Page 123 of Swordheart
“It’s fine. These ropes and I are good friends by now.” The rogue lock of hair fell back into the priest’s face, and they tried to flip it away.
“A gnole wouldn’t mind being untied, either.”
Sarkis sheathed his sword and helped first the priest, then the gnole to their feet by way of apology.
He turned to Halla and she wasn’t there. His nerves screamed, but she was stepping over dead bodies, nose wrinkled, to their gear.
As he watched, she picked up his sword and slung it over her shoulder, then carefully lifted Zale’s crossbow and held it at arm’s length, like it was a snake that might bite. “This thing isn’t loaded, is it?”
“No,” said Zale. “You can tell by the lack of bolts and the fact that the string isn’t pulled back. Sarkis, forget my ropes, go take my crossbow away from her before she hurts it.”
“I’m not going to hurt it!”
“Just don’t… you know, drop it or… breathe on it too hard…” Zale rested their forehead against Sarkis’s shoulder in apparent despair.
Sarkis patted the priest on the arm. “Let me get those ropes.”
They left the bandit camp without any particular incident. Sarkis’s arrow wound was still tender. His ankle twinged, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d had a bad ankle since before he went into the sword, and not even magic could fix that up.
Halla insisted on looking at Sarkis’s arrow wound. It looked… worrisome. Not that there was anything wrong with the way it was healing, but the edges of the wound were silver instead of red and there were thin filaments stretched across it, like spider silk.
“That’sfascinating,” said Zale. Sarkis grunted.
They gathered up their own gear, then stood looking down at the equipment stripped from the Motherhood priests.
“Can we just leave this here?” asked Halla.
“You know, it does make things easier,” said Zale. “If it turns up, everyone will assume it was just bandits that got them.”
“Unless you decide to confess,” muttered Sarkis.
Zale shot him a glance. “If I confess, I’ll take the blame myself. It falls most squarely on me, after all.”
“A gnole hates to interrupt humans feeling guilty, but an oxcouldbe moving now.”
Zale started guiltily. “For being a priest of the god of practical things, I am failing rather badly these days,” they said to no one in particular, and climbed up on the wagon.
“It’s been a long few days,” said Halla, patting their arm.
They did not stop until after nightfall, and only because the ox could no longer reliably see his way. Brindle pulled the wagon over by the side of the road.
Halla slid down to go relieve herself in the bushes and discovered that Sarkis was following her so closely that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“Sarkis.”
“Yes?”
“I need to pee.”
“I’ll turn my back.”
“Sarkis, if you don’t step back at least a foot, your shoes are going to get wet.”
He scowled. His back was to her, but Halla could actually feel the force of his scowl radiating off him. “There may yet be bandits about. And some of them may feel vengeful.”
“Then their shoes will also get wet. Are you going to do this to Zale, too?”
“I might.”
