The Executioner's Rebellion (The Executioner's Song Book 4) Read online

  At the same time, he didn’t even know if he wanted to help the man. He didn’t know if he should be helping these men at all.

  As he looked over to Master Meyer, he had a feeling the executioner felt the same way.

  Maybe Finn was making a mistake here. Helping men who had attacked the king…

  No. Finn was right in seeing if there was anything he might be able to do to save them.

  Not only because doing so would provide him with answers, but also because it was the right thing to do.

  That mattered. That had to matter.

  Finn dug at the crossbow bolt.

  The man cried out, but he ignored it as he shoved the knife down into the wound, working the bolt out, prying the barbs free as he pulled them out of the man’s chest. As soon as it was out, he pressed his hand down on the wound. The man took a gasping breath, then started coughing.

  “Easy,” Finn said again.

  “I…”

  He tried to sit up then coughed again, and a bubble of blood-covered phlegm came to his lips. He leaned back, the blood pooling down his cheek.

  Finn cursed under his breath.

  Maybe he wasn’t going to be able to save this man after all.

  He grabbed a strip of cloth from the man’s shirt, shoving it down on the wound, then leaned his head forward, listening.

  His lungs sounded relatively clear, and he still had a heartbeat.

  He was alive.

  A wound like he had sustained could be fatal. It could puncture a lung. The heart. Any major vessel. Somehow, the man had gotten lucky. Though he had seemingly passed out, he was still alive.

  Finn looked up to see Master Meyer making his way through the fallen and injured men. Others from along the street had come out and they were watching. Most of them were from this section of the city and had dirty clothes, dirty skin, and haunted expressions in their eyes.

  The Archers had the crossbows aimed at them, as if they were concerned any of these people might attack.

  “This man should pull through,” Finn said.

  “Good,” Meyer said. “I have two others who should make it too.”

  Finn grabbed another strip of fabric off of the man, which he wound around his chest, binding it tightly, then shuffled off to one of the other injured men. He was beyond Finn’s help.

  He moved on to one more, a man who was moaning, holding on to his head.

  Not a man. A boy.

  He couldn’t be much older than fourteen or fifteen, and he clutched his face. A long gash had stripped part of his cheek away, and he was bawling. Blood pooled around his hand, spilling out onto the cobblestones.

  “Let me help you,” Finn said.

  The boy started to pull away, but Finn grabbed his shoulder. He didn’t look to be injured in any other way, so if he could bind this wound…

  He would have a scar. He might even lose a chunk of his face. He might get an infection, but the wound itself was something he could survive.

  “You aren’t going to die from this,” Finn said.

  “I’m… not?”

  “Not if you let me help you.”

  The boy stopped crying out, and Finn cut off a strip of fabric, tearing it free then using it to put pressure on the wound. He could tell the blood loss was significant, but the more he put pressure on the boy’s face, the more he started to see the blood easing, not spilling out around him quite as much as it had at first.

  “I’m going to have to wrap this around your cheek. You’re not going to be able to talk, and we are going to have to get you to a surgeon who can stitch this up.”

  “Not a cutter,” the boy said.

  “You’re going to need a surgeon if you want to live.”

  The boy started wailing, but he let Finn tear the fabric free and begin to bind his face. The wound was deep, and it cut through the muscle of his cheek, leaving his jaw hanging slightly open and a little bit askew.

  Maybe he’d been wrong in his initial assessment. It was possible a wound like his wouldn’t be survivable.

  Finn wasn’t going to tell the boy that, though.

  He finished binding it then got to his feet, looking around.

  A crowd had gathered around them but didn’t press inward.

  “Meyer?” Finn said.

  “I see it,” Meyer said.

  “What do we do?”

  “We take the injured with us,” Meyer scolded.

  “And if they don’t let us?”

  “Then the injured will die,” Meyer said with his voice raised a bit, loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowd.

  Meyer grabbed one of the men he’d helped and pulled him.

  Finn looked over to the boy. If any of the injured were going to be able to answer questions, it would be somebody who had only lost part of their face, but a boy like him might not know all that much about what had happened.

  Besides, the other man needed Finn more. Finn scurried over to him, grabbing him under the arms, and started to pull.

  Faces in the crowd turned toward him, watching, but Finn ignored them. All it would take would be for the crowd to grab for the injured people, and to push Finn and Meyer back, and they could be overwhelmed. Given that he and Meyer had forced their way across, he doubted the Archers would offer them much help. Still, Finn knew he needed to do something now.

  The Archers weren’t helping, but they were more concerned about the protesters.

  He dragged the man. They reached the cobblestone bridge, and the crowd still hadn’t pressed toward them, but as he pulled the man onto the bridge, the crowd headed forward, getting closer to the injured and the dying.

  “Get that one,” Meyer said to one of the city Archers while pointing at another man across the bridge. “He can provide answers.”

  “He can stay there and rot,” the Archer said.

  “Grab that man, or I will tell the king myself that you did not.”

  The Archer’s eyes widened and he nodded quickly. He hurried over the bridge, holding on to the crossbow, swinging it toward others in the crowd as he aimed it away from him, then grabbed for the man Meyer had indicated. Finn couldn’t see what was wrong with him, but he had a bandage around one side, and another along his shoulder, both soaked in blood. The man moaned a bit as the Archer grabbed him by one arm and began to drag him.

  “Go get the boy,” Finn said to one of the other Archers.

  “You go get the boy,” the Archer said.

  Finn straightened, looking at him, and jabbed a bloody hand at him. “Go get the boy, or I will tell the king that you refused.”

  The Archer glowered at Finn, but he turned, storming off, holding onto the crossbow. Several people from the crowd started to converge upon the Archer, and he swung the crossbow, pointing at each of them, hurrying through the fallen bodies until he reached the boy, where he grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him.

  The boy wasn’t nearly as injured as some of the others, and he came willingly, babbling the entire time. By the time the Archer reached the bridge, the crowd had swelled to even more people, and they surrounded the fallen.

  None of them were shouting the way they had before, and none of them were as violent either.

  “What now?” Finn asked, whispering the question to Meyer.

  “Now we see if any of them pull through. Then we question.”

  Chapter Six

  The room stunk of medicine, but it was more than that—a mixture of rot, filth, urine and feces. The cut flowers Lena had brought to the room did little to improve the smell, though Finn appreciated the effort. He sat on a chair next to one of the beds. The four men they had saved, dragged from the dying, all lay on beds near him. There were others from the fighting—nearly a dozen, all told, in various states of injury—who also lay on the beds, waiting for their turn at healing.

  Meyer and Finn had been busy. Lena had joined them, offering what help she could, and it had been she who had stitched up the boy’s face, doing a far more skillf
ul job than any surgeon Finn had ever seen.

  Each time he thought he understood how skilled his sister was becoming, he found himself marveling at the increase in her abilities. He supposed that, at this point, he should just accept the fact that she was going to be a far superior healer than he was.

  Lanterns blazed on tables, casting the entire room in warm light. The walls of stone were a bit confining, and carried a bit of dampness that Finn had found common in most of the prisons within the city.

  “We could have taken them to a nicer facility,” Lena said, making her way between several of the injured, pausing to look at one, then peeling back the sheet of another to gaze at his wound. “And not some repurposed old prison.”

  “Meyer wanted some place the protesters wouldn’t know about, and I don’t think the city’s used this as a prison in many years,” Finn said. Declan should be secure, but he trusted Meyer in this.

  “Nearly a hundred,” Lena said, looking over to him. Her hair had pulled free of the band, leaving strands dangling down in front of her face. She had an ink stain on one cheek, and what looked to be dirt on her hands, along with flecks of dried blood. Sweat glistened on her brow.

  She’d been here ever since they had pulled the men free, working diligently and trying to save as many as she could.

  “I didn’t realize it had been that long,” Finn said.

  “Henry told me that when we first came to the old Noreg prison,” she said. “I think he felt guilty about asking me to help.”

  “I doubt it,” Finn said.

  “Why?” Lena asked, shooting him a look.

  “Not that I doubt Meyer would want your help,” Finn said hurriedly, raising his hands to try to cut off any irritation his sister might have with him. “But I doubt he felt guilty asking you to help. He knows you would be useful.”

  Lena moved forward, pausing at another bed—the one with the boy. He’d been sedated and no longer moaned quite as much as he had when he was first brought in. The babbling, too, had thankfully eased, so he wasn’t crying as much either.

  “There are times I don’t feel quite as useful as I would like,” Lena admitted, looking over to Finn after replacing the dressing on the boy’s face. “There are only so many people willing to accept healing from me.”

  “Because you trained under Meyer?”

  “Because I’m something different,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not quite an apothecary, but I’m not a surgeon, and I’m certainly not a physician.”

  Finn sat up, rubbing his hands on his thighs. He was tired. It was a strange sort of weariness. Not physical, but more of a mental fatigue that had come from the time he had spent working with Meyer and Lena and even Wella trying to save as many as they could. They were the only ones Meyer had trusted. There were others in the city who had skill, but it was telling that Meyer had only trusted a few people to heal the wounded.

  Of course, these wounded men were the ones he would ultimately end up questioning, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

  “Well, you are smarter than any apothecary I know. Maybe not Wella,” Finn said, looking to the far side of the room where the old apothecary woman hunched over a table, mixing more medicinals. She had carried her supplies with her, and had been busy mixing medicines, ointments, and different treatments that could be used to ensure infection didn’t take hold, the men’s wounds clotted appropriately, and they didn’t suffer too much. “But smarter than any other apothecary I know. And I don’t know any surgeon who could stitch up that boy quite as well as you did.”

  “I’m sure any of them could have done that,” Lena said.

  “I don’t know. He had bone exposed. You stitched the muscle and then replaced the cheek.” Finn had marveled at that. She had told him that she had to repair the muscle beneath the skin in order for the boy to have function in his jaw again. It made anatomical sense to Finn, but it wasn’t something he would have thought of doing.

  His training revolved around ensuring that men were physically capable to stand trial, then physically capable to withstand sentencing.

  Though he did train to help heal others, and he could use that training the way Meyer did in order to supplement his income, Finn didn’t have the breadth and depth of knowledge Meyer had obtained, nor did he have the information Lena already possessed, even though she’d been studying for about the same time as Finn.

  “And what does it matter if you aren’t a physician?”

  “It matters to some,” Lena said. “In some of the central sections of the city, most think that if you’re not a physician, then there’s no point in getting healing from you.”

  “Maybe,” Finn said.

  He shifted on the chair, looking around the room. They were in the lower level of the old Noreg prison, a place that had been abandoned as the needs of the city had changed. Newer and more secure places had been built, but as far as Finn knew, it had once housed prisoners, much like Declan currently did.

  “There’s no maybe about it,” Lena said. “That’s what so many people believe.”

  “And do you care?”

  Lena looked over. “What?”

  Finn shrugged. “Do you care what others believe?”

  “If I am to heal them, shouldn’t I care what they believe?”

  “Of course you can care, but does it matter?” Finn looked at the men lining the beds. “How many of these wouldn’t have survived had you not intervened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Finn smiled at his sister, getting to his feet. “I do. There are at least three here who wouldn’t have pulled through if not for you.”

  “Henry would’ve been able to help,” she said softly.

  “I’m not so sure,” Finn said. “Meyer is incredibly skilled, but I think you’ve gotten to the point where you’re starting to surpass even his skill.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said to him.

  “Why not? Because it’s true? I have little doubt Meyer would feel the same.”

  She took a deep breath, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked over to Finn. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Try to make me feel better.”

  “Do you remember when we were younger?”

  “I remember a lot about when we were younger,” she said.

  “Do you remember how you used to follow Mother around the house? I used to tease you about it at the time.”

  “At the time?”

  “Fine. I teased you even after we got older, but I think I was always a little bit jealous.”

  “Why?” Lena asked.

  “Because you were always so assured of what you could do with Mother.”

  “You had no reason to be jealous of that,” she said.

  “I did. Father didn’t want me involved in what he was doing. Not serving as a cartwright, but—”

  “For good reason,” Lena said, pausing at one of the beds and pulling back a dressing to check it before nodding to herself.

  “For good reason, yes, but I never really had the same opportunity as you.”

  “You had every opportunity I had,” Lena said.

  Why was he going into this with her? It wasn’t that he regretted anything that had happened. He had found his place. Finn had long ago given up the idea that he would ever serve on a crew, and he didn’t even want to run the streets the way he once had, no longer wanting the dangers they presented. He was content with his role—content with knowing he served the king and was a valuable part of the city.

  “I remember one time when Mother chased you out of the kitchen. Father had come back from a job.” Finn closed his eyes, thinking back to that time. His father had staggered into the home, and Finn remembered the way he had clutched his hand up against his side, remembered the blood that had spilled out, staining his shirt. His father had forced a smile at Finn, as if trying to protect him from seeing what had happened, but Finn was not stupid, even then. He had known somethi
ng had gone wrong.

  When he had gone to the door, he found Oscar standing there, looking into the house, concern etched upon his face. When Oscar had seen Finn watching, he’d snuck off, disappearing down a nearby alleyway, leaving Finn alone.

  “Mother took him to a back room. She was peeling away his dressings, and she looked as if she didn’t know what to do.”

  “Mother wasn’t a healer,” Lena said.

  “But you seemed to be, even then,” Finn said. That had been a time when Finn had also thought he had an interest in healing, but hadn’t reacted as well as Lena. “You told him to hold his hand up against his side, then you took his other hand and spoke to him.”

  “I didn’t want to lose him,” Lena said.

  It was the first time Finn had been aware of the fact that their father’s line of work might lead to his death. While Finn had known that his work had its dangers, he had always considered them theoretical dangers, not real ones. It had appealed to Finn up until that point. He thought chasing after his father and following in his footsteps was some grand adventure.

  It had all changed for Finn that day.

  Then it had changed again when their father had gotten pinched, tossed in the prison, and banished from the city.

  “Finn?”

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Thank you,” Lena said, turning back to him and taking his hand, forcing him to look up at her. “I don’t know if I’ve ever thanked you.”

  “For what?”

  “For caring.” She started checking the man in front of her. “Even when it was dangerous for you, you still cared.”

  “That’s just it,” Finn said. “After a while, I started to forget how dangerous it might be.”

  “I never forgot,” Lena said softly. “I tried to ignore it, and I tried in my own way to get you to stop, but I realize now it didn’t do anything but drive you away from me.”