Amelia grabbed him by the collar and shoved him away. He held on to his knife as he flew back; it left an arc of blood through the air. He landed on his butt and slid in the grass. He slapped the ground and screamed, “You know me now, you bid?” like a little boy having a tantrum. “Do you?”
Amelia caught Jenny as she fell. Jenny’s eyes were open wide and she stared down at the wound, which had just begun to bleed. Amelia slapped her hand over it and said with reasonable calm, “Cammy!”
Agravaine was still screeching, “Do you know me? Do you know me?” He switched his grip on the knife and started to get to his feet.
He never got the chance. I whacked him in the side of the head with my bad hand, using the weight of cast and sword for added impact. He fell back flat, and I straddled his chest. With my good hand I snatched the knife away and tossed it out of reach.
“I stuck it in her,” he hissed with a crazed smile. “Did you see that? I gabe it to her good.”
His hateful bloody grin caused something I’d thought long extinguished in me to flare back to life. I raised Hoel’s sword above my head and repeatedly pounded Agravaine’s face with the heavy pommel. My voice rose to an unintelligible screech of rage and fury. I saw in Dave Agravaine every bullying, smug, ignorant soldier I’d ever met. Or ever been.
I stopped when the cast on my hand cracked and fell away, except for a cup-shaped piece pinned between my palm and sword hilt. I sat there breathing, which seemed at the moment to take all my strength. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been hitting him, but not only was Agravaine dead, his face was pounded to unrecognizable red mush with pieces of white bone around the edges.
I’d felt like this before in the heat of battle, but always at a professional distance; this was the first time I recalled this level of rage directed at someone for personal reasons. I stared at the ruin of Agravaine’s face; one lifeless eyeball suddenly popped up from the blood pooled over its socket. I almost threw up.
Instead I got to my feet. “Always pay the insurance,” I hissed to myself, and decapitated Agravaine for good measure. Watching his head roll over while his body stayed in place felt better than it had any right to feel.
The smell hit me then. I choked down another surge of bile. I’d forgotten the coppery, raw-meat odor of violent death.
Hoel sat on the ground clutching his injured leg, his fingers soaked with blood. He stared at me as if I were some supernatural monster. Now that was something: my battle rage had scared a Knight of the Double Tarn.
I pointed the sword, his sword, the pommel still dripping Agravaine’s blood, at him. “You.”
His words tumbled out as he tried to scoot away. “Wait, it was all Dave’s doing, we were just following orders, we didn’t know the queen would be here-”
“Shut up,” I said. I wasn’t sure it was audible, but it must’ve been because Hoel did it.
I felt a droplet of Agravaine’s blood drip from my sword hand to the grass. My arm did not waver. “I have,” I said quietly, “some questions for you.”
“I think they can wait,” Kern said from the cottage door.
TWENTY-FOUR
My bad hand, even without its cast, felt plenty strong. I tied Hoel’s wrists to one of the wagon wheels, his back against the spokes. When he protested that the ropes were too tight, I tightened them. Then I put a tourniquet around his injured calf. I stuck his sword, the hilt still dripping Agravaine’s blood, into the ground between his legs. He couldn’t reach it, of course, but I wanted him to try. He shouted desperate, high-pitched curses after me.
Kern had carried Jenny into the cottage bedroom. Amelia sat in the living room, a bloody rag to her nose. She looked up at me as I closed the front door to muffle Hoel’s cries. Without a word she handed me another rag to wipe the blood from my hands.
“Are you okay?” I asked, hoping I sounded reasonably normal. The rage still quivered just below my sternum.
She nodded. “It’s just a bloody nose. Had lots of ’em. The little fucker blindsided me, that’s all.”
“He liked hitting women.”
“Wish I’d had the chance to hit him back. But it didn’t break my heart to watch you do it.” She paused, checked the blood on the rag, and returned it to her face. “Is the man I shot…?”
“He’s dead.”
She blinked numbly a few times. “Wow. I’ve hurt people before, but I never killed anyone.” She looked up at me. “How am I supposed to feel about it?”
“Any way you feel is the right way.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“If you have to kill a snake, kill it once and for all.”
She paused, seeming to search inside herself, and said at last, “I don’t feel… anything.”
“That’s okay, too.” I touched her cheek with the back of my good hand. She smiled and leaned into my caress.
I went into the bedroom. Jenny lay on the bed, robe open, sheets strategically covering her demure parts. Her side was bare, and the freshly stitched cut oozed blood as Kern wiped it. Thankfully he’d also put on his multicolored gown again. “That should scab up quickly,” he said. “But you’ll need to stay still until it knits good and strong.”
I smelled something sour and familiar. Jenny moaned and tossed her head, eyes closed. If she’d heard Kern, she gave no sign.
“How is she?” I asked.
“I don’t know, there’s something wrong. It’s a nasty cut, sure, but nothing more than that. It hit a rib, so it didn’t reach anything vital. A few stitches, some poultices to keep it from getting inflamed, and she should be fine. Yet look at her.”
Kern was right. She was pale, sweating, and seemed to have trouble breathing. Her eyes opened and flickered about in fear. She had trouble focusing. “What do you mean?” she gasped in a weak, trembling voice. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing, honey, we’ll figure it out.” Kern’s nose wrinkled. “Although I can’t place that smell.”
I could. I felt a mix of horror and impotent rage as I lifted one of the bloody rags used to clean the wound and sniffed. “Shatternight. He coated his knife with shatternight.”
“What’s that?” Jenny asked urgently.
Kern leaned down, sniffed the wound, then looked at me with a mix of respect and fear. “How the hell did you know that?”
“It’s what somebody used on that knight back at Nodlon.”
“I’ve been poisoned?” she asked more urgently.
“The dose couldn’t have been very strong,” Kern said to me. “Exposed to the air, it would’ve started to weaken almost immediately.”
I dropped the rag. “How strong does it need to be?”
“Stop ignoring me!” she screamed.
Kern tenderly brushed damp hair from her face and smiled his best paternal smile. “I’m sorry, you’re right. We shouldn’t talk about you like you’re not here. One of men’s worst tendencies toward women, I’m afraid. Yes, it’s a kind of poison. I’ve dealt with it before, and I know exactly what to do.”
“Will I die?” she asked in a small voice.
His smile faded, but his tone remained gentle. “We all do. Now I want you to rest, and let that cut air out. I’m going to fix up some medicine to make you feel much better. It’ll only take a jiffy, if your friend here helps.” He nodded at me.
“Of course,” I said.
“I’ll send Amelia in to keep you company. Call if you need us.” I followed Kern from the bedroom, lacking the heart to look back at Jenny. Kern was careful to close the door.
“Amelia,” he called quietly, and she jumped to her feet. Her nose had stopped bleeding but was beginning to swell. “I need you to stay with Jenny. I’ve got to mix some medicine in the shed. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Will she be okay?” Amelia asked.
Kern said nothing. Which, of course, was an answer.
We went out the back door to a little shack only a few steps away. Inside was a well-stocked apothecary, its shelves filled with bottles, jars, and boxes. A table loaded with various mixing devices occupied most of the open floor space. Kern turned a handle mounted on the wall, and a section of the roof opened to admit light. Then he closed the door behind us.