Paladin’s Hope: Book Three of the Saint of Steel

by T. Kingfisher

  “I’m sure it can wait until—”

  “Sit.”

  Galen settled back into his seat and resigned himself to his fate.

  It was the better part of an hour before Piper certified him fit to leave, and had involved patching the slash on his arm as well, and slapping a dressing over it, despite Galen’s protests that he’d had worse, walked it off, and never had any problems.

  His bigger concern, honestly, was stiffness. Once the adrenaline of the fight and killing Thomas had worn off, he had been kneeling beside Piper for hours. His knee was swelling against the wrappings, and the bruise on his thigh was turning spectacularly blue. The longer he sat, the worse it was going to be. If I can just get on the road and start walking, at least I’ll shake some of that out. It was a brutally long trip, to be sure, but he’d done worse at forced march, and that had only been…what, eighteen years ago? Surely he was just as fit as he had been at nineteen. Yes. Definitely. And absolutely just as capable of going without sleep.

  He rose to his feet, stretched some of the soreness out, and turned to the hall. “Am I allowed to go now?”

  “Yes,” said Piper. “I should demand you sleep first, but I can’t.”

  “I know.” Galen put out his hand and cupped Piper’s jaw. The doctor’s already pale skin was nearly translucent with exhaustion, his eyes rimmed with red. Galen could see a blue vein beating in the hollow of the other man’s throat.

  He had a sudden urge to say something utterly mad, like, I love you. Which was absurd. They’d known each other for what, a few weeks? He couldn’t possibly have fallen in love. Merely because he is brave and clever and intensely passionate about the things that matter and laughs at your jokes and you laugh at his and he knows the worst about you and doesn’t think it’s all that impressive…no, for god’s sake, don’t start down that road. You don’t get to fall in love. That would be the worst thing you could do to him. You’re tired and maudlin and worried and you can’t screw his brains out so all that lust is finding ridiculous outlets. Stop worrying. You really are turning into Stephen.

  “I’ll come back to you,” he said instead. “I promise.”

  Piper closed his eyes and turned his cheek until his lips touched Galen’s fingers. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Galen turned to go and made it as far as the front door before it slammed open.

  Twenty-Six

  Three burly men wearing full battle armor rushed into the hall. Galen slapped for a sword that still wasn’t there, felt the tide rise, got as far as, Go for the first one, he’ll block the hall and you can use him for a shield—and then recognized Shane, Marcus and…”Jorge?”

  “Well, I couldn’t let these two come alone,” said the paladin of the Dreaming God. “You know how horses feel about berserkers. I was afraid that if something bad happened, they’d be stranded with no ride in the middle of nowhere and we’d have to send a second rescue mission out for them.”

  Shane and Marcus rolled their eyes. Of the seven broken paladins, Galen knew that they were the only two with a long history of riding. The others could ride a horse, more or less, if the horse was extremely calm and if the battle tide didn’t rise while on horseback, which was a recipe for disaster.

  “A gnole could have followed with an ox!” said an extremely indignant voice behind Jorge. “A gnole does not approve of being put on a horse in front of a human. A horse did not approve either.”

  “Has the threat been dealt with?” asked Shane.

  “I strangled him, if that’s what you mean.”

  Shane nodded. “Very well. I apologize for having rushed to your aid, in that case, but our gnole friend was most concerned—”

  “No, no.” Galen held up his hands. “Thank the gods you’re here. We very nearly didn’t make it. And Earstripe was badly injured and Piper doesn’t know how to treat gnoles. We need to get him to a gnole doctor as soon as possible.”

  Brindle shoved his way past the paladins, ears back. “A gnole is hurt?”

  Galen led the way into the parlor. Piper leapt up, startled, then sagged with relief. “Oh sweet Rat, Brindle, I was so worried.”

  Brindle flicked his ears. “A human warned me. A gnole thought it best to bring sword-humans. But a gnole is hurt?”

  Piper nodded. “And I don’t have my kit. I’ve got some headache powders from the back of the drawer, but I don’t know what’s in them. Even if I could find a local doctor, I don’t know what or how much to use compared to a human to keep his fever down.”

  Brindle put his nose next to Earstripe’s wound and sniffed. “Doesn’t smell rotten,” he said. “But too fresh to be sure.”

  Piper nodded. “Can your people tolerate willowbark? I could maybe boil some of that, although god knows what the dosage would be like.”

  Brindle shook his head. “Don’t know. Gnoles don’t use it.”

  “Damnation.”

  “Bad wound. Needs gnole medicine.” Brindle scowled. “Not bone-doctor’s fault. Gnole not human, human not gnole. Take a gnole to gnole-doctor, maybe a gnole gets better.”

  “A day long ride with a broken leg, though?” Piper grimaced. “I don’t know how many bone fragments are left in the wound. I’m afraid something will tear and he’ll bleed to death.”

  “If a gnole had an ox, a gnole wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “If you had an ox, he’d die of old age before we got back to the city,” said Shane.

  Galen turned to the other paladins, who were standing around awkwardly. “Can you get us to the river? If we can get him on a boat…”

  “Yes, of course,” said Marcus. “One of us can ride upstream and hire a boat. There must be a place to make landfall near here, so we can minimize banging the poor fellow around.”

  The door at the back of the parlor opened and Missus Hardy stumped in. “I heard voices—” she started to say, then stopped at the sight of the newcomers. “Mercy!”

  Galen didn’t blame her. Three paladins in full armor could really suck the air out of a room. It didn’t help that Jorge was a paladin of the Dreaming God and thus incredibly handsome. Shane was close, although he tried to hide it under a regrettable beard, and Marcus, the most normal-looking of the bunch, was still as broad as a barrel and muscled like a bear.

  “This is Missus Hardy,” said Galen, as all three of the paladins turned, reaching for their weapons. “She’s the housekeeper. We’d be in a world of hurt if not for her.”

  “Ah.” Shane took several steps forward and bowed deeply. “My thanks for what you have done for my brother in arms, madam.”

  “And mine,” said Jorge, pushing past him and taking Hardy’s hand in his. He bowed over it, because he was like that.

  A flush started to rise up the housekeeper’s neck. “Weren’t nothin’,” she mumbled.

  “She hit our captor over the head with a poker,” said Galen, “while he was holding a crossbow.”

  “Brave as well as beautiful,” said Jorge. Hardy had to clear her throat several times.

  “We think we have a plan to get out of your way,” said Galen, “but before we go—do you have somewhere to go?”

  “I’ll go to my daughter’s,” said Hardy gruffly. “Likely she’s been thinking I’m dead, for not having come home all this time. But I’ll explain.”

  “We’re getting those chains off first,” said Piper.

  “Chains?” All three paladins jerked upright, clearly horrified.

  Missus Hardy looked embarrassed. She lifted her skirt up to show the shackles, then dropped the hem quickly. “Don’t mean to complain,” she muttered.

  It was Marcus who stepped up to the rescue. “Those look like they’re locked with a pin mechanism,” he said. “If I can turn up a hammer and chisel, I’ll have them off you in a trice. Can you show me where they might be kept?”

  He led her away, talking soothingly. You’d never have known he had been a minor noble in his life before the death of the god, Galen thought. Then again, a few years wit
h the rest of us as berserker infantry and you probably get all the nobility knocked off you pretty quick.

  Jorge and Shane took themselves off on horseback to head upriver and find a boat, leaving Piper and Galen alone with the two gnoles.

  Galen began to say something, but was interrupted by a weak sound from Earstripe. All three of them dropped to their knees next to the couch.

  Earstripe muttered something in the liquid gnolespeech. Brindle responded. Galen couldn’t tell what he said, but it sounded reassuring.

  The injured gnole stirred and tried to lift his head, but Piper said, “No!” and held his shoulders. “Don’t move,” he said, in a gentler tone. “Please. You’re very weak from loss of blood and you don’t have the strength to spare.”

  Earstripe opened one eye, squinting against the light. “Alive?” he croaked.

  “Yes. We’re all three of us alive. And Brindle.”

  He pricked his whiskers forward and sagged back against the cushions.

  “Silly to lay straight,” muttered Brindle. “A gnole curls up. But no gnole beds here.”

  “We’ll get him to somewhere with proper gnole beds,” promised Galen. “Soon.” He glanced at Piper. “Is waking up a good sign?”

  “Yes, but not that good.” The doctor wrung his hands together. “The real enemy is the fever and infection. He’d almost certainly live through the injury, but bolts aren’t clean and there was cloth in the wound and even though we set the bone, it wasn’t in good shape and might heal wrong and…”

  “Twisting your whiskers, our bone-doctor,” said Brindle. “Bone-doctor did our best work, yeah?”

  Galen recognized the courtesy in the our pronouns the gnole was offering, even if it mangled the sentence a bit. “Piper did amazing work,” he said firmly. “He started treating Earstripe when it might have meant a bolt in the back. And he worked for hours.”

  “I did what I could, but if Earstripe lives, it’s entirely because of you, Brindle,” said Piper. “If you hadn’t gotten away and brought help, it would have been days before we could get him to a gnole doctor, and I might have poisoned him by accident.”

  Brindle flicked his whiskers and looked away, the gnole equivalent of an embarrassed shrug. “Chained-lady came and told a gnole to get away and bring help. A gnole would have been quicker, but didn’t know how dangerous a human was. Thought best to get sword-humans, not try to find local humans to help.”

  “I don’t know if it would have mattered if you were sooner,” said Galen. “Thomas would have denied everything, and if Missus Hardy wasn’t able to speak to them…” He shook his head. “Getting paladins was the best thing to do.”

  Piper rubbed his face. “I wonder how many people he killed?”

  “Six while I was here,” said Missus Hardy from the doorway. She limped in, leaning heavily on Marcus’s arm. Galen heard no clinking and guessed that Marcus had found a chisel after all. “He’d advertise for a clerk from the city, a young man who could do writing and figuring, for a project lasting a couple months. Room and board and enough money to make it look good, but not suspicious.” She scowled. “The master’d show them the maze, get them familiar with it, and then shut them in a few days later, and advertise again.”

  “And it’s a remote enough place in winter that nobody expected regular messages,” said Galen. “Dammit. It was a good plan. And explains the leather shoes, if they were clerks.”

  Missus Hardy nodded to him. “Somebody came looking for one of them, and the master said they’d never showed up and he was a bit sore about it. And I managed to warn one of the lads off, but the master locked my door at night, belike, and watched me close when they were about. Was lucky that he didn’t lock me in while you were here.”

  “Too many of us, I imagine,” said Galen. “He must have been afraid to do anything that might look strange for fear we’d get suspicious.”

  The housekeeper hung her head. “Should’ve told you right out,” she said. “With him in the room. But I didn’t know you, and didn’t know your people and I got scared.” She looked over to the couch. “Mebbe your friend wouldn’t be lying there if I had.”

  “You probably knocked that bolt askew with your poker,” said Piper, “and saved either my life or his. I don’t know how good a shot Thomas was, but I’d rather take a chance with a wild shot than an aimed one.”

  Missus Hardy grunted. She took a step, carefully, then a larger one. “My legs feel so light now,” she said, with bleak wonder. “Hips don’t quite want to work right just yet.”

  “It’ll come back,” said Marcus. “You can put a horse in leg hobbles, but they learn to run again quick enough.” He reached out to steady her when she took another large step and wobbled.

  “Before we go,” said Piper, “may I check your ankles? I don’t mean to be rude, but I want to make sure there’s nothing you can’t fix with time and salve.”

  The housekeeper crooked up one corner of her mouth. “Been years since so many young men were trying to get beneath my skirts, and now I got two in one day!”

  Galen cackled. Piper ducked his head. “I promise to be entirely a gentleman,” he said.

  “Well, damn,” said Missus Hardy, and Galen laughed again.

  * * *

  “I hope Missus Hardy will be all right,” fretted Piper a little later, as they prepared to leave.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Galen. “She’ll probably strip the place to the rafters before she goes, and more power to her.”

  “I wish she’d let us send someone to escort her to her village.”

  “I offered,” said Marcus, “but she said that if she did, they’d all be expecting me to marry her when she got there.”

  “Fine figure of a woman,” offered Jorge.

  “Already got someone,” said Marcus. “But feel free to stay and make the offer.”

  “Then who would take the horses back while you’re all having a pleasure cruise down the river?”

  Galen knew, if Jorge didn’t, that Marcus had been married before the god died. His wife thought he was dead, but so far as Galen knew, the other paladin had remained faithful in the four years since.

  A few days ago, he’d thought it foolish to stay loyal to a woman who believed herself a widow. A few days ago…well. It had been a long few days. He looked over at Piper, who was carefully settling Earstripe into Shane’s arms. “Try to keep his leg elevated,” he said. “And try not to jostle him. And…”

  Galen intervened to rescue his fellow paladin. “It will be fine,” he said. “And if it isn’t fine, at least it will be quick.”

  “I know,” said Piper. “I’m just worrying, because if I worry enough, maybe it won’t all go bad.” He flashed Galen a wry look. “This is the other reason I got out of dealing with live subjects.”

  Galen put his hands on the doctor’s shoulders, leaned in and kissed his forehead. Piper blinked at him. “What was that for?”

  “For being you.”

  He led the doctor to Marcus’s horse. The other paladin was looking at him thoughtfully.

  “What?” said Galen.

  “Nothing. Here, Doc, we’ve got to ride double and I’m the one least likely to accidentally drop you on your head in the roadway.” He offered Piper a hand, and between him pulling and Galen pushing, they got the doctor settled behind Marcus.

  Galen felt a flash of envy. He’d never liked horses, but having Piper pressed up against his back, being pushed against him with every stride…the image had a lot to recommend it. And Marcus is only interested in women and celibate besides. What a waste.

  Not that he was riding alone himself. Brindle was already perched at the front of the empty saddle. “Never thought a gnole would say this, but should have brought more horses.”

  “I will never let you forget you said that,” said Jorge.

  “Sword-human thinks he is so funny.”

  Galen hauled himself onto the horse. He was a lousy rider. He knew it, the horse knew it, there was no poin
t in denying it. Brindle shifted to try and give him more space, then settled for clinging to the saddle as they set off at a trot.

  Fortunately, it was not far to the landing site. The boat was already waiting for them, captained by a round-faced woman in a slouching cap. “Ready and waiting,” she said cheerfully to Jorge, and then, catching sight of Earstripe, “Ah, poor little mite. Get him aboard and we’ll be at Archon’s Glory by midnight.”

  Galen knew nothing whatsoever about boats. It was bigger than a rowboat and a lot smaller than the big clipper ships that docked in Delta. It had a curved front end, and there weren’t eyes painted on it like the ones in Delta had. They all fit in it, except for Jorge, who was staying with the horses.

  Their captain had a pole, as did her assistant. The assistant untied the rope from around a wooden post at the landing site, and they dipped their poles in the water and pushed the boat away from the shore. The current picked them up and began to carry the boat downriver, slowly at first, and then, as they pushed the boat toward the center of the river, faster than a man could run.

  It was cold on the water. Piper fussed over Earstripe’s blankets, then sat beside him in the bottom of the boat, back against one of the low benches. Galen sat down next to the doctor, knowing there was nothing useful to say and so didn’t say anything. Their knees touched and neither one moved away, while the banks of the river slid silently by.

  Twenty-Seven

  “I think he’s feverish,” said Piper an hour or two later. “Brindle?”

  Brindle felt the inside of the other gnole’s ears, then peeled back his lip to check his gums. “Too hot, yeah.”

  “Do we keep him warm or try to cool him down?”

  “Cool. Fever’s no good for anything but cooking a gnole’s brain.” Piper dipped a cloth into the chilly river water and Brindle packed it around Earstripe’s ears. The injured gnole whined softly, a thin thread of sound, then fell silent. Galen was pretty sure that he wasn’t really awake. Not that that matters. I of all people know that nightmares are usually worse than waking.