Children of the Healer

by Barbara Ann Wright

  From her perch aboard Pool’s moving tree, Cordelia peered into the gloom of the swamp, watching the endless, ropy branches and great swaths of water surrounding tiny islands of firm ground. Far above, the canopy blocked out nearly all the sunlight. Large flocks of birds, merely dark specks in the distance, swooped between the swaying leaves, their cries faint on the wind.

  The light had been fading for hours, and before it grew too dark to see, Pool came to a halt. The hiss of her roots slithering over the bark of the swamp trees fell silent. Stillness surrounded them, making Cordelia’s ears ring. No one spoke, human or drushka, and slowly, the natural sounds of the swamp returned: the chirp of insects, stray breezes ruffling the water, and the slurp of creatures diving to safety.

  Pool stood in her cupola of bark, her eyes unfocused.

  “Are we stopping for the night?” Cordelia asked softly. “Or do you sense something?”

  “The sixth queen, Yunshi, bars our path.”

  Cordelia gestured for her fellow paladins to fan out among Pool’s branches. Lea strayed far to the right, his railgun strapped around his chest. Cordelia hefted her own gun, but Pool’s words about not harming the queens came back to her.

  “How do you want to do this, Pool?”

  “I call to her, but she does not answer.” Pool sucked her teeth, frowning. “All I hear from her is an echo of the Shi, cursing my name, demanding I submit.”

  “So the sixth is going to fight you?”

  “She will do whatever she is commanded, it would seem.” Pool glanced at the railgun and frowned harder.

  Cordelia sighed. “We won’t use the railguns unless we have to, okay?”

  “Thank you, Sa. That makes my mind easier.”

  Cordelia passed on the orders. Lea seemed skeptical, but he’d do as he was told. Everyone else was a chorus of “Yes, Captain” or “You got it, Cap.” She grinned. Instant obedience from the lieutenants was pretty fucking sweet. Of course, if this plan went ass up, all the blame would rest on her shoulders, too.

  At least the armor and weapons still had a charge. “Visors down,” Cordelia said, and then they were on comms instead of having to gesture or pass the word from person to person. There were several mutters in Cordelia’s ear until she barked, “Muzzle that chatter.”

  Pool advanced slowly. Cordelia scattered her paladins through the low branches. Drushka waited all around. With the help of her helmet, Cordelia saw the sixth waiting in the gloom. Smaller than the swamp trees but still massive, the sixth tree loomed far over Pool’s. Drushka crawled along it, waiting, and Cordelia began to fidget. Maybe all they needed was a little prompting to attack.

  Well, she could give them that. “Aim to wound,” she said. “Use your targeting sensors.”

  She took the first shot; the soft crack of the bullet leaving the muzzle sounded louder than normal in the stillness. As the other paladins took their shots, the whine of streaking bullets echoed all around. Cordelia aimed to clip the legs of several drushka and dropped them into the water. The old drushka howled and leapt as their comrades went down, and the uninjured hurled themselves toward Pool’s branches.

  “Blades,” Cordelia ordered. This didn’t have the thrill of any other combat she’d known, but she didn’t carry the despair she’d had when she’d first fought the old drushka. Lives were at stake, and she carried a sense of urgency coupled with the desire to see this job done, to put the threat of the Shi to bed at last. She drew the wooden sword that hung around her waist, but it was only a precaution. Drushkan weapons and claws couldn’t penetrate her armor, so she flung enemies into the swamp or used her powered fist to wound.

  Something whipped out of the darkness toward her. An alarm sounded inside her helmet, and she leaned far to the side. Her stabilizers whined, trying to keep her on her feet.

  “What the fuck?”

  It came again, reaching out of the dark, and she dropped flat, getting a good look at a massive root. More of the huge, cable-like roots wrapped around Pool’s tree, knocking drushka and several paladins into the swamp. The trunk of the sixth rushed forward, and the two trees collided in a massive boom, shaking the branch under Cordelia’s feet.

  Hordes of drushka poured into Pool’s branches, swamping the paladins. Cordelia darted for one human who’d gone under a pack of drushka. Others cried out in her comm that they’d fallen into the water and couldn’t find their way out.

  “Try to breathe normally,” Cordelia said as she punched a long-haired drushka in the face. “Use your lights to see and climb the nearest trunk.” Their helmets would keep out the water, but they didn’t have an air supply. “I’m sending help.”

  She dove into a pack of drushka, kicking and punching and throwing until she unearthed the paladin who’d gone down at their center. “Get to the low branches and look for the lights,” she said to him. “Help guide them out of the water!”

  Cordelia slashed at more drushka with her blade. “Everyone, keep on the move so you won’t be overwhelmed.” She’d lost track of Pool, of Nettle and everyone she cared about. There were too many enemies, and fear was quickly replacing her anger. She had to end this, but Pool didn’t want to kill the sixth, and Cordelia didn’t think that would help anyway.

  But what if they captured her?

  Cordelia rested a hand against Pool’s bark and reached for their connection. “I’m going to knock the sixth queen out, take her prisoner.”

  Pool sent an acknowledgment, her mind distracted. Cordelia sensed the Shi attacking through the sixth, trying to subdue Pool’s mind. The sixth was far older than Pool, yet the Shi had overwhelmed her, used her almost as a puppet. Still, Pool searched for her mind and pointed Cordelia in the right direction.

  She leaped between the trees, landing in the branches of the sixth and knocking drushka out of her way, shooting where she had to, still trying to wound, though she didn’t know how much longer that would be an option. Calls for help still rang in her ears.

  “Hang in there,” she shouted. “Just a little longer.”

  A burst of feelings came from Pool. She was headed for the sixth queen, too, surrounded by a cadre of her drushka.

  Cordelia ran faster, meeting Pool on the upper branches. Nettle and several others were with her. Cordelia took point, bowling drushka out of the way. The glow of her armor washed over Pool, and their enemies stumbled back from the sight of Pool’s green hair, her obvious status.

  Pool muttered in drushkan, angry words spitting from her mouth. “Up!” she said in Galean. “There!”

  The sixth queen had a cupola of bark like Pool’s, but the bark had grown over her where she stood flush against the trunk, leaving one eye and half her mouth exposed. A handful of drushka barred the way. They bared their teeth at Cordelia, then stared at Pool, eyes going wide with wonder.

  Pool spoke to them in drushkan, pleading. Cordelia paused, catching several words, enough to know Pool wanted to free the sixth rather than knock her out. The drushka looked to each other, bodies tense as if they didn’t know what to do. Pool stepped closer, repeating her words.

  The air seemed to still, everyone waiting. Cordelia gripped her sword, wishing someone would do something. At last, the old drushka stepped aside, leaving the way clear to their queen. The sixth’s eye was glazed over, and her mouth moved, though she didn’t speak.

  Pool strode forward and slammed a fist against the sixth’s bark. “She is barely aware.” She rested her head against the trunk over the sixth queen’s chest and went silent. Cordelia fought the urge to attack someone, to do something. Her paladins still yelled in her ears, and the sounds of combat hadn’t died.

  At last, Pool drew a deep breath. “Ansha was her birth name,” she said haltingly. “You would call her Sky.” Pool twisted her head, grinding into the bark. “She has nearly forgotten her name as she has forgotten all things.”

  A scream ripped through Pool’s mind, cascading into Cordelia. Her legs nearly buckled, and Pool’s drushka cried out. The Shi. The sixt
h queen’s drushka tottered toward Pool, but Cordelia staggered forward, knocking them away.

  Pool ignored them. “Come out, sister. Come to me.”

  Sky’s eye closed, and all the drushka screamed again. In Cordelia’s ear, the paladins reported that their enemies were collapsing.

  “I know you are afraid,” Pool said. “I will shield you from the Shi. These humans are not your enemy.”

  Cordelia felt traces of Sky’s emotions, those that weren’t swallowed by the rage of the Shi. Sky didn’t want to become human; she was certain Pool had already done so.

  “No,” Pool said. “We are strong drushka, generations of us. Independent from the Shi, ahya, but still drushka.”

  Sky recoiled from that. Drushka were not meant to be alone.

  Pool fed memories into their connection, truths. “It is growth I offer, not loneliness. Drushka can be together and still free.”

  Sky whispered something, her voice a ghost.

  “Come, sister.” Pool dug her fingers into the bark, cracking it, peeling it away. After a moment’s hesitation, it yielded. She tore it open, revealing Sky’s tall, naked body. She fell forward, and Pool caught her, laying her along the branch.

  Around them, the drushka stilled. “Hold your fire,” Cordelia said through her comm. “Don’t attack unless someone attacks you.”

  “Gather the wounded,” Pool said.

  Nettle ran to do her bidding. Cordelia felt the Shi calling to Sky, cursing, but Pool blocked her voice.

  Pool chuckled softly, a sad sound. “She is trying to give her mind to me.” She laid a hand on Sky’s forehead. “No, sister. You are your own now. Awaken.”

  Sky stirred and touched Pool’s face with hesitant fingers. Pool helped her stand, though she was almost a foot taller. Light bloomed around them as drushka lit candles, the better to see the two queens walking together. Cordelia felt it as Pool kept her mind wide open to her drushka, letting them feel Sky, letting them reach out to another tribe. Sky followed her lead. At the sight of their queen walking free, touching their minds as she probably hadn’t in a long time, the old drushka drooped in relief.

  Cordelia trailed along behind the queens, her blade still out and ready.

  “Will you call Horace, Sa?” Pool asked.

  Cordelia passed that over her comm. When Horace joined them, Lea at his side, Sky regarded them curiously. Cordelia lifted her visor but stood close to Horace, guarding him. Even with the chummy feelings flowing from Pool and the drushka, she wasn’t up to trusting just yet. Sky stepped toward her, staring at Cordelia’s armor, the wooden sword.

  “Can you heal her, shawness?” Pool asked.

  Horace glanced at Cordelia, and she nodded, catching on. The drushka didn’t trust the humans, but if one of their healers healed the queen…

  Horace lifted a hand, palm up as if asking Sky to dance. She stared before placing her long hand on top of Horace’s, her clawed finger twitching but not striking. Her hand was nearly twice the size of his, and her fingers engulfed him. Cordelia felt a tingle as he used his power, and Sky’s eyes widened. She straightened slowly and breathed deep, smiling. Other drushka gathered behind her, shawnessi by the long bags around their waist. They watched the healing with surprise and wonder.

  Sky said something in drushkan, and Cordelia caught a few words: healing, thanking, human. She knew she should have paid more attention to Reach’s lessons.

  Still, she understood the sentiment. “She’s thanking you, Horace.”

  “I know,” he said. “Some of us paid attention to Reach.” He smiled and winked. “And she called us Pool’s humans.” He said something in drushkan. “I told her that we’re allies, but we’re our own people.”

  Sky tilted her head and turned to Pool, and the two started talking. Cordelia waited until Pool left Sky to stand on her own before asking, “What was that about?”

  “She remembers me differently,” Pool said. “I told her the years have changed many of us. She asked if I was coming back to the drushka, and I told her not while the Shi is as she is. I have told her I will free the other queens. She asked me if I intend to be Shi.”

  “Do you?” Cordelia asked. “And what about the captives?”

  “She knew nothing of the captive humans. As for being Shi, I suppose we shall see when I meet her.”

  Cordelia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d been hoping the captives would be close, but now she might have to go all the way to the Shi to get them? Just her fucking luck.

  When Pool went back to her own tree, Cordelia went with her, taking Lea and Horace. No humans had died in the battle, and Cordelia called for them to regroup, telling them to stay away from the old drushka for the time being. There was no sense in risking a fight, but the tension seemed over for the time being. They could relax, at least for a little while.

  In one of Pool’s cubbies, Cordelia shucked her armor. Soon after, Nettle crawled inside with her, and they shared a long embrace.

  “Is everyone getting along?” Cordelia asked.

  “Well enough, Sa. It is good you did not show Sky your spirit form. She has had enough surprises for today.”

  “Do you think she’ll come with us to fight the Shi?”

  Nettle spread her hands. “I do not think so. I believe she fears falling under the will of the Shi again. Her drushka will stay out of our path and tend any wounded we happen to leave behind.”

  Cordelia snorted, wondering if humans were included in that tending. Probably not quite yet. “Any mingling between old and new drushka?”

  “Ahya, very much so. All the sixth’s drushka seem curious about new faces. So far, they stay away from this part of the tree, the human branch, so they call it. Jon Lea has set up guards.”

  “I told him to. I didn’t want any misunderstandings.”

  Nettle snuggled against her. “Wise. We move at dawn.” Her fingers trailed down Cordelia’s stomach. “There is not much to do until dawn.”

  Cordelia grinned. “Sleep?”

  “Ah, but we are trying to show these old drushka that humans and drushka can, what was your word, mingle.”

  Cordelia chuckled and gave her a long kiss. “I don’t want an audience, thanks.”

  “Then you are lucky, Sa, for we are safe from prying eyes in here.” She nipped Cordelia’s earlobe. “We will simply spread the story of our love, and tomorrow, the sixth’s drushka will see the truth of it by the happiness in our eyes.”

  Cordelia laughed, wrapped her arms around Nettle, and kissed her deeply. She couldn’t argue with that.

  * * *

  Lydia was tempted to use her prophetic powers, something she hadn’t done since she’d become the ex-prophet of Gale. But the sun was setting, and she was nowhere near finding all the purple starflowers she needed. She only wanted to know if she’d ever find them. But she couldn’t start down that path, even for something as trivial as gathering flowers. Seeing the future brought nothing but trouble.

  She looked through the grass around a hummock, wishing she and Samira could give up and go back to the Engali encampment, but her friend Samira’s pride had been nicked by a challenge from Mamet. Lydia knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t be bested.

  As she parted two blades of grass, Lydia finally found a perfect starflower, not missing a single petal. She plucked the blossom and held it up. “Got one!”

  Samira stood from the tall grass where she’d been searching. “That brings us to five. We’re going to win!”

  “How many do we need?” Lydia asked, already knowing the answer. She hoped saying it out loud would convince Samira to pack this in.

  “Thirteen if we’re going to beat Mamet and her cousin.”

  “We’re not even halfway,” Lydia muttered. It was a stupid bet. Lydia had already guessed that Mamet had only proposed it to get Samira away from the camp for a little blessed privacy. But then Mamet hinted that no one could find so many starflowers, that it was beyond even someone with mental powers li
ke Samira’s and Lydia’s. Lydia saw the boast for what it was: Mamet wanted Samira to go with her, and she was trying to goad her cousin into taking Lydia.

  Samira, however, had heard it another way. She took it as a challenge to the yafanai and dragged Lydia off with her. After all the trials of the past few months—rescuing Simon Lazlo, reuniting with old friends, and besting the Storm Lord and Naos—Samira overreacted to anything she saw as a challenge.

  Lydia leaned on the hummock and winked. “I heard the Engali give each other wreaths made of starflowers when they’re going to propose.”

  Samira gave her a wry look. “No one’s marrying anyone. We haven’t known each other long enough.”

  “She’s smitten.”

  Samira smiled a little as she searched. “When Simon told me to take a chance, I went for a little romance, not a marriage.”

  “And the romance is going well?”

  “Yes,” Samira said with a sigh. She glanced around as if afraid the Engali might be spying on them. “She’s very tender.”

  Lydia suddenly missed Freddie, killed nearly nine months ago in the siege at Gale. Still, her heart warmed for Samira and Mamet. “Ah, love.”

  “And you?” Samira asked. “I’ve seen the way you look at Mamet’s cousin.”

  “Amelia is taciturn and broody.” And she had a sexy, athletic figure, a rare smile, and soulful brown eyes. But Lydia didn’t know if she was ready for a new relationship.

  “She’s shy, but she only has eyes for you. All Engali have a little poetry in their souls. Maybe Amelia’s trying to think of the right words.”

  “When she does, I might hear them.”

  Samira sat next to her. “I’m sorry if I’m pushing. If you’re not ready—”

  Lydia patted her knee and leaned close as if for a secret. “I’ll tell you what I’m ready for.”

  “What? Tell!”

  “To give up this damn bet and go back to camp.”

  Samira sat back with a disappointed look. “We can’t give up now.”

  “Mamet wasn’t even goading you! She was trying to get you alone.”