Read Online A Dance of Blades by David Dalglish - Free Book Online

before him. He pulled the boy’s hands away and looked at the stab. “You can thank Ashhur this wasn’t an inch deeper, or you’d be like the rest of them.”
    He used more cloth from his cloak to tie a bandage around his waist, then turned his attention to the arm. So far the boy hadn’t spoken a word, only watched with a glazed look in his eyes. Fearing he might pass out any moment, Haern slapped him a couple times across the face.
    “Stay with me,” he said. “I bled for you. Least you could do is survive.”
    The earlier bandage he’d applied had soaked through, so he removed it, cut another strip, and retied it. Part of him thought he should just cut the whole arm off, but he’d let someone wiser in healing arts decide that. So long as it didn’t turn green and rot off, the boy had a chance of regaining its use.
    “What’s your name?” he asked him as he tore the shirt off the dead soldier beside them. When the boy didn’t answer, Haern snapped his fingers in front of his eyes a few times. Still nothing. Sighing, he cut up the shirt and used it to form a sling.
    “Come on, what’s your name? We’re friends now, the best of pals. You’re not cold, are you?”
    After a few seconds, the boy shook his head. Good. At least he was somewhat alert. He tore free the cloak of another dead soldier, wrapped it around the boy, and then lifted him into his arms. His wounded arm shrieked in protest, so he shifted a bit of the weight onto his shoulder.
    “Name,” he said. “I’d really love a name.”
    But the boy slumped and passed out. Haern sighed again. He returned to the road and surveyed the carnage, laying the boy beside the fire while he searched. It didn’t make any sense. The men were well armed and equipped, and they bore the symbol of a lord. When he looked into the wagons, he saw the crates, and they bore the exact same symbol. The oxen’s harnesses had the same as well, a sickle raised before a mountain.
    If he’d had time, he might have scattered the gold about, or hidden it. But he didn’t. Furious at his confusion and helplessness, he used his sword to draw an eye into the dirt beside the fire, where no snow lay. Beneath it he scrawled his mark, ‘The Watcher’. At least he might accomplish something out of all this. Let the thieves know that even outside Veldaren they were not safe from him.
    “Well, boy,” he said, returning to the fire. “I’m sure it’s nice and warm, but we have to move. I can’t remember the last farm I passed, but it’s our only chance. Can you walk?”
    No response. Haern bandaged his own arm, tore open one of the crates, and grabbed a handful of coins. They bore a symbol he easily recognized, that of the Gemcroft family.
    “What do you have to do with the Serpents?” he wondered aloud. No matter. He pocketed them, hauled the boy into his arms, and started walking south.
    There was another reason he needed space. The two who’d fled would certainly return, and he had a feeling it’d be with far more than eight men. Step after step, he cursed the snow, the wind, the cold, and his clumsy mistake that had cost him a cut. All the while, the boy slept in his arms.
    B y nightfall, Haern felt ready to collapse. He walked off the road, kicked aside the snow before a tree, and set the boy down. He wrapped him tighter in his cloaks and did his best to keep hope. The boy’s lips were blue, his skin a deathly white. He’d lost so much blood, right when he needed its warmth the most.
    Still standing, Haern pulled an emblem hanging by a silver chain from beneath his shirt. It was of a golden mountain, and as he held it, he prayed over the boy.
    “Just keep him warm and alive, Ashhur. And don’t forget me, too. I could use the damn help.”
    He put away the emblem, sat down beside his nameless boy, and pulled him close so they could share their warmth.
    “It’ll get better,” he said, not sure if the boy could hear him or not. He was so thoroughly wrapped Haern