"What happened?"
"I'm not sure yet. Something. We're safe for the moment."
"[anat..."
"Don't worry about him. I'll find the boy."
"I promised. Keep safe."
"And you've done it," Sinja said. "You did a fine job. Now let's see how
much it's cost you, shall we? I've seen a lot of belly wounds. Some are
worse than others, but they're all tender to prod at, so expect this to
hurt."
Nayiit nodded and screwed up his face, readying himself for the pain.
Sinja opened his robes and looked at the cut. Even as such things go,
this one was bad. Eustin's blade had gone into the boy just below his
navel, and cut to the left as it came out. Blood soaked the boy's robes,
freezing them to the stones lie lay on. Skin on white fat. "There were
soft, worm-shaped loops of gut exposed to the air. Sinja laid a hand on
the boy's chest and knelt over the wound, sniffing at it. If it only
smelled of blood, there might he a chance. But amid the iron and meat,
there was the scent of fresh shit. Eustin had cut the boy's bowels. That
was it, then. The boy was dead.
"How bad?"
"Not good," Sinja said.
"Hurts."
"I'd imagine."
"Is it ..."
"It's deep. And it's thorough," Sinja said. "If you wanted something
passed on to someone, this would he a good time to say it."
The boy wasn't thinking well. Like a drunkard, it took time for him to
understand what Sinja had said, and another breath to think what it had
meant. He swallowed. Fear widened his eyes, but that was all.
"Tell them. 'Fell them I died well. That I fought well."
They were small enough lies, and Sinja could tell the boy knew it.
"I'll tell them you died protecting the Khai's son," Sinja said. "I'll
tell them you faced down a dozen men, knowing you'd he killed, but
choosing that over surrendering him to the Galts."
"You make me sound like a good man." Nayiit smiled, then groaned,
twisting to the side. His hand hovered above his wound, the impulse to
cradle the hurt balanced by the pain his touch would cause. Sinja took
the man's hand.
"Nayiit-cha," Sinja said. "I know something that can stop the pain."
"Yes," Nayiit hissed.
"It'll he worse for a moment."
"Yes," he repeated.
"All right then," Sinja said, as much to himself as the man lying hefore
him. "You did a man's job of it. Rest well."
He snapped the boy's neck and sat with him, cradling his head as he
finished dying. It was quick this way. There wouldn't be the pain or the
fever. There wouldn't be the torture of trekking back to the city just
to have the physicians fill him with poppy and leave him to dream
himself away. It was a better death than those. Sinja told himself it