Simone nodded dumbly and shook a rag free from the bundle, willing herself to move quickly even though her limbs felt mired in cold mud. She plunged the wadded-up linen into the pail and cried out when the water scalded her hand.
“Take care—’tis hot.” Haith glanced up, the tip of her dagger still tangled in the knots of the expertly tied bandage. “Simone?”
“Yea?” Simone wrung the rag over the pail, wincing as the white-hot water sluiced over her throbbing skin. She applied it to the crown of Handaar’s head between Genevieve’s hands, and instantly, red rivulets ran wild down the man’s face. A sob caught in her throat.
Haith’s hand grasped Simone’s wrist, stilling her actions and forcing her to meet the redhead’s gaze. “Simone, can you do this?”
Simone shook free of the lady’s grip and dunked only the rag this time into the pail. She wrung it out and began to wipe at Handaar’s wrinkled brow.
If Haith detected the fear in Simone’s actions, she chose to ignore it. Then the remaining supplies were delivered to Haith’s side, prompting her to begin calling out orders once more.
“Thank you, Rose. Now, fetch a large jug of red wine and the nettle from my bag. Handaar has lost much blood and we need fortify him as quickly as we can.” With a delicate huff, her dagger broke through the bandage on the man’s shoulder. She lay the cutting tool aside and took ginger hold of the material’s edges, slowly peeling them back as she spoke.
“Two more pails of water, and fetch the stone back to the brazier. Find a—oh my God!”
Simone looked up in time to see a thick, red stream of blood spurt and then bubble from the torn chasm in Handaar’s shoulder.
“Nay, oh, nay,” Haith muttered, splaying her already bloodied hands over the font.
Simone’s scalp began to tingle, and a queer itch sprouted deep in her ears.
Ye must staunch the flow. Both hands, lass. Faery needs hers to work.
Without thinking, Simone scrambled around Genevieve and pushed Haith’s hands away. Stacking her palms, Simone pressed her hands into the gash, straightening her arms and bearing down with as much weight as she dared. Warm blood seeped between her fingers, pooled, ran across the backs of her hands and dripped onto the flagstones. A weighty calm enveloped Simone, drowning out the roar of flooding blood that had, a moment ago, threatened to deafen her. She spoke, but it felt as though the words came not from her own mouth.
“Bandage the wound once more, faery—quickly now,” Simone said in an odd brogue that tangled her tongue. “Tie the knots over my hands. The Lady and the Hunter, lass.” Simone had not the slightest idea what she said and, had she been in any other situation, would have likely fainted from the nightmarish events unfolding around her.
But she must have made sense to Haith, who nodded and began tearing long strips of linen, muttering to herself.
“The Lady and the Hunter, yea. The Lady…think, think!” Her breathing was ragged as she rendered fresh bandages. “When my lady walked through the forest—”
The pulse of blood beneath Simone’s palms was weakening, although the flood still boiled. A chill enveloped Simone as Haith quickly positioned the first bandage under Handaar’s shoulder.
“Dammit!” Haith muttered, her slick hands fumbling with the strip. “When my lady walked through the forest, ’twas in the heat of midsummer…”
Haith grabbed the next bandage, and Simone felt a queer humming, seeming to emanate from deep within Handaar’s wound to travel the length of Simone’s outstretched arms and into her aching shoulders. The tiny hairs on the nape of her neck tingled.
That’s it, lass. Hang on. I’m nearly there…
“Hurry,” Simone urged to absolutely no one.
“…’twas in the heat of midsummer and the blood…the blood…I can’t remember!” Haith cried, securing the linen at last.
The humming increased, and Handaar’s chest jerked skyward, causing Lady Genevieve to cry out. Simone caught a glimpse of dull, gray eyes as the old warrior’s eyelids jittered and then revealed naught but white. A great shuddering, like horses hooves on packed earth took hold of the man’s body, forcing Simone to bear down with all her strength. His teeth gnashed, and a dreadful gurgling came from his corded and rigid throat.
“Nay, Handaar!” Genevieve sobbed, holding the old lord’s head as still as she could.
Haith looked to Simone, and the fear in the redhead’s eyes rocked Simone to the center of her soul.
Here is the threshold of death, all ye who would dare see it.
The spicy smell of green things burning caught Simone off guard and, as if some unseen finger turned her chin, she looked over her left shoulder.
A small, impossibly old woman with frazzled gray hair bore down on the group, her rough black cloak billowing around her like hellish wings. Eyes the color of the deepest well bored into hers. Simone wondered madly to herself if this old one was Death, come to harvest the life ebbing away there on the cold stone floor. She grew calm as the oddly lifelike harbinger swooped to her side.
Then the phantasm spoke.
“Sweet Corra, move away, gel,” she said, and Simone noticed hysterically that Death spoke with a Scot’s accent and carried a large tapestry bag, embroidered with mysterious sticklike symbols. “Doona tarry, now.” She flapped a hand at Simone with a frown.
