by Sara King
Dora cleared her throat, nodded, and ducked into the hovel to grab her coat. As she was leaving, she stopped in the doorway. With a shy grin, the small woman put one hand on Dragomir’s big shoulder, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Drago. My Ma always taught me the Universe provides… But I was really getting worried, there for a minute.” Then the woman ducked off through the doorway and was halfway out into the yard when she hesitated and turned back, looking at Drago’s horse, “So what did you come by my place for, anyway?”
Dragomir grunted. “I got two extra people I gotta clothe this winter. Was hoping to come to some sort of trade.”
Dora beamed. “I’m always in the market for more wool.”
“That’s what I was hopin’,” Dragomir said, nodding. Then he watched as the weaver turned and disappeared down the road, in the opposite direction as the resistance fighter.
After a moment, still holding Victory tight against his chest, Dragomir looked down at her and said, “You feeling better, Princess?”
“He was one of them,” Victory whispered, still holding the Emp tightly around the waist. “One of the ones who paid for…” She swallowed and buried her face in his chest, unable to say it. “…when I was chained to the pole.” With his warm arms holding her, Victory felt her terror slowly wash away under her relief, and, still shaking, began to whimper into his shirt. “Please don’t sell me to him.”
“Gods, girl,” Dragomir growled softly, “I’d never do such a thing. You said it yourself. The chain’s a show. Keeps your pretty butt from running off and getting lost in the woods, or maybe doing something stupid like freeing Lion before I’m ready. I’d never put you in the hands of that monster.”
“You could let me go,” Victory whimpered.
Dragomir tensed. “Not yet.”
“Why not?” she asked, looking up at him through tears.
“Well, for one,” Dragomir said, “If you’d been more than eight feet away just now, that pig might have had his way with you.” He wiped a tear from her cheek, his blue eyes kind. “Besides. There’s a few things I’ve still gotta do to you that you’re probably not gonna like.” He pushed her hair out of her face, helped her re-settle her rumpled shift.
“What things?” Victory asked miserably, her body still trembling with leftover adrenaline and horror.
Giving her a tired smile, he said, “Healing things. I’ll let you loose when I’m done. You have my word.” Then, carefully setting her upright, he stepped past her and began unwinding his horse’s reins from the post. “Let’s go check the Cooper kid, okay? That’s giving me a bad feeling.”
Victory nodded, numbly, and followed him as he collected the boy Fell, his goat, and his mule-drawn cart from the market, who in turn led them to a dirt road that followed the river to the west. She tagged along behind in silence, thinking about what had transpired in the weaver’s hut.
“You gonna be okay?” Dragomir asked softly, after awhile. The boy with his mule, easily ten yards ahead, couldn’t have heard him over the creaking wagon and the squawking of chickens.
“He recognized me,” Victory said, remembering the hunger in the man’s eyes, the feel of his tongue against her cheek.
Dragomir sighed and looked at the road. “I should’ve killed him.” He said nothing more until they rounded a bend and she found them approaching a small collection of shacks and lean-tos. Chickens, loose and in cages, pecking at the dirt under the watchful eyes of a dozen children, were everywhere.
“The Cooper place,” Dragomir said, by way of introduction.
Once they were in sight of the main hovel, the boy Fell dropped the lead on the mule and ran toward the huts, screaming, “Momma! Momma! I brought the healer!”
And then suddenly they were being overwhelmed by children. At least a dozen of them ran up as they approached, carting toys or chores along with them, laughing and asking questions all at once. With them came a pack of big black mutts, who seemed caught between barking and wagging their shaggy tails, and eventually settled for slinking in and wrapping themselves around Dragomir’s feet. It got to be so congested that all forward motion came to a stop, and Victory was finding herself besieged by curious blue-eyed youngsters, all of whom wanted to ask her questions like, “So how did you become a slave?”
A matronly bellow from the front house sent the kids scattering, and Victory found herself able to breathe again as Dragomir proceeded to the front door, leaving his horse to drink from the rain barrel outside.
“Thank the gods,” the big, round woman cried, rushing up and slapping into Dragomir with a big-breasted hug. Victory decided she had to be in her late forties, only about five and a half feet tall, and weighed at least two-sixty. “I didn’t want to disturb you so soon after you got back,” the woman babbled, “But Rachel’s in bad need, Mr. Shipborn. Praise Fell, the little devil. I told him not to bother you with it.”
“Sometimes Life leads us where we need to go,” Dragomir said. “Let me see her.”
The big Mrs. Cooper started to lead him inside, then looked down at the chain linking him to Victory. “Will you be bringing the girl with you? Can’t you leave her outside?”
Dragomir gave the woman a wistful grin. “Unfortunately, not yet. Maybe in a month or two.”
A month?! Victory’s stunned mind sputtered. Narrowing her eyes as Dragomir’s back, she said in Imperial, “You don’t actually think you’re gonna last that long before Matthias finds me and he hooks you and your brother up to a cart for the rest of your miserable lives, do you?”
When Dragomir glanced back, curious, Victory gave him a smile. She repeated it in four different languages, for his convenience, none of which got more than a blank stare from their recipient.
The dark look that the matronly woman gave her, however, made Victory forget to use the last three languages.
“I don’t like her,” Mrs. Cooper said, meeting Victory’s eyes unflinchingly.
Dragomir sighed. “Many people don’t.” He gestured into the hovel. “Where is Rachel?”
The woman continued to give Victory a disapproving frown, then turned and led them inside.
In one of the back rooms, surrounded by more worried-looking children, a filthy girl of maybe thirteen or fourteen was lying on a cot, wrapped in too many blankets, her face pale and sweat-slicked, her eyes darting under closed lids. Every breath seemed to be a struggle for her, coming in a low, rattling rasp, and she was shivering visibly.
“Oh gods,” Dragomir said, kneeling beside the child. “You should have brought me in here as soon as I got off the ship. She’s dying.”
Victory saw fear pass through Mrs. Cooper’s Life-toughened face before she got it back under control. “Is there anything you can do for her?”
“There is,” Dragomir said, glancing at Victory, “But I’m going to need a ride home afterwards and someone to care for my goats for a day or two.”
“You’ve got it,” Mrs. Cooper said firmly. “Do whatever you can. I’ll send a couple of the boys.” Then she rounded on the dozens of faces cramming into doors, windows, hallways. “And the rest of you…out! What are you trying to do…smother him? The healer needs his space!” Immediately, the room erupted in shuffling pandemonium as children scattered.
Dragomir took a deep breath and returned his attention to the child. Closing his eyes, he rested one hand on her chest, the other on her stomach. Absolute silence permeated the room, broken only by the rattling wheeze of the girl on the bed.
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen.
Then, suddenly, the girl choked and went stiff, her breath seemingly cut off in her throat. For what seemed like minutes, the girl didn’t breathe. Mrs. Cooper wrung her hands, tears touching her harsh face as she hovered over the bed, waiting.
“Was it too late?” Mrs. Cooper finally whispered, when there was no change.
Dragomir, eyes still closed, frowned and gave a slight shake of his head. He was sweating, his hands starting to sha
ke where he held them on her body.
Then, suddenly, the girl gasped.
It was a deep, gut-sucking wrench of air that was suddenly filling the room with the sound of rattling wet slime. She sat up, suddenly, and started coughing, a deep whooping sound that deposited bloody, yellow-green mucous on the floor beside her bed. And she kept coughing. It came up in waves, like a drowning person spitting out water, hitting the ground in audible plops, making a pile of the stuff the size of three of Victoria’s fists.
Dragomir watched just long enough for the girl to open her wide blue eyes and give him a startled look before he slumped over backwards, a tired half-smile on his unconscious face.
“Rachel!” Mrs. Cooper rushed forward and pulled the girl off of the bed, into her arms. Cradling her, she started to cry, and the girl weakly reached up and started hugging her back, looking confused and startled and more than a bit frightened.
Victory couldn’t take her eyes off of the bloody pile of hard, globular mucous. That is not possible, her Imperium-trained brain thought. Nothing can do that.
And yet, she was looking at the evidence, right here on the dirt floor of a chicken-farmer’s hovel.
When I am Adjudicator, Victory realized, I am going to hunt down every Emp on the planet… She looked at Dragomir, who was even then snoring, one knee cocked in a painful-looking angle underneath him. …and I’m going to have him teach them.
“Boys!” Mrs. Cooper shouted, making Fell and a younger brother—the only two who had been allowed to stay in the room—jerk. “Get Erik and Todd in here. Tell them they’re gonna take Mr. Shipborn back home.
The boys jumped up and darted out, their eyes still wide at the pile on the floor.
A minute later, two lean, yet strong-looking adolescents arrived. They saw the Emp on the floor, then their sister in their mother’s arms, and relief washed over their dirty faces. “He healed her, didn’t he?” one of them cried, kneeling beside the cot.
“Todd, Erik, get Mr. Shipborn out on the cart and take him home,” Mrs. Cooper said. “He’s gonna need some rest. Stay as long as he needs, feed his chickens and goats, and don’t come back until he tells you to leave.” Lifting her voice, she shouted into the hall, “Boys! Get your sister some water and eggs! Now!”
The one kneeling beside his sister turned and gave Victory a suspicious look. “What do we do with her?”
For the first time since she’d used five different languages to tell Dragomir how unpleasant his life would be in the next couple weeks, the Cooper matron turned to Victory. Seeing the coldness in the woman’s eyes, Victory cringed.
“Watch her,” Mrs. Cooper said. “She runs off—or hurts him in any way—it’s your heads.”
“Yes, Mother,” the boy on the floor muttered, getting off his knees.
Then the true seriousness of the situation dawned upon Victory. She was going to be alone with two young men, without Dragomir or her Praetorian to protect her. She cringed away from them, her chain yanking her up short.
“And girl,” Mrs. Cooper said, looking over the whimpering body of her daughter, “Just to be clear… You hurt that man—in any way—and I will hunt you down until my dying day to bring you to justice. He’s a treasure. Even a damned Royal Princess would see that.”
Victory pretended she couldn’t understand, giving the woman as small smile and a nod, but ice was creeping up her spine. She looked again at the pile of mucous on the floor. She can’t know who I am, she thought. It’s just a figure of speech. But, looking again into the woman’s icy blue eyes, she couldn’t be sure.
“Get her out of here,” Mrs. Cooper said. “And boys!” she shouted into the hall. “Food! Water!”
“Yes, Mother!” a dozen voices called in unison.
Then Victory watched as the two adolescents hefted Dragomir off of the ground and carried him out to the cart. The mangy mule was still where the boy had left it, sniffing at a chicken that was pecking at its hoof.
They cleared the chicken cages—and the inevitable chicken fertilizer—out of the cart and gently lowered the unconscious Emp into the back. Then they went and got pillows and blankets and wrapped him up like a baby in swaddling-cloths before grabbing the reins and clucking to the mule, turning it around. One of the boys ran and grabbed Thunder from where he was eating grass at the rain-barrel and came jogging to catch up with the cart.
“And give his damn goat back to him, for the gods’ sakes!” Mrs. Cooper shouted from the doorway.
Ducking low, the boy leading the mule hurried to snatch up the goat’s lead from a couple girls that were trying to force-feed it grass by the river, then tied it to the back of the wagon, beside Victory.
Some of the children followed them to the bend in the road before Mrs. Cooper’s bellow sent them scurrying back home. Then they were alone, Victory trodding behind the cart, trying to stay invisible.
After awhile, one of the boys turned to look at her over his shoulder. He nudged his brother, who turned to look with him. Victory froze, and would have yanked Dragomir out of the cart, had he not been so damn heavy. As it was, she stumbled along behind, cringing under their gazes.
But to her surprise, the kid’s voice was gentle when he said, “Jeez, she looks like she thinks we’re gonna skin her alive.”
His brother glanced back and Victory saw compassion there. “Probably does.”
“I wonder what she did,” the first boy said.
“Taxes, probably.” The kid snorted, disgust clear in his voice.
His brother’s face grew dark and he turned back to the road. “Poor thing. Wonder what Drago plans to do with her.”
“Dunno,” the brother said, “But he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Probably gonna try to teach her to run goats or something.”
Victory shuddered. A goatherd. Right.
They didn’t say much of anything else until they got back through the village and were approaching Dragomir’s gate. The boy leading the horse came to walk behind the cart with her, looking her over carefully. Victory cringed and backed as far away from him as the chain would allow.
“You, uh, understand me?” the boy asked, his blue eyes looking nervous.
Victory kept her mouth shut, watching him, trying not to let her anxiousness show.
As his brother opened the gate, the boy cleared his throat and continued, “Uh, well, if you can, I wanted to tell you it wouldn’t be so bad, if the healer had a girl. He’s been, uh, pretty rough since his last girl died. That whole hiker killing her, and all…” He scanned her face, then sighed. “Okay, well, just take care of him. He’s a good man.” He reached out to gently pat her shoulder.
Victory frowned at him. Reluctantly, she said, “He told me he healed that girl.”
The boy’s eyes widened, and the brother at the gate stopped to turn back to her in shock. The one standing beside her chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “She can talk,” he said, making an uncomfortable laugh.
“He said she lived,” Victory insisted.
The boy beside her glanced anxiously at his brother. “Well, uh, not really. The Praetorian caught him and Meggie on a hillside, beat him half to death and took Meggie in front of him, then shot her in the head. Dragomir brought her back here, tried for days to revive her. Finally went into town, covered in blood, and took Greg Braddock’s gun out of his house. Put it to his own head, pulled the trigger before anyone could stop him.”
Victory frowned, remembering the streak of white along the side of Dragomir’s right temple. “So that’s what that is…” she whispered. “His scar.”
“Shoulda died,” the brother at the fence said. “Even Mom said he shoulda died.”
“Somethin’ kept him alive,” the closer brother agreed. “Ma says it wasn’t his time.” He lifted the gate latch and let them inside.
“And he healed fast, too,” the boy beside her added. “Way too fast. Ask Thor. Like you could almost see his head closing up.”
“Yeah,” his brother agreed. “He was
only out a few days, and when he came to, he started healing himself just like he healed Rachel tonight. Real angry-like. Nothing scary as a pissed-off Emp, lemme tell you. That Praetorian only had a week-long head start before Drago was packed up and out after him.”
“Brought back his head,” the nearest boy said, full of teenage awe. “Killed him with his bare hands.”
Victory snorted. “He said he shot him a few times, first.”
The Cooper boys looked at her, then both began laughing at the same time. “Uh, no,” the one at the gate chuckled. “He didn’t.”
“Yeah,” his brother agreed. “Only gun in the town belongs to Greg Braddock, and Greg had it on him all the time after Drago tried to kill himself. He sure as hell wasn’t letting him near it again, not so soon after Meggie. I mean, the healer? Killin’ hisself on your gun? You’d be thrown outta the village in a second flat.”
Dragomir didn’t use a gun to kill the Praetorian? Victory frowned. “So he used a bow?”
The closer boy shrugged. “Doubt it. He went up there to die. Everybody knew it, but nobody could stop him.”
“All I saw on him was a knife,” the boy in the lead said. “And he came back with a head.”
“Yeah,” the boy agreed, nodding, his eyes growing distant as he watched old memory replay in front of them. “Came back with a head.” He was obviously impressed.
“Braddock made him burn it,” the boy in the lead said. “But he had it on his front door for awhile. Let the crows pick the eyeballs out.”
The closer boy nodded. “Yeah. The eyeballs.”
“And he stopped washing or eating, too,” the boy leading the cart added, really starting to get into the story, now. “Just came out every morning to sit on the porch and stare at the head. Momma said he was goin’ crazy, and Dad had to help Thor and a couple other guys drag him down to the river and bathe.”
Suddenly, from the trail behind them, a big male voice boomed, “I ain’t gonna have to tell your mother you two boys’re tellin’ stories that ain’t none of your business, are you?”
