13
For a moment, there was only sheer, bellowing panic in Ella’s ears, shattering all else with the strength of it. Natt was dead. Natt might be dead. Was Nattdead?!
But as Ella’s fluttering, badly trembling fingers went to Natt’s neck, desperately feeling for a pulse, his broad chest abruptly rose — and then fell. He was breathing. Good gods, he was breathing.
Ella’s body was suddenly shaking all over, the cave spinning in her vision, and she sank down onto the stone, and ducked her head between her knees, sucking back deep, dragging breaths. Natt was alive. He was here, he was breathing, he wasalive.
But he was out cold, that much was clear, and once Ella’s vision had settled again, she gritted her teeth, and raised her head. He was alive. He’d saved her. And — she took a deep breath — the least she could do was repay that debt.
She began by washing his many wounds, making trip after trip to the creek with the water-skin, and pouring the cool water out over him. His sleeping form didn’t even twitch, not even when she washed his face, and not even — Ella winced, but made herself do it — as she peeled off the blood-soaked bandages from his thigh.
The wound beneath still looked ghastly, but it had at least seemed to stop bleeding. So Ella carefully ripped his trousers open around it, and then cleaned it too, pouring the fresh water over it again and again and again.
She mentally catalogued the wounds as she went, marking which ones were the most severe, and which were more superficial. The gash on his right leg was by far the worst, followed by the vicious gouge where he’d blocked the sword with his left forearm, and then, a deep slice across his left shoulder. There was also considerable bruising all over him, turning his grey-green skin a mottled blackish colour, including a thick ring around his right eye.
But even in the time Ella had been doing this, she could see how some of the shallower cuts were already beginning to knit themselves back together. Calling back a warm sunny day, half a lifetime ago, when a recently acquired scrape on Natt’s hand had suddenly and mysteriously vanished, and Ella had flat-out refused to believe that orcs could possibly heal so quickly.
Try me and see, Natt had said, with a wicked grin, handing Ella his sword, pommel first. Just a scratch.
Of course Ella had refused — I could never do such a vile thing, she’d protested — and as she’d watched, Natt had done it himself, sliding the cold steel across his forearm, bringing up a shocking line of red blood. Foolish lass, he’d said, with another sharp-toothed grin. You could never hurt me.
And then he’dlickedthe blood off hisarm, and Ella had been caught in the throes of loud revolted disgust — but she’d gingerly held his arm afterwards, and watched the cut knit back together. Almost like watching a flower bloom, like it hadn’t changed at all — until it was there, entirely new, before one’s eyes.
She swallowed hard, her gaze lingering again on Natt’s massive frame, on the height and breadth of it beneath the wounds. It was still so odd to see how different he was, all hard rippling muscle, every line corded and visible. And so many of those older scars, as well, and it belatedly occurred to Ella that those must have all been serious wounds too, otherwise they’d have also healed quickly, wouldn’t they?
And truly, whathadNatt been doing, all these years? Fighting off random bands of men in forests? Or had that been random at all, because Natt hadn’t seemedsurprised, had he? And what had those awful men beendoingon her property in the first place? With masks, and dogs, andweapons?
The questions only swirled louder as the day passed, and Ella sought to distract herself, as best she could. First exploring about the little cave — it had fallen in a bit, at the back, but was otherwise unchanged — and then, after considerable hesitation, she dug deeper into Natt’s pack. Finding it mostly filled with the remnants of her clothes — the rest of the dress, and the makeshift sheepskin shawl he’d given her, which she now tucked under his head — and also with a large quantity of dried meat. And suddenly Ella was ravenous, and she tucked into the meat with gusto, even if it was quite possibly the toughest, least palatable thing she’d tasted in years.
She studied Natt’s sleeping form again as she ate, this time lingering on the other things on his huge body, the things he’d clearly chosen. The thick, bright gold earring, embedded deep in the lobe of his pointed left ear. The sword still strapped to his belt, its blade curved gleaming steel, the hilt studded with costly-looking black gems. And finally, on the middle finger of Natt’s right hand, that gold-and-green ring. Large and heavy and powerful-looking, the gold beautifully bound around what looked to be three large, perfectly cutemeralds.
The ring was orc-forged, Ella knew very well, and she brought down a careful finger to lightly trace against it. She had always been irrationally intrigued by orc-forged jewels, and though she’d never seemed able to bring herself to purchase any, she knew that this ring would have cost a fortune in a human market, and likely the sword as well. So why did Natt wear them now, when he never had before? How had such precious items becomehis?
It was only more questions, with no answers in sight, and Ella finally forced herself away from Natt’s sleeping form, and outside the cave altogether. Where she explored a little around it, relearning all the stones and paths and crannies, and finding a patch of berries to snack on, as well. All the while watching and listening for any signs of activity in the forest around her, and almost feeling herself relax — until she heard a telltale, ringing bark, off in the distance.
Ella froze in place, straining to hear — and there it was again. The same bark.Thatbark. Themen.
Wait. Those awful men werestill here?Still following them?Waitingfor them?!
Ella scurried back into the cave, her heartbeat jolting in her chest — and found her frantic eyes blinking straight at Natt’s. Natt, who instead of sleeping, was bemusedly blinking back at her in the dim light.
“Oh, thank the gods you’re awake!” Ella gasped, as she rushed over to kneel beside him. “Because the men, Natt, those horrid men are stillhere, Byrneliedto me, they haven’t left atall!”
Natt only kept blinking at her, his eyelashes thick and dark against his mottled cheekbone. “No, they would not,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I ken they shall not yet attack again, not if you are here.”
That wasn’t even slightly reassuring, but Ella shoved the thought away for the moment, and belatedly cast her eyes up and down Natt’s blood-stained form. “How are you feeling? How’s your leg?”
Natt carefully shifted his thigh against the stone, flaring a sudden, pained wince across his face. “Ach,” he said. “Better.”
It didn’t look better, to Ella’s eyes, but she attempted a nod, and abruptly handed over the sloshing water-skin. Watching as Natt grasped it and drank, his hand seeming somewhat steadier, before he glanced downwards, to the folded sheepskin beneath his head. And then to his leg, which Ella had left open to the air, now that it had stopped bleeding.
“Ach,” he said again. “You are — still here.”
There was confusion in his blinking eyes, in his rasping voice, and Ella realized that he’d fully expected her to run. To leave him alone, suffering, in a state like this, while those awful men were apparently still lurking about. And the fact that Natt thought that, that he truly thought Ella had changed that much, seemed to clamp deep in her chest, squeezing out her breath.
“Youkidnappedme,” she heard herself reply, because that was perhaps the only safe thing to say, in this moment. “Remember?”
Something shifted in Natt’s black eyes, and there was an unmistakable, beautiful twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Ach,” he said. “So I did. And thus” — his body shifted on the stone, the pain again flashing across his face — “you must obey all that I command. Or else.”
