by Paul S. Kemp
They rode through high grass, past autumn-stripped stands of birch and maple. They fell silent when they passed the melted remains of a small village. The village’s cottages had been reduced to shapeless, discolored lumps. The blackened skeletons of dead trees stood in fields of blasted grass and bore silent witness to the carnage wrought by an enraged dragon.
“The dragon rage,” Regg said. “A black, probably.”
Abelar nodded. He had seen a black up close, ten leagues west and south of Saerb. He thanked Lathander that the rage was over.
They left the destruction behind and traveled onward. Presently they reached the fallow fields around the village. The poor harvest had made food scarce. Winter would be unforgiving to the villagers.
At Abelar’s orders, his company took only shelter from the villagers, never food, not even for the horses. The force counted six priests among their number. All were untested and inexperienced, but all were competent to perform the minor miracle of conjuring food and fresh water. They kept the men fed and distributed any excess to the hungry villagers, starting with the children. More often than not, Abelar’s company left the villages better off than when they arrived. The overmistress’s forces would be larger, and would not be as kind. Civil war would leave thousands of innocents dead.
“Sembia is not in a state to survive a war,” Abelar said to Regg.
Regg nodded agreement. “What realm is? Cormyr is still reeling from hers. Here, the wounds of the rage are fresh and the drought lingers. War is always ugly, my friend. And the weak always suffer most.”
“But not on our watch,” Abelar said softly.
“Truth,” Regg affirmed. “Not on our watch.”
Ahead, the chimneys of the log cottages and farms of the village sent thin plumes of smoke into the clear sky. The rhythmic ring of a smith’s hammer carried over the plains. The breeze carried the smell of a cooking fire.
The riders crested a brush-covered rise and saw the village below—a collection of simple homes and animal pens built around a large commons. A woman and her undernourished adolescent daughter drew water from the community well. A few scrawny dogs padded through the lanes.
The canvas tents of Abelar’s company covered a tree-dotted field on the far edge of the village. A boar roasted on a spit over a fire; one of the men must have taken it on a hunt. Two men tended it while the rest went about their business—cleaning armor, training, eating, talking. The company’s horses grazed in the dry grass away from the tents. All were saddled, as if the company were ready to ride.
“Where’s the watch?” Regg asked.
“Watching,” said a voice from their right.
Three men in leather jerkins rose from a crouch and stepped out of the undergrowth. All bore loaded crossbows in their hands and broadswords at their belts. Bone signal whistles dangled from leather thongs around their necks.
“We could have shot you all dead a stone’s throw back,” said Garold, a young freckled warrior with a head of hair so red the men called him Bloodmane. His two companions, Rynn and Enerd, grinned.
“If it had been otherwise I’d have had your balls,” Regg said, half-seriously.
Abelar chuckled and gestured at Beld and his two companions. “Meet Beld, Aldas, and Dens. They will ride with us.”
“Welcome,” Garold said. He looked to Abelar. “There’s ill news, commander.”
Abelar frowned. “Speak it.”
“The overmistress’s army is marching. We have heard that Forrin heads it.”
Regg cursed and spat with contempt.
“Malkur Forrin?” Abelar asked.
Garold nodded.
That explained why Roen had the horses ready to ride. Abelar still had a handful of allies among Lathander’s church in Ordulin. They magically relayed information to Roen, the company’s senior priest, as circumstance allowed.
“Forrin is a butcher,” Regg said. “At the Battle of the Deurst Lowlands, he—”
Abelar cut Regg off.
“How many in his army? Composition of his forces? Is Saerloon marching as well?”
“Roen could tell you, my lord.”
“To where are they headed?” Abelar asked. “Do you know that, at least? Selgaunt?”
Garold lowered his head, looked to the men flanking him, at his boots.
“Speak it, boy,” Regg said, though Abelar’s heart was already sinking.
“Saerb, sir. Or so I’ve heard.”
Abelar’s mind turned instantly to Elden, unprotected, standing in the path of an army. He cursed and heeled Swiftdawn toward the village. Regg, Beld, and the other riders fell in behind him. Regg shouted back to Garold and the perimeter guards.
“Gather your gear and recall the rest of the guards! Prepare to ride!”
They galloped through the village and into the camp. His men rose to meet him. All wore hard looks.
Regg indicated Beld and his comrades. “These men ride with us. Gear up. We ride apace. Leave the boar to the villagers.”
The men scrambled to break camp.
Roen emerged from his tent, wrapped in his armor and with a heavy flanged mace at his belt. The pale, black-haired priest, as tall and slender as a sapling, nodded at them. Abelar and Regg swung out of their saddles and the men exchanged greetings.
“Welcome back, my lords. You’ve heard about Forrin already, I see.”
“Tell us everything you know,” Abelar said.
While the men broke camp around them, most taking a moment to welcome Regg and Abelar back, Roen said, “Forrin marched from Ordulin last night under cover of darkness. His force is more than one thousand cavalry. They are heading west toward Saerb. That is all we know.”
“Four times our number,” Regg said, and whistled. “The overmistress does nothing halfway. She wishes to draw us north.”
Abelar nodded, considered. “There are men in and around Saerb who will fight if battle is brought to their doors.”
“They are leaderless,” Regg said. “Small groups of competent swordsmen, but not an army. If they fight, they’ll die piecemeal.”
“Aye, but if we can arrive before Forrin, we can consolidate them with our force. We—”
“There is more,” Roen said.
Abelar and Regg looked at the priest.
“Yhaunn was attacked by a creature or creatures from the sea. Much of the city was ruined or flooded. Hundreds died. Perhaps thousands.”
“Gods,” Abelar said.
“Attacked by whom?” Regg asked.
“Our spies say that Selgaunt was behind it. Or so says the overmistress in her pronouncements.”
“Selgaunt?” Abelar asked. “How?”
Roen said, “Our spies say the Selgauntans have made alliance with the Shadovar.”
“The Shadovar?” Abelar could not believe it. Selgaunt’s Hulorn had not impressed him overmuch, but he had not taken the Uskevren boy for a fool. The Shadovar could not be trusted.
Roen nodded. “It could be another lie of the overmistress.”
Abelar put it from his mind. “It does not matter now. Saerb is our concern.”
Regg said, “The overmistress will use Yhaunn to justify slaughter, Abelar. Forrin will raze Saerb to the ground. Those who do not flee will die.”
Abelar stared him in the face, then Roen. “Not on our watch.”
Regg nodded, and so did Roen.
“My lord, there is yet more,” said Roen. “During the attack from the sea, a small force attacked the Hole—”
“Attacked the Hole?!” Regg exclaimed.
Roen nodded and continued. “Your father disappeared in the attack.”
Hope rose in Abelar. “Disappeared? Escaped, you mean?”
Roen shrugged. “This was days ago, my lord. There is no word of him since.”
“But he escaped?” Regg prompted.
Abelar understood Roen’s point. “Or he was taken.”
“Taken?” Regg asked. “By whom? The Shadovar?”
Abelar shrugge
d. There was no way to know. If his father were alive and freed, he would have contacted Abelar if he were able. Perhaps he was wounded. Or perhaps he was held against his will by those who had taken him. He shook his head.
“My father is beyond my aid for now. Saerb needs us. As soon as the men are ready, we ride.”
Roen swallowed. “My lord, I hesitate to bring this to your attention, but …”
Abelar waved him on impatiently.
“There is disease in the village.”
“What kind of disease?”
Roen blanched. “It is terrible, my lord. The sufferers cough blood until they can expel it no more and drown in their own fluids. The village elder believes a group of refugees who passed through the village a tenday ago may have carried the disease. A family is afflicted. The husband already has succumbed and the wife and their children are bedridden. The crone who tended them has died herself and no one else in the village will look after them. Jiiris has looked to them but …” Roen looked down at his feet. “The meager gifts granted me by the Morninglord are insufficient to the task. I cannot cleanse them.”
“Children?” Regg asked.
Roen nodded.
Abelar thought of Elden and did not hesitate. “Take us to them.”
Roen led them into the village of cottages. Children, men, and women greeted them and smiled. Hacking coughs racked several of the villagers. Abelar and Regg shared a look.
Two young boys, perhaps five or six winters old, marveled at Abelar’s shield and the rose enameled on it. Abelar unslung it and let them play with it.
“No dragon slaying without me,” he said to them. “And I’ll need it again soon. Yes?”
“Yes, goodsir,” they said.
He tousled their hair and they scurried off, arguing over who would play with it first.
“There is fear in the eyes of everyone here,” Abelar said softly to Regg.
“Aye,” answered Regg. “It is not just disease.”
“No,” Abelar agreed. “It is not just disease.”
Roen took them to a mud-packed log house on the western edge of the village. The shutters and doors were closed, but the sickly sweet stink of contagion sneaked through the cracks. Roen knocked once and entered.
A miasma filled the home and the smell of sweat, filth, and old blood hit Abelar like a mace. The two-room cottage had little in the way of furnishings. A few chairs, a table, a sideboard. A low fire burned in the small hearth. A pot of what Abelar assumed to be broth hung over it. Jiiris’s two slim swords and gloves lay propped against the wall near the fire. An open doorway led to another room.
Coughing, deep and wet, sounded from within. A child’s cough joined in, then another. A soothing voice sounded—Jiiris’s—and the coughing subsided.
Jiiris stepped out of the room. The young priestess had her light hair pulled back in a horse’s tail. Blood specks stained her sleeves. She wore a strip of cloth over her mouth and nose to ward off disease.
Abelar and Regg had nothing to fear from contagion. When they had sworn their souls to the Morninglord, he had blessed them with resistance to certain weaknesses of the flesh, including disease. He had also gifted them with the ability to heal disease by touch. They could not do it often, but they could do it.
“My lords,” Jiiris said. She removed the strip of cloth from her mouth and smiled. “Welcome back. How did you fare at the Abbey?”
“Not well,” Abelar said, and left it at that. “Gear up. We ride soon.” He nodded at the room she had just exited. “I will see to them.”
Jiiris nodded. “The light is in you both. I am glad of it.” She thumped Regg on the shoulder, smiled at Roen, and passed close to Abelar, though she did not touch him.
Abelar caught her gently by the arm. “You have performed a good service here.”
She colored, nodded, smiled gently, and exited the cottage.
“Await us here,” Abelar said to Roen. He and Regg entered the sickroom.
Five hay-stuffed mattresses lay in the room, along with chamber pots and blankets. The smell made Abelar’s eyes water. A scarecrow-thin woman lay on one of the beds, her mouth flecked with blood, her face drawn and sweaty. Four children—all girls—lay on the other beds, all wrapped in blankets, all pale. The collective respiration in the room sounded like a rasp over wood.
“Five,” Abelar said softly.
“And it has already spread,” Regg said.
Abelar and Regg could channel Lathander’s grace only in small portions, and they needed time afterward for their own souls to heal. They could not heal everyone before leaving.
They walked to the bedside of the mother. Their boots clunked loudly on the floorboards. Abelar knelt and put his calloused hand on her brow. Her green eyes opened. She opened her mouth to speak but it turned to a coughing fit that wracked her entire body.
Abelar spoke softly. “We are healers, goodmadam. Servants of Lathander. We are here to help.”
Her eyes softened and she smiled. She raised a hand, weakly, to gesture at her children. Abelar understood. She wanted them to help her children first. He nodded at Regg, who moved from child to child, comforting them, humming a song the while.
Abelar stroked the mother’s dark hair, slick with sweat. “Hear me, now. We can cleanse this disease but not for all of you. Only for four. That is as far as our gifts go for a time, and we must leave tonight. If we are tardy in our task, many others will die.”
She stared at him, unmoving, and he did not know if she understood. One of the daughters broke into a wet coughing fit that left her struggling for breath.
“What do you want us to do?” Abelar asked her.
Her eyes closed, opened, and she parted her bloody lips to speak. Abelar knelt in close and she said in a broken whisper, “My daughters.”
Abelar leaned back and looked into her eyes. His eyes, and hers, welled with tears.
“Who will care for them if you are gone?”
The tears spilled down her temples and she looked away. She closed her eyes, bit her upper lip, and shook her head. Abelar understood. There was no one. But she would not choose one of her daughters to die. A coughing fit shook her.
Abelar looked at his hands, cursing the weakness of his own flesh.
He would not choose one of them to die, either. He stood and looked at Regg, who was holding the tiny hand of one of the little girls. He nodded at the doorway and they exited the room and gathered with Roen.
Outside, Abelar said, “I will stay. Take the men—”
“Stay?” Roen exclaimed.
Regg shook his head and chuckled. “I knew that you would say those words. No. I will stay and manage the plague here. When the village is cleansed, I will ride after you.”
“We need you both,” Roen said.
Abelar ignored the priest and studied his friend’s craggy face, saw the sincerity of the offer. “No, Regg. This is my duty to perform. Besides, your father is in Forrin’s path.”
“As is your son,” Regg answered.
Abelar felt a flash of doubt but pushed it down. He could not abandon the village.
“Go get them both,” he said to Regg. He looked to Roen. “Go get them both.”
Regg and Roen stared at him for many heartbeats, and both finally nodded. Regg took Abelar by the arm. “The Light is in you, my friend. It shines brightly.”
“And you,” Abelar answered. He indicated the sick room. “Let us do what we can for them now.”
Abelar and Regg entered the room and placed their hands on the daughters in turn. They prayed aloud and pulled the divine energy of the Morninglord from their own purified flesh and channeled it into the young girls. Immediately, the girls’ breathing eased and they fell into slumber.
Unable to do more, Abelar went to the mother’s bedside. “Your daughters are well.”
The woman smiled, said in a whisper, “I want to see them.”
“You will,” Abelar said. “They are sleeping now. Listen to me. I will not lea
ve you. But you must fight for a few days more, then I will be able to heal you as I did your daughters. Do you understand? You must fight until then.”
She nodded. Tears flowed anew, but not tears of sadness. She touched Abelar’s hand and Abelar squeezed her fingers. He had taken lives in Lathander’s name, many lives, but he never felt more about his god’s work than when he used his hands to heal.
“I am … sorry that I put you to that choice,” he said. “It was inexcusable. My own son is in danger and it clouded my judgment.”
She shook her head and smiled, coughed.
“I understand,” she said hoarsely. “And you should go to your son.”
“I will,” Abelar said. “But not until you are well.”
She stared into his face, nodded gratefully. Regg knelt beside them, put his hand on her brow.
“Be well, goodmadam. May Lathander watch over you and the dawn bring you hope.”
Abelar and Regg stood, regarding each other.
Regg said, “Stay in the light, Abelar Corrinthal.”
“And you. I will follow after as soon as I can. You and Roen have the company.”
Regg nodded and they parted.
Abelar watched through the cottage’s open shutters as Regg and Roen led the company off. He imagined Elden at the end of Forrin’s blade and the mental image almost caused him to mount his horse. A coughing fit from the sickroom pulled him back to his duty. He laid down his sword beside the hearth and went to his chosen task.
For hours he drew water, cooked broth, and spoon-fed it to mother and daughters. The daughters mostly slept, while the mother mostly coughed. Still, the smiles and clear eyes of the daughters in their waking hours reminded Abelar of why he had taken Lathander’s rites.
Abelar learned the girls’ names: Lis, Nissa, Sill, and Dera, the eldest. He obtained new bedding for them, and sang to them, as he often did to Elden. He smiled when they smiled, learned their laughs. They hovered around their mother and their love for her touched Abelar.
Throughout the day and early evening, their mother deteriorated. Abelar did not know if she would survive until he could heal her. He tried to think how best to prepare the girls for such a loss, but he could think of little. He saw the fear in their eyes.
