Her foot stepped down on the front of her skirt. It jerked her off-balance. She tried to recover as the dagger thrust at her. She gasped, a sudden wave of fear knifing through her exhilaration. In her panic, she tripped herself and fell onto her backside, legs tangled in the layers of petticoats. Her eyes focused on the triangular point lancing for her. Everything seemed to go so slow. Despite learning to fight, she felt that helpless girl again facing the whitewash.
Smiles, cursing, shouldered into the attacker, a lanky youth with cheeks smeared in soot. He stumbled to the side. He whirled and slashed wildly at Smiles. The guard snapped his binder down on the youth’s wrist. Purple light flared. The scrawny youth stumbled back, cursing in pain.
Smiles didn’t spot the second rioter, jerkin stretched over a round belly, swinging a rusty sword at Smiles’s arm.
“Smiles!” she screamed, the name roaring from her lips for what felt an eternity.
He pivoted, but too slowly. She scrambled to stand, to help him. The sword missed Smiles’s arm as he yanked his upper body back, but his legs didn’t move as quickly. The blade slammed down into the meat of his thigh, cutting through leather pants and biting deep into flesh.
Arterial red spurted as the blade wrenched free.
Chapter Sixteen
“No, no, no!” Avena gasped as Smiles roared in agony. He collapsed onto his back, clamping his hand over his leg. Crimson flowed over his fingers, boiled around his digits.
She dropped her binder, feet scrabbling over cobblestones. As she reached Smiles, Ōbhin appeared, his blade slashing, taking the fat man’s head off. He whirled to face the rioters, shouting fury. Her heart constricted as she fell to her knees beside the wounded guard.
“Elohm’s Colours!” cursed Smiles. “Jilly’s gonna kill me. She just stitched these pants.”
“Smiles . . .” Avena whimpered. “Keep pressure on the wound. Don’t pull away.”
“And the blood,” Smiles muttered, his face paling. His eyes grew glossy. “Gonna stain.”
“Miguil!” she shouted. “Fetch Dualayn’s medical bag!”
“Right!” Miguil croaked.
“Don’t stop pressing on it,” she said to Smiles, panic gripping her heart. Too much blood pumped out of him. “Hurry, Miguil!”
If I hadn’t tripped . . . whipped through her mind, flailing her soul.
“How is he?” a grim voice asked. Ōbhin.
She glanced up. Men groaned. Some staggered away, clutching severed limbs. Others lay on the street, bleeding out if not outright dead. Crimson dripped from Ōbhin’s jerkin. It ran down his sword and dripped from the tip. It no longer buzzed.
“Bad,” she said, voice brittle. “Miguil!”
“Here!” her promised gasped. “Elohm’s Colours, there’s so much blood. S’not good.”
She ripped the leather bag from Miguil and wrenched it open. She fished out bandages. “Okay, Smiles, pull your hand away. Right now.”
“Can you get the blood out ‘fore Jilly sees it?” he asked, voice slurred.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Miguil.
“Shock,” said Ōbhin. “He took a bad wound.”
“Just pull your hand away,” Avena said, the bandage ready.
Smiles’s hand didn’t so much as pull away as fall to the side. Blood spurted from a deep gash. She thrust the bandage over it. The boiled, white absorbent wool soaked crimson in a heartbeat. She felt the pulse of his life through it. With one hand, she applied firm pressure; with the other, she reached into the bag and pulled out a long strip of cloth to bind the wound.
“That is serious,” Dualayn said. “Oh, dear, this is not good. And I hear more coming up behind us.”
“We have to hurry,” Ōbhin said. “Bandage him and get him in the wagon. Miguil, unhitch the carriage horses; we’re abandoning it. Move!”
Miguil darted away as Avena tied the strip of cloth tight about Smiles’s wound. He groaned, pain crossing his sallow face. A greasy pall of sweat covered his forehead. He grit teeth and then panted, his chest rising and falling.
Dualayn pressed a healer against Smiles’s thigh above the wound. The topaz, wrapped in gold wires in a complex pattern about the faceted gem, blazed with a deep-orange light. Smiles groaned, blinking.
“Will that heal him?” asked Ōbhin.
“In time,” Dualayn said. “For now, we have to slow the bleeding. Knit the artery together so we can move him.”
“Get in the wagon, Avena,” Ōbhin said, his eyes flicking up the street.
“But—”
“Now!” Ōbhin spat, fury in his gaze. She wilted beneath his wrath. “Do you hear that?”
Shouts, crashes, and smashing glass roared closer. She glanced down the street to the larger intersection. The other rioters were nearing. She swallowed then snagged up her fallen binder and Smiles’s. She rushed back to the wagon, skirts swirling, tears building in her eyes and clinging to her lashes.
Her body shook as she climbed into the back with the three patients from the hospital. She felt doused in ice water. It all happened so fast. In a moment, her mistake had almost cost Smiles his life. And they were still not out of danger yet.
She rocked herself as she sank into the hollow nothing in her soul.
*
“Come on,” Ōbhin growled, feeling naked with his resonance blade sheathed at his side. His black-gloved hands carried Smiles towards the back of the wagon with Miguil. The carriage stood abandoned in the middle of the road.
Beyond lay the carnage he’d wrought.
The images burned in his mind. He’d maimed today. Killed. Not in the cold emptiness of the last few years, but awake, with full of fright Avena, Dualayn, and the others. He’d unleashed all his talent and skill to keep his companions unharmed, and Avena had made his slaughter pointless.
Smiles bled bad.
The wounded man groaned as he and Miguil shoved Smiles into the back of the wagon.
“Careful, careful,” Dualayn said, his hands stained with
