on their feet.
‘Get in,’ said Ischade. ‘It will take us all.’
Mradhon climbed aboard, stepping over the corpse, which moved, which moaned, and
his nerves prickled at that unexpected life. Greater mercy, he thought, with
this stirring between his feet, to use the sword: he had seen deaths such as
this Stepson faced when the wounds went bad, the gaping socket of the missing
eye thus close to the brain – it would be bad, he thought, while the boat rocked
with the others getting in. He reached over the side, dipped up water with his
hand, passed it over the Stepson’s lips, felt movement in response.
Ischade’s robe brushed him as she took her place. She knelt there all too close
for any comfort; she bent her head, bowed over, her hands on the wounded face.
There was suddenly outcry, a struggling of limbs beneath them … ‘For the gods’
sake!’ Mradhon exclaimed, his gorge rising; he thrust at Ischade, shoved her
back, froze at the lifting of her face, the direction of that basilisk stare at
him.
‘Pain is life,’ she said.
And the boat began to move, slowly, like a dream, the while the wind swirled
about them and the river roared beneath. His companions – they were hazy shapes
in the night about Ischade. The wounded man stirred and moaned, threatening
instability in the boat should his thrashing become severe. Mradhon reached down
and held him, gently. The witch touched him too, and the struggles took harder
and harder restraint. The moans were pitiful.
‘He will live,’ she said. ‘Stilcho. I am calling you. Come back.’