by Jackie Dana
He nodded feebly, his eyes half-closed.
“Keep it elevated, over your heart.” She used the rest of the fabric to make a sling, and she tied his arm against his chest. “It’s not going to be comfortable, but this should help.” She turned to Nyvas, kneeling beside her. “This all will have to be done several times a day until it heals. And hang on to the yarrow, we might need more later.”
Nyvas’s blue eyes took in the information. “He’ll be all right?”
She nodded. In truth she was far from certain, but she was unwilling to confide that. It was a nasty wound, and the chances of infection—or tetanus, she realized—were extremely high in these circumstances. She had done all she could, and now, she supposed, it was all in the hands of the gods to decide. The gods. She had just recognized them as having sway over their lives, and she spared just a moment to let the novel concept sink in.
“Thank you,” Lysander mumbled. “How is it that you know so much about dressing wounds?”
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know that much, really. Just enough common sense to get by.” She held out her own arm, and showed them a pair of scars. “I put my hand through a glass door when I was thirteen. This is more or less the same as what my mother did for me. It gave her a reason to teach me a bit about herbal medicine, and after that I learned everything I could from her.”
“Well, I’m grateful to her for doing that,” Lysander said, as he inspected the wrap. “You did well.”
The day was already drawing to a close, and Fantion suggested they remain in the clearing for the night, even if Senvosra were close, as traveling now would be even more risky.
The men left her with Lysander as they went off to set up camp.
“Thank you again,” he told her, once they were alone. “Even though I’m a healer, I could have done no more for any of you. After all our travels, I have no strength to heal another person, much less myself. I’m grateful that you joined our company.”
Embarrassed, Kate smiled a bit sheepishly. “I really didn’t do much. I just wish you could go somewhere to get stitches and sterile bandages. Boiling water or not, that bandage is filthy, and it might get infected.”
“What do you mean, infected?” he asked, unfamiliar with the term.
“You know, a bacterial infection, when it becomes inflamed and fills with pus. If it gets infected and it’s not treated, you could lose the arm, or even die.”
“You say that so casually.” His eyes were wide, and he seemed horrified by her description. “Do such things happen often in your world?”
She looked at him with a curious expression. Surely infections were common in Sarducia, without the benefit of modern medicine? “It used to happen all the time, although we now have medicines that can prevent it.” What she wouldn’t give for a good antibiotic now. She always used to take such things for granted, but no more. “Isn’t it the same here?”
Lysander shook his head. “Not really. At least not for a minor injury like this.”
“Minor?” she repeated with surprise. “You consider this a minor injury?”
“Aye. Usually there’s a healer who can mend a wound like this before anything like that could happen. I’m glad we had the salve, with herbs that do the job as well, just more slowly.” He sighed. “I just wish I wasn’t so tired, or I’d heal it now myself.”
She took her sleeve and wiped his forehead, for he had been sweating for some time. When they called him a healer, she thought they meant he was some sort of rudimentary physician, or an herbalist. “What else would you do? How could you heal a wound like this and avoid infection?”
“Ah, usually something like this would be easy. I would just apply my energies to the wound, and it would mend.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Well, if I had my strength, I’d bring my energy to focus on closing the wound and repairing the damage, and it would happen, and heal.”
“What—” she stared at him. “Do you mean, immediately?”
“Aye, more or less. If I were at my peak, this would already be just a bad memory.” He grinned weakly. “A good healer, fully rested, can even prevent a scar from forming, but most people are happy to have the bleeding stop and the pain go away.” He closed his eyes, clearly unaccustomed to the ache such a wound caused. “I suppose you have no remedies for the pain?”
Suddenly she felt inadequate. “Sorry, the best I can do for now is havar. I wish it were more.” She handed him the flask, already opened for him.
“Ah, do not apologize. What you did is plenty, for without your help I might have bled to death.” He took two long pulls at the flask, and his eyelids fluttered for a moment. “I am in your debt, Kate.”
Chapter 27
Rain already began to sprinkle on the company as they sat eating their first true meal of the day around Fantion’s hastily-built fire.
Arric had wandered into the trees and appeared to be pacing restlessly at the edge of the clearing, as if sensing the trees held him prisoner. Without warning, he returned to the fire and announced, “I’d like to reach Loraden tomorrow night. There is far too much to do, and I am losing precious time here in the forest.”
“Tomorrow?” Fantion whistled, and looked to the sky, where the sun was dipping to the west. “It is still a good two days’ ride from here, longer if we still have to blaze a path through the damn briars.” He looked at Lysander, who had fallen asleep beside the fire. “Plus you know as well as I that he cannot travel in the morning.”
“Fantion’s right,” Kate seconded. “Sander can’t get on a horse right now. The strain would force the wound open again, and that would be really dangerous.”
“Aye,” this time it was Nyvas, his voice betraying how worried he was for his friend. “He needs to regain his strength so he’ll be able to heal himself.”
“All right, all right, I hear you all,” Arric said, waving his hands in front of him, to quiet their protests. ”He shall not be moved until he’s ready.” He dusted his hands on his trousers. “By tomorrow, or the day after, he may be strong enough to heal himself, but I cannot wait so long.” Then he pointed into the trees, in a different direction from the ill-fated one they had originally chosen. “The Jeso Road is nearby.” Predicting the responses, he explained, “the whole point of changing our route was to hide from the Senvosra, and that’s why it’s been taking so long. However, the road is much faster, and I’ve been gone long enough as it is. I know that every extra day I’m gone, my absence becomes that much more difficult to explain.” He turned to Fantion. “I think it’s best that you and Nyvas wait here with Sander until he is well enough to ride. With the three of you safely hidden here, Kate and I can travel the road without fear.”
“Kate?” Fantion said in surprise. “To reach Loraden tomorrow means a hard ride, and you know we cannot spare any of our horses for her. She should stay here with us.”
“Aye, perhaps you’re right,” Arric agreed.
Kate, however, shook her head. She wasn’t worried about remaining in Fantion’s protection, but she suddenly had a strong, if irrational, feeling that the plan wasn’t right. She had a path to follow, and she somehow knew that it meant sticking with the Dosedra. “I know it sounds crazy, but I need to go back with you.”
Rather than dismiss her outright, Arric rubbed his chin in thought. “Aye, it could be done, but it will be a difficult ride, if we share Trill,” he warned her. “It will be a much faster pace than we’ve done so far. You’re certain you can handle it?”
“Not at all.” She smiled. “But that hasn’t stopped me yet.”
***
She sat silently on her blankets, hugging her knees.
The threat of rain had thankfully passed for the moment, and the night was much warmer than the previous nights, more like the late summer nights she remembered from home. Just like there, the buzz of cicadas and crickets filled the air, and the sky was clear for the moment, though a haze of clouds hung near the horizon.
Stars shone brightly overhead, and when she tipped her head back to look, she took comfort in the fact that they were constellations she recognized. The big dipper hung overhead, just like at home. How was such a thing possible? Even in her world the constellations changed between hemispheres. Here she was in a wholly different world, but the stars were the same. And some, if not all, of the plants and animals. It seemed incredible that two places so unlike one another, with no interaction, could share so much in common.
She had been in Sarducia for less than two weeks, though it had felt much longer. A handful of days among strangers, in a world without technology as she knew it. No computers, cars, or microwave ovens. No airplanes, no internet, no indoor plumbing. Yet she had come to realize that in both worlds the people themselves were pretty much the same.
Her gaze traveled to the forms of the sleeping men, just barely visible. With a waning moon, every night was darker than the last, and tonight, its thick crescent had barely snuck past the horizon. Still, her eyes had adjusted to the faint light just enough to see Fantion laying on his side, facing away from her, a blanket underneath him, and his cloak wrapped around his arms. He seemed to sleep fitfully, as if always ready to spring on an opponent. It hadn’t escaped her notice that his sheathed sword was on one side, and his knife just above his head, always. On her other side, Nyvas had curled his body protectively around Lysander, who lay on his back with the injured arm over his chest. Their weapons, too, lay on either side of them.
Across the banked fire was another blanket, but it was unoccupied. She raised herself up a little and tried to get a better look. She thought Arric had been there a moment ago, but it was hard to be sure.
“You can’t sleep either?” a voice whispered behind her.
She jumped at the sudden statement. When she turned her head, she realized Arric stood beside her own blanket.
Relaxing her guard, she shook her head. “I was just thinking.”
“Ah.”
“And you?” she asked in a low voice, worried she would wake one of the others.
He did not respond. Instead, he crossed his arms and, if she saw him right in the darkness, he smiled down at her.
It unnerved her entirely. What the hell was he doing? “Do you need something, Arric?”
With a nudge of his head he signaled for her to join him as he slipped into the nearby trees.
She sat where she was for a moment, holding her hands out in front of her, with an expression that belied her confusion. What did he want? Finally she pushed herself up and slowly felt her way through the trees.
Fortunately he hadn’t gone far. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said when she found him. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“You know we’ll be in Loraden tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said earlier. Are you sure we can make it? Fantion didn’t think we’d be able to travel that far in just a day.”
“Oh, aye, we can do it. That’s not what concerns me.” He stepped a little closer to her. “Things will be different when we return.”
It was an odd comment, she thought. “What things?”
“Ah, you can guess, I’m sure. Out here, I am just a traveler, no different from fhaoli. In the keep I shall be Dosedra. It changes things.”
“Oh.” She didn’t like the sound of that. Riding in a saddle with him for the better part of a week had eased them into a sort of friendship. She had reminded herself often who he was, and his role in this society, but after seeing the worst of him as well as the best, it was hard to imagine him as anything else. “So you’re telling me I won’t get to see you again?”
“Nay, nothing like that. I just wanted to warn you that I will be different, and indeed you will be different as well. It’s the nature of life in the keep, that there are rules and expectations for us all. For me in particular, because I will have duties, social obligations, and guards everywhere I go. Out here we’ve been traveling companions, but in the city the familiarity must end, and I regret that.”
“Thanks for warning me, though I guess it’s not all that surprising, really.” Something else occurred to her. She remembered the uproar that took place when he disappeared. “You’re not very popular there, you know.” She remembered the whole scheme to put together the feast at the last minute. “I guess you know by now that the quantrill wasn’t really meant to welcome you home.”
“Aye. No one wanted me to return to Sarducia, but I can’t let that stop me. If I want to resolve this matter with my brother and this whole Hidden God nonsense, there’s a lot that needs to be done, and I may be the only one who can do it.”
“If that’s true, why did you leave Loraden right after you arrived?”
“Ah, well.” He yanked at a tree limb, shaking unripe seed pods to the ground. “I was hoping to see an old friend again.”
“You mean Fantion?”
“Hmm. Aye, I suppose so, though that’s not who I meant.” He leaned against the trunk of the tree and sighed. Rather than explaining further, he changed the subject. “You know, I had no idea that things had gotten so bad under Bedoric, or I really would have tried to return home much sooner.” He raised his hand to cover an unwelcome yawn. “I worry that in all this time, things may have deteriorated too much for me to have any impact.”
“Something else you should know,” she began, hoping she wasn’t betraying a confidence, “the Aldrish was really worried when you disappeared after the quantrill.”
He exhaled sharply. “Aye? I’m surprised he cared.”
“He was nearly in a panic about it, or at least that’s what I saw. But from what you say, I can’t figure out why it would matter to him.”
“Interesting. Perhaps they worry that I haven’t given up.”
“Given up? What do you mean?”
“Ah, never mind that.” He chuckled.
“At least I can tell people you didn’t desert your troops in battle.”
“So, does everyone think that about me, then?” Without waiting for her to reply, he continued, “It matters not. Whatever they’re saying likely has some truth to it, so if people dislike me, I have it coming. What’s important to me is that you don’t get involved in it.”
With that, silence breathed a cold breath between them, and Kate shifted her weight between her feet. “I’m sorry to have brought it up, then.”
“Aye, well, I shouldn’t be burdening you with my problems either.”
“It’s okay, I just know that the rumors about you are just going to get worse.”
“Let them. You know they aren’t true now, and that’s a start.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she acknowledged, as she turned to head back towards the camp.
He wasn’t ready to return, however. “So you know quite a bit about me. What about you, Kate? Tell me about where you come from. Is it very different?”
His question rooted her where she stood, as she considered her own reality to be no less complicated than his. “It is,” she replied, not having a better response. How could she even begin to explain her world to him?
He must have picked up on the complex nature of the question. Rather than pursue it, he asked instead, “do you have a family?”
It was scarcely easier to handle this subject, but she knew she couldn’t avoid it. “It was mostly just me and mom, and she died recently.” The memories sent a chill down her back.
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that. You were close to her?”
She twisted her mother’s ring on her finger. “Yeah. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I never knew my father.” She didn’t want to try to explain her strange extended family now.
He nodded, and leaned against the tree closest to him. “I understand that. It’s much the same for me. Bedoric—and now his wife and son, whom I scarcely know—are all the family I have. My mother died a couple years after my father was killed. She was a good woman, but the fever caught her, and Sander couldn’t save her. The worst par
t is that she died while I was away, so I couldn’t be there with her at the end.”
“That’s so sad—I’m sorry.” At least she had been there for her mother when she passed away. Then she realized what he had said. “Sander was there?”
“Aye, he was one of the healers in the keep, and a good one. It wasn’t his fault she died. Sometimes with fevers, even the best healers can do nothing. My brother, though, blamed him, and—ah, well, you can see for yourself the outcome.”
“He was outlawed for that?”
“Aye. Oh, and I don’t know if I thanked you for helping him today. What you did was remarkable. I would not have been able to forgive myself if something happened to him on this foolhardy quest of mine.” He reached for her hand. “You probably think me foolish for leading you out here just now as well. I suppose all I wanted was to reassure myself that when we return to Loraden, you do not become my enemy.”
She squeezed his hand in return. “There’s no way I’ll let that happen,” she promised.
Chapter 28
“I
assume you had a safe journey back to Loraden, my dear?” Rynar asked as he stared down at her.
Stifling a yawn, she found it difficult to say anything in response. Having just been sent to the baths to scrub a week’s worth of embedded grime from her body, she now sat in front of the Aldrish’s fire, wrapped in a wool robe and shaking out her damp hair. “It was interesting,” she offered, but was unwilling to say anything further about it. Instead, she stared at the flames, uncomfortable in his presence after everything that had happened recently.
The return itself hadn’t been without incident. No one had challenged Arric and Kate when they entered the city gates, but at the keep itself, they were forced to endure a number of questions from the Senvosra concerning where they had been and why they looked the way they did. After all, both were filthy, with torn clothing and dried blood from Lysander’s injury. Arric had answered all of their questions authoritatively, and the guards didn’t challenge his explanations. However, when one of the Senvosra addressed her specifically, asking why she was with the Dosedra, she stammered a vague explanation. As soon as she had finished speaking, a guard whisked her away and put her in the hands of two women previously unknown to her.