Silver Eve (2 page)

SUMMER'S WANE

“YOU HAVE NO
fear of death.”

The woman lay wide-eyed on the ground gasping this at me—gargling, really, for her throat was torn open, her voice shredded. She'd not last two breaths beyond those words; 'twas sad she had to waste them on me. But there was no one familiar left with whom to share meaningful last speeches of love or regret, nor anything that might ease her mind. Just the stranger who held her hand.

I smiled and soothed as I'd done through the final moments of all the dying, kneeling next to her on the hardened earth while she struggled, our fingers linked. I said softly, as if we'd continue this conversation, as if we took afternoon tea and commented on the dearth of rain, “There is nothing to fear.”

The woman looked to challenge, but then her eyes drifted from mine and stilled. I kept my hand on hers for a moment longer, slumped back with a sigh. And then all that moved was the smoke.

Smoke. It filtered through the dull green of the trees, carrying the stink of burning things. We were a distance from the ruined village, but the gray wisps slipped through, swirled and surrounded, blinding the eye and polluting the soul. My soul.

“Mistress! Mistress Healer!”

I'd been called that since I first entered Bern, since I dropped my satchel in what remained of their growing fields and kneeled to assist those sprawled among the charred stalks. That I no longer cared about the title made no difference. One is born with one's gifts.

“Mistress! Here,
please
!” The brown-bearded man was crouched by some little tumble of clothing. He'd been zigzagging about the field ahead of me, avoiding bits of lingering flame, yelling and pointing at anyone who still breathed. How he'd spied survivors through the choking fog, had found the few among so many, I didn't know.

I shut the staring eyes of the woman, crossed her arms over her heart, then scrambled up and ran to the man, shoving up my sleeves once more. I forgot my satchel, hastened back for it. The satchel had been light in weight when I abandoned my own village of Merith; it was even lighter now. I'd taken only herbs—minion, yew, and heliotrope—hardly intending they'd serve anyone but me. Now I was nearly out. Three of five villages I'd passed through had been ravaged, the wounded begging to be tended back to life or eased into death. It was a trail of destruction, of pure savagery, witless and cruel. I'd never seen such except in my little town, never imagined that the vicious Troths would attack any defenseless community other than mine. But this time the creatures had run beyond Merith, burning and slaughtering for no fathomable reason. As a Healer I'd seen my share of violence from accident or misfortune; I had no aversion to it. But this was different. This was violence for pleasure.

“Here! Here.” The brown-bearded man clawed at my skirt, pulling me down next to him at the side of a small boy—limp but seemingly unharmed.

“Is he the last?” I asked. I kept my voice light and calm to stave off Brown-beard's mounting anguish. He'd been far too eager in his assistance searching through these fields. Now there were the first trembles in his hands and face. Despair, catching up.

The man nodded awkwardly at my question, eyes darting about. He'd given me his name somewhere in the frenzy of tending:
Rafinn.
I had not used it. “So many dead.” He fidgeted. “So many.”

I touched the back of my hand to the boy's temple. “He might live, this one, if we are quick.”

“As if that is good news.”

True. Only seven villagers remained, by my count. This was hardly a triumph.

The man's voice dropped to a pathetic quiver. “Why did they come?”

“I don't know,” I answered honestly, peeking under the boy's eyelids. The whites were still pure.

“But you are from Merith,” Brown-beard muttered. “I heard you say it. I know the story of your village. The beasts came out of the Myr Mountains, attacking you fifty years back, then fifteen years back—”

“Thirteen,” I corrected.

“And then midsummer.
Three
attacks.” He said it roughly, as if he were jealous of our plight. “Merith survived the Troths
three
times.”

“They only killed those of childbearing age before.” I opened the boy's mouth to check his tongue, that his throat was clear. “And this time…” My voice hitched. “This time…”

This time we'd had warning. That was how we'd survived. My cousin Lark had come back from our field not three months past carrying a severed hand. Lark had the Sight—a rare gift that included the ability to sense people's histories—and she'd told us how the hand belonged to the kind old tailor, Ruber Minwl, how he'd been killed by the Troths and how the beasts had once again turned their vicious gaze to our town. We'd had ten days of warning to ponder, to worry. Ten days to hope.

Lark was the one who sought help for our defenseless village—bound to the task for which she should never have been chosen. She was Merith's most timid member, had never ventured beyond its rose-hedged borders. Yet somehow she pushed herself north into the hills, found and persuaded the Riders (the twelve of legendary might) to come and protect us. Eleven of them charged into Merith with horse and sword just as the Troths attacked, saving us from the worst. Lark returned afterward with the twelfth Rider in tow, both gravely wounded. And then it was our turn to save—Grandmama and me healing the two of them to the best of our abilities. Shy, beloved Lark, my almost-sister, my dearest friend, had rescued our home.

It seemed a good story. But neither did I attempt it for Brown-beard, nor was he interested in hearing it. “
This
time? This time is different!” He shuddered. “They've gone beyond your Merith; they've gone beyond child bearers! Look around. They killed everyone they could!”

“You must think what to do now.” I changed the subject firmly, wiping my palms on my cloak. “Rebuild. Regrow. You'll need shelter from this sun at least. You'll need to find clean water.” I dug into the dusty satchel for the vials of herbs, spilling them on the ground in front of me. I selected one and pulled its stopper. Minion. The most healing of any plant we knew.

“No purpose to rebuilding.” The man was whimpering. “No purpose. We are lost. Drought, death, savagery—there is nothing more to suffer. There is nothing to save!”

“Here.” I took Brown-beard's hand and sprinkled some of the dried bits into his ash-smeared palm. There was no water; we'd use his spit. 'Twould give him something purposeful to do. “Chew those, counting to ten.
Slowly.
Do not swallow any.” He obliged, eyeing the little bottles. I pushed the minion under the satchel, out of sight.

I lifted the boy's shirt from the front—pale little belly, pale chest, unmarred. Very gently, I rolled him to one side, my fingers instantly sticky with blood. I tore away the shirt. There, by his left shoulder blade, was a jagged rip of skin. A Troth's claw had snagged him—a single claw thankfully, or he'd not have a shoulder blade…or a back. I'd seen close-up the brutal results of a Troth's hard swipe. The boy had not been the target of those slug-skinned creatures; he'd just been in the way.

“Spit into your palm,” I told Brown-beard, lifting the boy's arm and draping it over his head. I wiped away the blood and dirt and pointed at the soft underarm. “Spread it here. Make a thin coating, cover all.”

Brown-beard was sweating now, a cold sweat in the aftermath of shock, a bad sign. “Focus,” I urged. “Focus.” His hands shook as he smeared the mess onto the boy's skin, and then I had to pull those hands away as the man seemed to forget he'd finished.

I tucked the boy's arm down, then cradled his cheek against his palm and brushed the hair from his brow. It was feather-soft, and for just a moment I lingered, combing back the fine curls, thinking this must be what it was like to tuck a child in to sleep, to watch him sweetly dream.

Yearning pierced through, sharp as any needle; I swallowed it down…away. 'Twas quick—only a breath, a moment to steel myself. Then smoke wafted over and I looked at Brown-beard. “Clean your hands,” I told him, pointing at the blackened grass.

He did not hear me. His hands lay limp on his knees, the corners of his mouth twitching with words that didn't come. I ripped tufts of the grass and did it for him, scrubbing the herb from his palms; he didn't flinch.

“Do not falter now,” I warned. And I clutched his shoulder, willing my own energy to seep in and erase the stupor. “You are whole. You can help.”

He turned his head and looked at me strangely, this man with the too-close name, Rafinn. The smoke fingered between us, the last hisses of flame like an ugly, mocking whisper:
Ruin and death, ruin and death, all gone, all gone, all gone.
I let my gaze slip, scanned the charred field we crouched in. The other survivors had long stumbled off, and I did not like that I was suddenly alone with the one whose name was too painful to use, who had the stare of one who needed to confess. “Listen to me,” I gritted, turning back abruptly. I gave his shoulder another shake and squeezed harder. “
Listen.
You are all right. 'Twill be all right.”

“All right…,” Brown-beard echoed. “All right…” My grip was stirring something at last, my energy igniting his. Guilt burst open, a whisper running to a shriek: “I am whole because I
didn't
help!” he blurted out. “I am whole because I was afraid! I ran. I let my village burn…and I ran! Do you hear me? I
ran.
”

The man broke down in wrenching sobs. I held still, half sorry for him, half revolted. I should have liked to pull my hand from his shoulder, let him bear his shame alone. I should have liked to run far from this seeping darkness and nurse my own grief. But that was not what Healers did. He ran. I could not.

I waited until his breath calmed, then released my grip and brushed his misery from my palms. “What was before makes no difference,” I said. “You are helping now. Look.”

The boy lay soft and still in his lullaby pose, but the wound was bubbling along its jagged edge. “There is poison in the claws of the Troth,” I said low. “The minion is pushing it out.” I took the warm little hand and pressed it within my own to speed the process. As we watched, purple-black blood dripped from the wound and was replaced by a bright, clean red. It quickly scabbed over.

“Do they all react like that?” The man gulped.

“Different poisons respond to different herbs.” I glanced up at the ash-dead fields and added, “Some poisons do not respond at all.” Hukon, of course, was the vilest poison; nothing could completely cure it.

I wondered if anything could cure fear.

He looked sideways at me, then touched where I'd gripped his shoulder. “You—you hold much ability for one so young.” There was a hint of awe in his voice now, like the dead woman's. “I thought Healers were of great age.”

“I am seventeen nigh two months.” That seemed substantial enough. What I'd witnessed in those months had aged me greatly, and I was done with it all anyway.

Once more I took the boy's arm and raised it, wiped the smear of minion off with a clean patch on my cloak. My cloak was turquoise—or had been before I left Merith. The minion went black against the brilliant blue. “This child is small. The medicine cannot be kept there too long or he would not wake again,” I explained. “Things that heal will themselves become poison if used unwisely. And they are not for
you.
”

I said the last bit severely because the man had cast his eye on the vials of heliotrope and yew that lay in the dirt. There was a new eagerness in those furtive glances. He might have recognized one of them, known either of those plants wrongly used could put out his fear forever. 'Twas like that, healing and death. They were always near one another.

I slipped the vials back in my satchel along with the minion and slung the thing over my shoulder to keep them safe.
Safe
—I'd never thought like that before. In Merith, my home, my past, we'd never barred a door; we'd never argued in anger; we'd never even feared Dark Wood at our doorstep. Now in this blackened, empty field, I felt the first prickings of danger. Not from the bloody ravaging of Troths, but from what remained in their wake.