Page 19 of Ties of Bargains

Sure, a few of the neighboring kingdoms and duchies were jealous of their booming economy. King Hendrik to the south especially had been making threats lately. But he’d never invade. Tulpenland remained safe behind their network of canals, which could be used to flood the land and impede any attempts to march an army across the lowlands.

But Harm didn’t think monsters cared if he couldnegotiate a trade treaty or list the seven principles of warfare as laid down by the ancient general Sirit Tou.

Something squealed deep in the underbrush. Then with a roar and a crackle of breaking branches, a huge and hideous beast with far too many gnashing fangs leapt into the pool of light cast by the fire.

Her jaw set in a grim line and her black hair limned with firelight, Val stepped forward and stabbed her knife with a brutal force that belied her otherwise graceful movements.

The monster roared and lashed out at her, but she evaded the teeth, dancing away. As she did so, she reached into a pocket and withdrew a long spear tipped with a barbed head. The weapon was far too long to have fit in a normal pocket, but Harm had concluded the pockets must be magical, given the number of impossibly large things he’d seen her pull from them.

Val stabbed the monster again, fending off its head with her spear. She didn’t even look hampered by the fact that she couldn’t go more than ten feet away from Harm because of the cord.

Daisy appeared in the circle of firelight. One of her jaws was clamped at the back of the neck of a rat that appeared to be nearly as big as she was. Another of the obscenely large rodents burst out of the forest, and one of Daisy’s other heads chomped down on it with such force something snapped. Daisy’s muscles bulged along her shoulders and sides as she viciously shook the rodents, further snapping bones.

Then a slavering wolf even bigger than Daisy leapt toward Harm. Its black fur blurred slightly sludgy, andits eyes gleamed red around the edges. Its fangs glinted, even though they were brown and rotting.

Harm yelped and tried to scramble back, but he was pinned between the wolf and the crackling fire. He held out the knife in both hands, but the wolf just dodged instead of nicely impaling itself.

Harm avoided the snapping teeth and swung down at the wolf, trying to stab it. The wolf danced away from the blade. Without meeting the resistance of the wolf’s body, Harm’s wild swing continued, and he sliced the side of his thigh just above his knee with his own knife.

Harm yelled in pain, then yelled again as the wolf clamped its fangs around his arm, bowling into Harm with such force that he fell backward. Unlike when he’d been pinned by a too enthusiastic Daisy, this wolf was all fangs and claws, biting and tearing.

Where was the knife? A weapon? Something? Harm wordlessly shouted as the wolf ravaged his arm and tried to get to his throat.

Then the wolf yelped, and Val appeared beyond the wolf’s head. She stabbed the wolf again, then gripped it by the scruff and yanked it off Harm.

The wounded wolf tumbled a few feet, rolling onto its side. Before it could scramble to its feet, Daisy attacked with a savage growl, all three heads snapping down.

Harm slumped more fully on the ground, trying to catch his breath past the drumming of his heart and the pain spreading through his body.

Val glanced around before she pulled a cloth out of her pocket and cleaned her dagger. As she scrubbed theblade, she stared down at Harm. “You were supposed to use the knife.”

“I tried.” Harm gripped his injured arm with the other, blood welling between his fingers. Blooming tulips, that hurt. Between the searing pain in his arm, burning lines of agony across his chest, and the pulsing throb of the cut on his leg, he might just pass out.

“Where’s my knife?” She sheathed the one she’d finished cleaning and propped a fist on her hip.

“Don’t know.” Harm gritted his teeth. He wasn’t sure he could even sit up right now. “I was trying not to die.”

“Trying not to die usually involves holding on to the knife, not losing it.” Val cast about for a moment before she took a step, bent, and retrieved the knife from where it had somehow gotten half-buried in the moss. Instead of sheathing it right away, she set to work cleaning it with her cloth.

“I’m bleeding.” Harm didn’t think cleaning her knife should be the priority right now. Not that he wanted to be a bother, but he didn’t want to bleed out.

“Fine.” She sighed and sheathed the knife. “Sit up and take your shirt off.”

“I…er…” The back of Harm’s neck was heating again. Perhaps he’d just lie here and die instead. It would be the proper thing to do rather than disrobe.

“If you don’t take your shirt off, I’ll cut it off. And I promise, I won’t be gentle about it. So up and off.” Val wasn’t even looking at him as she stowed her cloth in one pocket, then began taking various items out of the other pocket.

As that sounded even more improper than somehowgetting his shirt off himself, Harm gritted his teeth, gathered his strength, and rolled into a sitting position, leaning his back against the root he’d been sitting on before this whole mess started.

His fingers were trembling so much with the pain that he fumbled to unbutton his shirt. He shrugged his shoulders out of the shirt and got it off one arm. But the fabric was stuck to his wounded arm. Bracing himself, he slowly peeled the fabric off, gritting his teeth and only groaning once or twice, blackness crowding the edges of his vision, as the fabric came away.

Long scratches ran down his chest and across his abdomen. Most were superficial, but some of the deeper ones dribbled blood. Bites ravaged his left arm while his breeches were soaked with blood from the slice on his leg.

While he’d been gritting his way out of his shirt, Val had set up a second pot over the fire. At least she wasn’t going to boil water for wound cleaning in the one Daisy had been licking out.

With that done, she turned to Harm and sent a scouring glance over him, making him all too aware of how much of a bloody mess he was. And how unimpressive his chest was compared to some of thefeeënhe’d seen the previous few days. He wasn’t flabby, exactly. But his muscles weren’t defined.

Val knelt before him, grabbed his injured arm, and turned it this way and that as she inspected it. She wasn’t rough, but she wasn’t gentle either.

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