by K. C. May
“My feet are fine. I need help with this.” Cirang lifted the hem of her tunic to show him the shard of stone buried in her skin. Blood oozed out around the edge, but not as much now as before.
“Hmmm,” Ondray said, clearly more intrigued than alarmed. “Bessa, dear, bring towels — as many as you can find. What’s your name, Lady Sister?”
“Cir- Serpentsbane,” she said, drawing on an old memory. “Agasa Serpentsbane.” Agasa was a childhood friend who’d been slaughtered by a snake-like beyonder. A friend for whom she’d vowed to get justice. The epithet was one she’d made up that day, when she set her sights on becoming a Viragon Sister.
From his satchel Ondray pulled a thin, rectangular wooden box. The carver within her scoffed at the simplicity of it, but when Ondray opened it by sliding the top along its length until it was free, Cirang had to admire the design. Ondray took a round spool of thick brown thread from the box and slid the lid back into place. He unrolled about two feet of thread and used his teeth to sever it from the spool. Next, he pinched one end between his fingers, making the fibers stick together. He then alternately held the end in the flame of a candle and rolled it with his fingers. She could see it was becoming stiffer and sharper, like the fine point of a needle. With one last dip into the flame, he held it up and blew on it, dissipating the wisp of smoke that trailed upward. “Here we are. Now, Agasa, I need to lay you down so I can work. Come with me.” He offered a hand to help her stand, and she took it, groaning once more from the pain as she stood. Ondray led her to a bed in an adjoining room and helped her lie down, picking up her feet and swinging them up onto the mattress so she didn’t have to tax her abdominal muscles.
Bessa bustled into the room with an armload of towels and let them fall onto Cirang’s legs. “These were all the clean ones we have.”
“That should do,” Ondray said. “Let’s lift your shirt and remove your corset.”
Cirang lifted the tunic up to her armpit and began to unlace her corset. When it was free, Ondray carefully lifted the corset’s fabric over the shard and laid it aside, revealing her right tit. He was unflustered as he casually pulled her shirt back down to cover her breast.
“There we are. I’ll need you to hold your right arm up over your head. Do you think you can hold a towel for me?”
She snorted. “Of course. I walked for hours with one boot and a rock lodged in my side. I think I can manage that.”
“What else do you need, dear?” Bessa asked.
“A pail of clean water, please. That should do it,” Ondray said. While she was gone, he inspected the wound. “A landslide, you say?”
“Yeh. My horse stumbled. Next thing I knew, the whole damned mountain was coming down on top of me.”
“You got pretty scraped up. Your face, here on your abdomen, your arms. I’ll put some ointment on those to reduce the scarring.”
Cirang wasn’t concerned with beauty, but she remembered her own reaction when meeting Gavin Kinshield for the first time. Sithral Tyr had been repulsed by the disfiguring scar. If she had any hope of gaining people’s trust in Nilmaria, she would need to avoid any physical blemishes that might prejudice the quirky people.
Bessa returned with a bucket and set it carefully by her husband’s foot. “What should I do?”
Ondray gestured to the bed. “Be ready to hand me clean towels and rinse the bloody ones. Agasa, this is going to hurt. Take this and bite down.” He offered a leather disc to her lips.
She opened her mouth automatically to receive it. The taste of it, the feel of it between her teeth, sparked a memory of a time several years earlier when Tyr’s soul had been ripped from his body in a Nilmarion ceremony. It rivaled his death and Cirang’s for the most painful thing she’d ever experienced. She spit the disc out. “No. I— I don’t need it.”
Ondray raised his bushy, gray eyebrows at her and shrugged. “Suit yourself. All right, take this towel and be ready to press it hard into the wound. Bessa, I’ll need you to wipe away the blood with a wet cloth where I’m working. Try to keep it clean as I stitch.” She dipped a cloth into the bucket and wrung out the excess water. “I’ll count to three and then pull it out. Ready?”
Cirang nodded.
“One... two... three.” He yanked the stone shard out. Pain burst in her side, and she gasped. “Push!” He stuffed the cloth she was holding into the wound, which only intensified the pain. “Wipe it.”
Cirang shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, though a groan gurgled in her throat. She felt a slight pinch and pull, pinch and pull. Occasionally Ondray asked for a new cloth or a wipe, but she tried to focus her thoughts on what she planned to do next: find some way to distribute the wellspring water, create a roadblock for Kinshield, hide the journal, and get the hell out of Thendylath.
“There we are,” Ondray said, dabbing at her wound with a wet cloth. “Wash it twice a day, and if you can stand it, dribble spirits on it. After a fortnight, cut the threads and pull them out. And try not to fall down a mountain or do anything strenuous for the next few weeks.”
“Hah. Aren’t you the comedian.”
Bessa handed Cirang a cup of water, which she guzzled, relishing the cool, refreshing liquid in her cottony mouth and throat. She checked the wound, closed with a dozen neat stitches. It looked as if it would hold. She swung her legs over and stood, letting the hem of her tunic fall into place. She’d wait until later to put the corset back on. “I could use something to eat. A piece of bread, if you’ve any extra.”
“Oh, Agasa,” Bessa said, “we can do better than a piece of bread. I’ve cooked a nice stew for supper. There’s a bowl or two left over. Let me get it for you.” She patted Cirang’s shoulder. “We’ll have you good as new.”
Cirang sat at their table and ate their food that tasted like what her own mother used to cook. Anything cooked with care would taste like heaven compared to the bland slop she’d been given in gaol or the dried rations Kinshield had fed her. She ate every drop of the stew and mopped the bowl clean with a piece of soft, fresh bread. When she was finished, she pushed back from the table.
“Might you have an old pair of shoes I could buy?” she asked. “I’m in a hurry and can’t wait for a cobbler to make a new pair.”
“One minute,” Bessa said as she turned towards a shoe rack near the door. “I’ve some boots that rub my feet wrong. Perhaps they’ll fit you better.” She took a pair of dusty, knee-high boots and brought them over. For a second, Cirang wondered whether the woman was going to lift Cirang’s feet and put them on for her as if she were a toddler. “Try these on.”
Cirang removed the wrapping from her right foot and slid the boot on. “It’s a little big on me, but they’ll do.”
“Then they’re yours,” Bessa announced with a smile. “Though we’ve a king now, we wouldn’t have been as well off without the service of the Viragon Sisterhood and the warrant knights all these years. Ondray and I like to help when we can.”
Cirang put the other boot on, stood and walked around a bit. They weren’t as stiff as she’d have liked, but they would get her to Nilmaria. There would be time then to have a new pair made. She went to pick up her knapsack. With dry boots on her feet, she could use the night to increase her distance from her pursuers. There was likely a road from this house to Ambryce, so she wouldn’t have to stumble along the riverbank. If the couple had horses, they would make do with one fewer. She put her right foot on the chair and began to strap on the dagger sheath.
“She hasn’t thanked us for any of it,” Bessa whispered to her husband loudly enough for Cirang to overhear. “A little courtesy wouldn’t hurt, after all we’ve done.”
Cirang smirked. Why should she thank them? Gratitude was a ridiculous emotion that served no purpose other than to promote goodwill. Because she’d never see these people again, she didn’t see the point in nurturing a relationship with false praise and gratitude.
“Leaving so soon?” Ondray asked.
“Yeh. If anyone stops to as
k—” It occurred to her that, although she’d given the couple a false name, Kinshield would ask about her by description. Learning from them when she was here, when she left, and her physical condition would give him an advantage. That was, if there were anyone here to tell him.
She drew the dagger and spun. Ondray was closer. She punched the knife once through his throat and once into his belly, and turned to Bessa before he was even dead on the floor. Her eyes were wide, but she barely had time to inhale for a scream, much less get an arm up to block a blow. Cirang sliced across Bessa’s throat to loose a spray of blood. Its warmth spattered her face and hand. She stepped out of its path and around the woman’s body, and then stabbed her in each kidney.
Cirang bent over, clutching her stitched ribcage. The exertion had drained the last of her strength, and she realized what she needed was a good night’s sleep. No, Kinshield will find me, a small voice in her mind told her. Not if she darkened the house as if no one were home. Perhaps, if luck were with her, he would pass by the house while she slept.
She took a moment to sit and rest. Only the sound of her own heavy breathing broke the silence of the house. The two bodies lay askew but with their hands entwined. How sweet, she thought wryly. They’d reached for each other as they lay dying.
She lifted the gray rug and pulled the ring on the cellar’s hatch. It opened with a creak. Though she was tempted to hunt around for anything useful down there, she didn’t want to climb up and down the ladder and chance ripping more stitches. She pressed one hand to her wound to keep from taxing it while with the other she dragged the bodies to the edge and rolled them in with a push of her foot. They thudded on the cellar floor, and she closed the hatch and covered it back up. The blood on the floor would just have to wait.
She returned to the room where the surgeon had stitched her wound, wet a cloth and used it to clean her face and hands, wiping carefully around the self-inflicted wounds in her hand. They’d opened a little while she was stabbing, and she didn’t want the dead people’s blood mixing with hers. She should have had him stitch the worst of those cuts while he was at it.
There on the floor was the shard Ondray had removed from her ribcage. She rinsed it off in the bucket and examined it. It was about two inches long and triangular. One of those inches had been buried inside her. Surprisingly, it hadn’t punctured her lung. She’d keep it as a reminder of her adventure. It would make a good conversation piece.
Damn it, she thought, looking down at herself. Some blood had gotten on her tunic, and she’d ripped up her spare for bandages. She searched the house, opening chests and drawers and armoires until she found a couple of shirts that suited her. One was plain white and buttoned down the front; the other was a pullover tunic in the style she preferred. This would do for now. She pulled off her boots and clothes, threw the bloody shirt in the corner and extinguished the lamps and candles. She lay on the bed with her hands clasped over her full and naked belly.
For the first time in three months, her dreams were pleasant and her sleep restful.
Chapter 32
To the south, the Flint River originated at the bottom of a series of waterfalls from high atop the mountain. During the spring, it ran fast and cold from the snow runoff. This time of year, the water level should have been fairly low and the current gentle, but the rain had swollen it to overfull. The roar of the river was deafening.
As Gavin and his companions traveled down the riverbank, they followed a pair of foot-sized puddles led downstream. Despite Gavin’s glowing light ball, the tracks became harder to discern as night fell, looking like every other puddle along the water’s edge.
“We’re all tired, and the horses need a rest,” he said. “Let’s stop here for the night.”
They camped on a stretch of flat ground close enough to the forest to put up his lean-to. While Brawna undressed the horses and Daia hunted for firewood, both with the aid of a light ball, Gavin set out with his dagger for some fresh meat. With the help of his magic, he killed four rabbits with four throws and returned to camp with their meal.
“It’s not much, but we don’t have time to dress the elk I saw.”
“Or a way to haul the uneaten meat,” Daia said. “We’ll be in Ambryce tomorrow. We can make do until then.”
“I’ll dry the wood and you can skin these.” He tossed the rabbit carcasses one after another to Daia, who tried to wrangle them into her arms.
“Daia Saberheart, Rabbit Juggler,” Brawna said, as she gathered the empty waterskins.
Gavin laughed. Despite the young battler’s shyness, she charmed him. She looked for things to do rather than sit idly, and he appreciated that about her.
Daia skinned and gutted the rabbits. By the time they had the rabbits ready to cook, Brawna had returned with the filled waterskins and had brought two more armloads of firewood. Gavin used his magic to dry it and set it ablaze, and they cooked and ate the meat.
“Can you use your eye thing to find Cirang?” Daia asked. “It’d help to know how far away she is or whether Calinor and Vandra have found her.”
“Yeh,” Gavin said. He linked his haze with Daia’s and sent his hidden eye high overhead. It sped along the river, where he spotted Calinor and Vandra below. They, too, had stopped for the night, but oddly, their hazes were one atop the other, rather than side by side. It almost looked like they were— Oh! Gavin thought. They were. Though he was intrigued by the way the two hazes blended with each other near the edges, he didn’t want to invade their privacy, and so he sent his hidden eye farther downstream. Some distance away, perhaps a couple hours’ ride from Calinor and Vandra, he came upon the unmistakably dark, turbulent haze of the kho-bent battler inside a building.
Judging from the way it hovered in one spot, he guessed Cirang was asleep in someone’s house. The hazes of two horses were in a nearby barn. Had she found a vacant house? People didn’t generally travel without their horses. He hoped to hell she hadn’t murdered the owners.
If only he had a way to communicate with Vandra and Calinor at this distance, he could tell them to stop at that house. Perhaps they would, if only to ask the residents if they’d seen their black-haired fugitive.
He pulled his hidden eye back to his body’s present location. “Yeh, I seen her.” He described what he’d seen to the others, leaving out the intimacy between the former Viragon Sister and his longtime friend. If their relationship extended beyond physical gratification, it would be up to them to announce it or not. Gavin found himself hoping Calinor was of a mind to settle down with one woman, whether it was Vandra or another. He deserved to find the happiness a family would bring.
They rolled out their bedrolls and lay down. It was a quiet night, and no one spoke much. Gavin suspected he knew where their thoughts were, and voicing the same questions over and over would do them no good. Only answers would satisfy them now.
He dozed for a few hours, though he never fell into a deep enough slumber to dream. He awoke with a worry he couldn’t explain: Vandra and Calinor were in danger.
“Daia,” he whispered.
Always on alert, she sat up with a start and looked around. “What’s wrong?” Her hand reached automatically for her sword.
“Nothing. I need your skill for a minute.”
“Oh,” she said quietly, lying back down. “You don’t have to ask every time. If you need it, take it. Consider it yours to use as you will.”
“I didn’t want to do it while you were asleep. That seems wrong.”
She smiled. “You might not be the most refined man I’ve ever met, but deep down, you’re still a gentleman. Go ahead. I’ll stay awake.”
Once connected with her power, he sent his hidden eye to where he’d seen Vandra and Calinor earlier, but they weren’t there. He found them making their way downstream, walking by the glow of the setting Moon towards the house where Cirang slept. An uneasy feeling twisted his gut. He tried to tell himself they would surprise her, but he couldn’t shake the notion something
bad was about to happen.
“Oh, hell,” he said, climbing to his feet. “Let’s go. Vandra and Calinor are almost there.”
Chapter 33
A noise brought Cirang out of a dream and fully alert. At first, she thought it was a nightmare that had stirred her. She heard a board creak, not like the settling of a house, but more like the settling of a foot upon the floor, accompanied by a soft jingle. Moonlight cast pale-blue light through the two windows in the great room. Quietly, she patted the mattress beside her, found the handle of the dagger and gripped it. Slowly, she sat up and then eased herself to her feet, careful not to make a sound.
“Hell’s teeth. There’s a lot o’blood here,” said a man in the other room.
“Be alert,” a woman said quietly. “The killer might still be here. I’m going to look down here.” The cellar hatch squeaked.
Footsteps approached slowly but heavily, their owner obviously not accustomed to being stealthy. Cirang sidled up to the wall and waited with her arse and shoulder blades against it, the doorway on her right. Her nakedness didn’t bother her — in fact, it made her quieter. As a Viragon Sister, she’d earned a reputation for recklessness in battle, and perhaps rashness, but now she also had Tyr’s confident calm. Her mind was especially alert and clear, as if she knew an instant in advance what would happen.
As the intruder neared, she could hear his heavy breathing. The smell of sweat, not entirely unpleasant, preceded him. His dark form, tall and broad, entered, sword raised in the right — and more distant — hand. She flipped the blade in her hand and thrust in a back-hand motion, felt the beard across her knuckles, felt the knife lag as it pierced his throat. She pulled it back out and cocked her elbow again for another strike.
Then she saw his face. It was Calinor, the ’ranter who hunted Tyr for years. He’d come close to catching him a time or two, and he had no intention of letting Tyr off with a brand on his forearm. At last we meet again, just in time to say good-bye.
