'OH, GODS! KALEB, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?'
Only moments had passed before he felt her hands upon his shoulders, heard the horror in her voice. She didn't even ask how she'd gotten here; she was more alarmed at finding him coated in blood than in finding herself sprawled in the street rather than upon the straw pallet where she'd slept. Feigning exhaustion-well, feigning part of it-Kaleb allowed her to help him up, slumped in her arms as he pointed with one shaking hand. 'There,' he whispered. 'I think… we'll be safe there.'
The restaurant's porch and a portion of its outer wall had collapsed during the battle, but the rest of the squat structure appeared solid-and it had long since emptied itself of fleeing, panicked peasants. Leaning heavily on Mellorin, he limped and staggered inside and up the steps to the first empty room. Talon clattered to the floor by the doorway as he lurched toward the bed, while she darted back downstairs to gather supplies from the kitchen. She was gone only moments.
Forcing himself to remain patient, he allowed her to bathe his face with a wet cloth, cleaning away the last of the dried blood and grime, and to bandage those wounds that still showed in his flesh. At times he groaned, even crying out as he clutched at her. Once or twice he heard her whispered prayers to Sannos the Healer, and had to suppress an instinctive sneer.
Finally she was finished. Kaleb lay flat upon the mattress, stripped to the waist save for various bandages, his entire body damp-and, in a few places, rubbed raw by Mellorin's heartfelt but unskilled ministrations. She sat beside him, eyes clouded by worry and unshed tears, holding his hand in hers. Her hair hung across her face, matted and disheveled from sleep, and flecks of dried blood speckled the tunic and leggings she'd worn ever since collapsing beneath the strain of Kaleb's spells.
'What happened?' she asked him again.
'I… I managed to cast one final spell, to call you to me. I didn't want to put you in danger,' he said, as though begging her to understand. 'But there was nobody else.'
'Who did this to you, Kaleb?'
'Your… Mellorin, I'm sorry. It was your father.'
'What?' Her voice had gone suddenly small.
'I'm sorry,' he repeated, sitting up. 'I never meant it to go like this. You-you were so exhausted, from my divination spells. We thought we'd let you sleep while we explored the town.'
'Without me?' She sounded so terribly hurt, it was all he could do not to burst out laughing.
'Nothing was supposed to happen, Mellorin. We just wanted to get the lay of the land, see if we could figure out where he was staying, who might be with him. The idea was to learn everything we could, then come back and make our plans.
'But… Your uncle.'
She nodded her understanding. 'He wouldn't wait.'
'He was like a wild animal. As soon as we spotted your father, that was it. I should have known better, should never have let him come…'
'It's all right,' she told him softly-and then the implications finally struck home. 'Where is Jassion?'
'Gone.' Kaleb looked deep into her eyes. 'He went with them. They must have done something to him; he wasn't himself.' Carefully, remembering to limp, he rose and moved past her, toward the door. He bent with an audible grunt to lift Talon, extended it hilt-first toward the hesitant young woman.
'No, I couldn't…'
'You can give it back to him, if you feel the need, once we've freed him. But it's just the two of us now, Mellorin. And we're stronger with it.'
Trembling fingers closed about the hilt, and the Kholben Shiar shifted, folding in on itself. In seconds Mellorin held a brutal, thick-bladed knife with a wide guard, a weapon equally suited for parrying a larger blade or gutting an unsuspecting foe. A street fighter's weapon.
'I guess the formal training didn't take,' he joked with a wince.
For several heartbeats she examined the blade, and then resolutely placed it on the floor beside her and stepped forward to take his hands, guiding him back to bed. Allowing her to seat him, he gazed up at her.
'Mellorin…' He paused, cleared his throat. 'If this is too much, if you want to give up, I couldn't blame-'
'Hush.' She placed a finger against his lips. 'I won't leave you to do this alone, not now.'
He offered her a wide smile, then gently kissed the tip of her finger. Her entire body quivered. Slowly he reached out, pulling her to him.
'Kaleb…'
Whatever she might have had to say was lost in a long, impassioned kiss. He pulled back for just a moment, offering her the chance to speak, but there were no words in her quickened, frantic breaths. They fell back, moving as one, and they had no more need for words at all.
But if the soft sounds from beneath him were gasps of passion, even love, in Kaleb's fire-blackened heart there lurked only a horrid exultation.
Chapter Twenty-one
THEY COULD NEVER COMPREHEND IT, of course, but the horses had every reason to be grateful for the sorry state of Corvis and his companions. Had they been able, the riders would likely have ridden the poor beasts to death under the twin pressures of the hastening spell-cast by Seilloah, this time, as Corvis was in no shape to invoke it-and their desperation to put distance between themselves and the manifest demon.
Instead, as they pounded across the open road, every step a jolt of sheer agony, the wind driving dust and grit into open wounds, Corvis knew they would have to stop, and stop soon. If they didn't, the ride itself might well kill them, saving Khanda the trouble.
Well, he noted bitterly, Khanda and the Cephirans.
Khanda, the Cephirans, and the agents of the Guilds.
And possibly the gnomes, if they'd found their missing brother.
And Jassion himself, for that matter.
It was all enough to make a fellow really depressed.
For long hours, Corvis didn't see the road before him, or the horse's mane waving in his face. He saw only the farmhouse, less than a mile from the village proper, in which Jassion had sworn they'd left Mellorin, and the rented loft in which he'd sworn they would find her.
They hadn't. Indeed, they'd found no sign of anyone within the house, be it Mellorin or the homeowners. Corvis would have stayed, torn apart the whole house-the whole village-with his bare hands, no matter that it took hours or even days; would have gladly consigned his life to Khanda rather than leave his little girl in the demon's clutches. When his companions had made to drag him from his search, to flee before the creature freed itself, he'd actually reached for Sunder.
It had, astoundingly, been neither Irrial nor Seilloah but Jassion who'd gotten through to him. 'Rebaine, if that creature finds us, he'll slaughter us. All of us. You think it'll matter to him if Mellorin's with us? So long as he can use her, she lives! Would you be the one to change her from ally to enemy in his eyes?'
And so, though Corvis wept with frustration and burned with the need to feel the baron's neck break beneath his squeezing fingers, they had gone. On stolen horses they fled, and swiftly the old warrior learned that he would not easily lose himself in the journey, for each pain he escaped was replaced by another.
Every limb ached. His back screamed in agony where he'd struck the rubble, and each jostle of the horse's steps made it worse. His jaw pounded, the laceration on his forehead itched, his gut ached where the very tip of Talon had stuck him after transfixing Khanda. And thank Kassek and Panare both that it had just been the tip; it didn't take much for the Kholben Shiar to kill. (Corvis hadn't bothered to ask Jassion if he'd meant to stab them both, since he was pretty sure he knew the answer.)
But all that, Corvis could have managed. It was the wound to his mind and soul that threatened to lay him low. He couldn't rid himself of the memory of Khanda's foul presence in his head. He felt filthy, violated. He swore
