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A heart-stopping scream ended Teth’s slumber. She bolted out of her blankets. And smashed her head on one of the logs that formed the roof of the shelter. The blow sent her back to the floor in a daze. She rubbed the growing lump, until another scream dispelled any thought of her aching head. She sat up again, careful this time to avoid the low clearance, and listened. She heard a struggle then a voice, a voice that was not Dasen’s
Teth grabbed the bow hanging from the logs above her head, strung it using the wall of the shelter, and pulled three arrows from the quiver next to it. She leapt from the shelter, but the blankets had formed a tangle around her legs, and it seemed to take an eternity to free them. Once she had, she acted without thinking. She found Dasen lying on the ground. Another man was on top of him. That second man seemed strange, but Teth did not take the time to consider. In one clean motion, she notched an arrow, found her mark, and released the bolt into the top of the assailant’s mouth as it plunged down. The arrow flew fewer than ten feet and struck with enough force to throw the attacker back. He flailed in a blur of black, stumbling backward to the first of the trees before crashing to the ground between two bushes at the very edge of the camp.
Feeling her hands beginning to shake, Teth drew a deep breath. By the Order, I just killed someone. She drew another breath and notched another arrow. It had to be done, she told herself. You had to do it. He was attacking Dasen. You would have been next. It was him or us. With a final breath, she recovered enough to stand.
Bow half-drawn, she walked cautiously to Dasen. She scanning the trees for threats, saw nothing. Was it a lone scout? If so, when would he be missed? She glanced in the direction of the man. No one could survive that shot, so it was only enough of a look to confirm that he was not moving. She examined the trees a last time before releasing the tension on her bow and focusing on Dasen.
He was badly hurt. Blood ran in streams from his arm and was splattered across his chest and face. He was shaking with his eyes clenched. Teth watched the trees as she dropped her bow and knelt. She felt her stomach churn as she smelled the metallic blood that soaked him. She reached out to his cheek, but Dasen moved before she ever touched him.
With startling speed, he grabbed her wrist and pulled hard. Unprepared, she tumbled to the ground next to him. She had not considered the possibility of Dasen attacking her and was still stunned when he climbed blindly on top of her and moved his hands toward her throat.
Teth’s instincts took over. Her right hand found Dasen's abdomen just below the rib cage. She drove the heel of her palm into the soft spot there and heard the air rush from him. His eyes popped in shock, but she did not stop. She grabbed his right hand with her left and pushed it through and out. He fell toward her then away as she rolled from beneath him. A second later, he was on his back, panting for air. Teth sprang to her knees and wrenched his hand back from the wrist at an angle that would reduce even Pete Magee to a helpless mass.
Looking down, Teth realized what she was doing and let go of Dasen’s hand. She placed it gently on his chest and patted it reassuringly. She removed her weight from him so that he could catch his breath and tried to assess his injuries. His good hand had gone back to clasping his wounded forearm, his face was distorted by pain with his eyes clamped shut as he wheezed for air through gnashing teeth. Teth’s first thought was that something needed to be done about his arm. From the amount of blood that covered him, and now her, it was a dangerous wound, and she would have to act fast to stop the bleeding.
She jumped to her feet, bounded to the other side of the fire, and grabbed Dasen’s blanket. She pulled his hand away from his arm, wrapped it in the blanket, and squeezed hard on the wound. She expected to feel the blanket grow wet with blood, but it did not feel as if there was any blood at all. She continued to press, but the blanket felt like it was wrapped around whole flesh, not the pulpy mass she had seen a moment earlier. She looked at Dasen. He was much calmer, as if the wound no longer hurt. Something wasn’t right. She unwound the blanket and saw that it was, in fact, whole skin that she had bandaged. Dasen’s arm was red and sticky with blood, but there was no apparent damage. She dropped his arm in fright and stared at him as if he were bewitched. She knew what she had seen, and that was not it.
Just as surprised, Dasen sat up and jerked his arm away. He looked at it in disbelief then turned to her. His eyes bounced between her and his arm. "What . . . what . . . what did you do? I don't understand. It was . . . I mean there were . . . the thing, it . . . I mean . . . . Look at the blood!" He held his arm out in frustration as if that would explain what he was trying to say. He continued to stammer like a lummox, and Teth started to wonder if he was permanently damaged. Finally, he took several deep breaths, looked at his arm again, and asked, "What did you do in all this?"
Teth was not expecting that question, especially with that tone, and she showed her displeasure. "I only saved your life. Again! I don’t know what that guy was going to do, but I’m pretty sure you were losing, so I shot him.” Another wave washed through her at the thought. She felt bile rise but forced it down. She had just killed someone. And Dasen’s not even hurt. She took a deep breath then returned to Dasen. “What’s wrong with you anyway? You don't look like you’re hurt at all."
Dasen looked at her in confusion, scanned his arm again, and then sat up and allowed his hands to drift to his back and chest. Teth glanced at his torn shirt then over his shoulder and saw cruel gashes on his chest and back adding their stains to his already blood-soaked shirt. The cuts on his chest proved to be little more than scratches, so she dashed around him to inspect his back. Those were serious, ragged tears, and she was soon busy keeping his hands away. "Don't touch them! You'll just make it worse!” The cuts were vicious but not life threatening, and she was happy, at least, that things were starting to make sense. “Take off your shirt. I’ll get some water to clean it, then we’ll see what we can do about mending it.” She searched for the water bag then yelled back over her shoulder, “And don’t touch it!”
She grabbed the water bag from the ground near the shelter, used the small knife to turn the blanket into several long bandages, and then darted into the forest. She returned with a handful of a bright-blue moss that was used to fight infections. Dasen was sitting in the same place still marveling at his arm as if he had never seen it before. At least he had taken off his shirt, she thought as she uncorked the water bag and began pouring its contents over his back.
He let out a hiss as the water ran over the jagged cuts, but she did not stop. In her experience, the infection that came after was far more dangerous than almost any cut, and she would see these properly cleaned. “These aren’t that bad,” she assured as she wiped the dirt and blood away with a corner of the blanket – she would have sworn that they looked worse a moment before. “What the heck kind of weapon did this, anyway?”
Dasen gestured toward a terrible set of hooks lying a few feet away near the smashed and scattered fire. “Those hooks,” he grunted.
Teth glanced at the cruel weapon then raised her eyes to the attacker lying half-out of a bush. Her eyes remained on the man for some time, trying to make sense of what she saw: black fur, claws, leather clothing, a strange sword. Her mind ran through possibilities. A bear – that wears clothes and carries weapons? A person – with an animal’s fur and claws? A dream? A hallucination? Finally, she rose from Dasen and walked toward the thing. When she got close enough to see its face, she had to choke back a scream. She took several steps back and held the pieces of blanket up defensively. “What in the Order’s name is that?” she panted.
"I . . . I don't know what it is. It told me its name, but that was just a blur. It said that its master had sent it to capture me.”
“It talked?”
“Yeah, but in a language I had never heard.”
“But you said it. . . .?
??
“I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either. It spoke a language I had never heard, but I could understand it.”
Teth looked at him skeptically. He’s been through a lot, she figured. He’s probably in shock, not remembering properly, confused. She nodded. “Okay, so it wanted to capture you. And you fought it?”
Dasen made a sour face at her obvious pandering. “I pushed it into the fire. I almost had it until it raked those hooks across my back and bit my arm. That’s where all the blood came from. I thought I was finished, when suddenly, it was gone. That must’ve been when you shot it.”
Teth pondered. None of it made sense. She needed time to think about it, so she returned her attention to Dasen’s back. She walked around him prepared to wipe away the remaining blood but didn’t make it that far. She dropped the blanket and stepped back, stammering.
Dasen spoke before she could find words. “What did you do back there? I can’t even feel the . . . .”
“What in the name of the Holy Order is happening?” Teth whispered over him. “You can’t feel the cuts because they’re gone. All that’s left are scars.”
Chapter 18