Chapter 37
Edmund sat hunched in a corner of the inn with a blanket tucked around his shoulders, clutching a mug of hot tea with brandy in it. Halla sat with her arm wrapped around him as if he were her brother.
“He’ll be all right,” she said. “Death is only a minor annoyance to them.”
“Assuming they get the sword back.”
“They will.”
“The other cultists will be searching for it too.”
“Sarkis is cleverer than any of them. And he’s got Dog Violet and Zale with him. That’s a lot of brains in one place.”
“I didn’t want to give him up. He told me to.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know he was going to … to…”
Tears spilled down Edmund’s cheeks, following tracks laid down by others throughout the long, terrible night.
“Sarkis did it for me once,” Halla said, pouring another dollop of brandy into Edmund’s mug. “Killed himself so he wouldn’t have to hurt me. But in a month, he was back again, hale and healthy and cranky as ever.”
“Yes, but he loves you.” Edmund took a swallow of tea and Halla topped it up again. “The Dervish isn’t … he doesn’t…”
“He was pretty worked up on the way here for a man feeling nothing but vague goodwill.”
Edmund leaned his forehead against his hand.
“We’re friends,” he said. “I think. I hope. And we … you know…” He didn’t want to get any more detailed with a woman he’d only just met, no matter how kind she was.
He took a large gulp from his mug, which by now was more brandy than tea.
“I love him. Who wouldn’t? He’s so bright and vivid and fierce, and I’m …
what am I? All I do is read books and fall into trouble. ”
“Oh, honey,” said Halla, hugging him tighter, “believe me, have I been there.”
Outside, it began to rain.
It was noon but it felt like the middle of the night.
Edmund dozed by the fire, exhausted from drugs and emotion.
Halla stayed with him, making him drink endless rounds of tea, though after he slept for a few hours and woke again, she stopped putting brandy into it.
She’d befriended—or possibly befuddled—the innkeeper, and he made no objection to their monopolizing the corner of the common room.
Of course, it was a slow morning, and talking to Halla probably gave him something more entertaining to do than clean mugs.
Edmund was certainly not entertaining. Edmund slumped against the wall, his head slowly clearing. Unfortunately the clarity allowed him to think and none of his thoughts were good.
He’s dead.
I know he’ll come back but he died. He’ll be trapped in the sword for weeks and he hates that. All I wanted was to keep him from getting hurt and instead he died.
Because of me. Because he has to keep rescuing me. Because all these horrible things keep happening and I keep needing to be rescued.
In the grim reaches of his heart, Edmund suspected that wasn’t going to change.
He was a brilliant scholar, he knew it, and had no false modesty about it, but it seemed like all he did these days was get into one mess after another.
I have offended the gods of luck somehow, and the Dervish has paid the price.
Perhaps I should stay in a library for the rest of my life, but it would drive him mad with restlessness, and how would I earn my bread?
His thoughts were interrupted briefly when the door opened and six handsome men in light armor came in. Steam rose off their tabards, which had probably been white once, but were now liberally splashed with blood. The closed-eye sigil of the Dreaming God winked at Edmund from half a dozen backs.
Demonslayers, Edmund thought. His old friend Caliban had been one. Hot on the trail of something, most likely.
One tossed a chit to the innkeeper. “Fresh horses for all of us,” he said. “And hot food if you’ve got it, cold if you don’t, while they’re being saddled.”
The innkeeper vanished into the kitchen. You didn’t argue with paladins of the Dreaming God when they were on the hunt. They were decent, honorable, incorruptible, very good-looking—the Dreaming God had very specific taste—and utterly humorless when it came to demons.
Halla, being Halla, went over to them and said, “Jorge? Is that you?” A moment later, one of the men burst from the group, picked Halla up around the waist, lifted her into the air, gave her a resounding kiss on the forehead, and set her down again.
Halla laughed, though she was blushing. “I’m glad to see your arm healed up.”
“Beautifully, lovely lady. All thanks to your tender ministrations. Incidentally, is that new husband of yours around? No? Then will you run away with me this time?”
The leader of the troop watched this with a resigned expression that Zale would undoubtedly have recognized. Halla turned Jorge down. He was bemoaning how his heart was forever broken when the innkeeper came out of the kitchen bearing a tray.
“They’re not hot,” he said, “but they’re still a bit warm, and there’ll be bread and cheese in the saddlebags.”
“Good man,” the leader said.
“Is it a very bad demon?” Halla asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many of you in one place.”
“It might be,” the leader said. “It’s something big, anyway. The reports are … ah … difficult to believe.”
Edmund spoke before he could think. “It’s not a dragon, is it?”
Having the sudden undivided attention of six paladins was a new experience for Edmund, and not one, as it turned out, that he enjoyed. He felt like he was about to give a lecture and discovered that the audience was full of lions.
“What do you know about a dragon?” the leader said, in a tone indicating that if information was not forthcoming, he was willing to turn someone upside down and shake until it fell out.
“Some villagers tried to feed me to one, about three days west of here.” Edmund licked dry lips. “They, err, have been feeding travelers to them. I think. Um. I told the White Rat’s people about it? They said that they’d inform the appropriate people?”
“That would be us,” said the leader. “Are you sure it was a dragon you saw?”
If he hadn’t been so emotionally wrung out, the skeptical tone might not have bothered him. But he was tired and heartsick and his lover was temporarily dead, so he said, “My name is Learned Edmund, lately of the Temple of the Many-Armed God in Ghaston.”
“That Learned Edmund, yes,” said Halla by the bar. “In case you were wondering.”
“Shit,” said Jorge quietly. “It really must be a dragon.”
The leader of the paladins stood stock-still for a moment, then put his fist over his heart and bowed to Edmund.
So did the other five. It was almost worse than having them stare at him.
“Forgive me, Learned,” the leader said. “I did not know. Is there anything useful you can tell us about the beast?”
“It was denning in a crack in the stone along the road. You can tell by the big stakes in the ground with the ropes tied to them. And it had enormous white lice. That’s probably not helpful, but I can’t stop thinking about it.
If you were going to make a creature like a dragon, why would you make a parasite to go with it?
” Edmund stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, I’m very tired.”
“I thank you,” said the paladin of the Dreaming God. “It is not a demon, but it is no less dangerous. Go well, and may the God hold you in His Dreams.”
He turned on his heel and strode out. The others followed. One grabbed the innkeeper’s tray on the way out. Jorge clasped Halla’s hand, kissed the back, and was the last one out the door.
The innkeeper sighed, picked up a mop, and began trying to chase their muddy tracks back outside.
He had just barely finished when the door slammed open. Framed in the doorway was a short, bedraggled figure, dripping water off her ears and the end of her muzzle.
“Bacon,” Dog Violet said grimly. “Wet raw bacon. A gnole never wants to smell raw bacon again.”
Sarkis and Zale came crowding into the inn after the gnole, both of them soaked. Edmund looked from one to the other, heart squeezing in desperate hope. “Did you find him?”
Without a word, Zale pulled a familiar sword out from under their cloak and handed it to Edmund.
The scholar wrapped his arms around the weapon as if it was the Dervish himself, which, in a way, it was. The hilt pressed against his cheek as he gasped for air, suddenly breathless with relief. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Found a sword easy enough. But then cult-humans stand out in the rain arguing for ages while a gnole hides under a bush and gets soaked. And a sword is under a gnole and still has bacon grease all over and first a gnole is hungry and then a gnole feels sick.” Dog Violet’s nose worked with remembered disgust. “A gnole is afraid cult-humans are going to hear a gnole’s stomach growling. ”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Zale said. “I was in a tree. For hours.”
“Had to lead them on a merry chase,” Sarkis said, stamping his feet to warm them.
“When I got far enough out, the sword snapped me back to Zale’s tree.
They’re probably still looking. But we do need to get moving.
They’re disorganized, but it’s been a few hours, and I don’t doubt that once they realize what happened, they’ll come after us.
They didn’t get a good look at most of us, but we’ve got to get Edmund away from here. They’ll definitely recognize him.”
“Innkeeper!” Zale said. “We need four fresh horses.”
The innkeeper, who had just barely finished mopping up the second set of muddy footprints, leaned his mop against the bar. “Now there,” he said, “I suspect we’re going to have a problem.”
“What do you mean, the paladins took them all?” Zale stared at the stablemaster, who was leaning against a stall door. “What paladins? Why?”
“Dreaming God,” the stablemaster said succinctly.
“… Oh.”
“They’re going after the dragon,” Edmund said.
“Jorge says hello, by the way,” Halla added.
Zale ran their hands over their face. Their long hair was dark with water and still dripping at the ends. “Rat have mercy.”