The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [59]
“We’ll find out, I wager. But here’s a thing that creeped my flesh,” Rhodorix said. “Some of the men we killed weren’t Meradan. They were farm folk, according to Andariel, men like us.”
“Were they fighting for the Meradan?”
“They were.”
“Then it’s all the same to me.” Gerontos turned to Hwilli. “When can I ride to war again? I’m going half-mad, sitting around here like this.”
Hwilli was so exhausted from her long day in the herbroom that she blurted the truth without thinking. “You may never be able to,” she said, “not standing on the ground, anyway. Your leg’s mended well enough for you to ride, but I don’t know what fighting from horseback is like.” She glanced at Rhodorix. “Do you use both legs?”
“Only to stay in the saddle.” Rhodorix was staring at his brother in obvious concern.
When Hwilli looked at Gerontos, she found his face an utter mask. He could have been enraged or thinking of nothing at all as far as she could judge from his impassive gaze. He sighed once, sharply. “That’s a blow and a half.” His voice was perfectly level. “Are you sure?”
“No,” Hwilli said. “Neither is Master Jantalaber.”
“Then I’ve got some hope,” Gerontos said. “I’d rather slit my own throat than live like a servant or suchlike.”
“I’d expect no less of you,” Rhodorix said. “But the new bow that the archers came up with is a splendid thing. If naught else, you can learn how to use it and ride with them.”
Gerontos smiled, such a sunny smile of such evident relief, that Hwilli felt faintly uneasy. They both enjoy killing people, she thought—then sharply reminded herself that the Meradan deserved it.
As he usually did, Rhodorix spent the night in Hwilli’s chamber. She would have gladly spent half the next day abed out of exhaustion as much as for love for him, but the bronze gongs of the priests woke her long before the winter sun had crept above the horizon. Rhodorix mumbled something unintelligible and pulled a pillow over his head to block the sound. Hwilli got up and dressed, then hurried down to the herbroom and her duties.
When Hwilli arrived, a line of patients had already formed out in the corridor. Jantalaber and two of the Mountain women were already at work, examining some of the worst frostbite cases in a blaze of dweomer light.
“Have you seen Par?” Jantalaber said.
“I’ve not,” Hwilli said. “I came straight from bed when I heard the gongs.”
“There’s some bread on a plate in the drying room. Take some before you start work.”
Hwilli fetched a chunk of bread and stood out of the way to eat it. She had met one of the Mountain women before, a healer named Vela, who came on occasion to the fortress to trade supplies of herbs and roots with Master Jantalaber. At the moment she was sitting on the high stool, translating for Jantalaber as he worked with patients who didn’t speak the language of the People.
Like all the Mountain Folk, Vela was short and stocky, but this morning her face looked gaunt, her eyes deep pools of shadow in the silver light glowing from the ceiling. She’d pinned her long gray hair up to the top of her head with bone pins in random clumps, and she wore a ragged dress over a pair of the leather leggings usually worn by the men of her people. When she acknowledged Hwilli with a wave, Hwilli saw that her hand and wrist had suffered burns along the back. She remembered her patient of the day before saying “don’t ask” and refrained from mentioning it.
Hwilli had just finished her bread when Paraberiel hurried in. All that day they worked with the injured and the terrified, until Hwilli wanted to weep more from the sheer horror of what had happened than exhaustion. More information crept out of frightened mouths, about walking through so much blood that the floors had turned slippery, or of hearing the screams of women being raped before their throats were cut, or the way the Meradan growled and slobbered with rage as they killed and killed and killed.
“They burnt through the main doors on the hillside,” one axeman told them. “And then they got in somehow through the walled gardens.”
“The worms who tended