Magic flared again, and the arrow curved away from the witch. Galya looked over her shoulder, up the cliff and straight at Aryal, her expression filled with surprise, then contempt.
Beyond the witch, blazing in light and blackness, Quentin fell to his knees.
The spongy finger in Aryal’s head pointed to a new placard.
Lose-lose.
She went to a place inside of herself where she had never been before, a place that even she recognized was insane.
That’s okay.
She nodded. Shook her head. Nodded. She turned and jogged away.
When she reached the tree line, she pulled her short sword, turned around again and ran at the bluff, pushing as hard as she could to hit her maximum speed. As she reached the edge of land, she lunged into the air, shapeshifted and spread out her maimed, half-healed wings.
Searing pain ripped through her.
She couldn’t fly, and she couldn’t glide, but she could work on directing her descent. So that’s what she did.
That’s okay, bitch.
Repel this.
Galya had turned back to Quentin for one critical moment. The harpy smiled as she plummeted down, her body listing crookedly. When all was said and done, her life might come down to this: she was just broken enough to fall in exactly the right way.
When the witch caught sight of her, Galya had no time to cast another spell. There was one bittersweet moment when Galya’s expression flared with astonishment and the beginning of fear. She opened her mouth to scream.
Aryal slammed into Galya, driving her into the sand. They landed badly in a tangle.
Things snapped inside of her, explosions of more searing pain in the ruins of her internal landscape. Her breath came in on a high thin whine.
Blackness surrounded her as shadow wolves attacked. Even more pain flared as the first one sank its teeth into her shoulder. She shrieked and convulsed into a shapeshift, reverting to her human form that wore the Elven armor just in time before the others arrived. Some hung by their teeth off the Elven armor. A few burrowed in between the plates, looking to chew through the armor’s fastenings.
None of it mattered as her attention narrowed to accomplishing one thing. The only way to stop her now would be to kill her.
Galya moaned as she tried weakly to pull herself out from underneath Aryal’s body. Clearly the witch was hurt, but she wasn’t hurt badly enough, as she gathered her Power to throw another spell.
Aryal punched her in the face. The witch’s gathering Power splintered. Bone crunched as the witch’s head rocked back, and blood spurted from her mouth and nose. It felt so necessary, Aryal punched her again. Vaguely she realized that crazypants had taken charge of the fight.
The two blows alone might have killed the human, but the shadow wolves still swirled around her, and crazypants was determined to be thorough. She saw her short sword lying tilted in the sand a few feet away, along with her abandoned bow. She crawled to the sword and grabbed it. Something was wrong with her hand. It wouldn’t close around the hilt properly. It was almost too difficult to crawl back to the witch’s sprawled body, but she managed it.
The largest shadow wolf lunged desperately at her arm as she raised the sword, but the Elven armor held against his gnashing teeth.
She plunged her sword into Galya’s chest.
Multiple screams echoed in her head. All the shadow wolves snapped out of existence.
Crazypants pulled out the sword and stabbed the witch again. She said hoarsely, “That’s for what’s-her-name who died in prison because you put her there.”
And again. “That’s for Quentin, who better not be dead.”
And again and again and again, driving the sword into the body as her breath sawed raggedly. She raised and angled the sword, and in one wide sweep that set her overstrained back ablaze with agony, she cut off Galya’s head. Then she picked the head up by the hair and flung it into the water. “That’s for me and each one of my wings, you fucked-up, perforated bitch.”
Somewhere nearby, someone coughed, a deep hacking sound.
Quentin said in a hoarse, unrecognizable voice, “Remind me to never piss you off so badly.”
He seemed to pause to think about that. Or maybe he was just gathering his strength so that he could utter another word.
“Again.”
Quentin lay on his back. He had no idea his body was capable of producing so much pain.
He felt like he was still on fire, all across his chest and shoulder and up one side of his face. Even his lungs felt burned, and he couldn’t see out of one eye.
All told, he was pretty happy. He hadn’t thought he was going to survive.
Movement drew his attention. He rolled his head to one side and squinted as Aryal crawled lopsidedly toward him. One of her legs dragged uselessly behind her, and she was drenched in blood. She collapsed in a huddle beside him.
He coughed again. Red stars bloomed at the back of his eyes with every excruciating hack. “Any of that blood yours?”
“No,” she said. “Not much, anyway. But I’m broken up six ways to Sunday.”
“All you still got is bitching and moaning?” he said. “You’ll live, sunshine.”
And thank all the gods for that. When he had seen her throw herself off the bluff, he felt as if his brain might rupture and leak out his ears. He dragged his hand across the sand toward her. Her fingers closed over his.
“And you?” she asked urgently. “You look really bad, but you’re no longer glowing in the dark. That’s good, right? Tell me that’s good.”
Galya had thrown a corrosive spell. At first he had been able to block it, but it had eaten through both the armor and his defenses before he could neutralize it. Dizzy and lightheaded, he tried to cough again and whispered, “There’s something wrong with my lungs.”
Fear strangled her voice. “I had to jump overboard and swim too, and I forgot to grab my bag with the food and the healing potion. Where’s yours?”
“End boat, first pier.”
His pain was receding, along with consciousness. He wondered if he was going to wake up again. Whatever the reality would be, he was glad it had held off so he could party a little bit.
Although he would have preferred something booked at Sardi’s, with Aryal on his arm—okay, at his side—and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Maybe if he lived, he could talk her into wearing a miniskirt if she paired it with a switchblade and combat boots. One corner of his mouth tried to lift up. Be worth that fight to look at her killer legs and anarchistic smile. Damn, she was a hell of a ride.
He squeezed her fingers and fell into darkness.
Liquid gold trickled down his raw, burned throat. He swallowed reflexively once, twice, then erupted into coughing, and that hurt so bad it brought him back awake.
“Goddammit,” somebody said miserably. “It’s all about you again, isn’t it? Wake up and drink this right now, do you hear me? I hurt so bad, and I’m so tired, and all I want is another hug from you, AND YOU CAN’T DIE ON ME, QUENTIN, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE THE FINAL FUCKING STRAW! I SCREWED UP MY WINGS EVEN MORE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE, YOU ROTTEN SON OF A BITCH. PARAGLIDING IS A STUPID IDEA, AND I’M DONE, I’LL BE SO DONE IF YOU DIE! DONE!”
It was definitely something, to have a harpy throw a screaming shit fit in your face. Just about enough to wake the dead. Her powerful lungs drove each word like a railroad spike into his head. It was like the worst hangover ever times a thousand.
He whispered, “I know I’ve already bought you, but do you by any chance come with a snooze button?”
“Shut up,” she sniveled. “You suck. Drink the rest of this.” Her ragged breathing sounded in his ear as she lifted his head with one trembling hand and nudged his lips with the rim of a small bottle.
Half-conscious as he was, he still remembered how precious that bottle was, and he closed his lips firmly around it so that none of the liquid could escape. She tilted the bottle, and he drank the contents
down.
Power glided into his body and started to supernova. She held another bottle to his mouth, and he drank that too, then a third, as quickly as he could just before an upsurge of pain hit.
It ran over him like a steamroller, the Power of the healing potions working through his body to repair extensive damage. It might save his life if it didn’t kill him first. His lungs felt like they had been pumped full of napalm, and he arched his back as he struggled to breathe. For years afterward, he would wake up from nightmares of drowning and suffocation.
Aryal bent over him, supporting him as best she could with one arm as she laid her cheek against his good one, whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t fight so hard, it’ll pass in a moment. It’s going to be okay.”
Shuddering, he concentrated on the sound of her voice until finally the pain began to recede, and he sagged against her. His lungs still felt raw and tender, but he no longer felt like he was smothering.
Vision began to return to his healing eye, and as he looked up at her, she came halfway in focus. At some point she had ditched her breastplate, and he rested against her torso. Her gaze was hollowed out again, and she looked beyond exhausted. Her sleeveless tunic was torn, and she was filthy, sandy and still covered in blood. Underneath the blood at her shoulder, her skin looked purple with a gigantic bruise.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said.
Her eyebrows rose as she gave him the ultimate in skeptical looks. “You need more healing potion,” she told him. She picked up another small bottle and raised it to her mouth to bite out the cork.
He grabbed her wrist. “Wait, how many was that again? We only had five each.”
“I drank one. One of the shadow wolves tagged me and I wouldn’t stop bleeding,” she said. Her voice was beginning to slur. “I had to set my broken leg first. Nothing I could do about the wings. They’re so messed up, just, whatever.”
The exhausted hopelessness in that made his heart constrict. She had taken so much damage, one potion would have barely taken the edge off of it, just enough to start the healing process again on that bite wound. “You need that one too.”
“No.” She bit out the cork. “You do, because you’re the one-trick pony guy, right? You get better, and then you can help me.”
She made sense. As he got stronger, he could help her with at least some basic healing. Reluctantly he let go of her wrist. “Yeah, okay.”
She held the bottle up to him, and he drank. Fiery pain started to build again, as the Power in the potion forced injuries to heal. Healing potion could only do so much. The rest was up to the body’s resources, but it could sometimes mean the difference between life and death, and it was a strong step forward.
“So you’re alive now,” Aryal mumbled. “Okay then.”
Her arm loosened from around him, and he caught himself on one elbow as he spilled out of her hold. He twisted around to find that she had slumped over in the sand.
His overworked heart thumped. He reached to check her pulse, and while it raced too fast, it beat strongly against his fingers. Relief spun in his head. This trip had aged him something like twenty years.
He looked down her sprawled body and around at the surrounding area. She had maneuvered to the pier and found his longbow too, along with his supply sack, and she had splinted one of her legs with the wood from their longbows, tying them with the bowstrings. The length of wood was much too long for her leg, and she had drawn crazy patterns in the sand as she worked back to his side.
The kind of passion and determination that took made the back of his eyes smart. He had no words for what he saw.
No words, except: “I think you might be both my suicide and my salvation.” And he needed her for both. “I love you like a heart attack, woman.”
She didn’t reply. She was out cold. He turned onto his uninjured side and curled around her, blood, filth, sand and all, and then somebody must have shot out his headlights inside because darkness slammed down on him again.
The sun woke him. He didn’t want it to. He covered his head with one arm and drifted for a while, but then it got too fierce. Finally he sat up to look around.
The fucked-up, perforated bitch’s body still lay sprawled on the sand where Aryal had left it. Several feet away her head bobbed at the edge of the shoreline. A single bark of laughter burst out of him at the gruesome sight. It hurt so much that he stopped. It wasn’t funny anyway.
He bent over Aryal, gently pushing her bloody hair back from her face. Her pulse had slowed to a less alarming pace, and it still beat steadily. The sun had already started to turn her pale skin pink.
It was his turn now to deal with things. He managed to get up on his knees, then to his feet. Part of him was wild to get out of his own armor, but as he looked down at the half-melted mess at his chest, he knew that was going to hurt like a son of a bitch. So first things first.
His supply sack lay beside her, along with all the scattered, empty bottles that had held the healing potion. Okay, there was food in that sack, and hopefully the brandy bottle hadn’t broken. Day was looking up. He limped to the last boat on the pier to retrieve the wineskin of water. Now for shelter. He looked in the boats until he found a folded canvas sail. Then he walked back to Aryal, dragging the sail behind him.
Jamming their swords tip first into the sand on either side of her, he took one end of the sail and draped it across the hilts so that the top half of Aryal’s body lay in shade.
“I am a goddamn genius,” he told her. The cry of seagulls answered him.
After he took two swallows of water, he knelt and lifted her head to moisten her lips with a small trickle. Then he stopped the wineskin and sprawled beside her, half in the shade. He would work off the armor after a little rest. Just needed to close his eyes for a few minutes.
He found one of her hands and laced his fingers through hers.
This time when the darkness sucked him down, it was mingled with peace.
This time he dreamed he was in a sauna. Galya’s severed head sat on the bench and sneered at him. She tried to convince him that he wanted to become her shadow panther, and he kicked her into a corner, which was against sauna rules, and somebody started tapping on the door in reprimand, and that pissed him off so much he woke with a start.
Overhead, the edge of the sail flapped rhythmically in a steady breeze that blew off the water. The sun had begun its descent in the sky. They had slept the day away.
Alarmed, he sat quickly, ignoring the twinge of protest in his sore muscles and in the giant scabs at his chest, shoulder, neck and face. He hadn’t meant to rest that long.
His injured eye had gummed up, but when he eased it open with a thumb and forefinger, he was profoundly relieved to discover that his sight had almost returned to normal. Hopefully the rest of that damage would heal over the next couple of days.
Turning, he bent over Aryal’s still form. Was she sleeping—or unconscious? It was past time that she got more healing herself. Gently he felt down her body. Broken leg, cracked ribs, severely sprained wrist that was now so swollen he couldn’t wrap his fingers around it. He lifted up the bottom of her tunic and was horrified to discover that the blackened contusion at her shoulder continued down the entire length of her torso. From the size of it at the edge of her trousers, it probably went down the length of her leg as well.
What the hell happened to her? Was that all from her fall from the bluff? And there were her wings to consider as well. She had taken damage on top of damage.
I’m broken up six ways to Sunday, she had said.
He rubbed the back of his head. The one-trick pony could only do so much, and he didn’t know enough about the healing arts to know if he would hurt her even more by healing whatever had happened to her unseen wings. Caerreth had been right. When an injury was severe enough, as in her crushed carpal joint, sometimes a simple healing spell just fused the damage together.
But he had to start somewhere. He just had to keep it localized. First h
e worked on her leg, pouring the healing spell over the femur to ensure the break had fused. Then he worked on her wrist. As his Power reduced the swollen flesh, he ripped a length off the edge of the sail so that he could wrap it. That joint was going to need some support as it finished healing.
Next he turned his attention to her cracked ribs, placing a hand along the curve of her torso. He had barely begun when she took his wrist. “Stop,” she croaked.
Blood had dried all over her, so that she was almost unrecognizable. He scowled. “No.”
“It’s too much. You can’t spare the strength.”
“I can spare it. Just a little more.”
“Everything always has to be a fight with you,” she grumbled.
He cocked an eyebrow incredulously at her but didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply. Instead, sensing how her stressed, injured flesh soaked up the healing like a sponge, he eked out a little more Power before he had to concede that he was tapped, and he had to stop.
She struggled to sit up, and he slipped his good arm underneath her shoulders to help. Her arms slipped around his waist, and they ended up simply leaning against each other. He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and held her carefully.
After a while she reached for the wineskin of water, and when she drank her fill, he did the same. The skin was nearly empty when he had finished. He stoppered and shook it. “Gonna have to deal with that issue soon.”
“There’ll be fresh water at the top of the bluff.” She eyed the path tiredly. “We just have to get up there.”
“One step at a time.” He dug in the sack and pulled out wayfarer bread. The apple brandy bottle hadn’t broken. Fuck yeah. They ate slowly and took sips of the brandy as they watched the sunset. He said, “If I don’t see another wafer of wayfarer bread for a hundred years or so, I’ll be okay with that.”
She nodded as she looked around, and he did too. The current had washed Galya’s head onto the beach beside the nearest pier. A few minutes later, she said as she chewed, “I like to see her rotting.”
She sounded so peaceful. He snorted, which didn’t hurt quite as badly as it had before. He told her about his dream, and she gave him a dark look that was almost laughter. Of course, that also meant he had to tell her what the shadow wolf had told him, and she paled underneath the coat of her grime.
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