With a blood-flecked cry of effort, Tarrin threw the skeletal arm in his paw, hunching around the deep, dreadful wound after he let go of it. The arm turned over and over in the air, flying across the space between them, and then hit the sword squarely just as the Doomwalker reached down for it. It and the sword both slid across the stone, and then both dropped over the side and into the water below. Heaving for breath, on his knees because of the blinding pain that throwing the arm had caused him, Tarrin gave the Doomwalker a vicious look, then struggled back to his feet. Blood saturated his trousers and shirt, poured streaming from the corner of his mouth every time he exhaled, and the pain burned in him like a bonfire, but he was not going to give up. He would fight to his last breath, and then spit in Jegojah's eyes just before he died.
Jegojah didn't look much better. Its breastplate was punctured and bent from its attempts to pull free of the stake which had been Tarrin's staff, and its face was mangled severely by the Were-cat's claws. The entire right side of its face below the eye socket was just gone, showing the nasal passages inside the skull and the grisly gray ichor that had once been the body's brain, ichor that oozed over the torn and ripped bone. The jawbone was torn off, laying on the wharf under it, and its left arm was ripped away, mangling the armor around the shoulder. It moved with a curious gait, as if drunk, shuffling towards him and then coming to a stop.
Left in a dreamy haze by the pain raging through the wound, along his body, Tarrin wondered what it was doing. Then he remembered its magic. It raised its remaining arm to point at him as Tarrin desperately fought to find the strength in himself to touch the Weave, to fend off the inevitable attack-
– -and then the Doomwalker crumpled to a heap when it was struck from behind. Tarrin looked at it laying still on the wharf, its skull shattered. The body began to steam, then smoke, then it simply disintegrated into dust. Tarrin looked up, and if it not for the fact that his lungs were full of his own blood, he would have gasped.
Holding his staff in her paws, Triana gave Tarrin a grim look. He staggered back and away from her. Not this, not now! He was helpless against her, completely unable to defend himself, and her vehement proclomation the last time he saw her left little doubt in his mind as to what she was going to do now. He tried to stand up straight, but it sent a blast of pain through him that nearly sent him to his knees. Arm pressed tightly against the dreadful wound in his side, he spat out a mouthful of blood, laid his ears back, and extended the claws on his left paw. Be it Jegojah or Triana, he still wouldn't go down without a fight.
She just stood there, staff leaning lightly on her shoulder, regarding him in total silence. "This would be too easy," she said conversationally as Tarrin's knees began to wobble. "Then again, after what I just saw, maybe it'd be best to deal with you now."
He could feel the blood pooling around his foot. It was a strange warmth, when the rest of him was growing colder and colder. His mind began to drift, as images of Jesmind looking at him the very same way began to merge with Triana, that same look of reluctant duty. She didn't want to kill him. She just felt it was her duty. But it wasn't Jesmind. It was Triana. And at that moment, his life was in her hands. There was no way he could stand against her. Every beat of his heart poured more of his own blood on the wharf, and he knew he wouldn't even be conscious much longer. Jegojah had dealt him a mortal wound, and if he didn't get help, he was going to die.
Tarrin began to wilt like a dying flower. His arms drooped, and his knees bent more and more, until he was hunched over on his knees, getting nothing but blood in his lungs as he tried desperately to breathe. Triana fearlessly squatted before him, looking at him with those penetrating eyes, her face an emotionless mask. He imagined that same expression on her face when she killed her parents, when she helped wipe out the elders of their kind. An expression that gave no hint as to what she was thinking. Was it how she dealt with the pain, the knowledge that she had been forced to kill her own people? It seemed a bit cold-blooded to him that she could stand there and watch him die, but it was just the same as if she had struck the killing blow herself. It was something that a part of him could understand.
Her face began to look hazy to him, and his mind drifted. He spit out enough blood to take in a partial breath, then he looked directly into her eyes. "I guess you were right," he said with a weak chuckle, then he bent over, racked with spamsic coughs. Each cough sent a shockwave through him, until it had subsided and left him enough lung to breathe. "I guess one of us won't live through this."
"You brought this on yourself."
"I know," he said in a whisper. "But sometimes… we all… have to make… hard choices." He began panting shallowly, feeling the blood rise and fall in his throat. "I'm sure… you know… all about that."
He coughed again, and the pain was simply too much. Eyes rolling back in his head, he sagged to the wharf.
Triana looked at him in shock, paw half-reaching for him. But then her fingers closed into a fist, and her eyes hardened. "Hard choices," she said in a whisper to herself, putting her fist to her forehead and closing her eyes, an expression of tremendous pain and loss clear on her lovely features.
Then they opened. "Cub, you drive me crazy," she said in a clear voice, reaching down and touching him gently on the back of the neck with two fingers. There was a visible light in that touch, as Triana used her Druidic power to enact Druidic healing on Tarrin's damaged body. Under her ministration, Tarrin's body was urged to heal itself, and supplied the energy it would need to do it faster than was normal. But the amount of energy she supplied was very small, allowing his body only to heal to the point where it was stable.
To where he would live.
"Your Sorceress can finish the job," she said to Azakar, who had tried to approach quickly yet quietly. He was wearing his breastplate and helmet, and was carrying a sword. "I just want you to know, I didn't do this. It was a Doomwalker."
"I saw it," Azakar said, coming to a halt well out of her reach and lowering his sword. "Why?"
She gave him a penetrating look. "Because we all have to make hard choices," she said in a level tone, then she stalked up to him and wordless handed him Tarrin's staff. There was no emotion in her expression, a face of stone, like a sculpture of beauty with no warmth. She stared directly up into his eyes for a long moment, then she walked past him, back towards the city. Azakar wasted no time in gathering up Tarrin's limp form, and rushing back to the Dancer, back to Dolanna.
GoTo: Title EoF
Chapter 8
"This is getting tiresome, Tarrin," Dolanna admonished him sternly as she put her hand to his forehead.
He'd woken up in his bed. Again. But then again, he didn't think he'd be waking up at all. For some reason, Triana had spared him.
Maybe the Goddess' words about what him saying to her had made a difference. She had spared his life.
He felt remarkably well for someone who had had a span of steel shoved into his gut. There was no pain, just the weak feeling that always accompanied a Sorcerer's healing. He'd woken up to find Dolanna hovering over his bed, and feeling the ship rocking in a way that told him that they were back out at sea. He'd slept through the night and half the morning, recovering his strength. He was a little worried that Keritanima and Allia weren't there, but Renoit had them up on deck practicing, and Dolanna had ensured them that Tarrin's injuries weren't life-threatening.