Chapter

He opened his mouth to yell. Linsha waved the tip of her blade an inch from his eye and shook her head. The sound died in his throat Mica swiftly dragged the man out of the doorway, and while he bound and gagged the first looter, Linsha weaseled into the shop to find the second. She followed the sound of breaking wood into the back rooms and to a small storeroom. The second man was there, bent over an oak chest that so far resisted his efforts to open it with a pry bar.

She studied him carefully from the hall before she attempted to approach him. This man was different from his companion, for he had smooth muscles, a slim build, and the lithe grace of a predator. Linsha had seen men like this before, and they were always as fast to strike as a snake. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity to attack first.

“Drego!” he suddenly shouted. “What’s taking you so long? Get your carcass back in here and load up these wine bottles.”

Linsha saw a stool lying on the floor, probably kicked aside by the looters. She noiselessly picked it up and pressed back by the door to wait. The sound of splintering wood came from the storeroom, followed by a chuckle of glee.

“Hey, Drego, I got it.” The voice approached the door.

Linsha mentally counted the paces to the door-one, two, three-and out of the room he stepped, just as she swung the stool around, aiming for his head.

But the intruder was as fast as she feared and suspicious of his friend’s silence. He had already drawn his knife and came out the door looking for trouble. He saw Linsha before he saw the stool, and he instinctively twisted aside and flipped the knife in her direction just as the stool caught him on the shoulder. The stool and the looter fell to the floor in a heap.

A tearing pain caught Linsha in the muscle between her neck and shoulder just above the collarbone. She started to reach for the embedded knife, but the intruder, although dazed by the blow, squirmed to his knees and threw himself at her. Linsha barely managed to fend him off with a kick to his face. The effort cost her balance, though, and she crashed into the wall and slid to the floor. She cried out as the impact jarred her wound.

Her opponent was tough and furious in spite of his pain. Blood streamed from his broken nose, and he favored his left arm where the stool struck him, yet he pushed his body up and dived after the knife stuck in Linsha’s shoulder. His weight fell on top of her, pinning her to the floor. His fingers snatched for the knife, causing it to tear deeper into the muscle.

Linsha gritted her teeth. With one hand, she struggled to fight him off, and with the other, she groped for her own blade in its sheath at her waist. They writhed, tangling their legs and banging into the wall.

Someone stamped loudly into the hallway. “Lynn!” Mica snapped. “What are you doing? Quit fooling around and subdue the scum.”

The looter lifted his head in surprise and saw the stocky dwarf standing a few feet away with a large cudgel in his hands. He hesitated, and Linsha could imagine the thoughts running through his head: take his chances with two opponents here or be hanged by the City Guard for looting. She recognized the flickering change in his eyes and sensed the abrupt tensing of his body just before he struck. This time she was ready for him.

She threw up her arm and blocked his second grab for the knife. Giving a tremendous heave with her lower body, she threw the man off-balance enough to give her a chance to wrench her own blade out.

He grabbed her hair and slammed her head into the wall. His fingers closed about the leather handle of his knife and wrenched it out.

Burning pain seared across her neck and chest. Furiously Linsha brought her dagger close by her side and drove it upward. She felt the blade puncture flesh, glance off bone. Hot blood spilled over her. The man’s weight sank slowly down on top of her until she couldn’t breathe.

Suddenly she was free of the looter’s weight. Mica heaved the body off her.

“Are you hurt? Dragon’s bones, answer me.”

Linsha tilted her eyes down to looked at the tears and the blood soaking into the scarlet and gold tunic. “Damnation. Look at this. Another uniform ruined. They’re going to start making me pay for these.” Frowning, she pushed herself up the wall to a sitting position. “Oh, and thanks for your help,” she added sarcastically.

The dwarf leaned his cudgel against the wall. “You’re the sell-sword bodyguard. You’re the one paid to do the fighting.”

“Why are you so bloody patronizing?”

“Why are you so self-serving?” he retorted.

“Arrogant!”

“Insolent!”

“Sulky, grouchy, and a pain in the butt.”

“Shallow, meddlesome, and a pain in the butt.”

The absurdity of their argument suddenly struck Linsha, and she began to laugh. “See? We do have something in common,” she said before her laughter turned to a grimace of pain and fresh blood darkened her scarlet tunic.

Mica shook his head. “Here. Let’s get you cleaned up. I’ll take care of that wound,” he said gruffly.

He gently pulled away her tunic and the cotton shirt beneath to reveal the wound on her neck and shoulder. The wound was messy and deep but mostly superficial, and he quickly cleaned it and pressed a soft cloth against the torn skin and muscle. He paid no attention to the gold chain about her neck.

“You saw me heal Commander Durne’s head wound. I’ll heal your injury the same way.”

“I maybe a sell-sword but I’m not stupid. I know the mystic power of the heart,” she murmured irritably.

“Good.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against her skin. Humming to himself, he concentrated to draw his power from his inner being through his arm, his hand, his fingers and down into Linsha’s knife wound.

A tingling heat spread over Linsha’s shoulder. It warmed her blood and went tingling up her neck, along her arm, and over her breast. The pain retreated until it was little more than a gentle ache. She relaxed, musing over the unique feeling of someone else’s power healing her body.

Mica blew out a long sigh and sat back on his heels. “There. The skin is closed. The muscle will be sore for a few days and you’ll have a scar, but it’s healing.”

“Thanks, Mica,” she said. She sat for a few more minutes and drank a cup of water he brought her, then she climbed carefully to her feet. The loss of blood made her weak and a little dizzy, but she pushed the fatigue aside and went to work. While she searched the house, Mica dragged the looter’s body outside, where the guard patrol could pick it up. They met back in the front room where the old priest sold his work.

Silently they looked around at the devastation. The room had been trashed by the looters as they searched for things of value. Scrolls, parchment, vellum, and delicate sheets of handmade paper lay strewn everywhere, torn and shredded or lying in pools of spilled ink. Quill pens had been torn and bent and scattered over the counter. Old maps were ripped from the walls and torn to pieces. A broken shelf spilled its books on the floor, and a smashed lamp lay in a puddle of oil that seeped into the wooden floor.

“Well,” said Linsha, gazing at the mess, “I hope his records weren’t in here.”

“I doubt it. They’re probably with his personal things. So where is he?”

The lady Knight grimaced. “In his bed. He’s been dead for a day or two. The entire place is a wreck. The looters have been here for a while.”

Mica snatched a broken quill off the counter and tossed it to the floor. “Blast it! I really needed to talk to that priest.”

“I’m sure he would have preferred that, too,” Linsha said dryly.

Ignoring her remark, Mica left the shop to search the rest of the priest’s residence. Linsha went outside to bring their two horses into the shaded alley. She took off her blood-soaked tunic and tossed it over her saddle horn. Her shirt was bloody as well, but not as bad, so she dabbed it off as best she could with some muddy water from a public pump and left it to dry. Unwilling to listen to Mica’s irritations, she started to straighten up the shop. Ostensibly she did it to look for the records. Internally she wanted to do something for the dead scribe within. She didn’t know him, had never been in his shop, yet he had died alone and lay unburied and vulnerable to scavengers. The least she could do to honor the dead was fix some of the dishonor done to him.