Page 114 of Swordheart
“I believe,” said Bartholomew, with some asperity, “that I can make my own way to Rutger’s Howe. I have done so many times before and I am not so aged and infirm that I cannot do so again for my good friend’s niece.”
“Sorry,” said Halla. “Yes. Oh, thank you! I can’t wait to see the look on Cousin Alver’s face!”
This time she was the one to hug him, and after an owlish blink at Sarkis, Bartholomew hugged her back.
CHAPTER 37
They rode out of Amalcross in a merry mood. Zale and Halla were full of plans. Sarkis slid down and walked alongside the wagon, keeping an eye out for trouble.
His own mood alternated between light and dark. They were nearly to Halla’s home. When she was safely in possession of her inheritance… when their association was no longer so terribly one-sided… then Sarkis could act at last on his feelings.
There was no point in pretending he did not have them. He wanted to run his hands over her body, put his lips against the softest part of her throat, cradle her breasts in his hands. She had absurdly good breasts. The decadent south had fallen down on pretty much every other point, but it got this much right. He wanted very much to make a closer acquaintance with hers.
Nor did he want to stop there. He wanted to be the answer to questions she didn’t even know she had. Mostly carnal ones. There was a way that she stretched, and he knew she wasn’t doing it intentionally, but it showed off every curve and his mouth went dry every single time.
He was fairly certain that the attraction wasn’t all one-sided. Halla did not exactly cast burning glances in his direction—she wouldn’t have known how, and the shock might kill him if she did—but it seemed that their hands touched rather more often than necessary, and when they did, they both paused too long, then sprang apart, as if they expected someone to catch them at something illicit.
This line of thinking was having an effect, which was why he was walking instead of sitting where any of his companionscould notice. It was just his luck to be cursed to permanently wear clothes that made it obvious when he’d gotten hard. If only he’d been wearing a codpiece or something when they’d killed him.
At least I was over forty when I died. Back when I was eighteen, I could get turned on by a stiff breeze, and that would have been a hell of a way to spend eternity.
He was pretty sure Zale had a suspicion about why he was suddenly spending so much time on foot, but the priest didn’t say anything. Discreet, competent, humorous… Sarkis was still unsure about the Rat, but Zale had been an excellent antidote to some priests of the great god that he’d known in his life.
Halla laughed from her perch on the wagon seat. Sarkis knew that it wasn’t a sexy laugh, it was neither low nor throaty nor any of the things that men generally liked in women’s laughter, but that didn’t matter. It was sexy because Halla was the one doing it, and he was hopelessly enamored. Befuddled. Something. There were words in the language of the Weeping Lands, but none of them translated quite correctly. “Overwhelmed with baffled and lustful affection,” was accurate, but much too long. And a perfectly good word likemaraalkept trying to turn into the word “crush” in his head and that was a very stupid idiom because he did not want to crush Halla and would have to stop anyone else who was trying to crush her.
No wonder the decadent south had so many problems. They couldn’t even sort their language out in their heads.
There were other words that kept coming up.Love. In love. Beloved.He shoved them all back where they came from. You started to think words like that and then you began to hope for things. Things that disgraced mercenary captains should not hope for. Particularly not with respectable widows, when they had everything to offer and you had nothing but secrets and failure and a body wracked with silver scars.
No, things were going to be difficult enough without words like that. But if Halla could still see fit to forgive him, once she knew what was written on the sword, then perhaps they could have a little time together, before she remembered that she was respectable and Sarkis remembered that she was mortal.
It was all that he dared hope for, and it scared him how much that he was hoping.
He climbed back onto the wagon, after a suitable time had elapsed.
“Not much longer now,” said Halla. “At least, I hope.”
“Going to be a bit longer, fish-lady.” Brindle reined in the ox and nodded to the road in front of the wagon.
There was a man in the road, waving his arms frantically to get their attention.
“Is he hurt?” asked Halla. “He looks like he needs help.”
“Decoy,” Zale said. “I expect the woods are full of highwaymen. We’re about to get robbed.” They looked more than a little annoyed by the prospect.
“And you’re stopping?” Sarkis put his hand on his sword hilt.
The gnole glanced at him. “Ox can’t outrun arrows, sword-man,” he said. “A gnole won’t kill an ox trying.”
Sarkis grunted. The ox, indeed, could not outrun arrows. If you placed an arrow on the ground and walked away from it, there was a decent chance it would still move faster than the ox.
“Robbers?” said Halla. “Really? We’re gettingrobbednow?” She sounded less frightened than indignant, as if this really was the last straw. “After all that? We get through the Vagrant Hills, we deal with the Motherhood, and now—”
Something punched Sarkis very hard in the side.
Sarkis had taken enough arrows to recognize the sensation. He grabbed Halla around the waist and rolled off the wagon seat, away from the direction of the attack. His side screamed in agony.
Zale scrambled down beside them, followed by Brindle. Thepriest’s eyes were wide. “Normally they try to shake you down for valuables before they shoot…”
