The Forest at the Edge of the World(159)

With a roar, he pushed himself upright again, both knives still in his hands, and lumbered after the Guarder who was turning for another run on the snowy man now bleeding red.

Perrin lunged towards him—faster than the Guarder expected—and thrust one blade into his neck, and the other into his chest. Perrin held his breath as he watched the Guarder take his last one.

This time Perrin didn’t gloat as the body slumped at his feet. Instead he waited, listening for the trees or bushes to tell him there was still another one in hiding.

Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two minutes.

The forest remained quiet, as did the soldiers at the edge of it. They must have heard his shouting and the Guarder’s yells. And now they waited, wondering what became of their captain.

The familiar tranquility of the forest returned to him, enveloping him with comfort and giving him the assurance that yes, the last threat had been eliminated.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the black sky speckled with white stars. Then he called out hoarsely, “FOURTEEN!”

Again the cheer rose from the barren strip of land that bordered the forests.

Perrin flopped weakly against a tree with white bark. It was then that he remembered he was injured, the trunk of the tree pressing the fact vividly into his mind. Slowly he began to pull himself to his feet, feeling a sudden depth of exhaustion that he’d never before experienced. He took one last look around the forest that, barely two hours ago, had felt comforting.

Oddly, it still did.

He looked closely again at the body of the thirteenth Guarder and felt unnerved by the second wound that killed him. In the dim light it was evident the wound was left by a blade with a straight edge, not a jagged dagger like Guarder number fourteen had brandished.

Perrin felt a chill course through him, with an accompanying thought that he needed to get back to his soldiers, quickly, so they could tend to his injury. The mystery of the second slash on the thirteenth Guarder—along with the Guarder with the unexplained chest wound—would have to remain a mystery. A most confounding, overwhelming, fantastic one.

Perrin glanced around one last time, his head beginning to sway with the sensation of losing too much blood too quickly.

“Thank you,” he said again to the forest, wondering if anyone was there to hear it. He stumbled south towards the sounds of cheering soldiers.



---



Back behind a clump of pines, a man in white and gray mottled clothing nodded. “You’re welcome, sir. My pleasure and honor.”

Then he raised his hand, gashed and bleeding, to his forehead in salute.

So did the men behind him.





Chapter 24 ~ “Remarkable the kind of damage a mere tree branch can do,

isn’t it?”





“Well, it was a lovely coat.” Gizzada sighed as he evaluated the jagged slash drenched in blood.

“It likely saved his life,” the surgeon said, continuing to work. He wore a perpetual scowl of concern on his pasty face. “The thickness seemed to keep the dagger from going in too deep. Had he been wearing only his overcoat, he would be in much worse shape right now.”

Captain Shin didn’t say anything as he lay on his bare stomach on the surgeon’s table, since an obliging long block of wood knocked him to the ground ten minutes ago. The surgeon worked quickly while the captain was unconscious, finishing the last of twenty rough stitches just as Perrin began to groan.

“He came out of that a bit faster than I expected, but at least the worst part is over.” He nodded as an assistant handed him thick layers of cotton.

“Karna,” Perrin mumbled.

The lieutenant, who had been watching with a grimace as the surgeon worked, squatted next to the captain. “Right here, sir.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough to keep you from doing somersaults for a time,” the surgeon said, setting the cotton in place and unrolling long bandages to wrap it. “But you’ll live, as long as you can come up with a convincing story to tell Mrs. Shin.”

Perrin groaned loudly, and not because of the stitches in his back. The snow they had packed over his wound earlier to slow the bleeding and numb the area still had lingering effects.

Gizzada looked sadly at the bloodied coat. “Can’t even give her this as a peace offering. But maybe if it were altered into a tunic . . .”

Karna cleared his throat and shook his head at the staff sergeant.

“And Neeks?” Perrin whispered.

“He required seven stitches in his forearm,” Karna told him, “but he’s already back on duty, making sure the men know the official story before they go to bed.”

“And what’s the story?”

“Only a handful of soldiers saw you come out of the forest looking like a bloody man of snow. They’ve pledged silence to protect your wife. Kind of hard to argue against that. The rest of the men have been told you violated the first rule again, but only to the extent of about twenty paces.”