Assassin's Curse (15 page)

“That was truly pathetic,” Mave said.
 

Jeda was beginning to sway and did not see Mave’s next attack.
 
The sword stroke took Jeda across the chest, cutting deep with lethal efficiency.
 
It was a killing blow and both men knew it.
 
Jeda fell to his knees, agony coursing through his mind and body.
 
The last thing he saw, as a black curtain of unconsciousness swept over him, was Mave looking at him with the dispassionate eyes of a natural-born killer.

I failed
… Jeda thought, slipping away.

What neither man understood was the depth of the bond between Jeda and the twins.
 
As the pain of Jeda’s injury reached its climax, the babies felt it through their bond.
 
They reacted in the only way they knew how.
 
They began to scream and push back at the thing that was hurting them.
 
Jeda felt and heard their reaction and somehow, miraculously, the cut on his chest began to close.
 

Mave watched in astonishment as Jeda’s wound stopped bleeding and the dying man before him took a deep breath.
 
Jeda looked up to see Mave’s face change from incredulity to rage as he watched Jeda healing before his eyes.
 
The babies continued to scream louder, the sound escalating to a nerve-wracking wail.

“I don’t know how you did that,” Mave yelled over the screams of the babies.
 
“But try that without your head.”
 
He tried to raise one of his swords to decapitate Jeda but found he could no longer move.

“What the h…” Mave said struggling against invisible bonds.
 
“What have you done to me?
 
I can’t move.”

Jeda looked at Mave, perplexed, not understanding what was happening.
 
Mave stood transfixed in his attack position, not able to move his arms or legs.
 
Jeda thought of the girls, tied to his back, still screaming.
 
It was impossible for them to have done anything like this, but he could think of no other explanation.
 

How could they?
 
They are just babies.
 

Jeda didn’t know how long Mave’s paralysis would last and he surged into motion to take full advantage of the situation.
 
Dragging himself over to the wagon, he slipped the papooses off into the front of the wagon and then tried to pull his wounded body onto the driver’s seat.
 
He nearly fell to the ground before finally hoisting himself up.
 
His chest wound partially opened again and there was no doubt that he was in dire straits.
 
He needed to get to a healer fast or the momentary healing he had received would be undone.
 
He was unsure exactly what had happened, but somehow the twins had paralyzed Mave exactly as Miriam had done to him back in Constantine, but without the accompanying elemental blast.
 
He didn’t want to be around when Mave could move again.
 

“Release me immediately,” Mave demanded.

Jeda looked down from the wagon at the assassin transfixed before him.
 
He knew he was making a mistake by not killing him.
 
Mave was a deadly enemy, but in Jeda’s present condition he could barely sit in the wagon seat, let alone get down and drag his knife across Mave’s throat.

“Don’t follow me again Mave, or next time it will be your heart that stops,” Jeda bluffed.
 
“Tell the masters that when you report to them.
 
Tell them that I won’t let you or anyone else take these girls from me.
 
I swear to you that I will protect them with my life.”

“That’s exactly what you will do; die protecting them,” Mave yelled back.
 
“Trust me; this delay won’t make any difference.
 
We will never stop hunting you and you will never be safe.
 
The guild never gives up.”

“I know,’ Jeda said.
 
“I would expect nothing less.”

Not wanting to waste any more time, he grabbed the reins and clucked at Jed to get the mule moving.
 
A few hundred meters down the road, Jeda chanced a look back and saw Mave, still frozen in place, staring at him with murder in his eyes.

I should have killed him.
 
He will never stop now.

***

Jeda’s wounds caused him excruciating pain.
 
He slumped in the front seat of the wagon and urged Jed along as much as he could.
 
He kept finding himself slipping into unconsciousness, but the worry that Mave would catch up to them kept him from blacking out completely; that, and every little bump and hole Jed and the wagon found in the road.
 
Despite his best efforts to stem the flow of blood, he was still bleeding from both his arm and leg wounds.
 
His arm had become numb, but his leg was in torment: every bump was an agony of pain.
 
He desperately needed to reach the next village and find help from the local healer.
 

It can’t be that much farther now.
 

He tried to urge more speed from Jed by snapping the reins, but the old mule kept moving forward at the same pace, slow and steady.
 
Jeda was swaying dangerously in the seat and steadied himself with his good arm.
 
His strength was failing and they were in big trouble.

A few moments of sleep, that should be all I need.

Jeda slid down to lie on the front seat of the wagon.
 
The babies were resting comfortably at his feet when he closed his eyes.
 
It would only be for a few moments he told himself as the wave of blackness enveloped him.
 
The old mule plowed on, oblivious to the condition his driver was in.

***

Anna Wainsmith shuffled slowly through the forest looking for the list of herbs that Mistress Gelda wanted.
 
As apprentice to the village healer, it was her responsibility to gather whatever herbs and flowers Gelda needed.
 
She had found most of them close to the village, but a few were harder to find and Anna wandered farther and farther from the old healer’s hut.
 
She remembered her teacher’s admonition about traveling too far into the woods and away from the security of the village.
 

The forest guards its secrets well and doesn’t take kindly to anyone poking about in its backyard
.

Anna didn’t know exactly what the old healer meant by that, but she did know that the occasional bear or wolf had been seen in these parts.
 
The road back to the village was ahead through the bushes and Anna had searched enough for today.
 
Mistress Gelda would be upset that she hadn’t found all the herbs, but she wouldn’t stay that way for long.
 
The old healer had a heart of gold and a temperament to match.

She was about to step out on the road when she heard the cry.
 
Actually, it sounded like two cries.
 
Anna peeked through the bushes and was surprised to see a wagon stopped in the middle of the road.
 
The cries seemed to be coming from it so Anna hurried over to see what had happened.
 
She was shocked when she saw the young man unconscious on the driver’s seat and two young babies on the floorboards in front of him.
   

“Oh my, you’ve got babies,” Anna cried, dropping her basket of herbs and jumping up beside the unconscious man.

She reached over to feel for the man’s pulse.
 
She nearly fell off the wagon in shock, when he sat straight up and grabbed her wrist.
 
“Oh…”

“Help me,” Jeda mumbled, releasing the young girl’s wrist and falling against her for support.
 
He struggled to remain conscious and barely won the battle.

Looking over the man’s injuries, Anna’s training in the healing arts immediately came to her.
 
“You’re bleeding from multiple wounds,” she said, trying to sound professional while peeling away his blood-soaked clothing.
 
She nearly gagged when she saw the extent of the damage Jeda had suffered.
  

“Gods, you poor man, how did this happen?” Anna asked.
 
“Don’t worry, I’m a healer and I am going to fix them right up.
 
We have to close them before we can move you in any case.”

“You’re a healer?” Jeda mumbled, seeing the youth in the girl’s face.
 
“Aren’t you a little young to be a healer?”

“Actually I’m still an apprentice, but I know how to do healings.
 
But, truth be told, I haven’t done anything this big before,” she said, frowning at the seriousness of the wounds.

“You must take me to your healer.”

“I will, but I have to stop the bleeding or you won’t make it.
 
I have to touch you and it may hurt, so don’t go getting mad at me.”

Jeda nodded his head and tried to smile at the young girl.
 
He knew what healing felt like; he’d had many healing sessions during his career with the guild.
 
“OK, but hurry.
 
We have to get off this road.”

Anna frowned at his remark, but turned her focus on her patient.
 
My very first patient by myself.
 
Mistress Gelda will be so proud of me.

Jeda felt the slight tingling of magic when the young healer concentrated on him.
 
It wasn’t as strong or as painful as he had remembered from previous healings.
 
It wasn’t long before he began to feel marginally better.
 
He looked at the young girl, deep in concentration, and noticed that she was wavering herself.
 
Jeda reached up and broke their contact.

“Why did you do that?” Anna asked breathlessly, sitting back on her hunches.

“You looked like you were going to pass out.
 
One of us wobbly is quite enough.”

“Your wounds are deep and need stitching, but I did stop most of the bleeding.
 
Mistress Gelda can fix the rest of you up real good.”
 

At the sound of Gelda’s name, Jeda felt a faint glimmer of hope.
 
She was the healer Miriam had sent him to find.
 
He was close now.
 
But he knew his luck would not hold for long.
 
He had lost a lot of blood and a lot of time.
 
If Mave found him before he was healed, then things would get real nasty.
 
“Let’s go then.
 
No time to waste.”

Anna picked up the reins and clucked the mule forward.
 
The babies hadn’t made any noise while Anna was healing Jeda, but she saw them looking curiously at her as she drove into town.
 
“Your babies look the same.
 
Are they twins?”

“Yes.”

“They both have the witch sign too.
 
Do you know what that means?”

Jeda leaned against the young girl as the wagon pounded down the road.
 
“Please no more talking,” he wheezed.

“Oh sure,” Anna replied.
 
“It’s not too far down this road to Mistress Gelda’s.
 
We’ll be there soon.”

It seemed an eternity to Jeda, struggling through the pain of his wounds, but they finally made it to the healer’s hut.
 
The hut was festooned with herbs and flowers from every plant imaginable.
 
It was on the outskirts of the village.
 
It gave him a sense of relief that they wouldn’t be a spectacle for the villagers to gossip about for the next month or so.
 

Anna helped Jeda down from the wagon.
 
He tried to pick up the babies, but nearly passed out with pain.
 
“I’ll carry the babies.”

Jed was not happy with a stranger touching the babies, but he had no choice.
 
He nodded to Anna and she scooped them up.

“Let’s get you inside and fix you up.”

When Jeda, Anna, and the girls entered the small hut, a wizened, old woman looked up from her worktable.
 
“Well, this should prove to be an interesting story,” she said, looking over Jeda and then Anna.
   

Without another word she hustled him inside and closed the door behind him.
 
The inside of the hut was surprisingly large and airy.
 
Like the outside, plants and herbs hung from every ledge and space that could be found.
 
It was almost like walking through an aromatic forest.
 
Gelda took the babies from Anna and they immediately began to fuss, which caused Jeda’s senses to go on high alert.