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For what?I mouth back. What could he possibly do?
This time he chances a whisper. “Remember our sword fight?”
I nod. He was a cocky idiot, allowing himself to get hurt so he could win. What does that have to do with anything?
Now,he mouths.
I tense, though I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
And Riden, who is unrestrained, yet injured, leaps forward toward Niffon’s bucket. He cups his hands in the water as a shot goes off.
Smoke billows out of Theris’s pistol. Riden collapses to the ground, holding his hands above him, trying to preserve the water cupped so carefully.
But Niffon finally jumps to action, slapping Riden’s hands to force the water to the ground. He wipes Riden’s hands on his own pants before tossing him back toward me, away from the water.
“Idiot,” Theris says calmly. He begins reloading his pistol, applying more powder to the weapon and lodging in another iron ball.
“You idiot,” I repeat, not caring if the others hear me. “This whole time I’ve been making sure youdon’tget shot. Shouldn’t have bothered.”
Riden’s grasping his leg, just above his knee. His voice is heavy. “I’ve never been shot before. It sort of hurts… a lot.”
I know exactly how it feels to be shot. It feels as you would expect it to. Like iron is splitting your flesh at lightning speed and wedging up against your bones.
“Try that again,” Theris says, “and you’ll feel it twice as strongly.”
“At least they didn’t kill me,” Riden says, ignoring Theris.
“Except now you can’t walk.”
Once Theris has his weapon reloaded, he turns back to Vordan as though there was no interruption. Niffon and Cromis are much more alert, hardly taking the time to blink as they watch Riden and me.
“That was your brilliant plan?” I ask. No one seems to care that we’re talking now. Riden’s injured past the point of usefulness, and I’m locked up. We’re hardly a threat.
“Yes,” he says, swallowing a moan. “But it needs some refining.”
Before I can ask what he means by that, he’s crawling back toward the buckets, dragging his injured leg behind him.
Everyone halts what they’re doing and stares at him.
“Look at that,” Cromis says.
“Doesn’t give up,” Niffon adds.
“Riden, stop!” I finally find my voice, but he seems to have lost his senses entirely. Doesn’t he realize they’ll kill him? At the very least he’s going to get shot again.
He ignores me, pulling himself onward. He’s almost reached the buckets.
I hear the pistol cock back. Theris takes aim and fires.
Riden gasps before his body collapses, his head falling right into the bucket.
Niffon hauls him out and tosses him back toward me.
Riden’s eyes are closed. He’s not breathing. I search all along his body, trying to find where the shot struck him. Finally, I see another blood-soaked hole. Theris got him in the same leg, this time below the knee. It looks like the second shot missed the bone, streaking clean through the muscle on the side of his calf.
“Boy’s got a death wish,” Theris says.
“Should we kill him, Captain?” Cromis asks.
