I’m understandably shocked. This is not my aspect, but it offends the orderly paladin in me to see such haphazard planning.
“We were serving a remote village.”
She prods again at an angry wound. Her stitches have popped along one side of it.
“Really, you should let me heal you.” I feel physical discomfort watching her.
Her eyes shoot up and meet mine. “No.”
I swallow down the annoyance I want to let loose. “Tell me, then, who is ‘we’? I don’t think you mean the dog.”
She smirks as if I’ve told a joke. “Oh, he was there.”
“And?”
“And what?” She says it so casually that I know she is dancing around something.
“And who else.” I put steel in my words as I lean against the pillar I can’t read.
Her dog trots out of the woods, turns its head to one side, and then barrels forward, stopping only when it is between her and me. The beginnings of a growl rumble deep within his throat.
“And a demon. He was troubling the village.”
“Did he have someone in thrall who fought against you?” I ask, nodding at her wounds.
I don’t expect an answer. I probably wouldn’t give one, but she’s young enough that she still thinks she has to answer when someone questions her.
“He did,” she says gravely. There is a challenge in her eyes. “My paladin superior, Sir Branson.”
“Blessed Saints.” The curse tears from my throat like a growl.
I don’t know what comes over me but I’ve left the pillar and I’m by her side in an instant, gripping her arm even as the dog snaps at my legs.
She orders it to stop. It’s not listening to her, which makes sense, since it’s not really her dog, right? It’s her paladin superior’s dog.
But I’m not looking at the dog, I’m looking all around us at the trees. God forfend she wasn’t heard. We can only hope that Terce prayers have dragged on.
I saw a squire burned at the stake once for less than this. His screams were like tearing fabric. I thought my lungs would tear with him.
In a low voice, I tell her, “Whatever you do, do not confess this to the others.”
“Confess what?” She lifts a brow in a challenge.
“That you have killed your paladin superior, taken up his mantle, his quest, and even his dog.” My voice is growing rougher. I force out the words before it breaks. “That you’re barely even out of squirehood and possibly not even called by the God.”
She pales at my words. And then pain blossoms in my leg as her dog gives up on her and sinks his teeth into my thigh.
Chapter Eight
Vagabond Paladin
“Let him go!” I gasped, grabbing for Brindle’s scruff and trying to rip him off of his victim.
The Poisoned Saint grunted, his breath coming in sharp gasps as one hand found the dog’s head and the other fumbled at his belt. His eyes were wide and shocked.
God, if you have mercy, please keep my thoughts clouded from him. God, if you have mercy, please don’t let my dog kill him.
I clenched my jaw. I had just ordered them to let him go and they’d vowed to obey me.
