Page 60 of Paladin's Hope

A flush started to rise up the housekeeper’s neck. “Weren’t nothin’,” she mumbled.

“She hit our captor over the head with a poker,” said Galen, “while he was holding a crossbow.”

“Brave as well as beautiful,” said Jorge. Hardy had to clear her throat several times.

“We think we have a plan to get out of your way,” said Galen, “but before we go—do you have somewhere to go?”

“I’ll go to my daughter’s,” said Hardy gruffly. “Likely she’s been thinking I’m dead, for not having come home all this time. But I’ll explain.”

“We’re getting those chains off first,” said Piper.

“Chains?” All three paladins jerked upright, clearly horrified.

Missus Hardy looked embarrassed. She lifted her skirt up to show the shackles, then dropped the hem quickly. “Don’t mean to complain,” she muttered.

It was Marcus who stepped up to the rescue. “Those look like they’re locked with a pin mechanism,” he said. “If I can turn up a hammer and chisel, I’ll have them off you in a trice. Can you show me where they might be kept?”

He led her away, talking soothingly. You’d never have known he had been a minor noble in his life before the death of the god, Galen thought. Then again, a few years with the rest of us as berserker infantry and you probably get all the nobility knocked off you pretty quick.

Jorge and Shane took themselves off on horseback to head upriver and find a boat, leaving Piper and Galen alone with the two gnoles.

Galen began to say something, but was interrupted by a weak sound from Earstripe. All three of them dropped to their knees next to the couch.

Earstripe muttered something in the liquid gnolespeech. Brindle responded. Galen couldn’t tell what he said, but it sounded reassuring.

The injured gnole stirred and tried to lift his head, but Piper said, “No!” and held his shoulders. “Don’t move,” he said, in a gentler tone. “Please. You’re very weak from loss of blood and you don’t have the strength to spare.”

Earstripe opened one eye, squinting against the light. “Alive?” he croaked.

“Yes. We’re all three of us alive. And Brindle.”

He pricked his whiskers forward and sagged back against the cushions.

“Silly to lay straight,” muttered Brindle. “A gnole curls up. But no gnole beds here.”

“We’ll get him to somewhere with proper gnole beds,” promised Galen. “Soon.” He glanced at Piper. “Is waking up a good sign?”

“Yes, but not that good.” The doctor wrung his hands together. “The real enemy is the fever and infection. He’d almost certainly live through the injury, but bolts aren’t clean and there was cloth in the wound and even though we set the bone, it wasn’t in good shape and might heal wrong and…”

“Twisting your whiskers, our bone-doctor,” said Brindle. “Bone-doctor did our best work, yeah?”

Galen recognized the courtesy in the our pronouns the gnole was offering, even if it mangled the sentence a bit. “Piper did amazing work,” he said firmly. “He started treating Earstripe when it might have meant a bolt in the back. And he worked for hours.”

“I did what I could, but if Earstripe lives, it’s entirely because of you, Brindle,” said Piper. “If you hadn’t gotten away and brought help, it would have been days before we could get him to a gnole doctor, and I might have poisoned him by accident.”

Brindle flicked his whiskers and looked away, the gnole equivalent of an embarrassed shrug. “Chained-lady came and told a gnole to get away and bring help. A gnole would have been quicker, but didn’t know how dangerous a human was. Thought best to get sword-humans, not try to find local humans to help.”

“I don’t know if it would have mattered if you were sooner,” said Galen. “Thomas would have denied everything, and if Missus Hardy wasn’t able to speak to them…” He shook his head. “Getting paladins was the best thing to do.”

Piper rubbed his face. “I wonder how many people he killed?”

“Six while I was here,” said Missus Hardy from the doorway. She limped in, leaning heavily on Marcus’s arm. Galen heard no clinking and guessed that Marcus had found a chisel after all. “He’d advertise for a clerk from the city, a young man who could do writing and figuring, for a project lasting a couple months. Room and board and enough money to make it look good, but not suspicious.” She scowled. “The master’d show them the maze, get them familiar with it, and then shut them in a few days later, and advertise again.”

“And it’s a remote enough place in winter that nobody expected regular messages,” said Galen. “Dammit. It was a good plan. And explains the leather shoes, if they were clerks.”

Missus Hardy nodded to him. “Somebody came looking for one of them, and the master said they’d never showed up and he was a bit sore about it. And I managed to warn one of the lads off, but the master locked my door at night, belike, and watched me close when they were about. Was lucky that he didn’t lock me in while you were here.”

“Too many of us, I imagine,” said Galen. “He must have been afraid to do anything that might look strange for fear we’d get suspicious.”

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