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13
PAIGE
Iwork my way through the milling throng surrounding the injured tribesman. At least, I think he’s injured. I heard someone in the crowd say that he was still alive, but that might not be true.
“What’s going on?” Laney asks.
I turn around, shocked to see her standing there. “Laney, you need to go back to the house now.”
She frowned, her little face scrunched up with petulance. “But I want to see what’s going on.”
“You’re too little. You’re going to get knocked over in this crowd and trampled to death. Just go.”
“But there are kids here younger than me,” she protests.
She’s not wrong, but I can’t let her win this argument. I won’t feel right until I know she’s safe. Besides, the tribesman is likely badly injured even if he is alive. I don’t want her to get scared looking at him.
“Laney,” I say, my voice on the verge of breaking. “Please mind me. I just can’t concentrate on anything else until I know you’re safe. Please.”
Laney rolled her eyes and heaved an exasperated sigh. “Fine, but you’d better tell me everything that happened when you get back. I know you think I’m just a little kid, but I’ve already seen dead bodies before. Lots of them.”
She turned and jogged back to our … that is, to Jovak’s house. I return to my efforts to shoulder my way to the front of the crowd.
When I finally succeeded, I almost wished I hadn’t. The warriors bearing the bed on wheels continued on their way toward the shaman’s temple. Already I can hear Shaman Otunga’s scratchy voice demanding to see the patient.
But my eyes are transfixed on the tribesman or what’s left of him. He looks diminished, skin loose and pruned as if he’s been sucked dry by a horde of mosquitoes. I can see several raw, open wounds. My hand claps over my mouth at how ghastly and large the wounds are. I could have put my entire hand into one of them if I was inclined to try.
Yet, the wounds do not bleed. I’m not sure he has any blood left. Somehow, his chest continues to rise and fall with his respiration. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is open. He has something dark stuck to several of his teeth, like he’s been eating dirt.
“Enough!”
Otunga’s voice carries the weight of authority and a little boost of magic. A gust of wind blows hard down the paved road, and the orcs and humans part for her. She clacks up on her walking stick, moving faster than I would have thought possible for one at her advanced age.
She puts a gnarled hand on the tribesman’s forehead and closes her eyes. Her lips move with the words of a spell. Then she opens her eyes and turns her gaze on Rolar.
“Get him into the temple, quickly. He is near death.”
I join the procession as they head into the temple. Most of the orcs and humans are told to wait outside. I think I’m only allowed in because I’m Jovak’s mate.
They put the tribesman onto a padded table. He looks so frail, so unlike all of the orcs I’ve seen, even the old ones. So withered, a mere husk of what he should be. Jovak catches my gaze and frowns.
“Perhaps you should wait outside,” he says.
“I’m no stranger to tragedy, Jovak. I’ll stay unless you command me to leave.”
He seemed taken aback, then subtly nodded.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asks Otunga.
She scowled as she passed her hands over the man’s body.
“He is like the prey of a spider trapped in a silken cocoon. Much of his body has been dissolved away. I think he’s been fed upon.”
“Fed upon?” Jovak’s alarm mirrors my own. My heart skips a beat at the thought of something powerful and evil enough to feed on orc warriors. “By what? What manner of creature would do this?”
Jovak turns to Rolar.
“Where did you find him?”
