Authors: Maria V. Snyder
“Yes, I won’t go off searching for Belen...for now.”
“Thank you.”
I glanced around the cave. “Where are your injured?”
“There’s another cave southeast of here. We’ve been using it as an infirmary. It’s well hidden, easy to defend and has a back entrance. I also would like you to keep harvesting those toxin sacks.”
“If the Death Lilys keep giving them to me, I can.”
“I’ll have the monkeys and Flea escort you to the cave and stay there for future toxin runs and help with defense.”
“Shouldn’t they stay with you?”
“They’ll be safer with you.”
I smiled sadly. He understood if I lost another friend, I’d dissolve into a puddle. A morbid thought crossed my mind. I didn’t have any more family members to lose. At least I’d spent the last minutes of Noelle’s life with her. And that reminded me...
“Ryne, what did you tell Noelle?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you tried to get her to come with you before midsummer’s day. You said something to her about me?”
“Oh. Well, you might not like this.”
“Why not? It made her stop hating me.”
“I told her those letters she wrote to you when your family was sick hadn’t been delivered.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s the part you’re not going to like.”
“Spit it out.”
“Remember, this was
before
we knew what was going on with the plague and I had just lost my sister.” He paused as if summoning the courage. “In my quest for information, I stole a bunch of papers from your mentor Tara’s office. I grabbed what I could and left. When I went through them, I found a stack of opened letters addressed to you.” He cringed with guilt. “I read through them, but since they didn’t have any relevance to me, I threw them away.”
“You’re right.”
“About what?”
“I don’t like it.” Not that my irritation could change anything. Tara had hidden the letters from me, so I should be mad at her. Except if I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, I would have noticed that I hadn’t gotten a letter from home in a while. “Thanks for telling Noelle. Bad enough she’s gone, but it would have been torture if she’d died without forgiving me.”
* * *
“Babysitting duty,” Quain muttered with disgust for the third time in the last hour.
“That’s enough,” Loren snapped. “This is just as important as fighting. Besides, it’s
Avry
. Trouble follows her.”
“Hey,” I said, acting indignant. Acting, because...well, it was true.
Unmollified, Quain huffed.
We ignored him. He’d been bellyaching since we’d left the Healer’s Guild cave. Ryne had assigned the monkeys and Flea as promised. He’d also sent Enric along. We’d left in the morning, and it would take us all day to reach the “infirmary.” We didn’t expect any trouble as the route to the cave didn’t have any red
X
s on Ryne’s map.
Sunlight shone through the trees, heating the air to an almost uncomfortable level, despite being twenty days away from the end of summer. In the fall, Kerrick’s eyes had been a lovely russet color with flecks of orange, gold and red.
To keep from crying and to stop Quain from whining, I asked Loren about the skirmishes. “You’re a small unit, how have you been faring against Tohon’s larger army?”
He flashed me a grateful smile. “We rely on ambushes mostly, drawing the enemy into the kill zone before attacking. Then we don’t linger. By the time the enemy unit changes from pure reaction to action, we’re already leaving.”
“How about the dead soldiers?” I asked.
“We’ve been using blow guns and darts filled with the toxin until our supply ran out.” Loren grinned. “So we are really really really glad to see you, Avry.”
Now it was my turn to mutter. “I guess if you’d have known about the Death Lily toxin before, you wouldn’t have left me to deal with Tohon alone.” I rubbed my cheek. Even when compared to Belen’s stab wounds, Kerrick’s whipping and Noelle’s knife to the gut, that onslaught remained the most pain I’d ever experienced.
Loren and Quain wouldn’t meet my hard gaze. Guess I wasn’t as fine with them leaving me as I’d claimed.
“The one thing I won’t miss about the attacks is the smell,” Flea said. “Those dead reek so bad I about throw up every time I get a whiff.”
“They don’t reek as much as your socks,” Quain said.
“My socks are sweet compared to your sh—”
“Gentlemen,” Loren warned.
And just like that, the mood returned to normal. As we hiked, I mulled over Loren’s comments.
“What happens if something goes wrong when you’re engaging the enemy?” I asked Loren.
“Prince Ryne has given us contingencies for every possible outcome. If our primary attack runs foul, we switch to another tactic, and if that doesn’t work, then we have three more options to try before we retreat.”
“Every possible outcome? I find that hard to believe,” I said.
“I’ve been leading our small unit for the last ten days and haven’t used more than two options. Kerrick was right. Prince Ryne has a gift for strategy.” Loren glanced at me in concern. Probably worried that mentioning Kerrick’s name would upset me.
It did, but I kept control of my emotions.
“What about communication between units and with Prince Ryne?” Enric asked. “His map had
X
s all over the place. You don’t have any magicians, so how do you know you’re not ambushing yourselves?”
Loren studied Enric as if impressed with his questions. “Prince Ryne assigns each unit a series of tasks. When those tasks are complete, we return for another set of directives. He knows which unit is doing what at any given time. He has loads more maps with diagrams.”
“Where did he get them?” I asked.
“He drew them when we were in Estrid’s camp.”
“And when we were in hiding. He had plenty of time then,” Flea added completely unaware of Loren’s signal to shut up.
“Good to know he was putting that time to good use. I’d hate to think he was relaxing while Estrid’s soldiers were dying as they tried to break the encirclement.” The bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
Loren and Quain glanced at each other. Quain made a go-on gesture to his friend.
“Avry, we’re sorry we had to...to deceive you,” Loren said. “But no matter which angle we looked at the problem, Tohon would have torn the encampment apart, searching for you. It would have ruined our entire strategy, and all of Estrid’s and our soldiers would have died. ’Cause you know as well as we did that Tohon wasn’t going to ‘incorporate’ the armies.”
Ryne’s tactics made sense. I hadn’t doubted that.
“Plus, you were needed,” Flea said. “You healed lots of people while we couldn’t help anyone.”
Another valid point.
“And we were worried you might let our...surprise slip.”
Perfectly reasonable.
“And you figured it out. Which really impressed Prince Ryne,” Quain said.
Which made me ask, “How did you plan to get past the encirclement before I sent the toxin?”
“We sent a bunch of our people out as the POWs to help on the outside,” Loren said.
“That wouldn’t have been enough.”
“You’re right.” Quain’s eyes lit up. “We had axes.”
I waited.
“Made from liquid metal,” Loren said. “We...er...raided Zabin’s arms merchant’s supply of liquid metal axes. They cleave right through those collars Tohon put on his dead. But we didn’t have many, and it would have been an outright, dragged-out fight with many casualties. Your way was much better.”
“Glad I could help.” Again with the sarcasm—what was wrong with me?
“Avry, we’ve explained and apologized,” Loren said. “You let us believe you were dead for months, and we forgave you. What more do you need?”
“I don’t need—” And then it clicked. “What bothered me wasn’t that you left, but that you left without asking me to come along.” I held up a hand. “All those points you made were excellent reasons for me to stay behind. But you didn’t think I would have made them, too. That I would have said, no, go on without me and don’t tell me anything. You assumed I’d want to run and hide with you.”
“But you admitted to being terrified of Tohon,” Quain said.
“I did. But I wouldn’t have compromised you guys because of my fear. I guess I’m upset because you think I would.”
“I understand now,” Loren said. “Okay, so we’ve made a mistake and so have you...so, we’re even?”
I smiled. “We’re even.”
“And you escaped from Tohon,” Flea said. “Does that mean you’re not afraid of him anymore?”
“I’d be an idiot not to be, but I’m not terrified that he’ll claim me any longer.”
“Why not?”
“Because he can’t.”
“Woo hoo! Score one for the healer!” Quain pumped his fist in the air.
“Oh, grow up, Quain,” Loren said.
“Lighten up, Loren. You make an acolyte seem fun in comparison.”
“I do not. You’re like an overeager puppy—all drool and unable to hold your bow—”
“Boys,” I said. “That’s enough. Besides, we should be encouraging Quain in his efforts to be housebroken, not—”
“Hey!” Quain rushed me.
I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers. “Beware the touch of death!”
He tackled me anyway. We rolled on the ground together, laughing.
“Great. Just great,” Loren said. “Now the entire realm knows exactly where we are.”
Quain jumped to his feet. “Bring them on! I’m ready for a fight.”
The rest of us groaned. I stood and brushed dirt from my clothes.
Enric pulled a leaf from my hair. “Is this...?”
“Typical behavior?”
He nodded.
“Yes. Now you know why they’re called the monkeys.”
“Lovely,” he deadpanned.
“That’s what I thought as first. Don’t worry, they’ll grow on you.”
“Or I’ll kill them?”
“Pretty much. It’s either a love or hate type of thing.”
“Lovely.”
* * *
We arrived at the cave without encountering another unit or any Death Lilys. The outer guards led us inside. A large cavern had been converted into an infirmary. There were cots instead of beds, but it was better than the patients lying on the cool, hard floor. Medical supplies had been stacked along the right wall, and there were other, smaller caverns being used by the four caregivers who had been helping the wounded.
I quickly assessed the patients. Battle wounds and broken bones. Nothing dire or infected yet. The caregivers had done a good job. After setting up an examination area, I added the herbs I had gathered on our way to the pile of supplies. Then I unrolled my bedroll, smoothing it out near the monkeys’, Flea’s and Enric’s in an otherwise empty area.
The boys were added to the guard duty rotation, but they had the first night off. We sat around a fire, eating dinner and talking about nothing in particular. It felt like old times.
When Quain started to complain about babysitting again, I offered him a new job.
“Anything would be better,” he said.
“Okay, then that nice young caregiver...Valorie...can patrol and you can clean bedpans.”
“I...”
“And suture wounds, set bones and wash patients. You’re not squeamish, are you?”
“I...”
“Great comeback, Quain.” Loren smirked. “Or should I call you lord of the bedpans?”
“Lord B.P., for short,” Flea chimed in, causing a ripple of laughter.
Enric stood. “I think I’ll volunteer to work a shift tonight. Good night.”
When he disappeared from sight, Quain leaned forward and asked, “Where did you find
him?
He’s as dry as jerky.” He waved the piece he’d been gnawing on.
“Be nice, Lord B.P.”
* * *
Working with patients and hanging out with the boys, I started to feel stronger. Grief still hit me at odd times, crashing over me with an unexpected fierceness. At those times all I could do was stagger to an empty cavern and curl up into a tight ball, letting the waves of misery flow until spent.
As the days progressed, new casualties arrived as I released others. One man had a nasty cut on his calf that had become infected on the long trip here. There had to be a better way to get to the injured, but I couldn’t think of it.
It was a steady stream but not overwhelming. I’d assumed Ryne’s tactics must be working, but on the sixth day we received bad news with the latest batch of patients. The red
X
s had advanced, and we might have to evacuate within the week.
Sergeant Odd arrived the next afternoon with his Odd Squad. He didn’t have any injured, but he had heard I’d escaped and stopped by for a visit. While his unit visited with the patients, cheering them up, Odd and I talked.
“We’re back in business,” Odd said with a huge smile. “Finally using all that training. Me and my Odds are silent as ghosts thanks to you.”
Glad to see him, I asked, “How are the others doing?”
“Saul has what’s left of the jumping jacks and a few of his original unit. I’ve heard they’re doing major damage to the west. Wynn has a young squad, and they have been mostly running messages.”
“But it isn’t enough, is it?”
Odd waved away my concern. “It’s like chipping away at a huge rolling boulder. Eventually, we’ll carve it down into a tiny pebble.”
“By then, we might be up against the Nine Mountains.”
Odd shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”
I admired his optimism. And maybe he was right. After all, he’d been out on the field of battle, engaging the enemy. Which reminded me. “Have you seen Belen?”
He sobered. “No sign of him. There have been rumors he was turned, but I don’t believe them.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause it’s
Belen
. Come on. Do you really think he’d get caught? No way. He’s just lying low somewhere, waiting for an opportune moment to strike.” Odd curled his fingers into claws and growled.
It sounded more like a cat in pain than a bear, but he succeeded in making me smile. “Maybe that should be our secret signal.”
“Oh. I like. With or without the roar?”
“Without. Since you’re the ghosts of the forest now.”
“Ah, yes. But what would it mean? We found Belen? Or we found a huge man-eating bear? No, wait, that could be confusing.”