There was a loud thump above them, closer than before, and Tristan rushed toward the hole in the ceiling. Toward where Salvi was suddenly leaping down, and lugging something behind him. Something huge, and limp, and covered with blood.Simon.
For a long, horrible moment, Rosa could only stand there, fighting for breath, fighting to shove away the blackness prickling at the edges of her eyes. She’d never seen so much blood in herlife, and it was pouring from Simon’s body, streaming thick and red down his front, down his thigh. Filling her nostrils with sharp bitter iron, even pooling at herfeet—
He wasn’t dead. Was hedead?!
Tristan lurched to Salvi’s side, helping him settle Simon’s limp bloody mass onto the stone floor — movement that dragged a deep, strangled sound from Simon’s mouth. But he was alive, oh gods he was alive, and finally Rosa could move again, staggering toward them, her hands fluttering uselessly in the air.
“What happened?!” she choked. “What can wedo?”
“Fucking crossbows,” Salvi shot back, his bloody hands frantically digging through his pack. “And he yanked the bolts out of hisarteries, the idiot, andsæti, find the bindings,please, we have tomove—”
Salvi’s body wrenched back to Simon, pressing his bare hands hard against Simon’s spurting shoulder and thigh, as more thick blood streamed between his fingers. While Tristan turned and began yanking things out of Salvi’s pack, strips of leather and cloth, and then thrust them toward Salvi, who then had to jerk his hand away from Simon’s shoulder, blood spraying wide —
“Fuck,” Salvi gasped — but thank the gods, Rosa’s brain had jolted into action again, and she darted forward, and shoved both her hands against Simon’s shoulder, just where Salvi’s had been. Feeling the hot, sticky, sickening blood pulsing out under her fingers, but it was helping, somehow, freeing Salvi to grasp for Tristan’s cloth, and to begin binding it around Simon’s bloody thigh. Tying it off, grabbing for another one, Tristan helping this time, yanking the knots tight.
The binding was already pooled full of red, but Salvi’s bloody hands had now thrust Rosa’s away, and began doing the same to Simon’s shoulder. “Hold his arm up,” he ordered her, so she did, struggling against the astonishing weight of it, until they’d tied another bandage tight around Simon’s shoulder.
Simon’s head had begun lolling sideways, his breaths loud and shallow, and Rosa flinched at the sight of Salvi slapping him across the face, hard. “Up, you asshole,” he snapped. “Now.”
And that, Rosa realized, with another stab of horror, was because there werevoicesabove.Men. The men knew they were close, the men were going to find the tunnel, the men were going to come down andkillthem —
But Tristan and Salvi were conferring in rapid Aelakesh, and somehow, impossibly, Salvi had dragged Simon’s massive body up onto his feet. And though Simon badly staggered, grunting with pain, he was up, he was moving, he wasalive.
“Grab the pack, Rosa,” Salvi gasped at her. “Andrun!”
32
Rosa obeyed without thinking. Dashing to hoist up the heavy pack onto her back, racing to grab the lamp, to catch up to Salvi — and then realizing, suddenly, that Tristan was still behind them. And he was alone, his clawed hands scrabbling wildly at the stone wall, as the sound of men’s voices above rose louder, louder —
“Comeon,Rosa!” Salvi’s thin voice hissed, as Tristan reeled away from the wall he’d been digging at, and began sprinting at full speed toward them. His eyes wide, his braid streaking out straight behind him, his hand grasping for Rosa’s, dragging her after him —
When inexplicably, impossibly, the whole earth trembled. So powerful that Rosa staggered sideways, nearly crashing into the wall — but the wall was shaking too, and Tristan had her, his fingers clamped tight and strong around hers as they ran, as thunder boomed behind them, dust and dirt streaming through the air —
Tristan hadcollapsed the tunnel. To stop the men. To keep themsafe.
Rosa ran like she’d never run before, slipping and sliding on the stone, coughing and choking on the thick, swirling dust. Ran, and ran, for what felt like hours, until her legs could scarcely stay upright anymore, her lungs barely able to breathe —
Until, suddenly, it stopped. Stopped, in what appeared to be a small, cramped stone room. With a stone door that, after a powerful shove from Tristan, crunched shut, blocking out the noise and the dust behind it.
Rosa heaved in choked, bracing breaths, sagging against the nearest stone wall, her bloody hands gripping painfully against her knees. They were alive. And against all reason, somehow, they weresafe.
Or were they, because Salvi’s taut body had lunged toward Rosa — toward the pack that was still on her back, her twirling thoughts registered, even as she jerked away from him, the terror again choking in her throat.
“Sorry,” Salvi said with a grimace, as he carefully pulled the pack off Rosa’s shoulders. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just a bit twitchy, ach?”
Rosa’s mouth made a sound that might have been a laugh, or a sob. And once Salvi had darted away again, kneeling over Simon’s limp — but still visibly breathing — form, Rosa slid all the way down the wall, buried her head into her knees, and fought to find air again.
They were alive. She was alive. Because these orcs — the orcs she’d come to start awarwith, the orcs she’dbetrayed— had kept her safe. They’d collapsed their own tunnel, and takencrossbow bolts, to keep her safe.
When she blinked up again, Tristan and Salvi were both hovering over Simon. Tristan ripping off Simon’s tunic, seemingly inspecting him for more wounds, while Salvi unwrapped the bandage on his thigh. Which was still oozing thick dark blood, though perhaps less freely than before.
“Will Simon be all right?” Rosa asked, her voice far too high-pitched in the small room. “He won’t —die, will he?”
The sudden, twisting misery of that was almost too powerful to bear — until it was broken by the distinct sound of a hoarse, disapproving grunt.Simon’sgrunt, to which Salvi gave a wry laugh, a shake of his dark head.
“It’ll take more than a few crossbow bolts to kill this bastard,” he said, as he pulled out what seemed to be a waterskin from his pack, and poured it over Simon’s thigh, and then over his own hands. “As much as we all might wish otherwise, ach,sæti?”
He shot a quick, sharp-toothed grin toward Tristan, and Rosa could see Tristan relaxing, his shoulders sagging. “We donotwish Simon to be killed,” he countered weakly. “And if you are sewing that, Salvi, you ought to give him a drink for the pain.”
