At her questioning look, he continued. “Those creatures, those wyverns, they attacked our camp as well.”
“The Heart?” she asked slowly. “They attacked the Heart?”
“Yes,” Hanstau said absently. “I must see to this. How do you say, ‘I need hot water’?”
She blinked at him. “The wound is deep and it throbs and is full of rot. It will kill me, for which I thank the elements. If my hands were free, I’d go to the snows.”
“By the Sun God,” Hanstau sat back on his heels and frowned. “What is this fascination that you people have with killing yourselves? I grant you that it’s deep and I am sure it hurts. But all it needs is cleaning and stitching. I might be able to use bloodmoss on it if I can clean it well enough.” He started to rummage through his satchel. They’d searched it for weapons and left everything a jumble.
He glanced over to find Reness staring at him
Hanstau returned the look calmly. He was no warrior, although he’d lost a bit of his belly since leaving Xy. “I will clean it,” he repeated. “Heal it as best I can, as fast as is safe. Then we will find a way to be free. Both of us.”
“You are no warrior,” Reness said as if convincing herself. “But you have steel in you.”
Hanstau got to work. Demanding hot water from the guards, he worked as best he could as Reness grunted in pain.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But if I am to use bloodmoss I can’t leave any dirt behind. There are some splinters.”
Reness gasped. He could tell that she was forcing herself to breathe.
“That warrior-priest,” he started to talk. “Hail Storm—”
“No names,” Reness hissed in Xyian. “They listen.”
Hanstau nodded. “There is something wrong with that one. He stared at me as I worked on his arm, as if looking into my soul.”
“They are said to have powers,” she replied.
“Not anymore,” Hanstau said. “Supposedly.”
“What?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me the news of the Plains.”
“I wasn’t there for all of it,” he told her.
“Tell me your truths,” she demanded.
So Hanstau talked as he washed the wound and dug for splinters. He spoke of what he had heard about the warrior-priests losing their tattoos and their powers. He mentioned the
warrior-priestess with the partial tattoos that had offered to serve Simus.
He told her of Wild Winds’s death.
Finally, he sat back, satisfied. “We will wait until tomorrow, when the swelling has gone down. Then we can decide if we want to risk the bloodmoss. Faster healing, but if there is debris within it will cause greater problems.
But Reness was staring at the ceiling above them, her brows drawn together. “So Antas has a warrior-priest, one that claims to be the Eldest Elder. He has me, the Eldest Elder Thea. And now you, his Warprize.”
“Why does he think I am his warprize?” Hanstau said. “From what I understand of the all the requirements, I am not.”
“Truth is no obstacle to Antas.” Reness shifted her gaze to look at him. “For him, the truth is what he says it is.”
There was a spark back in her eyes, and her color was much better. Hanstau felt the deep pleasure that came from aiding another as he reached to start cleaning his mess.
“Antas really only needs one thing,” Reness continued.
“What is that?” Hanstau asked.
“All he needs now for his own Council of the Elders?” she said. “Is a Singer.”
