“Yes,” was all his father said, though neither pride nor strength shown in him. Only worry.
Adda swept in and wrapped an arm around her son, waving Varrl in to the other side. Together they helped him walk to the house.
Dell Pyter and Hull Jista moved to the warden, dropping to the ground to check on him, Pyter laying an ear on his chest to check if he still lived.
Shaia let go of Kelc, following Kreggen. “I must help,” he heard her say.
“He’s alive,” Pyter said of the warden, talking to Jista, “but these cuts on his arms are deep.”
“He may never fight again,” Jista observed quietly.
“He will. You got a roof for us, lad?” Pyter looked to Kelc, numb where he stood.
“Yes…Yes. Follow me.” Kelc led them to his own room. As he walked through the house, Adda handed him a heavy tarp.
“For the blood.”
Kreg cried out from his bed, the pained scream enough to bring tears to Kelc’s eyes. I know, I know,” Shy soothed him, “almost there.”
Kelc wiped his eyes instantly and draped the tarp over his bed before Pyter laid the warden down, the man instantly digging into his gear for sewing kits, pure spirits and bandages. Jista stood motionless just outside the door, a frown etched on his face.
“No!” Kreg howled, the word stretching out, as Varrl grunted loudly followed by the ring of steel as it grated against bone.
Kelc jumped in the direction of his brother and froze, unsure of what he thought he could do. Then he sprinted in to him, nearly knocking Varrl from his feet as he emerged from the room with a scarlet-coated scimitar.
“Kelc, damn it!” he snapped, quickly taking the sword outside.
Kreg lay on his bed, a large hole in his chest, dark red blood pooling up out of it. Adda pressed both hands onto it while Shy dropped to her knees and reached beneath her older brother’s torso, seeking the corresponding hole in his back.
“No,” Kelc blubbed, stepping to Kreg and sitting on the bed next to him.
“Ow!” Shy cried out, “Kelc, you need to leave. Go…”
“Daughter,” Adda said severely. “Leave him be.”
Kelc took Kreg’s sword hand in both of his, the arm stretching away from it littered with bloody cuts. “Come on!” he whispered. “You didn’t win if you die. Where’s the strength in that?”
“Mother?” Shy called, but Adda said nothing. Instead, she bounded to the door and closed and locked it, dragging a clothes chest before it. “Mother?”
“Live,” Kelc hissed, his eyes drooping. “You need to get up and be the strength we need. I can’t do it. Father never could.” Kelc felt a scalding heat in his stomach and felt as if the only way he could eject it from his body was to yell. “You must, Kreg. You must do it! Must!” He stretched his head back until he faced the ceiling, eyes shut, and continued to bellow, but he’d run out of air. Desperate muted intent bubbled from him as if he drowned in his own desperate grief.
The door rattled in its jamb. “Adda!” Varrl stood without. “Adda!”
“It’s okay,” she screamed back. “Leave off! We can’t stop now.” Her hands fell heavy on Kelc’s shoulders. Shy clambered to her feet. Varrl bashed into the door again.
“Mother,” Shaia said, fear in her voice.
“Kelc,” Adda said calmly, “you must stop now.” But Kelc sat, still silently roaring at the heavens. “Kelc!” she said more forcefully.
“Mother!” Shy said again, near tears.
“Help me shove him,” Adda commanded as she heaved Kelc. Shy grabbed his hands and ripped them from Kreg. Together, they hurled him, still locked in his soundless convulsion, to the hard wooden floor.
As he hit, head first, he returned to some semblance of awareness, though intense fatigue groped at him, pulling him towards sleep.
“Kreg’s wounds,” Shy hissed as the door let out a crack from being struck.
“Shhhh,” Adda said, “Bandage the biggest of them, now.”
“But…”
“Now, girl.”
The door let go, exploding from the jamb, falling in and knocking both Shaia and her mother onto Kreggen. “What in all the hells…”
“Varrl!” In the small room, Adda’s voice sounded as if it could split rock. “Get this door off of me. I’m trying to save your son. Kelc’s weak stomach overcame him. Pick him from the floor and put him somewhere.” She fought out from under the door, since Varrl seemed slow in responding, and stood up before her enraged husband. “You can pound on me later,” she seethed, but if you don’t get that door and your youngest son out of here right now, you will be the one that killed Kreg!” So much rage exuded from the normally restrained woman that Varrl flinched as she spoke. “Now!”
Kelc tried to rise from the floor, so powerful was his mother’s voice, but he couldn’t. The bottom of the door rested on him and he simply lacked any energy at all.
Beneath the door, pinned down next to her older brother, Shaia still hastily pressed bandages atop his larger wounds, ignoring the pain in her own ankle where it strained, turned at an odd angle by the door.
“Adda,” Varrl said, livid, but lacking the volume and power his wife possessed just then.
A high-pitched snap filled the room as Kelc’s mother landed a firm slap on her husband’s cheek, his flesh instantly showing bright red. “Now!” she repeated, her voice dropping down into a murderous tone, promising no clemency. “Now.”
Her rage washed through Kelc, though he couldn’t see her, and his body, as if responding to her command to leave, did just that and gave up, letting darkness claim him.
Light reached him for a moment as he became semi-conscious.
“…can we keep it from them?” Whispering. Shy?
“We keep Kreg wrapped and wrapped tight, maybe even…” Kelc heard the clink of glass on glass.
“Mother!”
“Do you have another idea? A better one?”
Kelc slid back into unconsciousness.
Pain, throbbing pain that pulsed from the back of his skull through to the front, forced him into wakefulness. “Uh.”
“…making noise.”
“…just another fever dream or the like…” His mother’s voice.
“Kreg leaving so soon will be hard on him.”
Kreg leaving? So soon… Dying?
“No,” Kelc muttered, sitting up and allowing the momentum to carry him to his feet.
“Kelc!” Shaia yelped while her mother excitedly said, “no, no, youngest.”
After only a moment on his feet, he felt the contents of his stomach, what little there was, rise. He collapsed to the floor despite feeling hands under his arms trying to stabilize him, landing heavily on his side before vomiting spit and bile. He managed to moan in misery before rejoining the empty blackness of oblivion.
When next he woke, he heard humming. It filled his mind, made him think of his sister. She used to hum that tune, some happy melody she’d heard a traveling singer perform in town. In fact, the longer he listened the more it sounded like her.
“Shy,” he croaked, his mouth and throat dry as a death shroud.
“You’re awake?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, too raw to speak louder. “Head hurts.”
“Drink this.” Kelc felt a ceramic bowl pressed to his lips. He sipped at it, swallowing several mouthfuls before wiggling his head in protest. Whatever the liquid was, it tasted bitter.
“Kreg?” he rasped.
“He’s going to be fine, it seems. The big wound through his chest only nicked the lung, mother says. Kreg has been awake only one time. Otherwise,” her voice drops, “he sleeps.”
“How long…since…”
“Kreg’s fight was four days ago…”
“Four days!” Kelc hissed, his powerless voice ending in a squeak. His eyes snapped open and he started to sit up, immediately regretting both actions. He dropped back to his pillow, his hands instinctively covering his eyes. “Hells!”
“Take it easy, brother, you almost died.”
“Why?”
“Mother said you got a case of the Street Chills. She’s been giving you Algat root and it seems to be clearing.” Shy kissed his throbbing forehead.
“Street Chills?” A common disease picked up among the more promiscuous members of society, particularly those that paid for their intimacy, it gave a person uncontrolled chills, fever, coma and could even kill.
“Yes. Apparently your Erisa was dirty,” Shy said, matter-of-fact, “and apparently you did quite a bit with her. Enough, at least, to catch the dirty fever.”
“Shy,” he sighed, feeling as if his sister was mad at him, since he’d contracted a sexual disease and then slept with her. “I didn’t know. I…you…”
“Shhhh. It’s fine, Kelc. I’ve drunk the medicine as well, in secret, just in case, but I’ve not had a single symptom Women usually don’t get it after all. So we needn’t talk of it again.” Her hand found his, pulled it from the eye it still shielded and gave it a squeeze. “Okay?”
The slightest nod answered her.
“Good. If we’re going to get you on your feet before Kreg leaves, you need to eat.”
“Kreg’s leaving?”
“Yes…Sorry, I thought you knew after the last time you woke up. The Territorial Warden has decided that Kreg will succeed him when he recovers and that he will take Kreg as soon as he can travel.” Shaia sighed as she watched Kelc silently take the news.
He dropped his hands to his sides and seemed to deflate, sinking lower into the bed.
“How’s your head? It should be feeling at least a little better.” She fell silent, the only sound that of a gusting wind bowling into the house, forcing the wooden walls to creak in complaint and the house to noisily settle. It, too, subsided for a time, leaving only the sound of their own breathing.
Kelc sucked in as much air as he could and let it noisily bleed from his mouth and nose. “My head does feel somewhat better.” He held out a hand and Shy took it again. “You mentioned some food?”
His sister humored him with a short laugh. “Yes. Let me go get you something to eat.” Kelc dared open his eyes again, looking to Shaia.
Her hair hung in tangles and deep purple crescents underscored her bloodshot eyes. Her skin looked grey with an occasional pink blemish, her lips pale. She wore only a simple tunic and breeches.
“Shy,” Kelc said, wishing that he could help her somehow, “you look…tired.” He let his eyes slide closed.
“Kelc,” she murmured, “my Kelc.” She leaned down and hugged him, laying her body atop his. “I haven’t slept since the fight. I couldn’t. I worried about Kreg, but then you fell. Kelc,” she whimpered, “I’ve never been so afraid in my life. Even when that deputy walked me out into the grass, I wasn’t so afraid as I’ve been for the past days. I know it’s not right, Kelc, but I love you. I’ve always loved you.” She sobbed, overcome by her emotions and exhaustion, clutching him to her.
“Shy!” Adda sounded like she stood in the kitchen.
Shaia sprang up off of her brother, forcing him to grunt in pain as she did. She gave him a quick pat on the chest as an apology.
“Yes, mother?” she called, leaning out of Kelc’s room. “Kelc is awake.”
“He is?” she said and her footfalls grew louder as she came immediately to his bedside. “There’s crackers and some stew on the stove. Go heat it up, Shy, and bring it in here before he returns to sleep.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Hells!” Kelc looked upon his mother’s face. Both of her eyes were bruised, her left nearly swollen shut. Her nose and left cheek shone red and inflamed, the blood vessels standing out of her normally pale skin. “Why?”
“I hit your father,” she said, managing to smile though it quickly vanished as she felt a twinge of pain. “He hit me back.” She sat down on the crate that Shaia had been using as a stool. “It was worth it, youngest. I saved your brother…and you.”
“Damn it all,” Kelc swore, again closing his eyes, not wanting to see his mother this way, not after seeing such caring in her. “Where is father now?”
“He went into town for more medicine and bandages. Warden Tasher went with him.” Adda sighed. “Just us for now.”
“The deputies?”
“Oh, once everyone seemed to be receiving decent care, they returned to whatever duties called.” Kelc’s mother rested a hand on his arm.
“Thought the warden was pretty…beaten up.”
“He was, youngest, but he is a hard man. He can’t lift a blade, but he still wears three.” She let loose a cynical snort. “Appearance seems to be more important than healing. He said that folks needed to see him about. He climbed out of your bed after two days and began walking the property, gathering strength.”
“No one stopped father?” Kelc asked, opening one eye, again looking over the damage to his mother’s face.
“Kelc, this is Symea,” she muttered. “It is a man’s right to discipline his family. The warden sat in the kitchen, eating white pea soup that I made, while your father yelled and stormed, five paces away, shoving, shaking and striking me. Saw nothing wrong with it. At least he said and did nothing. No law forbids it.”
Kelc lacked the energy to become angry. He shrunk within himself, trying to cease to exist, his reality too much for him to deal with. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I know you are, youngest. I guess the reason you’re how you are and the reason I feel I can tell you such things is because you truly do understand.” She offered a short-lived painful smile. “You understand.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” The troubles with Symea seemed so obvious.
“No, youngest. Something you need to understand is this: Some folks…Most folks…are unable to see beyond what they are told is their life.” She pursed her lips and drew a deep breath in through her nose. “I couldn’t. I’ve never stood up to your father as I have recently. I never thought that it was possible, that it could have value for me. I was wrong. Kreggen showed me that…and you…” She nodded, a subdued contentedness settling into her features. “…Kreg, you and Shy.” She sat, reflecting on her thoughts. “All of you,” she whispered.
“Here’s something to eat,” Shaia announced as she returned to Kelc’s room. “Brown crackers and stew, and I snuck a little of the frost cake for you as well.” She waited while Kelc slowly worked himself into a relaxed sitting position and then settled his plate on his lap. “I’ve got a glass of chilled milk for you as well.”
Kelc nodded and his sister backed up to lean against the doorframe.
“The first few bites will likely make you sicker…in your stomach, youngest, but you just keep eating.” Adda watched him spoon stew into his mouth, followed by a bite of cracker. “It’ll pass right soon and you’ll see just how hungry you are. It’s the medicine, does that.”
“Mmmm hmmm,” he answered, taking a second bite, feeling his guts object to the first bite. “Uh!” he groaned through his mouthful of crackers as a cramp twisted his insides.
“Eat,” Shaia insisted.
He slowed down, carefully taking another bite of cracker and then a larger bite of the cake. It felt like a long time, and yet when it happened, the pain and nausea subsided almost instantly, replaced by a warmth.
Shy glanced to her mother and smiled. “Looks like that did it,” she said. “That smile on his face says it all.”
“It does,” Adda agreed. “Ever has my youngest been able to smile after the storm. He has a rare spirit, daughter…as do you.” She patted Kelc’s leg and struggled to her feet, looking exhausted suddenly. “The both of you…forged of the same metal. I’d better check on Kreg. Make sure his bandages are clean and tight.”
Shaia turned serious. “Yes, mother. Those on his legs I changed already, earlier today before Kelc woke. The others, especially his arms and stomach- They need changed.”
“Thank you. Stay with your brother. Watch him eat every bite. He’ll
be up and around very soon.” Adda walked out the door, but paused there, her back to Kelc and Shaia. “Things will be different without Kreg.”
Kelc and Shy frowned, thinking of their older brother, and the affect he had on father, being gone. “It will,” Shy finally said.
“Very different,” Adda said. “I can’t even imagine.”
Kelc swallowed his mouthful and stared at his mother’s back. It shook slightly, her hands rising to her face. There was not much to say to her, except what she already knew.
“Mother,” he said, quietly, soothingly, “I do understand.”
He could barely walk, each step shaky as the usually simple task of battering his way through the tall brown grass surrounding his home seemed now to be a trying exertion. But he needed to get away, needed to think.
Kelc staggered onward, his breathing labored, spouting out of him to create momentary swirls of cloud before him. Another step, he thought. Just go.
After a few more steps, he sat down on a good sized headstone, resting himself atop the smooth grey worked stone. “Almost there,” he mouthed, looking ahead. Behind him, he could almost feel his house, though now it felt more like a prison after lying in bed for six days.
Kreg still lay abed, cared for by his mother, her face beginning to recover, and Shy, who’d begun to sleep at night now that both her brothers looked to recover.
Varrl spent most of his time with Territorial Warden Tasher, ranging about their property, occasionally going into the surrounding communities to make the warden’s presence known, as they had done today, off in Dayholt to the south. Though all he awaited was his replacement, Kelc thought.
“Territorial Warden Kreggen,” he whispered, suddenly wondering how the deputies and warden determined the second name. All Symean’s had a surname derived from their father’s name, but not the law men. “Hmmph.”
Dread of Spirit: Rise of the Mage - Book One Page 13
