Brianna was excited that she had been able to shoot a deer and now even more thrilled that she would be able to get it back to the village. She used the rope to secure the animal in the cart, then reattached Lilly’s harness. It was hard work and she was tired when she finally finished, but she was also proud of her accomplishment. She decided it might be better to walk Lilly for a while. She walked in front of the horse, holding the reins, and Lilly pulled the cart behind her. It was an hour’s ride to the farm, so Brianna guessed it would be almost dark by the time she walked Lilly back to the village. She had been walking for nearly an hour when she saw three riders in the distance. They saw her, too, and were soon riding toward her. She recognized them as cavalry soldiers. She waved as they approached.
“Hello there,” said one of the men. “Where are you headed this fine afternoon?”
“I’m going back to the village,” she explained.
“You’ve got a nice buck there. Who killed it?”
“I did,” Brianna said.
The three soldiers laughed.
“I’ll bet you did,” said the soldier. “I’m afraid we’ll need to take it from here. You can fetch your horse and cart at our camp tomorrow.”
“You aren’t taking my deer. It’s for the people of Brighton’s Gate. They’re starving.”
“King’s order, missy,” said the soldier. “The army has a right to take provisions when in the field.”
“I’m with Zollin Quinnson and we’re here hunting the dragon. We have a letter from King Felix ordering the army to give us whatever aid we require. So I will take my deer because Zollin needs it.”
“I’ve never heard of Zollin,” the soldier said.
“He’s the Wizard of Yelsia.”
“There’s wizards popping out of the woodwork,” said one of the other soldiers.
“And they all have orders from the royal family,” said another.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re taking the deer.”
Brianna pulled her bow from its sheath and nocked an arrow from her quiver in one smooth motion.
“Come any closer to me or my property and I’ll put this arrow right through your chest,” she threatened.
The soldiers laughed again.
“She’s a bold one,” said one man.
“We’re wearing armor, missy. Your arrow won’t do anything but bounce off me. Now hand over the reins to your horse.”
“No,” Brianna said. She didn’t want to shoot the soldier, but she wasn’t going to let him take her prize.
“Fine, have it your way,” he said, urging his horse forward.
He was still ten paces away from Brianna. She adjusted her aim and let the arrow fly. The arrow crossed the distance in a blur, slamming into the soldier’s shoulder and sending him toppling off his horse. The arrow had pierced the chainmail that the soldier wore under his jerkin. He bellowed in pain, and the other two men pulled their shields from behind their saddles while Brianna drew and nocked another arrow from her quiver. The two men moved their horses to either side of Brianna. She wasn’t sure whom to aim her bow at.
“You shot me!” screamed the wounded soldier.
“I’ll shoot anyone else who comes near me,” she threatened.
“You can’t shoot us both,” said one of the other soldiers.
“Try me,” she said.
The soldier behind her spurred his horse. She spun and shot, letting the arrow fly without taking careful aim. The arrow would have struck the soldier in the center of his chest, but he had his shield ready. The arrow penetrated the shield and stuck out the back side several inches, but the man kept coming toward her. Brianna was just pulling out another arrow from her quiver when she was hit on the back of the head by the flat side of the other soldier’s sword and her world went black.
Chapter 29
Zollin’s mind and magic were deep inside Tollver’s body. The farmer’s heart was struggling to keep up with his body’s constant demand for oxygen. He had lost too much blood from internal bleeding and it was causing his heart to work ineffectually. Zollin had set the rib bones first, gingerly removing the jagged ends from Tollver’s left lung. Then he healed the man’s lung before knitting the bones back together. The sternum was crushed, and pulling the bones back together took longer than Zollin had anticipated. There was still internal bleeding and the loss of blood pressure to deal with when Zollin finally pulled back. He sat with his eyes closed, waiting for his head to stop spinning from exertion. Working so intently with magic reminded Zollin of holding his breath underwater. As children, he and Todrek used to compete to see who could stay underwater the longest. Zollin remembered coming up gasping and seeing bright spots of light dancing at the edges of his vision.
He opened his eyes and saw Winnie, her worried face looking first at her husband and then at Zollin. She had a cup of wine held out to him. He took it and let the warm liquid run down his throat, the heat spread through him and he felt better. Then he noticed that there were candles burning. He looked at the one small window and saw that it was dark outside. There was noise and commotion filtering into the house.
“What’s going on outside?” Zollin asked.
“Everyone is celebrating,” Winnie said. “Tollver is the only person you haven’t completely healed and people are in a mood to celebrate their good fortune.”
“I guess having a wizard around isn’t all bad,” he said, smiling at Winnie. “I’ve healed your husband’s ribs, sternum, and punctured lung, but he still has some internal bleeding. I need to take a short break and get some food in me. Then I’ll be able to finish. Tollver should be fine in another hour or so.”
“Oh, thank you so much. Here, let me get you a bowl of stew. Ollie used the dried meat your sister...,” she paused as she caught her mistake, “I mean, Brianna gave her and made a nice broth. Then she scrounged up some vegetables and made a nice stew. It’s mostly potatoes, but it’s hot and has a nice flavor.”
“That would be great,” Zollin said.
He sat back in the small chair he had been sitting in and waited while Winnie hurried out to fetch his supper. He was bothered by the fact that Brianna wasn’t back yet. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been working, but he thought there had been plenty of time for Brianna to ride out to the Tollver farm and back before dark. He guessed she was out with the villagers, and he couldn’t blame her for that. He’d rather be out enjoying the festivities, but he still had work to do. Helping the villagers was good for his reputation and he hoped that perhaps it would change their perception of him. They had mostly thought that he had ushered in danger and calamity on their little hamlet, but now they could see that he cared and could help them.
When Winnie returned she was carrying a wooden bowl and a small loaf of bread. She handed both to Zollin. He put the bowl on his lap and then tore the bread into bite size chunks which he stirred into his stew.
Winnie refilled his cup with wine and sat down near her husband.
“What is Brianna doing?” Zollin asked.
“I don’t know,” Winnie said. “I haven’t seen her.”
“How long has she been back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t she come in here after going to get the clothes from your farm?”
“No, no one’s been in but Ollie, and I didn’t see her outside. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t returned. She’s probably just having a little fun.”
Zollin didn’t know what to say. He was worried that Brianna might not have returned. Perhaps something had happened to her on the way to the farm or on her way back. Worse yet, what if she returned but would rather spend time with one of the villagers than with him? He felt sick and would have skipped eating the stew, but he knew he needed the strength it would give him. He wanted to go outside and look for Brianna, but he also knew he needed to stay and finish healing Tollver.
He ate his food in silence, trying to focus on the feeling of strength he always got when he ate while working magic,
but his mind kept drifting back to Brianna. Finally he finished his stew and stood up.
“I just need to stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he told Winnie.
She looked worried, but Zollin pushed through his guilt at leaving Tollver’s treatment unfinished and walked outside. It was chilly in the Great Valley after dark, but the townspeople gathered around the large fires didn’t seem to notice. It was hard to see faces in the shifting firelight, but Zollin tried anyway. He ambled around the makeshift village, staying away from the firelight so that he appeared to be just another villager moving through the darkness. Most of the people had gotten tents from the army since over half of the legion that had marched into the valley were killed in the battle with the Skellmarians. It had been Quinn’s idea that they take refuge in the forested hills and work together to rebuild Brighton’s Gate. Now the area around Kelvich’s cabin, which had seemed so secluded through the cold winter, was bustling with people, tents, and work spaces. The big saw used for milling lumber was behind the cabin, and there were even some small corrals used to keep the animals which had survived the dragon’s attack.
Zollin made a quick circle, growing more and more worried as he went. Brianna was not back. He couldn’t find her horse and didn’t see or hear her mixing with the locals. His own horse was still saddled and tied to the tree where he had left it earlier in the day. He started to unsaddle the horse but then changed his mind. If Brianna wasn’t back by the time he finished healing Tollver, he didn’t want to waste time saddling his horse.
He walked back to the house and went inside. Winnie sat near her husband, who was breathing more easily and seemed to be resting better. Still, Zollin knew that if the internal bleeding wasn’t found and healed, Tollver would most likely die.
“When I finish,” Zollin told her, “he’ll probably be hungry. His body will be healed, but it might still be in shock from the trauma. I might give him a little broth and some wine mixed with water.”
“Should I get that for him now?” she asked.
“It wouldn’t hurt. Healing the internal bleeding shouldn’t take long, I just have to find it.”
He sat back down as she got up. He let his magic flow out, the heat from his power felt as if there were a fire inside him. He let his mind dive deep into Tollver and spread out. He wanted to feel every bit of muscle, blood, and tissue. The world around him seemed to fall away, and he lost himself in the wondrous nature of the human body. There were so many organs, busy with different tasks, but all working in perfect harmony. Then he spotted it, Tolliver’s spleen was ruptured. It was small, about the size of a small lemon cut in half. Zollin felt the blood being pumped into the organ and then leaking out. He focused on imagining the tissue fusing back together. It only took a minute and then the spleen began working normally. Zollin mentally stayed inside the organ for a moment, marveling at how effective it was at filtering the blood that passed through it. Next he needed to deal with the blood that had pooled in the farmer’s abdomen. The liver was his best bet, but moving the blood was like trying to scoop up a spill with his bare hands. It took over an hour to move the blood and then for it to be absorbed in the liver. Finally, after checking that everything else seemed to be working normally and that Tollver’s blood pressure was on the rise, he came back to himself and felt his body sag. He was tired.
He looked at Tollver, who was just then waking up. Winnie was back and she moved forward anxiously.
“He’ll be fine now,” Zollin said. “He just needs rest and time for his body to regain its strength.”
Winnie was supposed to be making sure Zollin had wine and food ready, but she was focused entirely on her husband now. Zollin got up, his body aching as if he’d been awake for days with no sleep. He poured some wine and then went back outside. The festivities were winding down as the fires burned low. Once again he walked through the camp, this time asking if anyone had seen Brianna. No one had, and even though he was exhausted, he climbed onto his horse and set out. The cold night air felt good after being in the stuffy little cabin all afternoon and evening. He rummaged in his saddlebag and found some hard bread and an apple. He ate the bread first, sipping tepid water from his canteen to wash down the extremely dry bread. Then, feeling a little better, he ate the apple. It was old and no longer crisp, but it was sweet and juicy.
He could see the shadowy forms of the buildings that were under construction in the town spread out below him. He let his magic flow out, but there was no sign of Brianna or anyone else in the town. He turned west and rode for the Tollver farm, keeping his magical senses open wide in case he missed her in the darkness. He felt the movement of small animals rustling in the grass. At one point he felt a pack of mountain wolves hurrying past. They noticed him but were looking for easier prey. They moved away silently, and Zollin resumed his search for Brianna.
It took an hour to reach the Tollver farm, and there was no sign of Brianna in any of the buildings. A fear had taken root in Zollin’s mind that perhaps something or someone had hurt Brianna. He didn’t know if he would feel her if she were dead. He may have ridden past her body in the darkness, completely unaware of how close she was. He rejected the thought as soon as it popped into his mind, but it refused to go away. He took a moment to search the house for signs that Brianna had been there, but again he found nothing. He wasn’t sure what to do. It was as if Brianna had simply disappeared.
“What would Kelvich tell me to do?” he said to himself. “What are the possibilities?”
She could have left him, he thought. She could have ridden away and not looked back, but that seemed very unlikely. Their relationship had been improving, and she had given no signs that she didn’t want to be with him.
She could have been hurt, but surely he would have found her if that were the case. She had ridden to the Tollver farm and was planning to come straight back, at least Zollin thought that she was.
That left only two other possibilities: either she was taken against her will or she was dead. He remembered the wolves and an icy shard of fear shot through his heart. He doubted that something would have happened to her, there simply weren’t that many predators in the mountains that could have killed her. The mountain lions stayed higher up and rarely came into the Great Valley. The wolves might have attacked her, but again it was unlikely. They had passed him by without so much as hesitating, as if they weren’t interested in large animals. Of course, he thought, that could be because they had already eaten Brianna.
He forced the thought away. She couldn’t be dead, he thought. It just didn’t seem possible. The only other thing to consider was that she had been abducted. The only people in the Great Valley who might possibly do that were the villagers of Brighton’s Gate, but he knew they hadn’t done it; the soldiers charged with guarding the valley, another unlikely option; and the Skellmarians. It was possible that a raiding party had crossed over the river and taken Brianna, even though no one in the village had mentioned Skellmarian activity other than movement beyond the river. The army had conscripted men from the village to help patrol the river. Still, the Skellmarian’s were experienced raiders and Zollin couldn’t discount the possibility completely. He decided to ride to where the army was camped. He could make sure Brianna wasn’t there and find out more about the Skellmarians. If the mountain people had her, she would be forced to become a slave. He couldn’t stand to think about what might be happening to her, so he focused on riding back toward Brighton’s Gate.
He rode faster this time, pushing his horse into a canter after lighting a tall branch to use as a torch. He carried the torch under his arm so that it illuminated the path, and he let his horse find its own way. The ride back to Brighton’s Gate was much shorter than the ride out to the Tollver farm because he kept his horse at a steady canter, but Zollin was still frustrated that his search was taking so long. He had trouble keeping his eyes open and wished, more than anything, that he could just stretch out his tired body and sleep. But the very though
t of giving up on Brianna was loathsome to him. How could he even consider resting when she could be in mortal danger?
He slowed down after leaving the village. He let his senses spread out again in case he crossed her path. The army hadn’t moved any closer to the Brighton’s Gate; they were still camped on the small knoll where Zollin had been captured when he was, again, trying to catch up to Brianna, who had been abducted. It seemed almost funny that she was once again missing, but of course he wasn’t amused. It took nearly an hour to reach the camp, and he was halted by sentries on the dark plain that lead to the army’s field headquarters.
Five Kingdoms: Books 01, 02 & 03 Page 107
