Shadow War - Deborah Chester [19]
Orlo’s hand gripped his uninjured arm to steady him. “Stiff,” he said with pretend anger while he hastened Caelan past the group eager to offer yet more congratulations. “Too much standing around talking. Time for that massage.”
The moment they were inside Caelan’s ready room, Orlo slammed the door and yelled for the slaves.
Unz appeared. Scrawny and perpetually nervous, he was the youngest.
“Where is everyone?” Orlo demanded, looking around. “Why isn’t the massage table ready? Where’s the bath water?”
Unz bowed. “I’ll get—”
“I’ll flog their hides for this. Where are they?”
“Gone to cash in their wager tokens,” Unz replied nervously.
Orlo’s face turned a dark purple. “Get the water” was all he said, however.
Unz fled.
Orlo kicked a stool over to Caelan. “Sit!”
Caelan dropped heavily onto it. His side began to bleed again; he could feel it warm and wet against his arm. The effort of holding severance was too much. He longed to let go, yet he was afraid to.
“Hurting, are you?” Orlo asked. He tossed his club aside and advanced on Caelan. “I thought I’d never get you safely out of sight. You reckless idiot, I told you to stay out of his reach. Let me see that arm.”
As he spoke, he pulled the cloak from Caelan’s shoulders, then stood there, staring. The cloak slid unnoticed from his fingers. “Merciful Gault,” he whispered. “I thought I saw him stick you, but then you seemed unhurt. I couldn’t get out of the stands sooner to help you.”
“It’s all right,” Caelan said through his teeth. He had never seen Orlo look this pale, this frightened. “I had to provide ... spectacle.”
“You fool,” Orlo said, pressing his fingers gently against Caelan’s side where the trickle of blood was beginning to bubble faster. “You great, hulking fool. When I told you to use every dirty trick, I didn’t mean this.”
Caelan felt suddenly flushed and hotter than ever. He twisted on the stool. “Where’s my bath? It’s too warm in here. I—”
Orlo gripped his shoulder. “Boy!” he bawled at the top of his lungs. “Unz! Bring bandages, quickly!”
The room started spinning around Caelan. He braced his shoulder against Orlo’s side and gripped the bottom of the man’s tunic. “Not so loud. They’ll hear you.”
“Why the devil shouldn’t someone hear?” Orlo said in exasperation. But he lowered his voice. When Unz came running with a handful of gauze strips, he grabbed them from the boy’s hand, knocking some of them to the floor. “Get more! Idiot! Can’t you see he’s bleeding to death?”
Unz stared, his face as white as the bandages, and stammered something incomprehensible.
“Get more bandages. And water. And the healer. We need the healer!”
“No,” Caelan said.
Orlo pressed the gauze to his side, and he flinched at the pain.
“Steady,” Orlo said, but he sounded more desperate than soothing. “Don’t talk. Just stay quiet. Boy! Where are you?”
Unz reappeared with more gauze. “This is all—”
“Never mind. Get the cloak. We’ll bind it around him. Quick, boy. No, I’ll do it. Support him.”
Unz timidly grasped Caelan’s shoulders while Orlo hacked the cloak into long strips and wrapped them around Caelan’s torso. He knotted them with a firmness that made Caelan cry out.
Severance slipped, and he could not hold on any longer. The river of blood escaped him and gushed into the cloth. He could feel his life, his awareness flowing out with it.
“Forget the water. Run for the healer now,” Orlo said while the room swirled and eddied. “Go, boy!”
“No,” Caelan said. He reached out, his hand groping blindly.
Orlo gripped his fingers hard enough to crush them.
“No one to know,” Caelan insisted. “Spoil the victory. Spoil the prince’s ... orders ...”
He couldn’t finish. The room grew white, blurring into shapeless light, then fading, fading until there was only shadow.
“Get the healer,” he heard Orlo say. “Don’t say why. Don’t say anything. Just get him. Run!”
Caelan came drifting back to the pleasant fragrances of balm and honey, herbal scents that reminded him of his childhood safe in E’nonhold. Someone nearby was grinding with a small mortar and pestle, working