Khari woke first to the sensation of pain.
It was hardly unusual, in itself, but this pain was particularly bad, and she knew immediately that it was due to the fact that whatever was causing it was still a problem. Of course, narrowing that down any further was going to take a little more work: there was pain in her abdomen, pain in her ribcage, pain in her arm, and definitely pain in her left knee, too.
She tried to crack her eyes open, but only one respondedâsomething was keeping the other one shut. She was met at first with only white, and realized then that she had to be laying, front side down but her head turned to the side, in snow. Why sheâd decided to take a nap outside was slower in coming to her, but with a few moments of start-and-stop thought, she was able to piece together what the hell had happened, or enough of it to realize that she needed to get up, anyway.
But before she could do that, she needed to understand exactly what she was working with. With a groan, she got her not-in-pain arm underneath her and used it to roll herself over onto her back, dislodging quite a bit more snow in the process. Her eye met a natural cavernous ceiling, on the low side but definitely taller than she was standing up. More importantly, the effort of moving herself differentiated some of the pains: the one in her lower abdomen was on the left, and from the way it pulled, it was a stab or slash wound of some kind. Probably a stabâthe pain radiated from a small area. The pain in her upper torso, however, was definitely a broken rib, snapped cleanly off and now sort of floating free of the rest of the ribcage. Not too far off, though; thankfully it had not punctured her lung, or she might be dead already.
Her arm felt heavily bruised, but not brokenâshe could still move her fingers, which was a good sign. Raising her head to glance down at her legs, she found that one of them was in perfectly good working order. The other didnât respond to her attempts to move it, but she was pretty sure from the angle that it was dislocated rather than broken, and that was an easier fix. With a breath as deep as she dared risk, she gradually pushed herself up into a seated position, hissing past the needling of the stab wound when she leaned forward, drawing her injured leg up and taking hold of it.
âShit!â The oath almost concealed the uncomfortable sound of her knee popping back into place, and she muffled the sound of another groan by leaning into her own shoulder, breathing through gritted teeth for several moments until the worst had passed. Testing it proved fruitful, but it would be tender for quite some time. Reaching beside her, she did the best she could for her other injuries, pressing a hunk of snow into the stab wound and molding more around it, both to delay the bleeding and numb it. Another handful helped her clean the dried blood off her second eye, which had run down from a cut in her brow she didnât remember receiving.
Once she could see out of both, Khari scooted back so that the wall was behind her and used it to help herself get back to her feet, pulling herself upright and remaining there until she felt steady enough to try moving. She couldnât see Rom, but she had a suspicion he hadnât fallen far, and was probably half-buried under some of this snow. An avalanche would do that, and some of it had indeed cascaded into the well behind them.
Her painfully-slow trek to the heap of powder that had fallen in through the structure was made only slightly better by the fact that her boot struck something under the snow on her way. In hopes that it might be her friend, she crouched, digging furiously with her hands, but what she discovered was her sword. âCould be worse. Could be a Venatori.â She strapped it to her back and resumed her way forward.
Shoveling through the big pile was a rather gargantuan task, made only more laborious by her current state, but Khari was persistent, scooping snow behind her long past the point that her hands, gloved though they were, had gone completely numb. She wasnât liking her chances, but then that was nothing new, and she kept digging anyway, picking up speed when she could make out a soft green glow some distance below where sheâd reached. âCome on, come on.â She hurled aside larger heaps of the stuff, no longer bothering with breadth since she knew where she was headed, and focused on getting deeper into the drift.
With about twenty minutes of work, she finally reached him. Immediately, she yanked one of her gauntlets off with her teeth and pressed freezing fingers to Româs equally-chilled wrist. She wasnât sure if she was just too numb to tell or if there was actually no pulse there, but she didnât feel one, and so she panicked, adjusting her position and digging some more, until sheâd basically excavated him.
Heâd landed spread-eagled, and likely already unconscious, if he hadnât made any move whatsoever to protect himself from the incoming snow. She had no way of knowing how long ago that was, because there wasnât much, if any light filtering in from aboveâsheâd basically dug sideways and then down, the snow being packed enough to maintain structural integrity despite her efforts. If itâd been too long and heâd suffocated⊠but now wasnât the time to think about that.
Picking her way to his feet, she grasped his ankles and dragged as carefully as she could. She wasnât in any shape to be carrying him, and moving him at all was a risk, but if the hole sheâd dug caused the snow to collapse again, all her work would be undone, and that was probably worse for him than being moved a few yards. She hoped.
Easing herself onto the ground next to him, Khari leaned over, placing her ear just above his mouth, hoping to hear or feel some indication that he was breathing. She held her own still in her lungs, and for several long seconds, she feared the worst. But then something stirred the hair near her ear, and she sat bolt upright.
He was alive.
âOkay. Uhh⊠okay, good. Alive. What now?â If heâd hit his head, he shouldnât be sleeping, she knew that much. But was it better to wake him up if she didnât know whether he had a concussion or not? Whatever the case, they needed to get moving soon if they had much hope of surviving this in the long run, so she decided to risk it.
âRom. Hey, Rom. Wake up.â With her bare hand, she tapped the side of his face a few times, not hard, but insistently. She didnât want to shake him somewhere he might have a broken bone or something, so this seemed like the best idea.
Suddenly Rom coughed violently, hacking up a glob of blood that spattered over his own face. Several more wheezing coughs and groans followed, with his limbs beginning to move soon after. He was obviously just as disoriented as Khari had been after she had come to.
Rom's first reaction, however, was to aggressively lash out with an open hand, which immediately found Khari's throat and constricted, his face contorting with effort. He made an attempt to shove her to the side, before his eyes finally saw what was in front of him, and he seemed to register the rest of the pain in his body. An uncomfortably loud shout of pain followed, with his hand going straight to where the splinter of the palisade still impaled his side. A larger, more alarming piece was straight through his lower left leg. They couldn't have been down here all that long, or else he would have bled to death already.
For the moment, Rom could only grope blindly in the snow, trying to turn himself over for some reason, or perhaps get up to his feet, while a line of blood ran from his lips down his cheek.
âHey, hey, hey, whoa, stop.â Khari frowned when the words came out more raspy than sheâd meant them to, probably due to the fact that heâd been quite intent on crushing her windpipe there for a second. She should have expected something of the kind. Reaching behind her, she pulled her mask loose and hooked it quickly on her belt, setting her other arm firmly on Româs shoulder. âRom, itâs just me. Itâs Khari. Youâve got to stop struggling; youâre only gonna hurt yourself more.â
Worst case, all this motion would dislodge those splinters before they should come out, and heâd bleed all over the place. âYouâve injured your side, and your leg. Try not to move them yet. Does it hurt anywhere else?â She kept her voice level and as calm as possible, hoping to induce the same in him. She still wasnât sure if heâd hit his head, and so knowing whether this disorientation was to be brief or more enduring wasnât yet possible.
He ceased his motion, and judging by the way he was leaning on one arm underneath him, and trying to push off the ground with the other, those at least were in working order. Although, the mark on his left hand was crackling every few seconds, still glowing green, spitting out bits of lightning or energy or something. He shook it, as though trying to put out a fire, to no use.
"It hurts everywhere else..." he grumbled. "We need potions. I've got..." He reached behind him, into a pouch on his belt, before he hissed in pain and pulled his hand free, one of the fingers now cut and bleeding. He unbuckled the belt and tossed it away a few feet; shards of a broken vial or two fell into the snow, along with the remains of frozen health draughts, rendered useless by now. "Shit. Ugly bastard would've killed us quicker than this." He smiled at her, a bloody grin similar to what she'd given Corypheus. He appeared to be regaining most of his clarity, at least. "We never do anything the easy way, do we?â
âWouldnât be any fun if we did.â She sat back on her legs for a moment, scratching at the back of her head, then wincing when her nails scraped over a lesion she hadnât known was there. Grimacing, she rolled her eyes and shrugged Intercessor off her back, staking it into the snow for a moment while she unfastened her cloak.
âWeâre gonna want to get those bits of the wall out before they absorb too much blood and swell.â They could get stuck that way, and cause one hell of an infection. Wood was, after all, a porous material. Her cloak in her hands, Khari grasped it in a couple places near the bottom, holding tension in it, then looped her arms over the sword, pulling the fabric forward towards herself against the edge of the blade, which sliced through it fairly easily. Once sheâd discarded the hem, which was dirty, and reached the part that was in better shape, she repeated the process a few times, laying out the resulting strips of scarlet fabric near him. She took her best guess about how many sheâd need, and wound up using about a third of the cloak, but warmth wouldnât be an issue if they bled out first. It had holes in it now anyway.
âWhich one do you want me to do first?â She raised an eyebrow, glancing at him as she scrubbed the strips of fabric down with clean snow as well as she could. ââCause theyâre both gonna hurt like⊠well, a lot.â
Rom groaned, rolling carefully back over onto his back, and taking a few deep breaths, before he pointed to the piece lodged in his side. Judging by the way he prepared himself, this was not nearly his first time doing something of the sort.
Khari didnât bother giving him a count. It was the kind of thing that would hurt a whole lot worse if he was tensed for it, so she tried not to give him time to do that even involuntarily, reaching forward and ripping the splinter free with a sharp, strong tug. Thankfully, she used enough force that only one was necessary, and she discarded it to the side, immediately pressing her other free hand, which held a considerable amount of snow, up against the wound. It occurred to her that if she were Asala, this would be a hell of a lot easierâshe wasnât sure sheâd felt the lack of magic in her repertoire quite so keenly before now, when there was no such individual around.
When the snow was red, she tossed it away and proceeded to bandage him as well as she could, peeling back his leathers and linens to do it. First a strip folded several times into a square, to go right over the wound, and then a few more, wrapped around to hold it in place. She tried not to tie too tightly, but a bit of excess snugness was better than the opposite, so she erred on the side of caution. Rom, for his part, weathered the intense pain quite well, focusing intently on the cavernous ceiling above, pressing his lips tightly together and refusing to shout or scream when prompted by the agony.
âOkay, leg now.â She moved herself and her supplies down a little further, eyeing the large piece of wood in his muscle with some trepidation. She was going to have to break one side of that and then pull it back through, or sheâd leave a dozen splinters behind, she was sure of it. âPlease try not to kick me.â It was a joke, though that didnât mean there wasnât anything genuine to the sentiment.
Leaning forward slightly, Khari took a deep breath, holding his leg near the ankle with one hand before she changed her mind and used that one to hold the piece of wood steady, trying to cause minimal movement when her hand tightened on the bloody end and snapped it off, whereupon she yanked what was left back through his calf, hissing sympathetically. Rom writhed in response to that one, smashing the snowy ground with a closed fist several times. It was actually more straightforward to bandage, as his leg was a lot easier to move around, and she managed to get the cloth tied off quicker, breathing a heavy exhale.
âRight. So I donât know about anything broken, but at least you probably wonât die of blood loss now. Hurrah for us, and so on.â She grinned, but it was a little shaky.
His eyes were watering from the ordeal, and he wiped them, steadily slowing his breathing. "Okay. Help me up." Once his arm was over her shoulders, they began their way up, and Rom struggled to get his feet under them. "We need to get away from--argh!" The wounded leg gave out, his weight taking him to a knee and her along with it. He braced it with a hand, shaking his head. "I can't walk."
Khari grunted against the pain in her ribcage, lowering herself as his leg gave out from under him, then shifted her positioning, pulling his arm further around so that he was braced on her back as much as her shoulder. She took a lot more of his weight that way, but at least he wouldnât have to use the bad leg. âYes you can. Just keep that one off the groundâweâll be fine.â
Slowly, they rose from the ground a second time, and though they werenât going to be getting anywhere fast, the solution was workable enoughâRom sort of hobbled along on his one leg, and Khari took heavy, short steps with both of hers, one arm around his back and the other holding tightly to the forearm sheâd tugged down over her far shoulder. She made sure to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth, preventing any nausea with the enforced deliberateness of it, and they managed to find their way forward.
The ground underfoot was not kind to them. The well had let out into what seemed to be a cave system, which was a bit of luck, considering how difficult it would have been to climb back up through the snow, which had been what she planned to do when she dragged them both down here. If they could find another way out, though, that would be better. A few places presented them with ledges, ones that would have been laughably easy to jump off were they in good condition, but now constituted obstacles that nearly drew them to a halt. She did carry him over those, shrugging his weight onto her back and hopping down.
The first one saw them landing facefirst in the snowâor, well, she did. He landed on top of her, which was probably for the best but definitely not that comfortable. The second one wasnât as bad, and they managed to keep their feet. After what felt like hours, they finally started moving upwards, and lo and behold, the cavern system spit them out some distance from Haven, onto a blank, snow-driven landscape. She could see the sun, though, and that gave her a little bit of hope.
Less encouraging was the fact that she soon heard the crunching of snow from their left, and she worked the both of them backwards into the cavernâs mouth, planting them against a wall. Khari held her breath, straining to hear. It could just be a wild animal, butâŠ
ââdonât understand why the general wants us out here. No one could have survived that.â The voice was punctuated by the sound of chattering teeth.
âUnless they were already gone, you idiot.â The second voice was sharper, more feminine, and Khari grimaced, bending at her knees to lower Rom to the ground, so heâd be sitting with his back to the wall. He wasnât perfectly concealed back here, but theyâd be caught in an even worse position if she didnât act soon. The voices were getting closer.
âIâll just be a minute.â She huffed softly, smiling with customary ease, but the expression didnât reach her eyes. She wasnât in good shape, and she knew it. She didnât know how many of the Venatori there were, but if it was more than the two sheâd heard, she was in serious trouble. Rom offered a mumbled resistance, but she was already off.
Khari crept forward to the edge of the caveâs mouth, loosening Intercessor and then drawing it free completely, crouching with the blade beside her and peering out past the wall of the cave. Fuck. There were half a dozen, coming right this way, and there wasnât any way in hell they were going to miss a cave opening this obvious.
It occurred to her for the second time since the attack on Haven began that this really might be the end of the line for her. She could run, she knew. Hide. Survive. But in order to do that, sheâd have to leave Rom behindâhe couldnât get out near fast enough.
So it wasnât an option. Death before dishonor.
Glancing back down the way to where he sat, she raised all five fingers on one hand, and the thumb of her other, grinning jaggedly and shrugging before she closed her hand over her cleaverâs hilt, the bone charms on the end clinking almost imperceptibly softly. She could hear the Venatoriâs footsteps coming closer. She had to go now, or risk exposing him. Using Intercessor for assistance, she pushed herself to her feet, taking a deep breath and reaching for that angry place in her heart, the little knot of pain that would help her ignore the rest.
The Haze descended, and Khari lunged from cover with a shout, slamming the blade of her sword into the first unsuspecting Venatoriâs head. He dropped like a stone, and she gritted her teeth, pushing away her bodyâs reminders of how injured she was, ripping the cleaver free of the first and swinging it into the second, catching the pole of the womanâs spear with a clang. Another one, similarly armed, forced her backwards several steps, towards the cave opening, and she dug her feet in, feeling keenly how unsuited she was for defense and so leaping into the attack again.
She swatted aside one spear and drove the point of her sword through the womanâs guts, but the second caught her in the shoulder, the impact strong enough to send her to the ground, sliding backwards several feet. She landed right in front of the cave entrance from which sheâd emerged, but she dared not let her attention betray them by shifting it inwards. An axe cleaved into the snow where her head had been a moment before, but Khari forced herself to roll, lashing out with her tired legs and catching the second spearman in the knee. There was little force behind the blow, though, her strength pushed to its limits already and rapidly depleting. She had the will to continue, just not the power, and it was showing.
There was a muffled cry of "No..." behind Khari, and suddenly, a bright green light exploded from thin air in the middle of the grouped Venatori, unmistakable for its similarity to the rifts they had been working to close for months. This one was spherical and tugged everything around it towards the bright center. Behind Khari, Rom had crawled forward into view, reaching out with his marked hand, which had erupted in that same light.
The Venatori barely had enough time to scream before they were pulled straight into the rift, disintegrated as they went, no trace of them left behind. Khari was right on the edge of the pull, enough that her legs started to slide across the snow, threatening to take the rest of her with them if she couldn't find something to hang on to. She scrabbled frantically for something to hold, finding nothing and choosing instead to drive her sword as deep into the ground as she could and grip both hands with the hilt.
Intercessor traced a deep gouge in the snow as she was slowly pulled towards the rift, feet-first, and she strained to dig it in further, hoping to catch it on a root or a stone or anything that would anchor her in place. Her arms trembled with the effort of keeping her hold, her injured shoulder screaming at her, and she felt her grip beginning to slip, several fingers sliding off the end of the hilt and closing over empty air.
Just when she was sure she could hold on no longer, the force stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and Khari fell heavily onto her stomach upon the ground. The impact whited out her vision for a moment, and for several seconds, she had to catch her breath, dropping her remaining hand from her blade.
âOwwâŠâ
Romulus simply stared at the rift that had vanished, dumbfounded, before Khari's groan pulled his attention back, and he half-stumbled, half-crawled over to her, wincing every step of the way. He tried awkwardly to help her get up, though he was the one that could hardly hold any weight.
"We need to go... could be more."
âYeah. Yeah, you got it, Rom. Just lemmeâŠâ Khari trailed off, closing her fist around a handful of snow and blotting her new stab wound with it, glad at least it was on the side she supported less of him with. It was the little things.
At great length, she managed to regain her feet, partly by use of his shoulder while he sat, and then they pulled him up behind her, Khari wedging herself into his side like before. Sheâd never been happy about the fact that she was short until it turned out she was a decent height for this particular task. Probably would have been better with another couple of inches, but it was workable, which was all it needed to be.
Of course, going was one thing. Having a direction to go was quite another. In the end, Khari just aimed them further away from Haven. Maybe they could find a copse of trees or something else that would do for shelter. If they were lucky, they might find some signs of the others. If they were unlucky, well⊠theyâd cross that bridge when they got to it. She heaved a sigh as they started forwards.
âYou know⊠I think dying might actually have hurt less than this. Not that Iâm complaining.â
It was hardly unusual, in itself, but this pain was particularly bad, and she knew immediately that it was due to the fact that whatever was causing it was still a problem. Of course, narrowing that down any further was going to take a little more work: there was pain in her abdomen, pain in her ribcage, pain in her arm, and definitely pain in her left knee, too.
She tried to crack her eyes open, but only one respondedâsomething was keeping the other one shut. She was met at first with only white, and realized then that she had to be laying, front side down but her head turned to the side, in snow. Why sheâd decided to take a nap outside was slower in coming to her, but with a few moments of start-and-stop thought, she was able to piece together what the hell had happened, or enough of it to realize that she needed to get up, anyway.
But before she could do that, she needed to understand exactly what she was working with. With a groan, she got her not-in-pain arm underneath her and used it to roll herself over onto her back, dislodging quite a bit more snow in the process. Her eye met a natural cavernous ceiling, on the low side but definitely taller than she was standing up. More importantly, the effort of moving herself differentiated some of the pains: the one in her lower abdomen was on the left, and from the way it pulled, it was a stab or slash wound of some kind. Probably a stabâthe pain radiated from a small area. The pain in her upper torso, however, was definitely a broken rib, snapped cleanly off and now sort of floating free of the rest of the ribcage. Not too far off, though; thankfully it had not punctured her lung, or she might be dead already.
Her arm felt heavily bruised, but not brokenâshe could still move her fingers, which was a good sign. Raising her head to glance down at her legs, she found that one of them was in perfectly good working order. The other didnât respond to her attempts to move it, but she was pretty sure from the angle that it was dislocated rather than broken, and that was an easier fix. With a breath as deep as she dared risk, she gradually pushed herself up into a seated position, hissing past the needling of the stab wound when she leaned forward, drawing her injured leg up and taking hold of it.
âShit!â The oath almost concealed the uncomfortable sound of her knee popping back into place, and she muffled the sound of another groan by leaning into her own shoulder, breathing through gritted teeth for several moments until the worst had passed. Testing it proved fruitful, but it would be tender for quite some time. Reaching beside her, she did the best she could for her other injuries, pressing a hunk of snow into the stab wound and molding more around it, both to delay the bleeding and numb it. Another handful helped her clean the dried blood off her second eye, which had run down from a cut in her brow she didnât remember receiving.
Once she could see out of both, Khari scooted back so that the wall was behind her and used it to help herself get back to her feet, pulling herself upright and remaining there until she felt steady enough to try moving. She couldnât see Rom, but she had a suspicion he hadnât fallen far, and was probably half-buried under some of this snow. An avalanche would do that, and some of it had indeed cascaded into the well behind them.
Her painfully-slow trek to the heap of powder that had fallen in through the structure was made only slightly better by the fact that her boot struck something under the snow on her way. In hopes that it might be her friend, she crouched, digging furiously with her hands, but what she discovered was her sword. âCould be worse. Could be a Venatori.â She strapped it to her back and resumed her way forward.
Shoveling through the big pile was a rather gargantuan task, made only more laborious by her current state, but Khari was persistent, scooping snow behind her long past the point that her hands, gloved though they were, had gone completely numb. She wasnât liking her chances, but then that was nothing new, and she kept digging anyway, picking up speed when she could make out a soft green glow some distance below where sheâd reached. âCome on, come on.â She hurled aside larger heaps of the stuff, no longer bothering with breadth since she knew where she was headed, and focused on getting deeper into the drift.
With about twenty minutes of work, she finally reached him. Immediately, she yanked one of her gauntlets off with her teeth and pressed freezing fingers to Româs equally-chilled wrist. She wasnât sure if she was just too numb to tell or if there was actually no pulse there, but she didnât feel one, and so she panicked, adjusting her position and digging some more, until sheâd basically excavated him.
Heâd landed spread-eagled, and likely already unconscious, if he hadnât made any move whatsoever to protect himself from the incoming snow. She had no way of knowing how long ago that was, because there wasnât much, if any light filtering in from aboveâsheâd basically dug sideways and then down, the snow being packed enough to maintain structural integrity despite her efforts. If itâd been too long and heâd suffocated⊠but now wasnât the time to think about that.
Picking her way to his feet, she grasped his ankles and dragged as carefully as she could. She wasnât in any shape to be carrying him, and moving him at all was a risk, but if the hole sheâd dug caused the snow to collapse again, all her work would be undone, and that was probably worse for him than being moved a few yards. She hoped.
Easing herself onto the ground next to him, Khari leaned over, placing her ear just above his mouth, hoping to hear or feel some indication that he was breathing. She held her own still in her lungs, and for several long seconds, she feared the worst. But then something stirred the hair near her ear, and she sat bolt upright.
He was alive.
âOkay. Uhh⊠okay, good. Alive. What now?â If heâd hit his head, he shouldnât be sleeping, she knew that much. But was it better to wake him up if she didnât know whether he had a concussion or not? Whatever the case, they needed to get moving soon if they had much hope of surviving this in the long run, so she decided to risk it.
âRom. Hey, Rom. Wake up.â With her bare hand, she tapped the side of his face a few times, not hard, but insistently. She didnât want to shake him somewhere he might have a broken bone or something, so this seemed like the best idea.
Suddenly Rom coughed violently, hacking up a glob of blood that spattered over his own face. Several more wheezing coughs and groans followed, with his limbs beginning to move soon after. He was obviously just as disoriented as Khari had been after she had come to.
Rom's first reaction, however, was to aggressively lash out with an open hand, which immediately found Khari's throat and constricted, his face contorting with effort. He made an attempt to shove her to the side, before his eyes finally saw what was in front of him, and he seemed to register the rest of the pain in his body. An uncomfortably loud shout of pain followed, with his hand going straight to where the splinter of the palisade still impaled his side. A larger, more alarming piece was straight through his lower left leg. They couldn't have been down here all that long, or else he would have bled to death already.
For the moment, Rom could only grope blindly in the snow, trying to turn himself over for some reason, or perhaps get up to his feet, while a line of blood ran from his lips down his cheek.
âHey, hey, hey, whoa, stop.â Khari frowned when the words came out more raspy than sheâd meant them to, probably due to the fact that heâd been quite intent on crushing her windpipe there for a second. She should have expected something of the kind. Reaching behind her, she pulled her mask loose and hooked it quickly on her belt, setting her other arm firmly on Româs shoulder. âRom, itâs just me. Itâs Khari. Youâve got to stop struggling; youâre only gonna hurt yourself more.â
Worst case, all this motion would dislodge those splinters before they should come out, and heâd bleed all over the place. âYouâve injured your side, and your leg. Try not to move them yet. Does it hurt anywhere else?â She kept her voice level and as calm as possible, hoping to induce the same in him. She still wasnât sure if heâd hit his head, and so knowing whether this disorientation was to be brief or more enduring wasnât yet possible.
He ceased his motion, and judging by the way he was leaning on one arm underneath him, and trying to push off the ground with the other, those at least were in working order. Although, the mark on his left hand was crackling every few seconds, still glowing green, spitting out bits of lightning or energy or something. He shook it, as though trying to put out a fire, to no use.
"It hurts everywhere else..." he grumbled. "We need potions. I've got..." He reached behind him, into a pouch on his belt, before he hissed in pain and pulled his hand free, one of the fingers now cut and bleeding. He unbuckled the belt and tossed it away a few feet; shards of a broken vial or two fell into the snow, along with the remains of frozen health draughts, rendered useless by now. "Shit. Ugly bastard would've killed us quicker than this." He smiled at her, a bloody grin similar to what she'd given Corypheus. He appeared to be regaining most of his clarity, at least. "We never do anything the easy way, do we?â
âWouldnât be any fun if we did.â She sat back on her legs for a moment, scratching at the back of her head, then wincing when her nails scraped over a lesion she hadnât known was there. Grimacing, she rolled her eyes and shrugged Intercessor off her back, staking it into the snow for a moment while she unfastened her cloak.
âWeâre gonna want to get those bits of the wall out before they absorb too much blood and swell.â They could get stuck that way, and cause one hell of an infection. Wood was, after all, a porous material. Her cloak in her hands, Khari grasped it in a couple places near the bottom, holding tension in it, then looped her arms over the sword, pulling the fabric forward towards herself against the edge of the blade, which sliced through it fairly easily. Once sheâd discarded the hem, which was dirty, and reached the part that was in better shape, she repeated the process a few times, laying out the resulting strips of scarlet fabric near him. She took her best guess about how many sheâd need, and wound up using about a third of the cloak, but warmth wouldnât be an issue if they bled out first. It had holes in it now anyway.
âWhich one do you want me to do first?â She raised an eyebrow, glancing at him as she scrubbed the strips of fabric down with clean snow as well as she could. ââCause theyâre both gonna hurt like⊠well, a lot.â
Rom groaned, rolling carefully back over onto his back, and taking a few deep breaths, before he pointed to the piece lodged in his side. Judging by the way he prepared himself, this was not nearly his first time doing something of the sort.
Khari didnât bother giving him a count. It was the kind of thing that would hurt a whole lot worse if he was tensed for it, so she tried not to give him time to do that even involuntarily, reaching forward and ripping the splinter free with a sharp, strong tug. Thankfully, she used enough force that only one was necessary, and she discarded it to the side, immediately pressing her other free hand, which held a considerable amount of snow, up against the wound. It occurred to her that if she were Asala, this would be a hell of a lot easierâshe wasnât sure sheâd felt the lack of magic in her repertoire quite so keenly before now, when there was no such individual around.
When the snow was red, she tossed it away and proceeded to bandage him as well as she could, peeling back his leathers and linens to do it. First a strip folded several times into a square, to go right over the wound, and then a few more, wrapped around to hold it in place. She tried not to tie too tightly, but a bit of excess snugness was better than the opposite, so she erred on the side of caution. Rom, for his part, weathered the intense pain quite well, focusing intently on the cavernous ceiling above, pressing his lips tightly together and refusing to shout or scream when prompted by the agony.
âOkay, leg now.â She moved herself and her supplies down a little further, eyeing the large piece of wood in his muscle with some trepidation. She was going to have to break one side of that and then pull it back through, or sheâd leave a dozen splinters behind, she was sure of it. âPlease try not to kick me.â It was a joke, though that didnât mean there wasnât anything genuine to the sentiment.
Leaning forward slightly, Khari took a deep breath, holding his leg near the ankle with one hand before she changed her mind and used that one to hold the piece of wood steady, trying to cause minimal movement when her hand tightened on the bloody end and snapped it off, whereupon she yanked what was left back through his calf, hissing sympathetically. Rom writhed in response to that one, smashing the snowy ground with a closed fist several times. It was actually more straightforward to bandage, as his leg was a lot easier to move around, and she managed to get the cloth tied off quicker, breathing a heavy exhale.
âRight. So I donât know about anything broken, but at least you probably wonât die of blood loss now. Hurrah for us, and so on.â She grinned, but it was a little shaky.
His eyes were watering from the ordeal, and he wiped them, steadily slowing his breathing. "Okay. Help me up." Once his arm was over her shoulders, they began their way up, and Rom struggled to get his feet under them. "We need to get away from--argh!" The wounded leg gave out, his weight taking him to a knee and her along with it. He braced it with a hand, shaking his head. "I can't walk."
Khari grunted against the pain in her ribcage, lowering herself as his leg gave out from under him, then shifted her positioning, pulling his arm further around so that he was braced on her back as much as her shoulder. She took a lot more of his weight that way, but at least he wouldnât have to use the bad leg. âYes you can. Just keep that one off the groundâweâll be fine.â
Slowly, they rose from the ground a second time, and though they werenât going to be getting anywhere fast, the solution was workable enoughâRom sort of hobbled along on his one leg, and Khari took heavy, short steps with both of hers, one arm around his back and the other holding tightly to the forearm sheâd tugged down over her far shoulder. She made sure to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth, preventing any nausea with the enforced deliberateness of it, and they managed to find their way forward.
The ground underfoot was not kind to them. The well had let out into what seemed to be a cave system, which was a bit of luck, considering how difficult it would have been to climb back up through the snow, which had been what she planned to do when she dragged them both down here. If they could find another way out, though, that would be better. A few places presented them with ledges, ones that would have been laughably easy to jump off were they in good condition, but now constituted obstacles that nearly drew them to a halt. She did carry him over those, shrugging his weight onto her back and hopping down.
The first one saw them landing facefirst in the snowâor, well, she did. He landed on top of her, which was probably for the best but definitely not that comfortable. The second one wasnât as bad, and they managed to keep their feet. After what felt like hours, they finally started moving upwards, and lo and behold, the cavern system spit them out some distance from Haven, onto a blank, snow-driven landscape. She could see the sun, though, and that gave her a little bit of hope.
Less encouraging was the fact that she soon heard the crunching of snow from their left, and she worked the both of them backwards into the cavernâs mouth, planting them against a wall. Khari held her breath, straining to hear. It could just be a wild animal, butâŠ
ââdonât understand why the general wants us out here. No one could have survived that.â The voice was punctuated by the sound of chattering teeth.
âUnless they were already gone, you idiot.â The second voice was sharper, more feminine, and Khari grimaced, bending at her knees to lower Rom to the ground, so heâd be sitting with his back to the wall. He wasnât perfectly concealed back here, but theyâd be caught in an even worse position if she didnât act soon. The voices were getting closer.
âIâll just be a minute.â She huffed softly, smiling with customary ease, but the expression didnât reach her eyes. She wasnât in good shape, and she knew it. She didnât know how many of the Venatori there were, but if it was more than the two sheâd heard, she was in serious trouble. Rom offered a mumbled resistance, but she was already off.
Khari crept forward to the edge of the caveâs mouth, loosening Intercessor and then drawing it free completely, crouching with the blade beside her and peering out past the wall of the cave. Fuck. There were half a dozen, coming right this way, and there wasnât any way in hell they were going to miss a cave opening this obvious.
It occurred to her for the second time since the attack on Haven began that this really might be the end of the line for her. She could run, she knew. Hide. Survive. But in order to do that, sheâd have to leave Rom behindâhe couldnât get out near fast enough.
So it wasnât an option. Death before dishonor.
Glancing back down the way to where he sat, she raised all five fingers on one hand, and the thumb of her other, grinning jaggedly and shrugging before she closed her hand over her cleaverâs hilt, the bone charms on the end clinking almost imperceptibly softly. She could hear the Venatoriâs footsteps coming closer. She had to go now, or risk exposing him. Using Intercessor for assistance, she pushed herself to her feet, taking a deep breath and reaching for that angry place in her heart, the little knot of pain that would help her ignore the rest.
The Haze descended, and Khari lunged from cover with a shout, slamming the blade of her sword into the first unsuspecting Venatoriâs head. He dropped like a stone, and she gritted her teeth, pushing away her bodyâs reminders of how injured she was, ripping the cleaver free of the first and swinging it into the second, catching the pole of the womanâs spear with a clang. Another one, similarly armed, forced her backwards several steps, towards the cave opening, and she dug her feet in, feeling keenly how unsuited she was for defense and so leaping into the attack again.
She swatted aside one spear and drove the point of her sword through the womanâs guts, but the second caught her in the shoulder, the impact strong enough to send her to the ground, sliding backwards several feet. She landed right in front of the cave entrance from which sheâd emerged, but she dared not let her attention betray them by shifting it inwards. An axe cleaved into the snow where her head had been a moment before, but Khari forced herself to roll, lashing out with her tired legs and catching the second spearman in the knee. There was little force behind the blow, though, her strength pushed to its limits already and rapidly depleting. She had the will to continue, just not the power, and it was showing.
There was a muffled cry of "No..." behind Khari, and suddenly, a bright green light exploded from thin air in the middle of the grouped Venatori, unmistakable for its similarity to the rifts they had been working to close for months. This one was spherical and tugged everything around it towards the bright center. Behind Khari, Rom had crawled forward into view, reaching out with his marked hand, which had erupted in that same light.
The Venatori barely had enough time to scream before they were pulled straight into the rift, disintegrated as they went, no trace of them left behind. Khari was right on the edge of the pull, enough that her legs started to slide across the snow, threatening to take the rest of her with them if she couldn't find something to hang on to. She scrabbled frantically for something to hold, finding nothing and choosing instead to drive her sword as deep into the ground as she could and grip both hands with the hilt.
Intercessor traced a deep gouge in the snow as she was slowly pulled towards the rift, feet-first, and she strained to dig it in further, hoping to catch it on a root or a stone or anything that would anchor her in place. Her arms trembled with the effort of keeping her hold, her injured shoulder screaming at her, and she felt her grip beginning to slip, several fingers sliding off the end of the hilt and closing over empty air.
Just when she was sure she could hold on no longer, the force stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and Khari fell heavily onto her stomach upon the ground. The impact whited out her vision for a moment, and for several seconds, she had to catch her breath, dropping her remaining hand from her blade.
âOwwâŠâ
Romulus simply stared at the rift that had vanished, dumbfounded, before Khari's groan pulled his attention back, and he half-stumbled, half-crawled over to her, wincing every step of the way. He tried awkwardly to help her get up, though he was the one that could hardly hold any weight.
"We need to go... could be more."
âYeah. Yeah, you got it, Rom. Just lemmeâŠâ Khari trailed off, closing her fist around a handful of snow and blotting her new stab wound with it, glad at least it was on the side she supported less of him with. It was the little things.
At great length, she managed to regain her feet, partly by use of his shoulder while he sat, and then they pulled him up behind her, Khari wedging herself into his side like before. Sheâd never been happy about the fact that she was short until it turned out she was a decent height for this particular task. Probably would have been better with another couple of inches, but it was workable, which was all it needed to be.
Of course, going was one thing. Having a direction to go was quite another. In the end, Khari just aimed them further away from Haven. Maybe they could find a copse of trees or something else that would do for shelter. If they were lucky, they might find some signs of the others. If they were unlucky, well⊠theyâd cross that bridge when they got to it. She heaved a sigh as they started forwards.
âYou know⊠I think dying might actually have hurt less than this. Not that Iâm complaining.â