Page 12 of Chained to the Horned God
“So are you,” she replies, tone dry. “That doesn’t mean you get to be stupid.”
I crouch beside the bandages and start sorting through them. Most are beyond saving—crusted black and crawling with flies. I push them aside and use what’s left of the herbal paste from my belt pouch. It’s nearly gone. I make it stretch.
A gladiator groans behind me, clutching a gut wound stitched with twine and bad intentions. I approach slowly, hands raised. “I can clean it. Maybe ease the pain.”
His eyes flick to Sharonna. She nods once, and only then does he let me near.
As I work, Sharonna leans in, voice low.
“Don’t show fear,” she says.
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can smell it.”
I swallow. “Is that supposed to help?”
“It’s supposed to keep you alive.” Her gaze sweeps the room. “They’ll eat you slower if you don’t act like prey.”
I press a cloth to the wound and the man hisses in pain.
I grit my teeth and keep going.
I work with shaking hands.I stitch flesh that doesn’t want to close and wipe blood that refuses to stop flowing. My fingers tremble, but I keep them moving. Movement gives the illusion of confidence, and confidence keeps the wolves from circling.
The orc on the table is massive, one hand missing at the wrist, a slab of iron strapped to the stump with a crudely fashioned harness. His green skin is marbled with scars oldand new, and his chest rises in shallow, ragged breaths. The gash across his ribs is deep, angry, and still seeping. Infection’s already settling in.
“Hold still,” I say.
His eye cracks open, red and sharp, narrowed with contempt. “Try not to sew me crooked, red.”
“You want pretty stitches or to live?” I thread the needle with what passes for gut twine and press the curved tip against the ragged edge of the wound.
He bares his teeth but doesn’t move. “You got nerve.”
I jab the needle through.
He doesn’t scream, but his fingers curl around the edge of the table until the wood creaks.
“You got name, nerve girl?” he asks between gritted teeth.
“Valoa.”
“Durk.” He spits to the side, missing my foot by inches. “They call me Dragonslayer. Earned it. Didn’t ask for it.”
I loop the thread and tie the knot, snipping it clean with my belt knife. “Well, Durk Dragonslayer, you’re lucky the guards need you alive. Otherwise, you’d be pissing blood into the afterlife by now.”
He snorts, something half between a laugh and a cough. “You talk big for someone without tusks.”
“You bleed like everyone else.”
His eyes narrow, then his lips curl into a grin. “You’ll do.”
Sharonna watches from the wall, arms still crossed. Her expression hasn’t changed, but there’s a flicker of something—approval, maybe—in the way she nods once and turns away.
The guards don’t say a word when they come for me again. They just yank me from the makeshift infirmary and toss me back into the black corridors like discarded laundry. I don’t fight them. My arms ache, and my legs feel like water, but I keep myback straight and my jaw clenched. I walk back to the cell on my own feet, bruised but unbroken.
The door opens with the same grating moan, and Barsok is already there, crouched by the wall, chains loose enough to let him rise if need be. His eyes flick to me the second I step inside. He takes in the blood on my arms, the weariness in my gait. He doesn’t ask questions.
