“By yer speech, ye be strangers here,” he began tentatively, trying to take his mind off what the man was doing and was about to do. “Have ye come from far tae aid the Lord Warin?”

“Not from too far,” the darker man replied, bending closer over the wounded leg. “We’ve been on a special assignment for the past few weeks. We’re on our way to Coroth.”

“Coroth?” Mal began. He saw that the blond man had found a length of branch which suited him, and was now wrapping the end with dry grass. He wondered again how the man planned to light it.

“Then, ye’ll be goin’ directly to th’ Lord Warin himself—aiie!”

As Mal cried out, the darker man murmured, “Sorry,” and shook his head as he continued working. Light flared behind Mal’s head as the torch caught, but by the time he could twist around to look again, the torch was already burning brightly. The blond man steadied it where he had jammed it into the ground beside Mal’s leg, then knelt down and began removing his gloves. Mal’s face contorted in bewilderment, his eyes watering from the smoke of the torch.

“How did ye do that? I saw nae flint an’ steel.”

“Then you missed it, my friend.” The man smiled and patted a pouch at his belt. “What other way is there? Do you think I’m Deryni, that I can call down fire from heaven simply to light a torch?”

The man flashed him a disarming smile, and Mal had to grin, too. Of course the man couldn’t be Deryni. No one who served the Lord Warin could be a member of that accursed race. Not when Warin was sworn to destroy all those who trafficked with sorcery. He must be delirious. Of course the man had used flint and steel.

As the blond man turned his attention to what his colleague was doing, Mal chided himself for his foolishness and turned his head to look up at the sky. A strange lethargy was stealing over him as the men worked, an inexplicable, floating feeling, as though his very soul were hovering a little way outside his body. He could feel them probing in his leg, and it hurt a little, but the pain was a thing apart, a warm, disjointed sensation that was somehow alien. He wondered idly if he was dying.

“I’m sorry if we hurt you,” said the blond man. The low voice cut through Mal’s meanderings like the steel in his leg, and he was suddenly back in the moment. “Why don’t you try to tell us what happened? It might help to take your mind off what we’re doing.”

Mal sighed and tried to blink the pain away. “Aye, I’ll try. Let’s see. Aye, ye be on a mission for th’ Lord Warin, so ye could nae know what happened here.” He winced as the blond man shook his head.

“Well, we won for today.” He laid his head back and stared up at the darkening sky. “We routed thirty o’ the king’s men led by Prince Nigel himself. Killed nigh a score, an’ wounded the prince, too. But it will nae last. Th’ king will just send more men, an’ we’ll be punished for risin’ against him. It’s all the fault o’ Duke Alaric, cursed be his name!”