Ascent of the Unwanted (The Chronicle of Unfortunate Heroes Book 1)

by Nathan T. Boyce

  Erik raised the sword calmly and jabbed the point sharply down into the bears exposed throat. Warm blood shot up into Erik’s face coating him with the sticky red fluid. As the bear’s life essence quickly emptied, the thrashing mass on the forest floor began to calm. After the bear stopped moving Lawt slowly released his grip on the bear’s muzzle.

  “`Bout time you helped.” Lawt panted, a large smile crept along his pale face. Erik began to move, to run to the stables to help Ghost. Then he saw the blood, and froze.

  Arlif slowly approached the two. “That was amazing!”

  Lawt eased himself up. A look of pain flashed across his face causing him to look at his legs. Large tears of flesh hung from his thighs and blood flowed in rivers down his legs.

  “Lawt is hurt…. I mean, that could be a problem,” Lawt said, then fell unconscious.

  Erik removed his cloak and tied it tightly around the worst of Lawt’s injured legs while Arlif did the same to the other. A horse came galloping toward them. A mounted man with a blue tunic and black cloak was coming to help. Their trainers hurried behind to bring them all back to the barracks.

  The incident on the mountain was bad enough with Lawt in the infirmary unconscious and possibly dying. The day turned into a nightmare with the news Erik received when he returned to the training grounds. After Geoff had been killed Dervish had gone berserk. The colt broke from his stall and ended up in Ghost’s. The pain Erik had felt was Ghost being kicked in the head. Luckily, a Roh’Darharim had been in the stables and had been able to bring Dervish down quickly or it could have been worse. Because of Dervish’s sudden reaction the Roh’Darharim had known something had happened on the mountainside, sending every available Cavalier and Surgeon out to help. In one afternoon Erik’s brother and best friend both were on the brink of death.

  *****

  Ramona sat in the infirmary watching over the gorak. The camp knew the gorak had saved the lives of two of the Cavalier trainees by wrestling a rabid bear, or depending on who you believed, the gorak went wild and attacked two of the other Cavalier trainees. Ramona knew the truth by inspecting the wounds on the man’s legs. The wounds were obviously caused by the flesh rending claws of a wild animal. The rumors of the gorak attacking two innocent trainees were the fascinations of idiots. Some people hated to see nobility come from something they feared or, in their ignorance, hated what was different from them.

  Ramona did not understand that kind of attitude. She felt the same kind of resentment directed at her. She was a woman trying to do a man’s job. She had completed her surgeon’s training three years ago but was still considered a student because she had not been paired with Cavaliers yet. Her efforts and training seemed like they had been a complete waste of time because now she sat useless to anyone. It wasn’t fair.

  This could not have been what her father had meant about great things. Ramona still recalled the day he had finally left her. He had raised her alone on the pig farm after her mother had passed in labor with her stillborn brother. The consumption disease he had been fighting over the summer had taken a death grip on his lungs the following winter. She recalled the last words spoken to her by the gentlest of men. “Sell the farm…by yourself you will only…be…be needlessly molested.” He had said, racked with a coughing fit. “Not that I do…do not think…you can’t handle it, but…you are meant…for a greater purpose. You are too…too smart to be…a pig farmer…or the wife…of a pig farmer. On the mantle…is a…a father’s final gift…to his daughter.” His body seized with one final agonizingly long coughing spell, then finally the consumption took him.

  Ramona now gambled her entire future on the life of one person, one most would not even consider human. She had volunteered to be left with the dying gorak because she sensed an opportunity. Her father also would not have thought she would use another man’s misfortune to better her position but she had been waiting too long for her chance. If she could get this man to recover, perhaps if he became a Cavalier, he would urge his partner to choose her. She was tired of waiting in the matching line like a sow at auction.

  It was not her fault no pairs had deemed her an adequate match. She was as good as any of the surgeons chosen before her, better than most. She excelled at all her lessons except for Diplomacy and the Art of Tactful Negotiations, but she had passed. Diplomacy was the art of saying what other people thought they wanted to hear. You could never come out and say what was obvious to everyone. She did not believe in such foolish nonsense. She believed in telling the facts of a situation, regardless of what others thought. Most of the Cavaliers did not even ask her any questions. They saw she was a woman and proceeded down the line asking questions to the inept surgeons after her.

  Maybe if she were pretty. She looked down at her bright yellow trainee’s tunic. Sure she was busty, but her ample bosom came with the price of an ample waist and posterior. Her sandy blonde curls fell about her with about as much life as swamp moss and her round eyes and fat cheeks gave her face a boyish appearance.

  If she were pretty they would choose her with lecherous looks and desires they dreamed fulfilled. Oh, how much easier the lives must be for such bonnie lasses. But unlike some of the more aesthetic of her gender she also had morals. Even if she were pretty the Cavalier’s motives for choosing her would go unfulfilled. She did not want to be chosen by that means anyway. If being qualified did not get her the job then she would have to be more than qualified, and if that did not get her where she wanted she would find other means.

  The gorak had not moved since the field surgeon brought him in from the mending. The flow of blood had mostly abated but one vein did not seem to want to close even after suturing and cauterizing. They had left him to die, slowly bleeding to death in the infirmary. Ramona had waited for the people in the infirmary to leave before she made her move. She had been toying with an idea for some time and this was her opportunity to experiment. He was expected to die anyway, but if her idea worked she would have possibly made an ally in helping to reach her goal.

  She placed water on the fire to boil while she prepared her surgical tools. She inspected each blade and needle quickly ensuring that since their last use no rust or barbs had appeared. Grabbing a mortar and pestle from the table she set about mixing the ingredients necessary to make the compound. She had done it once before on accident. She had grabbed the opulacanth’s root oil instead of the knotted bark tree oil by mistake while learning about analgesics during Herbilogical Medicine. The mixture had hardened quickly when she had added the water forming cement and it affixed her mortar and pestle together for a week before the cement suddenly crumbled to dust. None of the ingredients were toxic individually, she only hoped that together they did not form a poison. Some of the more insidious toxins were made out of items found around a tavern kitchen.

  The water began to boil as she removed the Surgeon’s sutures to clearly see the weeping vein. When the massive leg opened pools of purple black blood flowed out soaking through the canvas cot. The miniscule stitching attempting to hold the vein closed had failed. The vein gaped open, its inner lining fighting to hold onto the light. Ramona reworked the stitching, closing the wound on the vein wall with horse hair. So little of the vein remained intact she wondered if it was worth the effort. Amputation and cauterizing could save his life but it was a remote possibility. The vein was a major one. A lesser man would have succumbed to the loss of blood hours ago. Perhaps it was the gorak in him keeping him alive.

  As soon as she was satisfied with her sewing she added water to her experimental mixture. The boiling water worked easily into the mixture until it had reached the consistency of a thick batter. If she used the amalgam now it would burn the man’s delicate flesh. It could not be helped, and who knew, the heat may be an added bonus in further closing the wound. The mixture was beginning to thicken beyond where it would be manageable. The decision made for her she poured a dollop of the paste into the man’s leg and worked it around trying to seal every hole through
which the scarlet fluid oozed. A congealed mess of blood and glue lay in the man’s exposed wound but no blood exited. Ramona sighed. The blood flow could be so hampered the man would lose the leg anyway or her efforts may kill him, but he would not bleed to death. His heart may not be able to take the glue patch, and that also worried her. So many things could go wrong. She sewed the wound shut and looked at her work. There would be nasty scarring. The man should be happy if he lived though, his manliness had been saved. A few inches higher and he would have been qualified to guard the king’s wife.

  The first few days after her experimental surgery exhausted her. Her patient was unconscious so giving the gorak fluids was tedious but she ladled small amounts of broth into his mouth with aggravating constancy. Infection set in and a fever caused him to sweat. This required that the prescribed amount of broth to be doubled. The wounds on his legs turned bright red and soft to the touch with pus oozing out, tingeing the brown blood stains on his cot green. Ramona collected three bowls full of the foul fluid. She finally thought the wounds had healed enough to be lanced and pressed to extract the pus. Her efforts and cleaning paid off. In a week the fever had abated. The following week the white color in the man’s face began to grow more into the pale gray. Ramona’s soul could sing. After so many years of hopelessly watching she finally had a chance.

  “How is he today?” a voice asked behind her.

  It was Erik. Ramona could hardly believe her luck when the gorak was injured, but what had occurred afterward was a blessing only Beshra could bestow. She pushed out the surge of guilt from her selfish thinking and stared at Erik while he entered. The man coming to visit the gorak everyday was gorgeous. He had eyes like a raven. While a little on the thin side, his serious demeanor gave his leanness an edge like a knife.

  She stood adjusting her skirt, then checked Lawt’s sheets and sat down again, only to feel she really should clean the area. She stood again and began to clear away bandages and canisters which had collected during her watchful eye since the last time Erik had visited.

  “He has not stirred since he was brought in but I am confident he will recover,” Ramona said. The man smelled like he had been working and she wrinkled her nose. He should at least have the manners to bathe before coming to visit. She recalled his horse had been injured the same afternoon the gorak had been brought in for care. “How is your horse doing?”

  “Not well,” Erik said “Ghost was already ill before the injury, now it seems the injuries weakened him and the illness is wreaking havoc.”

  Erik looked at Ramona with anguish. Well, the horse was not under her care so there was not much she could do. “You are worrying like a farm hen. Our surgeons are the best for treating the illness of the horses. Ghost is it? I do not think Ghost would think highly of a brother who had given up so easily.” That should put his mind at ease. “I know that not all Cavaliers were raised in the courtly ways but I would ask you before you come visit the next time, if you would be so kind as to bathe. Your odor distracts me from my business.” Maybe that was not the best thing to say. The smell was not all that bad. She did after all grow up on a pig farm.

  “The longer this goes on the further behind in the training I get. And as for the smell, a little hard work never killed anyone.” He stood and left Ramona alone with the slumbering beast man. Not even a goodbye! Well rudeness could be forgiven she supposed. The gorak and his horse both lay in the infirmary.

  Ramona placed her hand in her skirt pocket. She carried the gift her father had given her so long ago and the stone was always there comforting her. Her hand encircled it and gently removed her treasure. She always looked at it when her spirit grew weak. The pearl was large and a cool gray. Tiny brown swirls reminiscent of vapors permanently caressed the sides giving the gem the appearance of a mixture that had not quite been blended to completion. Even these blemishes gave the pearl a unique beauty placing its value above gold but the brown pimple on one side made the stone worthless. She might as well be holding a piece of flint in her hand.

  She had almost sold it once. She was lost and hungry when the peddler had offered to take it off her hands for a hot meal. He had found her on a trail that lay along a mountainside. It was hardly suitable for travel and she had decided to give up. She had leaned pitifully against a tree determined to waste away in the snow. The moment the exchange was about to take place she had remembered her father’s words. “You are meant for greater things.” Those words had given her strength, and every time she gazed upon the pearl she heard those words ring in her head. Over the next hill was a gated wall with a large bell in an archway.

  The gorak suddenly sat up. Ramona could tell with a glance that the man did not show any of the signs associated with rabies. It had been weeks since the man’s injuries, plenty of time for the convulsions and muscle coordination to deteriorate. Quickly, Ramona placed the pearl in her skirt pocket. He was awake! He was cognizant and in full control. She had done it!

  Erik stepped out of the infirmary enraged at the woman. Give up! How would she know what he was up against? The chips stacked against him were so high he could see no hope of success. He had not told anyone the truth. He could feel that Ghost was recovering from his injuries and bouts of fever. Truthfully, Ghost could probably go into his own stable. With the union Erik could feel Ghost’s pains and fevers and tell the surgeons where the problems lay. Erik repeatedly lied to the surgeons. He told about fevers, malaise, and other false symptoms hoping to hide the truth of what was really happening

  Since Ghost’s injuries the horse had lost sight in one eye and was slowly losing it in the other. In a month Ghost would be completely blind and Erik would no longer be a Cavalier in training. They would deem Ghost incapable and Erik would be relegated as a school hand until Ghost’s death.

  He knew he could not hide the truth much longer. The fact Ghost could still see with one eye helped. The muscles in Ghost’s blind eye still moved the useless orb in the direction the horse wanted to look because it mirrored whatever his good eye wanted to track. Erik was sure the surgeons thought him overprotective but their patience would eventually wear thin

  Erik had only one choice in keeping his hopes alive. Erik had to train Ghost despite his brother’s handicap. Ghost had to be so proficient at his skills no one could tell he was blind. Erik headed toward the veterinary infirmary to get his horse into his own stable. The training needed to begin in earnest. On his way he bent his head below his armpit and took in a hefty whiff. He did not smell that bad.

  Chapter 10

  Testing

  Ramona watched Erik and Lawt training as often as she could. She told herself it was to check if her patient had fully recovered but she found herself staring at the tall, lanky man who was Lawt’s partner. He was silly to believe the surgeons did not know about his horse. The fact that the horse was blind was evident but it was agreed Ghost would still be considered a viable mount if he could still pass. She thought it cruel not telling him of the decision, but saw it necessary. The man’s supposed secret spurred him and he trained with the horse into the night most days.

  Erik was always serious, always training or sparring or studying. He moved like a willow in a hurricane during his sparring sessions. None of the other classmates could compete with Erik’s outright violence. Skill contained his aggressiveness but there was no question the man had demons he exorcised through his sword.

  Ghost remained blind. The horse could now only differentiate brightness from darkness. Erik had been performing so well in his other studies that Ramona had hoped to see him progress toward advancement quickly but Ghost stalled Erik’s progress. The horse could not seem to get distances or directions correct. That was understandable considering the circumstances. Until the horse mastered that Erik would not be allowed to start training the horse on mounted techniques. The rest of Erik’s class had been riding for half a year already.

  Where Erik excelled at weapons Lawt seemed to excel with the mounted work. He seemed to,
but he also was not being adequately challenged. The combination of Titan’s size and Lawt’s strength made them an intimidating pair. The man had wrestled a rabid bear while unarmed. Each retelling seemed to make the bear larger, with Lawt casually throwing the bear aside. People seemed to forget his being near death and his extended stay in the infirmary. All that mattered was that the man had fought with the bear. The combination of the two brothers united and the exaggerated story made people shy away during mounted sparring and charges. Titan and Lawt would not get the workout they needed until a true Cavalier noticed. It was only a matter of time but the longer it waited the harder it would be to break any habits picked up during these training sessions. Ramona went to look for Rovan.

  *****

  “What is up with her?” Erik asked Lawt during breakfast.

  “Who?” Lawt asked not looking up from the mountain of food on his tray. The man ate as much as three people and in half the time.

  “That student surgeon. What’s her name? Ramona!” Erik said.

  “What do you mean?” Lawt asked shoving three entire strips of bacon into his mouth and chasing it with three gulps of water, emptying one of the six glasses that lay before him.

  “She is always looking at…us.” Erik said. He changed ‘me’ to ‘us,’ realizing that he sounded paranoid.

  “I dunno,” Lawt said, syrup dripping from his chin. “I kinda like her. Don’t you?”

  “Well of course you like her. She saved your sorry ass!” Erik smiled.