“Be silent,” said Mag. “Trying to talk will make it worse.”
Sten ignored her. He gripped her arm in a bloodied hand and met her gaze. I could not tell you, even now, what passed between them in that moment. When two souls are bonded as theirs were, many things can be said without words.
“I will not let you go,” whispered Mag, her voice shaking with grief. Tears dripped from the end of her nose to splash on his cheek. “Not though the Elves themselves should demand it.”
He gave another grim huff through his nose.
“There!” I turned at Taron’s shout to see him dashing across the cobblestones towards us. Behind him he pulled a younger woman with dark skin and long hair that she had tied back in a tail. Her hands and clothes were stained with a great deal of blood, but her gaze was steady, and as she knelt by Sten’s side, she was as calm as if this were a king’s garden.
“The throat?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Mag. “We thought it was fatal at first, but it must not have been too deep.” Sten growled, and despite everything, Mag smiled at him. “You know what I mean.”
“I will count to four,” said the medica. “Then you must pull away the cloak. This will hurt. One. Two. Three. Four!”
Sten’s whole body went rigid as Mag pulled away her hand. The medica’s fingers clutched his skin at once, and he tried to seize her wrists by reflex. Mag and I held his hands away, and the medica’s eyes began to glow. Beneath her fingers, I saw Sten’s flesh start to flow like water. He tried to scream, but only a gurgle came out.
“Try to be silent,” said the medica sharply. “It will only be worse.”
Sten’s guttural sounds cut off, but his eyes were wide and wild. They locked on Mag’s, and she lifted his twitching hand to kiss the back of it.
“Almost, my love,” she said. “Hold on.”
The flesh stitched itself together, sealing the wound. As an ander man, I knew more about medicas than most. This was not true healing—no wizard had that gift. This would only keep Sten from bleeding to death while his body fixed itself from the inside. But as the medica’s eyes stopped glowing and she pulled her hands away, Sten’s limbs relaxed, and he gave a deep sigh through his nose.
“It is done,” she said. “He is not out of danger yet, but—”
A flash of movement. I saw it from the corner of my eye, and a lifetime of instinct took over.
“Down!” I cried. I dove out of the way, seizing Mag and the medica and taking them with me.
A flash of brown fur streaked through the air where Mag had been a moment before. It landed on Sten’s chest. I heard the biting shunk of claws sinking into flesh and looked up, horrorstruck.
I recognized the creature at once—yet at the same time, I could not understand it. It was a great cat, the sort one finds in the mountains, larger than a man and with teeth and claws like daggers. This one had a white tail. But what on earth was it doing here in the midst of this battle?
All this passed through my mind in an instant. But before my thoughts could spin themselves into a conclusion, I heard Sten groan, and I realized what had happened. The creature had pounced on us, but I had pulled us out of the way. It had missed us and struck Sten instead. Its razor-sharp claws had pierced his chest many times over.
For a moment, Sten’s fingers grasped for the mountain cat’s throat. And then his whole body slackened as he died—truly this time, his sightless eyes staring into a sky streaked with the smoke of burning buildings.
“No,” said Mag. Not a scream this time. No battle-lust protected her from the pain now. She had dropped all her defenses, and nothing stood between her and her grief, no bulwark against the sharp, crushing reality. Sten was gone. This time he would not return.
“No,” said Mag again. She rose to her feet, and her hands curled to fists at her sides. Her sword was nowhere to be seen, but she did not seem to care. The mountain cat growled at her.
“No,” she cried, and she ran for the beast, even as I scrambled to my feet, even as I went after her, tried to drag her back.
“No!” she shouted, as the cat roared and leaped for her. She stepped to the side, but her hand flashed like a knife. Rigid fingers struck the cat in the eye, and it yowled in pain. I barely scrambled out of the way in time as it sailed past.
“No!” she screamed, and flung herself at the beast. It had curled its neck and was pawing at the eye she had struck. Her heavy boot caught it in the jaw, and as its head came up, her hands struck twice, thrice more. I saw blood gush from a wound in its other eye, and as it staggered back, one of its nostrils gaped where she had ripped it open. Mag tried to press the attack, but the beast yowled and leaped back out of reach.
And then its eyes began to glow.
That struck all of us motionless, Mag and the medica and all the onlookers, and me as well. As we watched, the cat’s form began to change, to shift and melt. It was the transformation of a weremage, and in a moment, there she was. A woman, not much older than I was, with nut-brown skin and dark hair worn in a short braid. She had on tight-fitting trousers of grey and a white shirt with yellow trim. Blood still ran from one of her eyes, which continued to glow as she tried to heal the injury.
“Sow!” she screamed, staggering back away from Mag. “You feckless sow!”
Mag did not answer, but merely stooped to pick up a
