Downshadow

NINE

Cellica was stirring the simmer stew from the eve before, reflecting that it might require a few more herbs, when she heard a thump near her tallhouse window.

Leaving the long wooden ladle in the pot on the fire, she turned toward the sound and saw the latch on the window rise-pushed up by a blade slipped between the shutters. She touched the crossbow-shaped medallion at her throat and waited silently.

The blade teased the latch up, bit by bit, until finally it scraped open. Then the shutter pushed inward and a man in a torn gray cloak tumbled through with a crash. He had clearly been leaning on the window from without, as though injured or weak.

Releasing the nervous breath she had held, Cellica rushed to his side, heedless of the rain blowing inside.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. She ran her hands over his chest and scowled at the knives standing out of his shoulder and his left arm. They stuck mostly in leather, she saw, but there was blood, too. "What passed?"

"You locked the window," Shadowbane said. "I couldn't-" He coughed harshly.

"It was raining. I guess I didn't think," said the halfling. "Curse it, you used your healing on someone else-you fool. How many times have I told you? If you need it, you need it." She grasped his helm. "Here. Let me-"

Without meaning it, she let compulsion slip into her voice, but he resisted her influence. He shoved her hands away, then wrenched the helm off by himself. Cellica glimpsed a little blood in the mouth guard before he cast the helmet away to crash, with several loud bangs, off the wall and floor. It rolled to the corner and stopped.

"I can't-I just can't." Shadowbane put his hands to his face as though he would weep. "I made a mistake, Cele. I didn't… I didn't mean anyone to be hurt."

"Aye." Cellica didn't know what had taken place, but she recognized the despair in his voice. "I'm sure you did whar you could, Kalen."

His colorless eyes gazed at her, wet. He started coughing and retching then, and she could barely hold him up. He'd pushed himself, she knew-running and fighting and leaping. Magic boots or no, strengthening spellscar or no, a man was not meant to push so hard.

"Rest, now," Cellica said. "All's well. All's well."

She could feel his body relax as it bent to her will. Whatever god had blessed her voice with a touch of command, she thanked the fates.

As Kalen coughed and trembled, she held him as she had since they had been children on Luskan's cruel streets. When he'd been hurt or she'd woken with night terrors, they'd embraced each other like this-brother and sister, though not by blood.

After a while, Cellica spoke again. "You don't have to do this," she whispered.

He shook his head and limped to the table. "We'll talk come morn," he said.

"It is morn," Cellica said. He sighed. "Highsun, then."

Cellica gently tugged the knives free and unbuckled Kalen's armor. His thick chest and shoulders swarmed with scars from years of this sort of activity. He wore as much blood as sweat.

"These are bad," Cellica said. "I could fetch a priest, and-"

"No," Kalen said. "Only needle and thread."

She shivered. Of course he wouldn't want magical healing. He wanted the scars to remind him-as though he deserved them. One scar for every drop of innocent blood. Cellica shivered.

Cellica worried at how Kalen didn't seem to feel the needle or thread as she stitched his wounds. He only winced when she touched the deepest bruises.

"You're so stubborn," Cellica said. "Haven't you atoned enough?"

Kalen started to reply, but his words became a coughing fit. He spat blood into his hand.

"You shouldn't worry." He coughed more blood. "Not much longer, I think." He took a mashed scroll from his pocker and handed it over. "Throw this out, aye?"

Cellica took the scroll-which smelled of both perfume and sweat-and frowned. "You shouldn't push yourself like this," she said. "Your body will only fade faster, you know."

"I know." He coughed. "I felt it hard tonight." He winced, but not from the needle.

"What if Rayse calls today?" Cellica asked. She snipped off the thread with her teeth.

He stared at the table a long breath. Such pain marked his face-so many shadows that the halfling knew were only his own.

His eyes closed and he sighed. "She won't," he said finally.

Cellica thought she glimpsed another shadow near the window that couldn't have been his, but it vanished when she looked more closely.

Trick of the dawn light, she thought.