Page 94 of Bloodwitch
Two arrows thunked into him. One through his ear, the other through his throat. Blood burbled from his mouth. His legs gave way beneath him.
Lizl gasped. Aeduan stumbled forward.
He stopped short, though, when the shooter strode from the woods. The man’s white cloak, streaked with filth and red, billowed behind him. His eyes met Lizl’s, then Aeduan’s, and he nodded. “Keep herding them to me,” he called, motioning to the encampment with his crossbow, “and I will take them out as they come.”
Lizl blinked, confused, yet between one sluggish heartbeat and the next, the truth careened into Aeduan: he had misunderstood everything. The massacres he had found, the dying monk he had buried. He had interpreted it all wrong.
It had not been Purists and raiders against the Nomatsis. It had been Purists and raiderswithNomatsis.
Against the Carawens.
Aeduan turned to Lizl, words rising in his throat to warn her, to explain what lay before them. He did not need to, though, for a moment later, a girl sprinted from the encampment. Her gray gown tangled in her legs. She tripped over a corpse. She fell.
Beside them, the monk reloaded his bow.
Lizl lurched at the man. “Stop!”
He did not stop. The girl tried to get up, whimpering, but she had broken something. Her hands clawed, her cries lifted louder.
The crossbow cranked, a fresh bolt almost loaded. Lizl lunged. Aeduan’s hands shot up.
He silenced the man’s blood. It took every scrap of strength he had left, and the pain—it scorched through him. But it was enough. Enough for him to grab hold and still the man for one shallow breath. Then two.
Lizl reached the monk and knocked the crossbow from his grip.
Then the flames won, and Aeduan lost control.
The monk instantly tensed, twisting as if to attack—yet in a move too quick to see, Lizl unsheathed her sword. She had it fixed at his neck before he could fully spin around.
“Why did you do that?” Her voice was pinched and high. “Whydid you kill them?”
“What do you mean?” the monk snarled. “Why didyoustop me? We have orders!”
“From whom?”
Aeduan leaned in, straining to hear the answers. His heart thundered against his ribs. The shadows wavered, and his magic… He could no longer reach it, no longer sense blood—any blood. Not even the fallen bodies littering the earth around him.
“From the Monastery, of course.” The monk’s eyes darted between Aeduan and Lizl. “Who are you? If you were not sent to help, then why are you here? Are you part of the insurgency?”
“Help with what?” Lizl demanded. “What insurgency?” But the monk had no chance to reply before a new voice rang out, “Lower your weapon! We are on the same side.”
As one, Aeduan and Lizl snapped their gazes to the encampment’s gate. A monk towered behind the girl they had saved, his sword thrust through her back. He yanked it out. The girl spit blood. Then her body slumped among the others.
Aeduan knew this monk. This was the scent he had recognized—a man who had helped him in Veñaza City, when he’d hunted theTruthwitch. The monk’s pale hair was longer now, and his leg freshly bloodied.
His sword was bloodier, though.
One by one, eleven monks joined the pale-haired man. Each carried a blade coated in flesh. After forming a line, they advanced on Aeduan and Lizl. Flecks of organ and excrement hit the earth as they walked. Twenty paces away, the lead monk eased to a stop, and the other eleven monks halted as well.
“Back away,” the pale monk called. “We fight for the same side.”
Lizl did not lower her sword. “You killed innocents.”
“We killed vermin.”
“They were mothers.” Aeduan’s voice shook, each word in his throat made of fire. He shouted on anyway. “Children.”
“Who swear fealty to the Raider King.” The monk on the end poked her sword at the nearest corpse, an elderly woman with silver hair and a chest punctured by arrows.
