Chapter 37 #3
Desmond pulls his sword out of the other fomorian. She drops, already dead. He strides toward the one I’ve maimed and slices his head clean off. I flinch as it thumps on the floor.
“He was already dying,” I quickly say, but a cold wrath seeps from Desmond.
His shoulders are taut, and his nostrils flare as he looks me up and down.
My stomach drops at the urgent, almost possessive glint in his hazel eyes.
Satisfied that I’m alright, he whirls around, looking for the third fomorian.
Someone behind me cries out.
I swing the torch until it illuminates Min staggering back with a dagger deep in her side. The fomorian male laughs as he pivots to strike Finnian next. Arrows stick out from the chinks in his armor, but he moves as if they’re nothing more than splinters.
Auri fires again with astounding aim, the arrow striking through the helmet’s eye slit. Finnian kicks him in the chest.
He sprawls backward, and Desmond stabs a dagger beneath his coif. The fomorian gurgles, blood seeping beneath his helmet. “Where is Gashil?” Desmond demands.
“F—fae—scum,” the fomorian bites out, blood spitting from his mouth.
“How did you know the tomb was here?”
The fomorian smirks, and it’s still menacing despite the life leaving his eyes. “Bastard child! Your father should be—”
Desmond twists the dagger in. The fomorian tenses before he falls still. “Not their best,” Desmond comments as he pulls it out.
“I am hurt,” Min says, lowering herself to the ground. “I did not shift quickly enough to maim him, forcing us into hand-to-hand combat. For that, I am sorry.”
Finnian pales. He takes Auri’s pack from her and rifles through it, frantically tossing things aside until he finds a roll of bandages. “You’re going to be alright, Min.” His hands tremble as he looks at Desmond. “What do we do? Leave it in? Take it out?”
“We take it out and stitch her up,” he answers, sitting beside Min. “Needle. Catgut. Salve.”
I help look through Auri’s pack for the medkit Maeve packed as Finnian hands Desmond his treasured sewing needle.
“I appreciate it, but that’s the wrong kind of needle,” Desmond says, giving it back.
“Here.” I open the medkit and float everything to Desmond, then move the torch so it hovers over Min. The red light dances in her black eyes and cuts stark shadows across her face, unsettlingly calm despite her injury.
If she’s the traitor, did the fomorians injure her so we wouldn’t suspect her? The thought roils within me, cold and unsettling. I want to believe that she’s my friend. I want to trust her. Yet every encounter with the fomorians is further proof that someone in the guild is allied with them.
Auri hefts her bow. She approaches the stairs that descend into the next chamber. “I’ll secure the area.”
I don’t know what to do. Finnian and I retreat to give Desmond space as he gently removes the dagger, then cleans the wound.
Finnian bites the fingertips of his gloves, wincing each time Min shifts in discomfort.
When Desmond hooks the suture needle into her skin, she hisses.
Fur rolls across her hand, clawed nails digging into the ground.
“Try not to shift,” Desmond murmurs.
“Hold her hand,” I hiss to Finnian.
He stares at me like I’ve spoken gibberish. Then his eyes widen, and he nods vigorously. He sits on Min’s other side and takes her clawed hand in his. “Don’t worry about scratching me. The gloves will do fine to protect my skin.”
“That is a kind—” she winces as Desmond sews another suture “—sentiment.”
Good. Comforting her should help keep Finnian’s own nerves at bay.
Minutes tick by, then Auri thunders up the tunnel steps. I tense, preparing for bad news, but she sighs in boredom. “It’s all clear. There were a few decapitated draugr corpses in the next chamber, a courtesy from the fomorians. Then two tunnels fork into dead-end rooms.”
“Not dead ends,” I tell her. “They’re puzzles.” At least she didn’t find fomorians. Min’s injury may not be fatal, but because of the sutures, she won’t be able to fight or shift.
Min catches my anxious gaze and nods. “You will have to leave me behind. I had planned to be of greater use—” She winces, her claws raking into Finnian’s glove as Desmond pulls the sutures tight.
“It’s done,” Desmond says, wiping off the needle. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you here when more fomorians could come. Yet it’s in your best interest to stay behind.”
“I can wait at the top of the mound,” she says. “No one can sneak up on me from that vantage point.”
“Then that’s the plan.” He cleans Min’s blood off his hands with a rag from the medkit. “If we don’t make it out by dawn, you’ll have to set out for Vekhara on your own.”
If? That is not the optimism we need right now. “There’s no if. We will make it out,” I insist.
All five of us nod at each other in promise. Finnian helps Min stand. Then she starts her slow trek up the stairs. “May the gods be with you,” she calls back.
We will survive.
“I promise you, Evie,” I whisper. Then we descend into the next chamber.