Wing & Nien

by Shytei Corellian

  “What is it?”

  Kate removed her apron, replaced it with a coat of her own, and stepped to the back door. “Come with me.”

  Monteray followed her out.

  “You all right?” he asked as they headed out onto the half-frozen path leading out from the back of the house toward the river.

  “I’m fine, but there’s something you should see.”

  “What?”

  “Just wait.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the cabin.”

  “The cabin? What’s in the cabin?” Had it not been for the tension in his wife’s voice, he might have thought she was surprising him with a small romantic dinner.

  At the cabin, she went ahead of him, opening the door slowly.

  Monteray came in quietly behind her, his eyes falling upon a large man lying in the cabin bed. He looked him over briefly before glancing questioningly at Kate.

  “I found him this evening as I was going for water.”

  Monteray stepped up beside the bed and lifted one of the bandages. “That’s a sword wound.”

  Kate nodded. “That was my guess.”

  “Has he been conscious at all since you came upon him?”

  “No.”

  “He must have lost a lot of blood.”

  “He knows something of caring for wounds — the ones he could reach were bandaged and he’d applied a poultice to the bruising.”

  “Probably saved his life,” Monteray replied off-handedly, his mind occupied.

  “I’m most concerned about his head wound. His arm is a mess and there’s the bruising across his chest. Oh, and his shoulder looks a little off — a partial dislocation or something.”

  Monteray shook off the string of thoughts begging for his attention, and slowly rolling the man’s head between his big hands examined the head wound.

  “You’re right about the head wound.” He paused. “If it was going to kill him I imagine it would have by now from the age of the scabs.” Monteray stepped back and looked at the shoulder. “It’s not too bad. We can readjust it, but I’ll need your help.” The break in his right arm was healing well enough but the grip strength in his hand was still not good. “And watch, if he wakes up — ”

  “All right, I’ll be ready. Just tell me what to do.”

  With practiced skill and Kate’s help, Monteray realigned the shoulder. The man reacted to this: his face pinched and he grunted deep in his throat. Still he did not open his eyes.

  Kate replaced the sling.

  “Do you think his other arm is broken?” Kate asked.

  Monteray took the man’s left arm, turning it slowly, checking the colour in the fingers. “It’s a pretty bad contusion; hard to feel through the swelling if its broken or not.”

  “What should we do?”

  Monteray shrugged. “Wait till he wakes, I suppose.”

  “What if he doesn’t” — Kate paused a hitch — “wake up?”

  “Then…” Monteray stopped. “Let’s take it as it comes. If he’s meant to live, he’ll live. What you did is all that can be done for now.”

  Kate nodded at him and Monteray hurt for what he saw in his wife’s face. She was a gifted healer, and though he may have been the one given to premonitions she was the sympathetic, intuitive one.

  On the way back up to the house, Kate said, “Have you heard anything in town? Any ideas of who he is or where he might have come from?”

  “I haven’t heard anything, but it might be too soon. If there was some sort of incident, I’m sure we will hear about it — eventually.”

  “There’s something else,” Kate said. “When I found him, his clothing was frozen; I think he’d swum the river, from the other side.”

  Monteray understood the implication. If the man had escaped some incident in Legran, why would he be lying, wet, on the Legran side of the river?

  He furrowed his brow with concern, but seeing that Kate had noticed, shrugged it off and took her hand.

  They walked the rest of the way to the house in silence.

  Other than a barrage of unanswerable questions from Tei during dinner, the meal passed in silent consideration for Monteray, and for Kate as well, he noticed.

  When dinner was over, Kate disappeared into the cooking room to emerge shortly thereafter.

  “I’m going to take some food out to the cabin in case he wakes,” she said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Monteray said.

  “Can I go, too?” Tei asked.

  “I don’t want him thinking he’s the only trader in town,” Kate replied. “If you’d finish up here I would appreciate it.”

  Tei muttered disgustedly.

  Filling a container with the remaining meal, Monteray walked with Kate out into the quickly cooling night air. The sun had just set.

  “It’s a good thing you did,” Monteray said.

  “Helping him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope it doesn’t give you trouble.”

  Monteray shrugged. “It won’t.”

  “I didn’t want to discuss it front of Tei but what if he was at cause in the fight that ended like that for him?”

  “Then we’ll deal with that once we know.”

  Just as Monteray knew Kate didn’t want to worry Tei overly, he didn’t want to worry his wife. Nevertheless, concern was valid. Though he had often mediated disagreements not only in Legran but also with other valleys, he knew his wife loathed confrontation and was forever worried about exacerbating sensitive issues. Preaks had not been imprisoned or forcibly removed from Legran for nearly twenty turnings, but general suspicion and ill-feeling remained, especially in the older generation.

  Beside him, Kate took a deep breath.

  “You must be tired,” Monteray said. Taking the small container of food from her, he moved it to his left hand and took Kate’s hand in his right. She leaned into him as they walked and he nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek.

  At the cabin, Monteray waited for Kate to go in first in case the man had regained consciousness. A moment later, Kate reappeared at the door.

  “I don’t think he’s moved at all,” she said.

  Together, they checked the wrappings and the shoulder. The shoulder had held in place, and no new blood was present on the binding cloths. These were good signs.

  “He needs fluid,” Kate said, and taking a clean rag, dipped it into the short jug of water and began to dab at the man’s cracked lips.

  “Dehydration will be a problem,” Monteray agreed, “if he doesn’t awaken soon.” Glancing aside, Monteray spotted a bundle of clothing near the door. “Are these his clothes?”

  Kate nodded. “I forgot to take them up to the house. They need to be cleaned and mended — if possible.”

  Monteray gazed at them for a time. Upon the guard that crossed the left shoulder mantle, Monteray noted a patch engraved with the symbol of a large midnight-black cat, crouched, a knife blade in its teeth.

  “Curious,” Monteray said, smoothing the emblem with a hand.

  “What?” Kate asked, stepping up to look at what had caught his attention.

  “I’ve never seen this symbol before; never seen a shy’teh used as one.” He looked up at Kate. “As far as I know, only Rieevans consider the creature sacred.”

  Monteray felt Kate’s eyes shift from the symbol to his face. Monteray looked across the room at the man. Even in sleep, even near death, there was a bearing about him. They would not know until he awoke but Monteray felt an inkling, a suspicion as to whom he was. And if his supposition was true it hinted at other, more terrible possibilities.

  “Didn’t two of your men say there was a Preak man at the Jikutu’s table after the battle in Jayak?”

  “Jedan and Lenna, yes. They’d mentioned that a man of Preak had been present at the Jayakan battle debriefing, and that he said he was there, oddly enough, with a small contingent of fighters from Rieeve.” Monteray continued to study the unconscious man. “And there
is and has only ever been one man of Preak that I know of who is Rieevan: Commander Lant’s First, Nien Cawutt.”

  “If he is that man, why would he come here? And in such a condition?”

  Monteray felt sick deep in his belly. He’d had the premonition not long ago, one that had forced him to leave their bed and towel the sweat from his body. He remembered, now, having stood at his window and looked up at the great mountain range that separated his small mountain valley from Rieeve.

  “What is it?” Kate said.

  “Nothing. Can I help you there?”

  “No, I guess not,” Kate replied, sadly.

  Monteray forced a wan smile at her; apart from everything else, he could see that she was genuinely worried for the man. So was he.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, hoping that comforting his wife would reassure him as well.

  Kate nodded, and bundling the moistened rag with the torn clothing, Monteray opened the cabin door for her, closed it behind them and they walked side-by-side back to the house.

  Trembling and weak, he lay bathed in his own sweat. Icy water bit into his limbs, searing like white heat through his wounds. He got up, turned, leaned against a tree for support. Cries of terror filled his mind and then silence, a silence so profound that even the blood moving in his ears sounded like thunder. Searching for breath, he found none, his chest aching with the weight, the incredible heaviness of so many bodies pressing down upon him. He plunged ahead through a narrow stream, tripped, fell against stones and flesh-tearing branches. When he managed to get back to his feet, blood coloured the water’s clear ripples. Exhausted, filled with pain, so very cold, he struggled a bit farther before collapsing beside the stream a third time. For a long while, he lay, unaware of the muscle spasms that shook his battered frame. The stream gurgled on and the sun began to fade. A breeze twirled thin, tender branches of overhanging trees. His breathing calmed. His limbs stilled. And then a splash of frigid water caught him across the shoulders. Scrambling to his hands and knees, he gasped as the water —

  No, not water.

  Blood.

  Blood ran down his face, dripped into his eyes...

  Nien sat up with a wrenching jerk. His cry of surprise pierced the still cabin air. Heart racing, pain thrumming through his concussed head, he attempted to ascertain where he was, but his senses failed him and all he could feel was a weight upon him, a hot, smothering weight.

  He thrashed against it, got his feet turned beneath him, but found no ground, falling instead off the side of a bed.

  Unable to rise again, he crawled until he hit the corner of a wall. Curling up there, a guttural moan escaped him as pain seemed to come from everywhere at once. No longer isolated to his specific injuries, it engulfed him like an entity, like a circle: having no beginning and no end.

  Slumping, he mercifully lost consciousness.

  Kate rapped lightly on the cabin door the following morning. Entering carefully, she glanced at the bed — it was empty. The blankets she’d placed over the man were strewn across the cabin floor.

  A jolt of fear shot through her —

  Had someone come for him? Found him? Dragged him away?

  Had he woken and felt he had to escape?

  And then she spotted a huddled figure in the far-right corner of the cabin, half hidden behind the protruding side of the fireplace.

  Setting aside the goods in her arms, she approached the man and knelt beside him.

  His eyes were closed and he was shivering with cold.

  “I won’t let you crawl into a corner to die now,” Kate said. “Not after I’ve gone through so much work to patch you up.”

  Emaciated as he was, Kate knew she could never get him back onto the bed on her own.

  Taking up some blankets, she returned to his side. As she placed them over him, he awoke.

  Startled, he flinched, driving himself back up into the corner.

  “It’s all right,” she said in the Legrand tongue.

  His good eye was wild, fevered, filled with dread.

  “Uh, it’s all right,” Kate repeated, this time in Preak.

  Trepidation stiffened the man’s frame.

  “Help me,” Kate said, motioning to the bed.

  His good eye flicked to the bed, then back to Kate’s face.

  Kate placed her hands beneath his arms and tried to lift him. His body stiffened like a drawn bow when her hands touched him.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Kate said, waiting a moment, hoping he would not strike out at her in his delirium.

  But his frame relaxed ever so slightly and he moved a little, managing to get a foot beneath himself. Wavering, crazy on his feet like a child exploring its first steps, he made his way back across the room and up onto the bed.

  “You’ve gotten yourself chilled,” Kate said, still speaking in the Preak tongue even though the man did not seem to respond to that language with any more familiarity than he had when she’d spoken in Legrand.

  Gathering the blankets now strewn across the floor, she started to place them over him again when he protested, moaning, the look in his open eye feral and dark. Kate glanced down at the heavy blankets.

  “All right, not a good idea.” She looked him over. “I guess I’m going to have to come up with warmer clothing.”

  Setting the blankets aside, she placed her warm hands gently upon his cold ones. He watched her with a glassy, wondering gaze.

  “Now that I’ve caught you awake,” she said, “you need to drink something.”

  Leaving his side, she stepped to the small round table and retrieved a pitcher of water. Filling a cup, she sat by his side again and raised his head with her hand. The man’s lips met the cup’s edge and he drank desperately. Kate refilled and he drained the cup twice more.

  “That’s good,” Kate said with relief.

  He watched her for a moment in silence before shutting his eye.

  Placing the cup and the pitcher by the bed, Kate said, “Now stay put. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Collecting the wrappings that had come undone either from being blood-soaked or from his half-conscious trip into the corner of the room, Kate returned to the house. There she retrieved more strips of cloth, extra soup broth, more fire wood, and some thick cold-season clothing Monteray used for outdoor travel.

  Back in the cabin, she found the man asleep. Placing the broth on the table, she looked down at the bandages and clothing in her hand. Shaking her head, she decided against redressing his wounds or trying to get him into the warmer clothing. After what had already happened she did not want to risk startling him again.

  Stoking the fire and placing more wood in it, Kate was about to go when she noticed that beads of sweat had begun to form across the man’s brow and he was moaning intermittently and flinching, as if trying to deflect unseen blows. Taking up a moist rag, Kate pulled the chair over and sat beside him. His eyes were moving rapidly beneath their lids and his throat was working as if he were choking or trying to scream.

  Stroking the sweat from his forehead with the rag, Kate spoke quietly to him, “It’s going to be all right.”

  Gazing down at his face, she wished she could think of something more she could do to ease the nightmare that had him gulping like a fish tossed live upon a riverbank.

  Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes lit upon the small riverside window. Walking over, Kate opened the shutter. The night wind blew in through the window, tracing her back as she returned to the man’s side. His left hand lay trembling upon his chest. Placing her own hand over the man’s, Kate waited, listening to the general quiet, touched only by the man’s strained breathing and the sound of the river. As the moments passed, the hand beneath hers stopped shaking and fell still, a general ease finally settling over him.

  Reaching forward, Kate placed her palm upon his brow — his fevered skin had cooled beneath the wind’s gentle embrace.

  “Rest easy now,” she said. “Whoever you are, you’re safe here.”

 
; Chapter 49

  Fevered Memories

  L ate morning found Wing cresting the top of Peak Llow. Stopping to catch his breath, he cast his eyes over the magnificent vista stretching out below him. It had snowed again over night, but it was a pale snow, weak; Ime was losing its grip. The fresh snow blanket lay beneath a sky deep lavender and startling clear horizon to horizon. Wing knew that could change quickly in the high mountains, and so had taken the chance on leaving the grotto in the Mesko tree. He had bid the spider farewell and spent his last night in the root cavern two nights ago. Now, high in the mountains above the Mesko timberline, he looked back over the lofty Mesko canopy, the Uki Range opposite him shimmering with ice crystals beneath the high sun. He glanced down at the small silky-white valley far below him —

  His gaze did not rest there long.

  Turning away, he began to run, continuing through another day until the slick, open rock finally drove him beneath a thin, high-altitude tree for reprieve.

  Drawing his knees up to his chest, he tucked his face between them and covered his head with his arms in an attempt to block out a small, but icy bit of wind.

  Shivering and striving for sleep, it eluded him; it was much too cold.

  Another sunrise followed another nightfall and Wing found himself frustrated, wondering if he had been foolish in leaving the Mesko grotto and whether he might be closer to Legran or the grotto.

  He had tried — repeatedly — to build some sort of fire to ease the pain of the cold in his body. But he’d not yet been able to find any wood that was remotely useable.

  Stiff with cold in muscle and joint, he continued through another day. A dense cover of cloud had moved over the sky, padding the temperature a bit at night but adding to the general gloominess — the greyness of the heavens a suitable reflection of his listless, lonesome movement beneath them.

  Night was again reaching over the mountainous canyons and cliffs when Wing happened upon a large, old tree trunk, having long ago fallen to the ground. Getting to his knees, he dug through the snow, opening a hole, and peering inside.

  Sweet relief flooded him: Dry tinder. Just enough.