Daughter Of The Wind --Western Wind

by Sandra Elsa

  Valla turned to the tub and occupied herself washing dishes, uncomfortable with the knowledge Johann had just imparted. Pink didn’t fully understand what he meant, but Valla's shaking hands and the way she would not meet Johann's gaze indicated she did.

  Pink helped clean the dishes and volunteered to help with meals in the future, steering the conversation back to safe ground.

  Jon snored softly as they relaxed after everything was clean.

  A long while later they heard returning hoofbeats. When Dylan walked in the house, he brought with him, an extra sword and a couple of small knives. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you'll begin to learn how to use these. It was fortunate for both of us that we met. In the past ten days there have been three other soldiers spotted coming down out of the mountains.”

  He stopped as Valla laid a hand on his arm and turned to face Johann‘s frown. With determination he turned back to Pink and continued as though never interrupted. “You may well need the skills you wish to learn before long if you continue eastward. The enemy tends to frequent the east. North of here, the mountains make a difficult crossing for all except the most determined. For every scout that makes it, I’m sure King Thale sent five others. Tonight let’s get some rest.”

  Pink was awakened later in the night by the restless nervousness of the horses who were her neighbors. Her groggy mind registered Angel, stomping by the barn door. The other horses snorted and stomped, then quieted. She went back to sleep. This pattern repeated several times during their stay.

  The following day, Dylan started teaching her the basics of sword work, the proper stances and how best to parry some of the most basic moves. Jon was beside her, only a little bit smaller and, despite his mother’s wishes, already having a good grip on the fundamentals.

  They worked most of the morning, Pink was sweating and her arms quivered from the unaccustomed exertion. She used the sword he had brought back with him the night before as he taught her the common drills. When she turned to spar with Jon, they took up blunt, wooden swords.

  Jon was more advanced, and despite his diminutive size he quickly managed to chase her outside the practice circle. At noon they washed up and Pink went to help Valla prepare lunch.

  That evening a man limped up the path to Dylan’s home, supported on his left side by a stout woman and on his right by a cane. Dylan greeted him heartily. “Neeran, it's been a long time since I’ve seen you about. Is everything all right?”

  Neeran grunted and sat on the chopping block he’d stopped beside. “We got your message about your last patrol. Mentioned you’d be having an honest-to-goodness Healer stayin’ with you. I brung all the gold I got. I was hoping maybe he could do somethin’ about this leg.”

  Dylan nodded toward Pink as she groomed Angel by the stable. “She. An’ I reckon you’d have to ask her.”

  Neeran looked at Pink. Then doubtfully back at Dylan. "She's mighty young."

  Dylan called Pink over and Neeran asked, “How much would it cost me to have ye look at my leg, young miss.”

  Johann came out and joined them. Pink was about to offer to do it for free, when Johann waved her to silence and told the man, “Two gold marks.”

  Neeran turned to him and asked, “And who be ye to do the bargainin’ for the young miss?”

  Dylan intervened, “This is Pink’s grandfather, Johann.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.” Neeran held his hand out in greeting.

  Johann shook it, then asked, “What happened to your leg?”

  “Was huntin’ about two years ago up in the Rortag’s. They can be treacherous if you're not careful, an I reckon I wasn’t careful enough. I was trackin’ a deer when the ground started shakin’. Anybody in these parts will tell you, if the ground starts shaking in the Rortag’s you had best head away from the vibrations as fast as you can. I turned my horse an’ headed back down the mountains jest quick as you please, but the shakin’ was gettin’ closer. I got careless an’ my horse was frightened. He slid down a ravine, busted two of his legs and one of mine by the time we landed at the bottom. I slit his throat an' then lay there wishin’ somebody’d do the same to me. The shaker moved by at the top of the ravine. It stopped an’ I could hear it snufflin’ an gruntin’. An’ me layin there a'feared to make a sound. Wantin’ all the time to moan an’ holler. My leg jest flopped. Thet thing made the most horrid sound I ever heard, sort of a cross between a wolf howling, an' a horse whinnyin’. An' then it stomped off. Reckon the ravine was too steep for it. To this day I wake up in the middle o’ the night, hearin’ thet sound, sweatin’ an shakin‘.”

  His wife nodded confirmation of this fact, and took up the narrative. “When he was late arriving home, I sent word to some of the other border guards. Game is plentiful in the Rortag’s if you dare to go there to hunt. But you never go without making sure somebody knows where you’re going to be.” She stopped and looked at her husband with a tenderness that belied their rough exteriors. “There’s strange creatures there besides the earth shaker. Anyway I had a good idea where to start looking. Old Man Troyus up the road has a good huntin’ hound. They went up there and found Neeran and carried him back down here. We've got an herbalist, lives in the area. She managed to bring his fever down, cured the infection and bound up his leg so it set, but she didn’t know much about broken bones. It set crooked and now he’s barely able to stand or walk. His hip pains him so much he cain’t ride either. Two gold marks would be cheap if you could put him back to rights.”

  Pink checked the man’s aura while he and his wife told their story. The energy surrounding the leg was dark gray, almost black. Tomas had instructed her on how to heal old wounds. She would have to remove the thick calcification where the bone had healed, pull everything back in line and knit it back together. The hip was another problem. The joint had been damaged. The leg had broken more than once. With an authority she had never felt before, Pink ordered, “Bring him in the house.”

  Johann looked at her strangely, and he and Dylan carried Neeran in. They laid him in Jon’s bed and Pink started working on him. She began by directing a small amount of energy into his spine and deadening the nerves to his legs. Immediate relief showed on the man’s face. She did not doubt that for the first time in two years he was without pain. She worked on the hip first. Carefully she called upon the energy of the bones of the earth, calling the excess calcium deposits that had built up around the fractures, sending them from his body, into the earth. Then she directed Dylan and Neeran’s wife to pull and shift until everything lined up. The energy of the living-earth knitted the bone back together correctly. When she was finished, she stood and hobbled to the door, leaning heavily on Johann‘s arm.

  Angel was waiting. She rested briefly on the steps. When she returned, she found Johann already removing the deposits from the other fractures. He looked up at her and smiled. “I can do this much. For this you used my line of energy, but you'll have to knit him back together.”

  She allowed him to finish. Then she mended the fractures and strengthened the blood vessels that had not circulated properly for so long. When she was through, Dylan and Johann carried her out to Angel. He nuzzled her hair and she felt the energy course through her, but this time he could not remove all the pain. She had done too much, even for Angel. Wearily she scratched his face. Pain wracked her hip. Angel offered sympathy and love and after a few minutes he nuzzled her again in the way only he could, and she stood in relief to throw her arms around his neck.

  She reentered the room with only the slightest limp to show for the days efforts. The small group inside Jon’s bedroom were discussing her odd habit of checking with her horse. Johann was in the midst of explaining that Angel was her familiar, and that without him, a Healing such as she had performed would have to have been done over several days.

  She released the block on the man’s nerve and cautiously he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “You’ll have to be careful for a long while,” she w
arned him. “The muscles have all atrophied and I cannot rebuild muscle, but you should be able to do that on your own now.”

  Joy suffused Neeran’s face as he stood and put part of his weight on the leg. “May all the God’s bless you Miss. Two gold marks don’t seem near enough.”

  “It's plenty,” she assured him. She was about to say she’d have done it for nothing but Johann gave a disapproving shake of his head as she opened her mouth to speak.

  Instead he said, “It's late and I’m sure Pink is tired. We'll be going to sleep now. I suspect Jon will be joining us in the stable.” He stood and herded Pink toward the door. “Neeran should not put too much stress on that leg too quickly. He should at least stay the night and travel home tomorrow when he can take his time.”

  Jon didn’t look at all upset to be staying in the stable. So Valla nodded and he followed Pink and Johann out the door. As they walked across the yard to the stable, Pink asked, “Why did you charge them money? I would have done it for free. If nothing else, for the experience.”

  “Because he would have then felt he owed us a great deal that he would never be able to repay. This way, we did not demand a great sum, and he does not owe us anything. Besides there's nothing wrong with using your talent to earn money. As we get closer to Relante we won't want to advertise your talent, but here you can do good without risk.”

  “Risk of what?” she asked.

  But Johann did not answer. His face wore the same thunderclouds that had been present when he spoke of his final days in the army.

  Jon began chattering about the morning’s weapon training and she forgot Johann’s moodiness.

  The days passed swiftly. Her weapon’s skills improved to equal Jon’s. He too showed improvement but Pink’s longer reach and unnatural speed began to tell. The tides turned and more often than not, she would chase him out of the practice ring, or better yet, score a killing blow.

  Word had gotten around among the border guards and every few days another would appear with some ailment or injury. Her Healing skills increased considerably.

  Two weeks had passed when four men came down the road carrying a fifth person on a litter. The man lay still as death, covered in blankets. Pink sparred with Jon in the practice ring while Valla came out and spoke to the men.

  With her attention divided, Jon landed a killing blow and she was brought sharply back from where she’d already begun to examine the man’s aura, to deal with her own brief pain.

  Saluting Jon as the victor, Pink put up her wooden weapon and searched the man’s aura as she strode across the grass toward him. Halfway across the span from the ring to the litter she began to run. This man’s life energies were fading fast.

  Valla turned a worried gaze her way.

  The four strangers stood back and Valla turned the blankets back to reveal a sword wound deep in the man’s side. “Do you think you can help him?”

  Pink looked at the wound, paling at the amount of blood oozing from the poorly bandaged gash. “I can Heal the wound, but if he’s lost too much blood he may still die.”

  Johann arrived. After a single quick glance at the man lying on the ground, he said, “Get away from him, Pink.”

  Chapter 13