Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1)

by Harry Leighton

  “Time for my next lesson then.”

  Jonas sighed again, then straightened in his saddle. “Okay then, what do you see?”

  “A quiet, rundown road across from some overgrown fields.”

  “That all? See anything else?”

  “Other than us, not a lot, no.”

  “You’re not looking. With the imperial subsidy cut off, the road is turning to mud. Mud can be very good at showing tracks. I can tell, for example, that there has been at least one heavy wagon and a good number of horses along this road, perhaps a day ago.”

  “Oh. I see,” Alia said, peering at the road. “How do you know when they were made?”

  “We can’t see who made them in front of us, and we can see for miles here, so it’s obviously been a little while and the tracks don’t look that fresh. But it rained the night before last…”

  “I’m still damp,” Alia muttered, suppressing a shiver.

  “... and that would have washed out anything older,” Jonas finished, ignoring her.

  “That sounds like a lot of people then, and we may catch them up later on,” Alia said. “Should we be worried?”

  “No more so than usual.”

  “That’s, um, reassuring.”

  *****

  Trimas crested a hill and looked at the sight before him. Twelve wagons winding down the slope, ten tightly packed and covered with old sailcloth which wasn’t supposed to be removed from the former until they were safely stowed in their target, hundreds of leagues northeast. No one except the merchant knew what was in them, in case someone cut the best treasures out and fled. Assuming there were actual treasures. There were two other wagons, one at each end of the convoy, out of which the humans and horses lived. Magath’s needs dominated, and while he’d dressed in travelling clothes, he liked a certain level of comfort; the guards and teamsters used the rest.

  Trimas nudged his horse down and looked from person to person. There were eight guards in all, with Daeholf and company being the new arrivals, tasked with blending into a regular crew of five. The old hands had worked this journey into the double figures, but the newcomers noted how no one ever said what had happened to the last trio who’d rounded out the numbers. Killed on the journey? Certainly there was tension about how they had ‘left’. Still, Trimas smiled, feeling the clouds clear, they weren’t here to make friends. Good thing too, as none were being made. But he and his fellows were equally adept at being an insular circle if they needed, so none of the three were offended or concerned.

  Seven of the guards were considered equal in rank, in terms of pay, food, and tasks, and above them was an overseer who worked closely with the merchant to organise things. Slake positioned people in the morning before they moved out, rotated in the day, set watches at night, checked the wagons frequently, helped decide the route. And as Trimas watched, Slake came riding down the length of the convoy to speak to him.

  Tall, broad, with a horse that wasn’t fast but could support a large man, Slake was what Trimas imagined he’d have become if God had changed his birth a little. That thought was worth a silent prayer, and then Slake was on him.

  “Anything?” the man barked.

  “Nothing, everything quiet.”

  Slake scowled. “Nothing’s ever quiet. Keep an eye out.” Then he turned and rode off.

  Trimas looked behind, decided they weren’t being followed, and wondered if he dare eat the flatbread he could see resting inside the wagon, a leftover from what they’d cooked the night before.

  For some reason Slake was always looking over his shoulder, always afraid of being watched. Was this what caravan duty made you? Or was this because they were replacing three people who’d been lost to an attack from behind? Still, he knew what being backstabbed was like, and it wasn’t happening today.

  *****

  Marlen heard the horse approaching from behind him, and braced for the sensation of it swiftly passing him on the road.

  It was a stupid thing to do, ride that quickly in this weather, but the council in Skelton had kept the roads into and out of it in good condition. Only later on did they become rutted and uneven. They all got muddy though, and it was beginning to splash up.

  Not that mud mattered when your cloak was in danger of being sodden. A casual traveller would have been put off and sought an inn. A seasoned traveller could still get sick from this damp.

  Marlen would do none of those things.

  He rode on through the weather like a statue on a cart, unbending but grinding up the miles, and his mind was mired in regret.

  Not the deal with Braxis. That was pragmatic.

  That was the future.

  She’d died, that mother. He had saved the baby alright because that was possible with what this damned world expected, but he couldn’t save the mother, for all his skill and talents, not without it becoming dangerously obvious he possessed more than the usual knowledge.

  Perhaps a better man would tell him he should have risked it all for her, then and there.

  Better men tended to fail.

  Marlen had a plan. A good plan, a plan to benefit many people, and that plan was more important that one mother who would never get out of Skelton.

  Harsh.

  Painful, because what did he want to do if not heal the sick and improve their lot?

  But honest.

  Honesty … and a warning. A warning that for all his skill, society was still mired in rules and systems and classes and you couldn’t just turn up and negate all that. You couldn’t just throw the watching hordes out of a dying woman’s room because you could save her, thanks to the web that kept this empire functioning.

  It wasn’t enough to change medicine.

  You had to change the world.

  An impossible task for a healer, one man against many.

  But Braxis would help with that, and the plan was moving, slowly but surely moving.

  Marlen allowed his face to curl into a smile, at what he could do and what could be done.

  He should have taken the baby with him. Grown it to be perfect in every way and sat it on a golden throne.

  Hubris. Someone would come for the gold. The boy would rebel. Humanity, so driven to opposition.

  God could have made us ordered.

  Marlen could make us ordered.

  One man on a horse against more than just an empire. Against the nature of humanity itself, in its weak, decaying bodies and broken minds.

  If only they knew what he was capable of.

  *****

  Daeholf looked up at the sky, saw the dark clouds coming near, and concluded he was going to get another soaking. He didn’t mind this, he’d spent years marching about getting wet, but it was always galling when the weather stopped long enough for you to dry out and then did it all over again.

  Still, the current dry spell meant he could see further. The existing guards soon realised Daeholf had the best vision in the group, which had been the same reason he’d been a scout once, and so was now normally at the front of the caravan. That meant hours of watching what was coming, and today that meant the shapes he could discern ahead of him.

  Following protocol, he raised a fist, and Slake quickly rode up next to him.

  “What is it?”

  “Someone up ahead. They’ve stopped, we’re getting closer.”

  “I can see,” Slake said, although he left out ‘only just’. “What does it look like?”

  “People, a wagon or a coach.”

  “Bandits,” Slake hissed. “A day’s ride from safety, out in these wilds, sitting waiting. Bandits.”

  Daeholf, his voice unchanged, replied, “A bandit doesn’t fall on his arse in the mud while trying to mess with a wheel.”

  Slake squinted, wasn’t able to confirm this, and wasn’t keen on being wrong. One way to find out.

  “Take your friend, go see.”

  He turned and rode back, so Daeholf gestured for Zedek, and together they rode quickly up the road. Coming ever cl
oser into focus was a coach, one wheel obviously broken as it tilted to one side, four people stood around it, one rather muddy. This group realised someone was coming, and as Daeholf pulled his horse to a halt a man desperately shouted out, “Please, don’t harm us!”

  Daeholf narrowed his eyes. “We’re not bandits, we’re with a caravan.”

  “What caravan?” The voice came from a fat man dressed in awfully expensive clothes, and apparently with no eyesight.

  “Back th…” Daeholf sighed. “It’ll be here in a second. What’s happened to you?”

  “Our coach broke…”

  “Where are your guards?”

  Daeholf thought it a fair question, but the fat man replied, “What guards?”

  “Excuse me for saying this,” and Daeholf was speaking through gritted teeth, “but you’re wearing nice clothes, these two women are wearing expensive jewels, and you are travelling alone through a portion of the empire the magistrates have always found difficult to rein in?”

  “The Emperor’s Peace extends through his lands!”

  Okay, clearly an urban idiot who hasn’t been out of the city before. Marvellous. Daeholf looked at a man dressed in genuine travelling clothes loitering at the back.

  “You were driving this coach?”

  “Yes.” The man was getting sheepish.

  “Why?” It wasn’t a question, but a telling off with a question mark after it.

  “Money was good.”

  Zedek now spoke. “So you took the whole portion and didn’t spend any on guards?”

  Well, thought Daeholf, now that’s in the open, best move things on. “Can that be repaired?” he asked his friend, knowing it couldn’t but wanting things established between the groups.

  “No,” Zedek answered.

  “Please help us,” the man whimpered.

  “I can see the caravan!” one of the women exclaimed.

  Daeholf raised an eyebrow to Zedek which said at least one of this group has eyes, and came to a decision.

  “You’ll have to come with us. We can’t leave you walking, wolves or bears will get you if the bandits don’t.”

  “Wolves? Bears?”

  Good God.

  *****

  Jonas stood outside a merchant’s shop, weighing up whether to enter. The chase was taking a long time and he and Alia were running low on immediate funds. One of the horses had kept throwing a shoe and eventually gone lame so they’d had to replace it — and that hadn’t been in the plan. Now a couple of weeks on, if they didn’t do something soon, he’d have to sell both of them. There was no real way he and Alia could share and it’d be back to walking, something he really didn’t fancy as his back was acting up again.

  “We get any poorer, I’m going to have to sell you,” he said to Alia, entirely straightfaced.

  “No one around here could afford me,” she sniffed without hesitation.

  “I might give them a special rate, just to get rid of you.”

  “You know it wouldn’t work out. I’d be too much for them and you’d have an unhappy customer back on your hands. Might even have to buy me back. At a loss.”

  “Perhaps we could make some money renting you out for a bit then?”

  “Certainly more than we’d get by renting you out,” Alia retorted with a laugh.

  “Have you not been listening to some of the stories I’ve told you? I’d be beating the ladies off with a stick.”

  “Oh to have been around in your younger days then. You know, back when you were still presentable.”

  Jonas looked about to say something but Alia continued, interrupting him. “Oh and before you say ‘you’d have been walking bow-legged for a week’ or something equally charming ...”

  Jonas raised an eyebrow at her, looking faintly hurt.

  “Too far?” she said, looking worried.

  Jonas nodded solemnly.

  “Okay, sorry, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been that crude.”

  “Teacher, apprentice. Entirely inappropriate,” Jonas said seriously. “Although twenty years ago, I’d probably have given you a demonstration,” he added.

  “Well there’s a lovely image.”

  Jonas shook his head and looked along the street and saw a small, half-dressed, harried looking man. He was running, stumbling along the street in their general direction, hands bound behind his back. Jonas looked quickly behind the man and saw his pursuer; a man in a fancy brimmed leather hat, wearing dark travel-stained leathers and readying a crossbow as the crowd parted. Jonas swore.

  “Trouble,” he said quickly to Alia, nodding at the pair and motioning her into the crowd.

  Alia nodded and stepped away into a group of nearby people.

  Jonas strode out into the street, stuck out his leg and tripped the running man before putting a foot on his back to stop him moving.

  “Hello Jonas,” said the crossbow man, walking slowly towards them and aiming at Jonas as he did.

  “Long time, Hooper,” Jonas said calmly. “Do you want to put that down? We both know that even we aren’t allowed a loaded crossbow on the street.”

  Hooper stopped a few yards away and smiled nastily at him. “Worried I might shoot you?”

  Jonas looked at the crossbow. “It’d hurt, sure. I think my companion might object though.”

  Alia stepped quietly out behind Hooper and pressed a knife into the small of his back. “Drop it,” she said.

  “Ah. I’d heard you were back in the game and weren’t working alone anymore. Getting too old for it eh? Didn’t expect you to have taken on a little girl though.”

  “Little girl, big knife,” Alia said, applying a little pressure.

  “I’d do what she says,” Jonas said. “I think you’ve upset her now.”

  Hooper lowered the crossbow carefully and discharged the bolt into the ground near his feet before letting the weapon fall to the floor. “What now?” he said between gritted teeth. “You stealing my bounty?”

  “No interest,” Jonas said. “We’re already busy and that would be poor form.”

  “So why interfere?”

  “Because if you’d shot him it would have brought a shitstorm of attention down on the area. And I really don’t need that.”

  “So … what now?”

  Jonas reached down and lifted the struggling man from the ground before quickly punching him across the jaw. The man went limp. Jonas tossed the man to Hooper’s feet.

  “You cut us in for helping you I guess.”

  Hooper glowered at him for a moment before grabbing a small pouch from his belt and throwing it at Jonas’s feet.

  “Happy now?” Hooper said, turning to see who was behind him, but there was no one there. He turned back to speak to Jonas but he too was gone, along with the purse.

  “I won’t forget this,” Hooper said loudly before struggling the unconscious man onto his shoulder and walking slowly away.

  *****

  Magath was a canny man, and when introduced to the party of travellers he knew an opportunity had arrived. For a small fee, relatively speaking, the caravan would help them along, a few days’ ride through this dangerous but increasingly cost effective shortcut. Slake had agreed they could be incorporated, especially when the guards’ own fees were raised slightly as a result.

  Daeholf was back at the front again, but the fat man had ridden up to sit beside him. The former didn’t know why, and supposed he’d have to find out.

  “Have you been here before?” the fat man asked.

  “I’ve marched through here, wolves aren’t stupid, they don’t go for large groups. Just snaffle what’s left behind.”

  “And bears?”

  “Bears don’t attack large groups either.”

  “Ah, what are bears like?”

  “You’ve never seen a bear?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t the city have an arena where they keep them? Where they fight them?”

  “I don’t like blood sports.”

 
; “Never join an army then.”

  “So what is a bear like?”

  “Taller than my friend, wider than my friend, faster than my friend. It can / It’ll rip your limbs off, cripple you with one bite.”

  Daeholf’s words were having an effect as his new companion was scanning the trees. “And they’re out there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we sleep in the open?”

  “We have watches.”

  “You can fight off a bear?”

  Daeholf’s patience was exhausted. “Yes, but I need to focus on the road, so if you don’t mind…”

  “Yes, of course, thank you.”

  Daeholf looked at the road, turned to make sure the man hadn’t managed to fall off the old coach horse they’d been forced to repurpose, and saw something very interesting. Bears and wolves didn’t have human faces, but they could look hungry enough. And at this moment Daeholf saw that Slake looked hungry too. Not the hunger he’d seen in the men’s eyes when they’d seen the female travellers, a look Daeholf knew from his soldiers. Slake looked hungry for something else.

  It was enough for Daeholf to mount a new watch. Mostly on the road, but partly on Slake, on the way he looked at the travellers, the way he looked at his men, and Daeholf was soon certain. So certain, in fact, that as dusk came and the caravan halted and pitched camp, Daeholf arranged for he, Trimas and Zedek to meet some distance away.

  “It’s not just me is it,” Daeholf began, and Trimas finished.

  “Slake’s going to rob those travellers of everything and run for it.”

  “You’re thinking that too?”

  “Yes. What did you see?” They turned to Zedek expectantly.

  “From my observances of people, I believe Slake is so burnt out by what happened to those we replaced he is ready to break his rules and his loyalty.”

  “Quite a situation,” Trimas said.

  “Slake’s not a bad man,” Daeholf said, trusting his judgement these last weeks, “he’s just been damaged. Be a shame to have to kill him.”

  “Agreed.” Trimas cast a glance at the camp and said, “We need to defuse this.”

  “I have an idea,” Daeholf said, “but we need to speak to Magath.”