For a moment, he considered leaving her and parting ways; she didn’t seem particularly glad for his company, and she was right that he had no idea how to heal any type of wound. But she’d also been right in playing to his compassion. The same force that had compelled him to protect her now urged him to see her well-being through to the end. When he turned around to face her, he caught the woman’s stumbling gait, slow and hunched-over as she tried not to move her shoulder.
With a sigh, he grabbed his pack and trotted to catch up with her. He thought he glimpsed the barest flicker of a smile from behind her frazzled curtain of red hair, but she said nothing. “How far away is this camp?” he asked, feeling awkward for his perfect health while she walked in rigid tension beside him.
“More like an hour, at this rate.” She grimaced.
“So you’ve been there.”
“No.” The woman grunted and pulled her cloak farther down over her injured shoulder before returning her hand to the bandage. Kherron didn’t have to comment on her faulty logic; she added, “No army campaigns without at least one healer.”
Something itched at the back of Kherron’s mind—a memory he couldn’t quite pin down—and he would have stopped to focus on catching it if the woman hadn’t stumbled over a cluster of dead branches beneath the snow. Instead, he reached out to help steady her, trying to be gentle even as she took a sharp, hissing breath. “They were soldiers,” he said, thinking that perhaps somehow identifying the men he’d kill would make the pieces fit.
The woman glanced at him with an amused smirk, and even beneath the tense lines of pain on her face, he realized how beautiful she was. “Yes,” she said, pushing her lips together as if trying not to laugh at her own jest.
They stopped within the trees, and as Kherron studied her brown-eyed gaze, he couldn’t help the question. “Why did they attack you?”
She licked her lips, all the amusement gone now, and scanned the forest as if searching for someone. “Didn’t like what they saw.”
Kherron didn’t understand how she could speak of her own attempted murder with such level, calculating acceptance, as if this were a normal part of her everyday existence. And even if soldiers attacked people for nothing more than unseemly appearance, that hardly applied to this woman. “That doesn’t make sense.”
With a quick turn of her head, the woman caught his gaze. Whatever enjoyment had softened her features at his expense now vanished completely, replaced by a hard, cold defiance. “Careful.” There was no mistaking the angry warning in that one word.
Kherron hadn’t intended to offend her, and while he found her attractive, he hadn’t spoken in an attempt at flattery. Still, he hardly felt the need to apologize. The woman seemed more attached to the idea of having been an intended target than the recipient of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and Kherron recognized a sore spot when he saw it. All he could do was raise his eyebrows and lean away a little, giving her room to once more collect herself.
When she reset her gaze to whatever projected path she followed, that small act expressed the same level of contempt usually afforded by an exaggerated roll of the eyes. That restraint revealed her to be far more in control of herself than Kherron would have expected from someone suffering an arrow wound and losing blood in the cold—and, he thought, likely quite dangerous. But when she trudged on across the frozen ground, he stepped up to return to her side.
Chapter 4
Her estimation of their journey turned out to be eerily accurate. After having traveled with Siobhas, who seemed not to have known how time and distances worked together, Kherron found himself disconcerted by this woman’s ability to gauge the same. Of course, he realized his opinion on their timing couldn’t be entirely trusted; he’d died forty-eight times in what was likely less than forty-eight hours, making his ability to judge such things entirely undependable.
While it had not felt like a long journey at all for Kherron, by the time the peaks of blue and silver tents came into view, the woman beside him had obviously overtaxed herself. She shuffled across the damp, frosted leaves and pine needles, her breathing shallow and her face unnaturally pale. The whole of Kherron’s spare tunic as a makeshift bandage was soaked with her blood, which had now spread to stain almost the entire right side of her own garment.
Fortunately, when they stopped just inside the tree line to scan the open ground of the encampment, Kherron spotted two men stepping from one of the closest tents. The first had a bandage secured around his head, and he turned to grasp the other man’s hand in thanks before moving slowly away toward the center of the camp. The second man gave a curt nod as he watched the first disappear into the throng of tents and fires and soldiers, and Kherron noted the strips of bandages in his other hand before the man disappeared inside.
“There,” he whispered to the woman and nodded toward the tent. “He must be a healer.” When he turned to look at her, he found her swaying on her feet, her head bent toward the ground. She looked up quickly, as if startled from sleep, and swept wide, unfocused eyes toward him. With a sigh, he lifted her good arm over his own shoulders and led her out of the woods. It seemed miraculous that no one noticed their presence; while only three other tents lay between them and the healer’s, it took more time to get there than Kherron would have preferred. But they reached the tent without incident, and Kherron swiped the entrance flap aside before nearly dragging the woman in with him.
The man turned from a worktable to face him, his grey eyes soft with inviting confidence, as if someone had called his name. His hair was short, blond, and so fine he almost looked bald, but he couldn’t have been that much older than Kherron. When he caught sight of them, though, only a tiny flicker of a frown pinched his eyebrows.
“She needs a healer,” Kherron said, hoping to also let that serve as an apology for the intrusion.
Apparently, the man needed no further prompting. He gestured to a chair beside the tent’s entrance, and Kherron quickly led the woman to it. “What happened?” the healer asked, stepping toward them and bending to search for the woman’s ailment.
“An arrow,” Kherron said, stepping aside and out of the way. “In the shoulder.”
The man rose, turned, and raised his eyebrows. “And you removed it?”
Kherron nodded toward the woman, feeling unexpectedly defensive against the healer’s condescending presumption. “She did.” He had tried to stop her, though he wouldn’t tell this man that he’d removed the second half.
With a dry snort of disbelief, the man returned to his worktable, where he gathered supplies Kherron couldn’t see. “Remove the bandage,” he said. “And her tunic, if it’s in the way.”
Kherron pulled his dagger from its sheath and knelt before the woman in the chair. He met her gaze, thinking he might attempt to calm her until he noted the blazing flare of determination behind her eyes. Her breath came shallow and quick, but she seemed far more coherent now than she had outside the camp. Looking down, Kherron focused instead on cutting off the makeshift bandage, which fell away cold and damp with blood. Then he slit her tunic from the collar down through the sleeve, pulling it back to reveal her entire arm and the edge of her collarbone.
“Here.” The healer approached them and extended a bottle of brown glass toward the woman. A whiff of strong spirits stung Kherron’s nose when the bottle passed beneath it, but his redheaded charge glanced at the drink with a scowl before giving a small, rapid shake of the head. Then she fixed her determined gaze at the far wall of the tent, her jaw working in tense expectation and pain.
The healer shot Kherron a quizzical glance, who could only shrug at the woman’s refusal. In less than an hour of her company, she’d made it perfectly clear that her decisions were her own and she would be forced into nothing. With wide eyes and a conceding tilt of the head—as if telling both Kherron and the woman to suit themselves—the healer squatted in front of the wounded woman and tilted the bottle of spirits over the arrow wound in her shoulder. Clear liquid a
nd a fresh, bright wave of blood spilled down her chest.
The woman seemed to nearly growl at that, though all she managed otherwise was to pound the fist of her good arm into her thigh. Without wasting time to apologize or explain, the healer took up a long, wickedly sharp iron needle, slightly curved and through which was already strung a length of thin twine. If Kherron had been sitting in that chair, he would have reconsidered the offer to drink before such an attempt was made on his own flesh. But the woman didn’t move; he didn’t even see her blink. The healer poured a bit of the spirits over the needle as well, then set the bottle on the ground. With a firm, stabilizing hand against the outside of the woman’s shoulder, the man lifted the suturing tool in preparation, then paused when approaching voices rose outside the tent.
“...certain what happened.”
“He needs to know. If you don’t tell him, I will.”
The tent’s entrance flap lifted, and two men in blue tabards entered. Each soldier carried a sheathed longsword at his belt, and while the first stepped inside with a confident swagger, the second seemed weary and haggard, his hair continuously disheveled as he swept his hand through it twice in apprehension.
“My—” The first soldier froze and drew his feet together to straighten when he saw the odd trio at work. “Who’s this?”
The healer turned slightly to look at the soldiers, sitting back on his heels and lowering the needle he’d never gotten the opportunity to use. “These people came to me for help,” he replied calmly.
The first soldier glanced warily between Kherron and the woman, whose steady gaze hadn’t left the far end of the tent. “Donal returned from the scouting party with news,” he said. “Took him a while to pull himself together before we could get out of him what happened. I thought you would wish to know immediately.” The healer gave a slow, prompting nod, and the soldier blinked. “Torrick and Veyne are dead. Donal said he saw them confronted by a...” A flicker of a frown passed over the soldier’s face, and he glared at the stern-faced, reactionless woman, still bleeding from an as of yet unexplained arrow wound. “What happened to you?” he asked her, his words cold and hollow.
“Perhaps once your healer is allowed to perform his duty, I will tell you.” Her voice was barely audible, pushed through her teeth as she obviously attempted to maintain some form of control and composure. But the woman still did not look away from the tent wall.
The soldier’s face bloomed a deep read. “It was you.”
Before Kherron could think to understand what was happening, the first soldier had drawn his longsword. His companion seemed startled by the act, blinking heavily before he too drew his weapon, albeit slower. Kherron only recognized his own response when he felt the cool, reassuring weight of the Sky Metal dagger in his hand, as if his body did not need to wait for his mind to join the anticipated skirmish.
“Evar,” the healer said, rising slowly to his feet. He opened his arms in a compliant gesture of peace, the iron needle still between his fingers. “This woman has lost too much blood already. I am sorry to hear of Torrick and Veyne. They were good soldier, and we will see after them as is our duty. But if you wish to prove your claims, I must tend to her first. Then we may decide what to do with her.”
Evar eyed the healer briefly, then gave a small nod and glanced away. “That is your decision.”
Kherron noted movement beside him, and he looked at the woman to see she had finally moved her attention to the speaking soldier. He couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought he saw her frown. When he glanced back at the soldier, the man was now staring at him.
“But we’ll take him,” Evar said, nodding toward Kherron. “If these two are responsible, it’s unwise to leave them here together.”
A cold fear washed over Kherron. He was responsible for killing Torrick and Veyne. He knew this was their camp, as those standing before him now wore the same tabard, a silver diamond embroidered onto the bottom right hem at their knees. Only now did he remember seeing such a symbol on the men he’d murdered with their own arrows. But he highly doubted these men, angry as they were with sudden mourning, would care to hear his explanation. He’d acted in defense of the woman sitting rigid beside him, not knowing who or what she was but answering a call of rage and pain. How could he possibly convince them he’d not meant to kill their men, that his reactiveness had compelled two arrows to turn on their owners? It was not a defense in any way to say he’d accidentally taken lives with an ability he did not yet understand nor could fully control.
He felt the healer turn to him with a questioning gaze, pleading wordlessly for Kherron to oblige and avoid further incident. But he could not. He was guilty, but he would not deliver himself to these men and their consequences—not after everything he’d endured.
“No,” he said.
Evar scowled, his obvious rage bubbling into a shout before he raised his longsword and stepped forward.
Kherron lunged not for the soldier but for the healer, grabbing the man from behind and pulling him close to press the point of his blade against the man’s throat. The healer gave no resistance whatsoever, which surprised Kherron and briefly made him wonder if he’d somehow hurt the man. But the soldiers in the tent froze, weighing their chances of rescuing Kherron’s newly acquired hostage without hurting one of their own.
In an unbelievable feat of willpower and surprising lucidity, the red-haired woman lurched to her feet, sending the chair away from her with a muffled scrape through the dirt. Kherron didn’t dare look away from his would-be attackers to see how she fared—he could not risk a potentially devastating distraction—but he noted Evar eyeing the woman with restrained caution. The second soldier behind him blinked against the sweat on his brow, unlikely in such cold weather; he seemed ill-suited for soldiery and warfare. But the fact that the woman beside him had not hesitated to support his decision, wounded and weak as she’d appeared to be, gave Kherron the fortitude to carry through with what was surely a spontaneously foolish plan.
“She needs a healer’s attention,” he said slowly, daring the soldiers to move closer. The healer seemed unaffected by the knifepoint below his chin, and he neither tried to reason with either party nor showed any signs of attempting escape. “Let this man tend to her, and we will be on our way.”
“You killed my men,” Evar replied, spitting the words through gritted teeth.
For a moment, Kherron glared at the soldier, not wanting to fulfill the promise he’d delivered by these actions. He did not want more bloodshed, intended or otherwise, and if he were ever going to receive an audience for his telling of what happened, now was the time. “I’m sorry about your men,” he replied, the words strange on his tongue. He did not often consider apologizing, but an apology now might save a handful of lives, including his own. “It was out of my hands.” Evar scoffed. “Your soldiers sent an arrow through this woman, and when I found them, their weapons were drawn to do so again. She was unarmed, they were not—”
“Lies,” Evar snarled. “You can’t expect to convince me she’s harmless.” He nodded toward the woman, whom Kherron heard breathing heavy and slow beside him, restraining herself from fleeing or submitting to the pain or both. “And now you expect me to believe your absurd story? To submit to your demands and let you leave when you now threaten the life of my—”
“Evar,” the healer said, and Kherron immediately tightened his arm around the man’s chest at the unexpected voice. “Will you not let the man speak his piece?”
The soldier blinked at the healer, tilting his head in what Kherron thought looked remarkably like some unspoken question. “He admitted to it!”
“It changes nothing.” The healer lowered his head to fix Evar with a gaze Kherron could not see, doing so with a fluid surety undeterred by the fact that the movement heightened the knife’s pressure at his throat. Kherron watched Evar’s eyes flick to the healer’s neck, and he ever so slightly drew the dagger’s tip away. He did not want to kill this man; he did not
want to kill anyone.
“Release him,” Evar told Kherron, “and he may tend to your companion. But I cannot allow the deaths of my men to go unpunished.”
A long sigh slipped through Kherron’s nose. “I never truly expected you to.” Bringing the dagger’s tip more firmly against the healer’s throat once more, he shuffled sideways toward the tent wall at his back, his heart pounding wildly. It was one thing to make this healer his hostage to save both his life and the woman’s, but it was another thing entirely to do so and successfully escape a military camp full of soldiers unwilling to ignore such an offense. He could not think fast enough, knowing the two soldiers with drawn longswords would not willingly step from their path to let them leave.
The loud, jerking rush of ripping fabric filled the tent, followed by the woman growling, “Let’s go.” Kherron finally dared to glanced toward her, finding her halfway through the tear in the tent wall. The image made him feel remarkably incompetent. She might have picked up some makeshift weapon in this tent to provide such an escape, or she might have carried her own hidden weapon all this time; either way, she had to be armed now, and he could no longer rely on his first impression of her.
He pulled the healer with him toward the new exit, trying not to jostle the man so much that he accidentally put a hole in his neck. The soldiers stepped forward to pursue them, but by then, the two strangers and the camp’s healer were already moving swiftly back into the woods. Kherron spurred the healer forward, spinning him around to urge the man with the dagger now at his back. Just ahead, the woman stumbled through the trees, crunching over the interspersed banks of hardpacked snow. She moved slowly, hunched over her wounded shoulder, and he realized getting them both in and out of the camp had taken nearly all her strength. A cry rose up from the encampment behind them, angry and accusatory, quickly riling up a host of other voices and the scrambling sounds of pursuit. They would not get very far like this.
Sacrament of Dehlyn (The Unclaimed Book 3) Page 3