’ve been able to survive.
“I’m just trying to find out what’s going on,” she said.
He grunted, and he looked over to the two who had fallen. “Nanija and Willith said they needed accompaniment through the forest. Of course, they were right, but how were we to know that?”
“What happened?”
“You saw what happened. The damn adlet jumped out at us. Bastard is quick. Far too quick. Sprung on me faster than I could react, didn’t have any opportunity to defend myself. Or them.” He shook his head. “So much for the coin they paid me.”
“You still got paid,” Timo said, sitting up and spinning around so that he could look at Benji.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right about that. I still got paid, so some things aren’t so bad.”
Imogen stayed far enough away from Benji that she could keep an eye on him, though she remained uncertain. “What’s the adlet? It had sorcery. Does it have anything to do with the rumors we heard about the forest? There were stories of creatures prowling this place.” But according to Bug’s stories, the creatures here did not have sorcery, though someone like Bug might not have known if that was truly the case.
“No sorcery. At least, nothing intentional.” Benji looked down at his shirt. He tried to cover himself, but it wouldn’t go across his belly. Imogen had ripped the fabric while trying to help him. He shook his head, as if irritated about that fact. “They might have some magic, but it’s residual.”
“Residual?”
“Right. Sort of like the dular.”
The dular worked with enchantments, placing power into items. It was not sorcery, but it was similar enough that those without magic often didn’t understand the difference. That he had called them dular—what she’d known as enchanters recently—told her a bit about where he was from.
“The dular have their own sort of magic,” she said.
He waved his hand, then winced as he did. “Damn. I have to remember that I can’t do that. The dular have their own kind of magic, but it is an unusual type, isn’t it?”
“Unusual only if you are opposed to enchanters using magic,” she said, looking over to her brother.
Benji cocked his head at her. “Could it be that there’s a Leier who isn’t opposed to magic?” He started to laugh and then coughed, cutting off and shaking his head. “Fucker. Now I can’t even do that?”
“Do what?”
“Laugh at the irony of the situation, of course.”
“What irony?”
“Only that there is a Leier who has decided to embrace magic.”
“I haven’t,” Imogen said.
He looked at her, and there was darkness in his silver eyes as he held her gaze for a long moment. It was as if he saw something in her, or even sensed the enchantments she carried. But then he looked down at his belly again. “Perhaps. Still, you’re far more welcoming of it, or so it seems.”
Imogen breathed out, and she looked over to Timo. “How does it feel?”
“It hurts,” he said.
“Of course it hurts,” Benji replied. “You got ripped by a damn adlet.”
Imogen ignored him and kept watching her brother. “It’s more than just that. What happened to you in the forest?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see it.”
Timo peeled back his shirt even more, and she realized that she hadn’t gotten to all of his injuries. There was a puncture wound in his belly, similar to the one in Benji’s shoulder. Both of them were slightly smaller than her fist, and deep.
Benji let out another laugh. “Look at that. We have matching holes.” He cut off as he coughed again. “Dammit,” he muttered. “All I want is to be able to laugh at the situation, and I can’t even do that.”
“When did it hit you?” she asked Timo, shooting Benji a look before turning back to her brother. “I didn’t even see anything.”
“I didn’t either,” Timo said. “I was trying to follow you, tracking a sorcerer—or maybe it was that creature. I had no idea what it was, but as I tried to come around, I could barely move. It was as if everything within me went numb. Cold.”
“The same thing happened to me,” Benji said. He sat up, and he looked almost as if he were back to normal, other than his ripped shirt and the way his arm hung strangely. He tipped his head to the side, looking down at the other two fallen forms next to them. “Something unusual. Not just an adlet, then. Can’t say I saw what happened, though, except for the adlet. That was enough. Whatever was with it snuck up behind me and stabbed me. Then the adlet had its way with me. That bastard was quick…” He
frowned. “Of course, I must’ve already been hit in the back, and that was leaching out some of my power.”
Imogen considered asking him about the Sul’toral. Somebody like Dheleus, Benji might know. But as she looked over to Timo, she wasn’t sure that he would want her to ask.
She would hold back. For now.
“What exactly is going on in this forest?” Imogen decided to ask instead.
Benji got to his knees and crawled over to Nanija. He began to pull her clothing around. Imogen grabbed his wrist.
He shook her hand off and locked eyes with her. “I’m not trying to violate her, if that’s your concern,” he explained. “All I’m trying to do is see what else she might be hiding on her.”
“You were traveling with them. Why would she be hiding anything on her?”
He glanced over to Timo, then back to Imogen. “We were hunted. Seems to me we were tracked with a purpose.”
“Or it was just chance,” Timo said.
Benji frowned, shaking his head. “I’ve taken to believe that there isn’t much chance in the world. At least not when it comes to this sort of thing. And so will you, if you pay any attention. You should be smarter than that.”
“I am smarter than that,” Timo said.
Benji chuckled. “Not so smart as to not get caught up in magic, though, are you?”
“I’m one of the Leier.”
“Well, even you wouldn’t want to get caught up in this kind of magic.”
Imogen had to intervene between the two of them. This might be tied to the sorcerer they tracked, but it might not. “You said it wasn’t sorcery.”
“It’s not that kind of sorcerer,” Benji said.
He finished searching Nanija and moved on to Willith, pulling out the contents of his companion’s pockets and sorting through them. Finally, he sat back down, dropping onto the path next to them, and shook his head.
He sighed. “Neither of them have much of anything on them. What happened?”
“They were attacked, it seems. The same as you,” Imogen said.
Unbonded (First of the Blade Book 1) Page 6
