The leader barked an artificial laugh, and made his counter. :He says that the so-called Killing Trees did not prevent his passage, and implies that this means his magic is stronger than ours.:
There was a stirring in the distance, and for a single moment, Kero’s troops showed themselves before blending back into the shadows and undergrowth. This did affect the barbarian leader; he had not gotten long enough to count heads, for Kero had timed the moment so that all he had was an impression - an impression of great numbers.
:You managed to avoid the Killing Trees by passing to the west, and your boast is hollow as an old reed. Magic is not our only weapon,: Tyrsell said with great boredom, :It is only the easiest to use.:
The leader remained silent now, as his underlings whispered urgently in his ear.
Tyrsell did not wait for them to formulate a reply, not when the negotiations had just turned in the favor of the allies. :Here are our fighters, our magic, and our gods barring your way - but we are a generous people, and compassionate to those who are willing to serve. These lands have no current tenant, it is true; what have you to offer us in return for leave to remain?:
If anything, that startled the leader even more than the presence of the troops. His posture full of confusion, he made an abrupt gesture, spoke a few words, and retreated with his party.
:He wants to go discuss this with his people,: Tyrsell said uneccessarily.
Back in camp, with Wintersky spying on the barbarians and Kero’s sentries keeping careful watch, Tyrsell gave them a fuller account of what he had read in the barbarians’ thoughts.
Darian fought back a yawn, clamping his jaws on it. It seemed an eternity since the last time he’d slept, and with his excitement and fear wearing off, he felt a bit lightheaded with weariness.
:You all know, of course, that without taking his mind in such a way that he would know I had done so, I could only read what came to the surface of his mind?: Tyrsell began, as a preamble.
“If we didn’t before, we do now,” Kero replied logically. “So, what information came along with those surface thoughts?”
:This Ghost Cat - I am forced to believe it is either a very powerful hallucination, or it is very real: Tyrsell shook his head in irritation as a fly buzzed around his ears. Darian fought another yawn. :I am quite serious; and I am inclined to think that it would be difficult to hallucinate such a thing during the course of a migration lasting moons.:
Firesong and his father exchanged sharp glances, and Kero and Eldan did the same. “That puts an interesting kink in our plans,” Kerowyn ventured. “But until this Ghost Cat shows itself to me, I’m leaving it out of the calculations for now. What else?”
:The disease I mentioned. The three of us managed to get bits and pieces of the whole story.: Tyrsell sounded proud of himself and his underlings, as well he should be; that would be a difficult proposition to read from the surface thoughts. Darian wondered about this Ghost Cat;
Firesong had told him about the two Avatars that helped his friend An’desha - could this Ghost Cat be something like them? And if so, then what did that mean for the Tayledras and Valdemar? :There was a tradition of an annual gathering of clans and septs of clans every Midsummer, and the last year it ever took place, it was held in Ghost Cat territory. Just as a matter of caution, they always avoided Change-Circles, but as we know, other clans don’t. Someone from Blood Bear Clan found a Circle and went into it - and came out with more than he‘d expected.:
“The disease,” Snowfire stated, without surprise. “We were afraid something like this would happen, and we took precautions against it - ”
“Obviously they didn’t,” Kero said dryly.
:Exactly so. It ran through the assembled clans like a wildfire. They call it “summerfever,” since it disappears in winter, though they don’t know why.:
“Is this disease the cause of the crippled children?” Snowfire asked.
:It is. It begins as coughing, sneezing, chills and fever, then becomes a wasting disease. It kills more often than not, as the chest muscles waste away and breathing becomes impossible, or as full paralysis sets in and the victim is helpless to keep up; only the very lucky survive.: Tyrsell was uncharacteristically sober; evidently he found the images that had come with that knowledge to be disturbing. :Usually death from disease comes to the old and weak or the young and helpless. This death does not pick and choose in that way. Enough fighters died in the first sweep that every clan feud was called off, but new outbreaks have occurred every summer since then.:
Darian wasn’t sleepy anymore; whether he was picking up images from Tyrsell, or his own imagination was working hard, but he had seen those children lying beside the fire. . . .
“All right, but why come here?” Firesong asked.
:Their shaman was one of the victims, but before he died, he told them that a sign would lead them to a place where they would find healing and an end to the sickness. And after he died, the Ghost Cat appeared, and led them south. That was when their lore-keepers recalled that we of the south reputedly have many powerful Healers.:
“Oh, really?” Eldan’s eyebrows rose, and he turned to Starfall. “Was this Cat a revenant, do you think? Or an avatar?”
Great minds follow the same path, Darian thought.
“It could be,” Starfall said cautiously. “But we shouldn’t discount either. Well, now we know why they avoid Change-Circles.”
:Before he died, their shaman declared that their own gods and magic were helpless against this “plague from outside” and that “they must look outside for help.” They aren’t down here purely by chance, following the Ghost Cat. They’ve heard of the Valdemaran-style Healers, as I said, and have come looking for some. Their initial intentions were to kidnap some and coerce them into helping, if they had to.:
“Huh,” Kero snorted. “They don’t know Healers very well, do they?”
Darian had to agree with that.
:However, confronted by our strong force . . . that doesn’t seem like too good an idea anymore.: Tyrsell’s sides heaved with an enormous sigh. :And that is all I can tell you.:
“I think we’d better bring the Healers in on this,” Darian put in, with visions of more crippled children in Errold’s Grove. “How do we know we won’t catch this fever?”
“We don’t, and that is a damned good point,” Kero responded. She rose - but halfway to her feet, was interrupted.
“Captain! Visitors!” One of the Guards entered the cave and saluted Kerowyn smartly. “Two to see you, urgently, Captain!”
“I didn’t send for anyone,” Kero began crossly, as she straightened. “And I’m certainly not expecting anyone.”
“I know you aren’t, Captain Kerowyn,” said a high, young, female voice. “I came here on my own.”
Around the edge of the cave stepped a young woman dressed in Heraldic Trainee Greys, and trailing her was her Companion - who had a distinctly hangdog and guilty look about him. Darian cast a quick glance at Kerowyn’s Sayvil, who was glaring at the new Companion with much the same expression that Kero was using with the Trainee.
Darian knew an incipient explosion when he saw one, and he was quite glad that he wasn’t standing in the footprints of either the pretty young woman or her Companion.
There was something about the girl that was naggingly familiar to Darian, even though he was certain that he had never seen her in his life.
“I also brought my sister,” the girl continued, undaunted. “And since you just now mentioned Healers, I can’t help thinking that my premonition was accurate.”
She beckoned, and around the same edge of the cave, looking nervous and determined at the same time, stepped Keisha Alder.
Keisha hadn’t had a moment to think from the time that Shandi scooped her up until the moment they both intruded on the war council. Much to Keisha’s relief, Darian rose and worked his way over to her, and both of them escaped from the council as quickly as they could. The fierce interrogation that Kero w
as putting Shandi Alder through was also an extremely uncomfortable and public grilling. No less public - though silent - was the similar set of coals that Shandi’s Companion was being hauled over by Sayvil.
“Your sister must be crazy. I can’t believe she ran away from the Collegium,” Darian said, shaking his head.
Keisha just sighed. “I can’t either - though to give her credit, she didn’t exactly run away.”
Darian gave her a quizzical look. “So what did she do?”
He found a place for them both to sit. Keisha was only too glad to sink down onto a cool stone and stretch her aching legs out. Riding pillion, even on a Companion, was about as uncomfortable as riding a dyheli.
“She bullied them into letting her come back, if you can believe that! She said she had some sort of premonition, and since she obviously wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, they gave in!” Keisha thought incredulously about the Shandi who had left Errold’s Grove, Shandi the peacemaker, Shandi the gentle, and shook her head with disbelief. “I hardly recognized her - ”
“Start from the beginning,” Darian interrupted. “I want to hear this in sequence.”
Keisha took a deep breath, and began at the beginning - just after dawn this morning. “I was in Errold’s Grove. Nightwind told me to spend half my time there since I’m supposed to be the on-station Healer now, and I’m supposed to take care of anything that happens to the volunteers, now that most of the other Healers are here with Kerowyn. I’d just checked the camp at morning call for anyone sick - no one was, but I always check - it was just about dawn. Then one of the sentries reported a Herald coming. We expected Eldan, of course, so I stayed to see what had brought him there. Obviously, we thought something might have happened out here. And out of absolutely nowhere, up comes Shandi, acting as if she had every right to be there and not at the Collegium where she belongs!” She couldn’t keep her indignation to herself; it crept out and colored her last sentence.
Darian cocked his head to one side. “Are you aware of how much you sound like your mother?” he asked dryly.
She flushed. “I suppose I do; well, being someone’s big sister tends to make you feel that way. Anyway, she somehow managed to bluff the lieutenant into thinking she had orders to find Herald-Captain Kerowyn. She found out where you all were, and before anyone could question her about anything, she just scooped me up and kidnapped me! She says she had a premonition that she and I had to be here for some reason, and that was why the Collegium let her go.”
“Do you believe her?” Darian asked.
She hugged her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “If it was anyone else - but it’s hard to think of Shandi as - as having premonitions I’m supposed to believe in.” She rubbed the side of her head, easing the ache in her temple. “I mean - Shandi, of all people! She never showed any signs of anything like that before!”
“People often don’t, not until they’re Chosen anyway,” Darian reminded her.
“She says her Gift is ForeSight, but that it isn’t properly trained yet, so all she gets is bits and pieces. I just don’t know.” Keisha rubbed her tired eyes, and wished that this had happened to anyone but her.
“Can you think of any other reason why she should come pounding up here?’ Darian asked, reasonably. “And can’t you think of a lot of reasons why she would avoid doing so if she could?”
Keisha had to smile at that. “Well,” she admitted, “now that you mention it. If Mum and Da got word she was here, they’d have a worse fit than they did over my staying. She’d never hear the end of it. And as for the Captain - ” she shuddered. “ - I’d rather die than have to explain something like this to Captain Kero.”
Darian spread his hands. “There you have it. I’d trust that premonition, personally. Everything she told you sounds perfectly logical to me. I don’t think her Companion would have gone along with this if she had been making it up, do you?”
Keisha nodded, slowly, and felt a little better. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
The only thing is, she said her premonition involved me. I don’t like the sound of that. . . .
Darian interrupted her worrisome thoughts. “Now, would you like to hear what we’ve been finding out, since it seems that you’re going to be involved?”
Keisha nodded, and when Darian was done, she remained silent, thinking everything he’d told her over carefully. “This Summer Fever,” she ventured. “I don’t like the sound of it. It sounds more dangerous than the barbarians.”
“Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“They’ve had a few years to get used to it - I’ve never heard of anything like it down here,” she told him, feeling a little chill in her heart. “If it got loose here, it could go through us like a wildfire.”
“We have Healers,” he objected. “Surely they can do something first.”
“You have to know what you’re up against, how it works, before you can fight it,” she pointed out. “Otherwise it’s like fighting an enemy blindfolded. Sure, you can flail around with a sword and hope you hit something, but you’re more likely to get hit yourself first.”
He winced. “I see your point.”
“That’s not all that bothers me, but it’s the main thing,” she continued, wondering if he would understand how she felt. “I think you aren’t going to like this, but I think we have to help them.”
As he’d described the children with their withered limbs, she’d felt that old familiar tug, that insistent call to do something. The only difference was, now she had the tools to act on that call.
“What do you mean by that?” Darian asked sharply.
“I mean, I’m a Healer now, in everything but the robes. It’s part of the vow. I have to help where there’s need, and you can’t deny that these people need help!” She watched him closely, begging with her eyes for his understanding. “Don’t you see? That’s why Healers are what we are. We don’t take sides, we just help, no matter what!”
She watched strong emotions flit over his expression, watched him fight down an immediate retort and give his anger a little time to cool. “I know it sounds crazy, even disloyal, but you can ask any of the others, and they’ll tell you the same,” she said softly.
“I don’t doubt you,” he said brusquely, “But I think it’s madness.” He smiled crookedly. “Maybe that’s why I’m not a Healer. Still. . . you did say that in order to deal with this sickness, you have to know what it is you’re fighting and how to combat it, right?”
She nodded.
“And I’ve never heard of a fever or a plague that would stay politely in one place or attack only certain people - no matter what some priests would claim. So if you’re going to be able to battle it when it finally decides to jump to our side, I’d rather you did your flailing around on patients that aren’t Tayledras or Valdemaran.” He turned his hands palm-upward and shrugged. “Chauvinistic of me, but there it is.”
“It’s a point,” she agreed, relieved that he had conceded the potential conflict. She already had the germ of an idea in her head, but for it to succeed, she would need him. She stood up. “First things first, though. Let’s go see if Captain Kero left anything of Shandi. I want to know more about this premonition of hers than she told me on the ride.”
Fourteen
They spotted Shandi, sans Companion, walking toward them through the camp as they returned to the cave Keisha was glad that the Herald-Captain hadn’t significantly damaged her sister; in fact, Shandi was remarkably composed for someone who had just faced the redoubtable Kerowyn on the wrong side of a situation.
Nevertheless, she was clearly glad to see Keisha and Danan, and equally glad to be taken off to Darian’s campsite. “Whew!” she said, collapsing on Darian’s bedroll and stretching out flat, both eyes closed. “I’ve faced off against Cap’n Kerowyn with a weapon, and I never wanted to do that again, but getting a dressing-down from her is a hundred times worse!” She opened one
eye and looked up at both of them. “Whose bed am I taking up anyway? Yours? You’re Darian, the half-Hawkbrother, I presume?”
“Right on both counts,” Darian said, his mind still clearly elsewhere, but his tone quite cool and unimpressed with Shandi’s casual attitude. “And I presume that the Herald-Captain has informed you just how dangerous this situation is that you’ve casually barged into without so much as a ‘by your leave’?”
Keisha was astonished; she had never heard a young man take that tone with her sister! They usually couldn’t keep themselves from near-servility, but Darian had just done a little dressing-down himself, had come within a hair of sounding angry with her, quite as if she were his little sister and not Keisha’s! There was no doubt that the comment was intended as a rebuke, and Keisha hadn’t ever heard a young man rebuke her sister since Shandi had turned ten!
Shandi sat straight up, also taken aback by Darian’s tone. “She did,” she replied, nettled. “She also gave me leave to remain, on the basis of my premonition and the Collegium’s acceptance of it, as long as I understood I was under her orders, absolutely and without exception or excuses.”
Darian leveled a look at the Trainee that was just as severe as Kerowyn would have wanted. “She means it, and we’ll back it,” he told her flatly. “If you’re ordered out of here, you will go, even if I have to knock you out and tie you onto that Companion of yours. And don’t think you can hide somewhere if you’re ordered out either; you can’t hide from the eyes of our birds or the noses of our kyree, no matter where you go or how cleverly you think you can conceal yourself.”
“I’ve no intention of disobeying orders!” Shandi snapped back, eyes flashing and her temper beginning to show. Keisha stepped in before it turned into a quarrel.
“I’ve got to know more about this premonition,” she said earnestly. “You didn’t give me anything to make any kind of judgment on.”
“I don’t have that much myself,” Shandi replied in irritation, still annoyed with Darian and giving him a dagger-laden glare. “All I got was a few flashes and a feeling - a flash of me, one of you, one of him, though I didn’t know who he was at the time, and a very, very strong feeling that I had to be where the Captain was, so strong that I was halfway to Companion’s Field to get Karles before I came to my senses. That’s it.”
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