Page 58 of Court of Talons
The moment I breach the edge of the encampment though, I’m out of my depth. The temporary walls are flimsy enough, meant for privacy more than protection. But they’ve been thrown up without any rhyme or reason. Together, they create a labyrinth of passageways that all drive deeper into the heart of the encampment before suddenly opening into a roiling mass of humanity. Everyone scatters like rats under lamplight as we burst into the middle of them.
A knot of warriors head left, guards thundering behind them, but I’m pushed back by the sudden tide of humanity. I wheel Darkwing around, heading right into a particularly grisly knot of tents and walls that smell of cook stoves and roasted meat.
One of these tents is the one that caught fire, and a desperate ring of men and women are heaping everything they can onto it—water, dirt and heavy mats, others using the mats to beat the worst of the blaze into submission.
I glance back at their efforts a second too long, totally missing the wooden crossbeam of a large cart-like structure that suddenly appears in my path. I’m ripped from the saddle and thrown from Darkwing, who plunges on, blind with the smoke and screams of too many people crowding close.
Despite my padded tournament gear, I land with an agonizing crunch, the wind knocked out of me by the crossbeam, and the wound in my shoulder wrenching with a sickening rip. The jolt shocks me to sudden clarity, and I scramble to my feet, yanking my short knife from my belt and sweeping the area with my gaze as I whirl around.
Where would I go if I was a marauder? We had enough of them at the Tenth House, Light knew, but we were surrounded by forest, not open ground. Still, if this had been an attack at the Tenth, the marauders would be heading for anywhere away from all these people, that much was for sure. With no clear sense of direction, I spy light—precious daylight!—through a break in the tents, and bolt toward it, well away from the main track through the encampment.
Pressing through the crowds, one turn, then another twists me further toward the far edge of the tents and walls, the smell steadily getting worse, and the number of people dwindling. Then I wheel around a final corner and dash into the middle of what looks like an abandoned watering yard, complete with a dry well that stands several paces distant from the last set of dilapidated walls.
The stench of rotting meat is strong here, and I realize this is where the carcasses of boar and chickens and goats have been thrown: the garbage heap of the encampment. I’ve gone the wrong way.
I turn back—and see him.
A man is crawling in the dirt directly through the worst of the mounds of refuse. I’d never have noticed him if I’d merely glanced into the opening of this foul space. The marauder’s entire body is wrapped in rags, and he’s bleeding heavily as he tries to drag himself toward—to where? The well?
I stare in horror as he scrapes his feet along the dust to cover his trail, but he’s doing a good job of it, I have to admit. In one hand, he’s grabbed some recently gutted animal and is dragging it along, leaning into its bloated belly every few paces, the blood spoor also covering his tracks. His tunic has been sliced open from collar to waist, and as he stretches to haul himself another few paces, I nearly drop my knife in shock.
The marauder is awoman.
I can only stare, and in that moment the marauder seems to realize I’ve spotted her. She lifts her head and glares at me, and her eyes flay me from all the way across the carrion ground.
“Are you just going to stand there, boy?” she barks. “Help me or kill me, but don’t waste my time.”
The order jerks me to attention, and several things hit me at once.Thisis a woman.Thisis a fighter, andthis—for all that she’s a criminal, for all that she perhaps even set the encampment tent on fire…this is someone I cannot let fall into the hands of the First House’s guards. They’re all men, and to them—this woman would be an abomination and a creature to be used. Just like me.
For the moment, nothing else matters but that.
I rush forward, belatedly remembering my knife. She sees it as I raise it high, and her face flashes with a new emotion. Resolve, determination, and a sense of acceptance I’d only ever seen in old women whose time it was to die. But this woman isn’t old. Her face is weathered and darkly tanned, but her eyes are bright, the skin bared by her torn tunic far paler and soft.
“Where?” I demand as I reach her, pocketing my knife then yanking the dead and oozing carcass away from her. She’s lucky she hasn’t poisoned herself already with its gore. “Where are the others? Your people?”
She grunts in pain as I push her back to assess her wounds, and her head lolls forward for a moment before I shake her back to consciousness. I catch a glimpse of a wrapped packet tucked against her belly and wonder if whatever that packet contains is worth the woman’s life.
“You can’t close your eyes,” I tell her. “You sleep, you die. Understand?” I’ve seen too many wounded men who have lost far less blood than this fall into a slumber from which they never waken. I pull one of my sashes from my breeches. “Your leg wound is the worst. You’ve got to stop the bleeding there or it won’t do you any good to crawl away.”
As I talk, I wind the long sash around her thigh. She’s cut deep, but not as deep as I’d at first feared, and though her heart is racing, the blood that seeps from the wound doesn’t pulse with its pressure. She can survive this, if she can get away.
Another surge of shouts erupts from the encampment, louder now, closer. I grit my teeth, tying off the sash. “You’ve got to get out of here.”
The woman’s eyes are still open, and she seems lucid enough. Then she says something that makes no sense. “The well,” she gasps.
I glance across the litter-strewn space. The cover of the empty well has been shoved aside, but there’s no telling how far down the stone structure goes. Does she think she can hide there? Maybe she’s not so lucid after all.
“That won’t work. You won’t be able to crawl back out.”
“The well,” she insists, and her hands start to flutter, new sweat streaming down her brow. She’ll exhaust herself trying to move her own body, and that won’t do either of us any good.
“Okay, okay, I’ll get you to the well.” I shove my hands beneath the woman’s shoulders and stagger to my feet. She’s heavier than she looks, but I manage to pull her several paces toward the well when I stumble and go down hard, jolting her. She cries out, but the sound is a mere murmur. She’s far more disciplined than I would have ever expected, given her injuries.
I haul her back upright, twisting around again—and find myself staring at the edge of a ragged blade.
“Drop her.”
The voice is clear and cold—and also feminine. I freeze for only a moment, then do as I’m ordered, easing the wounded marauder to the ground. Suddenly, two other figures appear from the well, scurrying out and running low, looking more like rag-covered dogs than humans. They reach out and snatch up their comrade, and I note their hands in a kind of stupefied wonder—also small, with long and slender fingers—as they drag the wounded marauder toward the well.