That Felyn would mourn the madness of the man who killed their mother made a sort of sense, whether that man was her father or not. If Felyn proved to be a witch, she would need to know the ritual. If not, Erwyn was certain the girl would never reveal the secrets of the ancient magic.
The girl stayed to sleep with her. Erwyn fell into troubled dreams she couldn’t remember, then woke with a sense of dreadful loss. But not the loss of the unborn child. A future loss.
She fell back asleep at last, but wasn’t surprised when the sounds of a camp under attack woke them.
Gee came to take Felyn to the center of the camp with the other women and children. Erwyn moved swiftly through the organized panic to the hill where Rygar and his reserves were to meet. From there they could see the freshly harvested crops the raiders came to steal.
Rygar frowned when he saw her. “Thalgor would want you safe.”
“I am a witch. That is safe enough.”
He shook his head and lifted her to a low branch of a tree, then posted a man to guard her.
She allowed him to do it because she could see the battle more clearly from the tree.
And because it hid her from Dara, who watched the men fight from a rock a little away from Rygar and his patrol of marauders, as if she found them unclean.
Thalgor, Batte, and their men were already engaged with the enemy. Not as many as in her vision, but many more than most raiding parties. Gurdek and a few of his warriors stood back while they waited for the rest of his men to return with their weapons, all but those left behind with the old men and boys to protect the women and children huddled in the center of the camp.
Erwyn spotted Batte in the turmoil first. He was not as large as Thalgor, but his battle cries carried in the crisp morning air and he swung his sword two-handed over his head so it shone in the early sun, until it became clouded with the blood of their enemies.
She finally saw Thalgor closer to the center of the battle, where movements as broad as Batte’s would have resulted in having his arms severed by the mass of swords on all sides or a hail of arrows.
Thalgor fought with a cool, clear precision she knew hid an icy rage. Short, powerful strokes killed and maimed as he moved with his men toward the leader of the raiding party.
She saw that one, too, flailing and shouting as Batte did. He was not large, but a kind of malevolent energy flowed from him as he fought. Witch blood. She shuddered with the knowledge.
Why the enemy’s leader stood so far from the center of the fighting became clearer when she saw a fresh wave of his men pour into the battle so they half encircled Thalgor’s men.
“Rygar!” she called.
But he was already leading his men in a headlong charge down the hill, bow across his back, sword held high in the air.
They attacked the fresh wave of enemy so close to the hill that she heard the arrows fly and the clank of sword on shield, heard the cries of triumph and death, smelled the blood.
Nausea roiled through her, but still she watched, now Rygar, now Batte, now Thalgor as they appeared among their men, Thalgor always closer to the leader of the raiding party. He reached him just as Gurdek’s men ran into the battle with a single roar.
The sudden onslaught distracted the enemy’s leader enough for Thalgor to run his sword past the man’s shield and clear through his body. The man raised his sword one last time.
Time stopped. Nothing existed for Erwyn but those two men, the dying enemy and Thalgor with the sword hanging over his head.
The other man fell. The sword dropped harmless to the earth.
Thalgor stared at it for a moment, then looked up toward the hill, but Erwyn doubted he could see her hidden in the tree. He would only see Dara, who watched the battle avidly.
He looked away, to the dead man at his feet. He placed one foot on the man’s chest and pulled his sword free from the corpse. Then he bent to pick up the sword that had almost killed him. He carried both with him as he walked calmly through the chaotic remains of the battle.
Their leader dead, the raiding party’s lieutenants tried to regroup their men, but their only real choice was flight or slaughter. Most wisely chose flight.
As they had agreed, only Batte’s men pursued them. The rest of those alive and unhurt returned to the harvest.
The man set to guard her had charged with the rest, so Erwyn slid out of the tree and walked carefully down the steep side of the hill to the battlefield.
There would be wounded to care for.
And Thalgor still lived.
They took no prisoners this time. It grieved Erwyn to have wounded men killed she might have saved, but she knew it was necessary. Drained from death and healing, she returned late to the tent with Thalgor. One of Rygar’s men stood outside.
“Tell Rygar there is a council at midday,” Thalgor said.
“He is here.”
A chill crept up Erwyn’s back but her mind was too weary to focus on its cause.
“In my tent?” Thalgor asked, as exhausted as she.
“We thought the woman Gee could care for him.”
“What is wrong?” Thalgor brushed past the man, who followed him into the tent.
Erwyn entered more slowly. She knew now what they would find and doubted whether she had the strength to help.
Chapter Nine
Rygar lay asleep, or unconscious, on a pallet on one side of the tent. Blood seeped through the blanket that covered him. Gee sat by his side, asleep, her hand resting tenderly on his chest.
“Why did you not call the witch?” Thalgor asked the man who met them at the tent door.
Erwyn heard the anger he controlled in order to be able to speak at all. Luckily the man seemed not to notice.
“As an enemy fell, his sword pierced Rygar’s thigh,” he explained calmly. “The sword broke off in the wound. The surgeon removed the metal and bound the cut. The herbalist gave him tea to make him sleep. The surgeon said there was no need to call the witch from tending men with more serious wounds.”
Thalgor looked at Erwyn. Rage boiled behind the mask his face had become.
She knelt beside Rygar and laid her hands near the wound. He slept. The wound had begun to heal. It didn’t feel right, but in her weariness she couldn’t tell whether it was a piece of the sword still lodged there or something more sinister.
Thalgor helped her stand.
“I am tired, but all seems well,” she told him. “Gee can fetch me in an instant if he grows worse.”
“You may go,” Thalgor told the man, who immediately left. “And the surgeon may live.”
“Each of us does our best,” she reminded him.
“Go to bed, woman. Council at midday.”
He stared down at Rygar’s sleeping form with the look of a father worried about his child. If she had been less weary, she might have wondered about that.
Thalgor woke her at dawn.
When she started to protest, he said, “Rygar is awake and in great pain.”
She went to her friend at once, a bag of herbs in her hand.
While Gee brewed the tea to let him sleep again, Erwyn started to lift the blood-stained blanket. Rygar held it in place, his face red.
“The wound has been bound,” he reminded her. “It hurts, but why would it not? It is very high on my leg, almost as if the enemy meant to unman me as he fell.”
A chill ran again up Erwyn’s spine, then prickled her scalp, but no definite danger took shape in her mind. She was still weak from the day before.
Rygar’s face was cool. No sign of fever.
She smiled at him as Gee returned with the tea. “Drink. You will sleep and tomorrow the pain will ease.”
He smiled back at her and drank, then fell asleep at once.
“The wound?” Thalgor asked when she touched it through the blanket.
“Heals.”
Something was still wrong, but she could not say what. Her mind would be clearer by evening when Rygar woke again. Maybe she could co
ax him into letting her look at the wound then.
The council was quiet, the usual disputes tempered by the sleeping presence of the wounded man.
“If Rygar did not lead the charge when he did…” Batte stopped and shook his head.
“Well done,” Gurdek agreed, “for an archer. But if the marauders hadn’t followed him and fought so valiantly…”
Erwyn watched pride and honesty struggle on Batte’s face.
“Thalgor was right,” he finally admitted. “It was better to let them join our band than to kill them.”
Rygar and I were right, she silently corrected him.
Gurdek and Thalgor looked at her as if they expected her to protest, but she said nothing. It didn’t matter whose idea it was, only that the decision was wise. Still, the insult rankled.
The council soon finished what needed to be done in the aftermath of battle. Then Erwyn made a quick visit to where the wounded were gathered to make sure each progressed as he should. With these men she could easily see what caused every flicker of wrongness she sensed.
Why should it be different with Rygar? Was her mind clouded by the witch blood he might have carried, or by her own fondness for the man who was her friend?
He slept when she checked on him and, still exhausted, she told Gee to wake her when Rygar stirred, then lay down to rest.
It was full dark when Thalgor woke her.
“What?” she asked, her mind filled with sorrow.
“Rygar.” Thalgor’s face was white with worry.
She went to the wounded man’s side. With something like panic she saw he was unconscious, not asleep. When she touched his face, it burned with fever. The air smelled of death.
She threw off the blanket that covered him and gasped. Thalgor, at her side, swore more violently than she’d ever heard him swear before.
The wound was swollen, red, and festering. But worse, much worse, great red branches of sickness reached down his leg and up his body, almost as far as his heart.
Chilled without the blanket, Rygar opened his eyes, squinting against the light.
“Water,” he whispered through cracked lips.
Erwyn was still too stunned by what she saw to move.
Thalgor knelt to hold the cup for him. Rygar took a few slips then lay back, exhausted.
“Erwyn will heal you,” Thalgor told him in a husky voice.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the other man said with a weak smile. “I’m dying. I hope the child will remember some of the stories I’ve told her and pass them on someday.”
“The witch will heal you.” Anger reddened Thalgor’s face.
Rygar shook his head and fell unconscious again.
Finally Erwyn stirred herself.
“The wound was unclean. Gee thought he was asleep and didn’t wake me. Now it has gone so far I may not be able to save him.” She focused on what she knew instead of the pain that gripped her heart. “It is a slow and painful way to die, Thalgor. The treatment is worse. It would be kindest to grant him a quick and easy death.”
“Heal him,” Thalgor thundered.
She wiped away the tears that had begun to fall. “Didn’t you hear me? It may be too late. He will suffer.”
“He must live.”
“But if he only suffers and dies?” The tears were a flood now, so she let them flow.
“He must not die,” Thalgor repeated, more solemnly, as if it were a vow.
“Think of Rygar, not of yourself.”
“I made a promise.” The words were barely breathed.
He turned to face her as both of them knelt by Rygar’s bed.
“Please. If you never do another thing for me, if you ever owed me anything, if you ever cared for me, save Rygar.”
She put one hand on Thalgor’s powerful chest. His heart pounded with a fear she doubted he ever felt in battle. Tears glistened in his eyes. She never thought she would ever see him so, except perhaps over his own child. Certainly never over her.
“What if I fail?” she asked.
“You cannot fail.”
Erwyn reached with her mind to see if he was right, but the haze of pain made it hard to see. She glanced up to find Tya, the girl who now helped Gee, watching them. The one Thalgor had said Rygar loved. The girl’s eyes were wide with sadness. And with a love for Rygar beyond her years. A sign. Perhaps an answer.
“Fetch the surgeon,” Erwyn told her.
“Thank you.” Thalgor took her hand and kissed it.
She sighed. “If I am to put him through this, I will need to know why.”
“I will tell you.”
“Get me my bag. We will talk later.”
The surgeon was appalled when he saw the festering wound. And so afraid of Thalgor that his hands shook when he reached to touch the ugly red lines on Rygar’s belly.
A surgeon whose hands shook was a bad surgeon. Erwyn cast Thalgor a meaningful look. He put his hand on the surgeon’s shoulder. The man jumped as if he expected a blow.
“I know it was no one’s fault,” Thalgor said with truth in his voice as he glanced at Erwyn. “Even the enemy who struck him did so only as he fell. Still, that he should die the first time he led in battle…”
The surgeon heaved a visible sigh of relief. With calmer hands he heated a knife in the brazier Erwyn brought near.
“Keep Gee and Tya away,” Erwyn whispered to Thalgor.
“Gee and the child sleep. Tya was left to watch him. I will send her home to her family.”
When the knife cooled from red hot, the surgeon opened the ugly wound. Rygar, half unconscious, cried out in pain.
“Can you do nothing to make it easier for him?” Thalgor groaned to Erwyn.
Since she could be no help until the surgeon finished his grisly work, she moved to Rygar’s head. She cradled it in her hands to let oblivion flow from her mind to his with a quiet chant. Rygar stilled and slept.
When the surgeon was done he hurried away as if still uncertain of Thalgor’s temper.
“Hold his head,” Erwyn told Thalgor. “Your witch blood might help keep him under my spell while I work.”
And at his head Thalgor would see less of the gruesome work she needed to do.
Her herbs and oils ready, she carefully cleaned the reopened wound.
Rygar stirred and shifted, but remained asleep.
She coated the wound with sea-scented oil and packed it with herbs while she intoned age-old chants. Time crawled by.
“You leave it open?” Thalgor asked, tall enough to see what she did even while he held Rygar’s head.
She cast him a look, then finished the ritual. Finally she bound the open wound loosely with cobwebs and sat wearily back on her heels.
“It is not only a matter of the wound now.” She rolled her sore shoulders. “The herbs are to clear the illness from his whole body. Once that is done, the wound can be closed.”
Thalgor grunted in understanding.
“I must rest. If you can stay as you are it may help ease his pain. But you cannot recreate my spell, only sustain it.”
“I will stay here until sunrise.”
She knew he was weary, too, but it was pointless to argue, so she went alone to their bed.
She woke as the camp first stirred, before dawn. In the main room of the tent Thalgor slept where he sat, Rygar’s head cradled in his hands. The wounded man’s cheek was still hot, but not dangerously so. She shook Thalgor awake.
“Help me repack the wound, then you may rest.”
“I will stay here.”
Stubborn man. “As you wish.”
Removing the spent herbs would be painful, replacing them with fresh ones more so. She laid her hands on Rygar’s forehead and flooded his mind again with oblivion, then set to work.
He cried out and struggled more this time. A sign he was stronger.
But it meant Thalgor had to leave his post to hold the wounded leg so she could do what she needed to do.
Rygar was full
y conscious and in agony by the time she finished.
When Thalgor left to chase away Gee and the child, awakened by the cries, Rygar reached down and grabbed Erwyn’s hand.
“Let me die, witch,” he pleaded, his lips dry and cracked.
She freed her hand and offered him water, which he drank greedily. Another good sign.
“Thalgor orders me to save you.”
“Does Thalgor think he orders the sun to rise as well?”
“Sometimes.”
Rygar managed a thin smile.
“And another wishes you to live.” Erwyn nodded toward Tya, who had appeared at the door. “If she could choose she would stay by your side as he does.”
“She is too young.” Rygar closed his eyes in pain.
“Her heart is older than her years.”
He smiled again and slept.
Thalgor brought back food for the two of them and hot water so she could make a tea to ease Rygar’s pain. When she woke him, he drank only a little, then vomited it up again. She cleaned him and eased him back to sleep with her mind.
“I must see to my men,” Thalgor said as they finished a meal both ate with grim reluctance.
She put a hand on his arm to stop him. “You need rest.”
“I need to be busy about something.”
“You owe me a story.”
“Later, witch.”
Erwyn covered Rygar, then let Gee, Tya, and Felyn come to see that he lived and to stroke, each in her own way, his hands and face. When they left, she laid her hands on the wound and chanted a healing chant, but she felt no answer from Rygar’s weak and weary body.
Thalgor returned with food at midday. He saw at once that Rygar was no better.
“Does your magic fail, witch?”
She knew he spoke to hide his fear, but the words cut. “I told you it might.”
“Have I entrusted my people to a false witch?”
She pulled herself to her feet and faced him.
“I am a true witch, but I am not all-powerful.”
“You are my woman. Can you not save the one I love most?”
Stunned and hurt by his words, she sat again by Rygar’s side. His hot, gray flesh stirred when she laid her hand on him.
Thalgor's Witch Page 12
