Elin Hale did not saw at the skin with the broad-bellied knife; she drew the honed steel around the upper third of Sir Cael Ardent’s right arm in a single, continuous circular sweep—down through the outer deltoid, underneath the bicep belly above the gangrenous purple margin, and back up to meet her starting line on the top of the shoulder.
At the bite of the cold steel through living nerve, Cael’s entire body bowed upward off the maple kneading table like a drawn yew bow. His jaws clamped down on the leather-wrapped ash peg with a wet crunch of compressing hide, a muffled, animal groan vibrating deep in his chest while the three working fingers of his left hand dug half-moon trenches into the scarred skin of Jon’s right wrist.
“Hold his right shoulder-blade flat to the board, Jon!” Elin commanded without lifting her eyes from the wound. “Do not let him roll toward me!”
Jon leaned his broad chest forward until his chin was six inches above Cael’s forehead, driving the flat of both scarred palms straight down into the front of the knight’s uninjured left shoulder and upper ribs, pinning the thrashing torso immovably against the two-inch maple plank.
