by Linda Mooney
MaGrath nodded. Despite her confusion, she probably recognized the area and saw they were heading south, toward the Battle Lord’s domain. She weakly tugged on the physician’s sleeve. “Cats,” she tried to warn him. “Feral...cats.”
MaGrath gave her a disbelieving stare. “But ferals don’t attack people,” he tried to argue.
Atty licked her cracked and swollen lips, tasting the dried blood. “Trust me.”
Immediately, MaGrath looked up and signaled to a nearby soldier. The man reined over. “Go to the Battle Lord and tell him feral cats hunt in this area. Go now!”
“But ferals don’t attack—”
“Obey me!” the physician hissed. In a world hardly recovered from the Great Concussion, next to the Battle Lord, among those obeyed without question and held in the highest regard were those skilled in the medicinal arts.
The soldier slid off his mount and hurried to catch up with the others, bearing his news. Several minutes passed. Distantly they could hear the clash of weapons but no screaming. No roars or hisses to let the rest of the caravan know what the Battle Lord and his men were facing. Once a few of the horses in the back of the line got spooked and reared, but they were quickly calmed.
It was nearly half an hour later when all six men walked back over the ridge to rejoin the line. MaGrath let out a sigh of relief to see them all walking normally, and none holding onto an arm or other body part that had been injured. But as they drew closer, it was evident they had been involved in a skirmish. Great gouts of blood coated their armor and dripped off their weapons.
Without a word, Yulen wiped his sword in a patch of snow before sheathing it, remounted his horse, and waved them forward. As the line progressed toward the rise, MaGrath watched as the Battle Lord remained to one side until they were nearly even.
“Question, Liam. How’d you know there were ferals stalking us?” Yulen asked when they were within earshot of each other.
“I didn’t. She did,” MaGrath admitted and looked down to notice the warrior girl had succumbed again to sleep.
Yulen’s eyes narrowed. “She was awake?”
“And speaking,” the physician admitted.
“What? What did she say?”
“Less than a dozen words, Yulen. She asked why we’d stop, and then told me there were feral cats in the area...not in those exact words, mind you. But what she said was enough for me to send Boiseman to tell you.”
“Then she’s going to be okay?”
“So far as I can tell. She needs more pain medicine.”
“We’ll be camping near the lake tonight. But if she awakens before then, let me know.”
“I will,” MaGrath promised.
They topped the rise and traveled down into a small valley surrounded by high walls. Another hundred yards down the road lay the remains of the two ferals who had been stalking their party. The huge pair, obvious mates, must have put up quite a fight, if the pools of blood were any indication. The gray and white striped male alone had to have weighed a good six or seven hundred pounds. The smaller black and white female had distended teats, meaning there had to be a den somewhere near.
MaGrath shuddered. That was what the warrior girl had been trying to warn them about. Ferals normally avoided humans, but this pair was defending their kittens. They also needed to provide their family with fresh meat. That explained the terrifying silence as the Ferals stalked their prey.
The physician shook his head. How had she known? Even in her severely injured state, she had managed to outsmart them all. No, he quickly corrected himself. She had saved them all.
Chapter Eleven
Lake
They didn’t reach the lake until just after sundown. There was a large, dilapidated stone building around the northeast shore that would provide his men enough cover in the event something tried to attack them from the forest. The lake itself was fresh water, and everyone refilled their skin sacks as the horses were allowed their freedom to graze on long tethers.
Yulen walked among his men, keeping himself open and available to the soldiers who willingly risked their lives under his banner. He knew all of them by name, including the names of their wives or sweethearts and children. He often took time like this to offer suggestions or praise to them, and it was clear that by that evening what he had told Mastin about his motive for bringing along the Mutah woman had made its way among the ranks. Secretly he was glad to see no overt ill response from the men for his decision. In fact, he also let them know that the warrior girl had also been the one to warn them of the feral cats that had attacked them on the highway. If he planned to have them take orders from someone who normally would be their enemy, he knew he first had to get them to trust her.
By nightfall Tosh Karv had regained his senses and his appetite. The Battle Lord had him over by his fire to share in one of the rabbits a few of the men had captured along the route. As the two men ate in silence, Yulen waited until the Second was finished before speaking.
“I’ve tapped Mastin and Verris as your replacements.”
The smaller man nodded. “I expected as such. They’re good men.”
“You know I can’t forgive you for your attack on the girl, but I understand it,” Yulen continued. “She was unarmed.”
“She’s still Mutah,” Karv growled.
“Well, until I say differently, she’s under my protection. Honor that, Karv.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Karv? I want you back as my Second. When you’re ready to return—”
“Not as long as the Mutah woman is allowed to roam free.”
Yulen nodded. “I understand. You also realize I won’t back down. She’s going to become very important in helping us against Collaunt and his men. Every little bit of knowledge we can gain that Collaunt doesn’t have tips the scale in our direction.”
The smaller man answered with a shrug of his shoulders. Once they’d finished eating, Karv excused himself to brush down and feed his horse before turning in. Yulen watched him go with a heavy heart. With his thoughts kept to himself, the Battle Lord was unaware of MaGrath approaching until the man cleared his throat.
“She’s awake and asking for you.”
Yulen got to his feet and followed the physician back to where the man had made his fire. The warrior girl was lying on her side on a pallet, facing the warmth. She never moved, but her eyes remained riveted on the Battle Lord as he approached and sat down on the other side of the pit.
“Are you in much pain?”
“The cats?” she asked instead. Her voice was gravelly, hoarse.
“They found us, but thanks to your warning we were able to beat them back. How’d you know?”
She sighed, rolling onto her back. In the firelight the blood that had soaked through the bandages appeared dark brown. “If I find out you’ve been lying to me...”
Yulen immediately knew what she was implying. “In a month’s time I’ll be sending a squad to replace those men I’ve left behind. At that time you can send a missive to anyone you want. Then you’ll see I’ve been telling the truth.”
A long minute passed. MaGrath threw another piece of deadwood in the fire pit to keep it hot.
“The man who hates me...”
“Tosh Karv.” He watched as she formed the man’s name on her lips without repeating it aloud.
“He’ll hurt me again,” she predicted.
Yulen shook his head. “Not if I can help it.”
“No.” She rolled back onto her side to face him. “He’ll try and he’ll succeed if you don’t let me have my weapons.”
Staring at his hands clasped over his knees, Yulen mulled over his next decision. “Liam has your bow and quiver. When he feels you’re well enough to wield them, he has my permission to return them to you.”
He had no idea what kind of reaction he expected from her, but the last thing he thought he’d hear from her was his given name on her lips.
“Thank you, Yulen.”
�
��Your name,” he ventured, hoping to gain more from her before she withdrew again into her own private solitude.
“Atty.”
“Is that short for anything?”
“Atrilan. Atrilan Ferran.”
Atrilan. For some unexplainable reason, the exotic name seemed to fit her perfectly.
“Mutahs have first and last names?” The moment he asked, he realized he’d made a grievous error. Cursing himself, he watched as the gates to her trust closed and locked, as evident in her eyes. She rolled onto her other side, turning her back to him, and huddled under the blanket for warmth before slipping into a medicine-induced sleep.
Getting to his feet, he motioned for the physician to join him as he turned and walked off toward the lake. Once they were far enough away to where the girl couldn’t hear him, the Battle Lord muttered an expletive under his breath. To his surprise, MaGrath chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.
“A lifetime of conditioning can’t be relearned in the span of a few hours, Yulen.”
“Of course she has two names. That’s what she’s been trying to teach me all this time.”
“That Mutah may look different from us, but initially we all came from the same gene pool?”
Yulen shot him a guilty look. “How can I gain her trust if I keep shooting my mouth off?”
“You have bigger worries facing you, Yulen.”
“I have a hundred decisions facing me this very moment, Liam. Try to be more specific.”
“What are you going to do with her once she’s taught our men all her tricks?”
“Haven’t you asked me that before?”
“Yeah, and I’m gonna keep asking you until I get a straight answer.”
“Why? What does it matter to you?”
“Because I can read you like a book, Yulen D’Jacques, and I’ve been doing so since I came back from Far Troit to become your father’s physician twenty-seven, no, twenty-eight years ago. I can read you like no one else can, and I know when you’re hiding something. You can fool everyone else with your bluster and your orders and that deadly right hook you have, but spare me the half-truths. You want her to stay.”
“Say what you want,” Yulen muttered.
“I am,” MaGrath countered. “But I sense from you something I don’t think even you’ve acknowledged. You want her to stay, and you want her to do it on her own accord. Without anyone ordering her or threatening her or coercing her in any form or fashion.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” He chuckled again. “Have you had the chance to look at her? I mean, really look at her? Do you even know what her difference is?”
“She told me her hair was her mark.”
“And?”
“That its color was different.” Yulen threw a rock across the water and watched as it skipped twice under the light of the broken moon.
“Yeah. It is.”
He turned to the physician. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What color is it?”
MaGrath paused long enough for a slow smile to spread over his face. “That’s something you’ll have to discover on your own,” he finally said, turning on his heel and walking away. “G’night, Yulen. See you in the morning.”
Chapter Twelve
Crows
“How’d he get that wound?”
MaGrath smiled. Peering over his shoulder at the warrior girl who lay strapped across his back, he was met by a pair of blue-gray eyes, and realized it was the first time he’d noticed their color.
“Good morning, sunshine. How do you feel?”
“Like crap,” she moaned softly, keeping her chin propped against his right shoulder. The horse was moving at a casual gait over the level terrain. “I’ve been trying to find some identifying landmarks, but I can’t. I guess we’ve traveled too far south for me to spot anything familiar.”
“It’s good to know you haven’t suffered any permanent brain damage,” the physician commented. “You’re getting better, but you still have a long way to go. Are you in any pain at the moment? I unpacked a tin this morning, just in case.” He patted his right coat pocket for emphasis.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him.
“Well, do you want the heroic version? Or the plain version?”
“I want the truthful version.”
“He was attacked by crows.”
She shuddered against his back. “Ugh. I hate crows. They’re hard to hit.”
“You mean you’ve killed crows with a bow?”
“Of course. How else would you do it? You can’t kill them that easily with a sword,” she replied matter-of-factly. She adjusted her position slightly. Instead of being draped across his lap as she had been yesterday, she sat spread-legged across the back of his horse, her arms carefully tied around his waist to prevent her from falling off. MaGrath looked down to see her stretch and wriggle her fingers to get the feeling back in her hands.
“Why did the crows attack him?”
“Because one of the men inadvertently stumbled across a group of them finishing off a carcass. When they attacked the man, Yulen went in to get him.”
He felt her start. “Just him? Alone?”
“He wasn’t going to risk losing another man. Of course he went in alone.” MaGrath glanced back at her again. “There’s a lot about our Battle Lord you don’t know.”
“Like I’d want to?” she snipped, then instantly regretted it. How could she learn to hate a man who had saved her life and the lives of those in her village? He should have destroyed the compound and everyone in it, regardless of her skill with a bow. In fact, knowing she was the one who’d killed those men normally would have been enough to have her slaughtered on sight.
She sighed loudly, getting the physician’s attention once more. “Are you hungry?” he inquired.
“Kinda.”
She saw him nod, then look down. A stale hunk of bread and a piece of cheese was handed to her, wrapped inside a piece of fabric. “It’s the best I can do at the moment. We’ll be stopping in another two or three hours for a short rest.”
Before she could mention the fact that her hands were still tied around his waist, she felt them being released. Grateful, she took the food and began to eat as she rubbed the bandages around her wrists. The physician noticed.
“Careful of the bandages. They need to stay wrapped another day to make sure there’s no chance of infection.”
The caravan continued in a mostly southeasterly direction. Atty’s sharp eyes noted the various prints and spore from the animals living in the area. Some dotted the dusty road, but most lined the edges of the trail before disappearing into the brush. Fortunately, as far as she could tell, none of them were from dangerous or predatory wildlife that she was familiar with.
“Did I dream it last night, or did he call you Liam?”
“That’s my given name.”
“Can I call you Liam?”
“Can I call you Atty?”
He was happy to see the small smile that crossed her still-swollen lips, knowing it would cause her some pain. “There’s a bag of water tied behind you on your left.”
Atty found it and drank deeply. It was still cool. Lake water. The bread went down softer with it.
“Crows, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Our teachers said that before the Great Concussion they used to be a lot smaller, almost the size of a newborn babe.”
MaGrath caught himself before making a fool of himself. “Yeah. I heard that, too.”
“Hard to believe they could’ve ever been that small,” the girl continued. “Did he kill any?”
“Three.”
“Including the one that clawed him?”
MaGrath nodded.
“How about the soldier? The one he was trying to rescue?”
This time the physician turned around almost halfway, using his right hand to balance himself on the saddle. “He got me out without a scratch o
n me.”
It was a joy to see the look of utter surprise come over her battered face. Giving her a wink, he turned back around and pretended to study the landscape. Several minutes went by. He’d begun to think she’d fallen back asleep when a soft voice asked, “Did I dream it last night, or did he also give me back my weapons?”
“It was no dream. He gave them back.”
“Then where are they?”
“He has them tied to his saddle for safekeeping. You might want to look into getting some more arrows. There’s only a couple left in the quiver.”
That’s right, she reminded herself. She’d used most of them when the soldiers had first entered the compound. At first she’d thought she’d used all of them, until a couple were found on the roof where they’d fallen out of her quiver. Almost as second-nature, her eyes skimmed the edges of the forest to see if she could spot any young saplings that would provide strong shafts.
“Liam? Where are we?”
“In the northern provinces. Or, what we refer to as the northern provinces. We’re still a goodly ways from Alta Novis. Why?” He glanced back at her. “See anything unusual?”
“Unusual, yes, but nothing that I would think of as dangerous. How big do the squirrels get here?”
Now it was MaGrath’s turn to be surprised. “How’d you know?” From the corner of his eye he could see her slowly shake her head.
“You are soldiers. I’m a hunter. Your job is to kill and maim and be assholes of the first degree. Meanwhile, it’s people like me who keep food on your tables and warn you if nature is about to dump a wagon load of manure on your doorstep.”
The physician chuckled. Her language may be colorful, but her tone of voice was nothing but serious. “He didn’t mean what he said,” he added in a softer voice. He expected her silence, but not her response.
“Does he really believe we’re nothing but inferior to even the mutant animals?”
“I’m telling you exactly what I said to him last night. It’s going to take a while to overcome a lifetime of conditioning. Atty, you have to remember, all we’ve ever known about Mutah is what we’ve been told by people we trusted were telling us the truth. Our parents. Our teachers. Our elders. You’re intelligent. I’ll bet the same was said about us among your people.”
