The Battle Lord's Lady (41 page)

Her laughter was like bells ringing in the
air as she rode up next to him to offer him a kiss as a peace
offering. Instead, he pulled her onto his saddle in front of him,
and they rode that way together until it was time to stop for
lunch.

Chapter Forty-Three

Water

“Liam, do you have something for a
headache?”

MaGrath turned around to where Atty was
standing behind him. They were resuming their way north after their
brief midday break to eat and give the horses some water.

“Want something strong? Or something a little
less potent?” His expert eye noticed the dark circles under her
eyes, and his first thought was that she wasn’t getting enough rest
at night. He might have to say something to Yulen about that.

Atty shook her head. “Nothing that’ll knock
me out. I need to stay alert, just in case.”

He gave her a smile as he searched
inside his medicine pouch for the right powder. “Don’t you think we
can take care of ourselves for at least one afternoon without you?
After all, we
did
manage to
make it this far in life without your skills,” he teased her.
Holding out a small reddish purse, he instructed, “Tip of the
finger on this one. Of course, you could take three doses, but
that’ll put you out for a good three or four hours. Think about it,
Atty. You know you could ride double until you awaken.”

She accepted the bag with a weak smile. “One
dose, or three to knock me out. What does two doses do?”

“It makes you loopy. Don’t go for two, Atty,
unless you want to show us a side of yourself you need to keep just
between you and Yulen.” Again his voice was teasing, but there was
an undercurrent of an honest warning.

“Got it,” she nodded slowly against the pain.
“Thanks, Liam.” She turned and walked carefully back to where he
knew Yulen would be waiting for her. A rustling in the trees
alerted him, and he glanced up to see Madigan emerge from the
underbrush. She’d finally changed into some sensible clothing more
suited for the trail. Despite her age, Liam was pleased to learn
she still had a very comely shape. She saw him watching her, and
she gave him a warm smile.

“Waiting on me?”

“Not anymore,” he smiled just as warmly back,
pulling her against him with one arm and planting a tender kiss
full on her lips. No more corner kisses for him, he’d pledged to
himself after last night. However, he also told himself, now was
not the time to be thinking about such activities until the Battle
Lord called a halt this evening.

Giving her a gentle squeeze about the waist,
he helped her into her saddle. Mounting his own horse, they went to
join the line forming along the road.

Yulen was not at the head, as he normally
would be. Liam turned around and saw that he and Atty still stood
at the edge of the woods. Instinctively he knew something was
wrong, and he rode over to check.

“Did you give her some medicine for a
headache, Liam?” Yulen asked once the man was within earshot.

Liam saw the paleness in Atty’s face, and a
red flag went up in his mind. This was no ordinary headache. “Atty,
you might be coming down with a migraine. Is it hard to think? Hard
to focus?”

Rather than answer him, she barely nodded.
She was pressing the tips of her fingers against her temples to
help against the throbbing pain.

“How long have you had this?” he asked
sharply.

“I woke up...with it. It just
got...worse...this past hour or so.” She had difficulty speaking.
Her words echoed in her head like thunderous drumbeats.

“Did you take just the one dose? Or
more?”

She held up three fingers. MaGrath grew even
more concerned. The powder he’d given her was strong. If she’d
taken three doses, she should have already begun to feel the
medicine’s effect. “Take another dose, Atty,” he ordered.

“Liam, is that safe?” Yulen countered. He had
recognized the purse and knew what the greenish powder was capable
of, having used it himself in the past.

“I don’t know,” the physician answered
truthfully. “Her biology may be different enough from ours so that
she needs a varying dosage. Who can be sure? We’ll keep an eye on
her in the meantime. Atty, want to double up with me?”

“No,” she whispered. “I can ride.”

“Atty—”

“I can ride,” she assured Yulen with a bit
more force, although it cost her.

Reluctantly, the Battle Lord helped her into
her saddle and led the mare onto the road before handing her the
reins. Swinging into his saddle, he moved her between Madigan and
MaGrath, and gave the order to advance. The caravan resumed its
quick pace, knowing they might reach Alta Novis a day early.

He made a few quick checks among his men,
several of whom inquired about Atty’s health. He assured them it
was nothing more than a headache, which elicited a good-natured and
somewhat bawdy comment from one old veteran Yulen had known all his
life. Laughing, the Battle Lord headed back to the front of the
line to check on her.

What he found worried him even further.

“She’s taken four doses,” MaGrath told him,
his face grim. “I don’t dare let her take any more.”

Yulen saw the grayness beginning to overtake
her. There was a whiteness around her mouth that hadn’t been there
when they’d stopped. “Atty, are you nauseous? Are you in any pain?”
he asked her.

“Just...dizzy. I can’t seem to...see
straight.”

MaGrath suddenly reined in, grabbing her
horse’s lead to also stop her. Leaning over, he lifted her eyelids
with his thumbs. His expert hands found her pulse under her ear,
then picked up her own hands to examine her fingers. The stricken
expression he finally turned toward the Battle Lord made the blood
drain from Yulen’s face. “Yulen, she’s been poisoned.”

“
What?
”

Throwing out his arm to halt the caravan,
Yulen was out of his saddle as Atty began to slide, semi-conscious,
from her horse. He caught her and guided her down to the road.
MaGrath knelt beside her as he dug frantically in his pouch. “Her
skin’s clammy. Atty, can you hear me? Are you cold? Hot?”

“C-cold,” she managed. Her eyes found Yulen.
They were dazed, clouded. “Yul?”

“I’m here,” he whispered. “Are you in any
pain?”

“No. But...my...numb.”

MaGrath reached over, a small glass vial in
his hand. He pulled out the cork stopper and poured the contents
into her mouth. “Swallow, Atty.”

“How could she have been poisoned?” Yulen
asked him heatedly. “Could someone have done this to her?” His mind
was filled with possible suspects and scenarios. Had she contracted
something while she’d been Collaunt’s prisoner? Did he give her
something to make her ill?

The physician shook his head. “I have no
idea. Atty, stay with us here a moment longer. Do you remember
anything that could have caused this? Could it be an insect or
animal bite?”

“What did you give her?”

“A basic anti-toxin, just to be on the safe
side. But until I know for certain what kind of poison is doing
this to her, I have no way of counteracting it. Atty!” MaGrath
shook her shoulder until her eyelids fluttered open once more.
“Atty, what did you eat today?”

“The same thing I ate,” Yulen told him. “And
I’m not having any problems.”

Atty sighed softly and closed her eyes.
MaGrath laid a hand on the side of her neck. He was especially
worried about her heart rate. It shouldn’t be beating at nearly a
hundred and ten beats per minute. “God, she’s burning up. Give me
some water to cool her down! Yulen, hand me the sponge from my
saddlebags.”

Madigan snatched Atty’s water bag from her
horse and handed it to MaGrath. He uncorked it and took the large
yellow sponge handed to him, pouring out a small amount of water.
Immediately he smelled the salty odor in his hand. Sniffing it, he
also sniffed the neck of the water bag. Yulen looked from him to
the bag. “What?”

“It was the water,” MaGrath barely whispered.
He raised terrified eyes to Yulen. “Her water was poisoned. Give me
your bag. Quick!”

He caught the full bag tossed to him,
throwing the tainted sponge into the dirt, and began to pour the
pure water over her neck and chest. “Yulen, try to get her to drink
from your bag. If we’re extremely lucky, we might be able to dilute
what’s in her system. Do you have any idea how much she may have
swallowed?”

Yulen could feel himself grow cold as he
remembered her drinking from the bag the day before...and last
night...and that morning, up until the time she’d taken the pain
killer Liam had given her. “She’s been drinking from it for at
least the last two days, ever since we left Bearinger. Oh, God...”
He held the mouth of the bag to her mouth and dribbled a little bit
between her lips. Her eyes remained closed. She was totally
unresponsive.

“Last night she offered me a swallow and I
declined. She told me it tasted brackish anyway. She thought she
might have gotten some sediment in it, which caused it to taste
funny.”

MaGrath nodded as he poured more water over
her face and neck. “Did she take the medicine with this water? Of
course she did,” he automatically corrected himself. “That’s why
she had this reaction. The pain killer advanced the poison’s
interaction with her system.” He felt the sting of tears as his
guilt burned in his chest. “Oh, God, and I told her to take four
doses of it...” His shoulders hitched, and he bowed his head.

Yulen laid a hand to the man’s back and shook
him. “What can we do? Do you have anything at Alta Novis which
could help her?”

MaGrath rubbed his face on his shirt sleeve.
“It’s probably too late to try and induce vomiting. I can already
detect its symptoms in her eyes and nails. No, there’s nothing I
can do here, but if I can examine what’s left in that bag,” he told
them, motioning toward the nearly empty skin clutched in Madigan’s
hands, “I might be able to come up with some kind of counter-agent.
I can’t promise anything, Yulen, but I can give it try.” He looked
down at Atty’s fever-flushed skin. “We need to get her immersed in
cool water as soon as possible to get her fever down, or else she
could go into convulsions.”

Yulen jumped to his feet and called for
Mastin. “We’re going to continue toward the compound at attack
pace. Warn the men and have them ready. Liam, hand me Atty, then
get on your horse. Tie yourselves down, people. We’re going to make
this a race like you’ve never seen.”

He climbed into his saddle as MaGrath lifted
the unconscious woman into his arms. Yulen used his weapons belt to
secure her to him, supporting her head and upper body with his free
arm. They were yards down the road by the time the physician could
re-mount and follow.

Because of the brisker pace the Battle Lord
had set at the beginning of their ride back from Bearinger, he had
reduced a normally three day travel to just under two. Now they
were a mere four or five hours away from Alta Novis, and Yulen
meant to cut that time in half.

The company pushed their horses, racing at a
steady lope so as not to tire the horses to the point of collapse.
MaGrath could not remember ever having to go so far at this rate,
and he worried whether they would make it back home before the
poison made its way to her heart or nervous system, and permanently
shut one of them down.

An hour or so from Alta Novis, Yulen was
forced to rein them all in and travel at a slower pace. All of the
animals were covered in foamy sweat; some neared total exhaustion.
Most had already stumbled at least once.

In his arms Atty had gone from gray to an
alabaster white. The veins under her skin could be seen like tiny
red and blue lines in a crisscrossing pattern. Twice she’d opened
her eyes, but there was no recognition in them, no spark of light.
Her lips were turning black. She was radiating heat like a small
sun. Her breathing alternated between shallow and ragged. At one
point she began to gasp for air in great, rasping reaches that
terrified him, forcing Yulen to pull up and wait for MaGrath to
tell him what to do. The physician sealed his mouth over hers and
began to breathe for her, forcing more air into her lungs, until
she started to draw again on her own.

Once the company was within sighting distance
of the compound, Mastin raised the black flag, signaling an
emergency run. Yulen urged his worn-out stallion for one last burst
of strength, and the animal gave it once it saw the familiar
gates.

The second they were inside the compound, he
pulled up and jumped from the saddle, dragging Atty off from it and
back into his arms. He ran the rest of the way into the main lodge,
shouting orders.

He went directly to his quarters, into the
bathroom where Berta was already pouring buckets of water into the
huge tub. Stripping Atty of her sweat-soaked clothes, Yulen laid
her in the cooling water. The shock woke her, and for the first
time in hours she turned dazed eyes on him.

“Yul?”

“It’s okay, Atty. You’re home. I put you in a
cool bath to help bring down your fever.” Yulen saw the servant
woman standing in the doorway, still holding the empty bucket.
“Berta, as soon as MaGrath gets here, tell him where I have
her.”

“What’s wrong with her?” the older woman
whispered, curious but now very concerned. For the first time Yulen
could see how the servants and staff had come to care for the
warrior woman. He also realized how much had happened since he’d
left Alta Novis a week ago. The last news they’d been aware of was
that of Atty’s kidnapping. The compound had no idea of her rescue,
or of the Battle Lord’s taking of Bearinger.

“Bring me Paxton,” he also ordered. The woman
nodded and hurried away.