His Ele source was beside him, hovering over him, and he politely asked the primal energy undulating behind it to respond to his call.
“Good, Raimie!” Bright said. “Now, direct it to your leg.”
His leg. Which one, and where exactly on it?
“No, not both. The right one.” Dim took over instruction. “The spot of frost below your waist. It may have turned tingly or numb.”
Yes, yes! Of course, it should go there! If he could wrap the spot of death in his wash of life, he could rise and go home. He wanted to see Ren…
Shooting to his hands and knees, Raimie gasped like a beached fish. The song fled from him, leaving a faint tinge of melancholy in its wake. Weakness hovered over his every action, but he was able to stand and limp the way he’d come.
“You smothered me,” Nylion muttered as Raimie haltingly climbed through the window. “You almost blocked me from our mind.”
I… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I…
“You were dying. And so was I. Let’s forget it happened.”
Nylion spent the rest of the trip supporting him with encouragement and love, his companionship leaving a path of warmth behind them. Raimie left a trail of blood in his wake to be scoured from the earth by the hurricane’s ferocity.
He chuckled before hissing at the sting in his chest. The storm didn’t care that three hundred years ago, a seer had foreseen him defeating Doldimar. It couldn’t be bothered to learn that the man beneath its fury had survived attacks from an Eselan who’d been ally and from an Enforcer. It couldn’t care less about the atrocities Doldimar had perpetrated. It merely followed Mother Nature’s directive, producing massive amounts of wind and rain and using the force of its gales to shoot twenty-two-year-old dual primeancers with pebbles before dispassionately departing. It was enough to make anyone feel insignificant.
“Your Majesty!” a faint voice yelled in a break between gusts.
One of his soldiers braved the fierce weather to trot to him. “How did it go?” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Is the tear-?”
Raimie threw an arm around the man’s shoulders, shifting his weight to him. “Take me to Little,” he gasped.
Despite his surprise, the soldier followed orders, summoning a comrade to support Raimie’s other side. They stumbled through a mostly intact building’s doorway, and he reclaimed his arms.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Through there, Your Majesty,” one answered, pointing to an empty doorway on the left. “Are you sure you don’t need-?”
“I’m fine!” Raimie snapped, advancing in the indicated direction with his bad leg dragging.
“You’re not fine,” Bright started.
“Shut up, Bright!” Raimie grunted. “I gave the two of you one job. Watch my back. Look how well that went.”
The splinters shrank to the side just as Raimie tripped, grabbing a door frame for support.
Little glanced up from where he carefully devised a missive, his body shielding the parchment from the rain and a glass bottle at his feet. The knife he’d twirled around his fingers thumped to the grass.
“Alouin, sir, you look awful! What happened?” he asked.
Raimie dragged his now unresponsive leg into view, but that tilted him too far. He lost his balance. At least he hit cushioning grass rather than stone when he landed this time.
“Shit! Dieldrenil, run and find Korlatry,” Little shouted. “Orlanon, I need your belt. We need a much better tourniquet.”
Weakly rolling to his back, Raimie spat dirt from his mouth. Little had already gone to his knees beside his charge.
“Don’t bother,” Raimie said when he'd cleared his mouth. “Get me to Qena and Khel as quickly as possible. I’m staving off the injury’s effects as best I can, but I’m not sure how much longer I can last.”
“If we don’t properly apply a tourniquet, sir, you will bleed out on the journey,” Little argued. “I’m not sure how you haven’t already.”
Snatching the spy’s collar with its double barred captain’s emblem, Raimie dragged him closer. “Little. Primeancer.” Pointing at his chest, he grimaced, releasing his hold.
“If you insist, sir,” Little agreed. “Orlanon, belay the previous order. Tell the men to prepare for a hasty retreat. I’ll need volunteers to carry the King.”
“I can walk,” Raimie weakly protested.
“Respectfully, sir, shut up. You look like death warmed over. If you want to reach Qena as soon as possible, you ride on your men’s shoulders.”
“Fine,” Raimie thought he mumbled, but he didn’t hear the word spoken.
Something repeatedly impacted his cheek, and Little shouted. Beside the spy, Raimie’s splinters stood in sharp relief against the steadily fading background.
“To stay alive, all you must do is maintain your hold on Ele,” Bright informed him.
“And to do that, you must remain awake,” Dim added.
Even they soon faded to fuzzy blobs, but Raimie didn’t allow sleep to take him any further. For an indeterminable length of time, he balanced that knife’s edge, clinging to the bundle of life around his wound. The one which steadily eroded beneath the pressure of death against which it guarded.
The rumbling of a beloved voice added to the muffled noises around him.
“Hold on a little longer for me, Raimie,” Kheled’s strained voice echoed. “Please, my friend.”
Kheled asked the impossible. He fought with the dregs of his strength, but almost immediately after hearing his friend’s words, the long resisted, crushing wave of darkness crashed down on him.
* * *
When he heard shouts, Kheled assumed someone new had joined the crowd of disgruntled Qenans outside the inn. He was almost impressed with their dedication, given the constant downpour which had started after he’d returned to the town. The villagers hadn’t been happy to learn he and Raimie planned to take two of their youngest away from their families. If Kheled was forced to listen to one more accusation of kidnapping, he was liable to wind up in a fistfight. Feet pounded on the stair, and he prepared to once more listen to the Qenans’ understandable fears.
His room’s door flung open, but instead of eccentric scientists, a host of soldiers spewed inside. Kheled’s heart seized up. Streaming rainwater, five of them lugged a delirious Raimie to lay on the bed.
Blood soaked his friend’s right leg from hip to ankle, a chit sized hole gouged through the medial of his thigh. It was so clean of a through and through Kheled could see a sliver of blanket on the other side of the exposed muscle, tissue, and nicked artery.
Kheled’s body and mind froze at the sight of that clipped blood vessel, the source of the sticky red liquid coating his friend. He’d treated injuries in the past where that artery had been punctured. The victim never lasted long, despite his best efforts, but where blood should spurt in gushing splashes from the gash, only a slow drizzle dripped.
Two things slowed the flow of Raimie’s life from the wound, one being the cinched belt wrapped around his thigh, the other being the faint Ele glow swirling around the wound.
Kheled would rather the interruption had been another irate parent.
Little clutched his shoulder, breaking his shocked stare. “Save him!” the spy demanded, eyes frenetic.
“Clear the room, people!” Kheled bellowed, holding Little’s gaze. “You stay. I may need help.”
The room emptied of soldiers even faster than it had filled.
“Get my cloak,” Kheled snapped at his new assistant. “I’ll need my supplies.”
While the spy’s back was turned, Kheled knelt beside the bed and tried to Let Go, to allow the flood of Restoration which regularly beat against his control to flow free, but something or someone blocked him.
“The hell, Creation?” he murmured. “This too?”
“You don’t need Ele to fix him,” was all the splinter would give him.
Biting back a scream, Kheled transitioned into healer mode. Raimi
e was no longer a friend, simply a patient who required treatment. Little dropped his cloak beside him.
“I’ll need a clean bottle of the tavern’s strongest alcohol, the sheets from next door, and a basin of water,” Kheled added to the list, and Little scurried off.
Before he could completely disappear, he stopped the spy with a harsh demand for the shears lying on the side table beside the door, and Little obligingly tossed the pair to him.
While he waited, Kheled carefully cut a stiff pant leg from Raimie’s leg. He rifled through his cloak’s pockets for his tiniest sutures and strings as well as a clamp. The healing supplies hadn’t been utilized in a while, and Kheled had forgotten in which pocket he’d stored what.
Pounding feet announced Little’s return, and Kheled moved to give the spy his spot at center stage.
“Clean the skin around the wound as best you can. Then, liberally irrigate it with alcohol,” Kheled instructed.
While the spy complied, he summoned fire from the hearth downstairs onto the only open-air candlestick in the room. Kheled wasn’t convinced that for his purposes, the enclosed, gas-fed lanterns populating the room would work as well as a clean, wax and wick candle. He used the flames to thoroughly heat his instruments. By the time he was finished, Little had wiped Raimie’s entire leg free of blood and stood ready for his next task.
“Your job is to keep my work space dry,” Kheled said, nodding to the wadded-up blankets.
When Little frantically nodded, Kheled knelt, ran alcohol over his hands, and reached into the wound. Treating an injury like this wasn’t particularly complicated, at least not the way he did it, but it wasn’t easy. First, the artery’s end closest to the heart was clamped to control further bleeding. Because the damage to the blood vessel was so slight, Kheled was able to suture the nick closed rather than searing it as a larger gash would require. He was almost finished when Raimie’s near-incessant mumbling broke off, leaving behind silence.
The patient couldn’t faint now. Ele was the only thing keeping Raimie’s heart from exsanguinating his body through the wound. Kheled had almost repaired the artery’s break, but a couple more sutures remained. If Raimie fell asleep and the backlog certain to accompany Ele’s departure was freed, blood flow’s pressure might ruin his hard work even with the clamp in place. He picked up the pace.
“Hold on a little longer for me, Raimie,” he said as he tied off a suture. One left. “Please, my friend.”
As he secured the last suture into place, white light fled from the injury, and Kheled hastily retrieved the clamp.
He nervously watched the artery bulge, certain one of his neat sutures would fail, but they held. Kheled slumped, massaging his shoulder.
“He’ll live,” he told an anxious Little.
“How do you know that?” the spy asked. “I can see into his leg!”
“Trust me. The dangerous part is over. Putting his thigh back together will be difficult, but it’s not dangerous.” Kheled smiled.
He hadn’t played healer in years, but damn, if his skills weren’t as sharp as they’d ever been. Cracking his knuckles, he reached for a needle. Time to sew up his patient.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Oswin was drained. He was always tired, had been since Aramar had dumped his spymaster responsibility on him thirteen years ago, but this was a deep, bone weariness which rode him like an equestrian in the saddle. He’d stacked the obligations too high, assumed too many burdens, and it was beginning to show.
Every morning, he used a flesh-toned powder to conceal the purple semi-circles under his eyes, and only yesterday, he’d found his first gray hair. He was just now nearing the end of his second decade! Worry about hair color wasn’t supposed to come for at least five more years!
At the moment, Oswin was in the midst of plodding through a two-foot-thick stack of paperwork. Empty bottles surrounded his chair. That none had broken was a wonder, considering how often he paced the room.
For the fourth time, he tried to read Little’s most recent report while treading a furrow in the floor behind his desk. The movement kept him awake and alert, but it did nothing to assist with keeping his mind on his reading material. His thoughts continually turned to his family.
To Thumb and Pointer, his brothers. They thought he didn’t know they were in a relationship, and Oswin didn’t plan to change their assumption. The two were professionals. They’d never allow their romantic entanglement to interfere with their duties, and it had been too long since either had been happy. Oswin wished them countless days of bliss.
To Little, his adopted son. Many were the days where Oswin alternated between blessing and cursing Lornilen’s parents for dropping their kid in his lap. With his easy understanding of people’s intentions and wishes, Little could be a boon. Many a spy would envy his gifts. He was also the only family member to retain the capacity for genuine empathy, identifying with others strongly enough to assume their identities if need be, but at times, Little could be a burden. The young spy refused to take his responsibilities seriously. Oswin was persistently hesitant to assign Little to the King’s protection. Not only did Raimie tend to dodge his bodyguards whenever he felt the need, but Little’s lackadaisical attitude allowed and encouraged such behavior. Someday, the spy’s flippancy would get him in tremendous trouble, and Oswin knew when that day came, he’d wonder if he could have done anything to prevent his son’s misfortune.
And to Ring. Of all the members of the Hand, she was the hardest to classify. When thinking of her, how did Oswin instinctually identify her role? Was she the mother of the family? His sister? His beloved? He kept the last categorization secret, tightly locked in his heart’s depths. Ring could never know how much he cared for her, else she fled the King’s Hand like a startled deer. In her lifetime, too many amorous men had caused Ring distress to contemplate adding another to the list. He wouldn’t trouble her, no matter how much he might want to share his feelings.
Distracting thoughts were proving obnoxious today. Oswin discarded Little’s report, hoping if he read something else, he’d regain his focus. Maybe then he could return to the young spy’s messy jumble of words with the attention required to comprehend it.
The report he next took up was from Pointer. As usual, the assassin had found no signs of Doldimar, not even a rumor of a whisper. Why the King insisted on searching for the Dark Lord, Oswin would never know. Raimie had made a reasonable supposition when he insisted Doldimar lurked somewhere, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike them down, but to think they could find him was folly. An incredibly powerful, Esela, Daevetch primeancer who’d lived at least two centuries had undoubtedly mastered the ability to stay hidden, but Oswin followed orders despite his objections. His unthinking obedience was one of the qualities which made him such a good spymaster. It was how he’d originally fallen into the posting.
“Have you finished, Oswin?” Master Aryntor asked. “At some point tonight, I’d like to go home and see my wife.”
“Yes, master!” he exclaimed. “Give me five more minutes, and I’ll understand how to replicate it.”
Aryntor grumbled his doubts, but the blacksmith left him to his work.
He hadn’t lied. He was so close to understanding the weapon’s inner workings he could taste it.
The pieces of the object they’d named ‘pistol’ spread across the table before him. He’d disassembled and reassembled it so many times now that he thought he could do it in his sleep, and the broad strokes of the pistol’s workings seemed relatively apparent, at least to him. The details were what continued to elude him.
How did the pin at the barrel’s end trigger the explosion which caused the pistol to fire?
The idea of an explosion wasn’t new to him. References to dynamite littered the obscure history books which predated the last primeancer calamity. Supposedly, those bundles had caused explosions devastating enough to destroy chunks of mountains, but they’d required an unknown ignition to blow. What was the
trigger for the far smaller explosion inside the pistol?
He lifted the last intact metal projectile for a closer inspection, flipping it over and over.
“Oswin, it’s been half an hour,” Master Aryntor said behind him.
“Goodness! I apologize, Master! The time-”
“Got away from you, I know,” Aryntor sighed. “Clean up and go home, kid. Lock up when you leave, and that had better be soon. So help me, if I find you here in the same clothes tomorrow morning…”
“Yes, Master!”
Aryntor stomped out the door. Alone once more, he quickly reassembled the pistol but hesitated before replacing the projectile. Perhaps revelation would strike if he viewed it in a different setting.
Pocketing the little metal chunk along with several other supplies, he left the workshop, using his key to lock the door behind him.
Mind too preoccupied with his current puzzle, he didn’t register the transition from the wealthy, noble’s district which surrounded the workshop to the sordid quarter within which he kept an apartment. The calls of scantily clad prostitutes went unheard, and belted drunken ditties went unnoticed. The only oddity to catch his attention was a spark coming from the hands of a rough man who leaned on a tavern’s doorframe, his friends surrounding him.
“What was THAT?” he asked, eagerly approaching. “Can you do it again?”
The man puffed on a pipe, speculatively eyeing him. “You’ve never seen a flint and steel striker?”
The rough man lifted metal wrapped knuckles and a gray stone, quickly knocking one against the other to create a brief flash of fire.
“Fairly common ‘round these parts, boy, where luxuries like gas lamps have yet to be implemented. Where are you from?”
“I work near the palace,” he answered. “How does it work? Does it need to be flint and steel to create such a reliable spark?”
“What are you, a pyro?” the rough man scoffed. “In any case, you should know we’ve a system down here. Information is bought and sold, and you’ve yet to pay me for the answer to your first question.”
A King's Caution Page 44
