“Perhaps not, but it was the most human one,”
Myranda said.
The inside of the tent smelled strongly of
stale blood and long suffering. Seven cots had been arrayed along
the floor of the long tent. Five were vacant. Upon the one farthest
from the door, a man slept fitfully. Given the commotion still
going on just outside the canvas of the tent, it was fairer to say
that he was no longer strong enough to awaken. The cot nearest the
door was occupied by a man who was coughing weakly. A sickening
gurgle punctuated his breathing, and fresh blood seemed to be
moistening a mound of bandages upon the man’s chest. Two clerics
tended the man, but it was clear from their expressions that they
knew he was beyond their skills. They turned to the unannounced
newcomers, eyes flashing with confusion and concern.
“Who are—” one cleric began to ask.
“I’m here to help. What happened to this
man?” Myranda said.
For the moment, the promise of help from a
woman who seemed confident she could provide it was enough to push
aside any other concerns.
“There was an attack. He was pinned beneath a
collapsed ceiling,” the first cleric said.
“He seemed to be recovering, but an hour ago
he started bleeding again,” the second added.
Myranda crouched beside the injured man and
shut her eyes, probing his body with her mind to learn the depths
of the injury. She felt Deacon’s will brush hers as he did the
same.
“His ribs are broken. They’ve pierced his
lung,” Deacon said, confirming what Myranda had sensed. He turned
to the first cleric. “Why didn’t you have your healer mend his
wound?”
“This
is
our healer,” said the second
cleric. “We had two, but the first was killed in the attack.”
“And the other man?” Deacon asked. “How is he
faring?”
“He is sleeping, but he is getting weaker
each day,” the second cleric said.
“I’ll see to him,” Deacon said, stepping
quickly to the sleeping man’s side.
Myranda looked at the clerics. “I need to set
the bones. It will be painful for him, but it is better that it be
done quickly. Then I will close the wounds and put him in a healing
sleep.”
“Whatever you must do, but please hurry,”
said the first cleric.
She shut her eyes again and focused, reaching
out with her will and allowing it to curl about the damaged ribs. A
less experienced healer would be tempted to move the bones slowly,
gently. Myranda knew better. She’d mended her own cracked ribs too
many times, and had learned after the first attempt that there was
no way to do it that wasn’t agonizing. Better to do it quickly than
draw out the suffering. In total there were three ribs broken. Two
on the left side, thankfully not driven into the lungs or heart,
and one on the right, the one responsible for the most dire of the
damage. When her mind was wrapped tightly about the bones, she drew
in a deep breath.
“Hold him,” she said.
When the clerics obliged, pinning the
suffering soldier by the arms, Myranda snapped the ribs back into
place. The man would have screamed if he’d been able. Instead he
released a strangled, gurgling sound and descended into violent
coughing. She reached deep beneath the pain and coaxed the
fractures into knitting. If she devoted enough time and effort to
it, she could heal the bones completely, but for now she just
needed them strong enough to stay in place while the rest of the
job was done.
The man was coughing harder, but Myranda
pushed the sound from her mind. There was no use leaving the ribs
to stand on their own. The way he was struggling he would very
nearly break a healthy set of bones. She resolved to hold them with
her mind while carefully weaving the next stage of the spell,
pulling together the ragged ends of where his lung had been gashed.
It took a terrific effort, but slowly she could feel the opening
seal. Unlike the bones, this must be done in its entirety through
magic alone. If his own healing was left to complete even the tail
end of the job, one solid cough would undo all she’d done.
It took two minutes of intense concentration
and a dozen quietly murmured incantations to bolster the effects,
but finally the man’s breathing eased and his coughing subsided.
For the first time since she’d begun her work, Myranda opened her
eyes. Though there was no doubt the man had vastly improved, his
struggles and coughing had left him a horrid sight to look at. In
clearing his lungs, he’d spattered the ceiling and walls of the
tent with flecks of red. Myranda and the clerics had received their
share as well.
With a touch to the injured man’s face and a
final twist of magic, Myranda nudged him into a badly needed
slumber.
“He’ll awaken in a day or two. He should
recover fully,” Myranda said, wavering slightly.
She wasn’t truly fatigued by the exertion,
but pulling into and out of the level of concentration necessary
for such spells had a way of making one unsteady. At the slightest
suggestion that she might need something to lean on, Deacon
appeared by her side, steadying her.
“Fine work,” he said. “As always.”
Myranda turned to the second patient. “And
how is he?”
“His wounds were healing badly, and there was
a fever. Simple enough to ease.”
“May you be blessed, good woman,” said the
first cleric.
“You have done the work of the divine today,”
said the second.
“No,” Myranda said. “We did what anyone would
have done. But you are very welcome.” She sighed and turned to the
door. “And now it is time to face the consequences.”
“Shall we?” Deacon asked.
“Of course,” she replied.
He set down his crystal. She did the same
with her staff, and he lightly waved his hand across the simple
cloth flap of the tent. The spell reinforcing it wafted away,
allowing two soldiers to burst inside, swords drawn.
Myranda folded her hands in front of her, and
Deacon did the same, stepping slowly toward the courtyard. The
soldiers kept their distance, for the world appearing as though
they were facing down a pair of tigers.
When Myranda and Deacon were fully into the
courtyard, the level of chaos they’d left behind became abundantly
clear. What had begun as a test of strength between Garr and Myn
had clearly become something personal. Each was rumbling with a
sound just barely short of a roar, and long furrows of the
courtyard had been dug out by their claws as each was pushed back
by the other in kind. The soldiers labored at their wits end,
unwilling to venture near enough to put their weapons to use
without fear of being lashed by a sweeping tail, and unable to fire
arrows or throw pikes without fear of striking Garr, who was
effectively a fellow soldier.
Grustim stalked up to the pair of
wizards.
“Call off your beast and I will do the same,”
he commanded.
“Myn! Enough!” Myranda called out.
She stopped her shoving but held her ground,
grinding slowly backward thanks to Garr’s efforts until a similar
order coaxed the green dragon to stillness as well. Each beast
stood stone still, horns locked together, and gazing up into the
eyes of the other. After a moment while the rest of the courtyard
held its breath, Myn narrowed her eyes slightly and huffed a quick
breath.
“Don’t!” Myranda warned, but it was too late.
The dragon had made her mind up.
Myn twisted her head sharply to the side and
heaved all of her weight in that direction. It was just enough to
throw Garr off balance, sending the male tumbling aside with an
earth-shaking blow and knocking his helmet halfway across the
courtyard. She then plopped her hindquarters down and craned her
neck proudly.
Garr scrambled to his feet, a furious gleam
in his eye, but before he could do anything, Grustim issued a
throaty order. Garr turned to him with a sharp look of protest, but
Grustim remained firm. Reluctantly the male trudged to Myn’s side
and sat heavily, glaring at her. Myn flicked her tongue once and
lashed her tail, looking down at Myranda.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Myranda said
with a shake of her head.
“You see!” cried Brustuum, stomping as
angrily toward them as his battered body would allow. “You see the
arrogance with which those of the north conduct themselves?”
“What did you think you were doing?” Grustim
demanded, for a moment forgetting protocol and simply speaking to
Myranda as he might to
anyone
who had taken her life and
liberty into her own hands in a very tense situation.
“I refused to allow a man to die because of
the distrust between our people.” She offered up her wrists. “Throw
me in irons if you must. I fully accept that I’ve acted without
proper regard to the situation, but it had to be done.”
She spoke without challenge or arrogance.
This was not an act of defiance. Her words were sincere. What she’d
done was an act of mercy for the men in the tent, but a
tremendously dangerous one and certainly a breach of any number of
well-designed protocols. A punishment was called for.
“I understand that something terrible
happened here, and that it appears to have been done on behalf of
my kingdom. I assure you this is not so, but I fully understand
that you must err on the side of caution until it can be proved
otherwise. None of us will resist.”
“Men, secure the Northerners. Separate
cells,” Brustuum ordered. “And secure the dragon.”
Myn looked down to the assembled soldiers.
Unlike Myranda, her own gaze was dripping with challenge.
“Myn, go where they say, do what they say,
and for heaven’s sake, behave,” Myranda instructed.
The dragon gave Myranda a pleading look.
“I mean it,” Myranda said as a pair of heavy
metal shackles was secured about her wrists. As she was taken by
the shoulders and led toward the gate of the damaged keep, she
turned to Grustim.
“I trust your capacity to handle this
situation properly,” Myranda said.
“Handle this situation?” he said, flustered
for perhaps the first time in years. “I do not even understand what
precisely this situation
is
.”
“Then seeking understanding is an excellent
place to start,” Deacon suggested, receiving his own pair of
restraints.
“I am
not
a diplomat!” Grustim
objected.
Myranda glanced over her shoulder and gave a
wry smile. “You can hardly do worse than I did…”
#
Grustim paced through the halls of the
damaged stronghold, two steps behind Commander Brustuum. He had
shed the heavy plates of armor, dressed now only in the padding and
thin mail usually worn beneath it. In the earliest days of his
training as a Dragon Rider the armor had been torturous to wear.
Now, even when among fellow soldiers, he felt naked without it.
Never had that been truer than at this moment. Something about this
place, about the attitude of the commander who was his host, made
him profoundly uneasy. He didn’t feel as though he was among
allies. Dragons, it is said, are fast and accurate judges of
character. This was yet another trait that Dragon Riders seemed to
absorb through proximity, because somehow Brustuum had rubbed
Grustim wrong at first sight. With each word and every action, that
feeling of distrust grew stronger.
He turned his gaze from the limping commander
and surveyed his surroundings. The damage to the stronghold had
been quite apparent on the outside, but it was even more so on the
inside. Wooden support beams were splintered. The stone of some
walls had been utterly pulverized. Grustim had good reason to doubt
the roof would remain in place for much longer.
“You see… you see what comes of trusting
monsters…” Brustuum fumed as he led to the end of a hallway that
was, though not wholly intact, at least not in imminent threat of
collapse.
A wooden door at the end, the only one that
was still seated squarely in its frame, bore a recently applied
brass nameplate etched with Brustuum’s name and rank.
“You will accept my apologies for the
disarray. My own quarters were badly damaged. I was forced to move
my things rather hastily to this room. Please, come inside, sit
down.”
Brustuum opened the door and the pair
entered. The room was somewhat more comfortably furnished than the
rest of the keep, but in a very precise and austere way that seemed
to transcend culture. These were an officer’s quarters, appointed
in a way that spelled luxury to a lifelong soldier and was barely
tolerable to a civilian. Grustim had been in a dozen such rooms,
and though they were no doubt furnished to the strict requirements
of each individual officer, they may as well have been built from
the same template. Comfort, in the mind of a fighter, came in a
very simple form: a sturdy chair, a firm bed, and strong drink. The
latter came in the form of a bolted liquor cabinet against the far
wall, just at the head of the bed. It stank of recently spilled
spirits, and when he lifted the bolt and pulled the door open, the
wooden hinge ground with the sound of broken glass lodged within.
The cabinet was largely bare, only three bottles occupying a space
suitable for a dozen.
“Sit,” Brustuum said, indicating a second
chair set opposite a few planks of wood stretched between two
sawhorses.
In the shadow of the recent disaster, Grustim
supposed it was playing the role of a desk. He took a seat and
watched as the commander set the bottle of liquor on the table, as
well as a cracked ceramic pitcher of water and two glasses.
“May I offer you a drink?” Brustuum
asked.
“Dragon Riders do not consume spirits,” he
replied.
“Such was my understanding. But from time to
time I’ve known men to overlook the lesser aspects of duty and
protocol.”
“I am not such a man.”
“Then you are a better man than I,” Brustuum
said with a stifled chuckle.