Mirickar vaguely understood that the woman was talking about him. A thin anger surged through him. She was talking as if he was dead, but he knew he was fine. Just too hot. He wanted to yell at her, demand her help discarding at least some of his attire, that he might cool down. Yet no words came.
“Perhaps I should have guessed it,” the woman resumed talking to herself. “Not a single nivhil to be found, even in the darkest places where their glow would make them easy to find. The girl was right, I should have stayed. And having failed to find what I sought, I should have guessed I would find something quite different. Alas, what a find.”
Mirickar tried to force his dulled mind to come up with a solution, but all he could think was to ask the woman for help cooling down. Still no words came. The sound of the water leaked through his agitation. Perhaps, if he could not speak, he could gesture for the woman to bring him a drink? With all of the will he could muster, he forced his hand up and he made a wobbly attempt at gesturing toward the water.
“Ah! No! He lives?”
Mirickar tried once more to speak but could not. A moment later he felt a soft hand on his forehead.
“So cold!” the woman said. “He must be near death.”
Mirickar’s anger flared again when she referred to him as being cold. A moment later, he felt her lay a thin cloth on him. He tried to move it away but her hand grasped his firmly and easily stopped him.
“Shush now, boy,” the woman said. “I can help you, but you must trust me.”
“Too… hot…” Mirickar finally managed to gasp, anger tainting his words.
“Yes, you feel hot,” she agreed, “but your mind is playing tricks on you, for your body is like ice. You must allow me to warm you. My powers are not as strong as she who taught me, but I can help you. I can warm you, and heal you. First, you must trust.”
Mirickar wanted to protest, but he was startled by the slowly growing heat from the cloth that lay upon him. Once again confusion blended with panic. He opened his mouth to cry out. He made no sound, and once again consciousness slipped from his grasp.
* * *
Mirickar awoke abruptly. His eyes flew open even as his mind began registering all of the pains he had felt before, though all were muted to a bearable level. He was no longer by running water, and it was no longer night. He lay on a bed in a cottage and the smell of broth reached his nostrils. Through the window he could see sunlight on a small garden with a variety of herbs and vegetables that he recognized.
It still hurt to move his head, but Mirickar looked about his surroundings. The cottage seemed both rustic and luxurious. The building materials were basic but he was in a room by himself that showed no signs of being used for anything other than resting. If this was, as he suspected, the old woman’s cottage, she apparently had at least one other room for herself to sleep in. He guessed that it might even be separate from where she cooked and ate. The room around him was cluttered with simple decorations and what he guessed were mementos. When his gaze landed on a small metal handbell on a table beside the bed, he grew curious. It was painful to move enough to reach it, but he made himself do it.
The bell offered a high, tinkling chime when he rang it. He set it back down and tucked his arm by his side again where it was more comfortable. He wondered if the bell would bring the woman to him. A moment later he heard movement outside of the room, and the door opened to reveal an ancient-looking woman hunched over a cane. She wore dark but simple clothes, with a bright green shawl on her shoulders.
“It is good to see you awake, young man,” she said, and Mirickar immediately recognized her voice from before. “The girl was right, she’s a smart one. She said you would awaken today. And I trust your delirium is gone, and you know your own body’s warmth?”
“I… yes,” Mirickar stammered. “Is… is this your home?”
The old woman nodded. “Of course. We brought you here, so I could heal you.”
“I… thank you,” Mirickar answered, still feeling very unsure of himself and the situation. “May I have your name, madam?”
“I am Elthrana.”
“Thank you, Elthrana,” he continued. “I am Mirickar. I thank you for everything you have done for me, but I do not know how to repay you.”
Elthrana smiled and gently shook her head. “You need not pay me. Saving you was the right thing to do. Healing you is the right thing to do.” She turned to look behind her. “Come, girl. Mirickar is awake.”
“Yes, madam, I will be right there,” a female voice answered from the other room. A moment later the young woman stepped through the doorway to stand beside Elthrana.
Mirickar felt his face get hot as he realized he was staring at the young woman. She was not only beautiful, but she had a striking resemblance to Sraikura. If his childhood friend had a twin or close sibling, one who spoke and dressed normally and groomed herself impeccably, Mirickar felt sure he had mysteriously found her.
“Is something amiss, Mirickar?” the young woman asked.
“I…” he started, but stopped. The young woman was grinning slightly, and the familiar tone she had used confused him more. “I am sorry, miss,” he finally said. “You bear an uncanny resemblance to a childhood friend, someone who…” The memory of losing Sraikura in the rushing waters of the river overwhelmed him and he looked away. “Someone I recently lost.”
“Girl, do not tease him further,” the old woman said in disapproving tones. “Go to him and ease his mind.”
Mirickar looked up and watched as the young woman’s grin faded and she stepped over to the side of his bed. She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped, knelt, and reached out to take one hand of his in her own.
“Mirickar,” she said softly, “I am Sraikura. I survived, if only barely. Elthrana saved my life too, and healed me too.”
“But…” Mirickar’s voice faded as he looked at her hair, her clothes, her lips.
“We have much to discuss, Mirickar, but Elthrana healed more than the injuries that I suffered in the river. I did not think I would ever see you again, and I understand you thought the same of me. Yet we are together again, Mirickar. I am Sraikura, even if I do not sound the way I did on the farm and in the forest when we fled the kurakvin. Elthrana has healed so much, and she can heal you too.”
Mirickar looked wordlessly at Elthrana and then looked back at the young woman by his side.
“Healing Sraikura was the right thing to do,” Elthrana chuckled. “I will leave you two for now, but Mirickar, you must rest. Sraikura, you must allow him that rest.”
“Yes, madam,” Mirickar and Sraikura answered in unison, their eyes on each other instead of Elthrana.
Chapter Nine
“I do not know what to think,” Mirickar admitted when Elthrana was gone. “It is hard for me to believe…”
Sraikura’s gaze dropped. “I know I appear very different from what you remember. If you would like, I can tell you about how we used to play as children. Or I can tell you of the time we were in the forest, fleeing from the kurakvin. And someday I hope to tell you of the time before we met, so that you may understand my history better. But for now, Mirickar, your healing is more important than my story.”
“You… I’m sorry, it is so strange, to see you again and yet I feel I am meeting a new person.”
Sraikura looked back up at him. “I am the same, but now you are able to see who I was inside, who I was before we met. The feral girl you knew in our youth was only a piece of me, and now you can see the rest.”
Mirickar sighed, his mind still spinning. “How did you survive the river?”
Sraikura shook her head. “I do not know. I felt that I was drowning, and then suddenly I was on the bank with Elthrana working on me, helping to expel the water that I had breathed in. The pain overwhelmed me, and when I awoke again, I was here. She uses magic to speed healing, as she has already done for you when you were dying from the cold. She healed me quickly, and I have been learning her craft as her hel
per and apprentice.”
Mirickar was silent for several moments. “There is so much to try to understand.”
“You don’t need to understand everything now,” she answered, giving his hand a squeeze. “You can take your time, and I will be here with you. I told you I would help you live in the forest, and now I can help you even more, living here. Elthrana is very welcoming.”
“I cannot stay long, Sraikura,” Mirickar said quietly, looking away. “I have kurakvin to kill.”
“Oh, Mirickar. You cannot kill them all, they will kill you instead. We have been brought together again by fate. I do not want to lose you again!”
“I must avenge my parents,” he answered, his voice cold. “I may not kill them all, but I have not killed enough. Not yet.”
“And when you can fight no longer and you are slain instead?”
“Then I will fall knowing that I have done my best.”
Sraikura let go of his hand and stood up. “Rest now,” she said, her voice even. “You are not in any condition to fight or even go in search of your enemy. I will see if Elthrana has some broth ready for you. We will talk more later.”
Mirickar nodded wordlessly. He did not look at her as she left the room. After a moment he could hear words spoken softly in the next room but he could not make out what was said, nor did he try. His mind swung back and forth from his mission to his astonishment about Sraikura. When Elthrana brought him a steaming mug of broth, he accepted it wordlessly. The old woman left him to his thoughts. Not long after he consumed the last of his broth he slipped into a dreamless sleep.
When he awakened again, Mirickar found that the pains throughout his body were even less than before, and some had faded away completely. The leg that he thought had been broken still ached and he was skeptical about walking on it, but it was clear that the ministrations of Elthrana and Sraikura were speeding his healing far beyond what could have happened naturally.
Over the next several days, Sraikura and Elthrana tended to his needs with the aid of healing magic. It was not long before he was able to begin moving about in the cozy cottage. At times he attempted to bring up his plans to hunt more kurakvin, but each time Sraikura merely listened and then changed the subject.
“Sraikura,” Mirickar said one day as they sat in the main room of the cottage, watching Elthrana prepare their evening meal, “we need to discuss my plans. You have avoided it until now, but my duty to my parents calls to me and I must answer it. I know not what became of the sword that Kallosarin gave me, but I must find another. I must then find allies, and I must rid the kingdom of as many kurakvin as we can find.”
“Your parents are dead, boy,” Elthrana spoke up without turning to look at them. “You have no duty to them. Revenge is for yourself and won’t bring them back.”
“The kurakvin slew my mother before I could defend her,” he answered sharply. “I watched them murder my father. I am certain that the adoptive parents who cared for Sraikura were slaughtered just as mercilessly. Those creatures are still in the land and I cannot just sit here and let them slaughter more innocent families.”
“Protecting the kingdom is the work of the king’s soldiers,” Sraikura said. “You cannot expect to raise an army larger and more effective than the king’s.”
Mirickar shook his head. “I do not need an army the size of the king’s to avenge my father and mother and to save countless other families from sharing their fate.” When neither of the women answered, he sighed heavily. “I will leave tomorrow.”
“Healing you was the right thing to do,” Elthrana said after a moment. “Sending you off to die doesn’t feel the same. But perhaps you are right, boy. Perhaps there is some higher purpose that you must serve. I cannot stop you, I can only mourn your passing when you are gone.”
“Mirickar,” Sraikura said, her voice trembling as she wiped away a tear, “may I speak with you alone?”
He nodded and followed her silently into the room that he had used for sleeping. “Please do not ask me to give up my mission,” he said when the door was closed. “It is as much for the family who took you in as it is for mine.”
She shook her head. “I will not stop you, Mirickar. If my time with you is coming to an end, I at least want to speak my heart so that you may know me fully before we lose each other again. I love you, Mirickar. I have for years.”
“I… I love you too, Sraikura,” he stammered. Even as the words left his mouth, he knew it was true. “I have also loved you since we lived on our farms. I… I just could not be sure of my feelings. But I am now.”
A faint grin eased her features. “And it is not because of how I have changed?”
“No! This… this change is both unusual and agreeable, but my feelings for you began long ago. I… I will admit, your nature when we were younger made me doubt myself.”
For a moment he thought she was going to make a joke, but instead her grin faded. “Then you know how hard it is,” she said, turning away from him, “to hand this to you and know that it makes your departure even more certain.” When she turned back, she held out the sword from Kallosarin, which she had retrieved from behind the wardrobe that stood in one corner.
“I will return, Sraikura,” he said solemnly as he accepted the blade from her. “I will come back for you.” He pulled her into his arms, where she wept into his shoulder.
* * *
Mirickar left the cottage early the next afternoon. The women sent him off with a pack stuffed full of food that would not spoil quickly, along with a small purse with what few coins could be spared. Sraikura’s kiss as they parted weighed heavily on his mind as he set a fast pace in the direction of the village of Dolat. He did not know how he could fulfill his mission and also fulfill his promise to return to her.
The road to Dolat was longer than the route to his parents’ farm, but Mirickar had decided to head for a town in the hope of recruiting more fighters. He varied his pace but kept moving as quickly as he could. As he made the journey, he strictly rationed his food and looked for opportunities to supplement it by foraging.
It took him fortnight to reach the shore of the large lake that shared the same name as the town, and another day to reach the town itself. When he finally saw buildings in the distance as dusk began to fall, he was cold, tired, and beginning to feel weaker from his meager diet.
A low wooden stockade stood around most of the small town, but several cottages had been built outside of it. Mirickar found a large gate that stood open and unguarded, and he shook his head at the lack of defenses. There was no sign that the people of Dolat understood their danger from kurakvin raids. He spotted a tavern and headed straight to it.
“What’ll you have, boy?” the man behind the rustic bar growled.
Mirickar kept his eyes on the man, despite being aware that others in the tavern were watching him. He hoped it was only because he was a stranger and that they were merely curious. “Ale, bread, and cheese,” he answered, sounding as confident as he could.
The barkeep grunted the price at him and began pouring the ale. Mirickar counted out the coins from his purse and was relieved that he was able to cover the cost of what he had ordered, but the few coins he had left would not last him long.
“New? Or passing through?” the barkeep asked when he set the food and drink in front of Mirickar.
“Neither exactly,” he answered. “Seeking men to fight kurakvin.” Roars of laughter erupted in the tavern. Mirickar almost showed his anger but restrained himself.
“Kurakvin?” the barkeep sneered. “So this isn’t your first ale of the day!”
“My parents were slain by kurakvin,” Mirickar said, ignoring more laughter. “They are in the kingdom and raided farms where I lived.”
“Finish your meal and get yourself gone, boy,” the barkeep sneered. “Nobody here will be frightened by your bedtime stories.” He moved away before Mirickar could respond.
Mirickar focused on his food and drink. He could hear derisive comme
nts being made in his direction, but he knew he could not respond. Despite Kallosarin’s training, he could not hope to come out on top if he started a fight.
“Fools,” a gruff but quiet voice on his left caught his attention.
Mirickar glanced over at the man who had appeared at the bar next to him. He appeared to be old enough to be Mirickar’s father, and his lean and rough-shaven appearance hinted at a hard life.
“The truth is sometimes hard to believe,” Mirickar offered, not wanting to take risks with his words.
“You’re not the only one to have seen kurakvin,” the man said quietly. “A group of us spotted one of their camps. We’ve been planning an attack. You can join us if you’re any good with that sword.”
“I’m good,” Mirickar nodded. “Trained by General Kallosarin. But I have trouble believing you know where a kurakvin camp is.”
The man snorted. “And I have trouble believing you’ve even met Kallosarin. Meet me at the south gate after you’re done here. We’ll talk where the fools are in fewer supply.”
Mirickar gave a short nod, and the man retreated. Behind him, Mirickar heard the door open and then close again. The snickers and jeers that he now heard seemed more malicious in nature, so he knew it was best to proceed with haste, while not showing any hint of weakness. He pocketed what was left of the cheese, casually but quickly drank the rest of his ale, and then made his way to the door as he finished his bread. Two young men near the door briefly looked like they wanted to cause trouble, but Mirickar was able to leave without a fight.
Once he was in the open air again, Mirickar strode quickly toward the gate through which he had entered Dolat. It only took him a moment to find the man he had met in the tavern, for he was leaning against the outside of the palisade.
“Kallosarin, eh?” the man said with a laugh. “Should I make you prove it with your sword?”
“Do you have excess blood you desire to shed?” Mirickar countered. “I am ready to demonstrate my skill, but he did not teach me how to be gentle.”
The Vengeance of Mirickar Page 6
