Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (64 page)

Landon dove between the two while the young noble
struck the paving stones.  People around them slowly turned to look, to see why
this small group had halted to obstruct the flow of travelers.  Kerwin
recovered from his blunt shoulder tackle, only to run
away
from
Hilliard.  Marik watched him dazedly while the gambler darted to the street’s
center, head revolving, gazing at the rooftops.

A hand gripped his shoulder.  Marik twisted his gaze
to see Dietrik frantically mouthing words.  He stared back, puzzled at why
Dietrik did not simply speak aloud.  Dietrik watched him for an eternal moment,
waiting for a reaction.  When none came, he roughly shook Marik’s shoulder,
punctuating the action by digging his fingertips harshly into his flesh.

Sound exploded back into the world.  Marik reeled,
unsteady, nearly overwhelmed.  His mind finally moved from its shocked state.

Strangers crowded forward.  They wanted to see what
the fuss might be or, understanding the crisis, they pushed away, wishing no
part of it.  Visions of disguised assassins creeping close to sever their
prey’s head as a gruesome trophy flashed with terrifying clarity through his
mind’s eye.

“Keep them back!” he shouted at Dietrik.  His friend,
glad to see the dazed expression vanish from his eyes, made to do that as Marik
looked to Kerwin.  He realized the gambler was searching for any signs of the
man who had fired the crossbow.

Dietrik fended off the crowd.  He awkwardly half-drew
his rapier with his weak hand to make his point.  Marik dropped down beside
Landon.  Blood coated Hilliard’s robe and still spurted under the archer’s
hands.  The young man had passed out.  Good, that would keep his heart from
racing in fear, which would only pump vital blood from the wound that much
faster.

Marik studied the quarrel protruding from Hilliard. 
Not from the chest as he first thought.  Kerwin had accomplished that much,
upsetting the assassin’s target enough that the well-aimed shot penetrated the
shoulder rather than the centerline.  What to do next?

His brain threatened to seize up.  For a brief instant
his only thought centered on facing Torrance and Janus in an attempt to explain
how he, as acting leader of the bodyguard detail, had allowed his charge to be
murdered right under his nose.  Hilliard still breathed.  Landon continued his
efficient, if frantic, examination of the young man.

He obviously needed medical attention.  What should
they do?  If the damage were extensive, only a Healer would have a prayer of
holding his life on this side of the veil.  Should they run for the Houses of
Healing he had heard described in tales?

No.  In the first place, he knew only two houses
existed in the city, and he knew not where either might be found.  Also they
gave their aid only if the patient could afford the house’s fees or if they
were donating charity work to the underclasses.  Though they would no doubt
come to the aid of a wounded noble, fees to be discussed later, convincing them
that they had a legitimate need for their services could take all day. 
Hundreds of sick clambered at their door every morning, every one of them
desperate to convince the residents that
their
need surpassed all
others.  Besides, many among the houses’ medical workers were chirurgeons,
talented in their craft to be sure, but very few true Healers could be found
within those walls.  Marik knew with sick intuition, studying Hilliard’s
blood-soaked form, that the most expert chirurgeon might not be enough.

Time no longer passed at an agonizingly slow pace.  It
raced in a furious stampede of frothing horses.  Every eye blink worsened
Hilliard’s condition.  Marik struggled for a course of action.

How about the Cathedral of the Eternal Twelve?  With
so many archbishops and ecclesiastical royalty preaching the Twelve’s
teachings, surely
one
must command the powers of Healing!  But that
might not do either.  Delmer and the Head Chirurgeon in Kingshome had given him
a quick lesson in Healers during his own recovery.  He had been fortunate. 
Many religions required the one who received a Healing to convert to that
faith.  Those who attempted to ignore the conversion met with countless
misfortunes until they adopted their new god in their hearts.

Hilliard might give the entire pantheon their due, but
which deity did the young man personally called his own?  Probably Sheirleon,
yet he could not swear to it.  The priest at the cathedral could refuse a
Healing altogether if Marik failed to supply the name of Hilliard’s patron!

How about…

How about…

Landon shifted his gaze to the floundering Marik. 
“This is not good.”

Marik leaned down.  He feared the worst.  “How bad?”

“The quarrel shattered his collarbone.  It tore most
of the muscles, but…”  Landon’s voice dropped so Marik needed to strain for it
over the noisy crowd.  “I’m afraid one of the greater veins has been severed.”

“A chirurgeon…”  Marik’s voice faded at Landon’s
negative shake.

“Veins can’t be sewn back together.  He will bleed to
death unless he receives a true Healing.”

“How?” Marik desperately questioned the more
experienced man.  “Do you know where we can find a Healer?  Find one fast
enough?”

“We can’t move him very far, but we must take him off
this roadway.  I think we must send for the Healer at the tournament.”

“What?  What do you mean?”

Landon’s eyes darted to him.  “You never noticed
her?”  At Marik’s blank look, he continued, “She usually stands with the
officials.  I am certain the palace stationed her to see after any serious
injuries the contenders suffer during the events.”

“Are you sure about that?”  Marik’s intense gaze
locked on Landon.

“As certain of that as anything.  She wears the
traditional Healer’s blue, and I can’t imagine the nobles not seeing to their
own needs when participating in such dangerous activities.”

“Very well, then.”  He rose, plans forming with a
path, tenuous and overgrown yet visible, appearing before him.  “Kerwin!”

Marik continued shouting it until the gambler finally
heard him through the press.  He returned, angry, mostly at himself.  “I never
saw the bastard!  Just had a sudden feeling, you know?”

“Yeah.  Good thing you did.  I’ll never bet against
your instincts.  You need to run to the jousting lists.  Landon says the
officials are keeping a woman Healer on tap.  You need to get her back as fast
as you can.”

“I will!”  He readied to spring away until Marik
caught him by the arm.

“Paddy’s stable is closer than the inn.  We’ll carry
Hilliard there.  If I still had that summons Celerity gave me I’d give it to
you.  If they give you any trouble, try using her name.  I’ll figure out how to
pay her back later.”

Kerwin nodded before dashing off, winding eel-like
around bodies.  Marik returned to stand guard over the unconscious Hilliard
while Landon made the best preparations he could to move the body.  He and
Dietrik scanned the crowd for painfully long minutes before Marik spied what
they needed.

Passing through the clot of stalled pedestrians inched
a two-wheeled handcart loaded with carrots in woven baskets.  Marik forded the
human tide to catch the man pulling it, who was intent on reaching a produce
market before midmorning.

This carrot farmer spat at Marik’s declaration that
they were appropriating his cart.  He argued vehemently with the mercenary who
stood in his path until Marik dug into his pouch, pulling out a five-silver
coin.  The only coin that large in the purse provided by Janus, Marik decided
this, if anything, constituted an emergency expense.

He and Landon dumped the man’s carrots by the roadside. 
They told the farmer he could reclaim his cart later at Paddy’s Stables. 
Already having earned six times over what the entire load would have yielded on
the best of all market days, the farmer told them he
would
be by the
stables to reclaim his cart, and would call the cityguard down on them if he
found it missing, then sat to hawk his carrots to the people walking past.

Paddy fell to pieces when they pulled into his yard. 
His men frantically cleaned out a backroom of everything except the iron stove
and moved the cot in.  The little man commanded his personal army of stable
hands, stoking the heat in the small room to sweltering, ordering every
suitable blanket in the stable to be rooted out, sending five men with buckets
and the watercart to the public well on the next street to bring back enough
water to scrub all the stalls to a polish.  Landon watched over Hilliard,
Dietrik took a post by the stableyard gate to intercept strangers, so Marik,
with little else to do, helped build a fire in the large hearth in Paddy’s
office, boiling endless pots of water to have a cleansed store ready if it were
needed.

The wait for Kerwin’s return spanned entire ages of
the world.

Marik returned to Hilliard’s side.  He watched the
ashen face grow paler while Landon performed the best field dressings he could
manage around the protruding quarrel.  Taking it out would surely result in a
bloody gush that would end the young man’s life in moments.

“We completely failed, didn’t we,” Marik asked in a
low voice.

Landon nodded.  “We overlooked a layer hidden beneath
what we could see.”

“Gods damned onions!” Marik nearly shouted.  “I’m sick
of them!”  He punched the wall in frustration.  “We should have left one alive
and beaten the stuffing out of him until he told us everything!”

“Too late now,” Landon murmured.  He lost focus,
staring at nothing.  Marik knew the archer had begun meticulously reexamining
the facts at their disposal and the assumptions made on their part, searching
for the detail overlooked.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Marik declared fiercely,
breaking Landon from his thoughts.  “As soon as Kerwin returns with the Healer,
I’m going to get Ilona.”

“Ilona?” Landon replied with a lost expression Marik
had never seen on the man before.  “What good will that accomplish?  None of us
harbor any doubts concerning her involvement.”

“Don’t you worry about that.”  Marik growled, steaming
as his rage continued to build unabated.  “Don’t you gods damned worry.  I’ve
had enough of these cowards.  I’m going to put an end to this once and for
all.”  A commotion erupted outside, forestalling Landon’s next question under
the shrill screaming of horses reined harshly to an abrupt stop.  “That’ll be
Kerwin.  Here.”  He tossed the coin purse with the remaining funds.  “You might
need this.  Do me one favor though.”

“What might that be?”

He pointed at the quarrel in Hilliard’s shoulder. 
“Tell the Healer to wrap that in cloth before she pulls it out, then put it
aside and save it.  Don’t let anybody near it, or touch it.  And I mean
anybody
!”

Landon held his questions and nodded.  Marik blazed a
scorching path from the stable, passing Kerwin dashing inside, led by a
fretting Paddy, followed by a gravely concerned woman in sky blue.

*        *        *        *        *

Through gritted teeth, sweat dripping from his
eyebrows, forehead and ears, hair slicked to his head, eyes straining as if to
leap from their sockets, entire body ridged from the strenuous effort, Marik
grunted, “Now for the hard part.”

Landon stood three steps away, gazing down at the hand
mirror resting on a crate of leather rein straps.  Dietrik stood beside him,
watching Marik’s sixth attempt, interested in the proceedings, unafraid of his
friend’s powers.  That meant a lot to Marik.  Especially under the last
candlemark’s strain.

Ilona leaned close as she dared.  She was less
concerned about a dangerous, untested mage working as she was worried that
leaning any closer would disrupt his concentration.  Paddy had brought him an
egg-white ceramic plate for the quarrel to rest on.  Several tin plates had
been offered, but Marik wanted to use a holder made from neither wood nor
metal.  They might interfere when he tied the wooden quarrel tipped with steel
to the scrye.  Or perhaps not.  He chose not to risk it.  Time ran short.

The much smaller hand mirror made setting the initial
energy circle far easier.  Unfortunately Marik’s needs were different.  He had
read how to use the working in the manner he wanted, yet never before had
attempted it.

With the prior workings, he’d instigated the scrye’s
most basic nature.  Like calls to like.  Matching affinities.  The simplest of
the simple.

This time he needed to call forth the image of the man
who had shot the quarrel at Hilliard.  No connection linked that man to the
wood and steel other than that he had once handled it.  Fixing that need within
the working, teaching the serpent what to seek for, proved immeasurably more
difficult.

At first Hilliard’s blood caught in the working the
way a hook catches in a fish’s mouth.  Four times the mirror had shown Hilliard
laying prone on his cot in the next room, the Healer bent over his body, bloody
hands pressed to his chest, Kerwin leaning with all his weight against the rag
staunching the gaping wound.  Marik, cursing, had collapsed the etheric circle,
setting it all over, trying to instruct the working to use a different sized
hook to catch the smaller minnow of the archer’s signature behind the larger
trout of Hilliard’s blood essence.  He feared the Healer would next be shown in
the reflective surface.  Fortunately the cloth had prevented her personal
astral signature from tainting the fragile essences already clinging to the
quarrel.