happened. After that, Coriano smiled, Renaud could bring the whole world crashing down for all it mattered to him. Dunea sang in agreement, and Coriano gripped her hilt.
Somewhere in the darkness behind them, the pillar quaked in response.
CHAPTER 17
The morning mists hovered thick and wet over the forest. Deer, the king’s own stock, had come out to feed on the delicate new leaves sprouting in the scattered open spaces, but they shied away from the tiny clearing by the stone hut, and for good reason.
Gin lay by the door with his head on his paws, his orange eyes half open. The door to the hut creaked and a growl rumbled up from deep in the ghosthound’s chest as Josef stepped out into the gray morning with Nico close behind him.
The swordsman was shirtless, but the wide swath of bandages wrapped around his chest kept the mist off him. For the first time Gin had seen, he was unarmed save for the enormous iron sword that he held in one hand.
The swordsman and the girl walked a short distance through the forest, stopping at a spot where the trees were farther apart, not quite a clearing, but room enough for their purposes. Nico took a seat on a fallen log while Josef took up position at a wide spot between two young poplars. When he judged he had enough space, he held out his arms and, very carefully, raised his black blade. He brought it up in a slow arc until it was over his head. His shoulders tensed as the barely healed cut under his bandages stretched, but his face remained calm and serious as he brought the blade down again.
When he had lowered the point all the way to the leaf litter, Nico spoke. “Will it do?”
Josef let out a pained breath. “The stitches held,” he said. “That’ll have to be enough. It’s not like we have time to lie around.”
Nico stood up and went around to his back, adjusting the bandages to sit higher. As she reached up to get his shoulders, the wide sleeves of her enormous black coat fell away from her scrawny arms revealing the scuffed silver manacles she wore clamped tight on each wrist. A dozen feet behind them, Gin’s growl grew louder.
“What is he going on about?” Josef grunted, rolling his shoulders to test the new bandage arrangement.
“The usual,” she murmured.
Josef scowled. “I can make him stop if it’s bothering you.”
Nico shook her head. “Eli needs them for his plan, and things like that stopped bothering me long ago, after you found me.” She reached into her coat and pulled out a clean shirt, which she held out to the swordsman.
Josef took it and pulled it over his head, ignoring the pain in his chest. “I’ll talk to Eli about it, then. You shouldn’t have to put up with that idiocy just so he can get another ten thousand on his bounty.”
“I’d put up with more for less,” Nico said. She caught his eye and gave him one of her rare smiles. “The higher we make his bounty, the better the bounty hunters get. Soon you’ll have the kind of fights you’ve been searching for.”
“Fights seem to find us no matter what Eli’s bounty is,” Josef grumbled, but he was grinning when he looked at her. “Still, that Coriano and his awakened blade will be a challenge worth remembering. If the higher bounty attracts more of that sort of opponent, all of this stomping around in the woods will be worth it.” He paused. “Which isn’t to say I’ll agree to another of your idiot kidnapping ideas, Monpress.”
He turned around and folded his arms over his chest. A moment later, Eli stepped out of the underbrush with an enormous sigh.
“Too much suspicion will lead to an early grave,” he said, strolling over to stand beside Nico.
“I would argue it’s the other way around,” Josef said. “So, did you need something, or did you just come out here to bother us?”
Eli made a great show of looking hurt. “For your information, I came out to see if you were all right. Nico was still putting your chest back together when I drifted off last night, so when you weren’t in the hut when I woke up, I decided to investigate. Now I’m glad I did. What’s this about an awakened blade?”
Josef plunged the Heart of War into the soft ground and leaned on it. “The swordsman I fought had an awakened blade.”
“Must be a