Page 24 of Ties of Bargains

She let the last of the bandages drop, then inspectedhis arm. The bites were now pink patches of new skin, healing but not yet fully healed. The gashes across his chest and the slice across his leg looked the same. Still sore, but he wasn’t in danger of bleeding more.

She dropped his arm and gave a sharp nod. “Get dressed. We’ll start your training after you eat.”

“Training?” Harm rested his injured arm on a knee, his whole body still feeling strangely weak and weighed down. Likely the blood loss and the exhaustion of completing several weeks of healing overnight.

“Yes, training.” Val gestured from his arm to his chest. “You clearly need it.”

“I have some training with a sword.” Harm couldn’t help the defensive note in his voice. “Last night was an off night for me. I’ve never fought a monster with a knife before.”

“If you have a good foundation of training, that will make my job easier.” Val eyed him, as if she seriously doubted it.

Not that he could blame her. He’d made a poor showing the night before.

But he couldn’t keep delaying. His family was in danger.

“How long will training take?” Harm ran a thumb over one of the new patches of skin on his arm. “I need to get home as soon as possible.”

“You’ll never get to the Court of Stone, much less escape, without training.” Val speared him with a far-too-frank look in her dark brown eyes. “If you want to see your family again, you will take the time now to train.”

Harm clenched and unclenched his fingers, hating how right she was. He hadn’t even managed to fend off one monster wolf. How could he possibly survive long enough to find his way home, even if he managed to escape? He’d only made it this far because of Val.

“Fine. I’ll train.” Harm reached toward his ankle, where the knife was still hidden underneath his stocking, even though Val must have removed his boots. “Should I…”

“No!” Val shook her head. “If you have an iron knife, I don’t want to see it, remember? I’ll lend you a knife for training, when we get up to it. But that will be a while. You aren’t ready to be trusted with pointy objects.”

He would have protested, but even shifting his injured leg reminded him of how hopeless he was.

“Now hurry and dress.” Val leaned back on her heels and let the flap fall closed again, her voice coming through the canvas. “Daylight is wasting.”

Harm cast about, then sighed. “My pack is in your pocket.”

He couldn’t see her, but he could almost imagine he heard her huff a sigh of her own. A few moments later, her hand appeared, shoving his pack past the tent flap. At least she had enough patience that she hadn’t tossed the pack and broken the precious pottery.

Harm took the pack, waited for the flap to fall closed and stay closed, and dug through it for his only other set of clothes. He quickly changed into his white shirt and gray breeches, though he left the black coat where it was. Once done, he stuffed his bloody clothes into the pack. As much as he wanted to simply discard the rags,he had so few things that he couldn’t afford to lose anything. Nor did it seem safe to leave things with his blood simply lying around, even if the forest would probably eat it.

Once that was done, he crawled out of the tent, leaving his pack beside his bedroll.

As he straightened, Val took in his loose shirt and breeches, then gave a nod as if she approved. She faced the length of the clearing in the forest just outside of their sheltered nook among the trees. “Today, we’re going to take it easy and work on your reflexes. You’ll be throwing a rope for Daisy.”

At the sound of her name, Daisy raised her head from where she sprawled in a patch of sunlight.

Harm had been braced to do something more physical. But throwing a rope for a dog didn’t sound so bad. He played fetch with Gijs’s puppy Vlek back home.

Val reached into her pocket and pulled out a thick rope of about an inch and a half in diameter. The rope was three feet long and had four large knots tied in it at regular intervals.

At the sight of the rope, Daisy sprang to her feet and bolted into a sprint, heading straight for Val, her mouth open as she reached for the rope with her gleaming teeth.

At the very last moment before being bowled over, Val sidestepped the dog, almost casually lifting the rope out of the dog’s reach as Daisy sprang. Daisy’s teeth snapped on air only inches away from the rope before she landed, immediately spinning back toward Val, her eyes fixed on the rope.

Before Daisy could spring again, Val pointed at the ground with her free hand. “Sit.”

Eyes still pinned on the rope, Daisy plunked her butt onto the ground, though her whole body remained tense.

Val whipped the rope forward, throwing it all the way across the clearing.

Even before the rope left Val’s hand, Daisy had already sprung to her feet. She raced after the rope, running low to the ground, her ears pinned to her skull. She sprinted so fast that she skidded past the rope as she tried to stop. Once she snagged the rope, Daisy whipped it back and forth like she had the rodent she’d killed. The knots of the rope thumped into the dog’s sides, but she didn’t seem to feel any pain at the whacks.

“Here, take this.” Val held out a second rope.

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