Page 7

Chapter Seven

H arm tentatively picked up the knife, gripping it in his hand and facing the forest as if he actually knew what he was doing. If it had been a sword, he would at least have had some clue. But a knife? Nope.

He’d had some perfunctory training with swords and blunderbusses. But most of his training had been focused on overall war strategy as he was expected to remain behind while the generals took care of actual tactics and the men did the fighting. Not that the Duchy of Tulpenland got in many battles.

Sure, a few of the neighboring kingdoms and duchies were jealous of their booming economy. King Hendrik to the south especially had been making threats lately. But he’d never invade. Tulpenland remained safe behind their network of canals, which could be used to flood the land and impede any attempts to march an army across the lowlands.

But Harm didn’t think monsters cared if he could negotiate a trade treaty or list the seven principles of warfare as laid down by the ancient general Sirit Tou.

Something squealed deep in the underbrush. Then with a roar and a crackle of breaking branches, a huge and hideous beast with far too many gnashing fangs leapt into the pool of light cast by the fire.

Her jaw set in a grim line and her black hair limned with firelight, Val stepped forward and stabbed her knife with a brutal force that belied her otherwise graceful movements.

The monster roared and lashed out at her, but she evaded the teeth, dancing away. As she did so, she reached into a pocket and withdrew a long spear tipped with a barbed head. The weapon was far too long to have fit in a normal pocket, but Harm had concluded the pockets must be magical, given the number of impossibly large things he’d seen her pull from them.

Val stabbed the monster again, fending off its head with her spear. She didn’t even look hampered by the fact that she couldn’t go more than ten feet away from Harm because of the cord.

Daisy appeared in the circle of firelight. One of her jaws was clamped at the back of the neck of a rat that appeared to be nearly as big as she was. Another of the obscenely large rodents burst out of the forest, and one of Daisy’s other heads chomped down on it with such force something snapped. Daisy’s muscles bulged along her shoulders and sides as she viciously shook the rodents, further snapping bones.

Then a slavering wolf even bigger than Daisy leapt toward Harm. Its black fur blurred slightly sludgy, and its eyes gleamed red around the edges. Its fangs glinted, even though they were brown and rotting.

Harm yelped and tried to scramble back, but he was pinned between the wolf and the crackling fire. He held out the knife in both hands, but the wolf just dodged instead of nicely impaling itself.

Harm avoided the snapping teeth and swung down at the wolf, trying to stab it. The wolf danced away from the blade. Without meeting the resistance of the wolf’s body, Harm’s wild swing continued, and he sliced the side of his thigh just above his knee with his own knife.

Harm yelled in pain, then yelled again as the wolf clamped its fangs around his arm, bowling into Harm with such force that he fell backward. Unlike when he’d been pinned by a too enthusiastic Daisy, this wolf was all fangs and claws, biting and tearing.

Where was the knife? A weapon? Something? Harm wordlessly shouted as the wolf ravaged his arm and tried to get to his throat.

Then the wolf yelped, and Val appeared beyond the wolf’s head. She stabbed the wolf again, then gripped it by the scruff and yanked it off Harm.

The wounded wolf tumbled a few feet, rolling onto its side. Before it could scramble to its feet, Daisy attacked with a savage growl, all three heads snapping down.

Harm slumped more fully on the ground, trying to catch his breath past the drumming of his heart and the pain spreading through his body.

Val glanced around before she pulled a cloth out of her pocket and cleaned her dagger. As she scrubbed the blade, she stared down at Harm. “You were supposed to use the knife.”

“I tried.” Harm gripped his injured arm with the other, blood welling between his fingers. Blooming tulips, that hurt. Between the searing pain in his arm, burning lines of agony across his chest, and the pulsing throb of the cut on his leg, he might just pass out.

“Where’s my knife?” She sheathed the one she’d finished cleaning and propped a fist on her hip.

“Don’t know.” Harm gritted his teeth. He wasn’t sure he could even sit up right now. “I was trying not to die.”

“Trying not to die usually involves holding on to the knife, not losing it.” Val cast about for a moment before she took a step, bent, and retrieved the knife from where it had somehow gotten half-buried in the moss. Instead of sheathing it right away, she set to work cleaning it with her cloth.

“I’m bleeding.” Harm didn’t think cleaning her knife should be the priority right now. Not that he wanted to be a bother, but he didn’t want to bleed out.

“Fine.” She sighed and sheathed the knife. “Sit up and take your shirt off.”

“I…er…” The back of Harm’s neck was heating again. Perhaps he’d just lie here and die instead. It would be the proper thing to do rather than disrobe.

“If you don’t take your shirt off, I’ll cut it off. And I promise, I won’t be gentle about it. So up and off.” Val wasn’t even looking at him as she stowed her cloth in one pocket, then began taking various items out of the other pocket.

As that sounded even more improper than somehow getting his shirt off himself, Harm gritted his teeth, gathered his strength, and rolled into a sitting position, leaning his back against the root he’d been sitting on before this whole mess started.

His fingers were trembling so much with the pain that he fumbled to unbutton his shirt. He shrugged his shoulders out of the shirt and got it off one arm. But the fabric was stuck to his wounded arm. Bracing himself, he slowly peeled the fabric off, gritting his teeth and only groaning once or twice, blackness crowding the edges of his vision, as the fabric came away.

Long scratches ran down his chest and across his abdomen. Most were superficial, but some of the deeper ones dribbled blood. Bites ravaged his left arm while his breeches were soaked with blood from the slice on his leg.

While he’d been gritting his way out of his shirt, Val had set up a second pot over the fire. At least she wasn’t going to boil water for wound cleaning in the one Daisy had been licking out.

With that done, she turned to Harm and sent a scouring glance over him, making him all too aware of how much of a bloody mess he was. And how unimpressive his chest was compared to some of the fee?n he’d seen the previous few days. He wasn’t flabby, exactly. But his muscles weren’t defined.

Val knelt before him, grabbed his injured arm, and turned it this way and that as she inspected it. She wasn’t rough, but she wasn’t gentle either.

Harm hissed at the rush of pain jolting up his arm. “That hurts. ”

Val ignored him as she poked at a few of the gashes on his chest. “Are you wounded anywhere else?”

Besides his pride? Harm pointed. “My leg.”

She tugged aside the fabric of his breeches and inspected the wound. Her frown deepened as she lifted her gaze to his. “This was done by a knife.”

“Yes.” Might as well grind what was left of his pride under his heel while he was at it.

Val huffed a breath as she sat back on her heels. She drew one of her knives from its sheath, held it up, and gestured at the blade. “This is the pointy end. It goes in your enemy, not in yourself.”

Harm pressed his hand over the bites again, cradling his wounded arm to his chest. “I don’t think my lack of knife skills is our highest priority right now. I’m bleeding out.”

“I left you alone with one of my knives for less than five minutes, and you managed to cut yourself. Yes, your lack of knife-handling skills is the priority.” Val sheathed her knife again, then removed the now boiling water from over the fire, setting the pot next to her. The steam wafted a stringent, herbal scent. “And you are not bleeding out. You’ll be fine.”

He was seriously questioning her definition of the word fine .

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a vial filled with some kind of green and glowing sludge. She shoved it at him. “Drink this.”

Harm took the vial, eyeing it. “This won’t kill me, will it?”

“Of course not. It’s an expensive healing potion, so don’t complain.” Val touched the tip of her pinky to the water, then started arranging various supplies on a patch of moss next to her.

“Then I’m honored you’re using it on me.” Harm winced as he moved his injured arm to uncap the vial. With one bracing breath, he tipped the vial back and downed the whole thing as quickly as he could.

Despite the green color and sludgy consistency, it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. Rather than tasting like mud or seaweed or something nasty, it tasted like a strong perfume smelled: cloying and overly floral.

“Don’t be. It’s just practical. I can’t have you dying on me.” Val continued fiddling with the supplies, though everything seemed arranged. “We’ll start your training in the morning. This mission will be more expensive than it’s worth if I have to keep using potions on you.”

Harm choked on the last swallow of the potion, and he coughed to clear his lungs. “Training?”

“Yes. Training. With a knife.” Val took the empty vial from him, jammed it in her pocket, and picked up one of the clean cloths she’d set next to her. “Now hold still.”

She grabbed the wrist of his injured arm, yanking his arm toward her as she dipped the cloth into the pot of steaming water. As she sloshed the dripping cloth onto his arm, the hot water and whatever she’d put into it stung like embers being ground into the wounds.

“Ow! Ow! Hey, stop that! Ow!” Harm tried to yank his arm back, but her grip might as well have been iron.

With head low, tail wagging slightly, Daisy crept closer before she pressed herself to his right side. For a moment, Harm held his arm out, not really wanting to touch her. She had gore smeared underneath her chin and down the front of her chest, but all the mess was from the rodents and wolf. Daisy didn’t have a scratch on her.

“Stop squirming.” Val kept ruthlessly cleaning the wounds in his arm, dipping the cloth into the water again and again. “You don’t want to risk infection.”

“Shouldn’t that healing potion take care of it?” Harm forced himself to hold still, gritting his teeth at the rush of pain. This hurt worse than getting chomped on. At least during the attack, he’d been so busy trying not to die that he hadn’t even registered the full extent of the pain.

He gave in and rested his free hand on Daisy’s back, digging his fingers into the coarse fur at the scruff of her neck.

“Yes, but you are a human and therefore more fragile.” Val turned his arm back and forth. As if satisfied with her work, she dropped her rag into the now pink-tinted water, popped the lid off a small pot, and revealed what looked like some kind of herbal paste. She dipped her fingers into it and spread it over his wounds. “It doesn’t hurt to help the potion along.”

“Doesn’t hurt you ,” Harm grumbled between his clenched teeth. “Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I’m keeping you alive. That’s about all you can ask for in your position.” She tipped her head toward the cord that coiled between them, the one end gripped tightly beneath her hand on his wrist and the other sparkling around her wrist .

He supposed that was the best he would get, captive that he was. At least Daisy seemed sympathetic, pressing into him as if offering comfort.

Once she was finished with the paste, Val wrapped his arm with bandages from his elbow down to his wrist. After tying it off, she reached for the rag in the water again. Without so much as a warning or hesitation, she brought the rag to one of the scratches high on his chest.

“Hey, ow!” Harm squirmed away from her as much as he could with his back to the root and Daisy pressed to his side. “Now that you’ve taken care of my arm, I can do the rest myself.”

“Have you ever tended wounds before?” Val’s eyebrows rose as she speared him with a look.

“No.” He dragged the word out. Tempting as it was to lie, she’d see right through it.

“Then I don’t trust you to do it properly.” Val dipped the rag into the water again and scrubbed at his wounds.

Harm lowered his hand to rest on Daisy’s back again. She had a point, little as he liked subjecting himself to more of her rough ministrations.

Once she finished cleaning the wounds, she set to work spreading the same herbal paste over the scratches and gashes.

She leaned closer to him, her hair only inches from his face. When he inhaled, he caught the faint scent of leather and oil and some kind of spice he couldn’t name. He was all too aware of her hand on the bare skin of his chest and abdomen. Not that her touch was at all romantic or even gentle.

He gave himself a mental shake. She was a fee . And if his guess was correct, she was several years older than him. More than that, she held the other end of the cord that kept him here. She was only helping him and keeping him safe from the other fee?n and monsters in this realm because it was her job.

As if oblivious to his thoughts, Val briskly wrapped his chest with bandages, then cut the slit in his breeches wider so that she could give the cut on his leg the same scrubbing, herbal paste spreading, and bandage wrapping treatment.

Once she tied the knot on the last bandage, she sat back on her heels. “That’s done. We had better get moving. All the death and bloodshed here will attract more monsters.”

“Does this mean I get out of doing the dishes tonight?” Harm grimaced, leaning his head against the root behind him. His wounds throbbed, and a bone-deep exhaustion settled into his body. The last thing he wanted to do was walk more that night.

But she had a point. If predators were attracted by the scent of blood in the Human Realm, then how much more would monsters be attracted to such things in the realm of the fee?nvolk ?

“Yes.” Val began stuffing the medical supplies back into her pocket.

Harm glanced to the side where Daisy had left the two rodents and the wolf she’d killed. For a long moment, he couldn’t spot the bodies, though they should have been obvious on the forest floor.

A few gray tufts of fur poked between a layer of roots and moss that seemed to be growing up and over while the gray plume of a wolf’s tail stuck from the moss. Even as he watched, a chill spreading through him, the ground gave something almost like a gulp and slurped the tail down into the earth.

“The forest ate the monsters!” Harm hugged his injured arm closer again, holding tightly to Daisy.

“Well, yes. What else are the trees supposed to eat?” Val didn’t even look up as she packed away her supplies. She stood, grabbed the pot, and dumped the bloody water out to one side of their camp. With a grimace, she tossed the bloody rag into the forest as well. When it fell, the moss gave a ripple and little tendrils wrapped around the fabric, beginning the process of consuming it.

Harm shuddered, all too aware of the moss and roots surrounding him. “The forest won’t eat us, will it?”

“It only eats dead things.” Val shot him another one of her stern looks. “So don’t die.”

Don’t die or the forest would eat him. If the monsters didn’t give him nightmares, that surely would.