Aye. War-rules magic. S’why I want nothing to do with war.
…Good.
XVI
Nikys clutched Penric, whose mumbling had drifted into well-enunciated but not particularly sensible rambling, and watched Adelis’s figure move methodically around the slope below. The sun had retreated behind the hills, leaving the sky still luminous, only a few stars pricking through, and the dry ground drenched in shadowless blue. Adelis had chased off the only two swordsmen still willing to stand up and try to fight after the landslide. Both of them cut and bleeding, their considerable courage had broken, and they’d turned to run down the trail after their fleeing comrades while they still could. Nikys was relieved.
Adelis paused at an indistinct shape at the bottom of the slide. Muffled voices, a cry of protest, a meaty thunk. Silence. Nikys shuddered, inhaled, looked away.
Penric convulsed up in her lap. “What was that? He’s not dispatching all the wounded, is he? I have to stop him—”
“No. Or only one, I think. Lie still. How badly are you hurt?”
He sank back. “Not too badly, I think.” His inner twin’s voice overrode this, puffing, oddly, more: “Nearly killed just now. Would have been, except for me.”
“Des!” objected Pen, and shut his jaw on this.
What did it say that Nikys had better luck getting a straight answer from a chaos demon than a man? Nothing new, more’s the pity. “Desdemona, what’s really going on? Tell me!”
Penric clenched his teeth, but then gave up, or gave way. “That accursed Bastard’s divine tried to rip apart his heart, by forbidden magic. I have it under control for now, but Penric should stay flat in bed for the next week.”
Nikys stared around the dusky hills at the marked absence of beds, and sighed. “Was that… normal magic?”
“No,” said Desdemona, and Penric, one hand wavering up to touch her face, added, “No one should be allowed to break my heart but you, Madame Owl.”
Her breath caught, but before they could continue this promising exchange, Adelis came clumping back. He paused below to study the unconscious sorcerer half-buried in the scree, then bent to wipe his sword clean on the loose sleeve of the man’s white robe, and sheathed it. Mounting the hill to Nikys’s side, he let down a pair of bows and a quiver of arrows. With a tired grunt, he dropped next to them and gazed out over the unexpected battlefield.
Penric levered up on his elbow. “What all has happened? Is happening…?”
“The sergeant, two archers, and two men ran off, for now. And the two wounded, after. The rest are half-buried in the rubble. A few may get out without help, and help the others. I expect their comrades will come creeping back to their aid by-and-by. The horses tore loose and ran off during what I take to be your landslide. At least one fell. Broken neck, fortunately. Broken legs would have made for a messier cleanup. For somebody, not for us. We need to move along.”
Penric’s brows pinched. “What about Velka?”
Adelis shrugged. “He’d tried for me twice. Three times, if what you say is true. I decided not to give him a fourth chance.”
“Oh.” Penric sank back, signing himself. “I regret… not doing better with him.”
“Well, he’s his god’s problem now. Don’t promote your troubles beyond your rank.”
“That is actually theologically sound advice.”
“Works in the army, too.”
“Ah.” Penric hesitated. “Did you ever find out his real name?”
“Didn’t ask. Didn’t care, by then.”
“It seems strange to kill a man without even knowing his name.”
“Seems usual to me.” Adelis rolled his shoulders. “Though in his case, we may find out later. Anyway, with the head cut off, the body will thrash. Best guess it will take this lot some days to dig themselves out and limp back for help. More confusion after that. Unless that one”—he nodded downhill to the pale lump that was the Patos sorcerer—“recovers faster than I think. Which, given his demon, your god only knows.”
Penric, who had slumped into Nikys’s willing lap, struggled up again. “I should try to treat the wounded—”
“No, you shouldn’t,” said Nikys, pushing him back.
“No, and I won’t help,” Desdemona put in. “I have other priorities right now. They’ll all live if their friends return.”
“I agree with the demon,” said Adelis, unexpectedly both for the agreement, and for spotting just who had spoken the words coming out of Penric’s mouth. “I swear the thing has more sense than you do, Learned Fool.”
Which was, all right, a small step toward acknowledging the truth of Penric’s account of himself. An Adelis-inch. Nikys bent her face and smiled.
“Any being learns a lot in two hundred years,” Penric conceded shakily.
Adelis picked up one bow and tested it. “You said you could shoot flaming arrows, sorcerer. How about regular ones?”
“Usually. Maybe not right now.”
He handed the bow to Nikys. “Check the draw for you.”
Seated on the ground, she took it a little awkwardly, twisted and pulled, and grimaced. “It’s fairly hard for me, but I could do it in a pinch.” She leaned over and set it with the other.
“We’ll keep both, then.” Adelis turned and shifted his gaze upward. “I’m not sure how much steep we have left, but if we can get through that narrow place before full dark, we should be able to stop safely till moonrise.”
Nikys bit her lip, wondering how this squared with Desdemona’s recommendation of rest for Penric’s safe recovery. It did not sound good.
The pile of pale cloth below them shifted, then moaned.
This time, Penric rose in greater determination. “Help me. I have to get some water down that one, or he won’t last till morning. It matters, trust me.”
“Jumping demon problem?” inquired Adelis, in a kind of wearied concession.
“At the very least. Not that he deserves to keep his.”
Nikys hoisted the leather bottle, and Penric. They slid down the few yards and settled by the half-buried sorcerer.
Penric took the bottle and dribbled water over the man’s head, rubbing it into his hair. “I need to cool him down the hard way, if he’s still too stunned to shed chaos,” Penric told her. “Here, Learned Kyrato.” He patted the man’s bearded cheek. “Wake up, now. You have to drink this.” He tilted the spout to the man’s lips.
Kyrato swallowed, choked, spilled, and seemed to come back to full consciousness. He heaved his trapped body, without effect.
“Stop struggling,” Penric told him, a stern hand to his shoulder. “You’ll just make yourself hotter. I haven’t much time—”
Kyrato’s voice went sharp in terror. “I won’t tell you anything!”
“Good, because I only want you to listen,” said Penric.
“Is this safe?” asked Nikys in worry. “If he just tried to kill you?”
“Now that I’m on my guard, yes. …Maybe. You’d best sit back a way.” Penric gestured.
Nikys retreated perhaps two feet, and felt around for a good big piece of scree, ready to knock Kyrato in the head with it again if he made some sudden move. Although it wasn’t the moves she could see but the ones she couldn’t that were the real danger, she supposed. She’d have to trust in Penric and Desdemona for those. This was… curiously not-hard.
Kyrato’s eyes flickered from her back to Penric.
“The fight’s over,” Penric informed him. “Your side lost. You have surrendered.”
Groggily, Kyrato said, “No, I haven’t.” He mustered resolve. “You may get away this time, but the Bastard’s Order will track you down.”