Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) Read online

  Our faces were as close as they had ever been, far closer than I wanted to be. He kept his blue gaze on me—black now in the darkness. I looked at nothing but the lip I was treating. I held a piece of cloth against the cut and pressed, held the pressure.

  The children gathered closer to watch.

  I wished Marga would return. The tiger made me feel safer, and I suspected she had the same effect on the children.

  When I removed the pressure from the cut, the bleeding had slowed. Ruhni powder would have been helpful to ward off infection, but that I did not have.

  I checked Graho’s arm.

  The cut no longer bled, needing only cleaning, which I saw to, kneeling in front of him. Then I dropped back to my heels, ready for the next task. “I need you to take off your tunic.”

  The corners of his lips turned up into an open smile, but he said nothing as he obeyed. A good thing, or I would have bandaged his mouth shut.

  I dropped my gaze to his side, paying little attention to his odd-shaped tattoos. This cut was deeper. The injury needed not only to be cleaned but closed. If not treated right, this cut would become infected and bring on fever. This cut could kill him.

  I let none of that show on my face. “Water.”

  He handed me his flask.

  I cleaned the wound, wishing for ninga beetles. I had used them many times to close wounds, holding one up to the edges of a cut, then squeezing its body until it pinched the flesh together, then twisting the body off the head, and the pincers stayed in place.

  But I did not know where the nearest creek was, and I did not know whether any ninga beetles even lived in the creeks of Ishaf.

  I turned to the older boys, pointing in the opposite direction from where the brigands had disappeared. “I need you to go to the edge of the forest. I need you to find me a bush with long, slim thorns. Bring me a handful.” That way, I could select the best one for my purpose.

  As the boys went off, I revived our fire and boiled what water we had left in the flask. Then I pulled a long thread from the bottom of my tunic, put it in the water, and boiled it to make it as clean as I could, a trick I learned from my mother.

  When the boys returned, proudly bringing me three thorns of good quality, I selected the thinnest, used the tip of my knife to make a hole on one end, then threaded my new needle.

  “Hold still.”

  Graho’s earlier smile was now nowhere to be seen. But he lifted his arm again so I could have free access to his injury. Cords of muscles bunched and shifted in the light of the fire. “I’m ready.”

  I pierced his skin without hesitation, paying no attention to the soft hiss that left his lips. I worked quickly and accurately. I closed the gash, then I tied off the thread.

  By the time I finished, cold sweat beaded on both of our brows.

  I added some herbs to the still hot water, let it infuse for a few moments, then I washed the wound again. Next I cut a strip off the bottom of Graho’s shirt and bandaged him.

  He kept both arms raised straight out at his sides, and I finished my work, touching him as little as possible. Then I pulled back to examine my work, but also to put some distance between us. I did not like being so close to him.

  “You must check under the bandage for redness and pus.” I gave him a bunch of herbs. “Make a potion from these and wash the wound every day. In a fortnight, you can cut the thread and pull it out.”

  His eyes went wide, but he said, “I will.”

  The children had watched all this with rapt fascination, looking at me as if I was some magical creature from a tale who sewed human skin just like their mothers darned socks. But they looked at Graho as if he was some immortal warrior out of myth.

  He dressed. “We shall reach Ker tomorrow, but it will be a long walk. You best rest with the children.”

  “And you?”

  “I shall be the night guard, should the brigands return or the hollow move closer.”

  I tried to convince him we could share guard duty, I could wake him if danger neared, but he would not hear of it, and I had not the strength to argue long. One moment I was settling down onto the hard ground, the children pressed against me; the next, the sun was coming up again.

  My limbs ached. My body begged for yet more sleep. I could only imagine how Graho felt, sitting up all night, watching and listening.

  Then I remembered the hollow and turned. It sat in its broken heap, had not yet fallen over. Its head dipped slightly. It yet lived.

  “Never moved a limb all night,” Graho said as he caught me looking. “That is one fate I would wish to avoid at all cost.” He stirred the dying embers of the fire. “Do you know what the wraith had been? A trader? A soldier?”

  I shook my head. Impossible to tell from its shapeless lump. Only by its size I could tell that it had been a man and not a woman.

  Graho pushed a handsome wooden bowl toward me. And then I saw he had two more. He had spent the night carving.

  I thanked him for the unexpected gift, even as the children woke around us. Seeing the bowls, they asked for food.

  I stood. “Off we go, then.” And took them to forage in the woods.

  Graho followed us shortly.

  Pine nuts were our biggest find on our way in. Then I came across a willow tree in a glen with a creek. We filled our flasks, and I dug for edible rhizomes. Then I cut a good bundle of willow branches and tied it onto my back. But the spirits blessed our foraging even further. On the way out of the woods, back to our campsite, Graho threw his dagger and brought down a squirrel.

  Our breakfast was a feast.

  As the children ate with big smiles on their faces, I used some of the squirrel grease and the rhizomes, with some herbs added, to make a soup for the hollow. I did not know if it had eaten the bread I had left the previous day or not. But it still had a body, and bodies needed food, I reasoned. I could not see it starve to death while we ate.

  Graho cast me a dubious look but did not try to call me back as I walked to the hollow and placed the bowl on the ground at a safe distance.

  “Eat,” I said, but it did not move.

  I did not think it could understand me. It seemed to possess but the most basic instincts.

  Graho had already kicked dirt over our fire by the time I walked back. We started out for Ker, careful as we went, but no brigands jumped out at us as we progressed forward. Only Marga came by for a visit.

  She did not seem to be bothered by the hollow. She gave it one good, long look, sniffed the air, then kept pace with us, walking at the edge of the forest. I felt better for having her. She would alert us if anyone lay in wait up ahead.

  The wraith followed us, never dropping out of sight that whole morning. I had not seen it eat, but it carried the bowl, and I could see the bowl had been emptied. The flask I had left for him was hanging from his waist.

  I did not spend much time on the wraith. I pulled some willow branches from the bundle on my back instead and began weaving a basket, keeping my hands busy as we walked.

  A band of marching soldiers could easily cover the distance between Ishaf and Ker in less time, but the children took small steps and needed to rest from time to time. I used the breaks well. I had five baskets on my arm by the time the sun dipped low in the sky and we spotted the caravan town in a valley, only slightly smaller than the port city of Ishaf.

  Ker was surrounded by immense grazing fields, crowded with cows, horses, sheep, goats, and camels. The tiger sniffed the air with more than a little interest but turned into the forest as she left us to go on her nightly hunt.

  The hollow too halted and would advance no farther. I sent a quick prayer to the spirits to watch over it, then stopped for a moment to think. Had the spirits sent it into my path for a purpose? A test? A warning?

  “Come,” Graho called back, cutting off my thoughts. “Night is falling.”

  I hurried to catch up.

  We entered the city together through the main gate, the guards paying us little at
tention. With all the children, we hardly looked like an invading force, more like a couple who overmuch liked spending time in bed together. Is that what people think when they look at us? My cheeks heated.

  Graho turned to me once we were inside the city walls. “Come with us tonight. We will have lodging and food at the caravan yard.”

  He carried a sleeping little girl, Mora. I carried Nala.

  After a moment of consideration, I nodded. The market was closed. I could not sell my baskets until morning. Our run-in with the brigands on the road made me wary of sleeping out in the open street.

  We walked by a number of inns and guesthouses, down narrow streets, cutting through the town clear to the far side.

  “Just a little more,” Graho encouraged the children, who were asleep on their feet. To me, he said, “The camel yard is next to Camels’ Field from whence all southbound caravans start their journey.”

  “How will you pay for your trip?” I asked, worried that he might yet decide to sell some of the children at the local market.

  But he flashed an unconcerned smile. “There is a merchant here who owes me coin.”

  We turned another corner, and then we were at the camel yard that covered an enormous area. A large inn sheltered the travelers. I could see buildings where merchandise was stored, under guard, waiting for the caravan’s departure. There were stables for horses. The camels slept in Camels’ Field.

  The inn had a common room below and individual chambers above, I saw as we stepped inside. A few men threw dice and wagered in the middle by candlelight; others slept draped over tables and benches.

  Graho left us there in a quiet corner while he went off to find the caravan master.

  He returned soon enough, with a spring in his step. “The caravan will leave in three days. Until then, our food and board will be provided at the inn.”

  Then he left us again and roused the innkeep, a portly grandfather with no hair and ruddy cheeks, who wore a red-and-blue-striped robe that reached the ground. By this time, the children were asleep on the floor by my feet.

  The innkeep sent a yawning maid, Posey, to show us upstairs into a room that held a bed and a washing table with a tin basin. Posey started a fire in the hearth, then, at Graho’s request, she hurried off and brought us an armful of blankets.

  We used the bowl and water in the corner to wash our hands and faces. Being able to clean off the dirt of the road was a true gift, as was the fire we did not have to gather wood for. Much better than me sleeping in a cold doorway somewhere outside.

  “Thank you,” I said when I caught Graho’s gaze. He had a dark heart, true, but even the darkest sky held a few dots of light.

  “You take the bed with the girls,” he offered in a gruff tone, and he settled down on the blankets on the floor with the boys just as Posey came back.

  She was my age, more awake now, or at least awake enough to smile widely at Graho. She brought camel milk and bread, which we finished so quickly, mayhap we just imagined it. Then we each crawled under our covers.

  Graho lay just inside the door with his rapier close at hand to protect us should we need it.

  I could see his face in the light of the hearth. He was watching me.

  He was not a good man. I did not want to like him. I looked away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  (Makmin and his Camel)

  The next morning, I began preparing for my journey east. I was at the market as soon as it opened, sold my baskets, and spent the coin on food and a used wool cloak to replace the one I had lost. This one had a hood and would be far warmer than the threadbare blanket I had been using for covering.

  I also bought flint and steel so I would be able to start a fire. Next, I went to see about another source of income.

  I had picked as many herbs as I could on our two-day walk from Ishaf, but now I returned to the forest to look for more. Not much could be harvested at this time of the year, but I searched out as much as I could.

  I did not see Marga, but the dark shape of the hollow soon appeared behind me. I checked to make sure I still had my knife hanging from my belt. But as I worked my way through the woods, the hollow followed me at a distance and made no attempt to come closer.

  Maybe it hoped for more food. But when I found a bush with berries still on it and pointed it out, the hollow did not rush to eat. Instead, it followed me as I moved on, almost as if guarding me.

  I reached a thick stand of bushes and turned back to go another way, doubling back on the trail I had taken to that point. The hollow moved around until it walked behind me again.

  The fresh blood on the path startled me. The red smears had not been there before.

  I checked myself, but I wasn’t bleeding, hadn’t been scraped by thorns. I looked toward the hollow. “Is it you then? Are you hurting?”

  It stood still.

  I took a step closer. Its faded black robe wasn’t bloody. No blood dripped from its nose or its hands. Then I saw its feet—covered in nothing but rags—soaked in blood.

  The hollow had made the long journey from Ishaf close to barefooted. I winced.

  “You could have said something,” I muttered, even while knowing it could not have.

  I pulled my knife and cut a strip off the bottom of my cloak, a hand width. I cut the wool strip in half and placed the two pieces on the ground. Then from my bundles I took shirl moss I had collected for bandaging wounds. I piled that on top of the wool.

  I looked about but could not find what I sought, my gaze settling on his burlap robe at last.

  “String you must pull from your robe,” I said, and crouched to demonstrate on my own foot how to wrap a makeshift foot cover.

  When I moved back on the trail, the hollow stepped closer and gathered all I had left, but simply carried the bundle along with the bowl I gave it earlier.

  I sighed. Without being able to touch, I could offer no further help. “When you settle down for the night, do as I showed you, please.”

  I moved on, and it followed behind me.

  Like the hollow, the spirits were with me all day. Beyond the most common herbs, I also found valuable smin mushrooms that shrank tumors of the abdomen, brittle berries that eased blinding headaches, and kven roots that helped digestion.

  I only ceased my foraging when dusk began to settle on the forest. The hollow followed me to the tree line but no farther. Hoping it would see to its bleeding feet, I went straight to the herb woman with my bundles, directed by another kind innkeeper.

  The woman I sought, Eryl, was a young mother with three little ones clinging to her skirt. When I tried to offer her my herbs for sale, she beat me off, shrieking that I was a charlatan trying to steal her trade.

  Disheartened, I returned to the caravan yard. I walked around to see if I might find some patients among the travelers and earn a few coins that way.

  The men waiting for the caravan wore the clothes of faraway lands, were of different color of skin, different build, different language. They gathered in small groups of their own kind, sitting around camel-dung fires. They viewed me with mistrust, as men who had seen war and were wary of spies.

  In one such small group, a traveler coughed nonstop, a deep, barking cough. His friends had him sitting by the fire, but that did not seem to help.

  I eased up to them, stopping at a respectful distance. “May the spirits bless you all. I am Tera, a traveling healer. I could make a tea for that cough.”

  They looked at me through narrowed eyes, chins down, none breaking their closed circle.

  The oldest one shouted, “We do not need you here. Be off.”

  I politely withdrew and tried another group with the same result.

  Then someone did come to me, but not for help. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man with slanted eyes and a ground-eating stride. He carried a great staff as tall as he was. On his round belly, two curved daggers hung out from the sash that held his robe together.

  “I am Makmin the caravan master. You do not
travel with the caravan.” He towered over me as he examined me from the soles of my boots to my windblown hair that had seen better days.

  “No, master,” I replied with a bow that showed my respect.

  “What are you doing in the camel yard?”

  I kept my gaze down. “I thought I might be able to help some of the sick.”

  “You are not Eryl, the herb woman.”

  “I am a traveling healer, master.”

  He scoffed. “We do not like strangers around the caravans who come to spy out our cargo and report to the bandits in the narrow mountain passes.”

  “I am no spy, master,” I said quickly. After learning the punishment for thievery in Rabeen, I did not wish to discover the punishment for spying in Ker. I suspected caravan masters were not kind toward those they thought would harm their caravans.

  Makmin waved off my response as if my denial was nothing less than he would expect from a spy. “Where do you travel from?”

  “The Shahala lands.” Everyone had heard of Shahala healers, so I thought mentioning my birthplace would help. I drew aside my cloak to show him my many bunches of herbs.

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “You were lucky to come through before the Gate closed.”

  I said nothing. He would never believe that I had come through the hardstorms with pirates.

  Makmin spent a moment or two mulling me over. “And now you cannot return.”

  It was not a question, so I did not answer.

  “Ker already has Eryl,” he said, not unkindly now. “You best find yourself a small village without an herb woman and set yourself up there.”

  “I am headed to Regnor. I have a friend there I can turn to for help.”

  But Makmin shook his head, his tone filling with regret. “Regnor has fallen.”

  “I would still see if my friend yet lives.” I did not name Lord Karnagh. Makmin might find it suspicious that someone like me would know a famous warlord.

  The caravan master shrugged, his expression saying he thought I was doomed and not possessing half the sense the gods gave to field mice. He turned, ready to walk away, but then he stopped. “A Shahala healer, you say? What do you know about camels?”