by S. L. Viehl
A blink of the lashes and Jarn had Daneeb pinned against the ice wall, a blade poised at her throat.
“Not one hair on his head will be out of place when I return,” the healer said. “Not one drop of his blood will stain your hands. I will have your word on this.”
Daneeb eyed the blade. “You cannot kill me, Jarn.”
“I don’t have to kill you, Skrie. I only have to hobble you.” She moved the blade down, down, leaning sideways until she slipped it behind Daneeb’s knee. “Your word.”
The headwoman considered this, and nodded slowly.
Jarn called out a strange word and two cats appeared. “We will be gone for a long time. If we are caught in the dark, we will find shelter.”
“No one will take you in,” Daneeb said, wiping a drop of blood from the tiny cut Jarn’s blade had made in her flesh. “One day you will walk out there and not return. You know this as well as I.” She regarded Resa. “Have you nothing to say? Do you wish to follow her into death?”
“I help,” Resa said softly. “Jarn need help. So do men.”
“So do we all.” With a disgusted sound, Daneeb left.
The trek to the place where the ships had fired on the surface took less time than Resa had thought. Jarn hitched three of the jlorra to a pack sled, and had Resa ride on the back of it with her.
“We must be able to transport the wounded,” Jarn said, “and leave quickly. The rebels will return for the ships.”
At first it confused Resa, to see the dark, looming silhouettes of the ships on the ice, instead of properly in the air, where they belonged. Then she saw what the ships had been firing on, what they had left on the snow.
More men than Resa could recall ever seeing alive lay dead all around them. Hunters, men in bleached furs, and other men in strange garments.
“So it has begun,” Jarn said, her voice very low. “Again.”
Resa stared at the dead. “So many.”
“Yes. Don’t release the cats.” Jarn tethered the sled to a stake and looked out carefully over the ice field. No one had been left standing, but there were sounds. Groans. Snow shifting. Muttering. “The ones in the white outfurs are rebels. The others are soldiers of windlords.” She paused. “The soldiers will likely all be dead.”
So many bodies, and only she and Jarn to tend to them? “How do we do this work?”
“Standard triage,” Jarn told her before they went to the first Iisleg hunter lying on the ice. “Check for a pulse first. Clear airways; slow bleeding; dress burns. Pack open wounds and exposed bone. Say nothing unless you must.”
The hunter, a young man with a ghastly head wound, was already dead. So, too, was the headless body closest to him. Jarn stepped over him to see the third.
This hunter was older, and not as grievously wounded. His outfurs were scorched in several places, and he had a terrible energy burn to the side of his head and neck. But he opened his frost-crusted eyes the moment Jarn touched him.
“Vral,” he whispered. “Find me worthy.”
Jarn took a syrinpress in a warming sleeve from her pack and infused the man’s neck, rendering him unconscious within seconds. “Scan for internal injuries before you dress his burns,” she said to Resa in Terran. “Use the sled to carry him over to one of the ships, and put him inside where he can be made warm.” She moved on to the next casualty.
Resa hesitated before reaching into her own pack. She couldn’t remember being a healer, and for a moment she resented the way Jarn had ordered her to act as one. What if she made a mistake? She would not know if she did; only Jarn would—and Jarn was ten yards away, her hands busy probing the chest of a fallen rebel.
Fear faded and was replaced by another, more powerful emotion. I am a healer. Like Jarn. This is my work.
Resa took the burn medicines and bandages from her pack and went to work on the hunter.
The sun moved over the two healers, shifting the shadows around them. Resa soon discovered that the majority of the men left abandoned on the ice were already dead. The few who had survived were in shock, most suffering from injuries that could not be healed. More than one died as she worked on him.
With so many dead around them, Resa expected the jlorra to be restless, but they merely stood and watched until they were needed to haul men over to the ship Jarn wanted to use as shelter. One man who had been brought to consciousness and needed only a broken arm bound began helping them load the others onto the sled.
“I will take them,” the rebel said, and drove the sled for Jarn and Resa on the second trip from the ice to the ship.
Daylight was an hour from fading when they had finished the work. The survivors, sheltered now in the ship, were as comfortable as they could be made. The dead were left where they lay. The hunter who could walk recovered an abandoned skimmer and told Jarn he would go to Iiskar Navn to summon help to transport the men from the ship to the camp.
He hesitated before climbing onto the skimmer, and looked back at Jarn and Resa. “I thank you for finding me worthy, vral.”
Poor Hurgot, Resa thought as she watched the hunter fly away. You will be busy tonight. She noticed that Jarn was staring at one of the other nearby ships. “What is wrong?”
Jarn seized her arm. “Run to the sled. Quickly.”
“But we cannot leave—” Resa stopped as she saw rebels in bleached outfurs running from the other ship toward them.
“Now, run.” Jarn dragged her down the ramp.
They didn’t make it to the sled. Rebels surrounded them on all sides and trained their crossbows on them. They moved only to make way for a very tall male accompanied by a scar-faced jlorra covered in blood. This man’s face was shielded, but he was far too large to be Iisleg.
“Vral?” the man said to one of the rebels, who nodded. “Take them to the ship.”
FIFTEEN
Teulon listened to Navn’s tale of the ensleg Resa. He refused food and drink offered by the headman’s kedera, Sogayi, who said nothing but managed to project silent displeasure at his refusal, just the same.
“Why did you not kill her when she violated your law?” Teulon asked when the rasakt had finished the convoluted story.
“I had … thought to be merciful,” Navn said, almost stammering. “She did save the life of Aktwar, my son. It seemed appropriate to allow her life.”
“As it seemed appropriate to allow her into the camp.”
“Yes.”
“To work among your own women.”
“To earn her place here, yes.”
“That is not the truth.” Teulon rose. “You follow the oldest ways, Navn. Your own son told me how you despise the freedoms given to women in the western tribes. Yet you allow an alien woman into your iiskar? You permit her to contaminate your women with her off-world ways? And when she makes and uses a weapon, an offense for which you would kill any Iisleg female, you spare her?”
“I was confused.” Navn’s expression turned resentful. “I have never had to deal with ensleg.”
“You lie again. You did all of these things because you feared her.” Teulon loomed over him. “Was it because you feared that she could not die?”
“No.” Navn looked sick as he turned to his wife. “Go, fetch fresh water for the basins.” When Sogayi had left the shelter, the headman slumped back in his chair. “You are right. I was afraid of her. Of what she is. She is very like … but it can’t be the same woman. The one who was brought here was too badly wounded. It was too long ago.”
Teulon paced the wide interior. “How long?”
“Eight seasons. Perhaps nine.” The headman covered his eyes with one shaking hand. “I have not slept well since the day they brought her back to show me. That one, not even the skela could kill.”
The ensleg that would not die had arrived on Akkabarr at the same time Teulon had. “Tell me about her.”
Navn composed himself, and tucked his hands in the ends of his sleeves. “We saw the ship go down. The gjenvin went to work the wreck, a
s always. A League transport vessel, it was. A small one. There were two on board. The male was dead when the skela recovered his body. The female had survived. Some of the skela committed a sacrilege and were put to the ice for it. The gjenvin master told me the Skjæra shot her with a pulse weapon, but that did not kill her.”
“What is the Skjæra?”
“A skela who puts the dying out of their misery.” Navn’s voice grew rich with disgust. “Iisleg warriors do not slay the helpless.”
“Go on.”
The headman made an empty gesture. “That is all. The gjenvin brought the ensleg female here, to show me. The woman barely breathed, but they were afraid. So was I. I was about to take her head when the jlorra broke from their harnesses and took her. They dragged her out of the camp. It is their way to attack the wounded and devour them. I swear to you, that is what happened.”
This Resa was not Cherijo Torin, Teulon decided. No living being, no matter how enhanced her physiology was, could survive under such conditions.
“If that female who would not die was a drone, no beast on this planet could have eaten her.” Teulon pulled on his outfurs. “Your healer is attending the wounded that were brought here?”
“Yes, but there are so many, and he is old and only one man.” A crafty look came into the headman’s eyes. “These vral, if you permit them to live, they may prove of more use to us. They saved many of your men, did they not?”
They had, and that was the only reason Teulon had allowed them to live. If they were drones, perhaps he would even reprogram them. “Prepare your men to leave camp.”
Navn was taken aback by this order. “You are taking my men?”
“You pledged them to me when you joined the rebellion.” Teulon put on his face shield and left the rasakt’s shelter.
The guards waiting for him outside escorted him from the camp to the temporary command post they had constructed just outside the battlefield, where the dead were being dragged by sled to be thrown into a nearby crevasse. Teulon had given orders that the skela not be summoned and worgald not be taken from any of the bodies.
“Neither of the females will speak, Raktar,” Edin, who had been posted outside the makeshift detainment unit, said. “The packs they carried have ensleg medicines and such in them. No weapons except for this, which the smaller one carried.” He showed it to the Raktar.
Teulon examined the weapon. It was a slim, narrow stiletto a fingertip in width and two hand spans in length. “Is this the sort of blade used by the Death Bringer?”
Edin looked uncomfortable. “I believe so, Raktar.”
Teulon nodded and slid the blade into his sleeve. “I will question them.”
Inside the temporary shelter, both women were sitting together in a corner, their backs to the walls. Both were conscious and showed no signs of abuse. Teulon knew the only reason for this was that most of his men remained convinced that they were vral and would not go near them.
He performed a thermal and bio scan of both females. They were not camouflaged drones, and they carried no subdermal devices or implants. Both were approximately the same age.
“I am the Raktar of the rebel forces,” Teulon said, setting aside the device. “Who sent you here?”
Neither woman responded.
“I know you are not vral, or spirits, or sent by the Iisleg God.” Teulon saw no reaction, but they were both still veiled. “Show me your faces.”
When the women did not remove their head wraps, he strode over and tore them off, one in each hand. The masks beneath startled him, but only for a moment.
“I can remove those, as well,” he advised them, showing his claws.
One of them reached up and held her hand in front of her face. The mask oozed from her head into her hand, where it became a slowly undulating blob. It had concealed a small, narrow human face with high cheekbones, a prominent nose, and tilted dark eyes. Her sheared hair was dark with a prominent streak of white.
The other woman removed her mask in the same fashion, but kept her face averted. Her long dark hair helped by acting as a shroud.
“Show me your face,” Teulon said to the second female.
“Show yours,” the first one said.
Perhaps frightening them would provoke more of a response. Teulon reached up and removed his face shield.
The first female frowned, but the second glanced and then stared through the curtain of her hair. He crouched in front of her, reaching to move the hair from her face.
The long-haired woman bolted, running for the entry. Teulon caught her by the back of her robe and dragged her around. Her face was exposed now, the bright emitter overhead showing every detail of her features.
She looked enough like the other woman to be a sibling.
“No,” she said, twisting to try to free herself with hysterical fervor. She snatched the blade from his forearm sheath and held it between them. “Let go. Let go.”
Teulon seized the knife and flung her away from him. She landed in a heap and did not move again. As he turned to drag her to her feet, the other woman barreled into him, knocking him off-balance and falling with him to the floor. She pounced on top of him and pressed something sharp against the side of his throat.
“I use blade, kill ptar,” she warned him. “I do same thing to you.”
“Is that why you were sent? To assassinate me?”
“We came, help hurt men.” She looked disgusted. “Would like kill you for hurting Jarn.”
Teulon rolled, dislodging the wedge of metal she had at his throat, and pinned her beneath him. “Never make threats you cannot carry out. Drop it.”
She struggled for a moment, and then released the makeshift blade.
He looked over at the long-haired woman. “Her name is Jarn?”
“Don’t hurt her,” she spit in his face, speaking now not in Iisleg, but in Terran. “Slit my throat if you wish, but she’s done nothing.” She glanced over at the dark-haired woman, who was unconscious. “She came here to help your men.”
Teulon rested the blade against her throat. “Why are you here? Who sent you?”
“We came on our own.” She lifted her chin. “Go on. It’s all you know how to do, isn’t it? Kill me.”
The shift of her face made something glimmer, and Teulon used the blade to ferret it out. It was a vocollar, a linguistic translation device made and used by Jorenians. He had not seen one since the slavers ripped his from his neck. “Where did you get this?”
She covered it with her hand. “It is mine.”
Teulon lowered his blade. Two years ago. A Jorenian vocollar. An ensleg female who would not die. He reached farther back, recalling the image of a Terran female physician on his display. The relay had been distorted slightly by the dissimilarities in their com equipment, but she, too, had had dark hair with a single white streak. At the time, he had known of her—everyone had—but that had been his only contact with her. He could even remember some of that one, brief conversation they had shared.
Your kin have arrived, and we will keep them safe.
May the Mother watch over you all.
“What is your name?” he asked the woman under him.
“Resa.”
Resa, the newly arrived ensleg who Navn claims does not remember who she is. The one he fears came here two years ago. Teulon stood, and held out his hand. “Come. Stand. I will not hurt you.”
She let him help her up, and yet watched him with wary eyes. “Why not?”
He considered telling her exactly that. “You say you are here to help us. You have saved many lives. You did not try to kill me when you held the blade at my throat.” He gestured to Jarn. “I believe you are what you say you are.”
“No, we are not,” Resa admitted. “But it is the only way we can help the wounded.” She frowned. “You speak Terran, like we do, but you are not Terran.”
“I had dealings with Terrans once.” Teulon saw Jarn’s head lift and her hand sweep the long dark hair from her face. �
�Is she Terran, like you?”
Resa nodded. “How did you come here? As a slave?”
“I was sold in Skjonn.” He went over and helped Jarn to her feet. “I escaped two years ago.”
There was no change in Resa’s expression. “From the skim city? How?”
“I was sentenced to death and walked off the edge of an open platform. Only I caught an edge as I went over, climbed under it, and hid. Later, I stowed away on a supply ship. It brought me here.” He felt Jarn trembling, and to her said, “I will not hurt you.”
“You say one thing and do another,” Jarn said. “I do not trust you.”
She was unsteady on her feet, so Teulon held on to her. There was something very strange about the Iisleg woman. She seemed not of this world. She reminded him of other, equally insubstantial things—things that soothed him with sorrow, and burned him with shame —
Like the spirit of the cave. Teulon closed his eyes. Holding Jarn in her vral garments was as if he were back in the small cave, trying to embrace a column of air. He looked down at her. “Do you know me?”
“No.” She backed away from him. “Perhaps I will after you wash off the blood from your last victim.”
Teulon studied his hands as she did, and saw the dark red stains. “I fought men who would have killed me had I not. They were opponents, combatants, not victims.”
“They lost, did they not? These men who follow you into battle”—Jarn gestured toward the entry—“do they know you are ensleg?”
“The ones I trust do. Healer, being that you and your friend are Terran, I do not think you are in a position to criticize me for my lack of veracity.” There was something that bothered him about Jarn, as well, but Teulon couldn’t place it. “Do you intend to keep searching for wounded and treating those you find?”
“It is our work,” Jarn said. “We are healers.”
“You will be dead healers if you continue to wander the ice without protection.” Teulon couldn’t let them go, especially not Resa, not now that he knew who she was. She might prove to be more valuable than the crystal. And in some strange fashion, Jarn shared a connection to the otherworldly creature from the small cave.