Sky in the Deep(13)
She dipped a cloth into the fragrant bowl of water and pressed it firmly to the broken skin on my arm. I looked at the ceiling, biting down on my lip, and my hair fell down my bare back as she cleaned the wound. “This one looks okay. It’s deep but it’ll heal.” She looked up at me. “Sword?”
I nodded, realizing that she must have been the one that came in last night. She’d stitched it cleaner than Kalda ever had. “Are you a healer?”
Her eyes shot up, as if she was surprised I’d spoken. “I’m learning.”
She wrung the bloody cloth into the water as the door opened behind us, making me jolt. I turned to see Fiske standing at the opening. I sat up straight, keeping my back to him and pulling the length of my hair down over my shoulder to cover myself.
He stared at the hole in my shoulder. The hole he put there. In fact, they were all his marks. “Iri told you to wait for me, Runa.” He shifted his eyes back to the girl.
“You took too long. I have others to tend to tonight.”
He leaned into the wall, facing the side of the room as she went back to work.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” She handed me another cloth and lifted the pot of hot water to the table.
I worked at washing the front of my body and she scrubbed down my back and neck. Once my skin was free of most of the dirt and blood, she braided my hair, still dusty and tangled, pulling the strands back away from my face. When she was finished, she picked up a clean tunic from the basket and helped me dress.
She unrolled a long cloth bandage and set my arm against me at an angle across my chest. “Hold here.”
I obeyed, watching her wrap it around my body to hold the arm in place.
She stood back, looking at me. “I didn’t come in here to help you wash the blood of my clansmen from your pretty blond hair because I’m kind. I did it because Iri asked me to. He’s earned his place here and you’re not going to threaten it.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “And what exactly did he have to do to earn his place?”
She picked up the basket, setting it back onto her hip. She didn’t look back as she opened the door and Fiske followed her out. The latch slammed behind them and I looked down at my useless arm. If we’d gotten here a few days earlier, I may have been able to make it off the mountain before the first heavy snow. But I knew better. I could smell the cool burn of winter creeping into the village, closer every hour.
I would be a fool to try now. But if I could last the winter without getting a knfe in my heart, maybe I had a chance.
NINE
The door flew open, slamming on its hinges. I sat up on the table, searching the dark. Hands grabbed me before I could make out the forms in the shadows. I fought, trying to shift myself free, but a thick arm wrapped around my body, throwing my ribs into agony and sending the world turning sideways.
The hands pulled me by my tunic out the door, into the snow and I trudged down the path barefoot, kicking it up as I stumbled. I tried to get my bearings, but there was nothing but white below me and the dark mist surrounding the village.
“Where are you taking me?”
The man glanced over his shoulder before he reached back and slapped me. My head flew to the side, my mouth filling with blood. “Speak again and I’ll put another arrow through you, Aska.” I bit back the acid on my tongue.
We walked through the dark to the end of the village, where the sound of a hammer on an anvil pinged, echoing up the silent mountainside. The orange glow of a forge lit beneath a thatched canopy ahead.
The man shoved me forward and another one caught me, pulling me into the tent. He wrenched my head up by my hair and a Riki with a leather apron looked me over, holding iron tongs in his hand. He turned, fishing something from the forge, and my eyes went wide as he lifted an iron dyr collar up before him. I pushed back, trying to back out of the tent but the two men had hold of me. The blacksmith hammered the glowing hot collar on the anvil, bending and stretching it to size as I fought, shoving into the bodies behind me.
“If you’re still, I’ll be sure not to burn you,” he instructed, his eyes on my neck.
I looked around the tent, searching for something to fight with. There were tools everywhere, but nothing within reach. The hand in my hair pushed me forward, forcing my face to the frozen anvil, and the other man leaned all his weight into my body to keep me still.
I screamed, thrashing, but they were too strong. The luminous metal ring moved closer as I kicked, but my bare feet only slid on the icy ground. Another Riki took hold of my shoulders and I was pinned, completely powerless. I grunted and spit as the blacksmith slowly spread the still-hot collar with the tongs and carefully positioned it around my neck. I kicked again, this time finding a leg, and I slipped. My skin sizzled as the metal touched me and I sucked in a choked breath, freezing.
“Hmph.” The blacksmith hovered over me, his brow scrunching. “I told you to be still.”
My face slid on the anvil, slick with snot and silent tears, as they held me in place, letting the collar cool. It was too late. The weight of the warm metal sat heavy around my neck.
Down the path, a torch lit in the dark and they pulled me back out into the snow. When we stopped, one of the men hooked the collar in his fingers and slid a length of rope through the circular opening, securing the other end to the trunk of a tree.
He left me shaking there as he went to the group of men standing near the torch stuck in the ground. They were talking and laughing, wrapped up in bearskins against the morning cold.