Nothing happened.
'But the touch of a unicorn's horn will slay a Demon!' Jermayan gasped in shock. He got to his knees, releasing Kellen.
Shalkan knelt down and placed his head in the woman's lap. She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur. Great wracking sobs shook her.
Kellen glanced back at Jermayan—if there was one thing all Jermayan's lessons had taught him, it was never to take your attention off your enemy until that enemy was unconscious or dead. Preferably dead, though of course he had absolutely no desire to kill Jermayan.
But Jermayan no longer seemed interested in fighting. He was staring at Shalkan and the woman with an expression as close to utter shock and dismay as Kellen had ever seen on his face, as if everything Jermayan had believed in had been brutally overturned, all in a single moment.
'Still so sure of yourself?' Kellen muttered crossly, rolling to his knees and getting to his feet.
'Apparently,' Shalkan said caustically, keeping an eye on them both, 'things are not what they seem. And we need to be gone from here before that brute that was trying to kill this child wakes up. Gentlemen, shall we:
'Go on,' Kellen said to Jermayan, still not really willing to trust him too near the woman he'd just rescued. While Jermayan seemed to have had a change of heart—or at least a profound shock—Kellen didn't really trust what he didn't understand. He never would have thought that Jermayan would attack him, after all, and a moment ago, he had. 'We'll be right behind you.'
As Jermayan silently went in search of his dropped sword, Kellen shook himself like a dog, that being the quickest way to set his armor and surcoat straight.
He sounded, he thought ruefully, like an entire blacksmith's shop fall' ing downstairs.
Not that the noise he and Jermayan had made fighting had been any quieter.
Carefully, he approached Shalkan and the strange woman. He was thankful he'd had the foresight to leave the keystone on the unicorn's saddle this morning—if it hadn't gotten broken in the brawl in the hut, it certainly wouldn't have survived Jermayan's attack afterward.
'Uh… hello?' he said tentatively.
The woman raised her head from Shalkan's neck with a gasp, and cringed back. She was much younger than Kellen had originally thought— a girl, not a woman, someone close to his own age. And terrified.
'Don't worry,' he said hastily. 'I'm not going to hurt you. Nobody is. Not even Jermayan. Not now that Shalkan's proved that you aren't—what you look like.'
Very tactful, Kellen.
'He's my unicorn,' Kellen added, rather awkwardly.
'It would be more accurate to say,' Shalkan drawled, 'that you're my boy. But let it pass.'
'Anyway,' Kellen said, hurrying on, 'we've got to get out of here before the bas—I mean, the fellow who was hurting you—wakes up and causes more trouble. Do you think maybe you could ride Shalkan if I helped you mount?' He crossed his fingers mentally as he said it, hoping that would be okay with Shalkan as well. But the unicorn had let her touch him…
She blinked up at him, doubtfully, as if she didn't quite believe what she was hearing. 'I… yes,' she said in a trembling voice.
Shalkan stood up and backed away so that she could stand, and she reluctantly held a hand out to Kellen. He took it without hesitation, drawing her to her feet.
She was limping badly, unable to put much weight upon her right foot at all, and after a few steps Kellen simply picked her up and set her on Shalkan's back. Shalkan made no objection.
'Free with my favors, aren't you?' Shalkan said in a voice so low that only Kellen could hear.
'Come on,' Kellen said, pointing off to where Jermayan and the mule had gone.
NOW that the Obligation had left him, Kellen felt the mild disorientation he'd come to expect after the Wild Magic was satisfied, but that didn't stop him from thinking clearly as he walked along beside Shalkan. Yes, the strange girl looked the way he'd been told Demons looked—red skin, slitted pupils, claws, horns, and all. And Jermayan had certainly thought she was one.
