The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (48 page)

Maelys was cutting Nish’s shirt away from the shaft of the
arrow when Tulitine appeared beside her. ‘You’re in grave danger,’ she said
softly, so that even the big man holding Nish would not hear. ‘You’re a threat
to their plans. Finish your work then stay out of their way, and keep your face
covered at all times, as a good healer would.’ She peered into Nish’s face.
‘What do you think?’

‘I’m worried. The wound hasn’t bled much, yet he’s
unconscious and cold.’ Maelys took Nish’s pulse with her fingers. ‘And his
heartbeat is weak and fluttery.’ She looked up at the old woman. ‘I’ve never
dealt with battle wounds before today. What’s the matter with him?’

‘I can’t say. Maybe shock; maybe he’s bleeding inside. Bring
him to the healers’ tent, soldier.’ Tulitine touched his arm. ‘What’s your
name?’

He turned towards the tent, walking carefully as though he
were carrying the most precious burden in the world. ‘I’m Zham, Lady Tulitine.’

‘Just Zham?’ she said, grinning as though she knew better.

He flushed, lowered his voice. ‘My mother called me
Zhambellmyne, but …’

‘But it’s a girly name and when you were a kid everyone
laughed at you, because you were so huge, and the name was so wrong.’

‘Yes, Lady,’ he muttered.

‘Zham is a good, honourable name, and it fits you perfectly.
I like it.’

‘Thank you, Lady.’

‘I’m no lady, Zham.’ He looked away, abashed, and she
chuckled throatily. ‘You were in the battlefront, I take it?’

‘Yes, Lady.’

‘Tell me how it went. How was this famous victory achieved?’

He went through it from the beginning as they walked back to
the healers’ tent. As they paced down an avenue of silent people, all staring
at the fallen Deliverer as though all their hopes rested on him, Maelys saw a
familiar face in the crowd. It was Timfy, and he’d just opened his mouth to
call her name when a hand slapped across it.

Jil shushed him, looking up at Maelys with a mixture of
guilt and defiance. Before Maelys could speak, Jil lifted Timfy away and they
disappeared into the throng.

Maelys couldn’t go after her, but she would try to find Jil
later and make peace with her. She was glad they were safe.

Zham carried Nish inside, holding his weight without a quiver
while the trestle was scrubbed down with hot water, rinsed clean and wiped off.

‘He truly is the Deliverer, Lady Tulitine, for he saved us
single-handedly and, even after he took the arrow, the Deliverer refused to
give in until he’d given his last order and seen the enemy defeated. I’ve done
a bit of fighting in my time; I know how victory goes. Had it not been for him
they would have slain us all, and been molesting –’ He broke off, even
more abashed. ‘I beg your pardon, Lady. I don’t hold with that sort of thing.’

‘It happens,’ said Tulitine. ‘This Healer will look after
him now.’

‘Lay him here, please,’ said Maelys. ‘On his side.’ Zham put
him down gently. She cut the rest of the shirt away and began to feel the
wound, front and back. ‘Thank you, Zham. You can go now.’

He didn’t move. ‘I –’ He wrung his big hands; his
broad, peasant’s face shone with perspiration. ‘I’d rather stay, Lady Healer.
He saved my life when the battle madness came on me and I nearly led my friends
to ruin. I’m his man now, until I die or he dismisses me.’ Zham looked over his
shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘And he needs me. Not everyone in this camp
is his friend.’

Tulitine looked up sharply. ‘What do you know, soldier?’

‘Not enough,’ he said unhappily, ‘but I’ve heard things,
this past week. People talking when they thought no one could overhear.’

‘Very well, stay. Hold him on his side, like this. Keep your
filthy hands away from the wound.’

Maelys felt Nish’s belly. ‘I can feel the point of the arrow
just under the skin, here at the side. Should I push it through so the head can
be cut off?’

Tulitine felt for herself. ‘I expect so, though if the arrow
has gone through an artery he’ll bleed to death once you move it. And if it’s
cut his intestines, infection will kill him. Ready? Hold him steady, Zham.’

Maelys felt sick at the thought of hurting Nish further,
much less of doing something that could cause his death, yet the arrow had to
come out. She took a firm grip on the shaft, uncertain how much force to use,
then thrust as gently as she could. Nish let out a groan and his eyes moved
furiously under their lids. The arrowhead hadn’t come through but she couldn’t
bear to do it again.

Monkshart’s face appeared at the flap, but Tulitine stalked
across and jerked it shut. ‘We can’t do our work with you staring. Come back in
fifteen minutes and I’ll tell you how he is.’

‘It’d better be good news,’ he growled from outside.

Tulitine returned to the table. ‘His back muscle must have
tightened around the shaft. It’ll hurt less if you’re not so gentle.’

Maelys bit her lip, though she knew the old woman was right.
This time she thrust as hard as she dared and felt the arrowhead burst through
Nish’s side. He shrieked and his eyes came open, staring around wildly, but
thankfully closed again.

She cut off the arrowhead, wiped away the splinters, then in
one swift movement drew the shaft from his back. Her eyes met Tulitine’s.

‘If it’s his doom to die, Maelys, it won’t take long.’

‘And there’s nothing we can do?’

‘Not if he’s bleeding inside.’

The giant screwed up his eyes. Maelys held her breath. Even
Tulitine was moved by the gravity of the moment. Maelys wiped a smear of blood
away from the entry slit. Blood tricked from the gash in his side, though if he
were bleeding inside surely there would be more?

‘I might as well salve and stitch him,’ she said to herself.

‘His breathing sounds better,’ said Tulitine when Maelys had
finished.

‘And his pulse is stronger. But could he still …?’

‘He could. You can’t tell with bleeding inside. Sometimes
the veins seal over quickly, yet at other times they just keep dribbling blood
for hours, or burst open days later. Bandage him and Zham can take him to his
tent. We’ve more work to do.’

Maelys saw Nish settled on a straw mattress there. A trace of
colour had come back to his face.

‘Monkshart is coming, Lady Healer,’ Zham rumbled.

He wasn’t as dull-witted as he looked. She ducked out under
the canvas, leaving him standing guard, circled the top of the hill and
returned to the healers’ tent from the other side. The tables were covered in
bloody soldiers with such ghastly injuries that she could hardly bear to go
back in, but men were suffering and dying for want of skilled hands and she
couldn’t turn her back on them.

The Defiance's dead, numbering more than a thousand,
were buried in shallow pits. Then, despite their hundreds of injured, they
moved on at dawn the following day. There was no choice, for the mountains of
enemy dead were already putrefying in the heat and the stench was unbearable.

Maelys travelled with Nish that morning in one of the army’s
jolting supply wagons. It was stifling under the canopy and, despite her
weariness, she would sooner have walked. Once satisfied that Nish was
recovering she left him to another healer, for he was coming out of his
delirium and she couldn’t afford for him to recognise her. He was bound to give
her identity away and Monkshart would hear of it.

Over the next two days, Maelys kept feeling that she was
being followed, though she never saw anyone suspicious behind her. By that
afternoon she’d decided that she was imagining things, until a man stepped out
from behind a tree in front of her and crouched down as though he’d dropped
something. She looked down as he looked up under her cowl. It was Phrune, and
he recognised her at once.

‘I thought it had to be you,’ he said gleefully. ‘I’ll be
seeing you later, little Maelys.’ He drew his stiletto and pointedly flicked a
thumb across the blade.

There were people everywhere, so she was safe from immediate
attack, and as the quiet little healer, selflessly doing her all for the
injured, and especially the Deliverer, she’d earned the respect of everyone in
the camp. But she was a threat to Monkshart’s plans for Nish and he’d soon find
a way to be rid of her.

She didn’t move as Phrune oozed away, leering over his
shoulder. She watched him until he’d disappeared among the throng around
Monkshart’s quarters, then slipped into a copse of trees to think. She couldn’t
stay in the camp – she’d be at risk all the time. It would only take a
second to slip a knife into her back. But where was she to go?

Maelys collected the few possessions she’d gleaned since
she’d been here: a small pack she’d sewn from torn canvas, a spare set of
clothes from one of the young women who’d died in the initial attack, a knife
and a few coins of low value, distributed by Monkshart from the captured war
chest. The majority of the army’s coin, and everything of real worth, had been
retained to fund the coming campaign. She also had a dead soldier’s water skin
and a loaf of bone-hard bread. It was little enough to survive on for the
precarious future.

She no longer had any reason to hide her identity from Nish,
but each time she approached his tent Phrune was lurking nearby. She ached for
her taphloid but wasn’t game to go near Phrune’s tent. She couldn’t find
Tulitine to tell her about Phrune; she hadn’t seen Jil and Timfy either. It
would soon be dark and Maelys began to feel increasingly paranoid, so she
slipped her pack under her robes where it wouldn’t show and headed out of the
camp as if going to relieve herself. No one noticed. It felt as if no one
cared.

‘Where are you going, Maelys?’

Tulitine seemed to have come out of nowhere. ‘Phrune knows
who I am.’ Maelys explained what had happened.

‘I see,’ said the old woman. ‘And you’re running away.’

‘You told me to beware of him.’

‘I did, but do you really think this is the answer? Where
will you go, without friends or coin?’

‘What else can I do? If I’m caught, my whole quest fails.’

Tulitine drew her under a tree out of sight of the camp and
sat down on the scanty grass. She gestured to the ground beside her and Maelys
sat as well, smoothing her gown over her legs.

‘You have many fine qualities, Maelys, but some weaknesses
that will undermine your quest. Do you know what they are?’

It reminded Maelys of the uncomfortable questions her tutor
used to ask her as a young girl when she’d spent the hours daydreaming over one
tale or another instead of attending to her lessons. ‘It would be easier if you
told me …’

‘Though not as useful as realising it yourself.’ Tulitine
sighed. ‘Very well. You’re too biddable, Maelys; too eager to please. If
someone asks you to do something, you do it no matter your own feelings. You
–’

They’d spoken a little about this on the journey to meet the
Defiance. ‘The downfall of Clan Nifferlin was my fault and I’ve got to make up
for it.’

‘But you only discovered that recently, so it doesn’t
explain why you’re the way you are at all. You’re always putting your family’s
interests above your own. Does it make you feel good to be so
self-sacrificing?’

‘I have to pay,’ Maelys said stubbornly.

‘Very well. I can see you’re not ready to think about such
things. If your mind is made up, I’ll bid you farewell, with regret. Help me
up, girl.’

Maelys gave Tulitine her hand and drew the old woman to her
feet. Tulitine turned away, but Maelys stood where she was, and after a dozen
steps, Tulitine turned around. ‘What is it, child?’

‘It’s my taphloid. I told you –’

‘That Phrune has it and you want it back.’

‘It’s everything to me. And …’

‘And you want me to help you steal it from him, but because
of a weakness in your character you can’t bear to ask for help.’

Maelys felt like a stupid little girl. ‘Yes. Can – can
you help me?’

‘I could try,’ said Tulitine, regarding her sympathetically,
‘but I’m not going to, because that would put my own plans at risk. I’m sorry.’
She stood there, as if waiting.

Just asking for the favour was hard enough. Maelys couldn’t
bring herself to argue her case, or, even more mortifyingly, to beg. ‘Thanks,
anyway,’ she said.

‘Despite all the things you’ve done since leaving home,
you’re full of fear and still have no confidence in yourself. You can do it,
Maelys. You’ll find the courage you lack if you just look deeply enough inside
you.’

Maelys froze in mid-step, then went on without a word. The
only courage she had was the sort one used in an emergency, when there was no
other choice, and that was no use here.

‘If you don’t try you’ll always blame yourself,’ Tulitine
added, then Maelys heard her walking back to the camp.

Maelys went on, trying to think of a way to get her taphloid
back, but all foundered on the point Tulitine had put her finger on. Maelys was
simply too afraid.

She didn’t know where to go or what to do, for this land was
a blank map to her, but it was late afternoon and she had to get well clear
before nightfall. Maelys trudged across a little plain covered in serrated
bluegrass that crept up under the hem of her gown to saw at her calves, through
a patch of twisted, spreading trees with leaves that smelled of mint, and onto
another plain, a good league from the camp.

By the rising moon she found a cluster of seven upjutting
rocks which broke the wind. Sitting with her back to the broadest rock, Maelys
rubbed her scratched and blood-streaked calves. She gnawed at the end of her
loaf until her jaw ached, washing the gritty residue down with a swig of warm,
smelly water from her water skin. She pulled her robes around her, for it was a
clear, cool night, pillowed her head on her pack and, despising herself for her
cowardice, eventually slept.