Sunset of Lantonne (72 page)

It was then Raeln first noticed the woman’s horns. Like all ogres, she had circling horns like a ram’s, but hers had been cut short, leaving a blunted end. He had never seen an ogre do that to their horns, but he also had not known many in his life. It could well have been something common in the woman’s home city of Altis, but struck him as peculiar.

After several minutes of quick walking, the ogre woman stopped as shouts came from somewhere ahead of them. She grumbled something under her breath, but Raeln could not make out the words.

“Keep your mouth shut and I’ll do what I can,” the woman told him a second later. “Taskmaster is coming and he’ll have a lot of questions. Don’t speak at all, and you might not be punished for sneaking off the farm.”

Raeln’s stomach lurched at her words, and he had no doubt that his eyes had gone wide. In Lantonnian lands, there was no slavery, so the mention of a taskmaster had taken him by surprise. Greth’s offhand guesses had been right.

“That’s him!” came Greth’s voice. “Hurry!”

Raeln turned his head and saw an elf and a human were running toward him with Greth at their side. For some reason, Greth had changed his clothing from the hides and leather they had worn to a ragged set of Lantonnian clothing. The man had even taken on a slight limp, though Raeln could not imagine when he had hurt his leg.

The human ran straight up to Raeln and the ogre and gave the woman a nervous glance before focusing in on Raeln.

“He’s been burned,” the man said, looking angrily at Greth. “You said he had something wrong with his breathing. Where did he get this clothing?”

The ogre woman interjected, “He has the drowning cough. The burns are from rolling onto his campfire the night before last. I saw it myself. He did not wish to bother you with it, but the cough has grown bad. He hid these clothes until his chills grew too bad to wear cloth. The little man was just trying to keep warm.”

Greth gave the woman a confused stare, but hid the expression as the elf looked at him. “He didn’t want me to talk about the burns,” he said, sounding as though he was truthful. “I think he was embarrassed and worried he would be flogged for wasting the healer’s time. The cough came as a surprise this morning and he tried to work through it.”

The human nodded and glared at Raeln, then bent over to listen at his chest. “Sounds a little different than the others,” the man noted, then stepped away. “Still, something’s wrong with him. Get him to the healer. I’ll check in later tonight to see if he’s dead or better.”

The ogre woman thanked the two men and began walking again, with Greth falling in at her side.

“Thank you,” Greth whispered to her. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She grinned. “I did. We slaves have to stick together. Besides, the little guy reminded me of my baby boy. He died of the cough before the healer arrived in the camp. I won’t see any more die like that, if I can help.”

They crossed the rest of the field and hurried through the camp toward the buildings at the far side. As they did, Raeln saw hundreds of men, women, and even a few children of all races, some wearing clothing were of styles Raeln had never seen before. They all looked at him somberly in passing, most likely seeing him as another casualty. It was terrifying to have so many strangers give him a look that said he was already dead.

“Who is he to you?” the ogre asked as they neared the wooden buildings. “A brother?”

“No, no relation,” answered Greth.

“He is more than a friend if you lie like this for him,” she noted, smiling over at Greth. “I know neither of you belongs here. Your eyes give you away, as do the way they watch him. I think you lie about this to protect him and he is actually kin.”

“I’m just his friend,” snapped Greth, making a point of staring straight ahead. He did not look at Raeln the rest of the walk.

The ogress carried Raeln up to the door of the large wooden building and stepped in front of Greth on the stairs.

“In this world, we all die sooner than we intend,” she told Greth. “Be true to yourself or regret will follow your path long after the moment you should have acted.”

Greth stared her down, then turned and walked away into the camp, disappearing among the tents as he muttered something.

“I know you cannot speak yet,” the woman told Raeln, shoving the door to the building open with her foot. “You will meet our healer now. Treat him well. Like I told your friend, regret and sorrow follow the healer and may for the rest of his days. I worry for the child and wish him some happiness…if you can cheer him, please do.”

She proceeded into the large single-room building, which Raeln realized was only lit by a handful of small candles at the edges. Inside, dozens of poorly dressed people lay practically one atop another, crowded in far beyond the design of the room. Most of them were nursing obvious wounds or coughing violently. From what he could see, not one person there was in any condition to work. Despite the warm day that had just ended, many of the sick huddled around a small fireplace, shivering under blankets or pelts.

“Healer,” the ogre called out, carefully stepping among the resting people, making her way toward the back of the large room. “This one could not walk himself here.”

Raeln looked toward the corner the woman was trying to reach and thought for a moment that no one was there. All he saw at first was a pile of blankets. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he realized that a wildling man sat there, hunkered under a thin blanket in the darker shadows of the corner. The man looked as though he carried the weight of the world on his thin shoulders, his eyes never leaving the floor as they approached.

The wildling’s breed was a mystery to Raeln, but he could tell that the man had not been raised in a place like this. Grey-furred with white and black patterning around his large orange eyes, the man picked with filed-flat claws at the rags he wore, which Raeln could see were once Altisian in make. It was not until the ogre sat Raeln down practically atop the man’s feet that his eyes focused on Raeln.

“How were you hurt?” the man asked Raeln, taking a slow breath that made it sound like a struggle for him to even muster the energy to talk.

“He cannot speak,” the ogre said for Raeln. “When he tried, he coughed badly. I thought maybe he had the drowning cough.”

The wildling’s eyes drifted over Raeln’s burns, then he nodded and told the ogre, “Thank you. I will take it from here.”

The ogress bowed slightly and departed, cautiously picking her way through the room to keep from stepping on anyone.

“I haven’t seen you before,” the wildling man told Raeln, lifting Raeln’s hand to stare at the burns down his arm. “These aren’t from a campfire, in case that was the lie you were going to give me. I’ve seen enough injuries of all kinds here that lying is a waste of time. No one listens to me anyway, so once I heal you, I would like you to tell me the truth for my own amusement. Agreed?”

The man did not wait for Raeln to attempt to answer before he laid his hands on Raeln’s chest. Almost immediately, warmth flowed through Raeln’s entire body and a strange itching sensation tingled across his burns. Soon, he began to breathe easier as his lungs cooled.

“You owe me an explanation,” the man told Raeln, sitting back against the wall and huddling in his blankets. “Humor me with the truth.”

Raeln sat up and stared at his arms. Where there had been crusted burns seconds earlier, fresh pink skin had already been covered with a fine layer of fur. He took a deep breath, finding his lungs entirely back to normal. Raeln had been tended to by many country healers and doctors over the years, but this man was one of the most skilled he had met.

“Can you give me your name?” Raeln asked. “I want to know who to praise for saving my life.”

“They call me ‘healer’ or ‘you’,” the man said, shrugging. “I gave up on having a real name when they enslaved me. Someday, I hope to have a name again.”

“There are no slaves in Lantonnian lands.”

The wildling grinned, his white teeth standing out against his black muzzle. “You tell me, then. We sit on Lantonnian lands, and you can see what we are. Tell me if there are slaves in Lantonnian lands.”

Raeln felt his ears droop sadly and could not find words. As he lowered his head, he found himself staring at the thinned fur on the healer’s wrists and ankles where manacles had clearly been fastened frequently.

“You were going to tell me a story,” the man added. “A story about why you’re here.”

“They sent me here to work,” Raeln began, then saw the man’s face harden angrily. “I just got to the camp…”

“I told you not to lie to me,” growled the man, grabbing Raeln’s wrist. He pulled it up, making Raeln look at his own hand. “Your claws say more than you are willing to. They are grown out. You wouldn’t have been put in the camp without having them cut off. Those who have just arrived normally still bleed from where the claws were cut far too short. You come from farther away than this camp. I can still smell the woods on you. I smell places I dream about every night, buried under the smell of burnt fur. Even that bracelet you wear would have been taken long ago…your lies aren’t even good ones.”

Raeln pulled his hand away and stared at the man a long time. Finally, he offered his hand toward the other wildling in a gesture of greeting that the man ignored.

“My name is Raeln,” he admitted, lowering his hand to his lap. “The war is going badly, and my friend and I came here to warn the city…”

“Lantonne can burn to ash for all I care, Raeln. The people here have done no better by my family than Altis did.”

Raeln fidgeted uncomfortably under the angry stare of the man. In an attempt to change topics, he asked, “Why do you stay here? You’re a skilled healer. With magic, I would think you could easily escape.”

The man’s anger faded to sadness immediately, and his shoulders sunk. Absently, he stared toward the fire, where several other wildlings were among those huddled there. In particular, Raeln believed he was watching two small fox kits eating scraps from dirty plates.

“Are they yours?” Raeln asked, but the man shrugged.

“They’re all I have left,” he answered, closing his eyes and sinking deeper into his blanket. “If I thought I could get them out of the camp safely, I would have gone months ago. I won’t risk them, even to be free.”

“You care that much for someone else’s children?”

“I do. They don’t deserve to be slaves. I can’t abandon them to it. I’ll die trying to get them better lives. If anything happened to them, I don’t think I could keep on living. I’ve already lost…” The man trailed off and stayed silent a long time, his ears slowly flattening back as he struggled with some memory he chose not to share.

Raeln finally gave up on the conversation and began to stand up, only to have the wildling grab him by the wrist, just above the silver bracelet.

“Can you get them out of here safely?” he asked Raeln. “Could you ensure they would be safe? Is there any chance?”

“No, I can’t. Everywhere I’ve gone, we’ve faced death and danger. If I sneak them out, they will be in more danger than they are in here. At least here, the only risk is disease or a whip. Out there, there are armies marching.”

The man’s face fell somewhat, and he released Raeln.

“Then they’ll stay here,” the man said absently, watching the kits again. “They’re happy most of the time. They don’t remember what it was like to be free. I can be a slave for them…so long as it keeps them safe.”

“Is there anyone out there that I can find for you? Anyone that could come for you or them?”

The man folded his legs under himself and draped his long black-and-white striped tail across his lap as he looked up at Raeln. Shaking his head, he said, “Their father is dead and their mother…their mother may as well already be dead. I swore I’d find and protect them, so they’re my family now, until someone better comes along. This is my choice and my duty; I wouldn’t have it any other way.”