Bloodwalk - James P. Davis [131]
The malebranche roared weakly at the mocking sword. Wracked with pain from its injuries, it tried to turn and meet its enraged attacker. A massive fist crashed into Quin's shoulder, sending waves of pain through his chest. He rolled with the blow, bringing Bedlam inside the devil's reach. The beast snapped its head up, raking its single horn along Quin's breastplate and cutting a jagged gash through the Hoarite's jaw.
Quinsareth, oblivious to the pain, swung his sword up in a vicious cut. Bedlam sliced off the remaining horn and bit deep into the side of the beast's head. His arm ached with the impact, but Quin held on as Bedlam screamed and cut deeper. Burning in contact with its flesh, Bedlam howled until the devil's struggles ceased.
The aasimar jumped backward, wrenching his sword free as the hulking body of the malebranche slumped forward, shaking the ground with its weight. Its spilled blood hissed in the puddles, the sounds merging with the deluge. Quin's shoulder stabbed with pain as he hobbled over to Elisandrya, his gut chilled with fear.
Kneeling beside her, he inspected the deep gouges in her side. She gasped in pain as he pressed against them to slow her bleeding. Her eyes wide, she gulped for air and winced. Though relieved to see her conscious, she grabbed at his wrist before he could speak. He trembled as she slid her other hand across his cheek.
"Go, finish it," was all she said, her eyelids heavy as she released him. She pulled her cloak around herself tightly, but never looked away from him.
Wordlessly, he nodded and stood, turning toward the temple doors. Her words and brief touch were seared into his mind, not for their sentiment or the feelings they conveyed, but for what he knew, in his heart of hearts. With or without her permission, whether or not he might have been able to heal her wounds, he'd have gone and left her anyway, to finish what he'd begun.
And he hated himself for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Splotches of red covered her hands and arms.
She could feel herself screaming in the candlelight, crying and trying to wipe the stains away, but they stubbornly remained. Her grandmother opened the bedroom door calmly and knowingly, waiting for the vision to pass, not wanting to interfere with the child's destiny.
In moments, the blood was gone as if blown away by her own breath, and she looked to her grandmother, the High Oracle of the Hidden Circle, with pleading in her eyes.
"Make it go away, Nanna! I don't want it!"
The old woman merely crossed the room and sat by Sameska's side, holding her hands and looking gravely into her eyes.
"That I cannot do, Sameska. Would not if I could," she said, her voice deep and comforting. "It is a blessing of Savras, to see that which will be. You have been chosen, just as your mother and I were chosen."
Chosen. She contemplated the word later as she slept, bundled in soft blankets against an early autumn chill. The visions had only recently begun, making her feel special at first, but then they had come more often. In quiet moments, in the middle of daily chores, and, that day, among her friends. She sobbed, still able to see the looks of horror on their faces as she'd rambled, telling each about the day they would die. Horror turned to anger and hatred, and the cruelty of children became isolation. She was hidden indoors to await her mother, still among her peers at the temple.
Alone in her room, staring into the darkness, smelling the smoke of a cooling candle, she listened to the muffled voices of her mother and grandmother through the door. She drew up the stone cold courage of her mother and stoically pulled her arms out from beneath the covers, holding them up to the moonlight that shone through the dark curtains.
It was there. She could not truly see it, the vision having passed, but the blood was still there. Imagining it across her hands and fingers, wrinkled and old as they'd been, she wondered at what she'd seen. Savras demanded truth in all things,