Chapter 4 Kielyne
FOUR
KIELYNE
The dying marauder’s laughter scrapes against my nerves.
I don’t look up from Durnak’s wound. Can’t look up. The spear missed his heart by less than an inch, and if I don’t get the bleeding stopped in the next two minutes, he’ll be dead before dawn.
But the laughter keeps going. Wet. Bubbling. The sound of blood in lungs and death approaching.
“I know you.” The marauder’s voice, thin and ragged. “The healer. Hadrin’s prize.”
My hands falter. Just for a second.
“Ten gold marks.” More laughter, more blood. “Dead or alive. Though dead pays better.” A pause, rattling breath. “Commander wants to make an example of you. Heard him talking about it. Public execution. Something... creative.”
I force my hands to steady. Press harder against Durnak’s wound. Focus on what I can control.
“Everyone knows your face now,” the marauder continues. “Every bounty hunter. Every soldier. Every marauder with an empty purse.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Nowhere to run, little healer. Nowhere to hide.”
Blorjorn moves into my peripheral vision. I hear the wet crunch of metal on bone, and the laughter stops.
Silence. Except for Durnak’s labored breathing, and my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
“Is it true?” Blorjorn’s voice, low and rough. “The bounty?”
“You already knew about the bounty.” I don’t look up. “Your scout told you.”
“I knew soldiers were hunting you. I didn’t know every marauder band from here to the Shattered Peaks had your description.”
My throat tightens. I swallow it down. “As I said, Hadrin’s thorough.”
Durnak’s bleeding slows under my hands. Not stopped, but controlled. He’ll live if infection doesn’t take him. If we can get him somewhere safe.
If “somewhere safe” still exists for any of us.
I sit back on my heels, exhaustion hitting me all at once. My arms ache. My hands shake. I’m covered in blood—Durnak’s, the marauder’s, probably some of my own from cuts I don’t remember receiving.
“You saved him.” Blorjorn’s shadow falls across me. He’s close—too close—looming like a mountain, his broad frame blocking out the firelight. “Durnak. He would have died.”
“He still might.” I wipe my hands on a rag that someone pressed into my grip. “Spear wounds are tricky. Infection, internal bleeding—”
“You ran across a battlefield to throw yourself at an armed marauder.” His voice hardens. “For an orc you’ve never met.”
I finally look up.
He towers above me, dark-green and blood-spattered, his ritual scars glowing faintly red in the aftermath of battle. Those deep-set eyes bore into mine—unreadable, intense, holding questions I don’t know how to answer.
Something shifts in his expression. I can’t read it—orcs are hard to read, and this one especially—but something changes. The tension in his jaw eases, fractionally. His grip on his axes loosens.
“You’re wounded.”
I blink. Look down at myself. Blood on my arms, my chest, my face—but none of it’s pumping, none of it’s mine as far as I can tell—
“Your side.” He crouches beside me, and suddenly he’s at eye level, huge and close and radiating heat. “Here.”
His fingers brush the back of my shoulder, featherlight. Pain flares—sharp and sudden—and I hiss through my teeth.
“The axe swing.” His voice drops. “When you ducked. It didn’t miss entirely.”
I twist my head around to examine the injury. The fabric of my shirt is torn, and beneath it—yes. A gash, shallow but bleeding freely, running along my ribs. Adrenaline must have masked the pain.
“It’s nothing.” I try to push his hand away. “I’ve had worse.”
He doesn’t move. His palm stays pressed against my shoulder, warm even through the blood-soaked fabric. Those unreadable eyes hold mine.
“You saved one of mine.” The words come out rough. “Again.”
“That’s not—I was just—”
“Debt compounds on debt.” He cuts me off. “You understand what that means, among my people.”
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I can. His hand on my side, his face inches from mine, his breath warm against my cheek—it’s too much. Too close. Every nerve in my body is screaming, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or something else.
“It means I can never repay you.” His voice softens. Something raw flickers in his gaze. “Not with gold. Not with freedom. Not with anything I have to offer.”
“I don’t want repayment.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “I just want to survive.”
“I know.”
He pulls back. The loss of his warmth hits me harder than I expected—a cold rush that has nothing to do with the night air.
“You’re bleeding.” His voice is rough again, controlled. “Let someone tend that wound.”
“I can tend it myself—”
“You’re exhausted. Shaking. You can barely hold a needle steady.” He rises, towering over me again. “There are orc healers. Let them work.”
I want to argue. I always want to argue. But he’s right—my hands are trembling, and the edges of my vision are starting to blur, and if I don’t sit down soon, I’m going to fall down.
“Fine.” I let him pull me to my feet. Let his hand steady me when I sway. “But I’m checking on Grothak first. And Durnak. And anyone else who—”
“After.” His grip tightens on my arm—not painful, but firm. “Your wound first. Then patients.”
I glare up at him. “You can’t just—”
“I can.” A ghost of something—humor, maybe—flickers in his expression. “Captain’s orders.”
I’m too tired to fight him. Too tired to do anything except let him steer me toward the healer’s tent, his hand warm and solid against my back, his presence a strange comfort in the middle of all this blood and chaos and death.
This is dangerous. The thought surfaces, quiet and clear. He’s dangerous. And I’m starting to forget that.
But I don’t pull away.