Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [50]
"There's not one to be had," the old man said gruffly. He rested a hand on Jherek's shoulder. "You've done what you could for him. Sometimes all that remains to be done is to be with them when the passing comes. No man should be alone when that happens."
"No!" Jherek said hoarsely. "He's not going to die!"
"There's nothing you can do about that," Sonshal said. "A man's life runs the course his gods direct it on, and no man may stay the hand of death when it arrives."
"No! I won't accept that!" It wasn't right that the dwarf should save so many, yet lose his life in the attempt.
Live, that you may serve.
Jherek reached for that voice, wondering where it came from and how it dared seem to choose him when there were so many others to pick from. He willed the dwarf not to die. "Pray," he told the dwarf, "pray to your Marthammor Duin that you live, Khlinat, then believe with all your might."
Jherek knew that he didn't believe that strongly himself. He'd chosen Hmater as his god because he most understood the religion. The Crying God based his ethos on enduring and persevering, things that the young sailor understood intimately. His whole life had been about those things.
Khlinat coughed and groaned in pain. Blood bubbled from his lips and ran down his cheek. Blue light dawned at his throat, partially obscured by his matted beard.
Without warning, Jherek felt a low buzz in his hands, like he'd brushed up against an electric eel. Smoky blue blazed under his palms pressed against the dwarf's side. He felt the changes taking place against his hands, but he couldn't move them.
The buzzing finished, and the blue light at Khlinat's throat winked out.
The dwarf's lungs filled in a rush, and he flicked his eyes open. "Swabbie, what have you done?" His voice sounded stronger, more certain.
"Nothing," Jherek said, as puzzled as the dwarf. He felt drained by the events of the last few minutes. His eyelids dragged as he scanned the little man.
Khlinat coughed. "Only if yer calling saving me life nothing, and I ain't ready to call it that. Whatever ye did, I feel better."
"It wasn't him," Sonshal said. "It was something at your throat."
Khlinat reached up and took up the shark tooth pendent at his throat, stretching it the length of the leather thong that held it. "This?" He shook his head. "This is nothing. A trinket left over from the shark what took my leg. Them teeth come out regular, and the healer what fixed me up found it in what was left of me leg. I've been carrying it as a good luck charm, nothing more."
"What else could be the answer?" Sonshal asked.
The dwarf looked at Jherek. "I don't know, but I do know I feel better. Let's have a look at me side."
Hesitantly, Jherek drew his hands away, afraid that the torrent of blood would begin again.
It didn't. Instead, the flesh appeared to have closed in both places. It remained raw and ragged looking, but it was obviously healing, reconnecting.
"Marthammor Duin save a wandering fool," the dwarf cried in astonishment. "Outside of a heal potion, or a healer's hands, I've never seen the like."
Jherek gave him a smile and settled back tiredly on his haunches. The blood was drying tight on his hands. "If I were you, I wouldn't loose that shark's tooth."
Khlinat reverently kissed the pendant. "I'll never feel as angry about that shark, I tell ye."
Glancing out at the harbor, Jherek saw that a rout of the sahuagin and their aquatic accomplices was in full swing. He had no wish in him to be one of the parties responsible for slitting the throats of the stunned sahuagin. Now that they were organized, the Flaming Fist mercenaries appeared to have things well in hand. He looked for his father's ship, but Bunyip was nowhere to be seen.
It was too late to save many lives, too late to save nearly all of the boats and much of the docks and some of the warehouses and buildings near them, but the docks thronged with men and women who fought enemies as well as fires.
He considered the battle. Madame litaar