The visit left Roran in a more serious mood, for it reminded him that, as fortunate as they were to have won a reprieve from the soldiers’ blades, there was much that still needed doing, and any of the tasks that lay before them might cost them the siege if handled badly.
To the warriors at large, he said, “Back to the camp with the lot of you! I want two rows of trenches dug around the tents by nightfall; those yellow-bellied soldiers might change their minds and decide to attack anyway, and I want to be prepared.” A few of the men groaned at the mention of digging trenches, but the rest appeared to accept the order with good humor.
In a low voice, Carn said, “You don’t want to tire them out too much before tomorrow.”
“I know,” Roran replied, also in a soft tone. “But the camp needs fortifying, and it’ll help keep them from brooding. Besides, no matter how worn out they may be tomorrow, battle will give them new strength. It always does.”
The day passed quickly for Roran when he was concentrating on some immediate problem or occupied with intense physical exertion, and slowly whenever his mind was free to ponder their situation. His men worked valiantly—by saving them from the soldiers, he had won their loyalty and devotion in a way that words never could—but it seemed ever more obvious to him that, despite their efforts, they would not be able to finish the preparations in the brief span of hours that remained.
All through the late morning, afternoon, and early evening, a sense of sick hopelessness grew within Roran, and he cursed himself for deciding upon such a complicated and ambitious plan.
I should have known from the start that we didn’t have the time for this, he thought. But it was too late to try some other scheme. The only option left was to strive their utmost and hope that, somehow, it would be enough to wrest victory from the mistakes of his incompetence.
When dusk arrived, a faint spark of optimism leavened his pessimism, for all of a sudden, the preparations began to come together with unexpected speed. And a few hours later, when it was fully dark and the stars shone bright overhead, he found himself standing by the mills along with almost seven hundred of his men, having completed all of the arrangements needed if they were to capture Aroughs before the end of the following day.
Roran uttered a short laugh of relief, pride, and incredulousness as he gazed upon the object of their toils.
Then he congratulated the warriors around him and bade them return to their tents. “Rest now, while you can. We attack at dawn!”
And the men cheered, despite their evident exhaustion.
MY FRIEND, MY ENEMY
THAT NIGHT, RORAN’S sleep was shallow and troubled. It was impossible for him to entirely relax, knowing the importance of the upcoming battle and that he might very well be wounded during the fighting, as he often had been before. Those two thoughts caused a line of vibrating tension to form between his head and the base of his spine, a line that pulled him out of his dark, weird dreams at regular intervals.
As a result, he woke easily when a soft, dull thud sounded outside his tent.
He opened his eyes and stared at the panel of fabric above his head. The interior of the tent was barely visible, and only because of the faint line of orange torchlight that seeped through the gap between the flaps at the entrance. The air felt cold and dead against his skin, as if he were buried in a cave deep underground. Whatever the time, it was late, very late. Even the animals of the night would have returned to their lairs and gone to sleep. No one ought to be up, save the sentinels, and the sentinels were stationed nowhere near his tent.
Roran kept his breathing as slow and shallow as he could while he listened for any other noises. The loudest thing he heard was the beating of his own heart, which grew stronger and faster as the line of tension within him thrummed like a plucked lute string.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Then, just when he began to think there was no cause for alarm and the hammering in his veins began to slow, a shadow fell across the front of the tent, blocking the light from the torches beyond. Roran’s pulse tripled, his heart pounding as hard as if he were running up the side of a mountain. Whoever was there could not have come to rouse him for the assault on Aroughs, nor to bring him some piece of intelligence, for they would not have hesitated to call his name and barge inside.
A black-gloved hand—only a shade darker than the surrounding murk—slid between the entrance flaps and groped for the tie that held them closed.
Roran opened his mouth to raise the alarm, then changed his mind. It would be foolish to waste the advantage of surprise. Besides, if the intruder knew he had been spotted, he might panic, and panic could make him even more dangerous.
With his right hand, Roran carefully pulled his dagger from under the rolled-up cloak he used as a pillow and hid the weapon by his knee, beneath a fold in the blanket. At the same time, he grasped the edge of the blankets with his other hand.
A rim of golden light outlined the shape of the intruder as he slipped into the tent. Roran saw that the man was wearing a padded leather jerkin, but no plate or mail armor. Then the flap fell shut, and darkness enveloped them again.
The faceless figure crept toward where Roran lay.
Roran felt as if he was going to pass out from lack of air as he continued to restrict his breathing so that it would appear he was still asleep.
When the intruder was halfway to the cot, Roran tore his blankets off, threw them over the man, and, with a wild yell, leaped toward him, drawing back the dagger to stab him in the gut.
“Wait!” cried the man. Surprised, Roran stayed his hand, and the two of them crashed to the ground together. “Friend! I’m a friend!”
A half second later, Roran gasped as he felt two hard blows to his left kidney. The pain nearly incapacitated him, but he forced himself to roll away from the man, trying to put some distance between them.
Roran pushed himself to his feet, then he again charged at his attacker, who was still struggling to free himself from the blanket.
“Wait, I’m your friend!” cried the man, but Roran was not about to trust him a second time. It was well he did not, for as he slashed at the intruder, the man trapped Roran’s right arm and dagger with a twirl of the blankets, then slashed at Roran with a knife he had produced from his jerkin. There was a faint tugging sensation across Roran’s chest, but it was so slight, he paid it no mind.
Roran bellowed and yanked on the blanket as hard as he could, pulling the man off his feet and throwing him against one side of the tent, which collapsed on top of them, trapping them under the heavy wool. Roran shook the twisted blanket off his arm, then crawled toward the man, feeling his way through the darkness.
The hard sole of a boot struck Roran’s left hand, and the tips of his fingers went numb.
Lunging forward, Roran caught the man by an ankle as he was trying to turn to face him head-on. The man kicked like a rabbit and broke Roran’s grip, but Roran grabbed his ankle again and squeezed it through the thin leather, digging his fingers into the tendon at the back of the heel until the man roared in pain.
Before he could recover, Roran clawed his way up the man’s body and pinned his knife hand to the ground. Roran tried to drive his dagger into the man’s side, but he was too slow; his opponent found his wrist and seized it with a grip of iron.
“Who are you?” Roran growled.
“I’m your friend,” the man said, his breath warm in Roran’s face. It smelled like wine and mulled cider. Then he kneed Roran in the ribs three times in quick succession.
Roran bashed his forehead against the assassin’s nose, breaking it with a loud snap. The man snarled and thrashed underneath him, but Roran refused to let him go.
“You’re … no friend of mine,” said Roran, grunting as he bore down on his right arm and slowly pushed the dagger toward the man’s side. As they strained against one another, Roran was vaguely aware of people shouting outside the fallen tent.
At last the man?
??s arm buckled, and with sudden ease, the dagger plunged through his jerkin and into the softness of living flesh. The man convulsed. Fast as he could, Roran stabbed him several more times, then buried the dagger in his chest.
Through the hilt of the dagger, Roran felt the birdlike flutters of the man’s heart as it cut itself to pieces on the razor-sharp blade. Twice more the man shuddered and jerked, then ceased resisting and simply lay there, panting.
Roran continued to hold him as the life drained out of him, their embrace as intimate as any lovers’. Though the man had tried to kill him, and though Roran knew nothing about him besides that fact, he could not help but feel a sense of terrible closeness to him. Here was another human being—another living, thinking creature—whose life was ending because of what he had done.
“Who are you?” he whispered. “Who sent you?”
“I … I almost killed you,” said the man, sounding perversely satisfied. Then he uttered a long, hollow sigh, his body went limp, and he was no more.
Roran let his head fall forward against the man’s chest and gasped for air, shaking from head to toe as the shock of the attack racked his limbs.
People began to pull at the fabric resting on top of him. “Get it off me!” Roran shouted, and lashed out with his left arm, unable to bear any longer the oppressive weight of the wool, and the darkness, and the cramped space, and the stifling air.
A rent appeared in the panel above him as someone cut through the wool. Warm, flickering torchlight poured through the opening.
Frantic to escape his confinement, Roran lurched to his feet, grabbed at the edges of the slit, and dragged himself out of the collapsed tent. He staggered into the light, wearing nothing but his breeches, and looked round in confusion.
Baldor was standing there, as were Carn, Delwin, Mandel, and ten other warriors, all of whom held swords and axes at the ready. None of the men were fully dressed, save for two, whom Roran recognized as sentinels posted on the night watch.
“Gods,” someone exclaimed, and Roran turned to see one of the warriors peeling back the side of the ruined tent to expose the corpse of the assassin.
The dead man was of an unimposing size, with long, shaggy hair gathered in a ponytail and a leather patch mounted over his left eye. His nose was crooked and squashed flat—broken by Roran—and a mask of blood covered the lower part of his shaved face. More blood caked his chest and side and the ground beneath him. It appeared almost too much to have come from a single person.
“Roran,” said Baldor. Roran continued to stare at the assassin, unable to tear his gaze away. “Roran,” Baldor said again, but louder. “Roran, listen to me. Are you hurt? What happened? … Roran!”
The concern in Baldor’s voice finally caught Roran’s attention. “What?” he asked.
“Roran, are you hurt?!”
Why would he think that? Puzzled, Roran looked down at himself. The hair on his torso was matted with gore from top to bottom, while streaks of blood covered his arms and stained the upper part of his breeches.
“I’m fine,” he said, though he had difficulty forming the words. “Has anyone else been attacked?”
In response, Delwin and Hamund moved apart, revealing a slumped body. It was the youth who had been running messages for him earlier.
“Ah!” groaned Roran, and sorrow filled him. “What was he doing wandering about?”
One of the warriors stepped forward. “I shared a tent with him, Captain. He always had to step out to relieve himself at night, ’cause he drank so much tea before turning in. His mother told him it would keep him from getting sick. … He was a good sort, Captain. He didn’t deserve to be cut down from behind by some sneaking coward.”
“No, he didn’t,” Roran murmured. If he hadn’t been there, I would be dead now. He motioned toward the assassin. “Are there any more of these killers on the loose?”
The men stirred, glancing at each other; then Baldor said, “I don’t think so.”
“Have you checked?”
“No.”
“Well then check! But try not to wake up everyone else; they need their sleep. And see to it that guards are stationed at the tents of all the commanders from now on.” … Should have thought of that before.
Roran stayed where he was, feeling dull and stupid as Baldor issued a series of quick orders, and everyone but Carn, Delwin, and Hamund dispersed. Four of the warriors picked up the crumpled remains of the boy and carried him away to bury, while the rest set out to search the camp.
Going over to the assassin, Hamund nudged the man’s knife with the tip of his boot. “You must have scared those soldiers more than we thought this morning.”
“Must have.”
Roran shivered. He was cold all over, especially his hands and feet, which were like ice. Carn noticed and fetched him a blanket. “Here,” said Carn, and wrapped it around Roran’s shoulders. “Come sit by one of the watchfires. I’ll have some water heated so you can clean yourself. All right?”
Roran nodded, not trusting his tongue to work.
Carn started to lead him away, but before they had gone more than a few feet, the magician abruptly halted, forcing Roran to stop as well. “Delwin, Hamund,” said Carn, “bring me a cot, something to sit on, a jug of mead, and several bandages as fast as you can. Now, if you please.”
Startled, the two men sprang into action.
“Why?” asked Roran, confused. “What’s wrong?”
His expression grim, Carn pointed at Roran’s chest. “If you’re not wounded, then what’s that, pray tell?”
Roran looked where Carn was pointing and saw, hidden amid the hair and the gore on his breast, a long, deep cut that started in the middle of his right chest muscle, ran across his sternum, and ended just below his left nipple. At its widest, the gash hung open over a quarter of an inch, and it resembled nothing so much as a lipless mouth stretched wide in a huge, ghastly grin. The most disturbing feature of the cut, however, was the complete lack of blood; not so much as a single drop oozed out of the incision. Roran could clearly see the thin layer of yellow fat underneath his skin and, below it, the dark red muscle of his chest, which was the same color as a slice of raw venison.
Accustomed as he was to the horrific damage that swords, spears, and other weapons could wreak on flesh and bone, Roran still found the sight unnerving. He had suffered numerous injuries in the course of fighting the Empire—most notably when one of the Ra’zac had bitten his right shoulder during their capture of Katrina in Carvahall—but never before had he received such a large or uncanny wound.
“Does it hurt?” Carn asked.
Roran shook his head without looking up. “No.” His throat tightened, and his heart—which was still racing from the fight—redoubled in speed, pounding so fast that one beat could not be distinguished from the next. Was the knife poisoned? he wondered.
“Roran, you have to relax,” said Carn. “I think I can heal you, but you’re only going to make this more difficult if you pass out.” Taking him by the shoulder, he guided Roran back to the cot that Hamund had just dragged out of a tent, and Roran obediently sat.
“How am I supposed to relax?” he asked with a short, brittle laugh.
“Breathe deeply and imagine you’re sinking into the ground each time you exhale. Trust me; it’ll work.”
Roran did as he was told, but the moment he released his third breath, his knotted muscles began to unclench and blood sprayed from the cut, splashing Carn on the face. The magician recoiled and uttered an oath. Fresh blood spilled down Roran’s stomach, hot against his bare skin.
“Now it hurts,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“Oi!” shouted Carn, and waved at Delwin, who was running toward them, his arms full of bandages and other items. As the villager deposited the mound of objects on one end of the cot, Carn grabbed a wad of lint and pressed it against Roran’s wound, stopping the bleeding for the moment. “Lie down,” he ordered.
Roran complied, and Hamund brought
over a stool for Carn, who seated himself, keeping pressure on the lint the whole while. Extending his free hand, Carn snapped his fingers and said, “Open the mead and give it to me.”
Once Delwin passed him the jug, Carn looked directly at Roran and said, “I have to clean out the cut before I can seal it with magic. Do you understand?”
Roran nodded. “Give me something to bite.”
He heard the sound of buckles and straps being undone, then either Delwin or Hamund placed a thick sword belt between his teeth, and he clamped down on it with all his strength. “Do it!” he said as best he could past the obstruction in his mouth.
Before Roran had time to react, Carn plucked the lint off his chest and, in the same motion, poured mead across his wound, washing the hair, gore, and other accumulated filth out of the incision. As the mead struck, Roran uttered a strangled groan and arched his back, scrabbling at the sides of the cot.
“There, all done,” said Carn, and put aside the jug.
Roran stared up at the stars, every muscle in his body quivering, and tried to ignore the pain as Carn placed his hands over the wound and began to murmur phrases in the ancient language.
After a few seconds, although it seemed more like minutes to Roran, he felt an almost unbearable itch deep within his chest as Carn repaired the damage the assassin’s knife had caused. The itch crawled upward, toward the surface of his skin, and where it passed, the pain vanished. Still, the sensation was so unpleasant, it made him want to scratch at himself until he tore his flesh.
When it was over, Carn sighed and slumped over, holding his head in his hands.
Forcing his rebellious limbs to do as he wished, Roran swung his legs over the edge of the cot and sat upright. He ran a hand over his chest. Aside from the hair, it was perfectly smooth. Whole. Unblemished. Exactly as it had been before the one-eyed man had snuck into his tent.
Magic.