Chapter 24 #2
Before she could answer, he rushed her. She lunged up, trying to gain her feet—but the knife was still in her hand.
The blade sank into his stomach. Easily.
Far more easily than she’d expected. The resistance of cloth was greater than skin.
His weight drove her back against the rock.
His meaty hand closed around her throat and squeezed.
She couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t fight him off without losing her knife.
She tried to twist away and he grunted when the knife moved in his guts.
But he didn’t let go. She could see his eyes just inches from her face, wild and round.
She could smell the animal stench of him.
His hair was greasy and matted like he’d been living rough for a long time.
Was this one of Casrian’s men?
Oh, God.
Had she stabbed one of his friends?
“Shouldna come,” he said on a blast of fetid air and his hand loosened enough for her to gasp in a breath. “Shouldna come.”
Then Casrian was there, no more than a shadow in the darkness. He shouted and drove his weight into her attacker. The man was dead before he hit the ground, her knife in his belly and blood all around.
Casrian looked at her. “Are you all right?”
She held her hands out, opening and closing reflexively. “I didn’t mean to. He just… And I…”
“Rowan.” The captain came to her and gripped her arm. “Are you hurt?”
Was she? Her throat ached. Her body where it had been slammed against the rock, but she didn’t think any of the blood she smelled was hers. “I’m all right.”
He looked at her hard. “Good. Where did you put the bandages? The used ones. It’s too dark to see, and I need something to burn.”
She didn’t understand why he wanted to see this.
But she went to her bags where she’d rolled and stashed the bandages so she could wash them later and handed them to him. He grabbed one of the sticks they’d set aside and wrapped the cloth around one end before lighting it in the embers.
He bent first to the man lying beside the tree, bringing the light to his face before moving quickly off, his sword ready in his other hand.
She wasn’t staying behind with the dead man.
She took her knife, wincing at the sound it made coming free of the body and followed behind the glow of the torch.
The captain walked with a swift, confident stride while she stumbled after.
He reached the first body within moments.
This one was on his side. The captain grabbed his shoulder and turned him onto his back.
Again, he pulled the torch close and then moved on.
There were two more bodies across a small clearing, next to each other. He checked them both.
“Are they… Was this your patrol?”
“No.” The torch fell to his side. A shuddering breath escaped him. She took a step closer and he swung to face her. “I thought I told you to stay at the camp.”
She couldn’t stop looking at the slumped figure at his feet. “Are they all dead?”
“They are. None escaped as far as I can tell.”
She frowned. “And that’s good?”
He gave her a hard look and then bent to clean his sword on the man’s coat before sheathing the blade.
“Come on.” He led her quickly back to camp.
When they got there, he took one look at the mess of it and grabbed her blanket off the ground.
“There are too many bodies to dispose of. They’ll draw scavengers or those familiars. It will be easier to move our camp. There’s too much blood to get rid of it all.”
Too much blood, yes. There was. Lots of blood. So much blood.
He set the torch into the ground and it lit the whole scene in gruesome detail. The big man sprawled on his back, his gut torn open and blood still seeping out. His eyes were open. His mouth too.
“A mile or two should do it. Roll this.” The captain turned around, shoving the blanket at her. It hit her chest and fell to her feet. “Rowan?”
She couldn’t stop staring at the man. Once a man had come through their village.
He hadn’t been right in his head. He’d roamed the streets yelling about witches and flying creatures but hadn’t known his own name.
He had no shoes and there’d been dirt crusted in the folds of his skin.
The clothes had been rotting from his body.
This man looked like that, like it had been a long time since he’d been wholly human.
Then, they’d called for the priest in Sulen to take the man to a charity house.
She’d stabbed this one. She thought he’d been trying to escape. He’d seemed as frightened as she was.
“I killed him.”
Casrian stood up slowly.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. It was the gentlest voice she’d ever heard from him. She thought, distractedly, that it would be nice if he always talked to her like that. “You’re all right. Can you give me the knife?”
She looked down, startled, to find the knife still in her hand.
It was covered in blood down to the hilt, starting to dry.
Her hands were bloody too. Her arm. Her shirt.
She dropped the knife, but apparently the captain didn’t really want it because he ignored it where it fell and stepped closer to her.
She tried to back up, but her foot caught on something and she lost her balance. Casrian caught her, his arms closing around her. She struggled, but he pulled her closer, right up against his broad chest, and she felt all of those muscles of his lock around her, holding her up.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
It was the best and most ridiculous thing anyone had ever told her. The best because he cared enough to comfort her. The worst because she knew he was lying. They weren’t safe. They clearly weren’t safe. They weren’t any safer out here than the man she’d just killed.
“He wanted the horse. I think… I think he just wanted to get out of the woods.”
The men the trees had told her about had horses. It wasn’t them. A shudder passed through her. His men were still out there. They were following the right trail.
The captain sighed, arms tightening around her. “He wasn’t in his right mind. None of them were. Did he hurt you?”
She gave a brittle laugh that turned into a sob. The captain looked down at her, the flickering torch doing strange things to his face, making him seem not quite human. His rough thumbs swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Did he hurt you?”
“My throat.” She shook her head. “I’m all right.”
He tilted her head back and then cursed under his breath. His fingertips were a light brush on her neck. She shuddered and he released her, straightening.
“No permanent damage,” he said, though his voice sounded tight. “We need to get out of here before the bodies draw anything we don’t want to deal with. Can you fold up the blankets and gather your things while I saddle the horses?”
She nodded. They wouldn’t be able to go far, but she wanted to get away from this place. Just run and run and run until this was far behind her.
The smell of blood and unwashed bodies and damp earth and swamp choked her with every breath. She mounted Copper and moved off. She shouldn’t have glanced back. The image of the guttering torch and the body sprawled on the blood-stained ground followed her into the dark.