The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [47]
With a despairing groan he sank back against the wall and closed his eyes, suddenly shaking with weariness. He'd healed them, all right-and drained himself, an utter fool-head… oh, Sarasper, how could you forget the lesson that shaped your whole life?
Too weary to weep, the old man sagged down the wall, finding oblivion in the swirling dust even before his nose and cheek found cold, patiently waiting stone.
It was not tranquil slumber.
It was a bright morning when the soldiers of Brightpennant came for Qelder Waern.
The dirty-faced youth who answered to "Sarasper" or even the gruff shout "Pot boy!" was sweating over a dozen bubbling pots of herbal infusions and didn't even notice the armaragors until a long, dirty sword thrust through the tangle of pot chains and fire hooks to pierce the greasy leather of his only tunic. Too startled to shout, he slipped in the mud of many spilled brews. The blade laid open his shoulder on its way to thrust hard into the spongy wood of Qelder's old powders cabinet, and Sarasper made a sound that was half gasp and half sob and fell hard.
He had a confused glimpse of the blade drawing back over the pots, glistening with his own blood, and then it was cold and dark, and he was shivering, and old Skaunt was leaning over him and whispering hoarsely, "Boy? Sarasper! Wake, lad, and up! The wolves'll be here soon!"
Full night had not yet fallen, and the boy stood dazedly in Skaunt's rough grip, staring at the dark fingers of cloud in the westering sky, with the black spires of Brighttowers standing stark against them.
"What," he asked wearily, hardly daring to hear the answer, "befell? Does Qelder live?"
"I know not, lad. They've taken him; he's in the Towers right now!"
Sarasper stared hard at the castle, and his voice was thin and cold when he said, "Give me your knife, Skaunt."
"Wha-why, lad? You can't carve the armor of half a hundred armaragors with my little knife!"
"The baron," the boy said grimly, "only wears his armor on feast days. When he's grown so fat from feasting that it won't cover him, and they let the lacings so loose that its plates dangle. There'll be room in his guts for one little knife."
Skaunt looked into Sarasper's face, drew in his breath hard, and slapped the hilt of his knife-an old, broken war sword worn down to a wavering needle of a blade-into the boy's dirty hand. "May the Three watch over thee, lad," he whispered. "I dare not go with thee."
Sarasper nodded. "The knife is more than enough aid, old warrior." He clasped arms with the forester, and when Skaunt was gone, he turned to the cabinet, for the ten small glass bottles of acid in the upper drawers. He might need it to eat through chains…or the face of a guard…
Qelder Waern was the most famous healer in all Aglirta Vale. Folk came for miles for his touch or his medicines, but always he refused to leave his hut by the brook and go to dwell in the baron's court at Brighttowers. They said in Sart that some upriver barons kept healers in cages, treating them less well than their dogs, and when the work of making others well drained them to withered husks in a summer or six, they tossed out the bones and sent their soldiers scouring Darsar for another. Sarasper had seen the Baron Authlin Brightpennant flogging his dogs after a failed hunt and was surprised it had taken him this long to just reach out and seize the healer dwelling on his doorstep.
The castle gates stood open, and it wasn't hard to see why. A steady stream of overpainted women in gowns side-slit right up to their waists was flocking into the castle, greeted by drunken shouts of enthusiasm from half-dressed armaragors. No one challenged or even noticed one small boy strolling among them as if he'd every right