Wanderer: The Moondark Saga, Books 4-6 (The Moondark Saga Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Don McQuinn

  Wrapping her arms around Sylah, Lanta said, “She, or the child, or both, were going to die if you did nothing. I heard what she said about the Chair, and who’d be blamed. We’re going to save her. And the child.”

  Freeing herself, smiling gratitude and renewal, Sylah said, “I’ll use a very small taste of the poppy sleep.” As she took a clay bottle from her bag and poured the dosage into a cup, she went on. “I’m so afraid for her I entirely forgot how you excel in the healing music. Help me, Lanta. We need you.”

  “Of course.”

  Sylah returned to the bedside. “Yasmaleeya, we’re going to help you relax now. You have to work with us.”

  Yasmaleeya gave a muffled noise. Her head bobbed.

  Sylah proffered the cup. “Drink. It soothes.” Yasmaleeya gaped like a nestling, swallowing eagerly. Sylah spoke of peace, of repose. She bound Yasmaleeya’s mind to her own with an iron concentration that belied the deceptive, liquid murmur of her words. Slowly, visibly, Yasmaleeya calmed.

  Almost unnoticed, Lanta hummed as she went about her work. The song rose sweetly. It could have been a lullaby. It was, in fact, a birthing hymn.

  Taking a glossy piece of obsidian from her bag, Lanta rapped it smartly with a piece of steel, flaking off a leaf-shaped shard with an edge so fine it diffracted the candlelight. Sparkling rainbow colors imbued the nearly invisible sharpness with living eagerness.

  Other instruments came from the bag. A large forceps with brutal steel jaws. A leather sack of things that scraped and clattered with metallic menace. Sylah inspected them out of Yasmaleeya’s sight: an auger, sinuous curves and glinting point; huge scissors; lastly, reluctantly, a blunt-nosed hook. The tools of extremity, the weapons of defeat, to sacrifice the child when there was no hope for it, and little more for the mother.

  Sylah bagged them, couldn’t bear looking at them.

  In a corner, the slave girl cowered. Her face shone with her horror of the instruments.

  Sylah sent a smile at the slave. She hoped the gesture wasn’t a lie.

  The larger bag produced a needle. Threaded with fine cotton, it went into the boiling water. A pouch held puffball spores to staunch blood.

  Lastly, Lanta extracted a small brass round. About the diameter of a dinner plate, it was made of concentric rings of different thickness. Seamlessly joined, they formed a shallow dome. A braided cord knotted through a hole at the edge provided a handle. The striker was a silver-handled, leather-headed mallet. The silver was deeply carved with stylized, rayed suns. Generations of handling had burnished it to flowing smoothness, its darker depths accentuating the higher surfaces. Lanta used it with delicacy. Haunting, brazen melody suffused the room.

  The rhythm was that of a healthy heart.

  Major, minor. Statement, confirmation.

  Yasmaleeya already touched by the poppy sleep, embraced the song. Where there had been stress, now there was effort. She was still a woman in the pangs of birthing her first child, but she was consoled. Befriended.

  Sylah poured alcohol over her hands, fanned them dry. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. Lanta accompanied her, maintaining the compelling drumming music. Sylah explained to Yasmaleeya that she had to determine how the baby was moving. Yasmaleeya nodded and directed her attention to the ceiling.

  To Lanta, Sylah said, “The cervix is up. Soft. Wet glove leather. Yes, there’s the bag of waters. Very firm. We’ve a good passage.” Sylah wiped her hand with a clean cloth that she then threw into a corner, away from her patient. “Wonderful, Yasmaleeya. We need only a tiny bit more clearance. Half the length of a fingernail, no more. You’re perfect.”

  Yasmaleeya continued to watch overhead, enduring. The steady, seductive pulse of the music held her. Despite her contractions, her head moved, ever so minutely, in time with the metallic singing of the little gong.

  A little later, without warning, radical change washed across her expression. From being lost within her situation, she was transformed to a picture of excited hopefulness. She threw out a hand, clasped Sylah’s, gestured for Lanta to come close. “I have to push,” she said. “I feel him. My son. He comes. Pushing. Ooh!” The bag of waters broke with an astonishing gush, splattering almost to the wall. The slave girl yipped surprise and scrambled for a cloth to clean up.

  A thick, sour-sweet aroma filled the room. Lanta ceased drumming, smiled down at Yasmaleeya. “That smell. Exciting. It’s fertility, birth itself.” She wrinkled her nose. “If it weren’t for being connected with babies, I think it’d be awful. But it is babies. And it’s wonderful.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” Yasmaleeya’s glad agreement was little more than grunting as her child began his struggle. Sylah and Lanta exchanged conspiratorial, pleased smiles before Sylah moved to visually examine the patient. Again, she reported to Lanta, this time excitedly. “There’s the head. With hair. Blond. You’ve got a blond baby, Yasmaleeya. Push. Push hard so we can see all of it. We all want to hold it.”

  “I am pushing. Believe me. I am.” It was said in good humor. Her whole being was focused on delivering her child. Sodden with sweat, lying on a bed soaked with amniotic fluid, denying pain, she glowed with accomplishment and purpose.

  Sylah wiped Yasmaleeya’s face with a clean cloth, “You’re doing fine. I’m proud of you. Proud of your son.”

  Yasmaleeya’s head snapped around. “You’re sure it’s a boy? How do you know?”

  “I’m hoping. Just like you.”

  Groaning, gritting her teeth, Yasmaleeya forced words. “He’ll be strong. Powerful. A ruler. You’ll see.”

  Time dragged. Yasmaleeya’s long hair became lank, stringy. The anticipation in her face turned to confusion, then worry. Her muffled cries grew sharper, louder.

  Lanta resumed her percussive music. Sylah continually reassured the straining, weakening Yasmaleeya. Both Priestesses exchanged increasingly worried looks.

  Sylah straightened determinedly. She arched eyebrows meaningfully for Lanta. Her voice remained bright, however. “Yasmaleeya this is a very big baby. If I massage around his head, I think we can hurry things up a bit.”

  “Do it.” It was curt, discouragement leavened with apprehension.

  The head was in good position, facing toward the mother’s back, bowed to the chest, so that all Sylah could see was the little blond cowlick. Yasmaleeya, who’d continued to grunt and strain, seemed to gather herself. The child’s head receded a fraction. Yasmaleeya pushed, hard. She gave a cry more of determination than of pain.

  The baby’s head came free. Magically, it was fully visible. Sylah shouted, “His head’s here! Your baby’s coming. Push, Yasmaleeya. Now!”

  The panting, groaning woman tried.

  Caught in flesh that could yield no further, the baby’s face grew congested. Sylah shivered with fear of the situation building before her.

  The flesh just beyond the child’s head was stretched drum-tight, already slightly torn. Sylah’s kneading had no effect. Extending her hand to Lanta for the obsidian blade, she told Yasmaleeya, “This may hurt a bit.”

  Bitterly, Yasmaleeya answered, “Everything hurts. Get this over with.”

  The black shimmer of stone slid across the taut skin. For an instant its course was but a delicate red trace the length of Sylah’s first thumb joint. It was a shocking understatement from such a dangerous-looking tool. And then the wound blossomed open and blood flowed busily.

  The child still refused to exit. The image of the ugly forceps picked at Sylah’s mind.

  With every pulse of her body, Yasmaleeya was closer to being killed by the innocent, obdurate size of her baby. In horrible balance, she was equally closer to killing it because she couldn’t deliver it.

  A tinge of blue—deadly, malevolent—palled the child.

  Sylah’s expression warned Lanta. Moving rapidly, keeping her tone conversational, Sylah said, “We’re going to have to give him a bit more room. Lanta, help me move our girl to the end of the bed. Buttocks right on the edge.”

  Lan
ta joined Sylah’s inspection when Yasmaleeya was in place. The baby’s head was now turned to the side. Lanta whispered, tension roughening her voice. “The color! Obstruction. The cord must be pinched. I’m going to check.”

  “Yes.” Sylah frowned, unmoving.

  Working her hand past the baby’s head, Lanta explored carefully. She withdrew quickly, whispered again. “Shoulder’s jammed against the pubic bone. Cord’s caught. You’re the strongest. Pull. Pull.”

  Sylah was ashen. Dark ties etched outward from the corners of sunken eyes. A muscle danced at her jaw. “I fear. The old ones say pulling destroys something in the shoulder. It can kill.”

  With a harshness that sent Sylah recoiling in shock, Lanta said, “Damn your fear. You claim to be a good Healer, you pretend to be a leader. While you whine and weep, those who depend on you die.”

  Astonished, hurt eyes still on Lanta, Sylah reached blindly for the baby’s head. On touching it, she was vitalized. She grasped with both hands and pulled.

  Lanta moved to stand beside Yasmaleeya. She carried the brass round and its striker. The rhythm now was urgent, an intricacy that spoke of two hearts, not one. The larger struggled, urged. The smaller one fought. Grim, Lanta drove a music of strength, of battle. Of love. Fierce, unyielding love.

  Yasmaleeya’s head tossed left and right. The only sounds that passed her clamped lips were a low moan and the grinding of teeth.

  Sobbing, Sylah knelt on the floor and forced herself to exert ever more force against the soft helpless infant. She pulled down, hard, biting her lip to smother anguish.

  And found herself holding a boy.

  His head was mashed into a near cone shape, but it was whole. His nose looked like something that should have been attached to a wrestler, but it worked. His color was cold awful, but improved with every heartbeat. His hair was sparse, wispy. He was wet and sticky and smelly and down right repulsive and Sylah shouted and wept for joy at the wondrous, transcendent beauty of him.

  Yasmaleeya’s gusting sigh resounded. Lanta’s music stopped with a triumphant clash.

  For a moment, Sylah looked away to gaze at the new mother, who lay still, eyes closed, taking in air in a huge, slow inhalation. Opening her eyes wide, she raised her hands slowly. “My baby. My son. I want him.”

  Sylah filled with pride for her. For all her faults, Yasmaleeya had performed flawlessly in her greatest test.

  “Let me clean him off,” she said, laughing. “Just a moment, I promise.”

  Turning her attention back to the baby, Sylah thought she saw a weakness, a looseness in his left arm. That was what the old ones said to look for; a palsy in the injured shoulder. From that could come a withered limb. Or death.

  Sylah watched carefully while she and Lanta cleaned him and tied off the ends of the umbilical cord. When she checked the boy’s limbs, she delayed the left arm to last. Pulling the right arm straight, she was surprised by its strength, delighted to see how the wrinkle-faced, red man-to-be jerked it back, fist clenched.

  The left arm was weak, almost flaccid. The fist was merely a curl of the fingers.

  Lanta cut the cord. Sylah raised the boy in the air. Without waiting for any stimulation, he arched his back, beat a clenched fist against the air, and yowled his dissatisfaction with a world that welcomed a stranger with such consummate rudeness.

  Yasmaleeya smiled, reaching for him. As soon as he was in her arms, she was in her own private world, pain and worry simply put aside.

  “It never fails,” Lanta was saying, features aglow in the sharing of the moment. “No matter how difficult the birth, they get that look when they see and hold the baby. Triumph and an amazement of love. I adore it.”

  Sylah managed a brief answering laugh. The boy’s shoulder preyed on her mind. She asked Lanta to tend to Yasmaleeya’s incision, offering the excuse that she was exhausted, her hand unsteady. In truth, she wanted to study the child further. Ignoring Yasmaleeya’s muffled cries as she endured Lanta’s stitches, Sylah tested the child’s arm again. There was no movement, but, as she remembered, stillness alone wasn’t decisive. She wanted to scream at her lack of sure knowledge, her ignorance.

  Lanta gestured Sylah to her. Stepping away from Yasmaleeya she whispered. “I’m finished. There’s heavy bleeding, though. Internal. It’s bad.”

  After watching for a bit, Sylah said, “Perhaps it’ll stop when the placenta comes. Let’s see.” Examining Yasmaleeya, she nodded satisfaction. “Good recovery. Uterus is already hard a little larger than my fists. I’ll tug just a… There we are.” The placenta came with a large blood clot. Both women watched with dark frowns as more blood continued to issue.

  Lanta said, “There’s a technique. You squeeze the uterus. If the laceration’s there, sometimes it’ll stop the bleeding. It hurts. A lot.”

  “It has to be tried.”

  Yasmaleeya was too preoccupied with her baby to be concerned when Sylah warned her that she had to be hurt again. Sylah almost smiled, thinking of the effect her child was having on this most unlikely of doting mothers.

  Sylah bent to yet another onerous task. Lanta offered Yasmaleeya a linen cloth to bite on.

  Yasmaleeya jerked with the pain. The smothered yell had a distant, lost sound.

  The bleeding continued. For the first time since the actual delivery, Yasmaleeya wavered. She continued to clutch the child, but her features sagged. She struggled to keep her eyes open. The pressures of the birthing weighted the lids, and they slowly closed.

  Sylah said, “She’ll be all right. The bleeding will stop soon.”

  Lanta agreed heartily.

  Each avoided the other’s eyes.

  Together, they hurriedly cleaned up, replacing the ruined bedding, tying everything tightly in two bundles. For a moment they stood uncertainly. Normally, the material would be ceremonially burned immediately. By unspoken agreement they shoved the bundles into a corner, made a three-sign, and ignored them.

  Satisfied with the room’s condition, Sylah passed a small ceramic vial of ammonia under Yasmaleeya’s nose. Her eyes flew wide, but they lacked genuine awareness. Pupils still fluctuating uncertainly in the aftereffects of poppy sleep and stress, Yasmaleeya found a smile. Despite her ordeal, despite her seemingly infinite capacity for self-interest and self-delusion, the new mother cradled her baby and bent to gaze at him with a love and pride that knew no distinctions of place, time, or culture.

  A sound pulled at Sylah and Lanta. They whirled, and there in the corner wept the forgotten slave girl. Both Priestesses hurried to her. The girl cowered until she was assured she wasn’t going to be beaten, then she said, “The baby. He fought so hard. He earned his life. And the way my mistress looked at him. I never thought she could be so sweet.” She stopped, choked by renewed apprehension.

  Lanta patted her hand. “We understand. We’ll be leaving very soon. Can we depend on you to help care for him?”

  “Oh, yes. Like he was my own.” A darkness touched her. She looked away. “Or until I get free, and have my own. I’ll have no child that’s property to anyone.” Emboldened by their sympathetic silence, she brightened again. “He’ll be a good boy. Did you see how big he is?”

  “We noticed,” Sylah said dryly, turning back to Yasmaleeya. To Lanta, she added, “He’s also hard as a little rock. There’s good material in that one. You did well to shame me into working for him. I’m indebted to you.”

  Lanta blushed. “I didn’t know what else to do. Can you forgive me?”

  “I bless you. Between you and what this young woman just said, you brought my mind back from misguided directions. But it was you who told me I wasn’t alone.” Sylah reached for her friend’s hands. They were standing so when the door to the hallway smashed open and Bos stormed in with three warmen behind him.

  Chapter 35

  “Kill them all.” Bos drew his sword.

  “Stop!” Sylah’s imperious command froze the warmen with their weapons half-exposed. Bos managed a clumsy step, then he too he
ld his place.

  Sylah’s left hand was raised, palm out. Eyes like blue ice fixed on Bos. “This is the bearer of the Chair’s son.”

  Bos returned his sword to the scabbard. His men shifted confusedly. Then Bos applauded. Slowly, mockingly. His grin redoubled Sylah’s fear, robbed her knees of strength.

  Bos was casual, as though this were an ordinary chat. “I’ve known the Chair all my life, and still he amazes me. There’s massacre out there tonight. My country is stabbed in the back by slaves. Murdering scum. And my leader tears me from the hunt. He says to me, ‘Get back to the castle. If the Priestess can bring the child during this confusion, she will. The uprising started with a witch, it’ll end with one. Kill her. Rid me of that cow Yasmaleeya and her brat.’ You see, Priestess, he wastes nothing. He’ll name you as the partner of the witch the Harvester exposed. The people of Kos will hear that you killed the bearer and the heir as part of the slave revolt.” Hardening, he spoke over his shoulder to his men. “Come.”

  Yasmaleeya’s scream acted as a signal.

  Bos drew his sword. Sylah stumbled backward, Lanta beside her, hands outstretched in a hopeless defense.

  The unhurried deadliness of the warmen’s advance was more unnerving than yells.

  None of them saw or heard Helstar step through the shattered door. Before the warmen knew he was in the room, one was falling, his helmet and head split. A second turned at the sounds and had his throat slashed.

  Bos and the remaining man would not die so easily.

  Attacking immediately, they hammered at Helstar. Swords clashed, sparks flew. The smith, surprisingly adept, was nevertheless forced on the defense. With few opportunities to strike at his enemies, he was doomed to a fight with only one possible end.

  Dodoy pushed open the door from the adjoining room and leapt into the melee, swinging the chain axe over his head. Sylah and Lanta crouched by the bedside, protecting Yasmaleeya and the child with their bodies.

  The shining axe darted at Bos’ unprotected back. It struck with a satisfying thump. And fell to the floor. Dodoy lacked the power to whip the small weapon through the chain mail under Bos’ shirt; like Lanta’s knife thrust at Helstar, it cut without doing damage.