Lothair let his arrow fly.
“Talon.”
Her warning was too late.The arrowhit Talon in the belly and jerked him back in his saddle.Hegrabbed at his side, and Lara’s scream stuck in her throat as heslumped forward over the Black’s neck, looked over at Lara, thenslid sideways off his saddle and fell to the ground.
“No,” Lara cried as Lothair set another arrow to his bow.“Please God, no.”
“Praying to God won’thelp.”Lothair pointed an arrow at her.“Your man is dead, and soonyou will be too.”
“Then you had better shoottrue, you spineless bastard.”Lara hunkered down over Gaea’s neckas they thundered toward him.“Because if you miss me, I will killyou.”
Lara rode straight for him as Lothairtook his time aiming, sure of himself, grinning with anticipation,but he hadn’t anticipated Wolf, who was no more than ten paces fromhim when he saw the hound and shot, too quick and too wide.With notime to set another arrow, he jerked his horse’s head around andmade for the woods with Wolf snapping at his boots.
Once she’d jumped off Gaea, Lara ranto Talon and kneeled by his head.Blood pooled the ground from hiswounds, and his eyes were half-open slits of gray.A keening moanrose from somewhere so deep inside Lara, she thought she’d neverdraw breath again as the nightmare plaguing her for months came tobe.
“No.Not you.Please God, not you.”She cradled Talon’s head,rocking back and forth on her knees.“Please don’t leave me.Please, please don’t leave me.Not like this.”
“Not a chance.”His voicea rasp, his eyes fluttered open and focused on her.“I thought… Itold you…you to ride.”
“I thought they’d killedyou.”
Talon tried to smile but grimaced.“They damn near have.”
“No.”Lara had seen himfall.She’d seen him lying in a pool of his own blood, just asshe’d seen him in her dreams.But unlike in her dreams, he wasstill alive.“They’ve not killed you yet, and will not.Not as longas I’ve anything to do with it.”
“I’m all yours.”Taloncoughed and his eyes rolled back as his lids shuttered.
Lara sucked her breath in, held it,then let it out in a rush when his chest finally rose and fell,slow and shallow—but he was breathing.A loud whinny from thewood’s edge sent her scrambling for Talon’s longsword, and shestood with it gripped firmly in both hands as Lothair’s riderlessgray came crashing into the meadow, Wolf snapping at its hocks.Lara gave a short, sharp whistle, and Wolf came loping over, histongue lolling out of his bloody muzzle.He sniffed at Talon, thenlooked up at Lara.
“Right,” she said, lookingaround.The sun touched the mountain’s western peak: it would bedark soon.“First things first.”
After making sure Talon was stillbreathing, she approached the Black with her hand out and told himwhat she was doing as she stripped him of his saddle and blanket.She covered Talon with the blanket and searched his saddlebags,where his flint, an extra tunic, and a vial of love potion brushedher fingertips.Whether it was the vial Sophie had given him or oneof the sister’s, she neither knew nor cared.
Sending prayers out to her Tante, toGod, to the setting sun and the rising moon, she cut and tore thetunic into strips and packed them around the shafts of both arrows.The bleeding from his thigh had slowed to a seep, but he still bledcopiously around the arrow in his right side: dark blood, liverblood.
She stood and glanced around themeadow again.Four horses, including Fulrad’s bay and Lothair’sgray, gathered together near Gaea and the Black, forming their ownlittle herd in the growing dark now their dead masters’ bodies laystrewn across the meadow.She stripped the closest man’s body ofhis tunic, waist knife, and short sword, then dragged him into thewoods, where she gathered kindling and small logs, laid them in apile next to Talon, and repeated her motions with the second manand then Fulrad, adding their tunics, short swords, and onelongsword to her growing stockpile.She eyed the horses’ gear andremoved a skin of wine from a sorrel gelding’s saddle.
She had a good fire going by the timethe sky had turned from dusk to night, and a nice pile of tunicscut into strips and squares.
Pushing with all her might, she rolledTalon onto his left side, placing his saddle blanket over his chestand shoulders.She removed the bloody packing from around thearrows’ entry points, took a big swig of the wine, then poured someover his wounds, worried that he hadn’t so much as stirred duringher ministrations.She laid her knife in the fire, grabbed theshaft of the arrow in his thigh with both hands, and started topull.Talon shot his hand out and grabbed her wrist with a viselikegrip.His eyes were open and staring at hers.Recognition filledthem, and he loosened his grip.
“I have to pull the arrowsout,” she told him, her voice shaking almost as much as her hands.“Then I have to cauterize the wounds.”
He dropped his grip from her wrist,licked his chapped lips, then nodded.“Do it.”
Lara’s lips felt as parched as Talon’slooked as she pulled the vial of love potion from her pocket.“Here.”She held the vial to his lips.“Drink this.”
“Are you offering me alove potion?”His grin was even more lopsided than usual but endedwith a grimace.
“Just drink it,” shecommanded, and he obeyed, drinking all but a lastswallow.
“Now you,” he said,raising Lara’s brows.“You know it was meant for you, my beautiful,thorny wildcat.”
He gave her another lopsided grin asshe swallowed the last of the potion, then she wiped his brow andhers, flipped the blade in the fire, propped his calf up on thesaddle, and used Fulrad’s knife to cut a slit in his legging aroundthe arrow.
“Ready?”she said.Hegrunted, and she gripped the shaft of the arrow with both hands andpulled with all her strength.Talon’s body stiffened, and shethought his teeth might crack he clamped his jaw so tight.Shecontinued to pull, slow and steady, until the arrow came out with asucking sound.She gave the shaft and arrowhead a once-over to makesure it was intact, that no bits had broken off inside Talon, andthen laid it on the ground, careful not to touch the arrow’s head.Lothair was known to dip his in poisons or dung, bragging that ifhis arrows didn’t kill a man right off, they would eventually frominfection, a thing she wouldn’t mention to Talon.Fresh bloodflowed from the hole in his leg, and Lara let it.“You’re lucky,”she told Talon.“The arrow missed your bone andarteries.”
“Somehow…I don’t feel…solucky.”His face had gone from pale to ashen, and they hadn’t evengotten to the worst of it.
