Warrior Untamed (12 page)

Brie ignored the question and got to her feet, snugging her shoulder under Hall’s arm to help support
him. She could only hope his mind was too fuzzy to have registered the old witch’s question.

Found herself a match indeed. Not hardly. Though a night ago, she’d allowed herself to believe the same thing.

“How?” Hall muttered, attempting to pull away as if he thought he could do this on his own.

“Easy, now,” Orabilis cautioned as she shoved the cottage door open with one hip and guided them all inside. “Into the chair with him. Over here, near the fire. I need to see what I’ve got to work with.”

The old woman grunted as they eased their burden down and then stepped away, hands on her hips as if admiring her accomplishment.

“You said he’d been poisoned by Magic. What exactly has done this to him?”

Brie straightened, her back protesting sharply at the last several minutes of mistreatment she’d given it. “The Sword of the Ancients. It barely touched him, but Editha Faas said its Magic is most powerful. And, judging by what it’s done to Hall, I have to agree with her.”

“Sword of the Ancients, eh?” Orabilis chewed on the corner of her lip, her sharp eyes boring a hole in Hall. “If that’s the case, how did you pass through my ring of rowans, my good man?”

Hall shook his head back and forth like a man waking from a long dream. “Tried to ask you that.”

“So you did. That’s a mystery we’ll worry ourselves
over later. Yer here now, are you no? Might as well get out of that tunic and give me a look at that injury of yers so we can see if Editha Faas kenned what she was talking about when she sent you here. You should be feeling a little stronger by now. Are you?”

“Mistress Faas isn’t likely to make an error on something such as this. No Fae would.” Hall pulled the tunic up and over his head and let it drop beside him.

Brie tightened her hands into fists as Orabilis laid a gnarled finger upon his wounded shoulder. The old woman traced the curve of his muscle to the edge of the bandage and Brie could almost swear she felt the touch of his heated skin upon her own hand.

The light of the fire glistened off Hall’s chest and Brie’s heart beat a little harder, forcing her to breathe deeply to calm it down.

Too bad he wasn’t what she’d thought him to be. Too bad she wasn’t what he’d want in a wife. Too bad, all of it, because he was exactly what she would—

“Bridget!”

Brie’s head snapped around to face Orabilis, realizing as she did that she’d missed whatever her hostess had said earlier. She’d been completely lost in staring at the beauty of Hall’s bare chest, remembering how it felt to be held by those strong arms.

“I said I need more light in here. Run out to the shed and bring in peat staves for the fire.” The old woman spoke slowly, deliberately, as if her words were meant for a dullard.

Brie deserved as much.

“Right away.”

She cast a quick glance in Hall’s direction as she headed for the door. In spite of his condition, a smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

A mortifying certainty swirled in the pit of her stomach and heated her face. She’d been so obvious in her lusting after his body that, even at death’s door, he, too, had known she’d been lost in staring at him.

If there was a greater name than
fool
for a fool, she had more than earned it this day.

B
RIDGET HAD DONE
it. Just as she’d vowed she would. Somehow, this wild-spirited warrior had managed to get him to Rowan Cottage before the Magic of the sword had taken him.

What an amazing woman she was.

He tried for a smile as she headed past him, hoping she realized how grateful he was for all she’d done for him. But her gaze skated past him as if she couldn’t bear the intimacy of their eyes connecting.

Little surprise there. He was hardly worth her time. One way or another, he’d be out of her life soon enough—a fact she’d apparently accepted.

Hall turned his attention to Orabilis. His only hope for survival tottered around, looking as if she were on her last legs. Witch or Faerie, it made no difference to him. They needed to act quickly.

“It’s betony and yarrow I need now—” he began, but the old woman interrupted.

“Dinna you be telling me how to go about healing, boy. I was working with herbs long before you were born.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” In fact, he quite doubted it. To say he was older than he looked would be a great understatement. Though if she were indeed Faerie, her looks would have no bearing on her true age. The Fae wore appearances as Mortals wore clothing.

“Well, I’m sure of it. I ken what you are. I felt it when I touched you. And dinna you bother to argue with me. You’ll want to save yer strength for answering my questions. The potion I used willna last overlong. What I do want to hear from you is where you got yer hands on the amulet that hangs around yer neck. The one that allowed you through my defenses.”

So it was his talisman that had granted him entry to Rowan Cottage. His hand rose to clasp the wooden goat. It was one of his most prized possessions, and where it came from was none of her business.

“It was a naming gift from my friend and brother, Chase Noble,” he answered, the words pouring out of his mouth in spite of his intent not to tell her.

What the hell had she given him?

Orabilis nodded, a satisfied expression settling on her wrinkled face. “Honesty is a good trait to find in a man, even if it’s not necessarily his first inclination. Very well, then. Since you received my little billy there as a naming gift, by what name are you called?”

“Hall O’Donar.” When her eyebrow raised, he felt her disbelief like a slap to his face. “It is as my brother named me. I was called Halldor before the gifting,” he explained.

Again her face creased into a satisfied smile. “So it’s Thor’s Rock gracing my humble home. I should have guessed. You hail from the Thunder people in the Lands of Mist, do you?”

“I do.” Though he rarely spoke of his family roots with anyone, he would never deny them. Not that he had the ability to speak anything other than the whole truth, thanks to whatever Orabilis had given him.

“In that case, I’d say my little billy had nothing to do with yer being here. All in all, good enough,” she muttered, crossing to a shelf on her wall to retrieve several pots. “Herbs,” she announced, returning to the fire to dump their contents into a bubbling cauldron hanging there. “Of my choosing, no yers.”

Some of the aromas he recognized but others were strangely foreign to him.

“A wound such as yers requires other than the usual healing herbs, wouldn’t you say, lad?”

He nodded his agreement. The sword had been created specifically to kill those from his world, so he wasn’t at all sure that even one as powerful as Orabilis was reputed to be could find a way to save him from the ancient Magic at work in his blood.

“There’s a way, never you doubt that, lad.” All traces of humor faded from her face as she held a
hand over his bandage. “There’s always a way. I can only guess that whatever is wrapped in this linen is responsible for yer reaching my door with a breath of life left in you. And there’s only one thing I can think of strong enough for that. Would I be right in my assumption?”

“The jewels,” he confirmed.

It had taken more effort to speak this time than it had before. The old Faerie had been correct about the potion she’d used wearing off soon.

“When I remove them, you’ll likely drift away quickly. Never fear, lad, I’ll bring you back from the middle lands. But before we begin, let’s get you into the back room while we still can. I’ve no desire to be hauling yer great body around without yer assistance.”

Hall rose slowly to his feet, surprised at how difficult it was and how weak his legs felt beneath him. As he followed Orabilis, he tottered as much as she did.

She opened a door and pointed to a tidy little bed. Obediently, he crossed to it and lay down. His mind heavy with apprehension, he waited as her gnarled fingers began to work at the bandage on his shoulder.

“I have them. Shall I put them on the fire now?”

Bridget’s voice floated to him on a rush of cold air, settling around him like a favored blanket as the bandage on his arm was lifted away.

You’ve returned,
he attempted to say, but the
sound that came out of his mouth was little more than a garbled, gurgling noise.

He fought the thick, black ooze settling over his mind, using what strength he had left to reach out his hand as he forced his eyes open once more to focus on Bridget standing in the doorway.

She dropped the armload of peat she carried right there in the doorway and hurried to his bedside, catching up his hand and reaching out to caress his cheek.

It felt good to have her here with him. To have her touch upon his face. If this was to be his last interaction in this world, he could think of no one he wanted more than this woman at his side.

“W
HAT HAVE YOU
done to him? Why did you remove the jewels?”

Brie’s breath seemed to be blocked somewhere in her throat, as if there were no longer room for the air to pass into her lungs.

Hall’s fingers loosened in her grip but she couldn’t make herself let go of him. Maybe, somehow, she could pass her strength to him. Pass her will to keep going on to him.

“Here.” Orabilis handed over a bowl and cloth. “Clean that wound while I gather what I need for the poultice. Mind you, try not to get those nasty bits of the ooze on yer own skin.”

“Will it harm me as it has him?” Not that it would
stop her from helping him. She only wanted to know what to expect.

“No,” Orabilis answered, a sour, wrinkled expression on her face. “But it has a fair nasty smell that people like you would find difficult to wash away.”

Reluctantly, Brie laid Hall’s hand on his chest, then dipped the cloth into the warm water.

People like her? What was that supposed to mean? She would have asked, but the old woman had already wobbled off into the other room.

Brie turned her attention to the task at hand. She cleaned the black oozing secretion from Hall’s shoulder to reveal a deep, jagged opening underneath. The wound had swollen, puckering and tearing the opening, which had once been only a tiny slice of a cut.

“The wound looks to be badly infected,” she called out.

From the other room, the old woman’s mirthless cackle reached Brie’s ears.

“That’s no infection yer seeing there, lass, but pure evil Magic. The only Magic that can bring about the demise of one such as he.”

One such as he
.

Another comment she’d have to ask Orabilis about when all of this was over. Their number was growing by the minute, as was Brie’s suspicion that Orabilis knew as much about Hall as she did about her.

The old woman returned, carrying a large mortar
and pestle and a wicked-looking iron rasp. She tossed a couple of the peat staves into the little fire and sat down on the hearth to unwrap the jewels.

“No! You must keep them covered. Editha told us if we bared them, Fenrir would be able to see through them!”

“You’ve no cause to worry over Fenrir. Not even one such as he has power within the protection of the Rowans. We’re safe here.”

Brie tried to console herself with the old woman’s words and use them to put Torquil out of her mind. The only thing that mattered to her right now lay in the bed at her side, his face as pale as death.

Orabilis ground each of the jewels against the metal rasp, catching small bits of the stones in the mortar. Then she went back to the main room and returned with a cup of the herbs she’d been boiling. She added them to the mortar and mixed it all together into a thick paste.

Brie stroked her fingers over Hall’s stubbled cheek and sent up a quick prayer to the Seven that they might watch over him as he traveled through the middle world. Though he could never be hers, the thought of his death was more than she could stand.

“Can you save him?”

It was the one question she most feared asking. But now the words were out there, lying bare and naked in the air between them.

“I will do my best.”

It was not at all the reassurance she had hoped to hear.

“A shame it is you dinna recover the Elven Scrolls of Niflheim when you liberated the jewels. A peek into their wisdom would tell us exactly how to heal our good warrior.”

With a grunt, Orabilis pushed up from the floor and crossed to the bed, carrying a bowl filled with what looked like a mash of dark purple-green goo.

One arch of Orabilis’s bushy eyebrow, and Brie vacated the little stool next to the bed so that the crone could sit down. Orabilis slathered the paste in a thick layer over Hall’s wound and then bound his shoulder with a clean linen bandage.

“There,” she pronounced as she stood up.

“Now what do we do?” Brie asked, willing and ready for any action Orabilis demanded.

“Now we wait. Without the guidance of the scrolls, there’s nothing else we can do.”

O
F ALL THE
unpleasant activities Brie could imagine, none was more torturous than waiting.

Patience is a virtue,
her father had often said. But both of them knew it wasn’t one of
her
virtues. Sitting, doing nothing, grated on her every nerve and brought out the worst in her attitude.

After a night of sitting helplessly at Hall’s side, waiting for any little sign of recovery, Brie was ready to snap.

There had to be some constructive way she could help. Something she could do that would be more helpful to Hall than simply sitting here worrying over him.

She needed a task to occupy her hands. Her mind worked better when her hands were busy. And now that she thought about it, she knew exactly what that task should be.

Hall’s pack lay in the corner where she’d put it. It took only a few minutes of snooping through his things to find what she sought.

After filling a small bowl with warm water, she
returned to Hall’s bedside, armed with her tools—a bar of soap from the shelf above the bed and the small silver razor she’d found in his pack.