None of them were, really. “Ptah needs help!” she called to Ehecatl, and gestured with her good arm towards the fallen Egyptian, before heading, step by jolting, painful step, off in Adam’s wake.
Adam ran forward, gun still in hand, warily keeping an eye on the various men with bows, most of whom were staring at the bodies of their two god-born in total shock. At the scaffold, he holstered the weapon and clamped down, hard, on the horror he felt at the sight there. “I’ve got you,” he told the girl. He wasn’t sure if she was alive, let alone conscious, but it was good practice to talk to a patient or a victim before putting hands on them. He reached up, trying to find a spot on her bare and bloody body that there wasn’t an arrow protruding from, leaned her against his own torso to support her dead weight, and pulled out a knife, flicking out the blade to saw at the rope. When that snapped, she sagged limply against him, and he lowered the girl to the muddy ground, gently, trying to get an inventory for first-aid. He put two fingers against her throat, and was surprised when he felt a faint throb there. Weak, erratic, faint, a heart fluttering out its last beats. She wasn’t breathing, though. “No, you don’t,” he told her, tossing his knife aside. “You’re not dying on us. Not today.”
The hell of it was, he wasn’t even sure where to start. If he pulled the arrows, he could do more damage removing them. He wasn’t a surgeon. But one of them was in her chest, another in her left arm, a third in her belly, and she had two in a thigh. At least one had clipped the girl’s cheek, leaving a slash there, too. The one in the chest would interfere with chest compressions, if he needed to try to do her heart’s work for her. First thing’s first, Adam thought, and checked her airway. No obstructions. He leaned down, and gave her two breaths, and checked her heart again.
Nothing.
“Perfututum.” Latin was wonderful for profanity, he found. “Lehizdayen. Come on.” He moved gingerly into position, and, grimacing, started chest compressions. The girl’s body was small, and all too fragile in appearance. He needed to keep the blood circulating to her brain and her heart tissues, with fresh oxygen. And the problematic arrows in her chest and stomach would just have to wait.
Compressions, then he slipped back to the side, and put his mouth over hers again, pinching the nose shut, to breathe for her again. Not even paying attention to the others around him at the moment; he couldn’t watch his back and perform CPR at the same time. He had to trust in the others.
Light touch of a hand on the back of his neck, as he prepared to move back for more compressions. “Her heart beats more strongly,” Sigrun told him, kneeling beside him. “You can stop the chest-compressions now.”
“What—how do you know?” He was disoriented, thrown out of his focus.
“I know. I can always tell if a wound is mortal. These . . . almost. But not quite.” Her rune-marking were glowing again, and even as he watched, he could see the burns and cuts on her arms and face starting to heal. Turning from black-charred ash and blisters into pink, new, healthy skin, as the light within her consumed the wounds. She reached out—slowly, and with evident pain; the wound in her back still hampered her, it seemed. Her fingers closed around the arrow in the girl’s chest. “I would pull these myself, but I cannot right now. I need your hands.”
Adam stared at her. “You’re mad. If I pull the arrows, it’ll make it worse. I’m not a surgeon.”
“No. You’re not. But it’ll be fine. Better now, than when she wakes up. Less pain for her.” Sigrun’s smile was wan. “Adam. Please. Trust me.” She pointed at the arrows. “Pull them. They can’t be in the wounds for what I intend to do.”
I have no idea what in god’s name she’s talking about, but all right. “Fine. I can follow orders.” He set his teeth and put a hand on the bare skin. Braced. Tested the angle, gingerly, and then pulled the arrow out. One fluid motion, feeling resistance from the bones and softer tissues as he did. Then he threw the arrow to the side. Blood trickled out—a fairly good sign that Sigrun was right, and that the girl’s heart still beat. He moved on to the next, pulling the arrow from her belly—it had lodged in the liver, he thought, as if the shot in the lung wasn’t bad enough—and that was when he realized that pellucid light was radiating out around him. His head jerked up, and he saw that Sigrun had put hand on the girl’s shoulder, and now sagged forward with a low groan of pain.
“What the hell?” Adam demanded, and reached forward. Jerked her hand free of the girl’s body . . . and saw no wound in the girl’s chest. Blood, yes, smeared everywhere. .. .but nothing more than a thin, puckered, white scar. He turned Sigrun by her arm and shoulder towards him . . . and saw, to his horror, blood pouring from a deep wound in her chest, revealed by her leather bodice. “Sigrun—”
“Won’t . . . kill me.” Her voice was tight, and her face taut with the pain. “Please. You’re making this . . . much more difficult. Slower. Just . . . pull the other arrows.”
Adam swallowed, hard, and bit down on all his questions and objections. And pulled the rest of the damned arrows, watching, in mild awe, as every one of the girl’s wounds healed before his eyes . . . transferred to Sigrun’s body. The woman knelt, curled in on herself, white light suffusing her, flinching a little as she took each wound from the girl. Bled for the girl. “You’ve got to let me put pressure on those,” Adam said, feeling completely useless, putting his hands on his partner’s shoulders.
“I’ll . . . heal.” Sigrun slumped forwards.
The girl’s eyes flew open, and she stared up at the now-cloudless sky, and then bolted upright, awkwardly crossing her thin arms over her chest. She looked around wildly, and Adam hastily pulled off his cloak, offering it to her, as Livorus moved up behind them. Adam glanced back, and saw that Ehecatl was helping Ptah to sit up, in the distance, and that the various Chahiksichahiks men had all scattered at this point. Wise decision, he thought, dryly.
“What . . . what’s going . . . I thought I was going to die,” the girl whispered, clutching the cloak to her. “I hurt so much, and then there was only darkness. I thought I’d see the faces of the gods when I died.”
“You did not die,” Sigrun rasped, and Adam could see a flesh-wound in her arm, taken from the girl, healing. The bleeding had stopped, and a puckered scab formed . . . and, as Sigrun evidently concentrated, the scab smoothed. Paled. Turned into a white rune-mark under her skin, blazing with inner light. Another sign of her covenant with her god, her bond with him. Adam watched now as Sigrun hesitantly reached out to put a still-bloody hand on the girl’s shoulder, as if she thought the young woman would shy away. “You are safe, little one. I swear that on the name of Tyr One-Hand.”
Livorus looked down at the girl now. “Frittigil Chatti?”
A numb nod from the girl. Livorus crouched down and offered her his hand, not taking visible offense as she shrank away, and huddled closer to Sigrun. “I’m Propraetor Antonius Livorus. You’re safe now, and we’re going to take very good care of you.” He stood back up again. “Sigrun, my dear, you’re all right?”
“The wounds were deep. But they will heal.” Sigrun straightened where she sat, weariness in her face, and all the rune-born light fading from her now entirely.
“Excellent. Is our god-born priest here yet numbered among the living?” Livorus gestured in the direction of the shaman who’d called down the meteorites from the sky.
Sigrun shuddered, and Adam put his hands on her shoulders for a moment, cautiously, being respectful of the still-raw burns. “His wounds are mortal, but he yet lives.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Good. I think I would like to ask him, before he passes, why he thought that trying to provoke war with the entirety of Nova Germania and Novo Gaul was a wise decision.” Livorus stepped away, heading towards where the crumpled body of the shaman lay.
______________________
The Roman’s sandals squelched through the mud as he picked his way to the fallen priest’s body. He stood there for a moment, looking down at the man. The white hai
r was combed back from the priest’s face into the customary scalp lock used in this small kingdom, and he could see splotches of crimson spreading across the leathers covering the man’s chest. The dark eyes were glazed, and the man’s breathing was rapid and shallow. Livorus tucked up the hem of his toga and crouched down beside the man’s body. “Not a good day,” he said, quietly. He wasn’t sure if the man could hear him, or if he were already past hearing any earthly voice. “I could order a punitive expedition into your lands for what you’ve done. I could have your entire kingdom put to the sword. I would greatly prefer not to have to do so.” He paused. “Give me a reason why I should not. Tell me why your gods demanded this ritual. If, in fact, they did so. Or tell me it was all for your own aggrandizement. Your own power.” He put as much persuasion into his voice as he could muster. To convince this dying man to give him something he could use.
For a moment, he thought the man was far beyond the reach of any words. Then the head turned slightly, and the glazed eyes looked past him. Through him. “The Morning Star . . .” The words were barely audible. “My grandfather’s father . . . .”
“Yes?” Livorus leaned closer, trying to will the words out of the man. Don’t lie. Don’t die with a lie on your lips. Give me something I can use.
“. . . came to my dreams, too. Told me . . . darkness was coming. That he was weak. Couldn’t . . . protect us. Couldn’t protect . . . himself. That he needed . . . a sacrifice. He needed our belief. Our faith. The faith of . . . all . . . the people.” Blood trickled from the man’s lips, caught and channeled by the sere lines that bracketed his mouth. “Darkness is coming, Roman.” The eyes closed, then re-opened, vaguely. “Do you know . . . where your gods are?”
“What?” Livorus asked, nonplussed. The question made no sense.
“Doesn’t . . . matter. He had . . . his sacrifice. My blood . . . will save . . . my people.”
“No! Not yet—damnit.” Livorus swore when he realized that the old priest had already passed beyond where his voice could reach. “What does that even mean? How am I supposed to keep your people alive if that’s the only reason you can give me?” He realized that he was berating a dead man, and sighed, taking a breath to calm himself. Looked down. Saw the blood from the corpse, staining the mud around the body, and exhaled again, forcefully. “If all that was required was someone’s blood in the earth, you might have saved us all the trouble and killed yourself, to begin with,” Livorus muttered, savagely, standing back up again. “Sacrificed yourself, someone from your own tribe. Not some poor child, whose people dwell seven hundred miles from yours. Who have had little, if anything, to do with yours. Your people are surrounded by Gauls, not by the Goths. None of this makes sense.”
Livorus gave the corpse a weary glance. Articulating his arguments out loud usually helped him see patterns, tendencies, and motivations. And he usually did this in the privacy of his own rooms, with no one else around but a family pet, or, at most, one of his lictors. In this case, he suspected that applying rationality wouldn’t get him anywhere. But he had to make some kind of sense of it, in order to understand precisely what level of response Rome needed to make here, in reaction to what was a fairly flagrant violation of several treaties they’d made with this small kingdom. No. I need to know more. I’ll question the chieftain, the other elders. Have my lictors talk with the local plebeians . . . damnation. Half of them are too wounded to move, at the moment. I should have had the closest Praetorian office send extra officers . . . but I didn’t anticipate a fight. Nor that they would have god-born. And more lictors would have been construed as too much of a threat.
His mind churned. Three of his formidable lictors were injured, and they’d need at least one of the others to drive them back to Ponca, with the girl. No phone lines here in this small kingdom. No technology of any kind. There’s a radio in the car. We can put in a call to the local barracks. Bring in regional legionnaires. An option, though a heavy-handed one. No, relations before this past year have been acceptable. We’ll call the local Praetorian office for backup. Might take a few hours . . . and my people need respite, and medical care. So does the girl. He nodded to himself. If Ehecatl has only a broken arm, and if he’s willing . . . he can stay here with me and ensure that evidence isn’t removed from the scene. He’s the best choice anyway, being from Nahautl. He has better cultural understanding than the rest of us. And then new officers can handle the questioning. See who here were willing accomplices . . . some of the men were, certainly . . . and who among them were simply too afraid to stand up to a god-born. Wouldn’t be the first time. And if we can . . . find the person who called in the information to the Praetorians in the first place. Though we may never know who it was. Silence might be their only assurance of safety.
Livorus moved back over to his lictors. Ptah’s unconscious form had been dragged to the rest of them, where they could guard him, and Adam was rigging a sling for Ehecatl’s left arm using the man’s own belt. And as he worked, the Judean man told Sigrun, sharply, “You should lie down. The chest wound isn’t all the way healed yet, and I’d put denarii on it that the abdominal wound hasn’t closed yet, either.”
“Good luck,” Ehecatl told the younger man sardonically, as the belt loop tightened into place around his shoulder blade. “Do you really think she’s going to listen to you?”
The Marcomanni girl, swathed in ben Maor’s cloak, huddled into Sigrun’s side, and rattled at the valkyrie in some dialect of Gothic, rapid-fire. Livorus understood Gothic, and could hack his way through Burgundian, but Cimbric, Trierian, and the half-dozen other dialects that filled the cities of Nova Germania were just sufficiently different from each other, that it was not just a matter of a heavy accent. He could pick out words here and there, like nýdnimung, which he thought was rapine . . . or maybe just kidnapping. Forcible seizure, certainly, but nuance was lost on him. Livorus came to a halt near his lictors and the girl, and asked, “What’s our status?”
Ehecatl tried to shrug, and then winced, aborting the gesture. Livorus could smell charred flesh, and Livorus could see, through the burned remnants of the man’s shirt, that the upper arm was blackened, and the flesh curved inwards, as if a bite had been taken out of the bicep by red-hot teeth. “I’m all right. Ptah’s slipping in and out of consciousness. Wounds to upper left thigh and right shoulder, sir. He’s stable, for the moment. All the wounds were almost completely cauterized, but I think his femur might be cracked, if not broken entirely. We need to get him to a hospital. And I don’t think Sigrun should be healing anyone else today,” the Nahautl man replied crisply.
Livorus nodded. “Are you in good enough condition to stay here, Itztli? We’re going to call in as many Praetorians as we can, and treat this area as a crime scene. But someone needs to stay here to observe, and ensure that nothing is taken.”
Ben Maor’s head lifted. “I’m uninjured, sir,” he reminded Livorus. “Itztli needs a hospital as badly as the rest of them do.”
“Yes, but when you speak, the locals hear ‘foreigner,’” Ehecatl reminded Adam, tiredly.
“Shouldn’t matter. We’re all provincials together.”
“It shouldn’t matter, but it does.” Ehecatl grimaced again. “I’ll get through it, dominus,” he told Livorus, nodding once.
The propraetor nodded, respecting the former Jaguar warrior’s strength of will, as always. “Sigrun, my dear, can you walk? Can you help this young lady back to our motorcar?”
“Yes, propraetor. I think so.” Sigrun started to get to her feet, the lines of her face tautening as she did.
Ben Maor cut in, sharply, “Sir, she should not be walking, and I do not care what kind of magic was used to repair her wounds. She lost a great deal of blood, as did Frittigil here.” The man stood. “I’ll go back for the vehicle, and bring it here.”
Livorus looked around at the scattered bodies on the field. “They won’t thank us for bringing our technology onto their lands.” His tone was completely neutral.
Livorus grimaced. The young man was angry, and he understood it. But anger wreaked havoc on diplomacy. That being said? The plan made sense. “Go get the car, then. And use the radio. Get in touch with the local Praetorian office, and get more agents down here. This is now a crime scene.”
Adam nodded, stiffly. “Yes, sir. Already planning on it. Have I your leave?”
“Go.”
______________________
Adam turned and loped off, hearing Livorus speaking with Ehecatl, behind him, about staying behind, though the man was injured. Adam grimaced. He should be the one staying behind. He hardly had a scratch, and Ehecatl’s arm needed antibiotics and a course of burn treatments. As he ran, he saw dozens of people all watching him in the distance. Let’s hope they haven’t found their guns, or decided that bows and arrows would make for a way of quietly changing the whole story here, he thought, and kept jogging along the path that led to the mound village, slowing to a crisp walk. Ptah’s life did depend on speed, but he also couldn’t look panicked here. They needed to look in charge, in control. People tended to default to following the orders of those who looked like they were in charge. Just human nature, really. But he also didn’t want to look threatening, either, which could trigger a very bad response from the people peering out of their mound-houses and lean-tos again.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 10