Free The Miscreant (An Assassin's Blade Book 2) by Justin DePaoli

asked.
    Tylik punched his chin into a pouch resting atop an assortment of supplies. “Got her right here. Or him. Think it’s a he flower or a she?”
    “A she,” Lysa answered, helping free Tylik of his burden.
    “And why is that?” I asked.
    She put the pouch on the spine of the phoenix and riffled through it. “’Cause, it saves lives.”
    She spun around, wielding a triangular-shaped leaf that narrowed to a point, then split off into two threadlike spindles that curved backward.
    “Got the other stuff too?” Lysa asked.
    “Let’s see,” Tylik said, pouring into my hand all knickknacks he’d procured. “Gots ourselves some string, needles — just two, but better than one I’d say — shears that look nice and sharp, linen bandages, rook’s leaf, honey flowers, peppermint leaves, a good bushel of costmary, rosemary, erud roots, some bread wrapped in cloth, and three skins of wine. All I could carry.”
    Lysa slapped my arm impatiently. “Come on, turn it over. Faster we pack this in, the faster you’ll recover.”
    “I feel fine,” I said.
    “You won’t after it festers.”
    I slipped a finger beneath the bandage and ripped it in two. Lysa stood there and shook her head, like I was some barbarian.
    “Woof,” Tylik said, turning his head. “Not pleasant smellin’ there.”
    Not a very pleasant sight either. It looked like bits of corn had been mashed up and slathered inside, mottled with a viscous cream. The edges of my skin that’d peeled away were crusty and blackened, probably with blood.
    Lysa held my wrist firmly. She bit her lip as she inspected the injury. “Worse than I’d hoped.” She flattened the back of her hand against my forehead. “You’re warm, but not hot. That’s good.”
    Lysa tore the wolf’s leaf in half. She stuffed one half in her pocket and tossed the other into her mouth. Then she chewed and spat out the mush into her hand.
    “This might hurt,” she said, wiping her finger into the green pulp.
    I backed away in protest, but she kept a strong hold on my wrist. “That just came from your mouth.”
    “It’s fine,” she assured me. “Wolf’s leaf works best when you chew it up, break it into tiny pieces. Helps kill off the bugs inside you better that way.”
    “Er. Bugs?”
    With a small dab of chewed-up wolf’s leaf on her forefinger, she probed my laceration. Any and all curiosity I had at that point washed right the fuck out. There are few things more disturbing than watching someone finger your grotesque wound, mixing yellow and white festering batter with a green, chewed-up paste. Also, it bloody hurt.
    I sunk my teeth into my knuckle as she dabbed another bit of wolf’s leaf into the gaping hole, her appendage sloshing around in there.
    “That’s finished,” Lysa said, proudly leaning back and observing her work. “And yes, bugs, so the theory goes. Savant Leron Evelton describes it in lots of detail in his writings. They’re, um… like maggots. Tiny, infinitesimally small maggots that you can’t see. They get inside your wounds, and that’s what makes them fester. Woolf’s leaf kills the tiny maggots.”
    That seemed absurd. But so too did flaming birds at one time.
    “Now to suture it up,” Lysa said.
    She puffed her hair out of her eyes and grabbed one of the needles. She threaded some string through the eye of the needle, told me to relax my arm and warned me this would sting.
    Sting : a word that means a slight twinge. An uncomfortable prick that makes your skin crawl, and at worst elicits a small groan, mostly out of surprise. It was very apparent that Lysa didn’t know what that bloody word meant. She stuck me deep with the serrated tip of the needle, piercing through layers of skin. It felt like a tendril of barbed wire chewing through my flesh.
    “Fuck!” I barked. “You do realize you don’t need to dig down to the fucking bone to tie some loose skin together?”
    With utmost clinical emotion, she pushed the needle through to