NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 1: The Job)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: KESLA

Krakka keeps tutting as he fusses over the boy, cuz that's what he is, he's way too young to be involved in this kinda shit. First thing we did, before even thinking about waking the others, was tie him up good and tight with some of the rope we packed with the rest of our gear, just playing it safe. That's not what's bothering him. What's bothering our tengu cleric is the nasty gash in the side of his head, still sluggishly seeping blood under the greasy black undercut pulled back into a tight ponytail, the somewhat purplish darkening to the green skin round the wound indicating serious bruising. Might even be swelling. Clearly I hit him a little too hard with my axe. Headwounds like that are nasty, and they can be tricky. Might be he'll wake up on his own, just as likely he could die in this torpor, or be strange if he does wake again. Krakka's displeasure is squarely aimed at me right now.

Not sure I blame him, truth be told.

Art's ignoring all this entirely – right now he's sat on his bedroll again, conspicuously turned away right now, meticulously cleaning his blades in case he needs to use them again soon. He's been quiet since we came up, and I don't blame him. I don't feel that great about the fight we just had out there, and I didn't kill anyone.

"What d'you think?" I ask once the tension gets too much for me. I'm having to fight hard to rein my emotions in right now, and I ain't entirely succeeding. Might be it's making me impatient. This just got potentially complicated for us.

Sucking his breath in with a clipped hiss that sounds a lot angrier than I'd like, Krakka doesn't turn round to look at me, but his fists are clenching tight now. "The lad's in a bad way. I doubt it would've been much worse if you'd just hit him with the sharp end after all."

"Nothing you can do then?" I take a deep breath, and it's shaky. "I didn't want to kill him. The point was to just take 'im down, I wanted to ask some questions."

"Well that's gonna be a tall order right now, isn't it?" He finds his feet as rounds on me, and I actually have to take a step back I'm so surprised. I've seen Krakka roused and ferocious in battle, but he's usually so chilled out when there's no fighting to be done, I could probably count the number of times I seen him genuinely mad in the day-to-day on the fingers of one particularly mangled hand. "Congratulations, Kesla Shoon, you are a most mighty warrior. You felled this poor boy with a single strike and you weren't even trying to hurt him."

"Can't you just heal him?" Gael ventures, although their voice is particularly timid right now, and the look on their face suggests they'd rather they hadn't spoken up after all, but also they couldn't really help it.

For a moment it looks like Krakka might just turn his ire on them too, but he softens considerably looking up at them. No surprise there, he's become incredibly fond of the young wizard in the time we've known them. "I really couldn't say. Headwounds are difficult, there's a lot that can go wrong. Even if I mend the damage, there's no guarantee they won't still be a little wrong in the head after. And the information you want might not be there anymore anyway." He looks at me when he says that last thing, in a particularly pointed way I gotta try real hard not to scowl at.

"All right, look, I'm sorry I did it like that, all right? I just had to stop the fight right there, I didn't wanna give him any chance to skewer Art. He might be young but this kid is good."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Yeslee mutters, probably half to herself. She hasn't moved from her spot near the cave entrance since we came back, still looking out into the night, She's still holding her bow, still nocked, not drawn but ready all the same. Up until now I doubted she was even paying attention to what's going on in here. "Looked like he had it well in hand to me."