Page 44 of Paladin's Hope
It’s probably going to kill you, though. And instead of worrying about the future, you could just worry about right now. And right now, there’s a very attractive man coming toward you with an expression like he doesn’t know if he’s going to the whorehouse or the gallows.
Piper kissed him, very carefully. A light brush of lips, nothing more, giving Galen time to pull back. Galen…did not seem to be pulling back. Galen seemed to be responding, politely at first, and then with all the pent-up frustration of that first kiss, his hands on Piper’s shoulders, feeling the muscle flex as the doctor’s arm lifted, his hand going to Galen’s face and sliding up into his hair and Galen’s cock was standing at attention and thought, furthermore, that Galen was an absolute fool for not tearing the man’s clothes off right now, bruised ribs or no bruised ribs, it’s not as if you used your ribs when you were on your knees anyway and if he was on his knees, then he could—
The door slid open.
Piper and Galen leapt apart as if they were children discovered with their hands in the cookie jar. Which is deeply unfair, because I didn’t even get my hands anywhere near that particular cookie jar. Dammit.
Earstripe appeared, holding a lumpy burlap sack over his shoulder. “Good news,” he said. “A gnole has had an idea.”
Nineteen
“You’re back,” said Piper. “Err…great!”
The gnole looked between the two humans, sniffed a few times, and then raised both eyebrows. “A gnole can come back, if humans are mating,” he said.
“We aren’t!” said Piper. He was turning scarlet again, Galen saw. At least that’ll pull the blood away from other parts of his anatomy, I suppose.
“A gnole doesn’t mind.” Earstripe glanced through the open door. “Twenty-eight minutes until a door opens, though. A gnole can go into the other room?”
“That’s quite all right,” said Galen.
“A gnole promises not to shout suggestions.”
Piper put his face in his hands. Galen gazed steadily at Earstripe, who he suspected was enjoying this far too much.
This is what you get for wasting time arguing. Twenty-eight minutes might not be a great deal of time, but it was long enough to do all sorts of things, if you just shut up and got down to doing them. Hell, we’re both so keyed up right now that five minutes would probably do it for me, if those fingers are anywhere near as skilled as I think they are…
Perhaps I can convince Earstripe to go back for more water later.
“A gnole doesn’t—”
“The moment has passed,” said Galen firmly. “Why don’t you just tell us about your idea?”
“Ah.” Earstripe thumped the sack. “A gnole’s idea is apples.”
“Apples?” said Galen.
“I’m not following,” Piper admitted.
Earstripe held up a finger and went to the next door on the left. He slapped the panel, and when it opened, he dumped part of the sack out. Apples bounced and rolled across the floor. The gnole bent down, picked up a few, and began lobbing them deeper into the room.
“Apples,” he said. “An apple is sliced in half, we know a blade is there. An apple vanishes, we know a pit is there. Yes?”
“Earstripe, you are a genius,” said Galen fervently. The door slid closed.
“Do we have enough apples?” asked Piper.
“Depends on how many rooms.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, when the door slid open again, the apples were all neatly lined up in the center of the room and every single one had been smashed into paste.
All three of them stared at the resulting fruit carnage. Finally, Galen said, “You know, maybe we should try the other door.”
They tromped down the hall to the right. Earstripe dumped out yet more of the sack. Galen tried not to think about what would happen if this batch proved equally ill-fated.
“Surely we’ve got to be most of the way through by now,” he muttered.
“If the rooms run straight to the closed doorway we saw before, then we would have three, possibly four,” said Piper. “The corridors aren’t all the same length, so I couldn’t say for certain.”