Valor of the Healer

by Angela Highland

  “If you want him alive,” said the physician, tying off the last of the stitches, “you’ll let me finish my work.”

  Her words were taut with asperity, and Celoren’s chest tightened in horror, as if he were the one who’d been stabbed.

  “Let me help,” he pleaded, which won him a hot, damp washcloth thrust in his direction, but no further attention as the physician began to wipe the blood away from her charge’s flesh. Celoren dabbed at Kestar’s face, and then with greater hesitation at his amulet. Blood tarnished the silver and the cord from which it hung, yet its light shone pitilessly clear. “Kes, can you hear me?”

  With an effort Kestar rolled his head in Celoren’s direction. One of his hands lay limply at his side, but the other groped up toward his chest, where Doctor Lannedes was cutting away his ruined shirt so that she might bandage his wound. The intermingled light of all three amulets threw his fingers into sharp relief. “She’s full of sunlight,” he mumbled. “Cel, did you see?”

  The cellar’s stone floor remained immobile beneath his feet, and yet Celoren felt it seem to plummet away into a widening chasm. As an anchor against that pit—though for himself or for Kestar, he wasn’t quite sure—he grabbed and gripped his partner’s searching fingers. “I didn’t see.” The admission hurt. “What happened?”

  “She saved me with the sun in her hands,” Kestar whispered, his voice high and dazed. “She knows what I am.”

  “A bearer of the taint of elven magic is what he is. You’ll assist us in securing him in the cell, Valleford, or you’ll be secured along with him as his accomplice.”

  Celoren looked up at the older man, aghast. “This is madness! Kestar Vaarsen is a loyal member of the Order!”

  “If you have some other explanation for what the amulets tell us, I’d be delighted to hear it.”

  “We’ve been Hawks for years now! Kestar’s would never have accepted him if—”

  Even as his denial tumbled out, Celoren faltered. His attention dropped back to Kestar, and he could find no place in the world he knew for the evidence before his eyes. The man with whom he’d trained in the Hawksvale Academy, been ordained into the Order, and ridden as a full-fledged Hawk couldn’t be a mage...an elf-blood...

  Could he?

  Along with everything that surrounded him, doubt in Celoren’s mind stood out starkly in the light. In his offhand way he’d supposed that Kestar’s odd premonitions and dreams were a gift of the Anreulag; now it occurred to him that they could be the very thing that he, Kestar and every other Hawk in Adalonia were sworn to seek out and eradicate. Magic.

  In desperation Celoren glanced at the watchmen. All four, including the man who’d followed him out of the cell, watched him with uneasy eyes. Only the doctor attending to Kestar’s wound seemed the slightest bit approachable, and so to her he begged, “At least tell me how he was injured.”

  The harsh lines of the doctor’s expression fractionally eased. “He was stabbed through the chest, and he’s remarkably fortunate that it wasn’t through his heart.” She nodded toward the men around them. “These men found the knife that must have struck the blow. What concerns me is that there’s more blood on the blade than there should be for such a shallow wound.”

  “She healed me,” Kestar murmured in that same faraway voice, and Celoren clutched at that as a sliver of hope.

  “If the girl worked magic on him, perhaps the amulets...”

  “Indeed,” proclaimed the priest, “what the girl’s done—and how the two of you came to be here in this state at this hour, rather than in Tolton where you’d been due—will be thoroughly investigated. Assist in moving Lord Vaarsen into the cell, Valleford, or move out of the way. Don’t try to remove yourself from the church. These men will guard you both.”

  Celoren went cold under his stare, and in the midst of his confusion and doubt one thought coalesced. Kestar doesn’t trust him. Neither did he. “I’ll move him.” He waved the other men back from his partner’s crumpled form. The guardsmen exchanged uncomfortable glances but inched back without protest. “Doctor, will you guide me?”

  She nodded at him to slip his arm beneath Kestar’s shoulders and lever him upward. As he obeyed, she pulled away the rest of Kestar’s destroyed shirt and wound long strips of linen completely around his ribs. “Hold him now,” she ordered, and once she’d secured the bandages to her satisfaction she added, “Now lift him. Carefully. I’ll take his other side.”

  He could have suffered no one else in the room to touch his partner. As it was, Celoren could bear her assistance only because she’d tended Kestar’s hurts. Gritting his teeth, he curled the other Hawk’s arm about his shoulders and forced himself to match his motions to the doctor’s so they could hoist Kestar to his feet together. “Go easily, my friend. Slowly, now.”

  Kestar was only three-quarters aware, and that seemed tenuous at best as he sagged heavily even with support. His amulet fell back into place, still glowing, as he was pulled erect. Its owner peered downward at the tiny star hanging at his chest, and then lifted his muddled gaze to the friend at his side. “Shining. Like her light. Like her. Am I like her, Cel?”

  “Never mind that. Come now. Let’s get you lying down.”

  It took all of Celoren’s fortitude to keep his nervousness out of his voice, to keep his words pitched to soothe wits hopefully gone addled by nothing more than injury. He didn’t want to think about whether Kestar’s stupor was the fault of the wound that had covered him in so much blood—or of whatever power had touched it. And before the other Hawk’s attention could fall upon his own amulet, Celoren grabbed it with his free hand and stuffed it beneath his shirt.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to touch Kestar’s.

  Or answer his question.

  Chapter Ten

  Even for a one-handed man the slave girl was no burden. Julian cradled her close as he followed Rab out of the church, both of them bolting as quickly as they dared for the saddler’s boarding stable. The stationing of the horses nearby was all the more vital now that they’d stolen a prize guaranteed to rouse the watch to arms, a prize covered moreover in the blood of a Knight of the Hawk. But they’d actually have to get the girl onto one of their mounts.

  She had yet to stir, and that perturbed him. As they reached the alleyway near the saddler’s she was barely breathing, as though life had drained from her with the fading of her power, though her weight was warm rather than cold. Julian didn’t begrudge the dimming of her magic’s light. It kept him from having to hide her in a sack, a barrel or whatever else he and Rab would’ve had to pilfer to conceal the betraying illumination, as good as a signal fire to vigilant eyes. Yet if she remained insensible, he’d have to sling her like a gunnysack over Morrigh’s withers, a prospect at which he balked for no reason he could name. He was worried about her, and that perturbed him all the more.

  What had it cost her to lay her hands upon the Hawk who Rab had nearly slain? To heal him?

  Rab’s low whistle sounded, signaling that the path ahead was clear, and Julian shoved aside his unwelcome ruminations. In a few quick strides he joined Rab at the stable door, shooting wary glances in all directions to make certain they were unobserved. He didn’t bother to urge his partner to get them in, for Rab was already trying the door. It swung open with only the faintest creak of hinges—and showed them the flicker of a lantern within.

  The assassins blinked at one another, Rab’s visage mirroring Julian’s own alarm. At his sharp nod, Rab whipped out one of his daggers and lunged through the door into the shadows beyond. A high-pitched yelp sounded, punctuated by the sounds of a struggle. Julian went rigid with surprise, then grimaced and stooped to lay the girl down against the stable wall. Debt or no debt, if his partner were in trouble—

  Then a voice cried out in a boyish treble, “It’s me, Rab, it’s just me! Give o’er!”

  A voice he knew, Julian realized. Scowling, he hoisted the girl up once more and dove into the stable in Rab’s wake. He leaned on
the door, closing it behind them to keep the lantern’s light from escaping outside, and turned at last to the small figure Rab had pinned to the wall. “Roki,” he said severely, “we don’t have time for this.”

  The blacksmith’s son squirmed in Nine-fingered Rab’s hold. “If you want out of Camden, you do. You told me to get the horses here, and you ain’t got time to waste, so I got ’em ready so you can go.”

  He had. With bits and bridles, saddlebags and stirrups all in place, both stallions stood ready and waiting, heads and ears lifted at the arrival of their riders, a boon he hadn’t expected in the slightest. Determined to take advantage of it, he bore the girl’s slack form to Morrigh. “Does your father know you’re here?”

  Roki squared his shoulders and raised his chin. “If he doesn’t know where I’m at, the watch can’t make him tell. And you needed the horses ready.”

  “He has an eminently logical point,” Rab admitted.

  “And I’ve fixed it so they’ll have to do something else while you’re getting away,” Roki went on, dark eyes brimming with hope. “I cut a bunch o’ boats loose at the docks. They’ll be after those for hours.”

  Misdirection. They’d thought of it already, of course, but they’d found no leeway in their escape plan for the luxury. They hadn’t had either the extra pair of hands or the time required. Here now though was Roki Andershaal, offering them aid they couldn’t afford to refuse. Julian cast a glance back at the lad and grudgingly allowed, “Well done. You’ve the makings of one of us.”

  “And she,” Rab drawled, lifting the girl out of his arms, “has the makings of our executions if we don’t get moving. Mount. I’ve got her.”

  Only when he was free of the slave girl’s weight did Julian register the ache in his muscles from carrying her. He allowed himself one wince before he swung himself up onto Morrigh’s back. As he mounted, he eyed his partner. There was a discontented set to Rab’s jaw, and there’d been the slightest of hesitations as he’d taken their charge from him. Whatever misgivings he harbored he at least kept to himself for now; for that, the Rook was grateful.

  Restless as his rider, Morrigh shifted beneath him as Julian settled into the saddle. He ran his hand down the stallion’s neck to calm them both, and yet, it didn’t help either of them much. Morrigh snorted, roused by the lateness of the hour, and Julian couldn’t keep his eye off the girl as Rab hefted her back up for him to reclaim.

  “That’s her, ain’t it?” their self-elected aide said, curiosity bright in his voice. “The mage. The one you told Da you were after.”

  Julian peered back at him even as he propped the maiden back against his chest, wrapping his right arm around her to keep her secure. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “What, you thought I was going to miss you whispering with my Da when you were still in the same room?”

  “Also eminently logical.” As Rab whirled to his own mount and swung into Tornach’s saddle, his drawl grew more pronounced. “Though I fear we can’t add another recruit to our little sortie, Rook.”

  Julian ignored the sarcasm. He was used to it, and at any rate, Rab was right. They needed to get moving. “The watch can’t question you, either, on what you don’t know,” he told Roki, who made a disgruntled face. Before either assassin could guide his horse out of the stable, the boy darted to Morrigh’s side and laid a grimy hand on Julian’s knee.

  “Before you go, I want to tell you something,” he confessed, all traces of his juvenile pride draining away. It made him look almost as young as his little sister, and as old and earnest as his father. “Helped you tonight because of Da. He doesn’t say—but you kept Da from being hung, and we got to come here and live quiet and safe because of you. We’re Nirrivan. Lettie’s too little to know what that means. I ain’t.”

  There were no overt thanks in the boy’s words, but gratitude and something too close to hero worship for Julian’s ease lit his young face, distinct enough to need no voicing. With a small, lopsided smile, he reached down to clasp Roki’s shoulder as he might have done Malcolm’s. “You’re a bright lad. Get back home now. Hurry, before it gets any lighter.”

  Bobbing his head, Roki flashed another impish grin at them and then sprang to open the stable door. He had perhaps discerned the “you’re welcome” in that farewell, offered in answer to the unspoken thanks. But Malcolm’s son had doubtless missed the other message lurking underneath his words, which lingered in Julian’s mind as Morrigh and Tornach bore them out into the darkness. Along with the boy’s eager energy, that nagging thought made Julian unutterably weary. Especially on a night where he’d committed an act that, more than any other lawless deed he and Rab had ever done, would get them hanged. Or worse, turned over to the Anreulag’s judgment.

  He couldn’t spare a look to the girl, for he held her too close against him. Yet the feel of her slight frame only underscored the words he’d had to fight to keep back from Roki.

  I’m not a hero, boy. Don’t worship me.

  * * *

  They rode south first, the fastest way out of the town. When they’d put a dozen miles between themselves and Camden, Julian and Rab veered to the northeast, back toward the river, aiming for Tolton. The sun hadn’t truly risen by the time they reached the forested bluffs on Camden’s far eastern side, a long stretch of ridges gradually ascending to the mountains on the river’s opposite shore. A few tendrils of dawn streamed up from the horizon ahead of them, a promise of brightness to come.

  It was dangerous to linger too near the water, for the sunrise would bring the first signs of the river’s daily life. Camden was too far inland from the ocean to the west to depend solely upon fishing for its livelihood, but many of the denizens of the town sailed trading and cargo vessels. They wouldn’t have much time before the piers woke up with the morning. One alert pair of eyes on a boat was all that was needed to spot horses that shouldn’t be mobile at such an early hour, and so the assassins kept to the trees for as far as that would take them.

  They went to ground at last in the bottom of a ravine, sheltered from sight by thick bushes and the arch of an ancient stone bridge. Once they’d gotten themselves and their gear off the horses, Julian half hoped that their stolen mage might sleep long enough for him to rest himself; Tykhe, though, held back Her luck. The girl gave no cry, and only when she struggled to sit up did he notice that she’d regained consciousness. He’d almost dozed off himself, leaning back against the gravelly incline with Morrigh’s saddle as his pillow, but her rousing snapped him back to wakefulness. Lest she spook the horses with too sudden a motion, he propped himself up on his elbow and reached over to steady her where she lay, nestled against the bags that held their scant supplies.

  “Easy,” he said. “You’re—” Then he caught himself. They might have improved the maiden’s lot by liberating her from captivity, but he couldn’t yet call her “safe” by even the nimblest leap of imagination. He finished instead, “Free.”

  “And back in the land of the living?” A creek burbled before them, a noisy little waterway that took up much of the space beneath the bridge. But it left enough dry ground for three weary fugitives and the weary horses that had borne them, and more important, it ran clean and clear, fresh water for them all. Crouched beside it, filling their canteens, Rab looked back over his shoulder. “Welcome to our merry company.”

  Dawn was underway, its brightness and warmth tangible even through the greenery all over the ravine. Brilliant splashes of color spilled across one visible patch of the eastern sky, and as if inspired by the celestial display, the hues of everything else grew slowly and steadily brighter, twilight grays yielding to the green of summer leaves. Though shadows lingered under the bridge, enough light reached them for Julian to make out the girl’s anguished eyes. They were fixed on her hands, and at her gasp, he followed the path of her gaze. Bloodstains didn’t stand out in the shade. To Julian’s practiced eye, though, the rusty streaks on her wrists and palms and sari were almost as strong a
beacon as her magic. She flinched at the sight of them, strangled words escaping her.

  “No blood in the meadow—he wasn’t bleeding there—”

  Was she lucid? She hardly seemed so. “Get hold of yourself,” he snapped. If he and Rab had liberated a madwoman, gods, he’d have to put her out of her misery right then and there. “You’re on the run, and it’s time for you to think about what’s to become of you.”

  His tone worked. The girl’s eyes focused, comprehension rising to balance their fright until she pulled her attention away. Her stance fairly screamed the submission of a hound about to be whipped, but a wan sort of pride came into her voice nonetheless. “May I have your leave to wash in the water, akreshi?”

  “Fine, but be careful. And be quiet. No one can know we’re here.”

  With almost frantic relief she scuttled to the creek. Only a snort from Tornach made her lift her eyes, and though she shouldn’t have seen Rab’s smirk as he moved aside to give her room by the water, what she said next showed that she’d noticed both of them well enough. “You came to Lomhannor Hall to kill the duke,” she said, peeking back at him. “You’re the man I healed there.”

  “Yes,” Julian replied, sitting up.

  “You came to the Church.” Her head swiveled to Rab, and her voice caught. “You fought with the Hawks.”

  “We do that.” Rab’s smirk grew, and only the slightest breathiness to his voice betrayed his weariness as he dropped down on Julian’s other side. “We’re assassins.”

  Their new charge froze, her eyes round above her veil, before she returned to scrubbing her hands over and over in the water.

  Julian repressed a sigh, rose and moved to crouch beside her at the water’s edge. “Will this be a problem?”

  She jolted at his approach, her gaze snapping back up to his face. Julian stopped dead. Her eyes caught him and held him, leaving no doubt in his mind of her elven blood. Luminous, turned upward on their outer ends, they made him think of stars glimmering behind a canopy of spring leaves; they made nerves that should have been dead ache in his arm and head. They weren’t the loveliest eyes he had ever seen. But they were, beyond any meaning or reason, the most compelling.