After she was certain the worm was dead, Tazi struggled to pull out her blade. She was shocked how utterly spent she had become as she fought to remove her sword from the dead creature. With a sickening sound, the blade popped free, and Tazi staggered back at its sudden release. She didn't even have the presence of mind to clean her blade before re-sheathing it.
Cale would have my hide for treating a weapon so shoddily, she thought after she realized her mistake. Right now, he can have it.
Tazi stopped her wistful thinking as soon as she saw Steorf. For as long as she had known him, he had never looked vulnerable to her. But as she saw him, leaning against some rocks, Tazi's heart missed a beat.
His head of unruly hair was bowed, and Tazi could see that both he and Fannah dabbed at a wound across his chest. Tazi forgot her weariness and ran to kneel at his side.
On closer inspection, Tazi could see that the slash that ran over Steorf's heart was no ordinary wound. The edges of his torn flesh had puckered, and the cut itself was a strange, purple shade. Very little blood ran down his exposed skin, but a milky white liquid seeped out. Tazi looked up at Steorf to see that his eyes were already regarding her.
'What is it?' she asked, already knowing the answer.
Steorf winced and said, 'I think that vermin poisoned me with its tail.'
'Well, then,' Tazi replied matter-of-factly, 'get rid of it.'
'That's what I've been attempting to do,' he said through gritted teeth.
As Fannah passed over a section of the wound with a torn piece of her robe, Steorf bit back on a scream and dropped his head down. Though sightless, Fannah raised her head and evenly met Tazi's worried stare.
'He has been trying,' Fannah told her. 'I think he is too weak to expel the poison.'
Tazi refused to accept that. She gripped his face in both her hands and looked him hard in the eyes.
'If you were able to save me from the spider's venom,' she told him, 'then you can do this for yourself.'
Steorf nodded briefly. He brushed away Fannah's ministering hands and closed his eyes. He laid both of his hands on the oozing gash, and Tazi watched hopefully as his fingers glowed with a faint white light.
That was all that happened.
With beads of sweat rolling down his face, Steorf let out a defeated sigh, and his hands slipped to the ground.
'No use,' he whispered. 'I can't get it all out. I just don't know the spell very well.'
'I'm sorry,' Tazi told him, stood up, and reached to get an arm under his.
'What are you doing?' he demanded with surprise.
'What does it look like? I'm helping you to your feet,' she said in a tone that brooked no refusal.
Steorf didn't budge. With a burst of strength, he grabbed Tazi's arm and pulled her crashing back to her knees.
'I am dead weight,' he said. 'In more ways then one.'
'I refuse to accept that,' she argued.
'Open your eyes, Tazi,' he replied. 'I don't know how much farther I can walk, and you and Fannah cannot carry me the rest of the way. I am no longer an asset. You have got to cut your losses.'
Tazi stood up and faced north.
How many more miles? she wondered. I have to face him with a blind woman and a dying mage, no water, and only one sword. And all I have to do is keep him from presenting my friend's soul to a goddess as some kind of gift.
She shook her head and almost laughed at the absurdity of the picture she had painted for herself.
Turning, she told Steorf, 'You are absolutely right. I have to cut my losses.'
He closed his eyes almost gratefully at her pronouncement.
'I knew you'd see the merit of my words,' he finally said.
Tazi squatted in front of him and replied, 'How can I argue with logic?'
Fannah turned with a worried expression, and Tazi leaned across to pat her on her forearm comfortingly.
'I'm going to need your help, Fannah,' she told her blind companion. 'Could you take Steorf's sack?'
Fannah didn't say a word, but she did accept the bag that Tazi helped remove from Steorf.
'It's the only choice you have,' he told the Calishite.
'Now,' Tazi added, 'If you grab his right arm, I can get his left and we'll get him to his feet.'
'What?' Steorf exclaimed.
'You are absolutely right,' she told him gravely. 'At this stage, I cannot afford a single liability. And you are hardly that.'
'But, Tazi…' he implored.
'No,' she cut him off. 'Don't waste your breath. We will have only one chance to defeat Ciredor. Our strength lies in our unity, and that is how we will face him: together.'
Tazi took Steorf's left arm and laid it over her shoulders as Fannah took his right. He shook his head but when the women tried to stand, he struggled to help them. They rose, as one, from the bloody sands.
CHAPTER 15
Steorf had been passing in and out of awareness for the past few hours. He spoke less and less coherently to Tazi and started, instead, to mumble strange words and phrases as she and Fannah had helped him across the wasteland.
'The desert nomads say there are six stages of thirst in the Calim,' Fannah said. 'First, there is the clamorous stage. I think it is fairly obvious that is what he is entering.'
Tazi leaned slightly forward of Steorf's dangling head to look at Fannah.
'I think you're right. What else can we expect?'
'If there was not the worm toxin to consider, the next stages, in order, would be: cotton mouth, swollen tongue, shriveled tongue, blood tears, and finally, living death. I am not sure how the desert worm's sting will change any of it, other than to hasten the steps.'
Tazi shook her head and found all she could say was the obvious, 'We have to find him some water.'
'We all need to find some water, Tazi,' Fannah reminded her. 'This is our fate as well, given time.'
Tazi didn't even want to ponder that. She had already begun to feel the painful beginnings of dehydration herself. Her eyes were slowly pulling back in their sockets, and her nose felt like some small, foreign object hanging from her face. She could feel other subtle, and not so subtle, ways that her body was trying to conserve water as well, but the insidious fact was that to do so, her body was picking and choosing what parts of her were expendable and what parts were not. She was not in control.
Steorf's head rolled back, and that motion snapped Tazi from her dreadful realizations. She could see that his eyes opened slightly. He looked at her and Fannah, and Tazi saw an unreadable expression spread across his face. She started to motion to Fannah to slow her pace even more when Steorf had a small burst of strength and shook himself free of the two women.
'Get away from me!' Steorf shouted at Tazi and Fannah.
He stood swaying in the sand. With one hand he rubbed uselessly at his desiccated eyes. His eyelids had dried, and Tazi had noticed how difficult it had become for him to close them. He had taken on a blank stare because of it. He flailed his other hand out in front of him, desperately trying to ward off his imagined attackers.
'What's wrong?' Tazi asked him.
'It's all right,' Fannah tried to soothe him, somewhat more aware of the confused state of mind Steorf was slipping into. 'We're here.'
Neither of the women's words had their desired effect on the failing mage. He staggered a few steps back from them and started to fumble around with his tattered shirt.
