It’s only then that I realize they think I’m a threat.
Beside me, the dog barks.
I throw up my hands, trying to turn my headlong run into a skidding halt.
“I want to heal her,” I gasp out, but Kodelai Lei Shan Tora is already closing the distance between us, his sword held in high attack posture.
Unfurling beside him like a sleek white flag, the Holy Inquisitor spools out, his sword liquid and flowing as it leaves the sheathe and falls into low attack posture in his off-hand.
They aren’t waiting for an explanation. They’re ready to kill me. Fury is etched into their features.
In response, fear claws up my throat like a sleeping wolf woken before it is ready. It makes my mouth dry and my hand unsteady.
I force control back over myself, letting the growl rip from my throat as I finally skid to a halt, and gather enough focus to draw my sword.
I’m still in the act when a blur of tatters and dread-black hair slips past me like an ill wind and leaps in front of me.
Sparks fly and the air splits with the sound of steel on steel. I feel the vibration through my feet as the Vagabond Paladin bashes Sir Kodelai’s blade to the side and forces him backward with a daring backhand. It leaves her open for an attack, but both of the others are too stunned to seize the opportunity.
Sir Kodelai takes a defensive step backward, surprise etching his mature face. Already my dervish savior is spinning to her left, her sword held in a crosswise defensive stance, hands high, blade sweeping down and back to protect her spin.
Her dog intimidates the Inquisitor, rushing in low and harsh-throated for a feint at his pale boots.
I don’t think Sir Kodelai planned on killing a woman today. I don’t think he knows what to do now that he’s faced with the possibility.
The Inquisitor is faster than his compatriot — even missing his usual sword hand — and unlike the Hand of Justice, he was expecting his opponent. He ignores the snapping dog, likely trusting the protection of his high boots, and takes a step-and-twist to escape her reach, spinning neatly into a perfect full defensive posture. Perhaps he is ambidextrous.
I realize — too late, what is wrong with me? — that I’m just standing there. I am stunned by the beauty of the black viper of a woman flowing before me. With defiant boldness, she holds back a pair of blades that had been bent on my blood just a breath before.
My surprise is no excuse.
Abruptly, I force out words. “Halt! You spend heartbeats where she might still live.”
“Still live?” The High Saint’s laugh is high-pitched and barely clinging to sanity. “Can people still live without their heads?”
“And hands?” Hefertus asks dryly. He’s very still, watching all of us, but not moving for his sword or anything else.
It’s only then that I snatch a glimpse of the poor Seer.
I’ve witnessed many deaths — most by illness, disaster, accident, or war. These are the times that healers are sent for. I will not now enumerate the many deaths I have witnessed. Suffice it to say this is the most grisly of all — including the poor man I tended who had been mauled by a bear.
The Seer is sprawled on her back, centered in a mural of blood. Her clothes — loose and many-layered — look like crushed flower petals. The layers overpower her in death in a way they never did in life. One of her hands clutches a knife. The other hand is clenched in a fist. It is ten feet to her left, just under the lock of a door. An arc of spattered red links it to the rest like the string of a marionette.
Her head has been placed on her belly. I don’t mean that she is curved forward. Oh, no. She is flat on her back and someone has placed her head on her belly like a ham on a platter for a Christmas feast. A trail of blood paints a whorl from where her head was wrenched off, up and around her slumped shoulders, and then across her limp garments to where it has been placed, as if someone had broken her by accident but was so tidy that they thought the head ought to be kept with the body.
If that was the case, then why not the hand, too?
The others are right.
I can do nothing for her now.
And the knowledge that I failed her last night is a bitter pill to swallow. Had I realized what she meant … had I realized what she was warning of … I would never have come down into this place.
“H … Hold,” I stutter, hand still held up while the other makes the benediction and then runs across the toothy prayer beads strung at my belt.
God have mercy. God have mercy. Lord have mercy. God have mercy.
The prayer is more a panic response than anything else.
