“Much time has passed since anyone’s been here,” he said surveying their surroundings. “All the better for us.”
Khirro inhaled the stream’s crispness and the perfume of blossoming flowers, then washed his hands in the cold water, splashed some on his face It stung the tender scratch where the thorn had caught him. He touched it lightly and his finger came away with fresh blood.
“Let’s change your dressing.” Ghaul dropped his pack from his back. “It would do the kingdom no good if the only man who could find the Necromancer lost his leg to the blood sickness. Lakesh is a long way to hop.”
Grinning though he didn’t find the prospect funny, Khirro moved to a large rock on the bank of the stream where he sat and flexed his leg.
“It feels good.”
“Numb from walking.”
Ghaul unwound the bandage from Khirro’s thigh with a surprisingly gentle touch for a battle-hardened warrior. Dried blood stuck the strip of cloth to itself and Khirro thought of his father. He’d watched him scream and curse as mother changed the bandage where his arm had been. ‘You’re no son of mine,’ he screamed as the gauze pulled painfully away.
Khirro shook his head and concentrated on Ghaul removing the dressing.
The warrior pulled the last of the bandage away from his leg, then scooped water from the stream with cupped hands. He splashed it on Khirro’s leg, washing away much of the dried blood. No fresh blood flowed to replace it.
“How badly does it hurt?”
“Not at all.”
Ghaul shook his head. “Something’s wrong. It should still be bleeding.”
“It feels fine.”
“Bleeding clears impurities. I better have a look.”
Khirro stood, removed the Shaman’s sword belt and set it aside on the rock, then dropped his breeches to his knees. Ghaul examined his leg.
“Gods. How can this be?”
“What? What is it?”
Ghaul stepped away, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What manner of man are you?”
Concerned, Khirro hobbled to the stream and dropped to his knees. He splashed water across his thigh, washing away the last of the dried blood and saw a puckered pink scar where the wound should have been. He brushed it with his fingertips, first lightly, then pushed on it more firmly. No pain.
“I’m no manner of man,” he said looking up at Ghaul and remembered the warmth in his thigh when he held the vial of the king’s blood. “I mean, I think I know how this happened.”
He stood and tied his breeches. Ghaul watched, wary as Khirro reached into his jerkin and pulled out the vial. The glass was cool to the touch and he doubted his memory.
“What are you doing?”
Khirro didn’t answer. Instead, he raised the vial and touched it to the scratch on his cheek. It warmed immediately. A tingling spread across his face, uncomfortable like an itch he couldn’t find when he went to scratch it, and chased his doubt before it. Ghaul watched, eyebrows slanted in unvoiced question. When the warmth faded, Khirro lowered the vial.
“Well?”
Ghaul’s expression lost its edge, shifting to something like wonder. He stepped closer to Khirro, reaching out tentatively. His fingertips brushed his cheek then drew away.
“Gone,” he whispered.
“It’s the Shaman’s spell. Whatever he did to keep the king’s blood alive, to sustain it, must spill from the vial.”
“Let me see it.”
An instant of panic flashed through Khirro’s mind, then temptation.
I could give it to him and leave. I could return to the farm. To Emeline.
He extended his hand, visions of home dancing before his eyes. Ghaul took the vial, holding it between two fingers.
“It looks like a vial of blood, nothing more.”
Sweat broke on Khirro’s brow. The thoughts of home, Emeline, and the farm, disappeared. His gut churned.
The Shaman’s curse won’t let me.
“Give it back,” he croaked, his throat suddenly dry.
Ghaul hesitated, looked like he’d refuse. Khirro’s eyes flickered to his sword belt lying on the rock, then back to the warrior. He couldn’t reach it fast enough. Ghaul closed his fingers around the vial, holding it in his fist. Then he laughed.
“I don’t want your vial, Khirro,” he said tossing it back nonchalantly. Khirro bobbled it but kept it from dropping. “I don’t know how to find the Necromancer.”
Relief calmed Khirro’s gut, but sadness tempered it. Maybe he’d never be able to return home. He tucked the vial back into its spot.
“Sorry.” He retrieved his sword belt from the rock.
Ghaul shrugged. “No need to be. But next time you eye your weapon, you will be.”
Chapter Ten
They ate hard cheese and dark bread from Ghaul’s pack, but didn’t sleep. Khirro begged for rest, but Ghaul insisted they push on while they had a chance to increase their lead.
“The glade is too open,” Ghaul said as they followed the stream south west. “We’ll find somewhere less obvious to rest soon.”
Soon turned out to be more than three hours later. The sky had lightened to bright morning blue, the sun promising another hot day when it peeked through the branches overhead. They stopped at a huge fallen tree, charred by fire and hollowed by time. A perfect place to sleep unnoticed. Khirro surprised himself by offering to take the first watch. He felt good. A bit of food and a splash of water had done wonders to refresh him.
Ghaul had been sleeping for an hour when a black bear lumbered by, two cubs cantering along behind. Khirro watched in awe and fear as they passed; Mama bear sniffed the air once and glanced his direction but otherwise ignored him. He’d never seen a bear before. Cows and goats, pigs and chickens were as close as he came to wildlife. He told Ghaul excitedly about his sighting when he woke an hour later. The warrior seemed less than impressed.
When Ghaul woke Khirro, the sun was hidden above the trees, so he couldn’t tell how long he’d slept. His companion’s expression told him immediately he wasn’t waking him because the time had come to move on.
“Wha-?” he began, but Ghaul silenced him with a gesture. More gestures followed, but Khirro’s sleep fogged head couldn’t immediately grasp their meaning. It took a moment to realize Ghaul had heard something.
Birds chirped, insects buzzed; Khirro heard no other sounds as they listened. Minutes passed. Could Ghaul have been mistaken? A smile tugged at Khirro’s lips at the thought.
Mighty warrior hearing things.
Then there was a noise, small and far off. It wasn’t the sounds he’d been afraid to hear-no clanking armor, neighing horses, or men shouting that they’d discovered the trail.
It was a woman’s voice.
Tension released from Khirro’s shoulders; Ghaul looked at him, shaking his head. He signaled the direction the sound came from and moved from beneath the hollow tree, presumably expecting Khirro to follow. After collecting the items he’d removed for sleep, he did. They picked their way through the brush quickly and carefully, striving for silence, a task Ghaul accomplished much better than Khirro.
As they drew nearer the sound’s source, other voices joined the woman’s. Khirro heard at least two, perhaps three, all of them men. The woman’s tone suggested anger, though the tangle of trees and shrubs muffled her words as surely as they hid the group from view. Ghaul took the bow from his shoulder and plucked an arrow from the quiver; Khirro drew the black and red blade. When Ghaul saw the sword, his forehead creased and he glanced a questioning look at Khirro but quickly turned his attention back to the sounds before them.
At the top of a short rise, the trees thinned and the ground dropped away in a gentle slope. A clearing spread out beyond the edge of the forest, not unlike the one at which they’d stopped. Three men laughed and cat-called the naked woman standing in the middle of their rough circle. She seemed unconcerned by her nudity.