Justine parted her lips into a smile. He noticed they were thin.
“What do you want?”
“You can walk me to my hut,” she said. “That’s all I want.”
Mary was sat on a bed, feeding her baby, the infant suckling on her breast when Mallon burst into the hut, his face filmed with sweat, a man groaning in his arms, dripping with blood.
“Where is here?”
“Where do you think?” she said, shaking her head.
The room was lit by flickering candles. The floor was scattered with blankets. On a low table was a bowl of fruit, a basin half filled with water and empty mugs. A heavy chest was in one corner, covered with clothes. Mallon took the wounded man through an archway into a second room where there was a large table and a bed with a straw mattress. He gently laid the young man onto the table. Emil followed and saw blood gushing from Tristan’s thigh and stomach. He had been stabbed numerous times. His hand showed defensive cuts and his cheek had been slashed.
“Get him,” shouted Mallon, lighting candles. “Quickly, woman.”
“I‘m feeding my baby,” protested Mary.
“Tristan will die if we don’t have the Saacion,” he said.
“Do you have a breast to suck on?”
Mary heard Mallon curse and ignored him. There was no need to stamp into her home after dark and bark orders at her.
“You don’t need him,” said Emil, but Mallon could only hear Tristan’s worsening groans and knew that without the Saacion he would have to try and save his life by himself. The one-eyed girl had followed him here and he was confused at how she thought her presence might help. He looked around the room. There was a row of wooden shelves crammed with bottles of various liquids. He saw bowls of different coloured powders, a box filled with strips of clean cloth, a box of needles, a basin of water, a tray of knives and hand saws. He took a cloth, dipped it into the basin and wrung it out. He wiped the blood from Tristan’s face but the wounds simply wept again and trickled down his chin and neck. His face was ashen in the candlelight and he was shivering and muttering.
“What, Tristan?” said Mallon, putting his ear to the young man’s lips. “I can’t understand you.”
A shadow fell across the room and Mallon lifted his head to see Nuria appear in the doorway.
“Why are you here?” asked Emil, echoing Mallon’s thoughts. “I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Stone asked me,” she said.
Mallon was blighted with abject despair as the two women exchanged bitter glances. He had no knowledge of the Saacion ways. He watched Tristan weep and gasp as his life began to ebb away, memories breaking, scattering, fragments now, floating away, in slow motion. He cursed his inability to react. He was strong, intelligent, well trained, yet this denied him, this rejected him and Tristan would die. A horrible death in a poky hut smelling of milk and sweat. He saw Emil snatch a knife from the shelf and rip open the young man’s trousers, exposing a leg knotted with blood streaked hair.
“What are you doing?” shouted Mallon, grabbing her wrist.
“I can save him,” said Emil.
He tightened his grip, shook the knife to the floor.
“What’s going on in there?” called Mary, walking in circles, her baby on her shoulder, her hand soothing his back.
“Leave her,” said Nuria. “She can help him.”
Tristan coughed. His eyes were delirious.
“She can save his life,” she said.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He kept trying to get the words out.
“Trust me,” said Emil.
Mallon stared into her single eye and let go of her wrist. She quickly pressed her hands to Tristan’s trembling skin and closed her eye. Mallon had witnessed many things in his years but he knew this would become a defining moment in his life, an experience he would never forget, until his final breath was taken. He stood with a blood soaked cloth in his hand, helpless, the slender blonde woman in the doorway, Mary burping her baby, and he watched with utter disbelief as the one-eyed child took away Tristan’s pain and agony and knitted the skin back together. She rolled up his shirt and Mallon flinched at the torn skin slippery with blood. Calmly, her hands glided across his ruined stomach and Mallon felt a tear sting his eye as he saw the child heal once more. Emil reached to Tristan’s face. She cradled his cheeks. The wound closed, leaving a scar. His rapid, laboured breathing began to ease. Colour was slowly returning to his face. Emil opened her eye and stepped back from the table. Nuria grabbed a fresh cloth, wet it, and began to clean the blood from the young man.
Mallon was stunned.
There was a sudden commotion in the front room and a long haired man lurched through the doorway, his eyes out of focus.
“I’m here now,” he said. “I’m here. What do you need?”
“Go back to the tavern, Conrad,” said Mallon, not taking his eyes from Emil.
Conrad frowned at the young man sitting upright on his medical table, gingerly feeling the skin where his wounds had once existed.
“I thought I was needed. It was an emergency. You rang the bell. Who rang the bell? Didn’t you need me? I thought…”
“Sleep it off, Conrad.”
He scratched his head and his dark eyes settled on Nuria. He looked her up and down.
“I’m Conrad,” he said, straightening himself.
Nuria barely glanced at him. He reeked of drink, sweat and more unpleasant odours.
“What is your name, miss?”
She ignored his question and went to Emil. She had seen her heal twice before. The first time she had been consumed by sickness afterwards. Nuria understood it was a side effect, experienced by young healers. Then she had witnessed her heal again and there had been nothing except a mild headache. This time Emil looked fine. Only a fine sheen of perspiration covered her face but she didn’t appear nauseous. She asked for water and Mallon fetched a cup for her. He was still dazed by what he had seen. He had never heard the rumours of Pure Ones, female children born with one eye, bearing scars on the face and body, blessed with the gift of healing, in a world devoid of medicine.
Tristan rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He stared at Emil, awed by her actions, scared of her, too.
“What happened to you?” said Mallon.
“Tristan?” said Conrad, hugging him. “I didn’t know it was you, brother.”
Tristan swung his legs off the table, once more studying where the blade had pierced his flesh, fingers touching the faint scar.
“They’ve arrived at Le Sen,” he said, simply. “The levy has been raised to four.”
--- Four ---
The villagers daubed her Magic Girl.
Five days had passed since Tristan had stumbled into Dessan. Ilan, the Elder Chief, had sought out Emil the following morning, faint drops of rain in the air, mist clinging to the land. He had personally thanked her for saving the life of his only son, the only one he acknowledged, and closed her small hands within his. He had kissed her forehead. His lips had felt coarse. Margaux had patted her on the shoulder as the older man had left the school. She told Emil he would be in her debt for ever and would see no harm would ever come to her. The children’s rowdiness had simmered during Ilan’s visit but, once out of sight, the name calling and yanking of hair and prodding the pupil sat in front quickly resumed. The school was on the far side of the village, a large area of wooden benches and roughly hewn wooden desks set beneath a broad tarpaulin canopy that rustled in the wind. It was circled by a low mud wall, uneven and pitted. There were no books or papers or instruments or charts or pictures but there was a large blackboard which Margaux had scratched numbers upon with a hardened piece of clay.
Nearby, the sound of hammering and sawing and faint singing filled the air as construction on the palisade wall continued.
Emil glimpsed Stone and the Map Maker amongst a group of men carrying wood from the forest. The trunks had been trimmed of branches and sharpened at one end into a point and
were then laid on the ground in row. Other men then took over, hammering smaller pieces of wood horizontally. She saw Nuria amongst a group digging trenches. As each section of the wall was lifted and then sunk into the ground, another group were responsible for banking the lower portion of the wall with mud and clay. The work looked hard and repetitive and Emil smiled that she had been chosen to work at the school. She had frozen on her first day in front of the children. The two name callers she had previously encountered – Remi and Ninon - had attempted to abuse her once more but she told the thirteen children facing her that anymore name calling would result in a longer school day and no breaks for all of them. The other children had growled at the malicious pair and the teasing had ceased. Margaux smiled, confident she had chosen wisely.
Lena beamed at Emil, elevated amongst her peers, because she had befriended the Magic Girl before anyone else.
“When did you know?” asked Emil, as she sat with Margaux, the children taking a break from counting. “Have you seen my kind before?”
“No,” said Margaux, biting into an apple. “From time to time merchants come through the village, looking to trade for water, fruit and vegetables. They bring stories, things they have seen in the wastelands. I heard a story once of a one-eyed girl who could heal any wound, even that from a bullet. To be honest, I didn’t believe it. How can anyone heal with simple touch? But then there are many things in Gallen that are puzzling. When I first saw you I did suspect there might have been a truth in the merchant’s tale.”
“I think I prefer Magic Girl to Pure One,” said Emil, drinking water from a mug. “Another name.”
Margaux smiled warmly and nodded.
“Do you think you will stay in Dessan? You could have a good life here.” She gestured at the children. “I cannot teach them for ever. I am thirty five years of age. Soon they will grow up and work in the fields or carry spears. Then a new generation of children will come through but I will be older. I will grow wrinkled and grey.”
She laughed, chewed her apple.
“You have beautiful skin,” said Emil. “I couldn’t imagine you with wrinkles and lines.”
Margaux patted Emil on the shoulder.
“You are a very kind child. But, look, Emil, see beneath my eyes. Ah, lines, I am getting old. How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she replied, biting into a piece of hard biscuit. She had never tasted anything so sweet. “I think.”
“How do you not know your age?”
“I lost a long period of time,” she said, lowering the biscuit, her eyes glazing over. “I cannot remember my day of birth. My family used to mark the day with a celebration. It’s hazy now. So I might be seventeen. I don’t know.”
“That’s sad,” said Margaux. “Your family were killed, is that right?”
“Who told …?” said Emil, cutting herself short as she saw Lena running with the other children. “My village was burned, I was the only survivor, I think.”
Margaux nodded, gripped Emil’s shoulder.
“I was right about you. You are full of courage.” She glanced toward the wall. “Your friends are working hard but it’s pointless labour.”
“Why did you say that?”
“Oh, Emil, it is. The wall is Mallon’s idea. He thinks we need protection but we don’t. No one attacks us. It is a waste of time, materials and hours.”
Emil nodded.
“He has taken your eye, hasn’t he?”
Emil glanced at her.
“I’m sorry, I meant no offence. It’s just an expression.”
“It’s okay,” said Emil, smiling. “I know. He is very pleasant on the eye, I must admit, but I am not …”
Margaux leaned forward.
“Please be careful around him, Emil, I have heard some bad stories about him with girls your age and ones even younger.”
Emil frowned.
“What stories?”
“Not here, not with the children nearby. Take care around him. You should warn Lena, as well, she too has taken a shine to him.” She rose to her feet. “Now, I think we should push aside this dark conversation and instead declare you sixteen for ever.”
“I’d like that,” said Emil.
“Now, shall we have them back at their desks?”
Emil nodded and set aside the last of her biscuit, her appetite having waned. It was during the afternoon, tangling with numbers, working out how to evenly share food within a large group, that Lena suddenly thrust her hand into the air, straining her arm, a frantic and panic stricken look across her face. She blurted out that she had forgotten to advance the Centon.
“It is very serious to forget, Lena,” said Margaux, the warmth and humour gone from her face. “Come here.”
She took the girl outside and spoke with her for several minutes. Tears bubbled in Lena’s eyes and trickled over her pebbled skin. She shook her head and kicked at the ground. Margaux returned to the classroom and asked Emil to accompany her to the Centon and ensure she returned swiftly. The two girls walked through the village in silence. Emil puzzled over this version of Lena - miserable and a touch angry – unlike the bright and talkative child she had met on her first day.
“Lena, is everything okay?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t seem your normal self.”
“Okay.”
“Was that a bad telling off from Margaux?”
“No.”
Emil left it as they passed a woman hanging out wet clothes on a washing line tied between two huts.
As they reached the Centon Lena lifted the stone and advanced it forward one box, slamming it down. She glanced over to where Mallon stood practising with another warrior. They were using wooden swords and the sounded echoed loudly as they clashed. She lingered, her eyes never leaving him. Emil saw the young girl fiddle with her hair, straighten out the kinks and tangles.
“You should avoid him,” said Emil.
“Why?”
The word snapped at her, surprising Emil.
“I’ve been told things about him.”
Lena whirled round.
“I know what you’re doing. It’s because you like him, isn’t it?”
“What? No, that’s not the reason. I mean, I don’t dislike him but I don’t know him and you don’t really …”
“I don’t think I like you anymore,” said Lena. “You’re a one-eyed monster.” She stomped away, back down the road toward the school, ponytail flicking angrily from side to side.
Emil blinked, shocked at the outburst. She turned to follow Lena when she realised the clack of the wooden swords had ceased and she could hear footsteps trotting across the wooden bridge.
“Emil.”
She bit her lip, turned slowly on her heel, and smiled as Mallon approached her, sandals and trousers, bare chest filmed with sweat. He was wiping himself down with a large cloth as he drew close to her. She could smell his body odour, an enticing musky aroma, not the acidic smell that most men reeked of. He offered her a tentative smile.
“I keep trying to catch up with you,” he said.
“Why?” she replied, her response far more frosty and confrontational than she had intended.
“Well, I,” he said, rubbing down his arms. “I just wanted to talk to you, I suppose. It was incredible what you did for Tristan.”
She nodded, saying nothing as Margaux’s words continued to circle in her thoughts.
“It was unbelievable. Do you know every one is calling you the Magic Girl? I think it’s a nice name.”
“I have a proper name,” she said, once again inwardly cursing her tone. “Look, I have to go. I’m needed at the school.”
“I’m sorry to have kept you,” he said, throwing the large cloth over his shoulder. “I was just making conversation.”
He turned to march back across the bridge.
“Mallon,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you ever have an evening off?”
“I could have th
is evening off,” he said, pausing. “Would you like to do something? We could share dinner.”
She nodded.
“I will find you later,” he said.
Emil spun round and headed back toward the school, ignoring the Centon. The darkly coloured stone resided in the penultimate compartment.
Tomorrow, it would reach the box coloured purple.
Stone wiped the sweat from his brow. He was enjoying the hard work. He swung the axe into the base of a tree one final time and watched it crash to a floor of pine needles and leaves. Another man helped him lift it from the ground and they set it astride large wooden trestles where its branches would be trimmed and then the truck cut down. One of them men suddenly bellowed out it was time for a break and the constant noise of sawing and chopping ceased. He appeared to be in charge of the wall construction but Stone could not recall his name. Was it Sebastian? It didn’t really matter. Stone eased his bare back against a pile of logs, stretched out his long legs and took a deep drink of water.
He glanced through the trees and saw that the other groups, where the burgeoning wall began, had also stopped. He watched Nuria half walk, half jog across the brush toward the shade of the trees. She had completed the walk every day to take her food with him beneath the trees. She smiled at him as she sat and unwrapped a lunch of seasoned halk meat and small potatoes. Sadie had spent the evening preparing the food for them all, carefully separating the portions and wrapping each one. She had also cleaned the hut and fixed up a screen so the women could wash with some privacy. The mud hut was a cramped, hot and awkward living space for five people with little in common, but it was safe and there was food and a short walk with a bucket provided fresh drinking water.
“She works hard to pull every one together,” said Nuria. “Sadie, I mean. I don’t really know very much about her.”
“Her mother is a fearsome woman,” said Stone, idly. “You’d like her.”
“Did you ever find out anything?” she asked, whilst biting into a soft potato.
“No.”
Since the night Tristan had rode into the village, bloody and near death, Stone had drawn meagre conversation from the men he worked with, gradually easing in questions about Tristan and what role he held in the village. He had gleaned little, only a handful of thin rumours, stories that overlapped, bearing grains of possible truth.
The Wasteland Soldier, Book 2, Escape From Tamnica (TWS) Page 5
