Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [65]
The crow hovered just above Leifander, wings fanning his face with a welcome breeze. Leifander spotted a loose feather in its tail and blessed the goddess for her gift. In another instant, he'd be able to transform, to slip wings and tiny crow's feet out of the manacles and fly away. Ignoring the pain of the rats still gnawing at his foot, he strained up for the feather.
Before he could pluck it from the crow's tail, the door leading to the cells crashed open, and hght flooded into the room. The crow, startled by the noise, flew up toward the ceiling. Cursing his ill luck, Leifander wrenched around to look at the door, ready to pummel the wizard's
feet with the manacle around his wrist in one last, futile act of defiance.
He stopped short, fist raised, gaping at what he saw. Two humans, both of them strangers. One was a dark-haired male, wearing a chain-mail shirt stretched across broad shoulders and a scarf that hid much of his face. The other was female, almost as slender as an elf, all but a few wisps of her amber-colored hair bound up in a bright red scarf. Both wore high boots that were splattered with mud and stank of sewage. The woman held a silver dagger that glowed with a bluish light reminiscent of moonlight but bright enough that it made Leifander wince. The man-who seemed to be shying away from the dagger's light, as if it pained him-held a set of keys in one hand and a sword that dripped with blood in the other.
"Leifander!" the woman cried. "You're alive."
Leifander wondered how this woman knew his name. For a confused moment, he thought that the wizard must have told her, but by the way the pair looked nervously around the room, it was clear they didn't belong there.
The man strode into the room and kicked at the rats, which scuttled away through the open door. He bent and began trying keys in the lock that held Leifander's wrist to the bolt in the floor. The woman, meanwhile, kneeled at Leifander's feet. He saw her wince, then swallow, as if bile had risen in her throat. His foot throbbed all the harder, as he realized how terrible his wounds must be. He shuddered when her fingers brushed his lacerated flesh.
"Be still," the woman said. "We're here to help you."
She began to pray.
It was a strange prayer, spoken mostly in the human tongue, but with the odd word of poorly pronounced Elvish mixed in. Leifander heard her invoke the name of the human goddess Sune, then blinked in surprise as Hanali Celanil's name followed.
The man fumbled with the keys, trying to find one that fit the manacle on Leifander's wrist.
"What's wrong with your fingers?" he asked, poking at the lock.
For a moment, Leifander wondered what he was talking about-it was his foot that was injured. Then he realized what the human meant.
"They're tattoos," he said through gritted teeth.
The man at last found the right key, and the wrist manacle sprung open. Leifander painfully sat up, rubbing his chafed wrist, then gestured at his ankles.
"The other manacles," he said. "They should open with the same key."
Above them, the crow continued to wing its way in a tight circle around the tiny room. The unnatural brightness of the dagger was frightening it. More than once, it swerved away from the glowing blade, narrowly avoiding crashing into a wall or the ceiling.
Down by Leifander's ankle, the woman was still praying. She'd set the glowing dagger down. Its light was gradually dimming as it lay untended on the cold stone floor. A ruddy red glow, however, was replacing it. The glow seemed to be flowing from the hand that was touching Leifander's savaged foot, and with it came a warmth that numbed the agony of the lacerations like a draught of bitterberry wine. An instant later,