Home > Dragon Unleashed (Fallen Empire #2)(17)

Dragon Unleashed (Fallen Empire #2)(17)
Author: Grace Draven

Plucking the covers aside, he raised himself on one elbow to inspect his bandages. New bindings swathed his torso and hip. Another wrapped around his shoulder and under his arm. Neatly tied, the bandages showed no bloodstains. Underneath them, his wounds ached but didn’t burn as they had before. He smelled a mixture of astringent herbs and sweet honey, and beneath those scents, the iron tinge of blood and acrid stink of cauterized flesh.

Draga magic could heal the wounds at this point until they were nothing more than scars to add to his existing collection. Malachus dared not tease the beast inside him again. Fortune favored him. By all rights, he should be dead. Only a hymn of earth and the fierce defense of a woman with melancholy gray eyes had saved him. Best to embrace caution and the slow-healing days of his weaker human constitution. No magic, only time and the skill of a free trader healer.

With the single lamp hanging from its high hook as illumination, he had difficulty judging the hour. Malachus peered at the wagon’s entrance. The door was open, allowing a cool draft to sweep in and keep the wagon’s air from becoming stifling. Anemic bars of sunlight slanted across the floorboards and part of the door lintel. If he translated the light’s movement correctly, twilight chased the sun. He’d been unconscious a full night and day at least, unaware of being moved back to the wagon, body bathed, wounds dressed, and bandages changed.

A low rumble in his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since the quick meal of Telkak’s pies. He hoped someone might appear soon with something more substantial than tea.

Footsteps clattered up the treads. A wizened face framed by gray hair appeared in his line of sight—Halani’s mother, Asil. She climbed into the wagon, carrying a cup with steam blowing off its contents’ surface. “You’re awake!” she proclaimed with such cheeriness, it made his awareness seem like a victory. “Hali thought you’d sleep right through to morning. Are you thirsty?” She held up the cup. “Hungry? Do you need to piss?”

Malachus blinked at her, stunned to silence under the bombardment of questions. “It’s good to see you again, Madam Asil. And yes to all three questions.”

His visitor edged closer to him, careful not to spill anything out of the cup. “Hali said you’re to drink this.” She sank to her knees, bringing the cup close enough to Malachus’s nose that he got a good whiff of what it contained. He drew away, upper lip curling. Willow-bark tea, bitter, black, and foul.

“I’m no longer fevered,” he protested when she thrust the cup at him.

She frowned before looking at the cup and then back at him. “She said it was for the fever, but if you don’t have one . . .”

“I don’t.”

“Then you shouldn’t have to drink it.” Her disgust mirrored his. “It tastes horrible anyway.”

Malachus decided he very much liked Asil. Her truths were simple and inarguable. He saw his opportunity to avoid the tea and get a breath of fresh air without being butchered by other free traders in the camp. “I do have to piss,” he said.

Her frown instantly dissolved into a delighted smile. “I’ll help you!”

His eyebrows shot up at her enthusiasm. Good gods, this wasn’t what he intended. She acted like she planned to guide him through every step of the process. “I just need help out of the wagon, madam. That’s all.”

Asil squeezed one of her slim arms. “I’m just Asil, no madam business. I’m also strong. You can lean on me. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She gained her feet, returned to the doorway, and tossed not only the cup’s contents but the cup as well. She returned, a bright flare of excitement in her eyes, as if helping Malachus navigate the wagon’s narrow confines and steps just to relieve himself was a grand adventure they planned to take together. “Now I have both hands free,” she declared, holding them out to him so he could grasp her fingers and pull himself up.

“Just help me down the steps. I can take care of the rest.” If any of the traders discovered Asil trying to “help” him with more than just a shoulder to lean on so he didn’t fall, they’d kill him for sure and hang his carcass from the nearest tree. And Halani wouldn’t stop them this time.

They made it outside without mishap. Garbed in bandages and a blanket knotted at his uninjured hip to preserve modesty, Malachus imagined himself a ridiculous sight as he descended the steps, leaning as little as possible on Asil’s small but steady frame.

Unlike the previous day, when he’d fallen out of the wagon, no crowds lingered nearby. He heard the activity of the camp, voices conversing or calling commands, the laughter of small children, and the bleats of livestock. The scent of food cooking wafted on the breeze to tease his nose and make his empty stomach growl. But no one saw him and Asil.

The cauterized wound in his side throbbed, as if Halani had not only burned him there but punched him for good measure before binding the wound. The wounds in his chest and hip didn’t trouble him as much but still hurt enough to make him pant as he strained muscles weakened by the tears of a broadhead and the cut of a healer’s knife. He could feel the damaged tissue repairing itself, one strand at a time. Still, credit went to Halani’s skilled surgery and her sweet-smelling poultices for his improved condition.

“How’s this?” Asil indicated a section of dry ground not so treacherous as the slippery sward in front of the wagon steps. Close enough to one of the wagon’s wheels that he could hold on to the spoke for balance, it also provided a small bit of privacy with the addition of a natural screen of rye grass not yet trampled flat.

Malachus straightened away from Asil, exchanging her support for that of the wagon wheel. “I thank you, Asil.” He prayed she’d allow him a solitary moment to appease nature’s demands.

“I like to help people,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere when you’re done. I’ll be right back with Hali.” She slipped away before Malachus could reply, a spry, agile woman with a sweet disposition and a strong back.

Left alone, he adjusted his stance to lean against the wheel so he could wrestle aside the blanket. He was in the middle of restoring his covering when the squish of footsteps in mud alerted him to someone’s approach. He turned to greet his visitor, expecting Asil with her daughter.

Halani had arrived without Asil but not alone. A frown curved the corners of her mouth down as she stared at him. A woman stood next to her, taller than Halani, and leaner, with hair the color of a crow’s wing. She wore her tresses loose over her narrow shoulders, the ends decorated in tiny silver beads. She didn’t frown as Halani did, but there was a severity to her that the trader woman lacked. Halani’s eyes were soft, somber. This woman’s were dark and as hard as the banded iron striping the distant mountains.

He’d known gazes like hers before. Halani’s as well. Halani wore the look of someone who’d witnessed, firsthand, life’s worst cruelties. Her companion wore the look of someone who’d endured them.

“What are you doing?” Disapproval laced Halani’s question, as if she’d caught him with his hand in the camp’s money stores.

Malachus gestured to his blanket-wrapped body. “Lurking here for the chance to show off my naked, bandaged glory to any passersby. It seems you’re the fortunate one today.”

The woman with the hard eyes snorted, her amusement easing her stiff features enough to reveal hints of beauty. Halani’s scowl dissolved. While she didn’t laugh, her eyes narrowed, and she tightened her lips against a smile.

“I woke up with a bladder ready to burst and a belly trying to gnaw its way through my backbone,” he explained. “Asil helped me here and left again to find you.”

Halani’s smile peeked out from the press of her mouth. “And are you still needing time alone with your bladder?”

He clutched the blanket closer, already fatigued by the short sojourn outside. “No, I’m finished.”

She left her companion to skirt around a mud puddle and draw close to him where he stood on the dry patch of ground. “I’ll help you back to the wagon, then.” She glanced down at his feet, bare and muddy. “And clean you up before you go back inside. Did Asil bring you the tea I brewed?”

His nose wrinkled at the thought of swallowing the nasty brew. “I’m not feverish.”

“You will be if you don’t drink it.”

“Even your mother agrees it’s revolting.” Maybe Asil’s opinion would soften her stance.

“My mother’s opinions regarding my drafts don’t count at the moment.” A sly expression crossed her features when his stomach rumbled long and loud. “Drink the tea, and I’ll bring you something to eat, but not a scrap until you do.”

“Don’t argue with her; you’ll lose.” The black-haired woman winked at Halani before turning her gaze back to Malachus. “I was a patient of hers once. She won’t budge, not in this.”

The promise of food already had him ceding victory to his nurse, though he found her companion’s remarks an interesting glimpse into Halani’s personality.

Halani pushed her shoulder under his good arm. “Don’t be afraid to put your weight on me. I’m stronger than I look.”

“Your mother said something similar.”

They took their time, aided by Halani’s friend. Malachus tensed the moment she touched him, though she showed no reciprocal reaction to him as she helped guide him and Halani to the wagon steps, where he climbed to sit on the topmost tread.

Whoever she was, she carried the favor and power of a fire deity inside her. Malachus glanced down at his fingertips to see if they’d blistered from touching her. The pads were smooth, unblemished except for the usual calluses. She wasn’t draga, then. Of that he was certain, but the sorcery of fire cascaded off her in an invisible stream, and not just the fire of hearth or camp. This was holy fire, the blood and spirit of a goddess gifted to a young human woman with a crone’s gaze.

   
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