**Disclaimer** - I do not own anything to do with WoT. Shame, that.
Chapter Fourteen'Get up.'
She flinched as those cold words sheared through the silence. Mai sat on the arid ground, her knees clasped tightly to her chest, bearing sole witness to the scene unfolding before her wide eyes. She barely realised the numb mutiny of her body, only dimly aware that her torpid limbs were as futile of movement as those of the blonde figure vainly struggling to raise itself from the hard ground. She bit at her lip as the trapped man fell back, his chest panting with the effort of trying to wrest free of the weapon that forced his lithe form to cleave against the scorched dirt.
Mat stood above his opponent, his jaw tight, eyes cold and dark. Nothing but the parched leaves rasping a whispered susurrus marred the silence.
Forcing breath into her starved lungs, Mai narrowed her gaze against the searing light of the sun glaring at the combatants like some monstrous, jaundiced eye. The air in her breast burned in sympathy as Mat pressed the weapon against his opponents throat for a few long moments before finally relinquishing the fatal blow, grinding the butt of the quarterstaff in the stony ground at his feet.
The hot wind grazed her skin as it flung whips of her hair before her eyes, and her cold hand swept at the dark strips as she watched Mat lower a condescending arm to his opponent, a small movement twitching the corners of his lips. It was then that the prone man moved.
She choked back a cry as the figure manoeuvred with a deftness that forced her breath to falter. In a heartbeat, the seemingly defeated man had flurried into movement on the parched ground, his legs sweeping to jolt a wide-eyed Mat to the floor amid a blaze of ruddy dust.
Blond hair gleaned into whiteness in the fierce sunlight, Cal now stood over his rival, his eyes like shards of cobalt in that pale, inscrutable face. 'You always were too complacent, Mat.'
Without warning, a hand shot out to seize the abandoned quarterstaff. With a grin of pure malice, Mat veered the staff to jam against the startled mans stomach, levering the blunt point against the vulnerable point where the tender short-ribs fused. 'Is that so?'
Measured applause echoed in the silence. 'Very pretty, my lords. Now, do you suppose you two could stop drubbing one other for long enough to have a rest?'
A grinning Mat sprang to his feet, somewhat rudely rebuffing the aid of Cal's grudgingly proffered arm. 'I suppose so. What do you say, Cal? You certainly look in need of a respite.'
Cal, who was now sweeping a hand through his dampened curls, gave a small moue of annoyance. 'I only broke a sweat because I was dodging all that stick-flailing you call sparring.' He paused for a moment, seemingly relishing Mat's scandalised expression, before strolling towards her, the length of a wooden sword resting casually on his shoulder. 'So, my lady, what is your valued opinion on that accomplished display of fighting prowess?'
'Oh, it was most entertaining. For a little while, at least.' Her lips twitched as Cal's strangely sardonic smile wilted. 'I'm sorry, but all those…flowery movements just seem so unnecessary.'
'Flowery?' Mat was stalking towards them, all but spluttering with renewed outrage. 'Unnecessary?'
Cal was studying her with eyes narrowed to mere blue crescents, his lips curling once more into a wry smile.
'Well, I always thought that combat would be a little more straightforward. Why can't you just—' She mimed a vague stabbing gesture with her arm. '—you know, jab the enemy to death?'
'Jab?' Cal's gaze widened as he drawled the word. 'Without even a semblance of skill or technique? Where is the honour in that?'
'I see.' She breathed. 'How silly of me to think that the idea was to kill the enemy as quickly as possible. It really makes far more sense your way. Death by polite misadventure.'
Mat gave a loud snort but Cal's eyes never left her own unflinching glare. 'Mai, you can't claim to win a dignified fight by simply hacking at your opponent. It's just not done.'
Mai allowed a small sniff to show her derision of such foolish sensibility. 'Oh, very well. I just thought the whole thing would be a little more straightforward. There really are far too many moves. Why do men always have to make things so complicated for themselves?'
The two men exchanged a fleeting glance that Mai had soon identified as that silent, and unmistakably male, gesture of shared commiseration.
Women.
She gave a demure little smile in response. 'Well, I suppose I should remove myself from your little pastime. Try not to injure yourselves with all that…what was the word you used, Cal? Flailing?' With a small cough to disguise an irrepressible bubble of mirth, Mai left the pair to their amusement.
Mat shook his head as he flourished the quarterstaff with practised ease. 'Fine.' He declared, his petulant tone betrayed by an indulgent smile. 'Well my friend, shall we continue practising our jabbing at one another?'
Cal was still staring at the departing girl when he saw her favour his companion with a disarmingly demure smile. There was something in her candid gaze, however, that forced his forced levity to darken. Eyeing his companions askance, he witnessed Mat's offhand response of an apologetic shrug and an easy grin, before the younger man turned away. But another lingering glimpse warned him that the girl was still watching the oblivious Mat, her eyes large and guileless, the delicate flush in her cheeks belying the pallor that had until so recently plagued her.
'Ready?'
Cal turned, his lips curved in a smile that looked forced to the point of pain, to face an expectant Mat. 'As ever, my friend.'
****oOo****
Mai swept a lone honey-bright blossom from the grass as she lowered herself to the ground. It felt pleasingly unfamiliar to sit with her legs crossed and unhampered by folds of heavy, black cloak. With a contented sigh, she traced a hand over the warm earth, relishing the texture as it grazed her palm. She had quickly discovered that even such simple sensations as this could bring a small joy to her, that even the most innocuous and inconsequential things could be so bright, so vibrant.
The renewed clack of the wooden practice weapons faded from her awareness as she raised her face to the sun. The glory of golden light felt wonderful against her skin. Her fingers sought and deftly plucked a fluted petal from the flower, and she nipped the tapered flesh with her teeth. The tiny bead of nectar was almost painfully sweet, a welcome antidote to the bitter sting of the Stayroot. Not that she had sampled that particular taste this morning.
A smile blossomed at the realisation, and she raised a hand to her lips to explore the unfamiliar upturned curve with fingertips powdered with sweet nectar and a silken dusting of earth. She had tried to be careful, even now striving not to let her hopes soar too high, but it was difficult to dampen her newfound elation. To awaken without fear, to rise from sleep like dander moved by summer air, so weightless and at peace had been like emerging from a stifling cocoon. Her thoughts persisted in lilting to the moment when she had awoken to the soft glow of tallow light, the strange foxhead warm and comfortingly heavy in her fingers.
The amulets smooth, silken weight had been a solace in itself. In her slumbering mind, it had seemed to exist like some shining link to her sleeping body, leaving her free to drift in the fathomless swells of silence whilst being her anchor, mooring her to the real world.
She had emerged from this blissful sea of oblivion to find Mat sprawled on an adjoining pallet. His gaze had been fixed upon the white canopy above, eyes barely blinking as his thumb ceaselessly flipped a slivery coin into the air. She had lain almost painfully still for a while, reluctant to yield the solitude of the moment even though her sleep-cramped limbs ached in protest. For a few, glorious moments, she had been perfectly content to bask in quiet joy, her eyes following the hypnotic flow of the coin as it tumbled through the air with an almost musical purr.
Mat had started when he finally realised that she was awake, though it took only a moment for him to recover his composure and ask her what had happened. He was grinning as broadly as she by the time her short account had ended.
Nothing.
Sweet, beautiful, fathomless nothing.
There had been no dreams, good or ill, just the comforting solitude of darkness and silence.
Mai had not wanted to tempt misfortune with a second attempt, but Mat had been so persistent in that insufferable way of his, and her body still so achingly weary, that she had once again lapsed into dark oblivion almost as soon as her eyes closed.
When she next awoke, the tent was steeped in the blissfully soft glow of a new day and she was again compelled to remain in silent repose for a moment, content to lay with heavy lassitude still lingering in her body.
Mat was deep in slumber although his lashes fluttered spiked shadows on his flushed cheeks and his lips mouthed elusive words in seemingly little more than softly aspirated whispers. It amused her a little that he should be so animate in his slumber. She had always imagined that those without her affliction would be peaceful and untroubled while sleeping, their bodies motionless and still.
It struck her that the reactions had to be the result of some dream, that those strange, indecipherable words were in response to something only he could see. To her chagrin, Mai had felt a brief pang of something that was uncomfortably akin to envy before the feeling was eclipsed by shame. What did it matter that she would never experience some silly, foolish dreams? Yesterday, she couldn't even conceive of being able to sleep without the threat of a somnolent demise. How could she crave such a ridiculous thing when she had just experienced her first night of blissfully uninterrupted sleep in as long as she could remember?
She had flinched when Mat breathed a sigh and turned in his sleep, had felt horribly guilty at her resentment of something so foolish. He had looked so peaceful that she had been loath to wake him, but eager to leave the tent, so great was her sudden discomfort.
Her hands had trembled as she hesitantly placed the foxhead on his pillow, hardly deigning to breathe in her effort not to wake him at such close proximity, certain that he would suddenly awaken as her hand almost brushed a mussed lock of his hair. The thought made her stomach perform a curious little lurch.
Mai quietly slipped from the infirmary and soon abandoned her qualms to the unbearable sweetness of the morning air. Everything around her, from the brash whisper of naked, coppery branches, to the soft rasp of dying grass beneath her bare feet, even the bruised caw of a circling crow, seemed so bright and glorious, untainted by the sick throb of exhaustion. For a while, she had been aware of nothing except a joy that was almost painful until an unfamiliar, gnawing sensation in her midriff distracted her with enough vehemence to made her wince. It took some pensive thought before she realised that the sensation was actually her stomach complaining about its protracted neglect.
A visit to the cook fire had resulted in her enthusiastically emptying a large bowl of tepid porridge, much to the delight of a nervously hovering Per.
The only thing that had seemed intent to burden her further was her cloak. Mai felt its weight acutely, as though some sentient creature were clinging to her like a stifling skin, eager to drain her newfound elation. The thought of retrieving the clothes now abandoned amongst the oaken bathing tubs kindled a fresh flare of anxiety. A mere day before, she would have thought it an inconceivable horror to return to the place that had so terrified her, but the bathing tent had looked so bright and cheerful on her arrival that she could barely believe the terror she had felt there. She had even traced her fingers over the damp wood of the drum in which she had been so rudely doused and then just as unceremoniously hauled from. The slow ripple started by her light touch flowed across the chill water to travel along her flesh, and a flush suffused her cheeks as the memory of the event flittered through her mind.
Determining not to dwell on the incident, Mai had quickly set her mind to searching for the lost garments. The tunic and breeches were easy to find, but her binding had vanished, leaving her to fret that someone had removed it. She had pressed a cool hand to her cheek to try and stifle the blush suddenly flaming anew, but to no avail.
Once she had hurried to her own quarters, Mai quickly applied more binding and dressed in her new clothes. The unfamiliar garments hugged her skin in a worrying fashion, making her feel horribly vulnerable. As she paced about the tent, trying to accustom herself to the curious garb, Mai realised just how painfully thin she had become. She could not recall a time when she looked any different, but it had never struck her so forcibly before. No wonder Cal was always following her around with food. The only visible part of her that seemed to have any verve was her hair. Now that it was washed and untangled it seemed to brim with a purpose of its own, swirling about her face as though challenging her to contain its exuberance. With a fond scowl, she had finally gathered it at the nape of her neck, only just managing to quell its enthusiasm with a tightly wound strip of leather cord.
After she had spent several more minutes becoming accustomed to the new clothes, Mai deemed herself ready to encounter someone who wasn't sick, sleeping, or in a perpetual state of nervous flutter. After a brief round of the men, most of who had blinked at her transformation in outright confusion, she determined to seek out Cal.
It did not take long. Mai had soon discovered him secreted in a small, wooded area near the fringe of the camp. The snug place had been cleared of grass, save for a few tufts of green no doubt coaxed into renewed growth by the uncommonly fine weather. As a result, the ground was hard and baked looking, but Cal was moving over this troubled earth with a strange, fluid grace, a wooden sword moving before him in a mesmerising sequence of intricate patterns. She had watched him for some time, unbeknownst to the silent combatant, marvelled at the beauty of the movements, which were not at all as barbarous as she had imagined.
Cal had at first greeted her with wide eyes and an even wider grin, but this heartening reaction had quickly been replaced with an insipidly tolerant smile, the polite sort that he often adopted whenever Estean was in the vicinity. He then proceeded to deign her with little more than a cursory greeting and a polite enquiry after her health, all the while evading her gaze.
Much as she tried to deny it, the strange, unspoken rebuffal had stung. For the first time, Mai had felt unwelcome in the presence of the usually affable man. Fuelled by the mortification by her behaviour of the previous day, Mai was filled with a dread certainty that Cal would confront her for an explanation of the events. She needn't have worried. The man made no further attempt to engage her, instead lowering his gaze to the ground in a sudden gesture of what could have been irritation or chagrin. Beneath the flush of exertion, Cal's face was pale and decidedly troubled looking. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the man was feeling as awkward as she herself did. At once alarmed and relieved, Mai was about to conjure an innocuous pleasantry when Mat had suddenly appeared, barely acknowledging her presence except for the conspiratorial wink he tipped her.
Unwilling for an opportunity to pass up on a little practice, the two men had begun to spar in earnest, Cal with his sword and Mat with a stout quarterstaff. It had been wonderful to watch them. Although she knew precious little about such matters, Mai was sure that they must be accomplished fighters. The sinuous movements seemed to be second nature to them, their bodies flowing from one stance to the next with confident ease. She privately admitted that she found the performance exhilarating, and had not found any of the cruelly graceful, movements 'unnecessary'. She also realised, however, that the pair had been perfectly aware of the effect they must have been producing, and she had consequently enjoyed portraying a study of complete indifference. Mai had decided that it could be of no benefit to be complacent about a talent, no matter how consummate the skill.
She smiled as a shadow fell over her, effectively quelling her flittering thoughts. 'I hope you're not intending to try and frighten me.'
'Not at all, my lady.'
Mai opened her eyes to see Cal towering above her, his form silhouetted against the blazing sun.
'Mat was under the impression that you might want accompaniment on your next check of the fallen.'
'Oh. That would be nice.' Light! When did her voice become so feeble? 'Thank you.' She murmured as a strong hand aided her to her feet.
Cal paused for a long moment before releasing her arm. 'You're quite welcome.'
The man's face was still hidden in shadow, but she could feel his steady gaze upon her. 'Beven is still very sick.' She blurted, her stomach fluttering as though it were twisting itself into tight little knots.
'Then we shall check on him first.' With this and a low, almost mocking bow, Cal motioned her to walk.
As she obeyed, Mai cast a look over her shoulder, aware that Cal was shadowing her gaze. Mat was leaning on his quarterstaff. Upon seeing her, he gave her an indolent wave.
'After you, my Lady.'
Mai gave Cal a taut smile, and headed towards the infirmary.
****oOo****
The reins felt uncomfortably sticky in his palms as Mat struggled to slow Pips into a trot. The sun smote heavily upon the pair in the stifling heat of midday, but what served to irritate the rider seemed to intoxicate his jubilant steed. Mat swore with alarmingly frequency as the horse gave voice to loud whickers and snorts as he pranced in an almost coltish fashion, his hooves stirring the dry ground into ruddy funnels of dust. Giving another sharp tug on the reigns, and receiving a loud snort for his less than delicate ministrations, Mat gave silent thanks that at least there was no one to see them. After a prolonged period of enforced confinement and lack of exercise, Pips seemed more than eager to whisk the cobwebs from his shanks. The gelding frequently broke into a sprightly canter if he felt so much as a twitched finger on the taut reigns, and tossed his head haughtily at the frequent reprimands that drifted heedlessly over his large, pricked ears.
No matter how tightly Mat kept his heels pressed to the beast's sides, the horse's euphoria at the open air simply refused to be quashed. Mat gave a sigh, and allowed the steed his little game whilst trying to loosen the stifling necktie that seemed determined to choke the breath from him. The movement caused a disc of light to hover on the ground before him, dancing as the sunlight reflected from the now exposed amulet encircling his throat. He had been heartily relieved to discover that the foxhead had been replaced when he awoke. Not that he had thought the girl would have stolen it, of course, but it made him feel better nonetheless. Her sudden appearance had caught him a little off guard, but it had not taken him long to find her. Find Cal and the girl was sure to be nearby. She seemed to be growing fonder of the man, and when Mai wasn't following Cal, the fellow was pursuing the girl like some moon-struck calf.
Mai had given him no indication that she had yielded her secrets to Cal, however. Mat had prudently decided that the girl did not want to sully his friend's regard for her, or some similarly foolish reason. She seemed inordinately worried that people thought her crazy. Not that he did. Not exactly, anyway. He had seen things that would made the girls strangest antics seem perfectly normal.
Still, she had certainly looked healthier this morning, even if the girl had hardly any meat on her marrow. The new clothes had somehow made her appear even more spindly than that hulking cloak, but the sunlight had drawn rare smiles from her, bringing light to her shadowed eyes and colour to her pallid face. Cal certainly found her presence a distraction. He could have clouted the man senseless more than once with the amount of times the fool's eyes had strayed to girl as she watched them with lips curved in that strange smile.
A dancing flutter of colour drew him from his reverie.
With a sense of sinking dread, Mat watched a cobalt butterfly stutter past Pip's nose, and felt a warning shudder thrum through his mounts frame. Mat was mid-lunge, fully intent on yanking one of the stupid animals ears to stop it from scrabbling into a galloping pursuit of the colourful insect, when the shimmer of approaching bells reached his ears.
His brief interest in the butterfly now forgotten, Pip abruptly locked his legs in a lurching halt. Mat clucked his tongue, and gave a small nudge with his heels, but to no avail. The horse now refused to budge from the centre of the winding excuse for a road.
'Bloody wonderful'.
The dun gelding gave a reproachful look over his shoulder at his riders words.
Mat scowled at the beast's blunt head. 'This is all your fault, you know?'
A loud bleat interrupted any comment Pips may have chosen to make, and Mat tilted his hat as he squinted in the direction of the sound. A large ram had rounded the nearest bend, it's shaggy head tilted in an almost questioning fashion.
Mat leaned his elbows on the high pommel, and sighed. 'I suppose there are about a hundred more where you came from?'
The ram gave an answering shiver of its bowed head, causing the bells entwined in his matted wool to flutter into sound, and began a slow walk towards them. Several similarly fleecy forms trotted in pursuit of the shimmering sounds of their leader, and soon the hapless horse and rider were mired in a sluggish eddy of doleful looking sheep. Having no choice but to weather the endless stream of woolly creatures, Mat sat resolutely upon Pips' back, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. The Bellwether ambled past them with a mournful bleat, and another flourishing cascade of tinkling bells.
As the flood of sheep slowed to an eventual trickle, Mat could see the figure of a man approaching. With a tip of his hat, Mat gave the squat, unhealthy looking fellow a smiling tiding, only to be greeted with a scowl from the mans weathered face. Mat quickly adopted a scowl of his own as the man stumped past, pausing between mutterings only to eject a globule of spit from between his gapped teeth. The words were heavily accented, but they sounded damning enough to offset any further attempt at conversation. Mat watched the man's back as the fellow herded his sheep, head shaking slightly with bewilderment.
'And a good day to you, too.'
As usual, he regretted the words as they emerged from between his gritted teeth, even more so when the man spun around with an agility he did not look to possess, and bared his remaining teeth in a vindictive sneer.
'Told us to get going, they did. Didn't want us to muss up their lovely cloaks now, did they?' His grinning snarl widened into a grotesque leer. 'They'll get theirs. You'll see. Just like last time.' And the old man lapsed into gibberish again, his shoulders hunched against the bright sky as he tended to his meandering herd.
Mat watched as the man rounded the sheep into a knot, twitching a reed to the rump of any creature that strayed from the flock. He was feeling strangely perturbed by the encounter, and was rapidly becoming tired of the sense of near constant unease. If the rest of the occupants of the blasted town were as odd as Nath and this cheery shepherd, then it would be little wonder that Mai had turned out so odd.
Pips was worrying an impatient hoof over the ground, obviously eager to resume his prancing now that the diversion had passed. Mat nudged the horse into a walk, no longer trying to reign in the beast's sporadic bursts of speed. The sooner he had his answers and was in the opposite direction to Laybridge, the better.
****oOo****
Cal swallowed as the blade tip lowered to dimple the skin, winced at the stealthy snick of steel parting tender flesh.
A tentative laugh made him start. 'Are you all right? I have some salts somewhere….'
'Don't be snide.' He folded his arms at her teasing. 'Is this really going to help?'
The man bleeding before them was grey, clammy and seemingly oblivious to the strangely draconian procedure the girl was performing upon him. Mai reached to touch the young mans forehead, her slender fingers tenderly brushing damp tendrils from his brow. Cal 's stomach yielded to a sudden lurch, and he baulked at the stupidity of the reaction. Resentful of a dangerously sick man? The very notion was absurd. Nonetheless, the stab of envy still prickled.
'He sweats almost constantly, but his fever is still strong. He is very weak.' The girl crouched beside the man, her face pensive. 'I can get water into him, but if he does not rouse for food soon, he won't have the strength to fight for much longer.' She grasped a strip of white cloth, and began to wind it about the crook of the man's arm, binding the sliced flesh tightly, before removing the bowl that had collected the blood. 'I can only hope that this will work. If not….'
'Mai, please tell me that you have done this before.'
'I am quite familiar with the technique. Not in the practical sense maybe, but….' Cal gave her an incredulous look and the girl lowered her gaze to stare pensively at the blood slicking the bowl. 'I saw Nath try this once in a similar situation. It's the only thing left to try.' She bit her lip as her gaze slid to the floor once again. 'Cal, I wouldn't want to harm anyone. I really am here to help.'
'I know that, Mai. I believe you.'
'But the others say…'
'To the Blight with what others say.'
Her eyes widened at his vehement retort.
Cal cleared his throat. 'I should warn you that I have an annoying tendency not to believe everything I hear.'
Much to his relief, the girl's shock melded into a grateful smile. 'That's good to know.' Her head lowered until tendrils of her hair hid her face from him. His eyes instinctively sought hers in the crimson-filled bowl.
'Cal, are you all right?' A frown touched her mirrored brow. 'I didn't see you yesterday, and you look a little pale.'
'I felt a touch sick, that's all. Probably ate too much -- '
He almost backed away as a pale hand suddenly reached for his forehead. Blue eyes searched his. 'Do you feel sick now? Have you had any headaches? Or trembling? Any fits of coughing?'
His cold hand clasped hers. 'No sickness, no headaches. Definitely no coughing.'
Cal was certain that she would sense the lie. He had a roaring headache, and a stomach tender with vitriolic biliousness that could only be the consequence of all that brandy he had thrown down his neck the previous evening. The trembling, however, was the result of another cause entirely. He released her a little abruptly, and her pale hand hovered between them for a startled moment.
'Cal, you have probably heard about yesterday. About what happened, I mean.
'I told you, I make it a habit to not listen to idle gossip.'
The girl gave him a look filled with such gratitude that he was torn between wanting to clasp her in his arms or shake from her an explanation of why she had been tearing the place with screams yesterday. Or why her tent was deserted when he had gone to check on her last night. Or, and, oh, how this one gnawed at his mind, why he had found Mat also missing after thinking to ask if the younger man had seen the girl. His clenched teeth caused his thudding head to heat with pain, and he consciously relaxed his muscles. The girl was smiling at him. It was hard to believe that those lips had only yesterday been pealing the screams that had chilled his heart.
Light, but how he wished he had run to her, how he yearned to have been the one to reach her first. Perhaps then she would favour him with something more than those insufferably polite smiles. Better still, he wished that she had not come here at all. Then he wouldn't feel like his innards were constantly churning, then his mind wouldn't be torn somewhere between utter peace and a deep, sick loathing. But beneath the quiet and the agony, there was always the yearning, that ridiculous hunger to touch her porcelain skin, to smooth a finger down the soft curve of her neck. Her eyes were still on him, her long lashes spooling lithe shadows on her white cheek. How he longed to feel her, to trace a fingertip over that faint, unbearable smile.
His hand trembled then moved, drifted towards her face….
'No!'
The bowl tumbled from Mai's grip, spilling a glut of thickened blood to the floor. The girl gaped at him, as though mesmerised by the odorous, metallic tang spiking the balmy air, before turning to the source of that hoarse cry.
Her tentative step took her close to the man now staring up at them with wild eyes, his painfully thin breast heaving with effort. A hand reared to grasp her cable of hair, yanking her face to meet a wildly livid glare. 'No. Do not….'
Cal lunged towards the bed, alarmed by the horrid pallor of the pair locked almost face to face. He grasped the man's wrist, repulsed and horrified by how frail it felt in his own firm grasp, and pried the boy's fingers from Mai's rope of hair. He caught her as she staggered and both watched the boy fall back on the bed, his hair splayed wetly on the cushion.
The boy's eyes fluttered open to fix on the girl, and his lips parted as though to utter one last cry before his body seemed to unfurl with a light sigh, his muscles relaxing with an almost fluid grace.
Cal felt the girl's light body wrench from his own as she darted back to the bed. Her hand drifted from the boy's throat to his brow. Cal watched in silence, his head throbbing with the thunder in his chest. 'Has…? Is he…gone?'
She lifted her face. 'No. It's gone.'
'What?'
'The fever has broken'. Her smile was like a new dawn.
Cal slumped onto a nearby pallet, his stomach alive with an unpleasant series of small lurches. 'Well I for one wish he'd chosen a less dramatic way to let us know.'
Her breathy laugh echoed his sentiment. 'It certainly seems as though this place is determined to succeed in frightening the wits from me.'
'What do you mean?'
Cal saw her wince as she raised a small hand to knead the nape of her neck.
'Oh, nothing. Just that adjusting to life here has been more than a little eventful at times.'
And all events that he had managed to have no part in.
The girl gave a strained little laugh, as though to break the sudden silence. 'Well, I'm glad you were here to rescue me.'
He felt his lips curl into a vicious smile. 'Next time you're in such mortal danger, just scream. I'm sure you'll find a more worthy rescuer in no time at all.' That sweet loathing welled once again at her sudden flinch, and he felt the reassuring bite of his nails digging into his palm. 'I'm just teasing, Mai. After all, I only managed to save you from the grasp of a half-dead man. Hardly heroic of me.' He went to her then, clasped her hand suddenly in his and pressed a small kiss onto her soft skin. 'Now, why don't I get us something to clean that up?'
Fists clenched, he strode from the tent, leaving the girl to stare at the red pool now slowly seeping into the ground.