Chapter 20 #2
And they had made it work. That was the extraordinary thing.
The Dervish could envision attack plans that Angharad would never have considered, and she could take that plan and refine it and give the orders and somehow that worked.
Maybe it was because the Dervish knew that he was brilliant and careless and frankly not to be trusted, but Angharad was as solid as the earth underfoot and she balanced out the careless bits.
Maybe it was because she would drive herself until she collapsed of exhaustion, but the Dervish could see it happening and order her to stop, an order she wouldn’t have taken from anyone else but Sarkis.
Maybe it was simply that the Dervish was a bad person and Angharad was a good person and a mercenary troop needed to find a middle ground between “not being total bastards” and “killing people for money.”
He wished desperately that Angharad were here now, but she wasn’t, so he was simply going to have to ask himself what she would have done. Because somehow, some way, he had acquired this strange little band of people that he had to keep safe.
The Dervish took a deep breath … and made a command decision.
“But you don’t like Sweetness,” Edmund said. “You’ve said so. Repeatedly.”
“No, I don’t, but you do.”
“Yes, but…” Edmund bit his lower lip. “I know it was a disaster last time. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
The amazing thing, the Dervish thought, was that he just said it. Like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and not at all like hitting the Dervish in the back of the head with a large brick.
Every other wielder had known he was immortal and had used him accordingly.
If he was injured in the course of duty, well, that fixed itself soon enough.
He’d held doors against the enemy, fought suicidal rearguard action, and on one occasion, been ordered to dive into deep water to find the hole in a failing dam.
(He had looked blankly at his wielder and said, “I don’t know how to swim.
” His wielder had cursed him roundly as useless, and the Dervish had been rather pleased when the man drowned some hours later, though less pleased when he followed suit a few minutes afterward.)
It was a good thing that his tongue had always been faster than his brain, because he was able to keep talking.
“Right,” the Dervish said. “Appreciate it. Frankly I don’t care if we get that dreadful beast back or not.
But we’ve got to get some food and gear, preferably our own, and the easiest way to do that is going to be to stampede their animals and grab it while they’re distracted.
And if we manage to grab that accursed mule as she goes by, fine.
” The Dervish turned a jaundiced eye toward Dog Violet.
“Although if you happen to see a better animal, please don’t hesitate to trade up. ”
“A gnole will do what she can. Not always easy to catch big animals running scared.”
“I still don’t like the idea of setting buildings on fire,” Edmund said. “What if somebody gets hurt?”
“Edmund, they were going to feed us to a dragon.”
“Well, yes, but I got the impression it was really mostly Otto…” Edmund saw the Dervish’s expression and trailed off.
“I am really not the person to lecture anyone on moral culpability, but I think once the guy in charge starts feeding people to dragons, you’re allowed to burn his buildings down!”
“Knife-man is right. A gnole’s god definitely said something like that.”
Edmund gave Dog Violet a suspicious look. “Did He? When?”
The gnole’s big, liquid eyes were made to look innocent. The Dervish resisted a round of applause. “Hard to say. It’s … what did book-man call it?… an oral tradition.”
“You’re taking advantage of the fact that humans can’t smell, aren’t you?”
“Would a gnole do that?”
Edmund sighed, defeated. “Just try to be careful? Please?”
“A gnole is always careful.”
“Right.” The Dervish took command again. “Before we burn anything down, though, I need a nap. And I suspect everyone else does too.”
They set watches, because the enemy was quite nearby and also there was a dragon.
Edmund took the first watch. He was very tired, but there were things he wanted to write in his notes while the memory was fresh, like the shape of the dragon’s head and the unexpected case of werkblight miles from anywhere.
He had a pretty good idea what had caused it, but he wasn’t going to write that down. Not now, not ever.
He didn’t want to think about that. Instead he bent over his journal, carefully sketching the dragon as he remembered it, the strangely flat head, the impossible angle of the yawn … He flipped the pages back to his earlier drawing and made a few corrections.
I don’t know whether to be glad that they didn’t bother taking my journal or annoyed that they were going to let the dragon eat it.
It occurred to him that in losing his pack, he’d also lost the vestments and symbol of the Many-Armed God.
He couldn’t feel any real regret. The journal would be a much greater loss.
When he had poured everything he remembered out onto the page, Edmund sat back. Among the things he wasn’t going to write down was that extraordinary, soul-shattering kiss. Future generations didn’t need to know about that. Future generations could learn kissing on their own time.
He stared at the journal on his knee without really seeing it. He was pretty sure that he was blushing, even though everyone else in camp had fallen asleep instantly.
Surely the Dervish hadn’t meant anything by it?
If Edmund had kissed someone like that …
well, it was moot, really, because Edmund didn’t know how to kiss someone like that.
But if he had, it would have ended in sex or a marriage proposal, more likely both.
But Edmund was Edmund and the Dervish was another order of being altogether.
He might as well have been an angel, for all the resemblance he bore to Edmund.
It was just flirtation, the scholar told himself.
And nearly having died. Some people got very aroused after nearly dying, it was a well-documented phenomenon.
Edmund never had. He just felt sick and wanted to throw up.
It was extremely fortunate that he’d had almost fifteen minutes to recover himself, because otherwise the kiss might have been extremely memorable for other reasons entirely.
He stared at the page for a bit longer.
Dog Violet snored. Edmund looked up, startled, and felt a smile break across his face at the small, doggy sound.
She was curled into a ball against the much larger ball of Francis, and the Dervish was slumped against them both, his eyes closed and his head pillowed on his arm.
The angle had pulled his sleeve back, revealing a silver band, like a bracelet, across his wrist.
Given what Edmund knew now, it must have been a scar, but what scar could be so large and so dreadfully even?
He looked down at his own wrists, which were raw from the ropes, and had a sudden grim suspicion.
What happened to you? he wondered, eyes traveling over the planes and hollows of the Dervish’s face. And why do I have a bad feeling that my priesthood had something to do with it?