Will (Book 2)

by S. F. Burgess

  “Will… I fell asleep?”

  Will nodded. “Your body needs more rest then you’re giving it. Can you stand while we turn the sofa into a bed?”

  To answer the question and, Will suspected, to prove a point, Conlan heaved up his obviously aching body and moved out of the way while Amelia and Freddie set up the cart for sleeping. With Eleanor’s help, Conlan took his boots off while he waited. Once he was settled in his bed, Will handed him the tea.

  “Drink this: it has lepdrac in it. It will help you sleep.”

  Conlan sniffed at it suspiciously, taking a tentative sip. “What else is in it?”

  “Tea,” Will replied with an intransigent look. “Drink it.”

  Conlan raised an eyebrow, but drank the tea down anyway. He had not been fooled, and he thrust the empty mug back at Will.

  “You are the most irksome man on occasion,” he muttered.

  Will tried to hide his smile. ‘Irksome’ was not a word Will used, so Conlan had most likely picked it up from Eleanor; Will had to wonder at the circumstances under which she had said it.

  Moving slowly and painfully, his eyelids already starting to drop, Conlan relaxed down into the pillows. He let out a sigh and allowed his eyes to close, his breathing slowing, and soon making the deep sounds of restful sleep. Will had thought they might continue their planning, but Eleanor crawled into bed next to Conlan, curled up against him and closed her eyes. Freddie got up and left with a soft ‘goodnight’ and headed back to his own bed in the other cart—although Will doubted Davlin would be using the bed Freddie had just vacated. Taking the hint, Amelia climbed into their elevated sleeping pallet. Will blew out the candles and followed, having first taken a surreptitious swig from the lepdrac bottle, resisting the urge to cough at the bitter liquid, hoping it would calm his headache enough so that he could sleep.

  The lepdrac worked a little too well, and Will had to be shaken roughly awake by Amelia in the early hours of the morning when Elroy burst into their cart to tell them Moylan was having a fit and needed help. Will noted that while both Amelia and Eleanor had woken at the intrusion, Conlan had not stirred, and he took a brief moment to congratulate himself on the strength of his new sedative before grabbing his medical bag.

  Barefoot, wearing only his breeches, he limped after Elroy. Moylan had had several fits in the preceding months, but none had lasted longer than a minute or so and all had happened at night, which meant Will normally found out the following morning. However, the frequency had recently increased: Moylan had had more seizures in the last three weeks than in all the months since the first one.

  Coming round the side of the cart, Will was surprised to find Moylan lying on the ground, several feet away. He was jerking and twitching violently, his teeth snapping noisily together and just the whites of his eyeballs showing. Freddie, Teris and Mickle had done what Will had taught them. Moylan was lying on his side, his head lying tilted down on a pillow, and they had cleared space around him so that he would not cause himself injury with his uncontrolled muscle spasms. Mickle, with four long scratches down his face, dribbling blood, crouched next to Moylan, talking to the stricken man in a calm, quiet and reassuring voice. Freddie stood off to one side, eyes closed, counting. Will was concerned to hear Freddie’s count reach two hundred and ten. Three and a half minutes! That’s not good.

  Will kneeled next to Moylan and felt for his pulse. It was pounding through the young man, and his pale face and neck were covered with deep bloody scratches and welts.

  “What happened?” Will asked.

  “For safety, Moylan sleeps on the floor. We normally wake up before his fits start, because he is talking to himself,” Elroy started. Will nodded; they had mentioned Moylan’s odd pre-seizure mutterings before. “But this time,” Elroy continued, “he got up and walked out of the karavain. We found him out here, slapping and scratching himself, clawing at his head, saying over and over that he ‘Would not tell!’ Mickle tried to stop him from hurting himself and Moylan scratched him, then fell where you see him.”

  Will watched, his worry growing as Freddie’s counting passed four minutes, knowing there was nothing he could do, but that every additional second could be pushing Moylan closer and closer to brain damage or death. At four and a half minutes, some of the strength went out of the seizure, but it was not until nearly five minutes had passed that Moylan finally stilled. Once he had stopped shaking, Will established that he was breathing normally again, and he allowed Elroy and Mickle to carry the limp, unresponsive man back to his bed—but he did not regain consciousness. Will then cleaned up Mickle’s and Moylan’s scratches, sat next to his patient’s bed and watched Moylan sleep.

  The sun was well risen when Elroy brought him a cup of hot tea. Will nodded his thanks and tried to stifle a yawn as he wrapped his hands round the warm mug.

  “These fits are damaging his memory,” Elroy said, the pain he felt for his friend clear in his voice. “I assume you are worried because the longer the fit lasts, the more of his mind is being torn apart.”

  Impressed with Elroy’s observation, Will nodded.

  “Is there anything we can do to help him?” Elroy asked.

  “I wish there was,” Will said, his eyes travelling back to where Moylan slept.

  “You had potions to fix this in your world; could you make them here?” Elroy asked.

  “If I could, I would have done it by now,” Will assured him. “The medicines that were made in my world were created by groups of people with many magnitudes more healing knowledge than me. It took them years and years of study, and even then, there was no real cure.”

  Elroy frowned and turned from him, trying to hide the frustration and distress on his face, and walked out of the cart.

  Despite knowing that this was not his fault, guilt attacked Will from all sides. He could not escape the feeling that he was failing them. Closing his eyes and taking slow, deep breaths, he slowly went through all the information he could remember about treating seizures. There was little more than he had already told them, just a couple of chapters of an old girlfriend’s medical book he had once read that had talked about ‘triggers’ and a vague recollection of reading an alternative medicine leaflet once that said something about honey and camomile. In reality, the best Will could do was to make sure Moylan ate well and got lots of sleep.

  It did not seem like nearly enough.

  “What are you doing?”

  Will opened his eyes to find Moylan’s puzzled, unfocused gaze watching him.

  “Thinking,” he replied.

  “You must have some depressing thoughts in your head,” Moylan observed.

  Will shrugged, unable to deny the statement. “How are you feeling?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.

  Moylan sighed. “As awful as I always feel afterwards… Sick and confused, with a headache.”

  “I can help with the headache,” Will said, mixing a little lepdrac into the cold remains of his tea and handing it to Moylan. His patient drank it down with a grimace.

  “You were wandering around before your seizure—do you remember?” Will asked.

  Moylan shook his head. “I remember waking to a … a pressure in my head, like when you swim deep down in water. She always comes quietly at first.”

  “She?”

  Moylan frowned, confused. “Pardon?”

  “You said, ‘She always comes quietly at first.’ Who is ‘she’?” Will asked.

  Moylan shrugged. “I meant, ‘it’ always comes quietly at first. Just my fried brain mixing things up.”

  Will nodded, but he was not at all sure it was a mistake. Somewhere in the back of his head there was an alarm bell ringing, trying to draw his attention to something, a memory he could not quite reach.

  Will was still thinking about what Moylan had said as he shuffled slowly back to their cart, having left his patient tucking into the breakfast Freddie had brought him. The smell of the food had set Will’s stomach growling. He stepped throug
h the door and found Conlan alone, struggling to pull his boots on. Without thinking about it, Will moved forward to help him.

  “I can do it,” Conlan snapped.

  Tired and dispirited, not interested in getting into an argument, Will nodded, stepped back and gathered his clothes. His body ached, and dressing was a challenge. As he bent over to pull on his boots, the blood rushed to his head, awakening the monster that was his headache. I just want to go back to bed. He was tempted, but common sense prevailed. He knew there was too much to do, too many plans to be made, and that they needed to move on before the end of the day. If Conlan could push himself to keep going, so could he.

  Eleanor had come back with breakfast by the time they had finished packing the beds away. She had brought enough for herself and Conlan, but on finding Will there she had graciously given up her meal, claiming he looked like he needed it more. Hungry, Will had gratefully fallen upon the food like a starving animal. While he ate, Conlan and Eleanor talked about hot air balloons and the physics behind them, and how they were going to get the materials they needed. Conlan sighed when Eleanor suggested sending Remic another long shopping list.

  Will was just finishing his food when there was a polite knock on the door. Looking a little relieved that he would not have to eat any more, Conlan pushed his plate away and sat up straighter before he spoke.

  “Enter.”

  The door opened and Davlin stepped inside, body stiff, black eyes focused only on Conlan, his expression guarded.

  “Davlin, please let me…” Eleanor said, standing and moving towards him.

  Davlin ignored her, his hard voice breaking over the top of her attempted apology. “Conlan, I would request a moment of your time.”

  Conlan nodded. “Eleanor, please leave us.” The words were soft, gentle even, but Eleanor still crumpled under them, shoulders sagging and tears filling her eyes. A small sob escaped her as she ran, leaping to the ground from the top of the cart steps in her desperation to get away faster. Davlin closed the door behind her.

  Wondering if he could take the food Conlan had not eaten, Will pushed himself to his feet, his body protesting. “I will leave you to talk,” he murmured.

  “No, Will, stay,” Conlan said, pushing his barely touched plate of food across the table. Will hesitated, torn between his unsated hunger and wanting to leave, unease at why Conlan wanted him to stay prickling his heart. The smell of the food won and Will sat back down, tucking into his second plate a little more slowly, but with no less relish, than he had the first. Davlin came to sit opposite him and stared at Conlan in awkward silence for a moment before dropping his head and staring at the table before him.

  “I do not know how to deal with Lady Eleanor,” he said.

  “That makes two of us,” Conlan murmured. If the comment had been an attempt at humour, Davlin missed it.

  “She used my trust against me.” Davlin spat the words out, unable to hide the hurt that rumbled under the Dwarfish. “I can count the number of people I have trusted in my life on one hand, and she threw that back in my face. I do not want to be anywhere near her, let alone be her shadow. I am clearly no good at the job anyway.”

  Conlan sighed. “The failing was not yours, Davlin, nor was it Eleanor’s. It was mine.” Davlin’s head snapped up, surprised eyes wide. Conlan took a deep breath, winced at the pain it caused him and continued. “I made a mistake. I thought I could protect Eleanor by stopping her from doing reckless things, but I am forcing her to be less than she is for my own peace of mind. I made her choose between your trust and my life. Please do not blame her for what she did; I left her with no other option. Eleanor values your friendship more than you know, and she is devastated that she upset you. She wants nothing more than to make amends. Please let her try. I am responsible for what happened, and I am sorry, Davlin. Please forgive me.”

  Will knew the effort Conlan was making—‘sorry’ was not a word he used often. The respect he had for Davlin shone through the gesture. It left Davlin stunned, but he was not willing to give up on his anger that easily. When he got over his shock, he held Conlan’s gaze with hard eyes.

  “If I accept her apology, what guarantee do I have that she will not break my trust again?”

  “There are no guarantees in life, Davlin,” Conlan said. “Nobody controls Eleanor, as should be blatantly obvious to you. My love does as her heart dictates. However, if you agree to give her a second chance, I will change my standing orders. I still want you to look out for her when I am not around and protect her where you can, but if her actions get her hurt I will not hold that against you. It was stupid of me to think that I could. Help her, Davlin, support her; be her friend, perhaps train her in some of the skills you have. I hope, in time, you will be able to trust her for who she actually is, not for whom I was attempting to force her to be.”

  “Does Lady Eleanor know about your change of orders?” Davlin asked.

  “No, I wanted to see if you would agree to them first. I did not want to raise her hopes.”

  Davlin nodded, his expression thoughtful. Will finished eating. The extra food had finally taken the edge off the ravenous hunger that seemed to have come out of nowhere, and now he just felt guilty for being so gluttonous. Distracting himself, he observed the dark, intelligent, contained man before him and wondered what Davlin was thinking. Conlan had made it quite clear that he wanted Davlin to forgive Eleanor, had even taken the blame for her actions himself; but would that be enough?

  “I accept your apology and your terms,” Davlin said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I will speak with Lady Eleanor; perhaps we can rebuild our friendship. Please, may I be dismissed?”

  Conlan grinned at him. “Of course. Thank you, Davlin.”

  Once Davlin had left, Will cleared the plates and stood to leave.

  “Will, you were not dismissed,” Conlan said in a hard, cold voice. Surprised, Will sat back down, putting the plates back on the table.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “You tell me.”

  Not understanding, Will shrugged. Conlan’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yesterday was the second time recently you’ve reduced Eleanor to tears with a particularly harsh remark. I know better than anyone how frustrating Eleanor can be on occasion, but as I’ve said, I never took you for a cruel man. What’s going on?” Will felt like a deer caught in headlights. What answer could he give? His heart pounded in his chest, but the lie came so easily to his lips.

  “The lack of energy, from our experiments, is giving me headaches. They make me bad-tempered and miserable and I take that out on those around me. Eleanor just seems to wind me up more than most.” Conlan opened his mouth to respond, anger flashing through his eyes, but Will beat him to it. “I know this is no excuse; I’m not proud of my behaviour. I intend to make more efforts to control myself in future.”

  “You’re right, it’s not an excuse. I don’t want to see it happen again,” Conlan said, waiting until Will nodded his agreement before continuing. “Should we, perhaps, be stopping the experiments with your energy, now that we are heading towards war?”

  Hiding his panicked gasp with a sigh, Will shook his head. “If you want us to perpetrate a sneak attack against the North Tower, we’re going to need to be invisible to the Enforcers. We have learnt so much about how we cope with reduced energy—and the ability to extend our energy strings’ reach when pushed through the gems on our talismans will be very useful for long-distance communication. We need to finish what we’re doing for it all to have been worthwhile.”

  Conlan nodded, but Will could see the doubt in his eyes. Hoping to distract him, Will changed the subject.

  “So, what are our plans?”

  “We need to find a small town so we can send a letter to Remic. I was thinking Olltis— it’s about a week’s ride from here in the right direction, and we can travel through the forest for most of the journey. Once we have the supplies we need, I want to find somewhere to hide our cart
s and then continue into the mountains on horseback. It took us two months to cross the central mountains last time. I’m hoping to make slightly better time.”

  Will felt a sense of loss at the thought of having to leave the cart and his comfortable bed, and tried to think of a reasonable argument to keep them.

  “I don’t think either you or Arran are up to long, exhausting days in the saddle just yet. We should keep the carts as long as we can. Is there not a cart-friendly track over the mountain?”

  Conlan smiled. “There is only one path across the mountains from here, but it’s not the terrain that bothers me. I want to move quickly, and the carts will slow us down. I’d like us to attack the North Tower before winter.”

  “Why is that important?” Will asked, confused.

  “Every battle strategy and campaign book I have ever read advises against attacking in winter,” Conlan said. “It’s too easy for those behind the walls to seal up the castle and wait for the cold to kill us.”

  Will smiled. “If you’re really planning on using hot air balloons, then winter would be a good time to attack. They fly because the air within them is warmer than the air that surrounds them, and heat rises. If the air around them is cold, they’ll rise faster and higher with less effort. Plus, if all the advice says don’t attack in winter, the North Tower will not be expecting us!”

  “This is very true,” Conlan said, a cunning smile spreading across his face and lighting up his eyes. “Do you think balloons are possible?”

  “Yes, I do. Amelia has always had an obsession with them; there’s little she doesn’t know about how they work. And Eleanor is a brilliant problem solver. I really think they can do it.”

  “And the gunpowder?” Conlan asked.

  Will cringed, but did not bother arguing the point. “Yes, I think that’s possible too, once we have the ingredients and equipment we need.”

  “Then that’s our plan. We build our balloons, make gunpowder and plan a decisive winter strike. And the North Tower will fall.”