02 - The Barbed Rose (19 page)

Kallista put her fingers over his mouth. “Stop talking. I’d think you were drunk, with all this babbling, save I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you drunk.”

He kissed her fingers. “Drunk on magic.”

Shouting and noises of fighting came from the building where the assassin lurked. More soldiers poured into the square from three other streets, followed by a troop of green-robed healers. Kallista turned Torchay and the boy over to them and would have stood to meet the officer in command, save that Obed refused to allow her to rise. Not until the sergeant appeared on the street escorting a bound man whose skin was the stark, colorless black of charcoal. The magic had indeed marked him.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at here, Captain, sending out an alarm like that.” The officer in charge, an infantry major, strode to the fountain as Kallista finally got to her feet. “You made this sound like a massacre by a whole army of rebels rather than just one man.”

“One man can commit a great deal of harm to the defenseless,” Kallista said. “It
was
a massacre, except that only one has died so far.”

“You have obviously not been in battle, Farspeaker, or you would know—”

“Excuse me, Naitan.” A healer broke into the conversation. “Where is your healer? She must release her magic so that we can begin our work.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize.” Kallista turned from the major. “Are your healers ready?” She stroked her hand over Torchay’s hair. “My ilias is precious to me—as I am sure the others are to those who love them. Of course, you are ready. You would not have—” Now she was babbling.

She drew breath and
reached
, cutting the magic and letting the threads ravel, beginning with the soldier, then the boy and finally Torchay. “Can I leave the magic easing his pain? I think I can do the same for the others, if it would help.”

The healer’s expression would have made Kallista laugh if she had not been so worried about Torchay. “
You
did this? But you wear blue—that is—yes. Our anesthetist would appreciate the assistance.”

Kallista caught Joh’s hand and called magic from him and Obed. She didn’t know whether calling Torchay’s magic would help or hinder his healing and wasn’t willing to experiment. She touched the boy to
see
him better. He was not bound to her, so she took extra care in easing his pain to be sure she did nothing she did not intend. Then she did the same for the sweating soldier. He was scarcely older than the boy—maybe as much as nineteen. The relief in his eyes thanked her before he closed them.

When she turned back to Torchay, he lay on his back on a stretcher. The tip of the arrow’s point still protruded from the front of his tunic, but the long feathered end lay cut and discarded in the street.

General Uskenda clattered into the square on a rawboned black horse, more troops behind her. “Well, Major,” she said, swinging off her mount. “You certainly know how to create a stir.”

“General, I—” the infantry major began.

Uskenda cut her off. “I was speaking to Major Varyl here. No time for your golds yet, I see.”

“No, General.” Kallista straightened and saluted. “I have—we were—” She stopped, gestured helplessly. “My ilias is hurt.” She fidgeted with the need to follow the healers bearing Torchay away.

“While saving you, no doubt. Are you certain it was only the one man?”

“As much as I can be. Only one archer, at least. Ask the men who dug him out.”

“Farspeaking, healing, demon-slaying—I think blue may not be the right color for you, Naitan.”

“General,” Kallista pleaded, desperate in her need to follow Torchay, to know he was and would be all right.

“Yes, yes, Major. Go. We will investigate matters here.” Uskenda released her with a flip of her hand and Kallista darted after Torchay, so fast she caught Joh and Obed flat-footed.

In their main hall just outside the palace, the healers had all the wounded—even the woman who’d been borne away by her ilias—in one large room divided by lightweight, movable walls. Kallista found the healers to be quite movable as well, when first one, then another tried to stop her short of Torchay’s side. Several more seemed to be converging on her when the one in charge, who had been in the square, waved them off.

“I must protest, Elliane Naitan,” the healer in Torchay’s cell spoke as Kallista, Obed and Joh entered. Kallista ignored her, rushing to Torchay’s side. The woman went on. “This is against policy. You know how family members interfere with treatment.”

“Hush. She kept him alive—kept them all alive when they might have bled dry.”

Torchay lay on his back on the hard narrow bed, his tunic cut in pieces and discarded on the floor. It hurt Kallista to look at him, to see the arrow point in the center of the trickles of blood painting his pale skin.

“There you are.” Torchay clasped the hand she slid into his. “No more trouble? They kept you safe coming here?”

Kallista nodded, blinking back tears, swallowing down the boulders in her throat. She’d get one down and another would roll in, forcing her to swallow again. She assembled a smile from bits and pieces she found lying about—mostly in Torchay’s eyes smiling back at her.

“You really must stop doing this sort of thing,” she said. “How can we carry out our mission if I keep having to use all the magic to patch you back together?”

“You haven’t done any patching yet that I can see.” Torchay tried to grasp the arrow point, but his fingers slipped in the oozing blood. “Get this great nasty thing out of me, patch up the hole and let’s go home.”

“Torchay—” Kallista glanced back at the healer, still arguing with the one she’d called Elliane. What would be the best thing to do?

“Obed, pull it out.” Torchay beckoned their dark ilias with a jerk of his head.

Obed approached, edging round the hissing argument of the naitani. “I would not injure you worse.”

“It’s got to come out, doesn’t it? Pull it out. You won’t hurt me. Kallista’s seen to that.”

Obed nodded, a sharp jerk of his head. Kallista moved out of the way, toward Torchay’s head. The healer wasn’t paying any attention to her charge. Kallista wanted him healed, and if they wouldn’t do what was needed, she’d heal him herself. She’d done it before. But she didn’t want to pull the arrow out. She didn’t think she could. Not because she didn’t have the physical strength, but because this was Torchay.

“I may have to—” Obed licked his bottom lip. “To work for a grip on the point.”

“You can shove your fingers clear to my heart and I doubt I’ll feel it.” Torchay’s hold tightened on Kallista’s hand, showing he wasn’t quite sure of his statement. “Just get the damn thing out of me.”

Again Obed nodded. He grasped the arrowhead.

“Wait.” Kallista beckoned to Joh still hovering at the entrance to the tiny space. She took his hand and set it on her neck, beneath her queue, over her mark. Her hands would be occupied, and she wanted all possible magic at her disposal, ready to heal Torchay. “All right. Go ahead.”

With a quick glance that encompassed both Torchay and Kallista, Obed adjusted his grip. He set his other hand on Torchay’s stomach and pressed it down, away from the metal point. More of the shaft appeared, allowing Obed to work his fingers behind the barbed heel of the arrowhead for a more secure hold. In one steady, swift pull, he drew the rest of the arrow’s cut shaft through Torchay’s flesh and out. Kallista would never, ever forget the awful sound it made as it came.

She called magic, willing it to see, to heal. She lashed its sluggish behavior into obedience, refusing to accept anything less than perfection. This was
Torchay
. The magic he carried—magic he couldn’t touch, magic for her to use—was still more powerful than the other two together. It leached through Kallista’s block, laying the injury clear. She had done this before, remembered all she had done last year, after their escape from their brief Tibran imprisonment. But it was easier this time.

Torchay was linked. The magic he held gave her access and guidance. And he was not near death. Kallista pushed torn edges back together, fused broken vessels, drove out foreign substances.

“That feels peculiar.” Torchay lifted his head to look down at Kallista’s hand on his bared stomach. “Tickles, almost.”

“I do not need a commentary while I do this. You’ll make me forget something.” Kallista focused on her task, or tried to.

He let his head fall back on the cot. “We certainly don’t want that, do we? I’ll shut it.” He paused. “But it does tickle.”

“Here! What are you doing?” The healers finally noticed that something other than visiting was happening.

“Taking care of what you weren’t,” Torchay said.

Kallista lifted the edge of her hand and peered underneath at Torchay’s middle. A new, red scar showed a few inches to the right and just above the one he’d received last year.

“All done?” Torchay rose on his elbows to look. Kallista moved her hand out of the way to let him. “Good.” He sat up. “Ready to go home then?”

“More than ready.” Kallista’s knees felt wobbly.

“You can’t just walk out of here like that,” the healer protested.

“Why not?” Torchay jumped to his feet and spread his arms, displaying his just-mended torso.

“You can’t be healed. Not so quickly.”

Kallista leaned back into Joh, needing him to help hold her up. She was feeling a little dizzy.

“But I am.”

Both healers came forward to inspect Kallista’s work, despite Torchay’s obvious annoyance. Elliane brushed her fingers over the new bloodstained scar. “Can you do this for the other injured?”

“I don’t believe so.” Kallista didn’t know whether she could or couldn’t, but she feared the healers would drag her all over the city to experiment, and she had neither the time nor the energy for it. She wasn’t sure she had the magic. “Torchay is one of my godmarked companions. We’re bound together in a way that allows me to do this for him, but I have no such connection with these others.”

“It’s
impossible
,” the other healer was muttering for the eleventy-first time, now inspecting the entry wound scar in Torchay’s back.

“Obviously not,” he said, “since it’s done. I’m leaving now. Where are my blades?”

Speechless, the healers gestured toward Torchay’s ruined tunic, his Heldring swords and other blades scattered beneath it. Most of the belts had been cut, to his vocal disgust. He used part of his tunic to form a bag to carry them.

“Here.” Obed shrugged out of his over-robe and handed it to Torchay. “The day is cool and if you do not wish to take time to wash—” He indicated the smears of blood on Torchay’s stomach and chest.

“Right.” Torchay handed the makeshift sack to Joh and put on the robe. “We don’t want to scare the populace, do we?” He used his uniform belt to tie it closed and sighed. “I suppose I’ll be going into summer uniform sooner than I wanted.”

He drew one of his short swords, spun the hilt in his hand till it settled to his satisfaction, and nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”

Kallista motioned for Obed to take the lead and wound her arm through Torchay’s unoccupied one. She needed to know he was whole. The feel of the thick Southron silk over his arm reminded her. “
My gloves
. I left my gloves in the square. I can’t—”

“Here.” Joh slapped them against his leg, knocking off dust and sand. “I have them.”

“Thank you.” Shaking, Kallista accepted his help in putting them on. Once she would never have left the square without them. Today, she’d been too upset over Torchay’s injuries to think of anything else. Thank the One her out-of-kilter magic hadn’t done anything fatal on the journey here. She had to get hold of herself and her emotions.

“You look after the big things,” Joh murmured, as if reading her mind. “We’ll take care of the little ones. It’s what we’re here for, after all.”

With a slight bow, Obed whirled and led the way back through the main chamber. They made a strange procession, Kallista thought. Obed stalked ahead like some dark predator. Torchay strode along swaddled in Obed’s black robe with a naked sword in one hand and Kallista clinging to the other. Joh brought up the rear, carrying the bundle of Torchay’s remaining blades. When Kallista stumbled over the threshold leading outside, Joh caught up in a step and took her other arm so she was supported on both sides.

“This isn’t right.” She tried to pull away from Joh, then from Torchay. “I’m not the one who was hurt.”

“No, you’re just the one throwing magic around like it was feathers when it’s really sandbags. Uncooperative sandbags.” Torchay held tight to her. “I’m good as new. Never better. I merely got run through with an arrow. You did much, much more. I can tell how the magic fights with you.”

Obed jerked his head around to look over his shoulder at them. “Backlash?” Then he recalled his duty and scanned the crowds around them.

A few more moments and they would pass through the palace gates again. Kallista hoped the target she felt on her back would go away once they did.

“No, not backlash,” she reassured Obed. “Your magic answered beautifully.”

“Truth, Kallista,” Torchay said.

“You heard what I told the Reinine. Without our other three, the magic requires more effort to control. It’s different from before Fox joined us, when Stone was here. Then it rushed about, escaping before I could command it. Now, it’s slow. Like a boulder that needs a hard push to get it moving. Especially yours, Torchay. The bigger the rock, the more effort it takes to move it. So yes, truth. His magic did all I asked of it, despite the effort required.”

They finally reached Daybright Tower. Kallista did not want to look at the stairs, much less climb them, but between Joh, Torchay and more laughter than her pride could take, they got her up them and into their suite.

“Are you well, Sergeant?” Viyelle strode across the open space to greet them. “I heard you were—well, skewered.”

“I was.” Torchay pulled off the robe to show his new scars. “Kallista fixed me. So she’s a bit knackered at the moment. Is there water so I can get this stuff off me?”

“It was just brought up.” Viyelle gestured toward the rooms. “What happened? Is there anything I can do?”