SpringFire (8 page)

Until now, the road had been easy to travel. Shandry said that from late Spring through Autumn, this was a much-used pass, with wagons and carts traversing it easily. During the Winter, though, a better pass farther to the south was the primary trade route. And this part of the road was why. Just that morning’s rain had left the footing treacherous.

I paid close attention to where I walked, placing one foot carefully and making sure it was planted before taking the next step. The turns were where it was most dangerous due to the odd camber of the roadway.

About halfway down, Shandry, who was leading Dyster, slipped and fell backward with a loud splash of mud. I’d just turned to help her up, when from behind us, there was a short yelp of surprise, followed by a crashing sound. We looked back just in time to see Traz sliding down the hillside. The slippery slope accelerated his fall, and the road just below barely slowed him at all. He slid out of view without another sound.

When the mighty red dragons first arrived—and we can certainly imagine what a surprise that caused—there was great upheaval. Many of them were extremely antagonistic toward humans, though it was not until later, when we learned of the great persecution from which they had fled, that we understood.

Still, there were those among them who were politic enough to treat with the inhabitants here. They negotiated a home with the sages, newly settled at Lake Delaron, which led to the development of that community—a symbiotic relationship between humans and dragons that continues to this day, all these hundreds of years later.

From this we learn that making peace is always preferable to making war. For the dragons, despite all their power, had ultimately to flee from the humans in their world in order to survive. Yet it is with humans that they now reside in harmony, each lending the other unique elements of their power to create a peace that is itself far greater than the sum of its parts.

~from the lecture notes of Tandor

“Traz!” Shandry and I screamed in unison. I pulled her to her feet and headed toward the place where he’d tumbled down. I couldn’t hurry or I’d fall, too, and it took an agonizingly long time to make the twenty or so steps. Being careful not to overbalance, I looked over the edge. Traz’s crumpled form lay unmoving on the road below.

Shandry stood next to me, looking down, her face pale. “Do you think he’s all right?” she asked. Dyster, impatient to keep moving, stamped a hoof and snorted.

“We won’t know until we get down there. Come on.”

It took an eternity to get down to the next level. The urge to rush had to give way to the need for caution. But we finally reached him.

I could tell right away that he was still breathing. He lay on his side. Shandry tied the pony’s reins to the nearest shrub, then knelt in the mud near Traz’s head. She put one hand on his shoulder to steady him in place while she ran the other down his back. I watched her, anxiety making my heart beat hard.

“His back’s all right,” she finally said, then she repositioned herself to check his skull. I found myself holding my breath until she looked at me and said, “Just a lump or two, nothing worse.”

We gingerly turned him onto his back. And then we found that he hadn’t escaped completely unscathed when we saw the ugly angle at which his lower leg lay in relation to where it should be.

“That’s bad,” Shandry said. “Do you know how … ?”

“I’ve set a few bones, but always under the healing master’s watchful eye and never something this bad.”

“You’re one up on me there. I know the theory, but haven’t ever done it myself.”

“We’ll just have to do the best we can,” I said. I looked around, up and down the hillside, but there weren’t any sturdy branches. “There’s nothing to splint it with.”

“Where’s his staff?” Shandry said. “It’s too long, but it’ll work in a pinch.”

“Good thinking. Where’d it land, though?”

Shandry spotted it first, halfway down the next bit of slope. “I’ll get it,” she said. “You check his arms and other leg.”

“Be careful. One accident is already one too many.”

“You’ve got that right.”

I turned my attention back to Traz. Everything else felt sound, as far as I could tell. I was glad for his sake that he was unconscious, but I was worried, too. His skull might be intact, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t hurt his head. He was covered head to foot in mud, and had a scrape along his jaw. A few moments later, Shandry was back.

“What do we do?” she asked, placing the staff on the ground.

“Well, you hold his thigh in place, and I’ll straighten his leg.”

She crouched down. “I’m awfully glad he’s not awake.”

I just nodded, trying to summon the courage to do what had to be done.

Shandry took hold of his thigh and gave me a nod. I took his lower leg in both hands and tried to ease it gently into place. It didn’t move. I took a deep breath, swallowed, and applied more pressure. Still nothing. Breaking out into a sweat of worry, I closed my eyes and reached for my maejic. I imagined Traz’s leg set to rights, and applied even more pressure, gently but steadily. His leg finally moved. When it was straight, someone cried out, and I didn’t know whether it was Traz or me. With another nod to Shandry, I let go and wiped the sweat from my brow. Shandry picked up the staff and positioned it while I dug rope out of one of the packs. We bound his leg securely, but not too tightly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Only to realize that we weren’t anything like out of trouble yet.

We were only halfway down the bends, and the footing was bad, but we couldn’t stay where we were since there was no shelter or wood for a fire.

“The first way station is at the bottom,” Shandry said. “But it’s not going to be easy getting him down there.”

She’d told us that the folk on this side of the mountain kept way stations for travelers. During the Summer, they’d each be manned with a cook and several other people to help manage things, and traders would set up to supply travelers with food and wares. The rest of the time, no one manned the way stations, but it was expected that anyone staying in one replenished the wood they used.

“This is really
not
good,” Shandry said again.

“We’d better just put him on Dyster and hope that he doesn’t come to on the way.”

I kept a hand on Traz’s shoulder, willing him to stay unconscious for now while Shandry rearranged the baggage on the pony. Then, lifting Traz as carefully as we could, we lay him over Dyster’s back, his legs dangling down one side and his arms down the other. I could only hope that moving him this way didn’t make things worse.

Shandry took the pony’s reins while I walked alongside, one hand on Traz’s back to keep him from falling off. Dyster, in one of his rare comments, assured me that he understood the importance of not letting the boy fall off.

Going slowly, we made our way down the steep hillside. Though both Shandry and I slipped several times, neither of us fell.

When we got to the bottom, we were both as muddy as Traz. The blood had drained from his face, and he looked to be in a bad way. I wished, as I had a million times on the descent, that he hadn’t fallen. Or that I had the power to instantly heal him, though I doubted such a power existed.

“The way station isn’t much farther,” Shandry said.

Ten minutes later, the most welcome of sights up ahead caught my eyes: a real, proper roof peeked out between the tree trunks. We quickened our steps.

The way station was a large, stone hut, sturdily built and empty of anything except a fireplace and a large store of dry wood. We carried Traz inside and lay him near the hearth. Shandry went back outside to unload Dyster and settle him for the night in the small stable behind the hut. I built a fire and fussed more over Traz. I removed his damp jacket and wrapped him in all the blankets we had with us, then washed the dried mud from his face and hands. I checked his leg and was both relieved and surprised to find that it hadn’t swelled up.

By the time Shandry came back inside, the fire had warmed the single room of the hut, and it felt downright luxurious not to feel cold. She let out a sigh of relief as she took off her cloak and hung it next to mine on a peg near the door.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Well, his leg doesn’t seem to be any worse, although I don’t see how that can be. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Let’s take it as a good sign.”

Traz had hunted well the night before, and we’d packed the extra meat, so I got it out, along with the cooking gear, and started making supper while Shandry took the waterskins out to the well to refill them. I made enough for three, in case Traz awoke, and left his portion in the pot on the edge of the hearth, keeping warm.

After we’d eaten our meal and cleaned the dishes, we sat watching Traz and sipping tea. I wondered how we’d ever complete the journey now.

“Is there somewhere we can take him, where we can find a healer or something?” I asked.

“Not very near,” she replied. “A few days’ journey on there’s … but, no, we can’t go there.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Where? And why not?”

She didn’t answer at first, then shook her head in a slow, almost dreamy way. “The road skirts the edges of his land, and that’s too close for comfort as it is.”

Before I could ask her who and what she was talking about, a quiet sigh escaped Traz’s lips. We both moved nearer to him, but he still didn’t show any signs of coming around.

I placed a hand on his chest. His breathing was smooth and regular, his heartbeat strong.

“No fever,” Shandry said after feeling his forehead and cheeks. “Not yet anyway.”

“I’d feel better if he weren’t unconscious,” I said, unable to keep the worry out of my voice.

Shandry half-smiled and said, “He wouldn’t.”

In other circumstances, I would’ve laughed.

My hand still on Traz’s chest, I closed my eyes. The beat of his heart traveled up my arm and into my spirit. It was a strong rhythm, like a large festival drum. My own heart changed its beat to match. As I concentrated on feeling what Traz felt, an unexpected joy welled up inside me, threatening to overflow and break into a dance of celebration.

This couldn’t be Traz. Surely his body must be in terrible pain, and not only from his leg, but from his fall, too. Disconcerted, I pulled my hand away and sat there rubbing it.

“What?” Shandry asked in a worried tone.

“Nothing,” I said, unsure of what the vision meant and not really wanting to talk about it.

“Is he all right?”

“What do you mean, is he all right?” I exploded. “Of course he’s not all right! You know that as well as I do. If there’s someplace to go where we can get help, I don’t see why you won’t tell me.”

Her eyes didn’t meet mine as she said in a quiet voice, “You just don’t understand.”

“That’s right, I don’t understand. I don’t understand what could possibly be more important than helping Traz right now. You agreed to lead us, and you were all anxious to leave your old life behind. So if you have a good reason not to help, I’m waiting to hear it.”

At first, I didn’t think she was going to explain. When she finally began to speak, her voice was low, but it strengthened as she spoke. And this is the story she told me.

When she’d been born, her mother, as was the custom for one who for any reason did not want to raise a child, had left her in the village square, exposed to the elements to die, or to be taken by some pitying soul. Several times each year, the villagers endured the crying of a newborn infant as it lay there, unfed, unloved, unwanted. Winter was more merciful, for usually the babe died in the night.

Shandry, though, disappeared as soon as it grew dark—the first baby in living memory to be taken in. And even more interesting to the village gossips, nobody knew who had taken her. No one had been seen passing through that day or the next, and there were no families with an unaccounted baby. She simply disappeared in the night, never to be seen again.

The old couple who took her were sages, very powerful ones who’d been cast out of their community. They’d raised Shandry as their own, teaching her skills both mundane and arcane, for they knew that she, too, would be outcast and would have to rely on herself for everything. And indeed, they’d died before she was sixteen.

In the two years since, Shandry had grown and hunted her own food, made her own clothes and weapons, and spun and woven her own cloth. She crystal-gazed, scryed, and attuned herself to the earth’s life-force.

I didn’t interrupt her while she told me all this, and when she stopped speaking, it was several moments before my mind settled on which question to ask first.

“But don’t you get lonely, never seeing
anyone?”

She wiped a sleeve across her nose, just as Traz might if he thought no one was looking. “I didn’t before Ama and Paypa died, and since then, I’ve had too much to do to be lonely.” But she didn’t meet my gaze, and I didn’t press her.

“Well, what did Ama and Paypa do to get cast out? That sounds pretty serious.”

“Depends on your point of view. The eldest son of the local lord was studying at the order house where they taught.”

“He was going to become a sage?”

Shandry shook her head. “I don’t think so. Rennirt would’ve had to give up his place in the succession of the lordship if he’d done that. I think his father sent him to the order house in hopes he’d acquire some discipline. That’s what Ama told me, anyway. But he liked best to use his power to bully other students and even some of the sages. After more warnings than any regular student would’ve gotten, he finally got involved in some scandal, and my parents, who were the leaders of the order house, forced him to leave.”