Page 36 of Swordheart
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll sleep at an inn. In a bed. A real bed. With a mattress. It doesn’t even have to be agoodmattress. I don’t even care if it’s got bugs.
No, the shoe was going to have to come off. She gritted her teeth, unlaced the shoe, and pulled it loose.
The blister was gigantic. It had broken open and now there were loose flaps of dead white skin across her heel, framed in angry red, with bits of lint sticking to both.
Well, that’s unpleasant.
“What have you done to yourself?” asked Sarkis. And then, “Ah. Most impressive.”
“It’s just a blister,” Halla muttered. “Not a big deal.”
“On the contrary. Men have died of blisters.”
“They havenot.”
“If someone cannot keep up during a forced march and falls behind, they must be left. Often the enemy gets to them before they can catch up or be retrieved.”
“Gods have mercy. We’re not on a forced march.”
“We are, of a sort, but I will not leave you behind, as that would negate the purpose of the march. Perhaps tomorrow we can steal a horse.”
“How about socks?” asked Halla hopefully. “A better sock would fix things.”
“Great sagas are not written about successfulsockraids upon a rival holding.”
“How do you know?” said Halla, attempting to tear a strip of cloth from the bottom hem of her habit. “You’re in the decadent south now. We might have sock raids constantly for all you know.”
Sarkis gave a loud snort to indicate what he thought of this, but then robbed it of much of its impact by taking her foot in his hand and wrapping the cloth around it. His hands were much warmer than they had any right to be, given how cold the air was. Halla waited for him to recoil from the admittedly unpleasant blister, but he seemed unconcerned.
“Warn if it’s too tight,” he said, patting her knee absently.Asif I were a horse he’d just reshod. Except a horse would probably be more useful right now.
“What, will my foot fall off?”
“Your toenails may.”
Halla blinked at him, realized that he wasn’t joking, and stared gloomily at her shoes. “Do people die of lost toenails?”
“Less often than blisters.”
“Well, that’s a comfort.”
“When I led warriors, good shoes were considered as essential as a good sword. More so, in fact. If one has a bad sword, one can still run away.”
“Theseweregood shoes,” said Halla.Oh gods, he thinks I’m one of those women who wear uncomfortable shoes to look fashionable.If she owned any fashionable shoes, it was purely by accident, because she’d owned the pair long enough for the fashion to come around again. This wasn’t something she felt like admitting. “It’s just that I’m not used to wearing them for days without taking them off.”
Sarkis grunted.
Her stomach growled like a bear. Halla sighed. She’d eaten a few handfuls of chickweed and late sorrel earlier, but her body was not happy with such meager fare, particularly not if it was doing the hard work of keeping her warm.
“I’m sorry,” said Sarkis abruptly.
She looked up, startled.
It was growing too dark to see much of his expression. He was frowning, or perhaps the scar through his eyebrow only made it look like a frown.
“Sorry? For what?”
“I am doing a poor job guarding you. You are hungry and footsore and I do not know this land well enough to feed you.”
