Chapter 9
Of all the times for some idiot to use the sword, the Dervish thought.
The idiot in question was one of the Sleeveless, who gaped at him in absolute astonishment.
He had presumably picked up the sword, cut the cloth binding off it, sheathed it, then drew it all the way out a moment later to inspect the blade.
He had also presumably not been expecting a slim silver-eyed man to appear directly in front of him.
The Dervish put a dagger in his throat, snatched up the sword, and threw himself to one side to avoid the falling body. Someone cursed nearby. The Dervish turned, saw another man staring at him, decided that he really needed both daggers, and tossed the sword into the campfire.
There. Now even if some clever fellow figures out that the sword and I are linked, he can’t grab it to put it back in the scabbard. The Dervish, who had used this trick before, knew that the sword would suffer no ill effects from its time in the fire. Pity, that.
The man who had spotted him had a wicked scar running down the side of his face and an expression that indicated he did not approve of people who appeared out of silver nowhere and killed his comrades. Well, the Dervish couldn’t really blame him on that one. “It’s nothing personal?” he offered.
The scarred man apparently felt it was, indeed, personal.
He snatched up a sword and lunged at the Dervish.
The sword was badly made and probably better as a club than a blade, but that only meant it would hurt even more when it hit.
The Dervish danced back, wedging himself between the fire and the wall, where fewer enemies could come at him.
“What the hell are you?” the scarred man demanded, slashing at him.
“Unlucky, mostly,” the Dervish replied. He caught the sword on the hilt of one dagger and slid the other up the man’s left arm, unleashing a torrent of blood and swearing. The Dervish went for a follow-up but only managed to nick the man’s side.
Magic screamed inside his head. The Dervish abandoned his opponent before he even realized what was happening and flung himself backward, in the direction of—
Edmund.
Who had emerged from the hatch in the ground and was now hauling the nightmare shape of Our Friend up, completely oblivious to the man with a knife who was coming up behind him.
Heat sizzled across his ribs, a parting gift from the scarred man.
It could have been a lot worse. It was going to be a lot worse if the sword’s magic didn’t stop screaming.
There were two enemies between him and Edmund and even though their backs were to him, he couldn’t stop to fight them and charging between them was a horribly bad idea but all the magic knew was that somebody was about to knife the wielder and the Dervish had to throw himself in front of that knife and he wasn’t going to be fast enough and the knife was coming down.
Our Friend wrapped those long thin front legs around Edmund in a dreadful embrace, turned sideways, and rolled into a ball.
It wasn’t as tight a ball as it could have been, given that there was a human in the middle, but there were still armor plates in between Edmund and the knife. The sudden silence in the Dervish’s head felt like a benediction.
The knife skidded off Our Friend’s plates, leaving a small scratch.
“Shit!” Edmund’s attacker yelled. “The crawly’s out!”
Freed of his compulsion, the Dervish wheeled around just in time to block a cut from his previous opponent.
“Don’t you dare—” the scarred man started to say, but his sword was high and out of position, so the Dervish jammed a dagger up under his chin and whatever he wasn’t supposed to dare was lost in a spray of blood.
He spun to face the next assault and staggered a bit when he found there wasn’t one. Out of seven Sleeveless, he’d only killed two, but all five of the others were focused on Our Friend and didn’t even seem to have noticed.
The Dervish knew he should be glad he’d been unobserved but he actually felt a bit miffed. All Our Friend had done was roll into a ball, and how threatening was that?
Then he looked over the heads of the two Sleeveless that stood between him and Our Friend and revised his opinion immediately.
The massive insect had unrolled and it was apparent that he’d misjudged its size in the dark. It stood almost seven feet tall, its carapace broader than a man’s shoulders. Its antennae lashed like whips, and it had spread its forelegs wide. It looked like a gigantic cobra. With legs.
Then it hissed.
It was a horrible ratcheting hiss, like air forced through broken pipes. The Dervish heard running footsteps from somewhere behind him, and it was clear they were running away. Conveniently, this was one less he had to kill.
“Enough!” shouted a familiar voice, and the man with the staff, the one who had kidnapped the mule earlier, came storming in from the opposite side of the ruined hall. “We caught it before, we’ll do it again. Get spears, you fools.”
“It didn’t look like that before,” quavered one of the Sleeveless. “It just rolled up before.”
“It’ll roll up again,” the man with the staff snarled. He shoved past the Dervish without even looking at him.
“Excuse me?” The Dervish couldn’t believe this.
Yes, fine, it was dark and the firelight was probably doing a lot of heavy lifting, but the Dervish was literally covered in blood and there was a dead man right there—okay, granted, he was sprawled across the tumbled rocks and looked more like lumps of laundry than anything else, and granted that Our Friend was towering over everything and hissing like a murderous kettle, but still.
The Dervish was over here stabbing people and no one had even noticed?
Sure, I didn’t want to fight him because he’s got so much reach with the staff, but he could at least pay attention.
Profoundly annoyed, he came up behind the man with the staff and dealt with all questions of reach by slitting his throat from behind.
“Yeah,” he said, as the man collapsed and the other Sleeveless turned to face him, mouths agape. “You noticed that, didn’t you? Come on, then. Who’s next?”
Our Friend punctuated this with another long hiss.
The situation teetered on the point of a knife, and then one of the Sleeveless said, “Oh, fuck this,” and bolted. The others broke and ran after him, stumbling in their eagerness to get away.
As soon as their footsteps had receded into the distance, Our Friend pulled its legs in and seemed to shrink at least a foot. Edmund scrambled out from behind it. He spotted the Dervish and rushed toward him. “Oh god! Are you injured?”
“Only in a few places,” said the Dervish through gritted teeth. “And what the hell do you think you were doing?”
Edmund turned red, then white. “I thought—you vanished and then you were up here and I thought you’d need help—”
“You nearly got me killed. As soon as you were in danger, I couldn’t deal with the one trying to stab me, I had to come deal with the one trying to stab you.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“Yes. I. Did.” The Dervish bit off each word like a curse. “You are the wielder. The magic compels me. I cannot even defend myself if you are in danger.”
Edmund pressed both hands to his mouth, abject horror written across his face. As angry as the Dervish was, he recognized that the expression was genuine. Edmund really hadn’t understood, and now that he did, it appalled him.
After multiple wielders who treated the Dervish like some kind of magical shield, to be deployed when useful and ignored when not, this was actually rather gratifying.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund whispered. “Oh gods above and below, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s fine,” said the Dervish gruffly. “Anyway, we don’t have time for this. Those bastards won’t stay away forever. Sooner or later they’ll find either their courage or a crossbow.”
Our Friend was already on the other side of the ruin, digging through packs that had been carelessly thrown in a corner.
The Dervish wasn’t sure if the creature was looking for something or simply looting.
Looting seemed sensible, all things considered.
He hoped that the creature would simply leave on its own, but had a glum feeling that Edmund would want to adopt it.
Edmund ducked his head, clearly still upset. “Your injuries … We should treat them.”
“Later. I won’t bleed out anytime soon.”
The scholar nodded jerkily and scurried to untether Sweetness. “They didn’t hurt you, girl, did they?” he crooned to the mule. “We came back for you. I’ll always come back for you, I promise.”
The Dervish sighed. Nobody ever talked like that to him. Not that he would have believed them if they did, but it would be nice if someone cared enough to lie about it.
What are you complaining about? The man offered to bind up your wounds and you know he would have made a fuss. You’re the one who turned him down.
It was annoying to be called out on that, and even more annoying that he did it to himself.
The Dervish found the crude blade that had bashed his ribs and used it to roll the sword that imprisoned him out of the fire.
It would be a few minutes before it was cool enough to handle, so he stalked over to what was clearly the kitchen area and began looking for supplies.
He’d been out of the sword long enough to actually digest food, and if he kept eating nothing but jerky, his digestion would be more than a little upset.
There was a hearth and a crude wooden table, the surface scarred with burns and knife marks. The Dervish bent to look beneath it.
The biggest badger he’d ever seen in his life looked back at him and snarled.
The Dervish yelped and flung himself backward. If it had been a human, he might have stabbed first and asked questions later, but stabbing a badger—any badger—was a superbly bad idea. Stabbing one that size was basically suicide with extra steps.
He’d been vivisected before. He had no desire to repeat the experience.
“What is it?” asked Edmund. “Are you okay?”