When the blood sprays over the sand, Right keeps waiting for the pain. The blinding agony of the steel biting into their flesh. It never comes.
The world around them is gray with night. Right’s keen eyes pick out more than most from it, even from their awkward position on the ground, stiff where they’d fallen. They stare at the wet gleam of the blood that is not theirs, and then they lift their head.
Someone’s back, arched and coiled with effort, or pain. Right wrestles their attention to broaden its focus, and sees something they find difficult to believe: Ambrosia lí Fray, once one of the sainted champions, stands with his sword sunk deep into the guts of a creature twice his size and wearing the Empresses’ colors. A badger, Right realizes dimly, while it slumps to the ground, holding a huge saber with dense godscript along its edge. Fray pulls his sword free just in time to parry one of the badger’s companions, sending their cudgel flying.
Right expected him to be capable. One doesn’t lead the High’s personal guard without skill. Right was not expecting him to be terrifyingly good. Still rigid in shock, Right can only watch as Fray weaves through the small gaggle of soldiers. He moves between them like a sparrowhawk slipping between branches, his sword finding every chink and gap in their armor and plunging deep. There’s three of them to him alone. In a moment there are two. In a shorter moment still, one, and then the only thing to count are the rigid bodies that lie in the dirt.
After that all Fray does is stand there, chest heaving. As Right watches, one of the soldiers groans, shifting. It stops at once when Fray stabs the sword all the way through its eye socket in a fluid, instant motion.
A few more seconds pass. Fray gingerly nudges the corpses with his blade before wiping the metal clean on the grass. He does not resheathe it. Then he turns to Right, and Right says, because it’s the only question their stupefied mind can catch hold of, “How did you do that?”
Fray’s front is spattered with blood. There’s a bit on his cheek, vivid and red, and it makes him look even more faded than usual. He stills at the question, then shrugs. He shifts carefully, mouth opening as if to answer, only to collapse with a horse cry. Only his sword, biting into the earth, keeps him even slightly upright.
Right levers themself to their feet, looking around the little camp for other danger. None presents itself. “Are you hurt?” they demand of Fray. “Show me.”
Fray grimaces, clearly unhappy to be caught out. Right can practically see the gears in his head turning as he searches for a response. Eventually, he gives up, and lifts his arm enough to reveal the deep bite of a blade in his abdomen. “Isn’t so bad,” he insists as Right closes in.
“I would disagree,” Right says with no small touch of sudden irritation. A twinge of guilt follows, though they try to chase it away. The soldiers had snuck up on the camp on Right’s watch, while they stared at the distant glow of what they once called home. They would be captive or dead without Fray’s intervention, and they aren’t even sure how he realized what was happening before it was too late. Right shakes their head. “This needs disinfected and bandaged,” they say. “As soon as possible.”
This, at least, Fray does not protest.
“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.” Right’s voice is scratchy to their own ears. “And against three beasts …”
Fray smiles faintly, sheepishly. Right had helped him wash the blood from his fur, and now he sits close to the fire. His sword is still close at hand. “I can take five,” he offers in a quiet voice, one not quite sure if he should be sharing this information. Right, busied with finding their medical kit, stops and stares at him. “All else being equal,” Fray adds hastily, as if that makes what he’s claimed less mad.
“Five,” Right says.
“Usually.”
There’s a long pause, one in which Fray looks away first. Right says, “How did we ever take you captive?”
Another vague smile from Fray, but this one is wry, humorless. “Tricked,” is all he says, and will not elaborate.
Part of Right is still in a panic from the attack, and they suspect will remain so until dawn. They force it down by focusing on Fray’s injury. It’s a wicked cut, ragged and ugly, both deep and long. The rich red and pink tissue beneath seems to threaten to claw its way up over Fray’s wheat-colored fur. Right can’t quite fathom how he only reacted to it after the fight was done. He’s certainly reacting now. When Right pours the last of the antiseptic where it looks the worst, he makes a single strangled noise of pain before going completely rigid. It’s not enough, they realize only after the last of it has slipped from the vial. The wound glistens with the spirit, but—and Right is no field medic—but they would swear the split flesh is actually looking back at them.
They pluck worriedly at their whiskers before rummaging around in their satchel for the bottle they know is there.
By the time their claws find it in the bag, Fray has unclenched ever so little. He sags visibly, still staring straight ahead. Right has watched him enough by now to know the fix of his face means he is deep in thought. “Where next?” he asks, and stops short at the sound of Right uncorking the second bottle. He looks at it with curiosity, eyes darting back up to Right in question as they take a mouthful of the algae-colored liquid and swallow. Right waits a moment, steadies themself against the sharp, strange taste, then nods as it settles in their stomach.
“Drink,” Right says, and rather than hand Fray the bottle they hold it to his lips. His eyes fly open in surprise, and then further as Right’s other hand steadies the back of his head, mindful of his ears. But at Right’s urging, he drinks. They allow him only a single mouthful before pulling back and working the bottle, studying him.
Fray blinks up at them for a long, bewildered moment before he starts to choke and heave. Right barely pulls clear in time to avoid the spray of liquid that lurches back up Fray’s throat and hurls itself to the ground in a bubbling, foaming mass. He coughs and gags, getting the last of it clear with a painful rasp, and the two of them stare at the liquid as it rolls uphill to escape. It disappears into the tall grass and Fray, too spent to speak, gives Right a bewildered stare.
“Echoplasm,” Right says grimly. They can identify it better now, their echo sense honing in on what they felt watching them from the wound. It slithers within Fray, born from the godscript, moving along the invisible ley lines of his spirit. “It won’t share a body with you,” says Right. “You’re cursed.”