CHAPTER 19
“They all look dead to me.”She had the tip of her axe in soft flesh to prove it. As the great northerly surrendered smooth gales across the hillside, stringy brown hair flipped this way and that. Ren’ai made no effort to tame it.
“You’re so disrespectful.” Nakali slinked up beside her. A golden skirt sailed across her legs, splits up her thighs allowing great movement in the fabric and in her deadly kick. In her hand a gilded bow, ready and waiting to be called swiftly to action. Two leather straps held tightly against the lean curving muscle of upper arms where she held long golden sheaths concealing two curved golden daggers.
Ren’ai spoke the truth. Body after body lay out in the street as if everyone had just fallen asleep while going about their daily tasks. With men in brimmed hats hanging across hay carts one with slain horses, women face down with their daily loaves stringing out from their fingertips, if not children; merchants slumping across turned tables, their wares reaching across the blighted ground; barely could she find a place to set foot upon that hamlet’s cobbled way that did not offend the departed. Red flowed from the upper alleyways and crisped away in the wind. The stench creased her nose---unbearable.
Nakali pulled a dark hand across her nose, speaking through parted fingers. “What do you say, Master, two days.” Her voice fell deep and calm. She cast a sideward glance to a man in a long burgundy cloak with hood back, revealing deep, knowing eyes under a heavy brow and a head of straight black hair just reaching his narrow neck.
Securing a strand that flapped into his face, he walked past her without word. The Healer knelt with a stick in hand, poking and prodding a dead man. A reprehensible act.
Silence held them.
Then the Healer spoke. “Sounds about right.” The skin squirmed as he wiggled into loose flesh. “Maybe three. We have larva, second molt.”
Nakali nodded her understanding.
Ren’ai’s brow furrowed in bewilderment. Throwing her axe back over her shoulder, she stepped over one body and then another. “We didn’t come here for the dead. So what is our purpose?”
The Healer’s eyes met the eastern sky, red and orange as Lesser Sun sank beneath the trees. He stood again, straightening a wayward cloak as he rose, before pointing out toward the houses beyond. “You three, search.” He looked to the three male guards who accompanied him. “Find the survivors.” He turned to his right. “Nakali, Keep watch down the valley.” His voice commanded attention and obedience complete. No longer he held the voice and pace of a teacher, but that of a General. No time for learning, only doing.
It may have been Ren’ai’s first time out of the caves since he found her that night, asked her to join them, but she understood.
“First Guard, you’re with me.”
Ren’ai looked around a moment, waiting for her orders to be called. As much as she liked to be referred to as First Guard, she could not get used to the fact that it was she to whom he spoke.
Recognition tripped across her features. “I’m with you, Master.” Pulling her axe from her shoulder she stumbled past the dead, meeting his stride; ever at the ready should any think to harm him.
“Over here.” Barely a moment had departed before one of the three guards with them found what they sought.
Jabari, as quick and agile as the company he kept, leapt over a flipped grain barrel and through a maze of decay with his First Guard close behind.
The guard pointed into a building. A sign swung above the door. Bakery. No sweet scent of warming dough met their senses.Jabari stood in the entrance. Darkness crept across the silent walls as the wind taunted their efforts. “First Guard, search and report.”
“Yes, Healer.” Ren’ai entered. The smell of death attacked with a bite no less vicious within. Stepping across an overturned chair and spoiled lamps she made her way across a well-swept floor.
As she rounded a series of wood stoves cooled for the day, low whimpering met her ear. She turned, preparing for attack. A floral print blanket hung before her, ripped in places, tattered by use, a glint of light behind it. She pulled it free, coughing away dust and soot.
A man, a woman and two small boys cowered just behind, shelves of flour and oil up to the ceiling behind them. The man lay so nearly lifeless with his head in the woman’s lap. One of the boys, dirty hair down to his shoulders, no more than six, stood up in front of his mother as Ren’ai neared them.
She clanged her axe to the dirt floor, showing she meant no harm. She could see that neither the woman nor her boy believed her.
Ren’ai wondered if it were the gray, grey eyes she shared with her father. It would not have been the first time they had struck fear into those who had known him.
Or it could have been her deep blue dress, fitting tight to her hips but open at the side to allow for needed movement, collar up to her chin to cover her. Healer Jabari had told her that she would not accompany him in the potato sack training garb she preferred. Nakali had been all too excited to take on the task. Ren’ai thought her more comfortable training garb would be much less frightening.
Ren’ai could not say what made the child stand as a cougar guarding her cubs. It could have been the horror he had seen just three days past. She smiled, leaning forward; trying to show them they had no reason to fear.
Still, they did not appear to believe her.
Ren’ai spared them the sight of her eyes as she looked away. “Healer, All Clear. One Man. One Woman. Two Children. Nonhostile.” She called back to the doorway, before stepping away from them, wishing them no more fear.
Jabari pushed Ren’ai from his path as he knelt down beside the man before seeking out the man’s wounds and judging his condition.
“We did as you said, Healer.”The woman stroked the man’s brow, drawing his heat to her. “Used the comfrey ointments and propolis liniment you showed us how to prepare, but.” She gulped back a tear.
“It’s alright, Child. They can only do so much. Did you give him boneset tea for the fever? How long has the heat had him?” Jabari whisked a hand to his brow, stroking a sweaty strand from it.
“Yes as you taught us and it’s been nearly two days. But it won’t break. I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“There, there, Child. You’ve done well in keeping him with the living this long. And now we are here.” He took the man’s cheeks in his hands. Moisture beaded between his fingers. “First, get these pants off of him.” He held fast to the man’s face as Ren’ai untied his pants and moved them slowly down.
The man groaned in pain.
“That’s a good sign.” Master Jabari smiled up at the woman with whatever value a smile held at that moment. With Ren’ai’s task complete he moved to inspecting the leg, gashed agape, barely attached to the rest of him. “The Mort’s trying to set in but we caught it just in time. He placed his hand on the leg, moved near and away as if strengthening some unseen tack.
Ren’ai watched as the leg mended. Inside fibers moved together, becoming one again until only the outer scar remained. It amazed her every time.
“And his belly, Healer. They got him twice.” The woman spoke up with a voice of lingering fear more than appreciation.
“It seems they couldn’t take him down with one mortal wound. A brave husband you have indeed.”
“He’s my brother. My husband is dead.”
Master Jabari ignored her correction, only interested in completing the task.
Ren’ai captured the woman’s eyes in her own, showing only genuine sorrow just as the Healer had taught her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The woman looked away from her, finding no consolation there. She turned back to the Healer as he put his hand over the man’s belly and held it until wholeness again defined him.
“Master. We’ve found another one.”
Master Jabari wasted no time in rising. A moment spent with the healed one’s gratitude could mean the death of another. He had learned that lesson long ago.
Ren’ai helped the
healed man to his feet.
He thanked her with a strengthening grasp.
She kept her eyes from him. “I only wish some of this could have been prevented. It just seems so unnecessary.”
The man smiled an awkward smile though she could not see it.
A guard called in after her. “Nai, you stay with Master Jabari no matter what. Who's First Guard here anyway, you or me?”
“I am.” She placed a hand on the young one’s head, reassuring him that it would be alright then pulled her axe back up onto her shoulder and leapt back out into the light.
Master Jabari waited at the entry way. “First Guard, Search and Report.”
“Yes, Master.”