Free Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold Page A

world was spinning, but under her ear she could hear a steady heartbeat.
    She nodded dolefully.
     

Chapter 5
     
    By the time they arrived at the deserted valley farm, both the back of Fawn’s skirt and the front of Dag’s trousers were soaked in too-bright blood.
    “Oh,” said Fawn in a mortified voice, when he’d swung her down from the horse and slid after her. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    Dag raised what he hoped was an admirably calm eyebrow. “What? It’s just blood, Little Spark. I’ve dealt with more blood in my time than you have in your whole bitty body.” Which was where this red tide should be, blast and blight it. I will not panic. He wanted to swing her up in his arms and carry her inside, but he did not trust his strength. He had to keep moving, or his own battered body would start to stiffen. He wrapped his right arm around her shoulders instead, and, leaving the horse to fend for itself, aimed her up the porch steps.
    “Why is this happening?” she said, so low and breathy and plaintive he wasn’t sure if it was to him or herself.
    He hesitated. Yes, she was young, but surely—“Don’t you know?”
    She glanced up at him. The bruise masking the left side of her face was darkening to purple, the gouges scabbing over. “Yes,” she whispered. She steadied her voice by sheer force of will, he thought. “But you seem to know so much. I was hoping you might… have a different answer. Stupid of me.”
    “The malice did something to you. Tried to.” Courage failing, he looked away from her gaze to say, “It stole your baby’s ground. It would have used it in its next molt, but we killed it first.” And I was too late to stop it. Five blighted minutes, if he had only been five blighted minutes quicker… Yes, and if he’d only been five blighted seconds quicker, once, he’d still have a left hand, and he’d been down that road and back up it enough times to be thoroughly tired of the scenery. Peace. If he had arrived at the lair very much sooner, he might have missed her entirely.
    But what had happened to his spare sharing knife, in that terrible scramble?
    It had been empty, but now he would swear it was primed, and that should not have happened. Take on your disasters one at a time, old patroller, or you’ll lose your trail. The knife could wait. Fawn could not.
    “Then… then it’s too late. To save. Anything.”
    “It’s never too late to save something,” he said sternly. “Might not be what you wanted, is all.” Which was certainly something he needed to hear, every day, but was not exactly pertinent to her present need, now was it? He tried again, because he did not think his heart or hers could bear confusion on this point.
    “She’s gone. You’re not. Your next job is to” survive this night “get better.
    After that, we’ll see.”
    The twilight was failing as they stepped into the gloomy shadows of the farmhouse kitchen, but Dag could see it was a different mess than before.
    “This way,” Fawn said. “Don’t step in the jam.”
    “Ah, right.”
    “There’s some candle stubs around. Up over the hearth, there’s some more. Oh, no, I can’t lie there, I’ll stain the ticks.”
    “Looks flat enough to me, Little Spark. I do know you should be lying down.
    I’m real sure of that.” Her breathing was too rapid and shallow, her skin far too clammy, and her ground had a bad gray tinge that went hand in hand with grave damage, in his unpleasant experience.
    “Well… well, find something, then. For in between.”
    Now was not, definitely not, the time to argue with female irrationality.
    “Right.”
    He poked up the faint remains of the fire, fed it with some wood chips, and lit two wax stubs, one of which he left on the hearth for her; the other he took with him for a quick exploration. A couple of those chests and wardrobes upstairs had still had things in them, he dimly recalled. A patroller should be resourceful. What did the girl most need? A miscarriage