Chapter Ten
Aelys woke to the feeling of a hand over her mouth.
She blinked her eyes open and pulled the ambient energy through her synapses in preparation for calling a blaze of magelight when Daen’s murmured words stopped her.
“Bella. Get up. Quietly.”
Aelys nodded, and the hand covering her mouth disappeared. She pushed herself up to sit and willed her eyes to adjust to the light provided by the stars and the Daughter’s thin crescent above.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Screams on the other side of the camp. Vil and Romik have already gone to see what’s going on. I have to get you out of here. Don’t call your light, we need to move under cover of Vil’s Dark Lady.”
Aelys nodded again. Daen wrapped her cloak around her shoulders, pulled her to her feet, and then guided her around the stone circle that held the banked remains of their evening fire.
As they stepped over the logs piled at the edge of their campsite, another scream split the night, followed by a chilling series of yowls. Daen’s hand gripped hers tighter, and he pulled her into a shuffling run toward the shadows under the looming trees.
“Step lightly,” he murmured. “We’ll go three or four cart lengths into the trees and then circle around to where you’ve gone.” Aelys frowned in confusion for just a second before realizing that Daen wasn’t really speaking to her. Vil must have cut him with Profane before he left. It had seemed monstrous at first, but Aelys had to admit that the magical dagger’s ability to let Vil hear anyone who bore its wounds had come in handy more than once.
Though we’re all gaining quite the collection of scars, Aelys thought wryly, thinking of the thin white lines crisscrossing the back of her wrists. But Vil was right. Being able to communicate, even one way, is lifesaving.
“This way, Bella,” Daen said. “I see a tree up ahead that should work.”
Under the spreading canopy, Aelys could barely see Daen’s tall figure in front of her. But Daen had spent years honing his woodcraft, and she trusted him implicitly. So, she let him pull her along until he came to a sudden stop.
“Here,” he said. “The lowest branch is just above your head. I’ll help boost you up.”
“All right.” Aelys’s voice came out a little breathless, but not from fear. If anything, it was excitement that wreathed her nerves and skittered under her skin. This is like old times, the back corner of her mind observed. Back when Daen didn’t hate me, and we worked as a team—
She pushed that thought away and put her boot in his offered hands. With a heave of his longbow-trained arms and shoulders, he launched her upward so high that she nearly overshot the branch. She scraped her palms against the rough bark as she scrambled to grab on. Her abdomen hit the branch near the trunk and she flopped inelegantly over it, chest heaving.
“Climb up a little more, Bella.” Daen’s words, laced with urgency, floated up to her, and she scrambled to throw one leg over the branch so that she could maneuver to stand up. By the time she’d done that, Daen was pulling himself up beside her, his body so close she could feel the heat of his skin in the chill night air.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m going—”
“No, you’re good right there,” Daen murmured. “This branch is big enough for both of us. I just couldn’t get an angle until you stood up. Hang on to the trunk for me.”
“All right,” she said. Her eyes had adjusted enough that she could make out the shape of him as he jumped up and caught the branch directly above them and then pulled himself up before reaching down for her hand.
Eventually, he found a spot he liked and settled her sitting astride the branch while he unslung his bow and turned to regard the campsite laid out below them.
“Like I thought, a pack of bearcats.” Daen murmured the words without any emotion a second before he nocked an arrow, drew, and let fly in one smooth motion. “Looks like they got one of the teams of oxen. That was likely the screaming we heard.” He fired again.
“I’ve never seen a bearcat,” Aelys said softly.
“Pack hunters,” Daen said. “Nasty when cornered or hungry. Although I’m surprised they’d attack a caravan this large. There has to be fifteen of them down there…” A short pause broken by the twang of his bowstring. “Fourteen, now. There’s Romik.”
“Is he all right?” Sudden sick fear clenched Aelys’s gut, and she swallowed hard. Daen let out a little laugh and released another arrow.
“Romik? Yeah. You really have no idea how good we all are, do you, Bella?”
“I…of course I do,” Aelys said, though she kept her tone mild. She didn’t know the origin of Daen’s suddenly changed attitude toward her, but she didn’t want to take the risk of reminding him that he hated her.
“No, I don’t think you do. Slide forward a little on the branch and look down there. See? He’s right there. You can see his sword glinting in the light from the guards’ fire.”
Aelys did as he bid and tried not to shake the branch too much as Daen shot twice more. She peered down through an opening in the trees where he’d pointed and tried to identify Romik.
At first, she couldn’t distinguish him from the other guards who fought against the snarling bearcats with long knives, spears, and torches. Aelys found herself staring at the bearcats in sick fascination. They were roughly the size of a large hound, but with wicked claws, wide, round heads, and pointy snouts.
Pointy snouts filled with daggerlike teeth, she amended as she saw one dart past the stabbing spears to close its mouth around one of the younger men’s forearm.
Daen fired again, and the animal’s scream joined the young man’s as it twisted away in rage and pain, rearing up onto its back feet as its wicked foreclaws gleamed wetly. Daen’s second arrow took it in the throat, dropping it where it stood as the young man’s comrades pulled him back behind one of the wagons.
Romik shouted something, and the rest of the guards responded with a full-throated roar and surged forward, slashing with their various weapons. Daen continued shooting, confidently pulling arrow after arrow from the magical quiver he carried. Every time Aelys glanced at it, she could see the fletching from ten arrows silhouetted against the flickering fire- and torchlight below.
Eventually, the last bearcat ripped the night open with its dying scream, and the chaos of the battle below eased. Aelys’s eyes searched frantically for Romik and Vil. She found her warrior quickly enough, and he appeared unharmed. But she couldn’t lay her eyes on her thief.
“Do you see Vil?” she murmured to Daen as he slung his bow and turned to her. “I want to make sure he’s all right.”
Daen snorted. “Aelys, no one sees Vil unless he wants them to. He’s fine.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s my brother. I know.”
Aelys snapped her gaze up to Daen’s face, her eyebrows slamming together and her eyes narrowing at his choice of words. But before she could inquire further, he began to climb down, pointing out where she should place her hands and feet on her way down.
Vil met them at the bottom of the tree.
“Vil,” Aelys breathed as relief swept through her like a wave. Before she could think better of it, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in the juncture between his shoulder and neck.
He stood rock solid and still inside her embrace. She inhaled, pulling in the hot spice and clean wool scent of him as she silently told herself that he was all right. He was unharmed.
“I couldn’t see you,” she murmured. “I worried—”
“You’re not supposed to see me, Bella,” Vil said, his breath moving softly through the wisps of hair that had escaped her braid. She felt him reach up and draw his hood down, and then slowly wrap his own arms around her and hold her close. “That’s the whole point. But I am fine.”
She breathed in once more, grief staining her thoughts as she visualized the dark river that no longer flowed between them. Behind her, Daen shifted, rustling the leaves beneath his boots, and reality slammed back into Aelys’s addled mind.
“Oh,” she murmured, dropping her arms and stepping backward. Vil’s iron-hard embrace instantly opened, and she took several more steps back until she bumped up against the trunk of the tree that had sheltered her and Daen. “I—I’m sorry…”
She trailed off as Vil’s expression closed down, his eyes going hard. With one hand, he lifted his hood back up to shroud his face in shadow again.
“I—I mean…I shouldn’t have—”
“Leave it, Bella,” Vil said, his voice empty. He flicked his eyes up to Daen and then back to her. “I came to tell you that you’re both needed. The bearcats got to some of the oxen before we could respond and one of the drovers got pretty torn up in the fight. A bad arm fracture and lots of bites.”
Aelys bit her lip. “I—I can try to heal—”
“No,” Daen said softly. “No magic. You’re in disguise. The wagonmaster knows who you are, but he’s got reason to keep his mouth shut. The others…well, in a caravan this size, the secret’s bound to come out if anyone else knows it.”
“Still,” Aelys said, squaring her shoulders and forcing her words and tone to be firm as she looked up at him. “I’m supposed to be a wisewoman. If you guys can help me set the break, I will do what I can with the herbs and remedies I have. And maybe…well. We’ll see.”
Daen stared at her for a moment before nodding. She turned to Vil, only to see him watching Daen.
“Vil?” she asked quietly.
“Fine,” he said. “Follow me.”
He turned and started walking through the trees toward the flickering firelight that marked the campsite. Aelys caught her boot on a root or something in the darkness and stumbled forward, but Daen caught her by her upper arm and kept her from falling on her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she regained her feet. Daen let go of her arm, but he grunted something that didn’t sound entirely hostile, so she drew in a breath and spoke again. “And thank you for waking me, protecting me.”
“It’s my job, Bella.”
“Still, I appreciate you.”
He grunted again, and she decided to leave it at that. At least he doesn’t seem so angry at me anymore, she thought. Maybe he just needed to yell at me and get it off his chest. I suppose that’s logical. Maybe now that he’s expressed himself, he will be able to accept my breaking of the geas.
Of all the things Aelys felt guilty about, of all the reasons she had to apologize, breaking the geas wasn’t one of them. It had hurt her former Ageons, she knew. It had infuriated Daen, but even the snarling anger he’d thrown at her outside the tavern couldn’t make her regret it.
By breaking the geas, she’d set them free. She’d given them back their ability to choose their paths in life.
I couldn’t be like Aerivinne, compelling them to fall in line with my will. Nor could I be like my moth—like Lysaera, indulging my desires to the detriment of everyone around me. I had to give my Ageons their freedom. Otherwise, I would have been just like them.
And if, for now, the men chose to remain with her and defend her…well, then she would swallow back her soul’s longing for the false connection they’d once had and accept their dangerous protection with gratitude.
Divines know I’ve no right to them, she reminded herself for the thousandth time as Vil led her and Daen back into the cleared field of the campsite. After everything I and my former family put them through, it’s a miracle they haven’t left already. The least I can do is let them work through whatever they feel…even if it means screaming at me.
“Aelys! Daen!” Romik’s gravelly call snapped Aelys’s attention back to the here and now, and she smiled with relief to see him striding toward them, looking completely free of injury. “With me, please! We’ve need of your herbs, wisewoman.”
“They’re in my pack,” Aelys said. “But I—”
“I will get them,” Vil said without looking back at her. “Stay with Daen and Romik.”
“All right,” she said, but he was already striding away, disappearing into the darkness towards the edges of the campsite.
Romik grabbed Aelys’s hand and pulled her attention back to him. “You’re all right?” he asked softly.
“I am,” she replied, just as quietly. “Daen woke me and kept me safe in a tree not far from here.”
Romik’s lips curved in a tight smile that came nowhere near his eyes. “Good,” he said. “One of the drovers is badly hurt, but you mustn’t—”
“I’ll not exhaust my remedies,” Aelys said, cutting him off as she saw several of the other guards and drovers drawing near. “I’ve plenty to spare. I’ll do what I can for the man, but depending on how bad his fracture is, I will likely need your help and Daen’s to set it.”
Romik nodded and turned to lead her through the other men to the nearest tent. It sat in the center of a pool of firelight. Someone had obviously stirred up the campfire before the tent’s open doorway, but Aelys saw that someone had driven several of the torches she’d seen used against the bearcats into the ground around the tent itself.
That’s good, she thought. Though, even with that much light coming through the canvas, I won’t be able to see without a lantern. I suppose I can ask Vil for his.
Romik lifted the flap of the tent’s doorway to the side and gestured for her to precede him in. She took a deep breath, tasting the taint of woodsmoke and blood on the night breeze, and then ducked inside.
The iron tang of blood filled the air inside the tent, and Aelys swallowed rapidly against the nausea that threatened to rise in her throat. She blinked to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior and got her first look at the unfortunate drover she desperately hoped she could help.
He lay on a short cot that lifted him off the ground by about a double handspan. His pale face shone with sweat, and a long, ugly gash bisected his mouth and ran down his chin. More gashes along his torso and legs seeped darkly onto his clothes and the bedroll beneath him.
But worst of all was his arm.
Aelys swallowed again and retreated behind her internal mental shield as she forced herself to look at the drover’s right arm as it lay crossed over his chest. Midway between elbow and wrist, the arm bent at an unnatural-looking angle, and jagged white bone gleamed in the light that diffused through the tent fabric.
“Vil’s here with your pack,” Daen said from the doorway. “What else do you need?”
“Light,” she answered immediately. “Ask Vil for his lantern, please. And I will need a forearm splint, so if you or someone could find some wood of the right length, that would be helpful. Maybe some leather straps to secure it after I bandage it?”
She looked back over her shoulder just in time to see Daen back out. She heard him calling to someone outside to fetch what she requested. Then he ducked inside again and placed her pack at her feet before going to stand next to Romik.
On the bed, the injured drover let out a low, ragged moan, and Aelys knelt down beside his cot. She brushed her fingers across his forehead to check his temperature, though it was early for fever to set in. The man on the cot groaned again and opened his eyes to slits as he turned his face toward her.
“Hello,” Aelys said softly. “My name is Aelys. I’m a wisewoman. I’m going to do my best to help you, all right?”
“Don’t…take…arm…”
“I will do my best to save your arm.” She forced the words to come out in that same calm, soothing tone. “But it may be necessary to sacrifice it to save your life.”
The man let out another low moan of distress, and Aelys reached out and dragged her pack toward herself. She flipped open the top of it and rummaged inside until she came up with a small, cloth-wrapped vial. As she removed the protective cloth, Vil stepped inside with his lantern, brightening the interior enough that Aelys could see red in the darkness of the blood.
“Hang that somewhere that casts the light on him, Vil,” she said as she used her fingernail to remove the wax seal that held the vial’s cork in place. The light shifted, and then stilled, and the man moaned again.
Aelys turned to look over her shoulder. “I need a clean rag soaked in water, please,” she said to the three men standing behind her. Without waiting for them to comply, she turned back to her patient. “Can you tell me your name, please, drover?”
“Mell.”
“Mell. I’m going to give you some distilled essence of poppy mixed with nightdark root and valerian, all right? It will make you sleep. It’s just a drop. Can you open your mouth and stick your tongue out for me?”
Mel did as she asked, and Aelys forced her hand to be steady as she poured a single drop from the vial onto his exposed tongue. She capped the vial and held her free hand back behind her without looking. Someone—Daen, probably—put a soaked rag in her hand. She brought it forward and twisted it enough to allow a small trickle into Mell’s mouth.
“Swallow that now,” Aelys said. “It will take effect quickly.”
“Too sweet…”
“Yes, it has a sickly sweet taste,” Aelys said. “Count to five for me, Mell?”
“1…2…3…”
Mell’s breathing evened out, and his voice trailed away. Aelys waited a beat, and then gently touched his wrist. When he didn’t respond to that stimulus, she nudged his arm slightly. He’s out, she thought with satisfaction. If he were conscious, he’d have screamed at that.
“Romik, Daen, I need you both. Vil, can you get the splint materials I asked for?”
“They’re right here,” Vil said in his dark voice as Romik and Daen stepped forward. Aelys turned back to look at him then and handed him the sodden rag in exchange for two flat pieces of wood and a length of leather strap. She laid these on the cot next to Mell’s hip and returned to her pack for a roll of bandaging cloth. Then she leaned forward to closely examine Mell’s broken arm.
“All right,” she said a moment later, after she’d removed another packet from her bag. “As bad of a break as this is, it actually looks pretty clean. I can’t see any splintering on the bone. So, what we’re going to do is this: Romik, you’ll hold his arm steady just below his shoulder.”
Romik stepped forward and crouched beside her, wrapping his scarred hands around Mell’s bicep. “Like this?”
“Control the shoulder and body more. Use your weight if you have to. Your job is to keep him still while Daen pulls his arm back into place. You cannot let him move, all right?”
Romik nodded and adjusted his grip. “Got it.”
Aelys turned to look at Daen. “You’re going to grab here, just above his wrist, and we’re going to pull steadily and manipulate the bone back into place. His body is protecting the injury, so it’s going to fight us. Just keep steady tension, all right? Put your hands here.”
Without thinking, Aelys grabbed Daen’s callused fingers and wrapped them gently about the unconscious drover’s injured forearm. She felt Daen shiver next to her but ignored it in favor of working to straighten the elbow as much as possible without further jarring the fracture. When she had the joint as straight as possible, she tapped one of Romik’s hands.
“I’m going to wrap his elbow and try to immobilize it, but I’ll need you to hold it still too. We don’t want to dislocate it while we’re setting the break.”
Romik murmured soft understanding, and Aelys set to work with her roll of bandage fabric. When she had the elbow as immobile as she could make it, she sat back on her heels and looked at her two burly assistants.
“Steady force,” she said. “Ready? Pull.”
Daen leaned backward, muscles straining against the fabric of his shirt. Romik let out a hiss of effort and adjusted his hands on Mell’s elbow, but he held steady against his brother’s strength.
“Just like that, Daen,” Aelys said. “Keep going. His body is resisting us, but it may let go all at once. Be ready.” She leaned in and placed her hands lightly just above and below the awful wound and began to try and manipulate the pieces back together in the space the men created.
Just a trickle of power here, Aelys whispered in the silence of her mind as she envisioned a deep blue stream of energy flowing from her fingertips into Mel’s ragged flesh. Nothing visible to the eye, but just enough to persuade the muscles to relax, the bones to align the way they should…
“There!” she half-shouted in triumph as the fractured pieces slipped into place. Daen’s boots scuffled on the dirt floor as he fell backwards onto his butt. Aelys grabbed the packet from her bag and ripped the oilcloth covering away. Inside was a rectangular bandage pad smeared with a thick, gray paste. She slapped this pad, paste-side down, on the site of the break, where the bone had cut through the skin of Mell’s arm.
“Hold that there,” she said, not caring who responded. Romik’s hand came down to cover hers, taking over the pressure she applied to the still-bleeding wound. Aelys then grabbed the remainder of the bandage roll and began to wrap Mell’s arm from wrist to elbow. As she did, she adjusted her earlier immobilization dressing on his elbow, returning the arm to its bent position over the belly. Then she wrapped the whole thing in another layer of bandage cloth, which finished out the roll completely.
“Is that all you have?” Romik asked soberly behind her.
“I’ve another roll in my pack,” she said, her tone absent as she tied off the ends and tucked them in just above Mell’s wrist. “And bandaging cloth is easy enough to get.”
“We’ll get you more,” Vil said from behind her. “Along with whatever you need to replace the poultice you put underneath.”
Aelys nodded, but she only registered their words with half of her attention. She held Mell’s arm in place with her left hand and reached awkwardly under that arm with her right hand for the splinting sticks she’d prepared.
“Here, Bella.” Daen grabbed the sticks and the leather strip and helped her place them on either side of Mell’s forearm. Then he and Romik held them in place while she lashed the splint together and tied it off as well.
“There,” she said, sitting back on her heels once more. She reached up with the back of her hand to swipe at her brow. She hadn’t realized she was sweating, but tendrils of hair stuck to her forehead. Romik and Daen, too, were panting from their exertions, and she caught the clean scent of their sweat as she took a deep, calming breath. “I could feel the bone set well,” she said, forcing her thoughts back to the task at hand. “Infection is our greatest worry now. The poultice I used should help.” She turned and looked over the rest of Mell’s wounds with a critical eye. “He will sleep for some time still. I should clean the rest of these wounds before he wakes. It will be far more pleasant for him that way.”
“Tell us what you need, Bella,” Vil said softly. “Whatever it is, we’ll get it for you.”
Aelys stretched and rotated her neck. “I could use an extra pair of hands,” she said. “If you want to stay and help me, Vil. And I need to talk to Nerda. We’ll have to make arrangements for Mell to ride in one of the wagons, I suppose.”
“I’ll get him,” Romik said, standing up. Aelys fought not to shiver as the cool predawn air replaced his warm, muscled bulk beside her.
“And I’ll break down our camp and get Aelys some food,” Daen said. “The sun’s coming up soon, and I imagine we’ll be on our way before long. Nerda won’t want to linger here, in case there are other bearcats nearby.”
He stood, too, and stretched as well before looking down at Aelys.
“Good work, Bella,” he said softly. “I’m proud of you.”
Then, before Aelys could do more than gape after him, Daen turned and ducked through the tent flap, with Romik right behind him.
“Come, Bella.” Vil’s low, dark voice came from right beside her, causing a shiver that she couldn’t suppress this time. “Let’s finish this job. What do you need me to do first?”
Aelys didn’t fully trust herself to meet his eyes, so she focused on her patient instead. “Find the bottle of distilled spirits in my bag, please,” she said. “We’ll clean his scratches and then bandage them. It should be a flat bottle sealed with red wax…”