The Warslayer(48)

She filled all the waterskins, and had a big mug of water with a splash of ale in it, then she squirmed out of her costume again, sopped her T-shirt in the fountain, and used it to give herself a nonce-bath all over, scrubbing until her skin (fishbelly here, sunburned and starting to peel there, bruised and bloody elsewhere) felt a little cleaner. It wasn't enough of a bath to scrub away the smells and memories of the morning, or the feel of the monster's fur on her hands, or the way it had looked at her, but it was all she could do. Then she laid her T-shirt over the side of the fountain to dry, pulled on her (by now rather grubby) jeans and sweatshirt, got Gordon out of her bag, and curled up with her back to the fountain and her stuffed elephant in her arms, trying to summon up the strength to go up those stairs one more damn time and look for something useful. Clothes, or supplies. Something to keep them alive.

She should have brought the butchered horse with them. Meat was meat. She ought to go back for it now. In a little. When it was safe to leave Belegir. She would. In a little . . .

She woke from a confused dream of a surreal courtroom and a stern justice in wig and robes thundering down sentence upon her—or Vixen, she wasn't sure—and was unable, for a moment, to remember where she was. Then it came swirling back to her with dizzying force. The Allimir. The Oracle temple. The Warmother, and her furry little friends.

Groaning, she got to her feet and stretched, feeling the kinks and knots go off like a string of firecrackers along her back and limbs. Stiff and sore, and the side of her face ached like a broken tooth.

Belegir was awake, and trying to get out of bed.

"What do you think you're doing?" Glory snapped, hurrying over to him. She put an arm around his back and helped him sit up. That brought on another spate of coughing, and more fresh blood. She wiped his face with the edge of the blanket.

The monster had hit him in the face to knock him down, and ripped open his robes, leaving deep gashes in his chest, but what it had mainly been doing, from the look of things, was strangling him, fortunately for Belegir.

"I need . . . to get up," Belegir gasped, blushing.

"Oh. Oh." This might be Middle Earth, but the human body was no respecter of crises. Glory thought quickly. "No you don't. You wait right here. And if you move while I'm gone, I'm going to come back and make you wish you hadn't. You got that?" she said fiercely.

"Yes," Belegir said faintly, holding on to the edge of the cart.

When she was sure that he could stay where he was put, Glory left him, moving faster than she really wanted to. Back up the steps of the temple, back to the cart room to where the little golden buckets were.

"Here," she said when she got back. "Use this."

Belegir looked at her, horrified.

"Look. I don't know where the latrines are in this place, but I do know you can't walk there. Erchane will cut you a break. We'll throw it out afterward, okay? And I won't look."

Belegir managed a weak smile. "Cinnas warned us about heroes," he said, reaching for the golden bucket.

When he was finished she took the bucket and set it down beneath the cart. "Can you stand, do you reckon?" she asked. "You ought to get those tatters off. There's some robes and things up there. Thought I'd do a bit of scrounging, for new clothes and bandages and suchlike. You could do with a new outfit."

"My mage-robes," Belegir whispered sadly. "Yes, Slayer, you are right. And . . . I think I can stand." Carefully she lowered him to his feet and peeled him out of the filthy and tattered mage-robes and his tall felt boots, discovering in passing that Allimir mages were pink and hairless all over. She didn't like the angry look of the gashes on his chest—God knew what that monster'd had under its fingernails—and tried not to think about her own wound. Afterward, she rearranged the mattresses to keep him elevated—better than lying flat if there were something wrong with his lungs—and helped Belegir back into the cart, covering him up warmly with the blankets.

"Belegir, what do your folk do when someone gets hurt?" she asked, hoping her question sounded idle.

"We call for the healers, of course—or, if it is not a great injury, for the herb-doctors," Belegir said slowly. He looked at her shoulder—blood had seeped through the grey sweatshirt fabric—and sighed. "I am not a healer."

"You need a healer. I was wondering . . . do you reckon . . . do you think the Oracle's water would help? If we poured it on you?" Glory asked.

"By Erchane's Will," Belegir said listlessly. Even the short conversation had tired him, though he managed to rally a bit. "But Slayer, please . . . use a different bucket."