Whisper of Leaves

by Unknown

  Every fibre of Kira’s being rebelled against what was happening. How dare Kest treat injured men like this! But there was nothing she could do other than trudge on, glaring at Kest’s back and at his face when he occasionally turned around. But Kest seemed completely oblivious, his gaze passing over her impassively. In an effort to distract herself, she began searching the land about her for herbs. There were few, just the occasional rosette of serewort and some straggly annin; too dry, she thought glumly.

  The leaf-fall was the deepest she’d ever seen, in places akin to walking in river-sand, and yet as they were coming down a particularly steep slope, she spied a tall clump of withyweed, its slender heads nodding and dipping. It didn’t make sense, she thought; withyweed needed a good supply of moisture. Distracted, she slipped on a mossy stone, almost rolling her ankle and yelping in pain.

  Kest ordered the patrol to halt and his footsteps thwacked towards her as she knelt to rub it.

  ‘Have you injured yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d stop for a rest but this rain isn’t getting any lighter and it’s best we press on,’ he said wearily.

  Kira squashed any feelings of sympathy. Kest had chosen to journey, the wounded hadn’t.

  They continued, the land rising and falling in a series of ridges, the trees on the slopes low and bent, their roots gripping the earth like old men’s hands. Kira had never been here before and she looked about in wonder. In some places the earth gave way completely, revealing shards of pale stone like those lining the Everflow. On past nutting expeditions, they’d used the Everflow’s stones to crush the rednuts, lifting them cool and dripping from their watery beds and replacing them each day when they’d finished feasting. But not this time.

  The day wore on, the rain plinking through the trees, foliage slapping at them as they passed. Finally they came to a grove of bluenuts and Kest called a halt. It was probably past midday, even though the fragments of sky visible beyond the canopy were the same dull grey as earlier.

  Kira’s legs and back ached from toiling up and down the slopes, but at least the land under the bluenuts was fairly flat. Bluenuts weren’t nut trees at all, but bore crops of large, tough-skinned berries, bluish-black when ripe, and too sour to eat even then, though honeysprites and chatterbirds found them rich pickings. The trees’ broad, lowset branches provided good shelter and the formation broke, Kira forcing her tired legs to Feseren’s side, and using her spare shirt to dry his face. His cheeks were flushed and she laid her hand on his neck. He was hot, his pulse skittering like a littermouse’s.

  ‘How is he?’ asked Kest from behind her.

  ‘Feverish,’ she snapped.

  ‘Will you give him everest?’

  ‘No.’

  Kest crouched beside her and lowered his voice. ‘Surely it would ease his pain? Sanaken slept all the way here, whereas Feseren . . .’ he trailed off.

  ‘You may know a great deal about the Shargh, Protector Leader, but very little about healing,’ said Kira.

  Kest grunted and moved away.

  ‘You’re not being very nice to him,’ rasped Kandor, settling on the ground and wringing out his cape. His voice was a little clearer.

  ‘I’m simply giving him back his own words.’

  ‘He saved us.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ muttered Kira, standing and pushing the wet hair from her eyes. ‘But I can’t forgive him this journey! I can’t forgive what he’s doing to Feseren. He needs rest, not this constant bumping and jarring. And now he’s feverish and I’ve got no sorren left.’ She stared up at the canopy, dangerously close to tears.

  ‘Do you think the wound’s infected?’ asked Kandor.

  ‘I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. I cleaned it as I would in the Haelen so there shouldn’t be any infection.’

  ‘Then there will be none,’ Kandor assured her.

  ‘There shouldn’t be any,’ muttered Kira again.

  The Protectors were spread out among the bluenuts collecting fuel, their capes blending perfectly with the bark and foliage. If it weren’t for the clunking of axes and the drift of voices, she’d hardly have known they were there.

  After a little, Brem came with an armful of wood, dumping it beside the wounded men and quickly building a fire. Kira watched, admiring his deftness as he struck spark from his flints. Soon the twigs began to smoulder.

  ‘Aren’t you going to check Feseren’s wound?’ asked Kandor.

  He was as anxious as she was, realised Kira. He hadn’t shown any interest yet in becoming a Healer, but he’d accompanied her on enough gathering expeditions and seen enough healing in the Bough to know when things weren’t as they should be. The problem was that everything was wet and dirty here. Her breeches were slick with moss, her hands stained with sappy juices.

  ‘I’ll give him an infusion to cool him down and help him sleep, but I won’t change the bandages until the caves.’ Hopefully there’d be a stream nearby; if not, she’d send Protector Leader Kest out to fetch water.

  ‘Will you be wanting water, Healer?’ asked Brem, slipping the flints back into his pack and rising. The fire was burning strongly, despite the dampness of the fuel.

  ‘Just . . . just a cupful of boiling water Brem,’ said Kira, disconcerted that he seemed to have picked up her thoughts.

  ‘There’s a pan set on the other fire,’ he said, brushing the leaves from his knees. ‘I’ll fetch some.’

  Kest had set two fires again, keeping Kira and the wounded men separate from the rest of the Protectors. Was it because he didn’t want them to be upset by the sight of their injured comrades, or because she was Maxen’s daughter? She hoped the former. After all, come this Turning his sister would be her bondsister. How strange to have a sister, especially one she’d scarcely met. It also meant she’d be clanlinked to Morclan, and to Kest. He’d be her bondbrother.

  As Brem returned bearing a steaming cup, Kira busied herself rummaging in her pack for the winterbloom and beesblest, struggling to subdue the surge of laughter that threatened to erupt. Kest a bondbrother? Impossible!

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kandor.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kira, mixing the draught and relieved to feel the bubble of mirth begin to disappear. She left the herbs to steep, then stretched her legs to the fire and yawned. Her cape had kept the worst of the rain off, but her sleeves and lower breeches were saturated.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Kandor. ‘I’ve got some mundleberries.’

  She shook her head and watched him cram the berries into his mouth. Bruised and swollen his throat might be, but it took more than that to dint his appetite. The air under the trees was warm and she yawned again. Beyond the ripple of smoke, guarding Protectors were pacing along the rim of an imaginary circle, backward and forward, their faces turned away from the comfort of the fire, to where any threat might come from. Was Tresen among them? Their capes and hoods made it impossible to tell them apart.

  She’d scarcely seen Tresen since the attack. He was no longer part of their failed nutting expedition, but a Protector, owing his allegiance to Kest, not to Kashclan, or to her. The understanding was like a knife-blade against her skin.

  ‘The infusion’s ready,’ said Kandor, his mouth full of berries.

  ‘Support his head,’ instructed Kira, as she guided the liquid carefully down the wounded man’s throat. He swallowed but didn’t rouse; the heat from his skin was almost as warm as the fire.

  ‘He’s so hot,’ said Kandor.

  ‘I know,’ snapped Kira, flicking the dregs into the flames and scowling at the empty cup. She forced herself to retrace each of the steps in his healing. She’d been taken up with stitching Sanaken, so Brem had given him sickleseed and staunched his wound. He’d used a torn shirt, which was standard Healer practice, for shirts, like bandages, were made of falzon, a plant whose purifying properties remained potent long after it was woven into cloth. It couldn’t have been the shirt. What of the sorren? She’d ground it herself only two d
ays earlier from leaf Merek had gathered at dawning. Dawn-gathered herbs were powerful and sorren lasted many months; it couldn’t be the sorren.

  The journeying then? The constant disturbance would have hindered Feseren’s ability to fight the infection, but it was unlikely to have caused it. In all honesty, she couldn’t blame Kest for something that, in the end, must be her fault. At least Feseren had had the strength to swallow the infusion, she comforted herself, and by the time they reached the caves, his fever should have eased. Winterbloom was a reliable antidote in such cases.

  Kest had promised they could stay at the caves as long as necessary, and she’d hold him to that. Three or four days of rest would allow both Feseren and Sanaken to recover a little before enduring the final part of the journey home. She’d still need sorren, though, just to make sure, and for that she’d have to gather. She’d have at least one more argument with Protector Leader Kest before this journey was over.

  Night seemed to come suddenly, an abrupt absence of birdsong leaving behind the rattle of the canopy bending under a chill wind.

  Kira had spent the last part of the journey scanning for sorren, despite knowing that the land here didn’t favour it. It was too stinking dry! She kicked at the leaf litter in frustration and glimpsed a flash of red, startling in the thickening gloom.

  ‘What the . . .’ she began, then stopped, causing the Protector behind to cannon into her.

  ‘Don’t lag, Healer Kiraon,’ ordered Kest.

  ‘But . . .’ She twisted round but was jostled forward, able to see nothing more than the grim faces of those following.

  ‘Praise the ’green,’ one of them muttered, ‘the caves at last.’

  They’d come out of a stand of espin and sever, and the land was beginning to rise again, rougher than before, with fewer trees and more gashes of stone where the soil had lost its grip altogether. Now that the trees had thinned, the wind was stronger, adding to the discomfort of the struggling carriers, and flicking Kira’s cape across her face in stinging slaps.

  She toiled on, using her hands when her feet gave way, until it seemed that the slope had disappeared into the black gulf of the gusting sky. With heaving chest, she scrambled over the last lip of land and straightened.

  Deeper slashes of shadow marked the mouths of three caves, two partly blocked with boulders, the third open and massive. She followed Kest in. The pale stone glimmered, seeming almost white and very smooth, the cavern arching upward to a great sweeping ceiling so high that darkness ate the top. There was a rhythmic gurgling, too, quite different to the sluice of the rain outside. Kira stared around in bewilderment.

  ‘Haven’t you been here before?’ asked Kest, shaking the water from his cape.

  Kira shook her head.

  ‘I thought that Healers foraged widely.’

  Kira looked at him sharply but there was no antagonism in his face, just relief. He was as pleased to have ended the journey as she was.

  ‘There’s nothing in this part of the octad to gather. It’s too dry.’

  ‘Usually,’ said Kest, palming the water from his face. ‘There are fifteen caves that we know of in the surrounding slopes, but only two that are habitable, this one and one further west. The stone in these parts is soft and easily gouged away by rivers. If you listen you can hear it under our feet.’

  Kira looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Further on there’s a break in the floor where you can see it too, if you require proof.’

  ‘What’s it called?’ asked Kira, refusing to be baited.

  ‘The river? It’s unnamed.’

  ‘No, the cave.’

  ‘Sarnia.’

  ‘Sarnia,’ breathed Kira. She’d heard the word before, but couldn’t recall where. ‘Did the Protectors name it?’

  ‘It was named by Kentash’s people after a settlement in the north. They lived here on and off for three seasons, until their longhouse was finished.’

  Kira moved her boot experimentally over the gritty floor. It was hard to believe anyone had ever been here before, let alone lived here. How would it be to have stone floors and walls and ceilings, instead of wood?

  ‘Feseren slept for the last part of the journey,’ said Kest. ‘Whatever you gave him seems to have soothed him.’

  Kest was trying to mend the breach between them, but fear held Kira silent.

  Feseren had slept because the fever had stolen his strength, not because of her healing skill, and now she was going to have to clean the wound again, and use sorren. She glanced up in time to see Kest’s face become bland, an expression she was coming to realise masked irritation. Nodding briefly, he strode back to his men, and she followed to where Feseren and Sanaken had been set down.

  Brem was already building a fire. Kira had no idea where he’d got the fuel, but she was grateful. The cave was beginning to take on the comforting smell of espin and shelterbush smoke, replacing the dry scent of the stone. There was no reason to worry about water now, not with a river under their feet, so she could use her drinking water to wash her hands, and her spare shirt for clean bandages.

  ‘Do you wish for aid, Healer?’ asked Brem.

  Kira nodded. She’d known Brem all her life and liked him, even though he’d once threatened to thrash her and Tresen for jumping from an espin onto the longhouse water barrels, and cracking one. His had been a hollow threat, for every child in Allogrenia knew that violence was prasach, the domain of the barbarous Terak Kutan, not the Tremen. Back then he’d called her Kira-si, after the owlings that had yet to fledge. Now he used the formal title of Healer.

  Let’s hope it’s warranted, Kira thought, as she began undoing the bandage. Then the stench hit her, as powerful as a blow, making her reel back. The wound was slimed and reeking. Not even carrion in summer putrefied this quickly. Brem was rigid, his face filled with horror.

  ‘He was slashed first,’ he said thickly.

  Kira struggled to make sense of his words and gave up, having no time for anything but ridding the wound of rot.

  ‘Boil water,’ she instructed, scrambling to her feet and swinging her pack back on, ‘and fill the wound with cloths as hot as he can bear.’

  Grabbing her cape, she ran back to the cavern’s mouth, fastening the cape as she went, and barging between Kest and the Protector he was conversing with.

  ‘Feseren’s wound’s poisoned. I must gather,’ she barked. In her mind, she was already sprinting towards the Barclan octad where the land was kinder and moister.

  ‘I don’t know how many times we must have this conversation Healer, but –’ started Kest.

  ‘I must have sorren now! Feseren’s worsening as we speak!’ She tried to push past him but his hand fastened on her arm.

  ‘You’ll remain here.’

  ‘You have no right . . .’ gasped Kira as his grip tightened, then felt another, gentler restraining hand.

  ‘Kira . . .’

  It was Tresen and she turned on him furiously. ‘You betray your Healer-blood!’

  ‘You need to explain your urgency to Protector Leader Kest.’

  Kira’s gaze jerked between them, and she gulped down a lungful of air. ‘Sorren’s the most powerful purifier known in Allogrenia. It kills infection, but I used all I had after the attack.’

  ‘If sorren’s so powerful, why has the wound worsened?’ asked Kest. ‘Has the journeying caused it?’

  Kest’s voice was as calm as Tresen’s, but his face was haggard, and for a moment she was tempted to lay the blame on him. ‘The journey might have made it worse, but it hasn’t caused it. My healing’s been poor,’ she forced herself to add.

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ interjected Tresen.

  Kira kept her gaze on Kest. ‘I don’t ask that you risk your men, Protector Leader. I’ll go alone.’

  Kest’s face took on the look of weary exasperation she’d seen before. ‘You don’t seem to understand the nature of my job, Healer Kiraon. It’s you I’m bound to protect. I can’t let you go.�
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  Kira’s voice sank to a fierce whisper. ‘Feseren’s dying, Kest! If you’re to keep me here, you’d better get some rope ready, because I won’t sit idly by and watch it happen.’

  Sarkash’s orders were clear, thought Kest. Protect the Leader and his family. Protect, not bind her hand and foot! But he owed his men protection too. Despite what the Writings said, he must fight to save the wounded among his men. To lose any of them was unthinkable, but Feseren! His bondmate, Misilini, was heavy with their first child.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ he growled, wrenching his pack back over his wet shirt.

  The Healer was already at the cave entrance, and he bawled at her to wait, then shouted orders to Penedrin. Kira hesitated for a moment but then disappeared from view. He ran after her, the rain-edged air chill against his face as he plunged down the slope. So much for the warm meal he’d been promising himself, not to mention the blessedness of sleep. The Healer was leaping recklessly from stone to stone, and he copied her as best he could, finally landing with a thud in the leaf litter at the bottom. By then she was already just a smudge among the trees and, smothering a curse, he set off in pursuit.

  12

  There was no rain on the Grounds, the night as dry as the day that had preceded it, the air heavy with the sere scent of the grass and the husks of dead things. Nothing moved, as if the heat that had stripped the moisture from the targasso and burrel stands had even stilled the rivers within their banks.

  In the highest sorcha on the spur, Palansa lay naked on top of the bed-covering, watching the moonlight slide over the curve of Erboran’s shoulder. She never tired of watching him, of touching him, of listening to the rhythm of his breathing as he slept.