His voice was barely a whisper. “My—my father …” Dayin stuttered, “he brought in that creature and let it … let it feed off me, didn’t he?” Dayin’s eyes blinked blearily, and he rubbed his arms. “And he—he made crystals with my blood. Crystals for him to see through. And—and he kept healing me, so that he could make more crystals. He—he healed me with herbs … the same herbs he gave to Flinn to heal Jo. I never knew how I knew… .” The boy began to shake.
Karleah took Dayin in her arms. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could feel but horror and compassion.
Chapter IX
“I tell you, I’m innocent!” Brisbois yelled.
He wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand and glared at Johauna Menhir, standing before him. The man swayed and almost slipped on the wet ground, and Jo tensed. Fall! she thought viciously. Fall so I can kick you! Brisbois held his left arm awkwardly to his side and said hoarsely, “I had nothing to do with—”
“Liar!” Jo shouted and slapped his battered face again. This time he did fall to the slick ground. She lifted her foot to crush his hand.
“Ease off, Johauna,” the dwarf said, pulling her aside. “The mans hurt.”
Jo rounded on Braddoc. She grabbed the dwarfs shoulder and shook him as hard as her bruised ribs would allow. “How can you say that, Braddoc? This man agreed to be Flinn’s bondsman, then attacked us! He—”
Braddoc gripped Jo’s arm. His fingers tightened so hard that Jo cried out in pain. “He didn’t attack us—Auroch did!” Braddoc said intently.
Jo wrenched her arm free, her eyes blazing at the dwarf.
An ugly sneer distorted her lips. “He stood by while we all battled Auroch’s tornado of fire! What more do you want?” her voice rose shrilly. Jo started to tremble, but clenched her teeth and forced the impulse down.
Braddoc put his hands on her arms and forced her to look at him. He murmured, “Johauna … killing Brisbois isn’t going to bring back Flinn.”
Jo choked back a sob. Her eyes blinked rapidly. I will not cry! I … will … not! she thought harshly. Image after image of Flinn flooded her mind. She saw again the icy street of By water on the day she’d heard the children taunting Flinn, “Flinn the Fallen! Flinn the Fool!” She saw the lines of pain in his darkened face as he haltingly told her of his fall from grace. She saw the glory that shone brightly in his eyes when he was reunited with Wyrmblight. She saw his crimson, crumpled form, couched in a well of bloody snow.
Stepping backward, Jo held up her hand and shook her head. She looked from Braddoc to Brisbois, lying on the ground, and she fought down the urge to kick the man. Her heart filled with hate. “I say we kill him,” she hissed. “I’ll tell Sir Graybow we couldn’t find him—”
“I tell you. I’m innocent!” Brisbois interrupted hoarsely, a touch of fear behind the bravado. One side of his face was swollen almost beyond recognition. He shifted, struggling to rise from the mire, then winced as his left arm dangled awkwardly. “I didn’t attack Auroch in the castle because I knew it wouldn’t do any good! I—”
“Quiet, cur!” Jo fell to her knees beside Brisbois and held up her hand menacingly. She ignored the stabbing ache in her side. Her ribs would heal; her heart would not.
“Let him speak, Johauna!” Braddoc barked suddenly. Jo turned to him and opened her mouth to put the dwarf in his place, but Braddoc said tightly, “Think a moment what you’re doing here, Johauna. Think! Sir Graybow trusted you to carry out a mission of retrieval, not vengeance. If you kill him now—whether he deserves it or not—you’ll be betraying your oath to the baroness … and to Graybow!”
Johauna stood slowly and ruthlessly quelled the remorse his words inspired. She poked Braddoc’s chest and said angrily, “Yow think for a moment who falsely accused Flinn, who goaded those knights to drag him down and beat him. Think?”
Braddoc seized Jo’s hand and gripped it against his chest. In the faint lamplight that illuminated the back of the rendering hall, he stared at Jo. His white eye gleamed, and for one awful moment Jo wondered what he could see with it. “Listen to me!” the dwarf said urgently. “Verdilith was behind all that—”
Jo rebuked, “Brisbois denies being charmed by the dragon! He says—”
“If Verdilith could charm Flinn’s own wife into defaming Flinn, he could certainly charm Brisbois into doing the same,” Braddoc said as he released Jo’s hand. The squire took a step back.
“Yeah?” she said, angrily rubbing her hand. “So what’s your point?” Little flecks of spittle accompanied her last word.
Braddoc rubbed his beard. “My point—” he began.
Jo shook her head and made a chopping motion with her hand. “He betrayed Flinn!” she interrupted the dwarf. “He gave his word as bondsman to Flinn that he would act in his behalf for one year!” Jo stalked over to Brisbois, still lying on the ground. In one swift gesture, she grabbed his clothing and yanked him to his feet. Her hands clutched his collar, and her gray eyes flashed at him. “And the first chance you had, you escaped with your friend Teryl Auroch! No serving as bondsman for you!” She released him roughly, backed a step away, and spat at the knight’s feet, hoping to trigger a fight.
Through puffy eyes Brisbois glared back at the young woman, ignoring the spittle. “That’s where you’re wrong.” He ground the words out reluctantly, cradling his injured arm to his side.
Jo stared at the man, her eyes incapable of blinking. “If you hadn’t left him,” she breathed, “it might have been you who’d died instead of Flinn!” She sneered. “Because you’re in cahoots with—”
“I’m not in league with Auroch! I never have been. I hate the man,” Brisbois snarled, “and I can prove it!” His eyes remained on Jo’s face as he carefully pulled out a piece of coarse paper. He handed it to her.
Johauna stared at the paper, at the bloody fingerprints Brisbois left on it. She opened it up and read aloud to Braddoc, “‘Come to the alley behind the rendering hall, just after ten bells. There, I will meet you.’ And then there’s the sigil of a bull’s horn.” Jo’s eyes glittered at Brisbois. She lifted one eyebrow and said smoothly, “The sign of Auroch, no doubt.”
“Yes,” Brisbois spat out. “He spirited me away against my will when … when he left your chambers at the castle…. I escaped him, but he’s been hounding me ever since. I thought … I thought I could perhaps bargain with him in the alley … make him leave me alone. But he … he sent those thugs to kill me.” The man’s voice came in ragged gasps.
Jo held up the note. “Oh? So you think the fact that you’d bargain with Auroch should make us trust you?” she asked angrily. She threw the note down into the muddy water at her feet and stepped on it, twisting the paper into the ground with her heel.
Braddoc took a step toward Brisbois, who was on the verge of collapse. The disgraced knight weakly waved Braddoc away. “Let me finish,” Brisbois said, his words not much more than a whisper. “Jo. You’re smarter than this. You just want a scapegoat for your anger.”
Jo winced at the man’s familiarity and clenched her hand. “Watch your tongue, Brisbois,” she snapped.
“Aurochs been hunting me,” Brisbois continued with some exertion. “I know too much about him—I compromise his safety. He’d’ve found me sooner, too, if I’d not bought this amulet from a backstreet mage I know …” He pointed to a simple pendant hanging from his grimy neck. “And I’ve kept moving, too, to … to throw him off track. Still, his goons found me fast enough. They … they sent me that note, and I … I thought I could maybe cut a deal…. I couldn’t run forever.” The man paused and then said, “Cut a deal, or kill him.”