Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “What was that horrible sound?” someone asked behind them. It sounded like the supervisor who had taken her people to the cheese cellar. “Is it safe now? Can we come out?”

  “Not sure yet,” a man replied. “Someone’s broken a group of prisoners out. Has a group of women come this way? And a big man with a knife?”

  “Shit,” whispered Istvhan. “I think they finally did a headcount.”

  “Why yes, there was a whole group of them earlier—they said they needed medical attention. They went that way?”

  The footsteps grew louder, and Clara picked up the pace. The steps to the dock were in sight. “We’re nearly there,” she whispered.

  “Right,” said Sigrid. She turned and planted herself in the doorway. “Get going. I’ll hold them.”

  “What?” It took a moment for Clara to understand, and when she did, she didn’t want to. “Sigrid, no! You’ll be killed!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Sigrid. “I still can’t swim. I’ll hold the corridor as long as I can.”

  Her vision blurred. On some level, she knew that Sigrid was right, but when she tried to find calm, it wouldn’t come. “I can’t lose you, too. Not on top of everyone else.”

  “Go.”

  Istvhan saved her. He caught her arm, shook his head. “Let her choose,” he whispered. And then: “Domina Sigrid,” he said, bowing his head, “it has been the honor of a lifetime to fight beside you.”

  “You’re damn right it has,” said the nun who had been like an older sister to her. “Now take her out of here and go!”

  Clara’s face was the color of bone and there were tears streaming down her face. He didn’t think she knew they were there. But she kept pace with him, step by step, as they pelted down the stairs, and her expression held the chilling tranquility that frightened him whenever he saw it.

  Cold air struck their faces as they reached the docks. Istvhan looked into the churning water and felt his stomach lurch. I can’t swim in that. I can barely look at that.

  “You go,” he said, pushing her toward the edge. “I’ll go back and help Sigrid.”

  “The hell you will. I’m not losing you both in one night.” She shucked off her robe and stood shivering on the dock. Apples bounced on the boards and fell into the water with a splash.

  “Clara, I can’t swim in this. Even if I could, I won’t know where to go. They’ll have put the bonfire out by now,” said Istvhan. “They can’t afford to wait.”

  “Probably. Do you trust me?” asked Clara.

  Istvhan looked at her, then at the dark water, then at her again. The waves slapped against the piling, black as tar. Cold spray soaked his feet.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked again.

  He opened his mouth and what came out was, “I believe I am madly in love with you.” Oh. Hmm. Did not expect to say that.

  It’s true, though. It’s true, and if I die, I want her to know that I loved her. That she was more than worthy of it. That all those times I never fell in love, it was because I hadn’t met a woman as strong as she is. He tore his eyes away from the water to meet hers, and waited for her answer.

  “That’s very nice,” said Clara, sounding a touch exasperated, “but do you trust me?”

  Trust is faith plus predictability. He had faith in her. And his only prediction was that she was stronger than he was when it came to this. I was strong for you. Now maybe it’s your turn to be strong for me.

  “I trust you,” he said, still looking at her and not the water. “But I can’t make myself jump.”

  “You don’t have to.” She yanked the rope belt out of her tattered robe and looped it around her neck. “Grab on. Wrap it around your wrists.”

  “I’ll choke to you to dea—”

  “Do it.”

  Someone shouted from the top of the stairs. It did not sound like Sigrid. Istvhan grabbed the cord, tied it around his bad wrist, looped it around the good one, and gripped it tightly. Clara turned her back to him. “Don’t fall off,” she said. “And don’t let go.”

  Istvhan would have said something clever, but suddenly she was changing and the cord snapped taut against the bear’s neck and god, he was an arrogant fool to have even worried, what man could possibly choke something with a neck that size, and there was another shout and the world lurched and Istvhan and the bear were falling into the dark water.

  Fifty-One

  The water was so cold that at first he barely registered the impact. It drove the breath from his lungs and went up his nose and his first instinct was to kick free and get to the surface. He lost his grip on the rope and if it had not been looped around his wrists, he’d likely have fallen off and never found her again, but then the bear was at the surface and somehow the air was even colder than the water and he was choking and coughing up water and trying desperately to breathe but he couldn’t let go of the rope, the rope was the only thing that would save him oh gods oh saints this was it this was the end he should have stayed on shore at least he would have died warm…

  The bear swam with her head out of the water and her back mostly submerged. Clara could feel Istvhan’s weight and hear him sputtering. How long could he survive in the water? The bear could swim for miles, even encumbered, but he could not possibly last that long. Even the mile south to the headland where the Rat had lit the bonfire would be difficult, and now that the fire was no longer lit, the gods only knew if she’d see it at all.

  Don’t die, she thought. Don’t die. Hold on. I’ve got you. Just hold on.

  It got worse. It couldn’t get worse, and it got worse anyway. They were parallel to the shore and the waves hit them from the side, in a queasy up-and-down motion. Istvhan retched until there was nothing left in his stomach, then retched some more. The water slapped at his mouth and sometimes seawater got in and then he had something else to puke back up.

  He was so cold. His teeth chattered when he tried to close his mouth. He knew he had to hold onto the rope, but he couldn’t feel his fingers. Maybe they were still on the rope. Maybe he’d let go hours ago. Had it been hours? Surely it had been.

  At least he couldn’t feel his bad arm any more. That was worth something. He wasn’t even scared by the terrible numbness, because everything was going numb now. Maybe it hadn’t been so bad. Certainly not as bad as the cold and the seasickness.

  He retched again, helplessly. He could still see the bear’s ears in front of him, so he hadn’t let go. That was good. He couldn’t let go. That was the only thing he could remember any more, that he absolutely couldn’t let go.

  The bear had swum for what seemed like ages. It hated the sideways slap of the waves, but whenever it tried to turn toward shore or out to sea, the annoying voice in its head started telling it no and pushing it back. It was annoying. Bears didn’t get seasick easily, but it was definitely thinking about it.

  The voice said that there was a headland and maybe that was true, but the bear didn’t know why it couldn’t just turn and go up on shore here. The voice was yelling about people who would be angry, but that was absurd. People were tiny. The bear was large. If the bear wanted to be on the shore, what could the tiny people do to stop it?

  Still, the voice understood things that the bear didn’t, like fire and how to get out of cages. It would keep swimming and trust the voice, at least for now.

  Istvhan was hanging onto the rock in the ford. He hadn’t let go. If he held on long enough, his brothers would find him once the battle was over. He just had to keep holding on. The water was getting in his mouth and his nose and things were so dark but at least he wasn’t cold any more. He was starting to warm up. That was good. His brothers would surely find him, even in the dark. He had faith.

  His last thought, as the darkness closed over him, was to wonder where his god was, and why he could no longer feel Him.

  The bear came up on shore, dragging its burden behind it, and shook. Water flew in all directions. Clara came forward, convincing the bear that its work was done, a
nd it retreated, grumbling.

  She realized her mistake immediately, as Istvhan’s full weight landed on her back and she went to her knees. The wet rope seared across her throat and she gagged.

  Once she’d gotten the rope over her head, she rolled over, reaching for Istvhan. Tiny pebbles crunched painfully under her knees. “Istvhan? Istvhan, are you…” Alive? she wanted to say, but didn’t quite dare.

  He was ominously silent. She did not see in the dark as well as the bear but his skin looked terribly pale, pale like one of the drowgos. When her fingers closed over his wrist, he felt as cold as the sea.

  “Oh no,” Clara said, and rolled him over, hammering on his back. “Breathe, you bastard, breathe! Don’t you dare die!” Dear god, he’d told her he loved her and she’d said “That’s very nice.” How was she supposed to live with that?

  Calm, she thought. Calm down and do something practical. You have to be calm.

  She reached for calm and found…nothing. Only panic and despair and mourning for Sigrid and her sisters. Only shock and horror at how they’d died, and under that, long months of holding on and coping and waiting and now it was over and there was no calm left in her and Istvhan was cold, so horribly cold, and if she lost him now, she might as well just walk into the sea.

  “Breathe, dammit!” she screamed. “Breathe or I’ll kill you!”

  “Motivation, that’s the ticket,” said a familiar voice from the dark. “I’ve always said you can never underestimate the value of motivation. Nevertheless, my dear, I would stop punching him in the back like that. There’s not likely to be any water left in him, and his kidneys will thank you.”

  Clara lifted her head and blinked toward the voice. Was she hallucinating? “Doc Mason?” she whispered.

  “The one, the only, accept no counterfeits or imitations.” The traveling salesman went down on his knees beside her. “You might have saved us all a good deal of trouble if you had simply mentioned that you were working with the Rat, my dear.”

  She gaped at him. He set his ear against Istvhan’s chest, listened for a moment, then cackled. “Yes! There we go. Heart still beating. He’s just as cold as a miser’s heart, that’s all.”

  “The fire,” she said, looking around. There had been a dull orange glow on the headland and she found it again, the remains of the bonfire after it had been smothered.

  “Not enough to warm a minnow, I fear. I was tasked with seeing it extinguished and keeping watch for any stragglers. Now, now, don’t despair. The best thing for hypothermia is body heat. Carry him to the wagon and we will wrap you both in blankets and you can lend him some of yours.” He was working as he spoke, getting a knife under the rope around Istvhan’s wrists and cutting the soaking cord free.

  Clara got her arms under Istvhan and staggered to her feet. The man was dead weight and she was exhausted, but damned if she was going to give up when he needed her.

  The wagon seemed an eternity away. Mason kept up a constant stream of chatter the entire time, and she was grateful. It was so dark, or perhaps the despair in her chest was growing to cloud her vision. Her vision was graying out around the edges and she navigated by following the sound of his voice. “…your more ursine qualities, Domina, were a surprise, I confess. No, no, I’m not scolding. I don’t know that I’d have told me either. Still, quite a surprise. And of course, once Halishi mentioned your names, well, you could have knocked me over with a feather…”

  By the time that Clara heard Tolly saying, “Clara? Is that you?” she could barely see anything but sparks. She managed the steps by memory alone, banging Istvhan’s knees on the doorway—if he lives through this, a few more bruises probably won’t matter much—and set him down on the floor. “Blankets,” she gasped, swaying.

  Tolly slid past her and unleashed an avalanche of quilts. It took the last of her waning strength to get Istvhan stripped and bundled into them and then she simply collapsed on top of him.

  “There you go,” said Doc Mason. “Just…err…lie there and think warm thoughts, yes?”

  “He’s so cold,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t swim your way out of Morstone without losing a bit of body heat. Now lie still and keep quiet. I’m sure someone will be along soon to ask why there was a bonfire here, and I shall have to bemuse and bemaze them.” He patted the blankets. “All will be well, my dear. You’ll see.”

  Clara hoped he was right. She was certain that she would not rest until she knew Istvhan was going to pull through. She remained certain of this as the wagon door slammed and then exhaustion crept up and hit her over the head.

  “Really,” said Istvhan, his voice somewhat muffled by female flesh, “I fear I have gotten used to waking like this. You may be stuck with me.”

  Clara shot bolt upright, spilling him onto the floor. “Istvhan! You’re alive!”

  He squinted up at her. “Did you think I was dead? Were you doing something strange with my corpse?”

  “No, I—you were so cold—Doc Mason said—I was afraid—” She knew that she was babbling and didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around him, which meant that he had his face planted in her breasts again. He didn’t seem to mind, and at least that way he couldn’t see that she was crying.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, when she had wiped the tears away and freed him from her cleavage.

  “Terrible,” he said cheerfully. “My head’s pounding and my wrists feel like they’ve been flayed. Did we get away, though?”

  “I think so. And Doc Mason showed up, and told me that we should have just said we were working for the Rat.”

  Istvhan’s laugh turned into a groan as he put a hand to his head. “I might have known.”

  “Indeed you might have,” said Doc Mason, opening the wagon door. “The Rat and I have been old friends for many years. A traveling salesman sees everything and goes everywhere.” He peered at Istvhan. “You know, I have a tonic that will fix that headache right up.”

  It took a few hours to treat everyone’s injuries—Istvhan’s wrists really had been flayed, and his shoulder was a massive bruise, cut in places where the chain links had been dug into the skin. Clara had gotten off lightly by comparison, with only a few cuts from the drowgos’ blades, already thoroughly washed in seawater. The worst was a rope burn across her throat that made her look as if she had only just escaped a hanging. She was also, once again, without clothes. But eventually she and Istvhan were both wrapped in blankets and propped up with cups of tonic-laced tea, and Tolly had finished fussing over them both.

  “We shall drive south a little way,” announced Doc Mason. “Your sisters are waiting there, and Faizen is watching over them.”

  “Did they all arrive?” asked Clara.

  “All but one named Sigrid,” said Doc Mason, looking at her anxiously.

  Clara had to pinch the bridge of her nose and take a deep breath. Istvhan gripped her free hand in his. “She stayed behind so we could get away.”

  “Ahhh.” Doc Mason removed his hat and held it over his heart. “May her courage be remembered as long as the stars.”

  “Did anyone come looking for escapees?” asked Istvhan. He didn’t let go of her fingers.

  “Not as such, no. I suspect they will eventually, but it will be some time before they remember how well bears swim. And by then, hopefully, we shall have you well on your way.” He beamed at them both. “Now sit and drink tea and warm up. I shall get you south in due time…and possibly sell a little tonic in the process, hey?”

  He shut the door. Clara slumped against Istvhan’s shoulder, and he leaned against her in return.

  “We did it,” she said. It made almost no sense to her. She couldn’t seem to get her head around it. “We actually did it.”

  “We did.”

  She started to cry then. She hadn’t meant to, but it was all still there and now that she did not have to do anything, it welled up. Joy that Istvhan was alive was mixed with grief and both of them were almost too much to bear.


  He put his good arm around her and did not ask foolish questions. Eventually she ran out of tears, if not of grief, and could pull away, saying, “Well, now I look terrible and your blanket is soggy.”

  “You are beautiful. More beautiful than I am, at the moment, when I look like a drowned rat.”

  She managed a laugh, scrubbing at her face. “You look very handsome.”

  “Ah, Domina, I see your eyesight has suffered as well.” Istvhan laced their fingers together. “I had been thinking, you know…”

  “Oh?”

  “If you’re going back to your convent, Domina, you could maybe use a couple of mercenaries on the trip. Perhaps even to help you figure out how to raid-proof your convent once you get there. No one wants a repeat of the last few weeks.”

  She felt a smile tugging at her lips. “Mercenaries? Or paladins?”

  “I suspect that I could arrange both.”

  “Are you sure you want to? I’ve already dragged you all over the countryside, into pit fights, nearly drowned you…”

  He shuddered. “Fortunately, I don’t remember a good deal of that last one. Just being cold and holding on.”

  “You must have been terrified. I know you hate water.”

  “Do you know, I wasn’t?” His dark eyes held hers. “I knew if I held on long enough, someone would come for me. And it was you.”

  Clara looked down at their interlocking fingers. “You know, you said something to me right before we went into the water…”

  “Did I really?”

  She peered into his face. “Do you not remember?”

  “Hmmm…I do seem to recall baring my soul to a woman who said…what was it, now?”

  “Oh god.” Clara untangled her fingers so that she could put her face in her hands.

  “That’s very nice, I believe she said.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it! And I was a little distracted!”