In the dim light from a small lamp, Sean could see steam still rising from a copper tub, large enough for a good-sized body. He could also look at the pitiful little waif who was going to be forced into an unwanted marriage. Maybe if he could just dress the wound, he’d take her with him to wherever Coaxtl could hide them both.
A savage ululation startled both of them, and the child grew rigid with fear.
“You were just in time, my dear … what is your name?”
“I am Goat-dung, lowliest”
“You are what?” Sean exclaimed, quite forgetting that there might be someone beyond the partition. Her wide, frightened eyes regarded him with embarrassment.
“I am called”
“Not by me. Turn your back, little one, while I dress my wound. Then we are both leaving this place, and they will be minus one monster for roasting and one maiden for … well. We’ll both go.”
As he was washing the blood from his leg, he heard a tearing noise and a little hand came from around him, holding out a clean white strip. He turned his head over his shoulder and saw her industriously tearing up what must have been either her wedding dress or, more probably, her night gown. Maybe both.
“Can you spare several more strips, little one?” he asked.
“All can be yours, man-monster.”
Since they were going to escape together, he figured he could risk telling her his name now. “I am called Sean Shongili, little one.”
Once he had cleaned the wound in the warm water, he had made two thick pads of the first strips, listening all the time to the frenzied outrage of the disappointed monster-burners. Then he wound more strips until he had a secure bandage on his leg.
Suddenly, the noise changed its direction and came toward them.
“Oh! They will search everywhere for you. That is why you ought to have gone to Coaxtl,” she cried.
“Get undressed and into that tub, child,” Sean ordered, “and throw your things over the stool against the wall. I can crouch half in and half out, and they won’t be looking for me here, now will they?”
Courage the child did not lack, and between them, they arranged her clothing so that its folds afforded shadows where he could hide. Unless someone with very bright lanterns searched the entire little cubicle, he doubted he would be seen.
The child’s screech was warning enough, and he huddled even more closely in on himself as the blanket across the opening was thrown open and a variety of bodies stepped in.
“Well, it couldn’t have got this far with that wound,” said a voice that Sean instantly recognized as Matthew Luzon’s. The shock of hearing that voice in this environment kept him frozen motionless.
“It must have had help,” snarled an angry voice. “It can’t have gnawed through leather like that …”
“Ah, but Brother Howling, these monsters are capable of many things mere mortals cannot imagine.”
So, Matthew has found a soul mate, Sean thought, and the very kind he could best use against us.
Goat-dung kept on screeching, a sound that occasionally became a gargle as she tried to keep as much of herself beneath the water as possible.
“Be quiet. You are not in danger, Goat-dung. Wait here. The monster has escaped. You are not to move until Ascencion comes for you. Hear me?”
“I hear and obey,” the child said in a gargle. Sean heard the blanket being replaced; the intruders made a noisy exit out of the tent, going off in yet another direction.
Before Sean could even make his suggestion, the child was out of the bath and reaching for the scrap of a towel. She had discreetly turned her back on him, which gave him an even better view of the bruising and welts that marked her back from shoulders to buttocks, and even down to the calves of her tiny legs.
He handed her her clothing, and she was dressed and jamming her feet into boots with astonishing speed.
They exited the same way as Howling and Luzon, Goat-dung’s hand curled trustingly in Sean’s. They ran in a crouch, seeking the shadows whenever possible, past the last of the tents that comprised the new locations of the Vale of Tears, and into the night.