Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) Read online

  “Very little, master.”

  He watched me for a moment with more interest than before, and then, instead of belittling me for my lack of knowledge, he laughed. “Might be you are the first honest woman I’ve met. I have seven wives in seven caravan stops. Perhaps I have become jaded.”

  He shook his head. “Come. My lead camel is sick. See if there is something you can do for him with your herbs. Eryl will not touch him.”

  I soon found out why. The camel was possessed by a dark spirit for certain, braying at everyone who came near, spitting at us when we were at an arm’s reach, then biting when we moved in closer.

  He was foaming at the mouth, his eyes bulging out of his head. Truly, he was a more frightening sight than the wraith.

  “Save him, and I will pay you honest coin.” Makmin squared his shoulders. “But harm him, and I will cut you down where you stand.”

  This I believed.

  I stayed out of the camel’s reach, wishing he had some external injury. Treating wounds was the same from man to man, animal to animal. But sickness on the inside was difficult to name and even more difficult to cure. What healed a horse might kill a cow. And I did not know what my herbs would do to a camel.

  “How long has he been ill?” I asked.

  “Seven days.” The caravan master’s tone turned grave.

  “Did he eat anything the other animals didn’t?”

  The man shook his head. “They all graze together.”

  “How is his dung?”

  The man shrugged. “All the dung is collected by the inns’ servants. Once it dries, waiting travelers use it for the outdoor fires.”

  No help there, then. I tried to think what else I could do to diagnose the humped beast.

  I never knew for certain whether my spirit songs truly worked, but I began to silently sing to the camel. Whether due to my singing or not, he stopped spitting and snapping at me and quieted down. I stepped closer and, after a moment, reached a hand out to touch his side. If he bit me, he bit me. I had slept next to a tiger; I could not shy away from a camel that was no animal of prey but a grazer.

  The camel did not feel too hot to the touch, nor did he sweat. He did not shiver either. I thought maybe his side was distended, but I had seen so few camels thus far that I found it difficult to tell. Comparing him to the other camels was no easy task either, for he was larger than all the others, and the rest were either standing or lay in some other way, forming different shapes altogether.

  When my gentle patting did not arouse his anger, I lay my ear against his side and listened. I did not hear the usual sounds of dangerous bloating.

  “What do you think?” Makmin’s harsh face softened. He was near cooing as he gazed at his animal.

  Since I could not diagnose my patient at a glance, I decided on a longer observation. “I shall stay with him until I can determine what ails him.”

  Makmin nodded and hurried off but came back shortly with a bowl of goat stew. He handed me the bowl, then settled down next to me. “I have been staying out here with him since he fell ill. If he dies, it will break my heart. If he does not survive, neither will I,” he added with enough drama for a Kadar concubine.

  “And your wives and children?” I suggested, wanting to cheer him.

  But he only looked at me with reproach. “Ryod is my lead camel!”

  I nodded.

  “Ryod means treasure in my people’s language,” Makmin informed me and hugged the beast.

  I ate the stew, then shifted closer to Ryod for heat, glad that I had purchased a cloak at the market.

  Makmin shifted into a more comfortable position. “I am considered a wealthy and respected man among my people. I have one hundred and nine camels. But if I lose Ryod, I shall be nothing.”

  He fell silent for a moment, then said, “When I was a young man of but three camels, before I had even a single wife, I fell in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  His eyes glazed over as he stared off into the night. “She woke my heart up from its great winter. She made my soul sing. She was as slim as the gazelles of the desert. Her laughter was the sound of water in an oasis, the very sound of life. I knew that if I could have her, I would be happy for all the days of my life.” His voice trailed off, as if he was lost in his memories.

  I waited for him to continue and, after a while, he did.

  “When I went to her father to ask for her, the old man wanted Ryod as part of the bride price.” He gave a shuddering sigh and said no more.

  The camel gave a pitiful groan. I patted its side and sang my spirit song.

  The caravan master did not speak again, and we both dozed as we sat, me reclining against the camel, and him sitting up with his legs crossed in front of him, leaning on his staff.

  After walking in the forest all day, I slept soundly and only woke to a faintly familiar movement inside the camel toward dawn.

  “Are you sure Ryod is a male?” I asked Makmin. I had not yet seen the camel on his feet.

  The caravan master was already up, standing and bowing to the four corners of the sky, performing some sort of prayers, mumbling, then clapping quietly in what seemed an ancient ceremony.

  He turned to me when he finished. “He is the father of half my herd,” he said with pride.

  And yet I felt movement again, the same as I might feel with a horse ready to foal.

  How was that possible? And then I remembered something and had an idea.

  I selected some herbs off my belt and held the bunch up in front of the camel’s mouth. He viewed me with distrust, but then he sniffed. And then he ate. Animals often knew how to heal themselves in the wild and sought out plants that would make them feel better. Whether driven by instinct or led by the spirits, I did not know, but Ryod seemed to sense that the herbs would help.

  The camel ate as much of the herb as I would have given a grown man. Then I looked at his great bulk and decided he needed more. I gave him all I had.

  The caravan master watched me closely.

  I remembered his words from the night before, how my fate was now tied to the camel’s. Despite the chill of the morning, I felt sweat bead on my forehead as I watched Ryod and waited.

  Nothing happened. Not even once men woke in the inn and stables and came outside, restarted their dung fires. Not even when the sun rose high in the sky.

  “I need more medicine,” I told the caravan master.

  He thought for a moment, watched his camel that looked neither worse nor better for my treatment so far. Then he nodded but added a warning. “If you run, you will be found.”

  I had no doubt about that, for I had seen plenty of men at the camel yard. Some were his servants, others his passengers. I knew all would heed his word and hunt me down if he was to ask.

  As I was leaving the caravan yard, I met Graho waiting by the inn.

  “How fares Makmin’s treasure?” he asked.

  “On his way to healing, the spirits willing. I am off to gather more herbs.”

  “I came looking for you last night and saw you sleeping by the beast.” He sounded amused. “Do you need help in the forest?”

  I shook my head. “Picking herbs is easy enough work. And I have the hollow for protection.” Not that it could fight off someone with bad intentions, but it would frighten them off, I was certain. And I did not think the brigands would come this close to the city. I meant to stay within hailing distance of the fields. Marga too might find me.

  Graho raised an eyebrow, but then he let me go on my way. I felt his gaze on my back as I walked away.

  I hurried off into the woods, more so to generate heat for my body than out of urgency. The camel was not at death’s door as yet. And I was not so certain of my cure that I wanted to hurry back. Rather, I wanted some time to think.

  When the hollow appeared behind me, I was glad for his silent company. And I was most certainly glad to see its feet wrapped. It must understand more than people think.

  “I
don’t suppose you know about camels?” For all I knew, it had once been a camelherd or, like Makmin, a caravan master.

  But the hollow said nothing, just followed me through the woods once again. This time, I did see him eat some wrinkled berries the birds had missed.

  I ate the same dry berries and some roots as I found them, collected an armful of the proper herbs for the camel, and returned past midday, leaving the hollow behind in the forest.

  As soon as the caravan master saw me enter the camel yard, he came to walk with me. He watched as I fed the camel all the medicine I had brought.

  We waited together.

  Nothing happened.

  But then, at long last, the camel stood with a frightful groan.

  “He has not stood in two days.” The last of the caravan master’s hopeful words were drowned out by the loud moaning of the camel.

  The sound intensified in pitch and volume, into a wide-eyed gurgling sound of terror.

  Hot fury mixed with cold panic in Makmin’s eyes. “What have you done?”

  But before he could cut me down, the camel’s other end joined the noisy disturbance. To call what the animal passed a wind would not do it justice. A hardstorm emerged. Even the men around the fires looked toward us with alarm.

  Then liquid dung blew from the camel, spraying in every direction. The caravan master and I moved hastily to the head, the only safe place. He held on to the camel’s neck so the animal wouldn’t move around and spray in a circle.

  For a while, it seemed the great flood would never end. Then the flow suddenly halted, and the camel made the most frightful noise yet, as if he was being butchered, a plaintive and at the same time outraged cry that would break the heart of the very spirits.

  The look in the caravan master’s eyes promised me death.

  But something new emerged then, little by little, from the camel’s windy end. A pale creature, wriggling, sliding, larger than the largest river eel I had ever seen.

  Men gathered around.

  The creature’s head hit the ground, but its tail was still inside the camel.

  “River monster,” some men whispered, and they began to say how the camel might have drank a small thing in the river and it grew in his stomach.

  But I knew it was just a worm, although more monstrous than I had ever seen.

  “The other animals should not touch it,” I said when it came out all the way at last, as long as the caravan master’s staff. “It might be filled with eggs.”

  The men murmured with alarm, and even the fiercest of them shuddered. Instead of the prior day’s suspicion, they were beginning to look at me with awe.

  With sticks, they lifted the creature and carried it far into the field. At once they began building a fire, and when the flames reached waist-high, they tossed the worm on top of the burning dung heap.

  It screeched.

  All through this, Makmin hugged his camel with tears in his eyes. But the beast wanted the freedom of movement more than its owner’s affections and ran off at last.

  Then the caravan master turned to me, tears of joy running down his face. “You may work your trade in the camel yard of Ker now and forever,” he announced solemnly. “If anyone challenges you, you tell them you are a friend of Makmin. And for the next two days whilst we are still here, I will pay your room and your food at the inn.”

  The food I accepted, but I told him I already had a room. I had no great wish to share lodgings with Graho, but these would be my last two days with the children until I found them again.

  Makmin bowed to me and hurried off after his camel.

  I returned to Graho’s chamber.

  As he was out with the children, I took the opportunity to carry a bucket of water upstairs, stand in the washing basin, and bathe. I even washed my clothes and held them above the tallow candle’s flame to dry them a little. Since that was slow work, I tried hanging them out the window into the wind. That worked better, but the clothes were still damp when I put them back on. I started a fire in the hearth and crouched in front of that to finish drying.

  When my muscles tired, I sat. And then I curled up on some blankets. I closed my eyes.

  I woke to the children coming in, Graho behind them.

  His gaze cut to me, some emotion glinting in his eyes as he watched me straighten myself and fix my hair. I turned my attention to the children’s chatter.

  They brought tales of the city, of all the wonders they had seen and all the gruesome tales they had heard from war refugees. They only stopped when Posey brought a large tray of food that the caravan master sent for me.

  We all shared, saving the smoked meats—the merchant for his caravan trip, and I for my own journey.

  “I heard you cast out a great monster,” Graho said once we sat by the fire, sated. “There is talk all over town.” A smile hovered over his lips.

  And, of course, the children wanted to hear the whole grisly tale, not once but twice over. And then they wanted other stories of other monsters.

  That night, the children slept, but since I had rested earlier, my eyes would not close.

  “I might have found out who your hollow is,” Graho said from the floor in front of the door. “A cobbler from Ishaf said the city guards’ captain was against inviting the sorcerer into the city. The captain was a big man who recently disappeared. Gramorzo was his name.”

  I thought some on that. “Perhaps.” Despite its stooped shoulders and broken walk, the hollow did seem like it might have been a big man once. My heart twisted as I wondered if it had left behind a grieving wife and children.

  “Going east is not safe,” Graho said next. “The refugees tell bloody tales.”

  “My path leads to Regnor.”

  “You will be going alone, in winter,” he pointed out. “It would be safer to come south with us.”

  Suddenly, I had enough of his pretense that he cared for my safety. “Maybe safer on the road, but not when we reach our destination and you sell me alongside the children. Are you not heading to the slave market in Muzarat?”

  Painful silence filled the room.

  I waited. But Graho did not deny his dark plans.

  Chapter Sixteen

  (The Herb Woman and the Soothsayer)

  I woke before the children and tried to leave the room quietly. Graho shifted away from the door so I could open it.

  “Where to?” he asked as he sat up.

  “I must earn coin for my journey.” There. That should tell him that I was determined to remain my own person.

  “Tera, I wish to—” He reached for my hand.

  I quickly stepped through the doorway. “I best hurry.”

  I swung by the privy, then hurried down to the camel yard, where the travelers were already drinking hot tea and eating breakfast. The men around the fires turned to me fully instead of watching me over their shoulders, narrow-eyed, as they had the day before. One who looked old enough to be a grandfather many times over rose from the nearest fire, then shuffled toward me.

  When he reached me, his head dipped in a small bow, a hopeful expression in his rheumy eyes that were nearly closed under the many folds of his eyelids. “Makmin says you are a true healer.”

  I gave the man an encouraging smile. “Where does it hurt?”

  “My back.” He touched the lower quarter of his spine, and his face wrinkled into a look of pain.

  I had him turn, then I probed the area, listening carefully for his quick moans and where he hissed.

  “Can you help, mistress?” he asked when I finished.

  “I will need a small jar of pig lard,” I told him, and he shuffled off with a nod to obtain it.

  I had walked forward but a few steps when the next traveler stepped up to me, a young man with the thinnest lips I had ever seen, but eyes so large and dark, he resembled an overgrown owl, especially with his shaggy white sheepskin cape flaring out behind him like wings.

  “I am Jano. Makmin say you help me.” He spoke the merchant
tongue with difficulty, and ducked his head as if embarrassed, but lifted his pants leg, showing me the fist-size boil on his shin, the skin red and shiny.

  “I will need fire,” I told him after a moment of inspection.

  He gestured toward the fire he had just left, the dozen other men sitting around it, all wearing similar capes, eating small black sausages. They looked to be relatives or, at the very least, from the same tribe.

  I pointed to a more secluded corner of the camel yard.

  The young man called over a servant and sent him off to bring us some fire. I called after the servant, asking for water too and something to boil it in. While waiting for that, we walked over to the spot and sat down.

  “How long?” I asked my patient.

  He thought for a moment. “Eight days.”

  “What happened?”

  “Thorn bush.” Again, he looked embarrassed. “Do you think is it much ugly?”

  I began to shrug—an abscess was an abscess—but he added, “I go bride claiming.”

  Ah. “When will you see her?”

  “Twelve day time,” he said miserably.

  And I understood that he feared his bride might find him repulsive. “In twelve days’ time, you will be healed and dancing with your bride. I promise.”

  His face split into a smile, his large eyes shining with pure relief.

  A maid cursing at someone drew my gaze to the inn, and I saw Graho in the window. He was watching me.

  I wished he was a different man. I wished I had a friend yet left in the world. All who had been my friends before were now far away, out of my reach. I did not even know for certain if they still lived. Mayhap the enemy already on the island had discovered Batumar’s absence and had attacked the fortress city.

  With a heavy heart, I sent a silent prayer to the spirits to keep my people safe. I kept the prayer short, since the loudmouth servant was hurrying toward us with an armload of dried camel dung and a bucket of water. He was still cursing someone under his breath as he started the fire for us, and I set the metal bucket in the middle.