The Warslayer(49)

She grinned. "No worries. You just get some rest."

She put one of the full waterskins in the cart with easy reach, and tucked Gordon up beside him—she didn't know why, it just made her feel better. When she was sure he was asleep, she eased the bucket out from under the cart and looked inside. As she'd feared, there were dark threads of blood mixed in with the urine.

This is not good. This is so not good.

But there was nothing she could do about it.

She took the bucket to the far end of the cavern and dumped it on the floor, then sluiced down the spot with clear water from one of the waterskins—piss-poor hygiene (to coin a phrase), but the best she could manage. Then she emptied out her gym-bag and her purse, and took a quick inventory.

Logo flashlight (reasonably useless). Cigarette lighter (wonder of wonder and miracle of miracles—hot tea later!) Gordon. A copy of the script for the MTV special (useless unless you wanted kindling). Her sneakers (she stopped to put them on). Her purse: wallet, with her passport, Melbourne drivers license, Access card, and a lot of funny-looking American currency. Tissues. Comb. Lashings of makeup. Hair-pins and a couple of ribbons.

Aspirin.

Not quite a miracle drug, but it could reduce a fever and cut minor aches and pains.

Could Belegir swallow them?

She'd worry about that later. She emptied the tote, stuffed everything she could into her purse and piled the rest beside it, and slung the empty tote over her shoulder in case she found something she wanted to carry back. Ready to go.

But something made her hesitate, and finally she came back and picked up her sword.

She wasn't sure why—there was nothing here in the temple that could harm her—but by now she'd learned to trust her hunches. In the here and now, they were all she had to go on, and so far, they were working about as well as anything else.

Then back up the stairs again—she'd lost count of how many times today that made—with all the muscles in her calves and back screaming a chorus of protest.

Her first stop was the sleeping rooms, where she grabbed a couple of mattresses to make her bed for tonight and carted them back to the top of the stairs. Next, the robing room, where she added an armful of shapeless fluffy white wool robes. They'd give Belegir a new frock, and the rest could be used for bandages, and what she wouldn't give for a pair of scissors, or even a sharp knife, right now.

The easy parts done, she grabbed one of the golden buckets, and wandered through the rest of the Temple, looking for anything useful. Unfortunately, anything useful to two bushwhacked adventurers was something of use to embattled fleeing refugees as well, and she didn't really have the time to turn the lumber rooms inside out, or the mother wit to recognize something clandestinely useful when she saw it. She saw large amounts of gold and silver Objects; paintings and tapestries, porcelain and glassware, books and scrolls; but nothing that was offhand valuable in the current situation. And she didn't really dare wander all that far from the main drag, not really. It would be too easy for her to get lost in a vast underground Temple of unknown size, and then where would they be? Bad enough that they were going to be starving soon enough. Her stomach was already rumbling, reminding her that one handful of dried fruit in about two days and a breakfast that went by twice in under an hour was not the equivalent of three squares, and no chance Belegir was going to be able to ride out of here any time soon, not with him pissing blood the way he was.

If it isn't one damn thing it's another.

Giving up on the side rooms—Allan Quartermain might have had a field day here, but he would have come with a pack full of food—she headed for the Oracle's wellspring, sword in one hand, bucket in the other. Best get the water and head back.

Everything was just as she'd left it. It was only a few hours ago that she and Belegir had woken up here after an eventful but useless night, but it seemed like that had been another lifetime. And somewhere along the way between then and now, almost insensibly, she'd developed a Plan.

Belegir said the Warmother was on the top of Elboroth-Haden—or at least that She had been. Glory was going to go see. And then she was going to kick the bitch's ass from here to breakfast. She was tired. She was pissed. And she was fed up with oracular bitches coming along and telling her she was some kind of test case and not telling her what they meant by it.

All she had to do was get herself and Belegir out of this mess alive, first.

Glory removed the bar and opened the low door to the Oracle's spring.

The cavern was still dark, and cold rolled out of the little room like the breath of the Earth itself. Glory shuddered, unaccountably reluctant to go in. But nothing bad had happened to her in there before, and Belegir said the water might help. Probably do him as much good as the aspirin, any old how. She pushed the door open wide, propping the bar and her sword against it just in case, and went in.