Redemption of Thieves (Book 4) (12 page)

When I could draw a steadying breath, I looked up with red eyes at the Fists and villagers crowded around. The bow burned warm on my back but I ignored its calling. Somehow I felt it was responsible for everything. It had changed me, had directed the course of my life, costing me the closest friend I’d ever had. No—he was more than a friend. I had loved him. My lips drew back in a bitter smile as I imagined what mockery he would have offered that little piece of information had he lived to hear it. Of course, without his death, it would never have been admitted…

“Erm, miss…?” one of the on-looking Fists ventured hesitantly. At any other time I would have been amused to receive such a civil address from a Fist.

Realizing how demented I must look to him and the others—worse, how weak I surely appeared—I shoved my hair back from my face and scrubbed the tear streaks from my cheeks.

“Yes, what is it?” My voice, hoarse with emotion and rough from weeping, came out harsher than I intended. The Fist took a step back.

I remembered then that my actions today had surely identified me as a magicker. I could expect to be treated with fear from now on. At least until someone got around to killing or imprisoning me for possessing the forbidden talent.

“It’s the Under-Lieutenant…” The Fist gestured uncertainly toward Terrac.

I looked where he indicated and my heart stopped. Terrac’s chest was rising and falling. I didn’t know how, but it was. I put my ear to his chest and caught the faint thudding sound of a heartbeat beneath his ribs.

Suddenly there was hope in the world again. But I mustn’t get too excited yet. He showed no signs of waking and he might slip away at any moment. A memory flashed through my mind of a time I had delved into the consciousness of Garad, an injured outlaw, and had lent him some of my strength. I tried to remember how I had done it as I reached inward to gather my talent.

But I stopped short in surprise on finding none there. I had expended my last shreds of magical strength to destroy the shaman. Even my life sense was gone. I couldn’t feel Terrac’s presence near me or the warm glow that should have come from the dozens of strangers at my back.

It was no good trying to help him this way. I had no choice but to resort to healing in the only way I had ever had much success. I ripped up his shirt and swiftly used the strips to bind the bloody flesh of his hand. If I didn’t put a stop to the flow of blood soon, it would kill him before the shaman’s magic had the chance. I issued orders as my hands flew.

“You there,” I snapped at the nearest Fist, “break up some pine boughs and get to work constructing a shelter beside the stream.”

As he leapt to do my bidding, others gathered around to watch me work. I told a second man, “Go into that cave. You’ll find it’s been inhabited in the past. There should be all sorts of debris in there and you can rummage around for some warm bedding and anything that might pass for healing supplies. We’ve got our work cut out for us keeping your lieutenant alive until we can get him to a qualified healer.”

I couldn’t see any sort of burn wound on Terrac from the shaman’s magic, just the cuts and scrapes he had gained in Skeltai territory along with the missing fingers. One thing was sure, he would need more help than I could give him.

I said to the Fists, “Whichever of you is the fastest on foot and has the best head for direction needs to set out for Beaver Creek. If you don’t find the Praetor and the other soldiers there, run all the way to Selbius if you have to. Don’t waste any time or come back without the Praetor. And a healer.”

I couldn’t tell them why I was so desperate to have the Praetor here. I was hanging all my hopes on his magical powers of healing. But I wouldn’t out him as a mage. Not yet. I was reserving that card for future use.

“Go on then, hurry!” I said.

They jumped into action and moved off in a huddle, bickering over who was to go for help and which of them would stay. Only one remained at my side.

“Help that other Fist get started on the shelter,” I said.

He hesitated. “Wouldn’t the Under-Lieutenant be more comfortable if we carried him into the cave?”

I contemplated Terrac’s still form. “No, I don’t think so,” I said, remembering how Terrac had never liked the cave. “I have an idea if he’s going to make it at all it’ll be out here.”

“If you say so.”

The Fist disappeared, and for a while, Terrac and I were left alone.

As the day played out, a strange calm descended on me. Almost as if I had seen and done all this before. I bathed Terrac’s minor cuts and gashes, bandaging them as best I could. A handful of the woodsfolk women eventually worked up the nerve to approach with offers to help. I sent them out to gather healing herbs, not because I expected it to do any good, but to keep them out of the way. Terrac was fading fast and I knew by nightfall his fate would be sealed one way or another.

I set more of the rescued prisoners to work cleaning out the cave in case we had to take shelter inside it that night. They labored with surprising energy, seemingly pleased to have familiar tasks to keep their hands busy. By mid-afternoon the women and children had a comfortable place to rest. A group of men went foraging for food in the woods, while others fished along the banks of the stream.

Like the rest of them, I sought to keep busy, to fill my mind with small things. Soon the Fist, who I learned was called Burdel, had raised a suitable shelter by the waterside. He helped me move Terrac inside and onto a dry pallet that had been salvaged from the cave. There I sat watching my friend through the passing hours, waiting for him to miraculously open his eyes.

After a time I began talking to him, more to comfort myself than because I believed he could actually hear me. I whispered all the soothing reassurances I could think of, hollow though they sounded. They were only stupid, useless words, the kind of nonsense you murmur to a child with a skinned knee. But I hoped if my voice reached wherever he wandered in the darkness, it would be something for him to take hold of and cling to until help arrived.

So I told him how afraid I was when I thought I had lost him so many times back in the Skeltai forest. I said how I admired his courage in coming back and attempting to rescue us, even though he had failed and even though, as I firmly told him, it had been a foolish thing to do. When I finished scolding him, I even told him the discovery I had made when I thought him dead—that I was in love with him. It was strangely easy to say that as he lay quietly sleeping, oblivious to my words.

The hours crawled by and I was forced to conclude our messenger had gotten lost in the woods. Fists never could tell a sapling from an elder tree. I should have gone myself, but how could I leave Terrac alone?

I was waiting for my magic to return, testing it every hour to see if it was back. But I remained drained of the talent. Hadrian had once warned me it was possible to drain yourself so thoroughly the magic would take days to return, if recovery came at all. Was that what I had done then? Burnt the magic out of me forever? It seemed a betrayal to my mother’s memory to say I didn’t care if I had. Yet just now, it was difficult to feel concern for anything but Terrac.

There was no physical injury from the shaman’s magic. I had searched Terrac’s body and found multiple bruises and minor injuries, but nothing that would account for his current state. I could only guess that my outflung magic during that awful moment had countered the shaman’s spell. Rather than killing Terrac, the combined forces had sent his mind reeling out of his body. If the two couldn’t be joined again soon, the body couldn’t go on living much longer. Already it was failing, and without my magic, I was helpless to slow the downward spiral.

The day crept on until dusk darkened the sky. A chill crept into the air around us and I knew it was only going to grow colder as the night progressed. Sometime during the dark hours, Terrac was going to drift off into a deeper sleep from which he would never wake and I was powerless to prevent it.

Drawing the heavy fur blanket up to his chin, I snuggled down on the earth beside him. I rested my hand on his chest so I could feel its rise and fall, offering myself both the comfort of knowing it continued for a little while yet and the anguish of feeling it grow shallower with each passing minute. We weren’t far from the end now.

From outside came a distant commotion and the shuffle of approaching footsteps, but locked within a world of misery, I ignored them. Terrac’s breathing stopped and he fell perfectly still in my arms. Burying my face in the blanket, I finally let loose the tears I had been holding in.

There was a rustling sound as someone crawled into the shelter with us. I knew who it was without looking up.

“You’re too late,” I choked out. “He’s already gone. Even you can’t heal death.”

Brow puckering, the Praetor pushed me aside and knelt to press black-gloved fingertips against the side of Terrac’s neck. “What do you know of the powers at my disposal?” But it was an absent question. His focus was all on Terrac.

“You’re wasting your time,” I repeated bitterly. “I know a dead man when I see one.”

“Maybe. But the condition you ignorant woods rabble call dead isn’t always the real thing.”

Before I could jerk away, he grabbed my hand and pressed it to the pulse point on Terrac’s neck.

“Feel that?” he asked.

I felt it. The flutter was faint but definitely real.

“How can this be?” I gasped.

The Praetor ignored my question and spread his hands above Terrac’s heart. His lips moved in a soft incantation I caught only snatches of. Whatever invisible magic he was using, it worked. Terrac sucked in a sudden gasp of air and heaved it out again. I leaned my face closer to his, ignoring the Praetor’s instructions to keep out of the way.

“Terrac, can you hear me?” I whispered.

The only response was a flicker of his eyelids. But at least he was breathing again, the strong, steady breath of one who sleeps a healthy sleep.

“Get back, foolish girl. Give him some air,” the Praetor commanded and I obeyed this time.

“He was dead,” I said disbelievingly. “I don’t understand what happened.”

“Oh course you don’t. Brilliant men with twice your years and intellect wouldn’t comprehend it.”

Too dazed to take offense, I said, “But he wasn’t breathing. His heart had stopped. How did you bring him back?”

Was it my imagination or did the Praetor hesitate before letting out an exaggerated sigh?

“Very well,” he said. “I suppose a young woman of your background knows how to keep a secret. If you don’t, just remember all I hold over you and perhaps that will keep you discreet.”

“I’m as silent as the grave,” I said quickly, thinking of Fleet in his prison cell and Terrac now fully at the mercy of this man.

“Then suffice to say both the damage to Terrac and the healing of him were a matter of magic. A powerful spell was slowly drawing the life from him. Soon his carcass would have been an empty shell. As a mage, I was able to find Terrac’s still-lingering essence and tug it back into his body. If he had been dead longer than a moment, it would have been impossible, as his life force would have moved on to some other place.”

“I see,” I said.

“I doubt it. What would a forest mongrel like you know of such things?”

He briskly examined the bandages I had placed over Terrac’s shallower wounds, saying, “All he needs is rest and plenty of fluids when he wakes. You shouldn’t get much food into him for the next day or two, but when his appetite does return, it’ll be doubled. After that, he’ll be back on his feet again.”

He checked another bandage. “You did all right with these, I suppose.”

I knew by the way he said it he had expected to find otherwise.

I ignored the dubious praise and said, “Won’t you do something about his fingers? Can’t those be magically healed too?”

He unbound Terrac’s injured hand and looked for the first time on the wound.

“No, I can do nothing for these,” he said, neither his expression nor his tone betraying any emotion. “Take care of them as best you can. Keep the cut clean and packed with earthleaf to protect it from infection. That should be simple enough, even for you.”

He deftly rebound Terrac’s injured hand as skillfully if it were a task he had accomplished a hundred times before.

He continued flatly. “The boy was lucky. His sword hand is undamaged so he can still be of use to me. And the thumb of the bad hand is preserved, so he’ll soon adjust to the missing digits.”

“You really don’t care about him, do you?” I realized. “For all you believe, Terrac is your own flesh and blood, the offspring of your brother, he’s nothing more to you than a useful tool, a soulless piece in your greater game. His suffering doesn’t matter, only his fitness to serve you.”

I was angry enough not to care if I tread on dangerous ground. “If he had died here tonight, you wouldn’t have mourned his death, only the inconvenience that brought you all this way for nothing.”

The Praetor grimaced at the blood smeared on his gloves. “What do you know about my brother, Habon?” he asked quietly.

I should be afraid when his voice had that edge to it. I knew that. But I couldn’t seem to care about the consequences of my outburst.

“Do you take me for a fool?” I asked. “Do you think I don’t know the significance of the brooch he wears, bearing the Fidelity and Service motto of the house of Tarius? I did a little research on you during my time in Selbius. No one but one of your blood would have access to that brooch. And no one in your house is unaccounted for but your long-lost brother.”

“Habon was not lost. He was disgraced,” the Praetor cut me off. “My brother made an… unwise decision, for which I had no choice but to disinherit him.”

“Because he pursued a woman of humble origins and poor ancestry,” I said.

“Because he loved a witch descended from the very pale savages who torment the province now,” he countered. “When he chose her over his duty, he became an enemy of the province.”