Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [49]
"Can't feel me leg," Khlinat said hoarsely. "Marthammor Duin protect a silly old dwarf who's wandered so far from hearth and home to die alone." He cut his eyes to Jherek. "Swabbie, I think that blast done for me. I can't feel anything below me waist."
Jherek looked down at the water. The fires lighting the docks brought out scarlet highlights that floated on the surface. "What happened?"
"Don't know. Felt a powerful lot of pain after that explosion-then nothing at all." The dwarf's eyes rolled feverishly. "Getting awful cold, swabbie."
Sonshal swam up beside them, "Let's get him to shore."
"I've got him," Jherek said. He thrust his sword through the sash at his waist, then hooked an arm under the dwarfs chin from behind and swam for the docks. Khlinat's ragged pulse beat against his forearm. "Just hold steady, Khlinat. We're not going to let you go."
"Ye may not be given a choice," the dwarf croaked.
Reaching the dock, Jherek was challenged at once by the • Flaming Fist mercenaries who'd established a beachhead and were in the process of beating the sahuagin back. More mercenaries arrived, and still others were putting out into the harbor in small boats and slitting the throats of the helpless sahuagin and other creatures that had been stunned by the blast.
Some of them helped Jherek and Sonshal get Khlinat up onto the dock and laid out. Jherek seized a torch from a nearby man and held it to study the dwarf.
Khlinat held his hands over his lower abdomen. Blood spilled between his fingers. "Got me betwixt wind and water, swabbie. Unless we can get a healer damned quick, I ain't going to live to see the morrow."
Jherek knew it was true. He turned to the Flaming Fist mercenaries. "I need a healer."
A grizzled old warrior with blood soaking up through his right arm and dripping from his bared blade crossed over to them. He looked down at the dwarf and shook his head. "You'd have to be one of Tymora's most favored this night to find one, boy, but I'll put the word out."
" 'Tis no good, swabbie," Khlinat whispered. "Ye did yer best, and there's no complaints about that." He managed a smile that looked terrible against his graying complexion. "We gave them damned sea devils what-for, didn't we?"
"Yes," Sonshal said, kneeling beside the dwarf. He'd seized a cloak from one of the passing mercenaries who still had dry clothes and spread it over the little man. "That was a piece of risky business you did there, friend, and I'll not begrudge the tale in the telling. I'm proud to have been at your side."
"Ah, 'twas ye," Khlinat said. "Ye stood there and lit them fuses while them sahuagin were about climbing yer backside. Takes a brave man to do that."
Gently, Jherek pried the dwarf's hands from his wound, finding it much easier than he'd thought. Tears burned at the back of his eyes for the little man, though he'd known him for only a short time. The innate bravery and honor Khlinat had shown touched him deeply.
The wound was two or three inches across on Khlinat's abdomen, and there was an exit wound on the other side just as large. Khlinat's breathing slowed and grew shallower.
"Looks like he had a spear rammed through him," Sonshal whispered.
"A spear didn't do that," Jherek said. He guessed that it had been a shard from the wagon, ripped loose and propelled through the water by the smoke powder blast. The wound seemed clear. "We need to get the bleeding stopped. That way he'll have a chance of lasting till a healer gets here." He felt panicked and responsible for the dwarfs situation though he didn't know why. He'd been as much at risk as Khlinat had.
Yet nothing had happened to him even when he'd woke with a sahuagin's claws at his throat.
Live, that you may serve.
Tears coursed down Jherek's face, released by the pent-up pain of watching the dwarf die, the frustration of not being able to do anything about it, and the anger at all that he didn't understand. He pressed his hands to the