“It was once used on battlefields where the side effects were worth enduring, given the dire circumstances. The sensation it produces is … well. It’s been compared to hornet stings.”
Viv almost laughed. “That’s not so bad.”
“Continuous hornet stings at every point of application, for hours and hours and hours,” Highlark elaborated.
“Oh.”
“However, its healing properties are unrivaled, especially when it comes to stitching together rent flesh on the quick. Were we to apply it today, then by tomorrow morning, I might approve of limited mobility. As long as the bindings are left undisturbed, and you make use of that crutch.”
“I have been.”
“Then I take it you’d like to give it a go?”
Viv glanced around the tiny room, at her leg, and at the crutch. She nodded. “Do it.”
When he first slathered the callis oil on with a small wooden spade, the sensation was cold, and she thought he’d been blowing smoke. Or that orcs might be immune to the effect.
Then the burn began to set in.
Then it was a forest fire of needles.
Then she would’ve traded it for being stabbed all over again.
She decided it was a good thing she could still see the bruises on Highlark’s neck while he rewound her bandages, because it kept her from throttling him a second time.
* * *
She skipped lunch and dinner. Indeed, she didn’t rise from the strawtick mattress again that day. Food was as far from her mind as Rackam and his Ravens were from this gods-forsaken place. The pain was incandescent, all-consuming, and Viv lay on her back, breathing long, shuddering breaths while sweat slicked every inch of her.
Pain tolerance was a point of personal pride, and for the first thirty minutes, she’d been positive that she’d be able to master the flayed feeling in her thigh. That it would dull into a throb. But the edge stayed sharp, unblunted by passing minutes or by careful breathing. Perversely, it honed itself ever sharper.
In the face of that, she clutched for the story she’d just read. It was slippery, like muck-slick rope running through her fingers. She caught a good grip on it only intermittently, but flashes of Madger and Legann, of rooftop swordfights and nighttime flights astride huge black horses, kept her eyes on an interior vista.
In the darker hours, she didn’t even manage a doze. Not really. Not well. There were simply snatches of time where her thoughts were on the insides of her eyelids.
Before the pink of predawn, the storm blew itself out at the same time as the fire in her leg, and the straining muscles of her body collapsed into a tremorous unconsciousness.
She slept hard. She slept late. And when she woke, she wanted to eat the whole world.
5
Viv paused before crutching her way down the front steps of The Perch. In the wake of the storm, the sky burned hot and blue, and the beach grass seemed to have flushed from yellow to green overnight. The sand was pitted and dimpled, as though a million tiny creatures had traversed it in the dark.
Her leg wasn’t miraculously mobile, but the flesh did feel less tender, more solid. When she tested it through the bandages with her fingers, it seemed to take more pressure to set off a nauseous ache. The feverish memory of the callis oil’s burn wasn’t one she’d soon forget, though.
In stark contrast to her first, solitary trip down the slope, Viv spied others strolling along the boardwalks. A passenger frigate wallowed at the pier, gangplank down. The bay must’ve been pretty deep. Gulls wheeled in fluttering loops, their cries rebounding off the gentle swells. The activity below trickled up the causeways and through Murk’s gates, but plenty of figures headed her way as well.
She passed Thistleburr Booksellers, which didn’t seem to be benefiting from the increased traffic in any appreciable way. Viv stayed in the sandy street, distrustful of the decrepit boardwalk. And maybe she didn’t want Fern to spy her through the windows just yet. Viv glanced at the door as she thudded past, but she had another errand in mind.
Sea-Song Bakery had apparently soaked up all the custom before it could reach the bookshop. A line stretched out the door, with a mix of dockworkers, tradesfolk, and passengers from the frigate. Viv joined the queue, earning a few wary looks from the gnome in front of her. Thank the Eight I didn’t belt on the saber today. She tried for a smile, but that got her nothing but a raised eyebrow.
The scents were even more appetizing in the fresh, poststorm breeze. When Viv finally clomped her way indoors, those savory and sweet smells redoubled.
Hot and humid, the bakery was open all the way to the back. Moisture beaded on the glass of the front window. Two brick ovens and two enormous cast-iron stoves faced each other beyond a counter, with long marble workspaces flanking them. Down the center ran a pair of open shelves, stacked with an impressive variety of breads.
More baskets lined the front, sorted by type. There were long loaves with slitted crusts, salted rounds, the massive, flaky biscuits Viv had spied two days ago, and buns studded with huge crystals of sugar.
When she reached the front of the line, the dwarf behind the counter looked her up and down, then gave her a pink-cheeked grin. Her sleeves were rolled past the elbow, her forearms evidence of hard work wrestling dough. She fairly glistened with sweat, and she wore her hair bound in a thick blond braid. A startling quantity of flour dusted her apron.
“Well, ain’t you a big piece of somethin’ sweet?” she said, winking. “What can I getcha?”
Viv was baffled by the wink and stared back wide-eyed for a second before recovering herself. “Uh, can I get three of those biscuits and … I guess the same of whatever the dark ones are?”
“Ginger lassy buns. You got it, hon. Fresh off the boat?”
“No … no, I, um—”
“Oh, hang on!” The dwarf snapped her fingers and pointed at Viv’s leg. “Highlark! Hells, you’re the one that—” She clutched at her neck and poked her tongue out. Then she laughed and slapped the counter, an explosive sound in the open bakery. The sea-fey behind Viv actually flinched.
Viv flushed, although she thought she ought to be immune at this point. “So, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind when I—”
“Ha! Nah, don’t fret over it, sweet thing. He’s a sour apple. You probably squeezed a little sugar into him.” She snapped her fingers again, this time at a willowy human girl with her hair up in a bun. The kid dutifully flapped open a paper sack and filled it from the shelves.
“For you, six bits,” proclaimed the dwarf as she folded the top of the sack and handed it over. “Gonna be in Murk for a while?”
“A few weeks,” replied Viv as she fished around in her wallet. “I guess.”
“Suppose I’ll be seeing you again then.”
“These are that good, huh?” Viv tried for a teasing smile. To her astonishment, it seemed to work.
“I know you’ll be back tomorrow. Hells, you try my biscuits, I bet you decide to stay longer. I’m Maylee. Welcome to Murk.”
“Um. Viv.” She took the bag.
“Try not to eat ’em before you get home, Viv,” Maylee called sweetly as the line shuffled aside to let Viv maneuver out into the air.
* * *
When Viv cracked open the door to the bookshop, the scent of pastry almost managed to beat back the musty funk of the place. Fern looked up from her stool behind the counter where she’d been writing notes in a ledger.
Potroast darted into view from around some shelves, his yapping hoots strident and self-important. He scrambled to a stop at Viv’s feet, and she was careful to maneuver her crutch between him and the precarious piles she’d overturned last time.
His barks dwindled when he caught sight of the sack in her hand, at which point he began darting glances between it and her face. His eyes goggled in furious consternation and a pink tongue like a tiny spade lolled out of his black beak.
“Back the next day, hm?” said Fern, closing the ledger and leaning an arm on the counter.
“Bandages aren’t so good in the rain,” replied Viv. “Brought an apology, though.”