Dragon Blood-Hurog 2 (3 page)

"Mercenaries from Tyrfannig," I said, dropping the cover over the last man's face. Tyrfannig was the nearest seaport town half a day's ride to the south. Hurog bordered the ocean, but her shores were too rocky for ships to harbor in. "They must not have caught jobs with the merchants going south and decided to become self-employed." Sometimes mercenaries didn't see the difference between looting on

a battlefield and looting from anyone they could. "I'll see if anyone in Tyrfannig wants the bodies. Otherwise we'll bury them ourselves, eh?"

"Yes, my lord."

I started to turn away, then realized something about the wounds I'd seen on the bodies. "Who took them down?" Atwater was famed for his bow work and could use an ax on people as well as wood, but he'd never have taken on these bandits armed with nothing more than a knife. Yet the two bodies with the most obvious death wounds had been killed by a short blade, not an ax. I didn't know about the third—and wasn't about to examine the bodies more closely with all the children milling about.

"No, sir. My oldest boy, Fennel, saw them coming in time to warn us. I sent Rowan to you, and we waited. After a bit I tracked Fennel's trail to where he'd seen the bandits. And I found them three dead, sir. And I found what killed 'em, too. You'll never guess."

As we'd spoken, Atwater's wife had come out of the house with a little sprite of a girl about six.

"It was a girl," the child caroled in satisfied tones. "A girl killed them bandits all by herself." Atwater's left eyebrow buried itself in his hairline. His wife shrugged.

"My aunt could have killed them," I said. "Why are you so surprised a woman took care of them?" Atwater shook his head. "Maybe Stala could at that. But I'd be surprised if a
man
in this woman's condition could have walked from where we stand to my home, let alone killed three healthy men with naught but a puny knife. Would you come look at her?"

Bemused, I nodded at Oreg. "Stay out here and keep the babes out from under Pansy's feet, please?" Tosten gave his reins to Oreg, too.

Atwater's house was dark and close, insulated for winter with dried grasses and straw. I had to duck my head to avoid rubbing the ceiling.

The fire in the hearth was more for light than warmth—that would change as winter approached. One of

Atwater's older daughters sat on a nearby bench sewing, a bucket of water by her feet should a spark fly

out and touch either fur or straw. She nodded at me, but turned shyly back to her work. I didn't know how she could sew in the dim light. Even with the fire so near, I could barely tell there was a person buried in the furs in front of the hearth.

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But I could smell the distinctive odor of rotting flesh. I knelt beside the furs and touched the skin on the back of the unconscious woman's neck, feeling the dry heat.

"She hasn't moved since I found her, my lord," said Atwater. "Her weapon's on the table. After seeing the bodies, I thought I'd better get it out of her reach."

I got up and looked at the knife on the table. Not a hunting knife—the blade was too short, not even a full finger-length. A skinning knife, I thought, but not a common one at all. The metal was worked like the

finest sword, the pattern of its folding visible even in the darkness of the house. Tosten whistled softly. "She took out three mercenaries with that knife?"

"They underestimated her," I said, setting the knife back on the table. Stala said that men tended not to take her seriously because she was a woman, and that gave her an advantage that more than made up for

the difference in size and strength. "Tosten, would you go hold the horses and send Oreg in to look at her

wounds?" I'd done some field surgery, but the smell of flesh-rot told me we'd need more than that here—and Oreg, among other things, was an experienced healer.

Tosten nodded and turned on his heel without comment.

When Oreg appeared in his stead, the atmosphere in the house changed. No one in the house acted like they were afraid of Oreg, but they set him at a distance due the Wizard of Hurog. Oreg's dark hair made him stick out among the fair-haired Shavigmen, but his purple-blue eyes, duplicates of Tosten's, proclaimed him a Hurog born and bred. In the past few years, unbound by the spells that had held him, he'd begun to look more like a man and less a boy, but he, like Tosten was slight

of build. He didn't look like someone to be afraid of. Still less did he look like a man who had arisen from

the dead.

I'd told everyone that Oreg had been ensorcelled and that by killing him I'd broken the spell. They seemed to accept it and Oreg—but they gave him space when they could. Oreg held up his hand as he approached the hearth, and light reflected from his curved palm and lit the little house as if the roof had come off and allowed the sun into all the dark corners. He tossed the ball of

light up and it hovered above him while he pulled the furs off of the woman to get a better look at her. In Oreg's light, her cheeks were flushed with fever and her eyes were sunken. But then, even at her best she had never been beautiful—not by conventional standards.

"Tisala," I said, stunned.

Oreg stopped his examination to peer with momentary interest at her face. "So it is," he agreed mildly.

"Good thing they took her knife away from her."

"Do you know her, my lord?" asked Atwater as if it surprised him not at all. He'd gone from thinking I was as brutal and irrational as my father to expecting miracles ever since that night last winter when I found his son.

"Yes, I know her," I said. It didn't seem enough, so I added, "I fought with her at my back." And there wasn't a higher compliment any Shavigman could give.

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Atwater nodded, content that his lord was still odd, worldly, and all-knowing. The last time I'd seen Tisala, her curly dark hair had been shorter than my own, but now it hung in lank tangles down to her shoulders, making her skin all the more white.

Oreg's hands were gentle, but when they touched her left hand, her whole body stiffened and she moaned.

"She's been tortured," he said matter-of-factly.

I nodded. It was hard to miss: both hands, left worse than right, both feet. No telling what other damage had been done: She wore an old pair of trousers, patched and baggy, and a shirt whose arms were too short over the rest.

"They hadn't had her long," he said at last. "She'll live, if the fever and the putrefaction don't kill her. But

we ought to take her to the keep, where my medicines are."

Magic, that meant. I'd told Oreg not to tell people exactly what he could do. He couldn't really cure her, but he could kill the infection and let her body heal on its own—which was more than any other mage I'd

ever heard of could do. It would be safer for him if all of Shavig didn't start whispering about how powerful the Hurogmeten's wizard was. Better by far to avoid all notice so we didn't get another Kariarn

looking for power.

I took one of the larger furs and rolled Tisala in it. Then I scooped her up and stood, forgetting how low the ceilings were, so I rapped my head a good one.

Atwater winced in sympathy.

As soon as we were well away from the farm, my brother guided his horse next to mine and said,

"What

was Tisala doing here?"

Oreg gave a snort of laughter. "Why do all strays end up at Ward's door?"

"I don't know," I said. Had she been running to me? It would have seemed unlikely to me this morning—I hadn't seen her in a long time and had only known her briefly. I wouldn't even have thought I

would have left much of an impression on her—I had been nineteen and full of myself, while she had been

her father's right hand for several years. Moreover, I was nothing out of the ordinary—well, except for my size—while she was the only female warrior I knew of other than my aunt Stala, who served as my arms master.

I looked down at her again. Undeniably she was here. She'd fled whoever had hurt her, and come to me. I remembered hearing that she'd been estranged from her father. It bothered me that the only one she'd had to turn to was someone she'd known a few days several years ago.

"I'd like to know how she got into this condition," I said.

"The mercenaries?" hazarded Oreg, who'd ridden up to my left. But he shook his head almost instantly.

"She'd have gutted them long before they could bring her up here."

"Her father, Haverness, disowned her for taking up with a bunch of dissidents in Estian last year, didn't he?" Tosten mused. "People who wanted his half brother Alizon on the throne rather than Jakoven?"
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King Jakoven's name made me pause. If it had been Jakoven, then Tisala did indeed have a reason for coming here. There weren't many nobles still powerful enough to thwart the High King of the Five Kingdoms, but my family was. Hurog was an ancient keep and carried more power than its lack of wealth should lend. The Shavig were a long-memoried people, and Hurog had ruled Shavig in the days before the Tallvens had eliminated their competition.

"I wouldn't rule it out," I said. "That would explain why she fled here, rather than to her father or one of her coconspirators."

"We'll keep her safe," said Tosten, his jaw set. My family would be a long time forgetting that the king had killed my cousin during one of his political games. Tisala had chosen wisely; no one would betray her

here.

I couldn't be certain it had been Jakoven, not until she woke; but I had to plan for it.

"Oreg, will you ride ahead and let my aunt know what's happened here? Be discreet, but make sure she understands that we may have royal troops here soon."

"Right," he said.

I waited until his sprinting horse was out of sight before I turned to my brother. "You're my heir. If the king finds out I've sheltered an enemy, he's likely to declare me a traitor. I'd like you to ride to our uncle and explain to him what's happened."

He gave me a small half-smile. "You don't have the right to protect me anymore, Ward. I'm older than you were when you took on Kariarn of Vorsag. You can quit giving me that look—Stala does it better. If

it comes down to making sure Hurog stays in Hurog hands, I'll run. But it's highly unlikely that Tisala would have led them here, and there's no reason for the king to think she'd come. I've not seen her above

a dozen times in the last four years. The way you stay away from court, I doubt you've seen her at all."
Only in my dreams,
I thought. I might not believe I'd made much of an impression upon her, but the reverse was certainly not true. "I would feel better with you in Iftahar with Duraugh."

"Too bad for you," he muttered. I don't think I was supposed to hear. He cleared his throat. "I always liked Tisala—Mother spoiled me for delicate women."

I laid Tisala facedown on the top of the table in the library because it was one of the few finished rooms in the keep that had a window to let in the light. Tosten had mumbled something about being useful elsewhere, turned on his heel, and left. He seldom stayed in the room while Oreg worked magic. I cut her clothing and pulled it out from under her until she lay bare. Her back had whip marks laid out so evenly that there wasn't more than a thumb's worth of skin left on her whole back. Some of them were

almost healed, but in many places the scabs were broken and wept clear fluid. I heard an indrawn breath behind me. I turned my head and saw Oreg stare down at her back. Then he began to pace rapidly and rub his hands together, not usually a good sign. I sat down on a bench hoping that my own restfulness would allow him to calm.

"Oreg," I said to catch his attention. Sometimes he had relivings that could be harrowing to all
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concerned. Soldiers had them, flashes of past battles that seem, for a moment, more real than the present—but Oreg could make the visions real. I'd never seen anyone but Oreg be harmed by them, but they were frightening all the same. "Tisala needs you."

He stared at me, breathing hard, looked away for a moment, and then gave me a tired smile. "Right." We started by cataloging the damage. It was not pleasant, that half hour, I was glad more than once that Tisala was unconscious, both for her dignity and her pain. It was her left hand that was the worst—the initial damage, which was considerable, compounded by infection. Upon closer examination several of the broken scabs on her back were puffed up with pus. Bruises abounded on her hips and inner thighs; she'd been raped.

Oreg growled and muttered as we continued checking her carefully. Her feet were a mess. Oreg said finally that the damage was from walking so far in ill-fitting shoes rather than a torturer's knife. He set her foot down and turned to the smaller table that held various herbs and salves, hot water, and bandaging. "You think Jakoven did this?" With a wave of his hand he indicated Tisala's damaged state. I nodded. "I can't think of any other reason she'd run all the way here."

"She liked you." Oreg used a clean knife to open one of the putrid places on Tisala's back, sponging up the fluid that escaped with a clean wet cloth.

"True enough," I agreed. "But I haven't seen her since I was last in Oranstone." I'd helped Oreg heal before, and we worked as a team. Most of what we did was ordinary stuff, clean wounds, cover with mixtures of salves and powders that Oreg hoarded, then bandage. But her left hand was swollen to twice its normal size and it was the source of the putrid smell. He soaked it first in hot seawater. Tisala must have really been in rough shape, because she didn't even protest. When Oreg was through, he poured alcohol over it, and again she had no reaction. He reexamined her now-clean hand.

Healing was the most difficult of all magics to do because the mage must know as much about the body as he does about his magic. And even a little healing sucked up such power as most mages can only dream about.