29
At last, after more walls and more skeletons and more falling bricks than he cared to contemplate, Astarion found himself at the outer ring road, near the prison cells. He could tell that he was on den Suriel’s trail by the piles of collapsed bone left in the paladin’s wake.
Why would he go back to the cells? What could he possibly…
It came to him like a flash of light, or one of the bolts that the priest was flinging.
Oh Hells, he’s after the mummy tanks.
Astarion put on a burst of speed.
There was a marvelously wide bridge going exactly where he wanted to be. Since Astarion was what was known in the literature as “a suspicious little bastard,” he didn’t trust it for a moment. He let himself down the side of the wall and examined the supports.
The beams looked sturdy enough. Astarion shifted his weight to one hand and touched the wood lightly with one fingertip. It came away covered in powder.
The bridge went creeeeeeeaaaaak and rained dust.
“Not today, Tymora.” Astarion climbed the rest of the way down the wall, which was being supported by other bricks.
The door of the prison hung open, and there were more shattered skeletons around it. Astarion wondered how often den Suriel could abjure the undead. He hadn’t ever asked, and he hadn’t counted the flashes of light, but surely the paladin couldn’t keep doing it indefinitely.
He stuck his head through the door. No one had cleaned up the wreckage from the previous battle.
An oily stain on the stones was the only evidence of the former jailor.
That didn’t mean that there weren’t more skeletons inside.
Astarion flattened himself against the wall, wishing briefly that he had Yousen’s ability to fade into the rock.
He needn’t have worried. By the time he was halfway down the hallway, he could hear metal on stone, accompanied by…was that singing?
It was. Den Suriel was singing in a language Astarion didn’t recognize, although you had to be somewhat generous with the term. The aasimar had a gravelly bass and attacked the notes as if they were sinners in need of smiting.
“What in the Nine Hells are you doing?” Astarion snapped, coming up to the cell bars.
“Smashing things,” den Suriel said, bringing a hammer down on the edge of the cement tank. Crack. Chips flew. “Why, what does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re nowhere near where you should be! Why aren’t you with the others?”
The paladin paused, resting the hammer on his shoulder. “They had the situation under control. And this needed to be done.”
“Yes, but…” Astarion took a deep breath through his nose, let it out, and reminded himself that the man was just a useful tool, nothing more, and any apparent suicidal recklessness on his part was not Astarion’s problem. “We need to get out of here.”
“Give me another five minutes. This is the last tank.”
“Then leave it!”
“And have them make more mummies? I don’t think so.” Crack. “You should go on ahead, and I’ll catch up.” Crack.
“What if more skeletons turn up? How many more can you possibly abjure?”
“Not a one,” den Suriel said cheerfully. Crack. “Used the last bit on the pack outside the door. Did you see the bones?”
Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. I saw the bones.”
“Pretty good, huh?” Crack.
“I don’t know why every skeleton in the place hasn’t shown up, given that you’re singing loudly enough to wake the dead. What was that, anyway?”
“Old work song.” Crack. “My parents were human fisherfolk. They sang it to keep time when hauling the lines or pulling in nets.” Crack. “You really should go and let me catch up when I’m done.”
Astarion was about to explain why this was a terrible idea, an explanation he was rather curious to hear himself, when he saw den Suriel’s eyes. There was a plea there that could not be voiced, perhaps not even thought.
“Fine,” he muttered, and stalked away. Behind him, he heard the aasimar’s voice lift in another assault on song.
He didn’t go far. It hadn’t escaped his notice that den Suriel hadn’t asked whether he’d found the blood. As soon as he knows that I have the blood, our alliance is at an end, and he is supposed to kill me.
Running would be sensible. But if he ran, there was a good chance that den Suriel would simply throw himself at the enemy until the enemy overran him, and that was unacceptable because…because…
Because I still want the option to bring him back to Cazador. Yes. Astarion nodded to himself to cement this excellent reason firmly in his mind, then went up the side of the prison, rolled onto the roof, and surveyed the cavern.
It was much quieter now. The undead priest had stopped flinging bolts, and the winged creature he’d seen in the sky was gone. Perhaps they’ve killed each other?
Another small explosion rocked the ruins. No, apparently not.
From his vantage point, he saw a knot of skeletons approaching. There’s only three of them. Den Suriel can probably smash them to fragments without even breaking a sweat. Astarion rolled over to check the cavern’s sky again. With a levitating priest in the area, one didn’t want to take chances.
Because he was watching the sky, he missed one of the skeletons kneeling to set a trip wire. He noticed only when he heard “For the Badg—urk!” and watched den Suriel land flat on his face in the middle of the enemy.
The skeletons converged, weapons raised.
Astarion scrambled down the wall, shouting, “Hey! Stop that!,” which sounded desperately insipid in his own ears, so he tried insults, and he only realized he was yelling in Elvish when he heard himself say, “Your sister is as the light of the stars, which is given to all beings!”
None of the skeletons paid him any attention at all.
Perhaps they were only children, or perhaps they simply didn’t speak Elvish.
Den Suriel managed to roll in time to dodge a skeleton’s sword, and he let the momentum carry him into its legs.
Its upper half fell atop him and took the blow that the second skeleton had aimed at the paladin’s head.
This apparently enraged the first skeleton, which grabbed for the weapon that had struck it.
Den Suriel rolled again, but the skeleton didn’t let go, so it ended up yanking its comrade off its feet and onto the paladin as well.
The third skeleton had a long spear and was hanging back, either waiting for a clear shot or unwilling to get involved in the melee.
Astarion looked around wildly for a better weapon, saw where den Suriel’s shield had fallen, and grabbed for it.
It was like trying to lift a door. He could feel his shoulders grinding in their sockets as he hauled it upright and swung it around.
Den Suriel erupted from the pile of bones like a dog coming out of water, shaking off the enemy. The first two skeletons, still locked together, couldn’t move out of the way, and the aasimar stomped down on their skulls.
The spearman thrust its weapon at him just as Astarion stepped up and dropped the enormously heavy shield on the back of its head.
Den Suriel made a noise of pain and surprise. The skeleton made a crunching sound. Astarion dusted off his hands.
“That was an extremely dramatic move,” he informed den Suriel. “Please make a note of it.”
The paladin did not appear to be impressed. He did not even appear to have seen. He was staring down at his right leg, at the spear that had slipped past the edge of his armor and driven deeply into his inner thigh.
“Oh dear,” he said to no one in particular, and sat down heavily on the ground.
Astarion’s breath hissed through his teeth. He’d seen the spears the skeletons were carrying. The broad triangular heads were designed to do as much damage as possible when removed. If it hadn’t pierced his femoral artery on the way in, trying to pull it out would turn that artery into ground meat.
Which meant that den Suriel had minutes to live, if that.
The paladin set one mailed hand on the shaft of the spear. He didn’t look upset so much as puzzled.
“Don’t touch that!” Astarion snapped. “It’s the only thing keeping your blood in. Heal yourself, for the gods’ sake!”
The aasimar looked up at him, wearing a shadow of his usual rueful smile. “Unfortunately…I seem…to have…run out of spells…”
“Idiot! What were you going to do if you got injured?”
“Hadn’t…planned…that far ahead.” His voice was growing rougher. Blood was pulsing out of the wound, filling the air with the scent of copper.
Astarion realized that his mouth was watering and swallowed it back, trying to keep his fangs under control. “There’s a healing potion in your bag,” he said. “You said there was. Where is it?”
A weak frown crossed den Suriel’s face. His sword slid from nerveless fingers, and he patted at his belt. His skin had gone almost as pale as Astarion’s as his blood continued to pump out across the stones. “Sorry…here somewhere…”
“You absolute ass.” Astarion saw the bag of holding and yanked it loose.
He jammed his arm into the bag up to the shoulder, feeling for the bottle he’d seen last night and hoping the paladin wasn’t in the habit of keeping bear traps inside.
He felt something smooth and narrow and yanked it out hopefully, only to find that it was the trunk of the wondrous elephant.
“Doubt…that’ll help…right now…”
“I’ll use the trunk as a tourniquet if I have to.”
Astarion came up with a handful of pamphlets and flung them aside.
Distantly, he was aware that he was kneeling in blood and that if any more skeletons showed up, he would be easy prey.
He didn’t care. His entire world had narrowed to his fingertips scrabbling frantically through the infinite clutter stuffed inside a small leather sack.
“When was the last time you cleaned this thing?”
“It’s…all right.” The aasimar’s eyes had drifted closed. “This way…die with my soul…intact…”
“No dying,” Astarion told him. “I’ve done that, and I can testify it’s not worth the—aha!”
He pulled out the bottle. Red liquid swirled and shimmered inside, a shade lighter than the blood pooling on the ground. The stopper was sealed with wax. He clamped his teeth down on it and yanked it loose, feeling a fang scrape across the glass.
Den Suriel was barely conscious. Astarion grabbed his chin and tilted his head back, dripping the potion between the aasimar’s lips. Even the man’s gums had gone deathly pale.
“Come on…come on, drink up…” Please, gods, don’t let him have bought a fake potion from some swindler on the street. That would be just like a paladin. Astarion upended the bottle, pouring the last of the liquid down den Suriel’s throat.
For a minor eternity, nothing happened. The blood soaking into Astarion’s trousers began to cool.
Den Suriel’s eyelids fluttered.
Astarion dropped to hands and knees and grabbed the spear shaft. There was so much blood that he couldn’t see whether the wound had begun to knit. All he knew was that the aasimar had no chance of healing with the spear point still inside him.
“I never wanted to be a healer,” he informed the paladin, or the gods, or perhaps the priest, wherever he was. “I do not enjoy the sight of other people’s insides. To say nothing of the waste of blood. Here goes.”
He yanked the spear free.
“Gaaaaah!” Den Suriel sat bolt upright, turned gray, and collapsed back against the wall. Astarion clamped his hands over the wound in the man’s thigh, trying desperately to stop the bleeding.
“Fuck,” he said to himself in a little singsong. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK, fuck. Also, fuck.”
He was crimson to the wrist, as if he’d been feeding straight from the pig without a napkin.
His hair had fallen into his face. He tossed his head to try to get it out of the way, to no effect.
He was afraid that if he lifted either hand to push it back, the wound would reopen, and there would be no more hope at all.
Gauntleted fingers lifted, trembling slightly, and moved the wayward curl aside.
Astarion looked up into pain-glazed white eyes. “You’re alive,” he whispered. Beneath his hands, he felt the hot pulse of blood slow, then the skin began knitting together, the ragged edges of the wound pulling closed and growing smooth.
“Looks that way,” den Suriel croaked, and, without thinking, Astarion leaned in and kissed him.
* * *