The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1)

by Ian Irvine

  Maelys dragged her to one side and returned to the flap. Dawn was spreading across the sky. It would not be long now. The ground shook as the army pounded up the hill.

  ‘Hoy, Healer, over here.’

  There were a dozen healers here now, but Maelys was as skilled as most, and ran to help. Two women were heaving an old man onto a trestle table. He had deep, ragged gouges across his back and shoulders – flappeter wounds – though unless they became infected he would survive. She carried across a bucket of hot water and began to clean the torn flesh with steaming cloths.

  Other casualties were brought in and she was soon so immersed in her work that she scarcely gave a thought to what was happening outside, though she could not block out the screams of the maimed and dying.

  A massed roar went up, a sound that sent a shiver down her back. She washed her hands yet again, wiped them on a clean rag and turned away from the young man she was bandaging. The battle must be over, the Defiance lost.

  Taking a knife from the table, she went to the flap, expecting to see the enemy flooding towards her. It was bright daylight now, the sun just rising, but all she saw were the blood-covered rebels whooping and embracing each other.

  Even after the healers began laughing, weeping and cheering, Maelys couldn’t take it in. They’d won? How could it be possible?

  A messenger girl came running and caught Maelys by the hand. ‘Healer, Lord Monkshart bids you come, quick!’ She began to drag Maelys towards the neck of the hill.

  ‘What’s the matter? Who is it?’ But there was a pain in the middle of her chest, just under the breastbone, and it grew stronger all the time. She knew what the girl was going to say.

  ‘It’s the Deliverer, Healer. He took an arrow in the back.’

  Pain speared through her from front to back. ‘But he’s all right?’

  ‘Just come.’

  The rebels had gathered along the sides of the hill, leaving the centre open, and for the first time she saw the full horror of the battle. Bodies lay everywhere, where they’d fallen, while down at the narrowest point of the neck the dead made a wall waist high and a good forty paces wide. She couldn’t see how far down the slope it extended but there had to be thousands of bodies in it.

  It was the most gruesome sight she’d ever seen, and already flies were swarming. Carrion birds wheeled high above and more were joining them every minute.

  Then she saw him. A huge soldier held Nish in his arms, and even from fifty paces away she could see the long arrow in Nish’s lower back and his sagging head. He looked so small, so frail, so dead. She gathered up her skirts and ran.

  Before she got there, Monkshart stepped out from behind the giant, and Phrune from behind him. Maelys faltered, then continued. Nish needed her help. She was one of the better healers here, and she had been called. She couldn’t turn back now, though they were bound to discover her identity and then she was done for.

  Head bowed so her hood would fall forwards, she continued past them and began to examine Nish’s wound. Monkshart’s hand caught her upper arm and jerked her painfully towards him. His hand reached out to push her hood back. His eyes were glittering.

  ‘If he dies, Healer –’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Unhand her, Monkshart!’ Tulitine’s voice came like a whip crack. ‘It is blasphemy to lay a finger on the Healers of Flammermoul, and well you know it.’

  Monkshart’s hard fingers crushed Maelys’s biceps, but he let her go. ‘I intended no insult,’ he said, bowing low towards the old woman, ‘but I must be sure she is a healer. That habit can just as easily hide a spy or a traitor, and the Deliverer –’

  ‘She’s been doing her work here for days,’ Tulitine said coldly, shooing him out of the way. ‘If you’re so concerned about the Deliverer, you’ll let her get on with it.’

  Maelys could feel Phrune’s eyes on her as if he were trying to burn a hole through her robes, but the old woman took him by the collar and hauled him off. ‘And keep your festering acolyte out of her way.’

  Monkshart cuffed Phrune over the side of the head. ‘Take my personal guard – ten men. Secure the army’s war chest plus any surviving battle mancers and devices of the Art. Have the dead stripped of their weapons and valuables. Make sure the horses with the supply wagons don’t stampede. And then –’

  ‘Check the dying, Master, for those who may prove useful,’ said Phrune.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Monkshart and walked away.

  For their skins: those who were dying of head injuries only. Maelys couldn’t think about Phrune sneaking about in the pile of dead and dying, licking his lips as he relieved the still-living of their skins, or else she would not be able to do her work. It was just one more horror in this most terrible of days.

  Maelys was cutting Nish’s shirt away from the shaft of the arrow when Tulitine appeared beside her. ‘You’re in grave danger,’ she said softly, so that even the big man holding Nish would not hear. ‘You’re a threat to their plans. Finish your work then stay out of their way, and keep your face covered at all times, as a good healer would.’ She peered into Nish’s face. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m worried. The wound hasn’t bled much, yet he’s unconscious and cold.’ Maelys took Nish’s pulse with her fingers. ‘And his heartbeat is weak and fluttery.’ She looked up at the old woman. ‘I’ve never dealt with battle wounds before today. What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘I can’t say. Maybe shock; maybe he’s bleeding inside. Bring him to the healers’ tent, soldier.’ Tulitine touched his arm. ‘What’s your name?’

  He turned towards the tent, walking carefully as though he were carrying the most precious burden in the world. ‘I’m Zham, Lady Tulitine.’

  ‘Just Zham?’ she said, grinning as though she knew better.

  He flushed, lowered his voice. ‘My mother called me Zhambellmyne, but …’

  ‘But it’s a girly name and when you were a kid everyone laughed at you, because you were so huge, and the name was so wrong.’

  ‘Yes, Lady,’ he muttered.

  ‘Zham is a good, honourable name, and it fits you perfectly. I like it.’

  ‘Thank you, Lady.’

  ‘I’m no lady, Zham.’ He looked away, abashed, and she chuckled throatily. ‘You were in the battlefront, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, Lady.’

  ‘Tell me how it went. How was this famous victory achieved?’

  He went through it from the beginning as they walked back to the healers’ tent. As they paced down an avenue of silent people, all staring at the fallen Deliverer as though all their hopes rested on him, Maelys saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was Timfy, and he’d just opened his mouth to call her name when a hand slapped across it.

  Jil shushed him, looking up at Maelys with a mixture of guilt and defiance. Before Maelys could speak, Jil lifted Timfy away and they disappeared into the throng.

  Maelys couldn’t go after her, but she would try to find Jil later and make peace with her. She was glad they were safe.

  Zham carried Nish inside, holding his weight without a quiver while the trestle was scrubbed down with hot water, rinsed clean and wiped off.

  ‘He truly is the Deliverer, Lady Tulitine, for he saved us single-handedly and, even after he took the arrow, the Deliverer refused to give in until he’d given his last order and seen the enemy defeated. I’ve done a bit of fighting in my time; I know how victory goes. Had it not been for him they would have slain us all, and been molesting –’ He broke off, even more abashed. ‘I beg your pardon, Lady. I don’t hold with that sort of thing.’

  ‘It happens,’ said Tulitine. ‘This Healer will look after him now.’

  ‘Lay him here, please,’ said Maelys. ‘On his side.’ Zham put him down gently. She cut the rest of the shirt away and began to feel the wound, front and back. ‘Thank you, Zham. You can go now.’

  He didn’t move. ‘I –’ He wrung his big hands; his broad, peasant’s face shone with perspiration. �
�I’d rather stay, Lady Healer. He saved my life when the battle madness came on me and I nearly led my friends to ruin. I’m his man now, until I die or he dismisses me.’ Zham looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘And he needs me. Not everyone in this camp is his friend.’

  Tulitine looked up sharply. ‘What do you know, soldier?’

  ‘Not enough,’ he said unhappily, ‘but I’ve heard things, this past week. People talking when they thought no one could overhear.’

  ‘Very well, stay. Hold him on his side, like this. Keep your filthy hands away from the wound.’

  Maelys felt Nish’s belly. ‘I can feel the point of the arrow just under the skin, here at the side. Should I push it through so the head can be cut off?’

  Tulitine felt for herself. ‘I expect so, though if the arrow has gone through an artery he’ll bleed to death once you move it. And if it’s cut his intestines, infection will kill him. Ready? Hold him steady, Zham.’

  Maelys felt sick at the thought of hurting Nish further, much less of doing something that could cause his death, yet the arrow had to come out. She took a firm grip on the shaft, uncertain how much force to use, then thrust as gently as she could. Nish let out a groan and his eyes moved furiously under their lids. The arrowhead hadn’t come through but she couldn’t bear to do it again.

  Monkshart’s face appeared at the flap, but Tulitine stalked across and jerked it shut. ‘We can’t do our work with you staring. Come back in fifteen minutes and I’ll tell you how he is.’

  ‘It’d better be good news,’ he growled from outside.

  Tulitine returned to the table. ‘His back muscle must have tightened around the shaft. It’ll hurt less if you’re not so gentle.’

  Maelys bit her lip, though she knew the old woman was right. This time she thrust as hard as she dared and felt the arrowhead burst through Nish’s side. He shrieked and his eyes came open, staring around wildly, but thankfully closed again.

  She cut off the arrowhead, wiped away the splinters, then in one swift movement drew the shaft from his back. Her eyes met Tulitine’s.

  ‘If it’s his doom to die, Maelys, it won’t take long.’

  ‘And there’s nothing we can do?’

  ‘Not if he’s bleeding inside.’

  The giant screwed up his eyes. Maelys held her breath. Even Tulitine was moved by the gravity of the moment. Maelys wiped a smear of blood away from the entry slit. Blood tricked from the gash in his side, though if he were bleeding inside surely there would be more?

  ‘I might as well salve and stitch him,’ she said to herself.

  ‘His breathing sounds better,’ said Tulitine when Maelys had finished.

  ‘And his pulse is stronger. But could he still …?’

  ‘He could. You can’t tell with bleeding inside. Sometimes the veins seal over quickly, yet at other times they just keep dribbling blood for hours, or burst open days later. Bandage him and Zham can take him to his tent. We’ve more work to do.’

  Maelys saw Nish settled on a straw mattress there. A trace of colour had come back to his face.

  ‘Monkshart is coming, Lady Healer,’ Zham rumbled.

  He wasn’t as dull-witted as he looked. She ducked out under the canvas, leaving him standing guard, circled the top of the hill and returned to the healers’ tent from the other side. The tables were covered in bloody soldiers with such ghastly injuries that she could hardly bear to go back in, but men were suffering and dying for want of skilled hands and she couldn’t turn her back on them.

  The Defiance's dead, numbering more than a thousand, were buried in shallow pits. Then, despite their hundreds of injured, they moved on at dawn the following day. There was no choice, for the mountains of enemy dead were already putrefying in the heat and the stench was unbearable.

  Maelys travelled with Nish that morning in one of the army’s jolting supply wagons. It was stifling under the canopy and, despite her weariness, she would sooner have walked. Once satisfied that Nish was recovering she left him to another healer, for he was coming out of his delirium and she couldn’t afford for him to recognise her. He was bound to give her identity away and Monkshart would hear of it.

  Over the next two days, Maelys kept feeling that she was being followed, though she never saw anyone suspicious behind her. By that afternoon she’d decided that she was imagining things, until a man stepped out from behind a tree in front of her and crouched down as though he’d dropped something. She looked down as he looked up under her cowl. It was Phrune, and he recognised her at once.

  ‘I thought it had to be you,’ he said gleefully. ‘I’ll be seeing you later, little Maelys.’ He drew his stiletto and pointedly flicked a thumb across the blade.

  There were people everywhere, so she was safe from immediate attack, and as the quiet little healer, selflessly doing her all for the injured, and especially the Deliverer, she’d earned the respect of everyone in the camp. But she was a threat to Monkshart’s plans for Nish and he’d soon find a way to be rid of her.

  She didn’t move as Phrune oozed away, leering over his shoulder. She watched him until he’d disappeared among the throng around Monkshart’s quarters, then slipped into a copse of trees to think. She couldn’t stay in the camp – she’d be at risk all the time. It would only take a second to slip a knife into her back. But where was she to go?

  Maelys collected the few possessions she’d gleaned since she’d been here: a small pack she’d sewn from torn canvas, a spare set of clothes from one of the young women who’d died in the initial attack, a knife and a few coins of low value, distributed by Monkshart from the captured war chest. The majority of the army’s coin, and everything of real worth, had been retained to fund the coming campaign. She also had a dead soldier’s water skin and a loaf of bone-hard bread. It was little enough to survive on for the precarious future.

  She no longer had any reason to hide her identity from Nish, but each time she approached his tent Phrune was lurking nearby. She ached for her taphloid but wasn’t game to go near Phrune’s tent. She couldn’t find Tulitine to tell her about Phrune; she hadn’t seen Jil and Timfy either. It would soon be dark and Maelys began to feel increasingly paranoid, so she slipped her pack under her robes where it wouldn’t show and headed out of the camp as if going to relieve herself. No one noticed. It felt as if no one cared.

  ‘Where are you going, Maelys?’

  Tulitine seemed to have come out of nowhere. ‘Phrune knows who I am.’ Maelys explained what had happened.

  ‘I see,’ said the old woman. ‘And you’re running away.’

  ‘You told me to beware of him.’

  ‘I did, but do you really think this is the answer? Where will you go, without friends or coin?’

  ‘What else can I do? If I’m caught, my whole quest fails.’

  Tulitine drew her under a tree out of sight of the camp and sat down on the scanty grass. She gestured to the ground beside her and Maelys sat as well, smoothing her gown over her legs.

  ‘You have many fine qualities, Maelys, but some weaknesses that will undermine your quest. Do you know what they are?’

  It reminded Maelys of the uncomfortable questions her tutor used to ask her as a young girl when she’d spent the hours daydreaming over one tale or another instead of attending to her lessons. ‘It would be easier if you told me …’

  ‘Though not as useful as realising it yourself.’ Tulitine sighed. ‘Very well. You’re too biddable, Maelys; too eager to please. If someone asks you to do something, you do it no matter your own feelings. You –’

  They’d spoken a little about this on the journey to meet the Defiance. ‘The downfall of Clan Nifferlin was my fault and I’ve got to make up for it.’

  ‘But you only discovered that recently, so it doesn’t explain why you’re the way you are at all. You’re always putting your family’s interests above your own. Does it make you feel good to be so self-sacrificing?’

  ‘I have to pay,’ Maelys said stubbornly.r />
  ‘Very well. I can see you’re not ready to think about such things. If your mind is made up, I’ll bid you farewell, with regret. Help me up, girl.’

  Maelys gave Tulitine her hand and drew the old woman to her feet. Tulitine turned away, but Maelys stood where she was, and after a dozen steps, Tulitine turned around. ‘What is it, child?’

  ‘It’s my taphloid. I told you –’

  ‘That Phrune has it and you want it back.’

  ‘It’s everything to me. And …’

  ‘And you want me to help you steal it from him, but because of a weakness in your character you can’t bear to ask for help.’

  Maelys felt like a stupid little girl. ‘Yes. Can – can you help me?’

  ‘I could try,’ said Tulitine, regarding her sympathetically, ‘but I’m not going to, because that would put my own plans at risk. I’m sorry.’ She stood there, as if waiting.

  Just asking for the favour was hard enough. Maelys couldn’t bring herself to argue her case, or, even more mortifyingly, to beg. ‘Thanks, anyway,’ she said.

  ‘Despite all the things you’ve done since leaving home, you’re full of fear and still have no confidence in yourself. You can do it, Maelys. You’ll find the courage you lack if you just look deeply enough inside you.’

  Maelys froze in mid-step, then went on without a word. The only courage she had was the sort one used in an emergency, when there was no other choice, and that was no use here.

  ‘If you don’t try you’ll always blame yourself,’ Tulitine added, then Maelys heard her walking back to the camp.

  Maelys went on, trying to think of a way to get her taphloid back, but all foundered on the point Tulitine had put her finger on. Maelys was simply too afraid.

  She didn’t know where to go or what to do, for this land was a blank map to her, but it was late afternoon and she had to get well clear before nightfall. Maelys trudged across a little plain covered in serrated bluegrass that crept up under the hem of her gown to saw at her calves, through a patch of twisted, spreading trees with leaves that smelled of mint, and onto another plain, a good league from the camp.