This Battle Lord's Quest (22 page)

Chapter
Thirty

Prognosis

There was a knock on the door.

Instantaneously, all four men awoke and drew their
swords. Yulen looked down at his Second, who was sitting on the side of his
bed. Sliding off the top bunk, he went to the door and reached for the chair
barring the door, when the knock came again. His eyes stared at the latch, but
surprisingly it never moved.

“Who is it?”

A voice politely replied. “My name is Bric. I’m the
tribal practitioner. May I please speak with the Battle Lord?”

Yulen glanced over his shoulder at the other three
men watching him. Mastin whispered the word, “Practitioner?”

Renken answered him. “Doctor, like MaGrath.”

Yulen leaned closer to the door. “Are you alone?”

“Quite.”

He caught the slightly irritated tone of voice and
grinned. Apparently impatience in physicians was either an occupational hazard,
or a requirement of the job. Removing the chair, he kept a grip on his sword
and slowly opened the door, barring it with his boot in case someone tried to
ram it open.

An elderly man stood in the bright morning light.
Yulen blinked, and the man obligingly moved to the side to block the glare.

“Are you the Battle Lord?”

A horse snorted. Yulen caught sight of their mounts
a few feet away. Their reins had been secured to a rope tied around a tree. All
five horses retained their saddles and bags.

A throat clearing reclaimed his attention, and
Yulen opened the door wider.

“Yes, I’m Yulen D’Jacques. Did you say your name
was Bric?”

The man wore breeches and a shirt, and a long white
robe like a jacket. Like Dahyan and Dristroll, he bore an imprint on his
forehead.

“Yes.” He gestured into the barracks. “May I?”

In answer, the Battle Lord stepped back to allow
the man inside. The practitioner strode into the cabin with long, deliberate
movements. Without waiting for an invitation, he parked himself on one of the
chairs at the table. Yulen pointed to his men.

“That man is Mastin, my Second in command. That
gentleman is Renken, one of my soldiers. And Fortune is one of my compound’s
hunters. He’s also Atty’s godfather.”

Bric gave each man a curt nod in greeting, then
focused back on Yulen.

“I’m here to talk to you about Atty.”

Sheathing his sword, Yulen took the seat across
from him while the others remained sitting on the edge of their beds, except
for Fortune, who had climbed down off of his upper bunk to sit next to Renken.
The physician gave the three men a cautious eye.

“You can speak in front of them,” Yulen assured the
man, who nodded in acceptance.

“Forgive me for not being there at the meeting at
the council house last night. I was already asleep, and the villagers know to never
awaken me unless it is a medical emergency. That’s why I came this morning to
discuss her injuries and recovery.”

“Tell me.”

Bric crossed one leg over the other knee and leaned
back in his chair, resting one arm in his lap and the other on top of the
table.

“When Paas initially brought her down from the
fallen heavens, she was already mending. But once I examined her, I was amazed
at how far along Atty had healed after such a brief amount of time. To be
honest, I thought her head trauma was the cause of her time distortion.”

Yulen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I thought the blow she’d taken to the
temple was the reason why she believed that only a few days had passed since
the initial injury. Surely, no one has the capability to heal that rapidly.”

“Mutah do,” Fortune commented from across the room.
Getting up from the bed, he went over to the table and sat down.

“Mutah?”

“I am a mutant version of Normals. My senses are
enhanced, and my body is capable of rapid healing, just like Atty’s.” He held
out a hand. “If I cut myself at this moment, the wound will be nearly healed by
tomorrow. Maybe completely gone, if it’s not a deep cut.”

Bric’s eyes widened, but he didn’t argue the point.

“What is the extent of her wounds?” Yulen
persisted.

“Both bones in her left arm are broken...were
broken. By the time I examined it, there was no swelling, and only a greenish
bruise. I cleaned and re-bandaged the arm after satisfying myself that the
bones had been reset properly. She also told me her arm had been knocked from
its socket, but she was able to reset that herself. The worst injury, of
course, is the one to her head.” Bric tapped his forehead. “It’s moments like
that when I wish we had some of the ancient machines that could see inside a
person’s skull and determine the amount of damage. But because we don’t, I have
to use my training and judgment.”

“How bad was the damage?” Fortune whispered.

“Bad. In fact, it was still tender to the touch. I
had to knock her out to avoid causing her any more pain, in order to clean the
dirt and debris from it. Fortunately, the skin was intact, but I could tell her
skull had been cracked. She had swelling, which caused her to suffer major
headaches.” The man looked directly into Yulen’s eyes. “I inspect it every day.
The swelling seems to have gone down. The frequency of her getting headaches
appear to be decreasing, as well. But there remains the damage to her brain. I
don’t know if it’s irreparable, or if the organ is able to heal like the rest
of her. Assuming it can, then...” The man opened his hand, palm up, on the
table. “Time, D’Jacques. All she needs is time.”

Mastin spoke up. “What if her brain never
completely heals? What if she manages to regain only a portion of her
memories?”

“Then it’s up to her and you to rebuild those
memories.”

“Last night, Dahyan told me not to push her. Not to
make her feel rushed.”

Bric nodded. “Forcing her, or making her feel as if
she’s being forced to remember, will not bode well. I spoke with Dahyan this
morning before coming over here. She told me you’ve been granted sanctuary
until this matter’s been settled. In exchange for our hospitality, you promised
to help defend the village.”

“That’s true,” Yulen acknowledged. He didn’t have
to ask his companions if they were willing to put their lives on the line. From
their presence alone, and their persistence in helping him search for Atty, he
knew they supported him all the way.

Bric slapped his hand on the table. “Excellent.
Well, my duty here is done.” The man got to his feet to leave.

“Before you go,” Yulen interrupted. “We could use a
little guidance as to where we can obtain some water, as well as the use of
your facilities.”

“If you need to bathe, the villagers use the pools
behind the waterfall. They get their drinking water there, too. I’ll get one of
the warriors to give you the finer details of what you can use.”

The older man opened the door to let himself, and
spotted the horses. Glancing back at Yulen, he added, “Your horses were brought
down last night. I don’t know if they’ve been fed, but there’s always the
steppes. I’ll make a note to have a warrior find out for you.”

Yulen thanked him, closing the door behind the man.
Turning around, the Battle Lord leaned against the wood frame and looked at his
men. “This may be a long haul,” he finally admitted.

Renken grinned. “Well, seeing as we were once gone
for months after the Bloods took down Bearinger, and we had to come after you,
I don’t see where this time is going to be any different.”

“You know you can leave at any time,” Yulen
reminded them.

All three nodded. “Now ask us if we want to,”
Fortune challenged with a smirk.

“What now?” Mastin spoke up. “What’s our next plan
of action?”

Yulen scratched his head, feeling the oily locks beneath
his fingertips, and grimaced. “Once our guide arrives, Mastin, I want you to
take care of the horses. Fortune, can you take charge of our meals?”

“It’s a done deal.”

“As for me, I’m going to find those pools Bric
mentioned and take a hard bath. If I’m going to have to win Atty’s love all
over again, it will help if my appearance and smell doesn’t put her off.”

“Anything you want me to do?” asked Renken.

“Yeah. When you get the chance, would you mind
finding out about this place’s weaponry? Discover all you can about what they
have to fight with, and how they defend this compound. I may be able to give
Dahyan some pointers about strengthening her defenses. We got the ripe end of
this deal, and personally I don’t like owing a debt. If there are other ways we
can repay these people for what they’re allowing us to do, I want to do it.”

“Hear, hear,” Mastin commented. The others agreed.

Chapter
Thirty-One

Waterfall

“Do you always take your bath in the morning?”

Although he was treading water, Yulen managed to
whirl around at the sound of the familiar voice. Atty was perched at the edge
of the pool, near where he’d left his clothes. His immediate thought was that
when he was finished, she would either have to move, hand him his clothing, or
he would have to flash himself to her to retrieve them himself. Vaguely, he
wondered if she’d planted herself there deliberately, and for what purpose.

“You’re not very talkative in the morning, are
you?” she continued.

“I didn’t know these baths were a public affair,”
he retorted gently.

“Hey. You’re the one parading your bare ass out in
the open.”

He glanced around. “I wondered where everyone was.
The man who led me here said this was where they bathed.”

“Yeah, well, most people wait until dark, to give
them a little privacy. Not strut their stuff out in broad daylight where anyone
can see it.” She pointed beyond where the falls crashed into the larger pool
several hundred feet away. The area where he swam was where the water eddied
into several smaller bodies, each pond gradually becoming narrower and
shallower as they branched away. “The warriors like to splash around in one of
the runoffs at the furthest end.”

“Do you make it a habit to watch them, too?”

“I do what I want,” she quipped.

The remark sank an arrow into his heart. It was a
typical Atty comment he’d heard her utter a hundred times.
I do what I want.
If anything did, that one sentence summed up their lives together. He did
his job, and she did hers, but only when she was ready. Although he often
became irritated when things weren’t accomplished according to his personal
timeline, when she did what was needed, the results always ended up being
better than he expected. It was a quirk of hers that endeared her to him as
much as it aggravated him.

I do what I want.
That could also be said about how and when they
made love, mostly because of her need to care for their son. But she never
turned him away when he insisted. Never.

At the thought of making love to her, he could feel
himself stirring, in spite of the cold water. Yulen moved a bit closer to the
edge of the pool until his feet could touch bottom. Otherwise, he kept his
distance. The water was beautifully clear, and Atty’s keen eyes never missed a
thing.

He watched her crouch down and reach for one of his
boots. To his astonishment, she withdrew the slender dagger he kept there. When
he was recovering from his wounds after the massacre at Bearinger, it had been
her suggestion that he conceal a weapon inside his footwear. Somehow, she’d
remembered the stiletto being there, yet he could tell she wasn’t even aware of
the importance of her actions.

Atty ran the ball of her thumb over the blade’s
edge, when she suddenly stopped and stared at the small nick near the hilt.
Yulen remained silent, intently watching her face. She was the reason that nick
was there. They had argued over his refusal to have the imperfection soldered
out. In the end, since it was his weapon, he’d won. Now Yulen gave a prayer of
thanks for his decision.

“Tell me,” she whispered. She continued to touch
the nick, as if it mesmerized her.

“Tell you what?”

“About me. About our life together.”

“Then you believe me?”

Her eyes darted to him. “Believe you? No. I mean,
not yet. There’s too many holes in my mind. But the pieces of your puzzle fit too
well together with what I remember to be coincidence.”

“What do you want to know specifically?”

A hand went to her lower abdomen, drawing Yulen’s
attention to the area. “Do we have a child?”

“Yes.” If he couldn’t force her by telling her
things that may still be foreign to her, he could answer all her questions. He
figured that if she asked about anything specifically, then it probably meant
she’d already recovered some partial memories about it, or else she wouldn’t be
curious to find out more. Yulen mentally sighed. He was treading water in more
ways than one.

She was looking at the falls. Correction. She faced
that way, but her eyes were not seeing them.
She’s remembering.

“Mattox,” she whispered.

“Yes.” His heart sped up.

“He’s...Mutah.”

“Yes.”

Her vision cleared, and she dropped her gaze to
look back at him. “Where do we live?”

“In a compound called Alta Novis.”

Her face took that far away expression again before
she replied. “With tall walls made of trees?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes went blank, and a word formed on her lips.
Two syllables. Yulen tried to read it and failed.

“Paxton.” She finally said it aloud. “Paxton got
hurt!” The painful memory spread across her face, and her eyes widened. Atty
gave him a stricken look. “What happened to Paxton?”

“He’s back at the compound,” Yulen assured her in a
gentle voice.

“How? The coon got him!”

“When we found him, he was still alive.” He was
struggling to find the right words.

“Is he alive now?”

Yulen shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Like a candle being snuffed, the fear was suddenly
gone from her face. Atty replaced the blade inside his boot. “I believe you,”
she whispered unexpectedly.

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She glanced at him, and a smile slowly curled up
one corner of her mouth. “Oh, yeah, you have.”

Yulen frowned. “I have? When?”

“When you wanted me out of the lodge so you could
have the new headboard delivered.”

He barked with laughter. She was right. It was a
memory he’d forgotten, but apparently it had been important enough for her to
recall.

“You’re correct. I did lie then.” Lifting a pruney
hand, he held it with his thumb and forefinger a minute distance apart. “But it
was a
little
lie. No harm done.”

“No. No harm done. Just a nice surprise,” she
admitted, her smile widening. She looked around the area. “Bet it’s cold in
there.”

“That’s why I’m trying to remain in one spot. It’s
warmer that way.”

“Are you finished? Why don’t you get out and dry
off?”

“Because you’re right where I need to go.”

Atty snickered and nudged his pants with the toe of
her boot. “So? What’s the deal if we’re married?”

Yulen grimaced. “Atty.” It was killing him,
listening to her and seeing her lighthearted side. When all he wanted was to
pull her into his arms and taste her lips again, to breathe in her scent, and
to revel in her heat, he had to clench his hands instead and hope he didn’t do
or say anything that would frighten her away.

“No, really.” Standing, she moved away a couple of
feet and gestured toward his clothing. “Go right ahead. I don’t mind.”

All right. If she doesn’t mind, then neither should
I.

He half-swam toward her as his feet dug into the
pool’s muddy bottom. He advanced slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes on her
face to watch the play of emotions revealed there. She was curious, intrigued,
and to his deep satisfaction, a little turned on. She wanted to see all of him.
Whatever her reason was to view him fully nude, he wasn’t going to deny her.

Yulen rose from the water, noticing where her eyes
were riveted. To his surprise, it wasn’t where he expected. Instead, she stared
at his chest for the longest time. Then up to his head, to the scar on the side
of his face, and finally down, to where her inspection made his manhood begin
to quiver. Trying to remain casual, he reached down to pick up his pants, when
she gave a tiny gasp. His head jerked up.

“What?”

Her hand covered her mouth, another one of her
affectations whenever she was surprised or in awe. She removed her hand and
made a twirling motion with her index finger.

“Turn around.”

Yulen slowly presented his back to her, and this
time he knew why. After a few seconds, he felt her fingertips cautiously touch
the wide, ragged paths left when the Bloods had begun to skin him alive.

“West Crestin,” she murmured, almost too softly for
him to hear, and withdrew her hand.

He nodded in reply. He waited for her next move,
but when he felt or heard nothing, he turned around.

Atty was gone.