33. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
Talyn urged her horse into a quick walk. She was afraid a swifter gait might only aggravate Samhail’s wounds.
It took them half an hour to get back to the town, and it was nearly dark by then.
Samhail looked pale and barely conscious.
He’d managed to stay upright in his saddle, but she had to get him to a healer soon or he wouldn’t make it with all the blood he’d lost. His own fast perimortal healing might’ve helped him if it hadn’t been for the damned piece of the crossbow tip that was apparently still lodged in him. Getting that out would be a priority.
Talyn stopped the first person she saw and asked where to find the healer. The woman pointed her toward the healer’s house but said the man was out delivering a baby on a farm a couple miles away. Talyn swore and asked the woman to direct her to the nearest inn instead.
A couple minutes later, Talyn and Samhail stopped their horses in front of the inn the woman directed her to, and Talyn went inside.
Thankfully the innkeeper was inclined to be helpful, especially when she explained who she had outside.
The man didn’t recognize Samhail’s name, but he certainly knew Lord Bressen, and he sprang into action when Talyn explained that Samhail was one of the lord’s most trusted generals.
She wasn’t entirely sure that’s what Samhail was, but it seemed accurate enough for her purposes.
The innkeeper sent one of his staff to ride for the healer and then came outside to help Talyn get Samhail off his horse. The innkeeper’s eyes widened to see the warrior, but whether he was more concerned by Samhail’s size or how awful he looked, she wasn’t sure.
Between the two of them, they got Samhail off his horse and down the hall of the inn to a room. Talyn sent a silent prayer of thanks that the room was on the first floor, since they never would’ve been able to get Samhail up the stairs if they’d had to.
She chastised herself mentally for taking so much time to question the outlaw.
She hadn’t realized the head of the bolt had been made of caronium or that its point was designed to break off and remain in its victim.
She would’ve acted sooner if she’d realized what the bolt had been doing to Samhail, but she’d seen an opportunity to get some information and hadn’t wanted to let it pass.
Talyn and the innkeeper laid Samhail down on the bed, and Talyn sent the man to get her some water, alcohol, clean cloths, and a pair of tweezers, although she didn’t hold out much hope he’d find the last. She was surprised when he returned a few minutes later with all four items, explaining that his wife had a pair of tweezers she used to pluck her eyebrows.
Talyn had blinked at that, but she thanked the man and got to work on Samhail.
She wasn’t sure how quickly the healer would be able to get here, even if he knew how urgently he was needed, so she’d just have to do what she could in the meantime. She didn’t like how much paler Samhail had gotten just in the last few minutes.
“What are you doing?” Samhail asked as he watched her clean the tweezers in the alcohol.
“I’m going to get the tip of that bolt out of your wound,” she said. “The healer is on his way, but I’m not waiting.”
“Have you ever done something like this before?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted, “but how hard can it be?”
She almost laughed at the grimace that crossed his face.
“Do you know which wound that bolt came out of?” she asked.
“My side, I think. But it’s possible there are tips in both wounds if that was how they were designed.”
“Turn over,” she said.
He rolled over so she could more easily reach the wound on his side, and Talyn unbuckled the belt from around his ribs. He lifted himself slightly so she could tug it out from under him.
“Something tells me I’m going to need this,” he said as he took the belt from her and folded it a couple times before clamping his teeth down on the leather.
“If I’d known you were going to be a big baby about it, I would’ve knocked you out and been done with it already,” she grumbled.
Samhail glared up at her, but Talyn just smiled.
“Relax,” she said, “I have a very steady hand. If they could still speak, all the people I’ve killed would tell you so.”
Samhail pulled the belt out of his mouth. “The cuts on my neck say otherwise.”
Talyn shrugged. Fair enough. She’d been chattering on mostly to calm her own nerves, but she knew it couldn’t be helping him much. She lifted the cloth off the wound and winced at how jagged and red it looked. Him ripping the bolt out certainly hadn’t helped.
Talyn took a deep breath and slowly pressed the tweezers into the wound.
Samhail’s entire body tensed in pain, but she kept pressing, moving the tweezers in as slowly as possible so she might feel when they hit the tip of the bolt.
The tweezers were almost two inches into the wound when she felt them butt up against something hard.
“I think I found it,” she said, more to herself than him. “I’m going to try and grab it.”
Samhail didn’t say anything, but she felt his breathing get shallower, as if he was trying to hold as still as possible.
She’d been pressing the tweezers into the wound in their closed position, but she carefully let them open now and tried to push them down further.
Samhail’s muscles clenched even more. He grunted but didn’t move otherwise.
When she’d gone in a little farther, Talyn pressed the tweezers together again and felt them close on something solid.
Praying she had a good enough hold on the tip of the bolt, she started to draw them back out.
Blood welled up from the wound anew and she pressed a clean cloth carefully around the hole to keep it clear.
Samhail closed his eyes and grunted again, but he remained unmoving.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Talyn pulled the tip of the crossbow bolt out of the wound.
She lost her grip on it once and had to re-grab it with the tweezers, but a few moments later she saw the piece of metal crest the surface.
She pulled it the rest of the way, then dropped it onto the bedside table.
Her shoulders relaxed, and she exhaled deeply as Samhail’s body eased next to her as well.
“Does that feel any better?” she asked, pressing another clean cloth to the still-open wound. “Are your powers returning?”
“Somewhat,” Samhail said as he removed the belt from his mouth. “I can feel them again, but they’re not at full strength.”
“There must be another tip in your stomach,” she said. “Give me the belt back so I can bind this again, and then I’ll see about the other wound.”
Samhail handed her the belt, and she slipped it back around him. He was quiet as he watched her pull the leather tight and buckle it.
“You could’ve handed me over to those men,” he said.
“They were looking for glory and reward,” Talyn said, “and they would’ve shared me among them if given half a chance, willing or not. I never would’ve handed you over to men like that.”
“And if they’d been a different kind of men?” he pressed.
“Do yourself a favor and don’t overthink this. Suffice it to say, I’m not sure Sandrian himself is the type of person I want to work for anymore, so I’m inclined to see where this little adventure takes us.”
Samhail rolled onto his back again as she finished buckling the belt, and their eyes met. She knew they were midnight blue, but they looked black in the dim light of the room.
“You’re an efficient killer,” Samhail said. “I’ll give you that.”
He was looking at her shirt, which had a relatively small amount of blood on it given the number of men she’d just killed. Talyn stiffened, but Samhail shook his head.
“I meant that as a compliment,” he said. “We’d have been in big trouble if you hadn’t dispatched those men as quickly as you did.”
She cocked her head at him. “You seem surprised at my efficiency,” she said as she cleaned the tweezers in preparation to go after the second tip. “You’re aware of my reputation as an assassin, are you not?”
“Reputations aren’t always earned,” he said. “Most of the people who supposedly hired you never saw the same person, so it’s impossible to know if they were actually hiring you or someone they thought was you.”
Talyn smiled. “True. I always use a different face when I meet with potential clients. It’s hard for the authorities to track you if they don’t know what you look like.”
“I suppose your victims never see the same face either,” he said.
She went serious. “The opposite. Everyone I kill sees the same face.”
Samhail furrowed his brows, and she knew he was about to ask her to explain when she noticed the streak of red further down his body.
“Your leg is bleeding,” she said in surprise. “When did that happen?”
“One of the men slashed me. It’s just a scratch.”
Talyn pressed near the wound, and blood welled up under her fingers.
“It’s not a scratch,” she said grabbing for more of the clean cloths the innkeeper had brought. She pressed them down onto his leg. “Hold that there. And where the hell is that damned healer?”
Talyn unbuckled the belt from around his stomach and handed it to him to put in his mouth.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you the other day,” he offered, “just…keep you from escaping.”
Talyn was confused before understanding dawned on her.
“Your hand crushing my throat said otherwise,” she said with a little more bite than she intended. She wasn’t sure why he wanted to bring this up now.
He nodded in acknowledgement. “I might’ve lost control a bit. I was extremely angry at the time.”
Talyn went still again before she sighed and looked away. “I might’ve overstepped with you that day in the great room,” she admitted. “At the time it seemed like a good way to get information, but I can see how what I did was…”