by Grace Draven
“Help you,” she managed to squeak. “No harm.”
At least no harm intended. That turbulent gaze darted between her face and the broadhead. Confusion softened the ferocious scowl patterning his forehead “Halani?” he said in a hoarse voice. At her nod, he loosened his hold on her just enough that she could call out to her mother, who, undaunted by her earlier tumble, was prepared for a second attack on her daughter’s captor.
“Peace, Mama. I’m fine. Stay where you are. I don’t want you hurt.”
“Are you sure, Hali?” Asil’s voice warbled.
If Halani closed her eyes, she might think the question came from a frightened child. The ache in her chest had nothing to do with Malachus’s crushing embrace. “I’m sure, Mama,” she said, never breaking the stare she held with him.
“Halani of the Lightning,” he croaked, his eyelids beginning to shutter over his eyes even as his arm relaxed to slide down her back. Still, he didn’t release her.
Halani didn’t dwell on his odd words. “You’re here with me and Asil, Malachus, in our camp. Two men attacked you, put three arrows in you along with a dose of poison. Do you remember?” He blinked at her, uncomprehending. “They need to come out before they get infected. I got one.” She gestured to the extracted broadhead. “I need to get the other two.”
Twitch by twitch, he eased his grip on her. She let go of his face, leaving a red smear on his cheek and jawline. Halani tossed the broadhead to one side so she could ease him back onto the bedding. Behind him, Seydom shook off his daze and crawled back to his previous spot.
“He caught me by surprise. I’m sorry, Halani. I should have been better prepared.”
She waved away his apology. “Don’t worry yourself. He surprised us all. Now we know what to expect.”
He was fast and strong, not only for a man badly wounded and reacting to severe pain, but for any man. Inhumanly quick reflexes and the grip of a vise.
She glanced at her mother, who’d crept closer, pale, wary. “I need your help again, Mama.” Asil gave a solemn nod. “Go outside and tell anyone lurking nearby that all is well. That Malachus woke up while I was removing one of the arrows. They’ll know what caused all the fuss.”
Asil wore the look of a child whose best friend had stolen her favorite toy, then told her they weren’t friends any longer. “I thought he was nice, Hali.”
“He is, Mama. He’s just out of his head from the pain and confused. He thought himself among enemies instead of friends. It’s fine now. He knows he’s safe with us.”
Asil’s expression brightened. “Do you want me to come back inside once I’ve told them?”
Halani adored her mother, and her stomach clenched at the memory of seeing the casual way Malachus had knocked Asil aside, almost sending her through the wagon door, as if she weighed no more than a thistle bloom.
“No,” she said. “You can be my messenger in case I need to relay news.”
“Whatever you wish, Hali.” And this time Asil was all smiles as she scampered out of the wagon, struts bouncing as she skipped the steps to leap to the ground from the threshold edge.
Halani grabbed a wad of bandages and pressed it to her patient’s bleeding wound. “You don’t have to stay,” she told Seydom. “But I’ll need you to send someone else in your place to help me.”
Seydom bristled, indignant at her suggestion though she hadn’t meant to offend him. “I’ll stay,” he snapped, splitting his glare between her and their charge. “And this time he won’t catch me by surprise.”
The object of their discussion startled them both when he spoke in a tired, hoarse voice. “I promise to be still.” He studied Halani through a slitted gaze. “And I thank you.”
Halani paused in soaking up blood to study him in return. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and I haven’t saved you yet.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across his grim mouth. “But you’re trying. That deserves my gratitude.”
She replaced the saturated bandage with a towel, careful not to press too hard. There was still much more to do. Before the day was done, he’d be cursing instead of thanking her for visiting so much suffering on him.
“I’ll remind you of that when you’re shouting and threatening to hang me from the nearest tree branch the moment you’re well enough to stand.”
“But you’ll know I won’t mean it,” he assured her.
She appreciated his outlook, though she didn’t believe he’d maintain such acceptance once she started on the other arrows, and most especially when she cauterized the wounds.
His pale features pinched even tighter. “My horse.” His hand skittered across the blankets. “My horse at the stables.”
She remembered the sleepy-eyed mare who’d followed behind him when Halani had first crossed his path in the market. “Did you board her at Grecajin’s stable yard?”
Malachus nodded, hands still moving restlessly as if searching for something. “I only paid for a day and night’s board.”
Half dead, poisoned, and in pain, he still worried for his mount. That stable yard was known for auctioning off a horse if its owner was so much as an hour late with boarding payment. “I’ll send someone to retrieve her.”
“I can pay.”
“Oh, you will,” she assured him with her sweetest smile. “We have your money purse.” As his raspy laugh turned to a groan, she shushed him. “Don’t laugh. You may be causing more bleeding inside, especially here.” Her hand glided to the arrow shaft sticking out of his side. That one she’d face last, as it would be the most dangerous to remove and the one most likely to kill him.
“Mama!” she called toward the door. “Send Talen to me and then bring me a prayer stick.”
At Talen’s arrival, Halani handed her the money purse along with a description of the horse he called Batraza. “She’s stabled at Grecajin’s.”
Talen tucked the purse into her bodice. “Pray he hasn’t already sold her to the knackers,” she said before leaving.
While she waited for her mother to return with the prayer stick, Halani checked the towel pressed against Malachus’s shoulder, pleased to see the bleeding had slowed. The broadhead hadn’t splintered when it penetrated. Even the sinew hafting the tang to the shaft hadn’t disintegrated, saving her from excavating the wound even more, searching for bits of arrow shrapnel that would cause infection.
“What is this prayer stick?” he said, voice weary and slurred.
Before Halani could reply, Asil entered the wagon to hand her a short length of wood the thickness of her thumb and scraped smooth of its bark. “Will this do?”
Halani nodded and held the stick close to her patient’s mouth. “Put this between your teeth and pray.”
He opened his mouth for her to balance the stick between his teeth. “Don’t be foolish and try to hold back your pain. No one expects your silence. If you have to scream, scream.”
She had no wish to frighten him, but she wouldn’t lie. This would be difficult and bloody and would hurt beyond belief. He nodded and closed his eyes, jaw flexing as he tested the stick’s sturdiness against his bite.
Halani set to work on the arrow lodged in his hip. It wasn’t as deep as the one under his collarbone and only lodged in the heavy muscle there. Malachus stayed still except for an occasional jerk or a grunt around the prayer stick.
She applied a folded towel to soak up the initial blood flow and called for Asil to replenish her supply. Seydom helped her mound blankets against his back to support him while he reclined on his side, and Halani examined the last arrow.
No bone or cartilage to contend with. But vital organs lay beneath that patch of flesh. Had the arrow sliced through any of those, he would have bled out by now. If she wasn’t careful, he still might.
He was deathly pale, breathing harsh and uneven, but his expression was calm as Halani stared
into his eyes with their ink-dark irises and dilated pupils. “You’re not dead yet, which makes me think this arrow has somehow missed your entrails. If I remove it the way I did the others, I risk cutting into or tearing through some of your guts. The safest thing for me to do is push it through to the other side and cauterize the wound as soon as I do.” She had no platitudes to offer to soften the reality of what he’d have to endure, nor any assurances he’d live through it.
They stared at each other for a few moments before he took the stick out of his mouth to say, “No wonder you call this bit of wood a prayer stick.” He turned his head in such a way that he could see the shortened arrow shaft protruding from his side. “The waiting is worse than the doing. Get on with it.”
The next quarter hour was a horror of blood and hot knives, burning flesh and guttural cries that became less and less human as Halani cauterized and cut, probed and poulticed, and bandaged her thrashing, tortured patient until he finally, mercifully, passed out. The prayer stick fell from his slack mouth, its surface riddled with the crescent shape of teeth marks.
Through it all, Seydom held him down, but just barely. When it was over, he sat back on his haunches and breathed out a gusty sigh of relief. “Thank the gods that’s done.”
Halani, who had ended up sitting partway on Malachus, eased her weight back to observe her handiwork and swipe away a droplet of sweat hanging off the tip of her nose. If he lived, she’d be a month nursing him at least.
If the wound in Malachus’s hip didn’t end up infected, it would heal quickest, followed by the one under his collarbone. Halani worried most about the one in his side. There’d be no stitching for any of them right now. He was in a weakened state, up against grim odds. Halani didn’t expect he’d live to see morning.
At the moment there was nothing else to do but go outside, brew a cauldron of willow-bark tea for the inevitable fever, strip the bedding from her and Asil’s wagon to replace the ruined linens here, and breathe air that didn’t smell of blood and sweat.
She wobbled to her feet, waiting for Seydom to join her. “Come on. He isn’t going anywhere, and we both need a stretch.”
“And a drink,” he added, stepping carefully over their prone charge to follow Halani down the wagon steps.
The ground hummed beneath her tired feet, singing a soothing lullaby she felt more than heard as she joined Asil at their wagon. The tall rye not flattened by wagon wheels or feet arched toward her, whispering a welcome.
“Earth and earth,” she murmured, a simple blessing Asil had taught her when she was a child. Meaningless on its surface, but her soul recognized the quiet laudation behind it.
Somewhere beneath the layers of soil and rock, past buried bones and the memory of tree roots, an ancient mother answered. Forever the earth.
A quick bath and a bowl of soup she downed without tasting rejuvenated her. Talen had returned with Malachus’s mare, hobbling her in a spot just outside the corral where the caravan horses and mules were picketed.
“It’s an odd thing,” the cook’s wife said as she eyed the mare with a speculative gaze. “The other horses don’t like her, though she seemed uninterested in them.”
“She isn’t part of the herd.” Halani sipped on her third cup of tea, grateful it wasn’t the bitter willow bark she planned to pour down Malachus’s throat by the bucketful.
“No, it’s something more than that.” Talen gestured to the other livestock pens. “Even the goats and sheep grew skittish as she passed.”
Halani had seen something similar when the men had carried Malachus into camp, though at the time she’d been far more focused on getting him into the provender wagon without making his injuries worse. He possessed magic. She knew that for certain. She wondered if he was aware of it, this thing some called a gift and others named a curse, depending on which side of the Empire boundary lines you stood. Maybe the mare held some remnants of that sorcery as well, like a strong perfume that scented everything close to it. She thanked Talen for the help and returned to the provender wagon to succor her patient.
Kursak, who’d volunteered to stand watch, met her on the steps. “He’s out of his head with fever. Hot enough to set fire to the blankets. It’s like a bread oven in there, Halani. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were roasting the poor bastard on a spit.”
“Fetch me cool water and towels, please. I expected a high fever.” She didn’t wait to see Kursak leave and was instantly buffeted by a wall of heat when she entered the wagon.
Malachus lay unmoving on the wagon floor, the new bedding Asil had brought twisted beneath him. He muttered in his delirium, sharp, angry words. His head turned from side to side, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as he battled some illusionary adversary.
Bright flags of color painted his wide-set cheekbones, and his skin burned hot beneath her touch. He was drier than parchment left in a desert sun, and if she didn’t bring his fever down, he’d convulse.
Kursak returned with the water and cloths she requested, promising to keep Asil company while Halani stayed busy in the wagon. “I’ll take her with me to get Hamod and the rest from Azarion’s camp.”
A frisson of panic shot through Halani. “Fetch the others but leave Uncle with the Savatar for now.” At his puzzled look, she lifted her hand in a plea. “You heard that tirade he gave once he learned of Azarion’s true identity. He’ll want my head on a plate for bringing another stranger into our midst. I need time to come up with a good reason for why I did so.” She sprinkled enough truth in the explanation to make it believable, though her impetus for keeping Hamod out of the camp had less to do with protecting herself and more with protecting Malachus.
Kursak was no fool, and he regarded her for a long moment. “As you wish,” he finally said. “Asil and I won’t mention your newest stray. A secret between us. She’ll love the idea of holding something over her brother. And I doubt our fearless leader will need much coaxing to enjoy a little more of Azarion’s fine hospitality.” He waved away her thanks and left to fetch Asil.
Halani set the bowl down and grabbed an extra pillow to tuck behind Malachus’s head so that water didn’t run into his ears as she swabbed his face. He emerged from a doze just as she leaned in, pillow clutched in her hands. His gaze, bright with fever, shone in the wagon’s dim lamplight, flitting from her face to the pillow and back again before narrowing. Something stared back at her from those dark eyes, something not at all human.
Halani stilled, instinct warning her that to move might put her in jeopardy. She kept her voice soft, assuring, even as her stomach somersaulted with an unnamed fear. “I’ve water to cool you down and this pillow to raise your head while I do so. You have a fever.”
He blinked slowly, recognition replacing the feral suspicion in his fever-bright gaze. “Halani.”
“Yes, I’m Halani.” She still didn’t move. “May I put the pillow behind you now?” When he nodded, she tucked the pillow under his shoulders and neck so that he was less reclined but still on his uninjured side.
His eyes closed with the first touch of the wet cloth to his cheek. Halani gently bathed his hot face, gliding the cloth over his forehead, nose, and cheeks, pausing a few times to saturate and wring the cloth before continuing on to his throat and the muscular slopes of his shoulders.
A faint smile played across his mouth, and his breathing deepened. “From torturer to nurse, you have many skills, Halani of the Lightning.”
His voice was still raspy, and she offered him water from a flask she’d brought with her. At her urging, he sipped instead of gulped, turning his head away when he finished. She resumed bathing him, squeezing water from the cloth so that it trickled into his hair to wet his scalp.
His description of her made no sense, poetic though it was. “Why do you call me Halani of the Lightning?”
He didn’t answer, and his body shivered as she ran the cloth do
wn his arms and the exposed skin of his chest, careful not to touch the bandages. She twitched the covers away when he reached for them. “I know you’re cold. The fever makes it so, but covering up will only make it worse. Give your body the chance to cool, and then I’ll pull the blanket up.”
His hand fell limply against his midriff where the edge of his bandages encircled his waist. “If you say so.”
Halani continued her ministrations, wetting his hair by degrees to cool his scalp and pressing the cloth to the back of his neck. She thought him asleep until he gave her a start with a question.
“Where am I?”
“A provender wagon in a free trader’s camp led by my uncle, Hamod the Imposing.”
His eyes had been closed when he asked the question. One opened now to slant her a look. “A grandiose title. One he gave himself or given by others?”
She chuckled. The first time Hamod had introduced himself to someone as the Imposing within her earshot, Halani had cried with laughter. At twelve years old, she hadn’t yet mastered the art of discretion. That slip had earned her a cuff to the side of the head and three weeks of laundry duty for the entire camp. Never again did she mock her uncle’s self-christened appellation. “Himself,” she said. “And he often lives up to the title.”
“He sounds charming.” Malachus shivered again. “My horse.”
“Safe in the camp and tended by a boy who’d rather spend time with animals than people. He’ll take good care of her. And Grecajin didn’t put you completely in penury with his late fees. You still have belshas. I’ve put them with your clothes.”
The tension eased in his shivering frame. “You have my deepest gratitude. I would have dealt with the loss of all my belshas much easier than losing Batraza. She and I have traveled far together.”
Halani paused with her hand over the nearly dry water bowl. She had learned a little about this man since discovering him half dead not far from their camp—the strength in his body, the flow of his blood on her hands, the timbre of his magic in her soul. But she could only assume what might have landed him here under her care. “Why are people trying to kill you, Malachus?”
