Page 21 of Swordheart
“I suppose you’d object to actually setting part of the town on fire?” Sarkis asked.
“I most certainly would!”
“Pity.”
Halla was beginning to question the servant of the sword’s definition of honorable behavior.
She heard running feet on the far side of the market and flattened herself even further against the ground. When the footsteps had faded, she peered over the lip of the well. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Good.” He caught her hand again. Halla blinked, suddenly noticing the dark lines across his arm.
“You’re bleeding!” she whispered, when they reached the safety of the church’s walls.
“A fair bit, I imagine. Your aunt’s hireling got a blow in.”
Halla remembered the sound of steel and the hiss that followed. “When you caught me, wasn’t it?”
“I could hardly let you fall down the stairs.”
She winced. “Does it hurt?”
“Stab wounds usually do.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be.” She couldn’t see his face, but he sounded amused. “It will heal when you sheathe the sword for a little time. I’ve had much worse.”
“Yes, but if you hadn’t caught me…”
“If your wretched cousin hadn’t dropped you to save his own skin, you wouldn’t have fallen. I’ve a mind to go back and cut his ears off, but it doesn’t seem like a good time. Can you get over the wall here if I give you a boost?”
Halla looked up at the stone wall rising over her head. The stones were roughly laid, with plenty of handholds, but still… “I don’t know,” she admitted. “My tree climbing days are long behind me.”
Sarkis knelt down. “Climb up on my shoulders.”
Halla gulped.
She was not a particularly small woman, she knew. Heavy hips and heavy breasts and a frame to carry both. A good childbearing figure, her husband had said, for all the good it had done either of them.
Not, perhaps, the ideal figure for scaling church walls in the dark.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
“I am not kneeling in the dirt here for my health.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, though.”
“I could throw you over the wall instead.”
“Could you?”
“I am considering it very strongly.”
Ah…that was a joke, I think. Or something. All right. No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves…
She stepped up, first onto his knee and then onto his shoulder. He stayed as still as stone while she caught at the top of the wall.
“I’ve got it,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can pull myself up, though.”
