"How should I kill you, Mettai? I'll give you the choice. Magic or steel?"
"Just make it quick," Besh said, staring at the ground, trying to keep from being ill.
The soldier placed the tip of his sword under Besh's chin and forced the man to look up at him. "I don't think so."
This was another way his life had changed in the last few turns, Besh thought. Not only was he threatening to kill people, but others always seemed to be looking for reasons to hurt him, to make him suffer. I'll make you a deal, he said within his mind, speaking now to the gods. Stop the torture and I'll stop the threats.
With a flick of his sword, the soldier cut his cheek, this newest pain making Besh gasp. So much for prayers, he thought.
"Who says I need to choose?" the man said. "Magic and steel will do nicely."
Besh expected at any moment to have another bone explode within him, and so at the next snapping sound he winced and shuddered. An instant later, though, he realized that this sound had been different. There'd been a metallic ring to it. Opening his eyes, he saw that the soldier still stood over him. The man's sword, however, lay in fragments at his feet, and all the soldier held in his hand was the hilt of his weapon.
"Get away from him!"
The soldier spun. Besh looked toward the entrance to the alley. There stood Grinsa, Q'Daer, Sirj, and Jasha. It was the Forelander who had spoken.
For several seconds it seemed that nothing happened and no one spoke. Then the Fal'Borna roared in frustration, and Besh understood that something had indeed been happening, but it had been beyond his comprehension.
"That's right," Grinsa said. "I'm a Weaver. You won't be using any more magic against that man. And if you don't get away from him now, I'll shatter every bone in your body."
"He's Mettai!" the man shouted, grief and rage mingled in his voice. He held up his hands, gesturing at the ruins around them. "His kind did all this to us! Don't you understand that?"
"The woman who did this may have been Mettai, but that doesn't make her his kind. Now one last time, get away from him. Or I swear I'll kill you."
The man stared down at Besh for a moment, as if contemplating whether it was worth dying if he could take Besh with him. In the end, he seemed to decide that it wasn't. He started forward toward Grinsa and the others.
Grinsa said something to Q'Daer before hurrying past the man to kneel at Besh's side. Sirj was just behind him.
"What did he do to you?" Grinsa asked. "The cuts. It looks like you've been burned, too. Your chest and arms? What else?" Before Besh could answer the man said, "Your leg. He broke your leg, didn't he?"
Besh nodded.
Without another word, Grinsa laid his hands gently on Besh's shattered leg and closed his eyes. For a moment there was a cooling sensation, as if cold water were moving over his skin. Then the pain came back, hot and intense, and Besh inhaled sharply through his teeth. And then it began to diminish, slowly at first, but more quickly with each passing moment, until at last all that remained was a dull ache.
A fine sheen of sweat had appeared on Grinsa's brow, but when he finished with Besh's leg he turned his attention to the burns on Besh's torso and arms. Eventually Besh's burns stopped hurting, and Grinsa moved his hands to the cut on the old man's arm. Finally, he healed the cut on Besh's face and sat back on his heels.
"There," he said, sounding weary.
Besh smiled. "Thank you."
Grinsa stood. "You're welcome. You probably want to rest," he said. "Really you should. But you can't. We're not going to kill this soldier, and so it won't be long before he returns with enough of his friends to make more trouble for us."
"I understand," Besh said. "And I've already sent one of his friends off. He has some hornets to get rid of, but once he does, I imagine he'll he looking for us, too."
"Hornets?" Grinsa said. "I'll look forward to hearing about that." He held out a hand to Besh.
The old man took hold of it and pulled himself up. The pain in his leg increased some once he was standing and he didn't think he'd be able to walk without support from Sirj. But he felt so much better than he had a few moments before that he didn't complain.
"Come on, Torgan," Grinsa said.
The merchant got up slowly. "What about me?" he demanded, gesturing at his burnt arm. "I need healing, too."
"And you'll be healed," Grinsa said. "Later. But for now you can walk, and we need to get going."
Before Torgan could argue the matter, a cry went out from far off. "What's that?" the merchant said, sounding frightened. "They're coming for us, aren't they?"
Grinsa frowned, looking back at Q'Daer. "I don't think-"
More cries went up. A strange sound overhead drew the gazes of all of them.
"What was that?" Jasha asked.
"Fire magic," Grinsa said.
"Why-?"
Grinsa spun toward Q'Daer. "It's another outbreak! We have to get out of here, now!"
"What do you mean 'another outbreak'?" the soldier asked.
"The pestilence has returned to your city," the Forelander said. "Go! Your people need you."
"You see?" the man said, pointing at Besh. "You see what he did? You claim he's different, but he brought the pestilence to our city again!"
"No, he didn't!" Grinsa said. "Most likely, someone came across the remains of one of the cursed baskets. That would have been enough to bring the illness back again. Besh had nothing to do with it. Now, go! Quickly!"
The soldier hesitated for just a moment, his eyes straying toward Besh. Then he turned and ran.
"This way!" Grinsa said, following the man toward the end of the alley.
The others fell in behind him, walking as quickly as they could, but clearly mindful of not leaving Besh and Sirj behind. Once clear of the alley, they paused long enough to help Besh onto one of the horses, so that he wouldn't have to walk. Then they retraced the route the n'qlae had taken through the city. Besh knew that there had to be a quicker way to the gate. That was the only way to explain the sudden appearance of the soldiers. But he didn't know the way, and he didn't want to become lost and lead them deeper into the city.
Before they reached the gate, they found their way blocked by the n'qlae and a small party of Fal'Borna soldiers. The woman looked pale and frightened, her eyes even wider than they had appeared when they first met her.
Now that they had been forced to stop walking, Besh could hear more cries echoing through the ruins. Behind them, great clouds of dark smoke billowed into the sky. Besh thought he could hear stone and wood breaking. He couldn't even begin to imagine what another full outbreak of Lici's plague would do to the city.
"Are you responsible for this?" the n'qlae demanded. She pointed at Besh and Sirj. "Did they do it?"
"No, N'Qlae," Grinsa said. "They've done nothing but protect themselves from the attacks of your men."
She looked at the Mettai again, seeming to notice for the first time the marks of Besh's face, the blood and burns on his shirt. "Then how did this happen?" she asked, looking once more at Grinsa and Q'Daer.
"We think some of your people must have come across the remains of the baskets while they were digging through the rubble."
The woman appeared stricken. "After all this time, they could still sicken us?"
"It would seem so," Grinsa told her. "We know nothing for certain. But that makes the most sense."
She shook her head. "P'Crath said that we should come back here after ten days. He wouldn't have told us to return if he'd thought we would get sick."
More screams reached them, more rending of wood and stone. The company's horses reared suddenly, including the one Besh was riding. He grabbed hold of the beast's mane, barely managing to keep himself from being thrown.