The second thing Thanquil noticed was the bandages. He was swamped in them. He could feel at least one around his head, his chest was more linen than skin, his left arm was in a sturdy-looking sling and, though he couldn’t see underneath the blanket that covered his legs, he could feel bandages down there too. He tried to use his right arm to push himself up into a sitting position and discovered the pain that had been absent. With a strangled cry he collapsed back down onto the bed and considered passing out again.
“You shouldn’t try to move yet,” came a voice that sounded familiar. “You took a nasty drop from the window and…”
The woman’s voice faded away as Thanquil chanted a curse to dull his senses. He silently thanked Volmar someone had removed the charm that had prevented his magic and pushed himself up into a sitting position, resting his back against the wall of the room.
As he stopped the curse the pain was the first thing to flood back in followed swiftly by a fair dose of agony but both soon began to wane and he stopped wincing, opened his eyes and looked about the room.
He was in an infirmary of sorts and he was far from being the only patient. Beds lined the walls spaced no more than a couple of meters apart and every one was occupied. Some of the injured were conscious, some were not. Some were strapped down, some were lying down, others were sitting up. One thing Thanquil saw a lot of was burns.
The woman who had advised he stay lying down was staring at him. She was short and thick with wide hips, heavy breasts and a face just beginning to wrinkle. Her dark brown hair was tied in a bun behind her head but strands had pulled loose and cluttered down by her cheeks. Her ice blue eyes regarded him curiously. She looked far from a typical woman of the Dragon Empire.
“Not many men would have the strength to sit so soon after taking the injuries you did,” she said. Her voice suited her well, dusky and well-used to giving orders but accented as one used to speaking a different language.
Thanquil laughed. “If Jez can sew herself shut after being run through I think I can manage sitting up.”
“Who’s Jez?” the woman asked.
Thanquil almost answered but he caught himself and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Where am I?”
He felt his compulsion locking onto the woman’s mind, felt the brief rush of ecstasy as his will subverted her own and forced her to think only of the answer to his question. In that brief moment Thanquil hated himself for his weakness.
“My hospice in the village of Colmere,” the woman answered and then shivered as her will once again became her own. She narrowed her eyes and Thanquil expected her to run, to scream, to hit him. He expected her to do almost anything other than sit at the foot of his bed.
“You are one of them Arbiters then,” she said and it wasn’t a question.
Thanquil nodded. “The coat usually gives it away.”
“That thing?” the woman asked, nodding across the bed. Thanquil followed her gesture and saw his coat hanging next to him, stained and ripped in multiple places and now darkened with smudges of soot and ash. That coat was a part of Thanquil and he felt naked without it. “I saw it,” she continued. “Wasn’t sure but I thought that’s what it was. None of the others would dare come near you even after I made it an order.”
Thanquil snorted. “Aye. Afraid I’d burn them, no doubt.”
The woman’s face went hard. “So it was you who started the fire?”
He shook his head. “No but it was meant for me. A witch with a keen sense of irony strapped me down and tried to set me on fire. One day I hope to repay her in kind.”
“Will I have to save her once she jumps out of a window and feints as well?” the woman asked with a smile.
Thanquil scoffed. “I didn’t feint. I passed out. There’s a difference.”
The woman patted his leg. “Of course there is.” She stood. “You need to rest, a couple of days at least. If you need anything just yell for me.”
Thanquil had a feeling the woman was right about the rest, he could feel how heavy his limbs were and how the weight of the world seemed to be tugging at his eyelids. “I might need your name for that.”
“Shen,” the woman said in her dusky tone as she walked away.
Three days after escaping the burning inn and Thanquil was far from satisfied with his recovery. His back and legs were healing nicely from the splinters that had riddled him after the demon made kindling of the bed. They were scabbed over and, though they still occasionally oozed a little, they itched like a fire ant attack. Itching, Shen assured him, was a good sign.
His shoulder was another matter altogether. Rarely had an injury been so much of an annoyance save the burn that covered most of his right hand and about a third of his right arm. At least he had earned the burn during his fight with the heretical Inquisitor Heron; being so injured by a poor landing from a twenty feet drop seemed embarrassing by comparison.
Shen was never far. She had plenty of other patients, that much was certainly true, but around Thanquil she lingered. He had seen similar reactions in many folk before, usually men and usually for a different reason. Some people were so scared of Arbiters they wouldn’t come within shouting distance in case they were noticed by the witch hunter, others would make a daring game of who could stay in the Arbiter’s company for the longest. It was no small wonder to Thanquil that, despite him being part of the Inquisition, the most feared organisation in the known world, and despite him having the power to both judge and sentence people on sight and at a whim, some folk continued to seek out his company. Shen was without a doubt one of those folk. Her torrent of questions always seemed endless.
“How does one become an Arbiter?”
“How long does the training take?”
“Do you enjoy your work?”
“Why do you burn people?”
“Who is Jezzet?”
The inquisitive healer even had the gall to ask Thanquil how many people he had murdered. He had long ago stopped counting but he wouldn’t have answered even had he been able to remember; some things were best left to God.
“How is the witch hunter doing today?” Shen asked as she approached. The morning light had been shining in through the windows for easily an hour and one of the younger healers had already been round with the breakfast meal; she had stopped and talked with most of the others, at least those that were conscious, but the young woman all but threw Thanquil’s food at him before fleeing from his sight.
“Tired,” Thanquil growled as he pushed himself into a sitting position. He no longer had to use a curse to dull his senses to mask the pain and for that he thanked Volmar but the tiredness grated his nerves. It seemed almost as if weariness had seeped deep into his bones and no amount of sleep could rid him of it.
“That’s to be expected, Arbiter,” Shen said with a smile as she perched on the end of his bed. “It will almost certainly take a week or two before you’re back to running around looking for people to burn.”
“I usually heal quite quickly,” Thanquil said, “but this time…” he could already feel the energy draining away from him, tugging at his eyelids. His shoulders drooped and he let out a dogged sigh.
“Men…” Shen said shaking her head. “Always seem to think you’re invincible and always lament when you find out you’re not.”
Thanquil snorted. “I long ago learned I’m not. Jezzet’s the invincible one.”
“What does she look like?”
Thanquil felt the corners of his mouth tug into a smile and he was just about to answer when he caught himself. He composed himself. “Surely you have some sort of brew or tonic or herb that can speed healing or at least give me the energy to get under way.”
Shen shrugged. “None that will serve you half so well as few more days rest.”
“I don’t have the time.”
“Still on about chasing that witch, are you? Besides, in your condition if you step outside you’ll probably end up with a rope around your neck. I can’t protect you out there.”
On the first day a group had gathered outside the infirmary and had shouted and threatened and demanded Shen bring out the witch hunter. It appeared some of the folk in Colmere blamed him for the fire and they made enough a racket that Thanquil had heard it even abed. Some had apparently thrown a few rocks but Shen had put a stop to that. The healer seemed to have a tight grip on the village inhabitants, rare for a woman in the Dragon Empire, but if he was seen outside and unable to defend himself the mob would rally and there would be nothing she could do. It pained Thanquil to admit it but Shen was right; he would just have to wait until his body had healed itself. Either that or sneak out in the dead of night when all but the most foolhardy were long since asleep.
“You should get some more rest,” Shen said with a warm smile that lit up her face. She was beautiful in a strange matronly way that was not unappealing to Thanquil.
He shook his head but he could already feel that she was right. “I feel as though I’ve only just woke up.”
“Go back to sleep,” she said still smiling. “There’ll be plenty of time to hunt that witch of yours when you’re back to full strength.”
She pushed on his chest gently and despite his desire to struggle and stay awake Thanquil felt himself give in and sank back down into the bed.
“I should really…”
“Shhhh,” he heard her whisper as his eyes closed and for the briefest moment he thought he felt her lips on his own. Then he was gone.
Thanquil
Thanquil laughed along with Shen. “Honestly, a bed pan. He must have killed hundreds of people, including more than a few Arbiters, and I found him stealing a bed pan.”
“He sounds like an interesting taecko,” Shen said using the word in her own tongue for sell sword. She was once again sitting on the far end of his bed, looking at him with her ice blue eyes crinkled at the edges with a little age and a lot of laughter. Her hand was on his leg, just below his knee and her touch felt somehow reassuring.
“He was,” Thanquil admitted. “I’d say interesting would probably be the best way to describe him.” His laughter trailed off as he remembered.
“What happened to him?” Shen asked. Her smile gone, her face now full of concern. She had a strange way of reading his emotions like he was an open book.
“He… uh,” Thanquil looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “He’s dead.”
Her hand left his leg and she shot him a queer look. “You killed him?”
“No!” Thanquil all but shouted. “Or maybe yes. I sent him after someone else, someone beyond him. I didn’t kill him. I just got him killed.” It felt strange to admit it. His guilt over Thorn’s death was something he’d never revealed to anyone, not even Jezzet.
They were both silent for a while before Shen finally broke the quiet. “I’m sure it wasn’t…”
A scream ripped through the air coming from the far end of the room. One of the burn victims had awoken to find half his body blackened to a crisp and one of his legs missing. It was fair to say the discovery caused him some surprise.
Shen leapt up from the bed. One of the other healers was already beside the screaming man but such an injury would need the best and that was Shen.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I need to go. You should rest.”
Thanquil nodded, his eyelids feeling heavy as the healer hurried away to deal with the burned man. He watched her work from his bed, watched how she soothed and calmed, how she ministered over his wounds and how she ordered the other healers about despite more than one being twice her age. Shen seemed to do a good job of calming the man before brewing a cup of tea and helping him drink, within minutes the man was unconscious again and she stood, wiping a bloody hand across her brow. She glanced once in Thanquil’s direction and smiled before another of the healers dragged her into the next room.
He acted quickly, shifting over in the bed and reaching across until he had hold of his coat. There were ten pockets in his Arbiter coat and each contained a variety of runes, charms and other useful items but Thanquil had long ago taken to memorising what he kept in each pocket. It was sometimes difficult due to his tendency to steal things without realising but his hands found the correct pocket and the correct charm in short order. It was a small strip of paper no wider than two fingers and no longer than his hand and on it was inked a single symbol imbued with energy. A sleepless charm. It wouldn’t stop the affected from feeling tired but it would stop them from falling asleep or losing consciousness; a powerful charm and a dangerous one if used incorrectly but Thanquil had years of practice with it. He pushed his coat back into position and sealed the charm to his skin, just above his knee before pulling the blanket up to cover it. Then he waited.
The sun had long since move past its zenith when Shen returned, it was in fact dimming quite rapidly in the infirmary and one of the young boys had recently been around to light candles. Thanquil thought it no small wonder that they would still trust him so close to an open flame, many no doubt still blamed him for the burning down of the inn and the majority of the injured currently occupying the very same building he did.
“I thought I told you to rest,” Shen said as she approached. She looked tired, weary from a day’s heavy exertion, smudged with blood and grimy with sweat. Somehow it only managed to increase her appeal.
“You did,” Thanquil said with a grin. “But I’ve never been very good at following orders. Defiant, Jezzet called me. Said I did it on purpose though she could never figure out why.”
The curvy healer nodded. “It sounds like you really care for her.”
Thanquil looked at Shen for a few seconds before judging the time was right to look away. “I suppose so. I really should be leaving sometime. How long before my shoulder is fully healed.”
Now it was Shen’s turn to look away. “Joint injuries are always the worst to heal. I wouldn’t say any more than another week at most. Are you really in such a hurry to get back?”
“Back… I have a witch to hunt, Shen.”
She snorted. “You should just leave her alone. She does nothing but good for the people.”
Thanquil suppressed a grin, they were finally getting somewhere. “Please, Shen, tell me everything you know. Do not make me ask you.”
