The Redemption of Althalus

by Eddings, Leigh;Eddings, David

  “We’ll cook the poison out,” Dweia assured him, “and the other ingredients will counter what’s left. A greenberry poultice prevents infection, and it stops bleeding. Now, then, there are a few other things I’ll need for a medicine we’ll be spooning into Eliar’s mouth.” She identified several other plants for the young shepherd.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Salkan asked dubiously.

  “Trust me. Go with him, Gher, and take a basket. Bring back the berries as quickly as you can. They have to cook longer than some of the other ingredients do.”

  “Anything you say, Emmy,” Gher agreed. And then he and Salkan left the tent.

  Get a fire going in that stove, Althalus, Dweia instructed, and put some pots of water on to boil. As soon as the water starts to bubble, use “gel” to cleanse it.

  I thought “gel” meant to freeze something.

  Well, sort of.

  You’re asking me to freeze boiling water? That doesn’t make any sense, Em.

  It will work, love. Trust me. It’s a form of purification. We’ll do that several times while we’re making the poultice and the medicine Eliar’s going to be taking after you drill the holes in his head, and you’re going to have to wash your hands in some of that medicine as well. Everything that touches Eliar has to be absolutely clean.

  I don’t entirely understand, Em.

  Clean is good; dirty is bad. Was there any part of that you didn’t understand?

  Be nice, he murmured silently.

  This isn’t permanent, is it, Em? Althalus asked, looking at his hands after he’d washed them in the peculiar syrup they’d concocted from several different ingredients. I might have a little trouble explaining how I came to have green hands.

  It’ll wear off in time. Now swab the back of Eliar’s head with it, and let’s get started. Listen very carefully, Althalus. We’re not going to bash our way into Eliar’s head, so speak the word “bher” very softly each time. All you want to do the first time is just go through the skin. Then you’ll come to a very thin layer of flesh. Say “bher” again, and you’ll remove the flesh. Dab away the blood with that linen cloth and swab the wound with more of the green syrup before you start drilling into the bone. Keep flushing out the hole you’re drilling to clear away the bone fragments.

  We’ve been through this several times already, Em.

  Once more won’t hurt. Let’s make sure you know what you’re doing before you start. I want you to stop immediately when you break through the skull bone. There’s a tough membrane between the skull bone and the brain itself. Flush the wound out thoroughly and then swab it again. Only then do you go through the membrane. Do you have any questions at all?

  I think we’ve covered just about everything, Em.

  All right. Start drilling.

  ———

  The bright red spurt of Eliar’s blood struck Althalus squarely in the face.

  His heart’s strong, Dweia observed clinically as Althalus wiped the blood off his face.

  How can you tell? Leitha asked, her silent voice echoing in the mind of Althalus.

  Every time his heart beats, his head squirts like a fountain.

  You ladies are being awfully cold-blooded about this, Althalus accused. That is Eliar there, you know. We’re not just talking about some leaky bucket here.

  Don’t be so sentimental, Althalus, Dweia told him. Pack that wound with the poultice, and then drill another hole on the left side.

  How many do you think we’ll need?

  That depends on what Leitha finds after we’ve finished with these two. The poultice should stop the bleeding in these, and then she should be able to discover any other trouble spots.

  How exactly does the poultice stop the bleeding, Dweia? Leitha asked curiously.

  It’s an astringent, dear. It constricts the blood vessels. It’s something on the order of the way sour fruit makes your mouth pucker up. That’s why we needed the greenberries. They aren’t really all that poisonous, but they’re so sour that people believe that they almost have to be deadly. Get back to work, Althalus. You aren’t being paid to just stand around.

  Paid? I’m not getting paid, Em.

  We’ll talk about that some other time. Drill, Althalus. Drill.

  “What have you done?” Andine demanded, staring at the bandages wrapped around Eliar’s head.

  “You don’t really want to know, dear,” Leitha told her. “It was moderately revolting.”

  “I mean what did you do to me?”

  “Althalus put you to sleep, Andine,” Bheid told her. “You were very upset, and Dweia wanted to calm you down.”

  “How much do you love Eliar, Andine?” Dweia demanded, using Althalus’ voice again.

  “I’d die for him.”

  “That wouldn’t be very useful just now, dear. I want you to administer a medicine to him. It’s a bit on the order of the way you’ve been feeding him lately. You and Bheid are going to have to take care of that, because Althalus and Leitha have to help Khalor and Albron hold off the Ansus until Eliar’s back on his feet.”

  “Just tell me what to do, Dweia,” Andine replied.

  “You see that bowl on the table, and that glass tube?”

  “Is that some sort of brown syrup in the bowl?”

  “It’s not exactly syrup, dear. It’s a medicine. Eliar has to receive regular doses of it.”

  “Three times a day, or something like that?”

  “No, it’s a little more precise than that. Eliar needs very small doses at regular intervals. That’s what the glass tube’s for. There’s a line around the tube to show you just how much to give him. You take the tube, dip it into the medicine as far as that line, and then you put your finger over the upper end of the tube. Then put the tube in Eliar’s mouth and lift your finger. That lets the medicine drain into his mouth. Try it once, so that you’ll know how to do it.”

  Andine went to the table, took up the tube, and dipped it into the syrupy liquid. Then she stoppered the end of the tube with her finger. “Like that?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Andine put the tube into Eliar’s mouth and lifted her finger. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said confidently. “How often do I do that?”

  “Once every hundred heartbeats.”

  “Mine?”

  “No, Andine. You aren’t the one who’s sick. That’s where Brother Bheid comes in. He’ll sit by the other side of the bed with his hand over Eliar’s heart so that he can count the beats. Every time he reaches one hundred, he’ll tell you to dose Eliar again.”

  “Why not just give him bigger doses three or four times a day?” Bheid asked.

  “The medicine’s particularly strong, so an overdose wouldn’t be good for him. That’s why we need to dose him gradually.”

  “What exactly does this medicine do?”

  “It counteracts the effects of the greenberry poultice that Althalus used to stop the bleeding. The brain needs blood, Brother Bheid, so we don’t dare shut off the flow completely. We’re walking a very fine line between too much blood and not enough. It’s very much like tuning a lute.”

  “How long do we continue this?” Andine asked.

  “Probably ten hours—twenty at most. Pay very close attention—both of you. Those regular doses are absolutely critical. Without them, Eliar might sink deeper into total unconsciousness, and he could stay that way permanently.”

  “If what you say is true, this might not be the place where the main attack’s going to hit the trenches,” Sergeant Khalor said to Althalus with a worried look on his face. “If all that noise and the cave was some exotic trick to get Eliar to this particular spot so that they could kill him, they might mount their main assault someplace else.”

  “That could be just a little subtle for Pekhal and Gelta, Sergeant,” Althalus disagreed. “Are they still in the cave, Leitha?” he asked the pale girl.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m not getting anything coherent, but there
seems to be about the same number of people in the cave.”

  “It’s only a couple of hours until dawn,” Khalor mused. “They’d be moving by now if they were planning to hit us from anywhere else. Is there any chance at all that Eliar might be back on his feet by then?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, Sergeant,” Althalus told him.

  “Well, we’ve fought wars without him before,” Khalor said with a slight shrug. “Gebhel’s barricades and those Wekti shepherds can hold off assaults anywhere along the trench line until we can bring in reinforcements. If it’s the best we can manage, it’ll have to do.”

  Emmy. Althalus sent out a searching thought as he and Leitha moved along the back of the trench line.

  Please don’t shout, Althalus, she scolded.

  Sorry. Can you see what’s happening in the tent?

  Of course I can.

  How’s Eliar doing?

  The surface bleeding’s stopped. He’s still oozing a little in a few places, but it’s pretty much under control.

  Is the rest of his brain getting enough blood?

  As far as I can tell, yes.

  Good. It’ll still be quite a while before he completely recovers though, won’t it?

  Obviously. Why do you ask?

  The notion of having Khalor run this battle from your window fell apart on us when Gelta bashed Eliar on the head, so we’re going to have to improvise a bit. Khalor’s been telling Gebhel that he’s got scouts out front keeping an eye on the Ansus. That wasn’t really true, since Khalor was going to do his own scouting from your window. That isn’t possible now, so we’ll have to rearrange things a bit. Khalor can’t get to your window, but you can. I think that means that you’re going to have to do the scouting for us. Then you pass what you’ve seen to me, I’ll hand it off to Khalor, and he can use runners to keep Gebhel advised. Won’t that more or less give us the same results as what we’d originally planned?

  Probably so, yes. Use a few of those Wekti shepherds for runners. A shepherd needs to be fast on his feet. I think Salkan might be a good choice.

  That won’t make him very happy, Em. That young hothead really wants to unlimber his sling at the Ansus, and in spite of all the pious instructions Yeudon gave him, I’m fairly certain that Salkan has no plans to start wasting perfectly good rocks on horses. I’m sure that he planned to miss fairly often and kill the Ansus instead of their mounts.

  That’s another reason to get him out of the trenches, pet. Let’s not upset Exarch Yeudon any more than we have to. Let’s get the runner business all set up and ready to go. Don’t dawdle, Althie. Dawn’s just over the eastern horizon, so things are likely to start getting noisy before much longer.

  “Seventy-seven hundred and seventy-seven, seventy-seven hundred and seventy-eighths,” Leitha murmured. “Divided by sixteen and a quarter,” she added almost absently.

  “What’s that fellow in the hood doing, Khalor?” Sergeant Gebhel demanded.

  “He’s one of my engineers,” Khalor lied with a slight shrug. “He’s working on a trajectory for the catapults.”

  “I’ve never been able to understand those people,” Gebhel admitted. “They do all their talking in numbers. Sometimes I think they even tell jokes in numbers.”

  “I don’t have much time, Gebhel,” Khalor told him. “My scouts have given us the locations of all the places where the Ansus are massing. This place is fairly central, so you might want to set up your command post here.”

  Gebhel glanced off to the east, where the sky was beginning to grow lighter, and then at the flaring torches across the valley. “Well, this obviously won’t be the place where their main attack’s going to hit my lines,” he said. “Nobody waves torches around like that in a place he wants to keep secret.”

  “Don’t lock your head in stone on that, Gebhel,” Khalor cautioned. “That might be what they want you to believe.”

  “That’s true,” Gebhel conceded. “I’ve done that myself a time or two.”

  “Just stay flexible,” Khalor cautioned. He turned and pointed toward a hill behind their trenches. “I’m going to set up back there. I’ve still got scouts out to the front, and we’ve worked out a set of signals so they can let me know what’s going on. I’ll have one of those Wekti shepherds bring you any information we pick up.”

  “How’s young Eliar doing?”

  “He’s still dead to the world. That ugly sow really bashed him a good one. We’ve got a couple of field surgeons working on him, but it’s a little early to tell if he’ll fully recover.”

  “All we can do is hope, I guess,” Gebhel said, looking off to the east. “It’s coming on toward daylight, Khalor, so we’d all better get to our posts—even though this won’t be much of a war. I’ve fought some stupid people in my time, but these Ansus are pretty much the pick of the litter when it comes to stupidity.”

  “They’re cavalry, Gebhel,” Khalor snorted. “Their horses do most of their thinking for them.” He glanced at the eastern sky. “It’s getting lighter, so I’d better get back up the hill. The young fellow I’ll be using as a runner has bright red hair, so you’ll know him when you see him.”

  Gebhel nodded. “Get out from underfoot, Khalor,” he said gruffly. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Eliar seems to be stirring a bit,” Chief Albron advised Khalor, Althalus, and Leitha when they reached the tent, “and his breathing’s stronger.”

  “We’ve got to get that boy back on his feet,” Khalor said. “I’ve got a huge army piled up in the corridors of the House, but I can’t use a single man until Eliar recovers enough to open the doors for them.”

  “I think Gebhel’s good enough to hold off the Ansus for quite a long time, Khalor,” Albron replied.

  Althalus, Dweia’s voice murmured, take Leitha back into the tent. I need to have a quick look inside Eliar’s head.

  All right, Em, he replied silently. Then he spoke aloud. “Let’s look in on our boy, Leitha,” he suggested.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  Dweia needs to talk with you, he murmured as they entered the tent.

  Yes, I heard her.

  Move aside, Althalus, Dweia’s voice told him.

  He sighed. Yes, dear.

  “Now,” Bheid was saying wearily to Andine.

  The tiny Arya carefully inserted the glass tube into the young Arum’s mouth.

  Reach into his head again, Leitha, Dweia instructed. Tell me what you can see.

  Leitha nodded, and Althalus felt a peculiar sense of reaching out and heard a kind of murmuring. What’s that odd sound? he asked.

  Don’t interrupt, Althalus, Dweia’s voice told him. She’s busy right now.

  The bleeding seems to have stopped, Leitha reported. No, wait. She frowned slightly, and Althalus could feel her reaching out. There’s still one place that’s seeping just a bit. It’s not very big, and it’s deep inside.

  Is his mind awake at all? Dweia asked.

  Well—sort of, Leitha replied. It’s a bit disconnected. I think he’s dreaming.

  He’s starting to come around then, Dweia said thoughtfully. “Brother Bheid,” she said then, “it’s time to change the procedure. Go to two hundred heartbeats between doses.”

  “Is he getting better?” Andine said hopefully.

  “The bleeding’s almost completely stopped, dear,” Leitha reported.

  “Will he wake up soon?”

  “Not for quite some time, Andine,” Dweia replied. “He’s dreaming now, and that’s only the first step. Keep on giving him those regular doses until he starts to stir. Then space them out even more—once every four hundred heartbeats. When he wakes up and starts talking, stop dosing him and call Leitha. Then I’ll come back here and have another look at him.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed here, Dweia?” Bheid asked.

  “Possibly so, but we’ve got this little war on our hands, too, Brother Bheid. I need to attend to that as well as to Eliar.”

  ———<
br />
  Khalor and Albron were looking out across the valley where the drunken Ansus were saddling their horses in the steely first light of dawn.

  “How’s Eliar?” Albron asked.

  “I think he’s out of the woods,” Althalus replied, “but he could be better.”

  “I don’t want to criticize, Althalus,” Khalor said, “but why did you insist that I use Salkan for my runner? He’s a nice boy, I suppose, but he can barely tell the difference between a sword and a spear.”

  “We don’t want a trained soldier carrying our messages to Gebhel,” Althalus explained. “Koman’s out there listening, and Salkan’s going to be carrying two messages every time he runs down to Gebhel’s trench. He’ll have one message for Gebhel and a different one for Koman. Practice putting on a long face, gentlemen. Dweia’s almost certain that Eliar’s going to recover, but I’m going to tell Salkan that there’s no hope for him. We don’t want Ghend to find out that Eliar’s not dying. If he’s aware of that, he’ll throw everything he’s got at the trenches to try to finish up before Eliar’s back on his feet again. If he’s positive that Eliar’s dying, he’ll take his time and try to hold down his losses. Eliar needs that time to regain his senses, and Salkan’s false messages are going to buy us that time.”

  “Didn’t that medicine work?” Salkan asked.

  “I’m afraid not, Salkan,” Althalus replied somberly. “Eliar’s taken a turn for the worse, and I don’t think he’s going to make it. Sergeant Khalor here needs somebody to take Eliar’s place as a runner.”

  “That’s one more reason to kill all those Ansus, isn’t it?” the young redhead said fiercely. “I liked Eliar. He was my friend, and those people killed him.”

  “People get killed in wars, Salkan,” Sergeant Khalor said gruffly. “It happens.”

  “What do you want me to do, General Khalor?” Salkan asked, his boyish face hardening.

  Althalus drew Leitha off to one side. “Well?” he asked her.

  “He’s an enthusiast,” she replied. “He doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but he’ll do anything we tell him to do. He’s terribly excited about this war—and very angry about what happened to Eliar.”