The Immortal Words (The Grave Kingdom), стр. 18
Pulling away from the dragon and the turtle, now dead and detached from her, Bingmei began to vomit uncontrollably, but she caught sight of a glimmer in the sun. The short sword lay just next to her.
The dragon tossed the tortoise shell away with an angered snarl as Bingmei rolled and grabbed the blade. She was covered in the sap-like substance and the musk. Even though her stomach revolted, she thrust the weapon up at the dragon’s neck, invoking the power of the blade as she did so.
The hilt began to glow, growing hot in her hand, and the blade sheared through the dragon’s throat. The beast’s reptilian eyes rolled back before it slumped and landed on top of her, pinning her to the ground. The weight of the dragon crushed her chest, and the smell from the tortoise made her gag.
“No! No!” Quion moaned in agony, coming closer. He clubbed the dragon’s head again and again. She couldn’t smell his emotions. The stench of the musk overpowered all else.
“Stop!” she finally managed to bark.
Quion wheeled away in surprise.
“Get . . . it . . . off!” she gasped.
Quion hurried closer and lifted the head of the dragon off her body. Her lungs filled with air, and that made the stench even worse. She rolled to her side and dry heaved again and again.
“I thought you were dead! I . . . I’m sorry! You’re alive! The sounds I heard. I thought it was eating you!”
“That was . . . me,” Bingmei said, hanging her head. Her side ached from the wounds, and she pressed her arm against her ribs. She was still in agony. “Help me. To the stream. The smell . . .”
He dropped the staff and scooped her up in his arms. Had she not been in such pain, she might have laughed at the way his face twisted into a wince. “That does stink!”
But he cradled her to the edge of the stream and gently laid her down in it. The water soaked through her, chilling her instantly. It stung her side, but soon the cold soothed the pain. She splashed water on her face and began wiping away the horrid smell.
The snow leopard limped toward them, panting.
“Good girl,” Quion said, patting her flank.
Bingmei gazed at the snow leopard gratefully. “She saved my life,” she said.
Quion nodded. “There was no warning. You’ve always been able to sense the dragons early.”
“This one must have been lying in wait,” she said, nodding to it. The sap-like stain from the dragon wasn’t coming off her hands, even as she scrubbed them under the water. Her skin had turned black. She abandoned the effort and hung her head.
“There’s blood in the water,” Quion said in a worried voice. He crouched down and saw her gripping her side.
“It got me,” she whispered, turning so he could get a better look at her side and back. They were on fire. “It hurts, Quion. I’m afraid to look.”
His eyes widened, his mouth tightened to a flat line, but the expression was there and then gone. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, trying to chuckle. “Just a few scratches.”
“Quion,” she said, looking into his eyes. She still couldn’t smell his emotions. Although the stench from the tortoise musk had faded some, it had compromised her gift. It had overpowered every other smell.
“No, I can help. I know I can.”
“I can’t tell if you’re lying,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t smell anything but that reptile stench right now. How bad is it?”
“It’s pretty bad, Bingmei. The gashes are deep. I can help, though. It’s . . . it’s just that it’s going to hurt. A lot. I’ll have to stitch them closed.”
Now she understood. He didn’t want to hurt her.
He looked around. “The turtles are all going back into the water,” he said. “Do you think the dragon summoned them to attack us?”
A quick glance revealed it was true. Several of the black tortoises were slumping into the stream, but they showed no interest in them.
“I do,” she said, then gasped as another jolt of pain overwhelmed her.
“I’m sorry I kept hitting the dragon after it was dead,” he said. “You were underneath it.”
“It’s all right,” she panted. “Fetch the sword. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to kill it.”
He strode over to the dragon’s corpse.
“Don’t get any of its blood on you,” she called out. “Remember what happened to Liekou.”
His hands had been burned by the blood of the dragon he’d killed.
As Bingmei got to her knees in the cold water, preparing to move, she saw the little eddies of blood swirling around her. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling weak and drained. Her nose still didn’t work. She couldn’t smell Quion at all.
A prickle of awareness caused her to look up. Another dragon was coming. And it was coming quickly.
“Quion,” she warned, struggling to her feet. “Hurry. There’s another one.” She saw him straining against the dragon’s neck, trying to turn it over. The leopard sidled up to Bingmei and growled, pacing at the water’s edge.
“Almost,” Quion groaned.
“We have to get out of here. Now!” She looked up past the fragmented pillars reaching for the sky like broken fingers. It was well past dusk, and she saw the first gem of a star in the sky.
Quion left the dragon, and she saw him holding the sword by the edge of his cloak. He ran to the stream and dropped it in, letting the water wash it clean.
She got up and started to walk through the throbbing, searing pain. The leopard looked back at Quion, issued a warning growl, and followed Bingmei.
Quion snatched up the weapon and hurried after them, splashing in the stream.
There wasn’t time to escape. She hurried into the dense scrub near