CHAPTER 30

IN a protected hollow a few hundred yards behind the battle- field, a select group of men met in King Drolet’s tent. Present were the king himself and his First General, Roche, for La Maronne; Prince Tristan and First General Fortin for Verdeau; First General Moreau for Gamier; and for the Elves, Jalanil of the Elders’ Council, Haldoryn as chief military officer, and Féolan, first ambassador of Stonewater and translator.

The gathering was brief, involving as it did only two items of business: introductions and mutual expressions of friendship and gratitude, and organizing the wretched aftermath of battle. The wounded must be found, treated and brought home. The dead, thousands of them, must be disposed of. King Drolet offered accommodation in Gaudette for anyone requiring it. More extensive discussions would wait.

Féolan and Tristan sat down for the discussions. They had both seen heavy fighting from the first moments of battle and neither was inclined to stand on ceremony. Tristan’s left arm was tied up in a makeshift sling Féolan had made by ripping a foot of fabric from the bottom of his tunic. It was broken just above the wrist, and Féolan could tell by the way Tristan shifted restlessly in his seat that the pain of it was beginning to tell. As for himself, he suspected there were broken bones in his right hand, but he had escaped major injury. Even so, there seemed to be no place on his body that did not hurt. Few of today’s warriors would have a comfortable night’s sleep.

As soon as they were dismissed, Féolan went to Tristan. “Let’s get you to a healer and have that arm set,” he said.

Tristan shook his head. “Afraid not. Not yet, anyway. They have their hands full right now with worse injuries than mine.”

Féolan didn’t like the white, strained look around Tristan’s lips and eyes. As royalty, Tristan could undoubtedly demand—and get—preferential treatment. But his judgement was sound. Another man’s life could hang in the delay caused by plastering a simple break. Féolan wouldn’t want that on his head, either.

“Why don’t we see how busy our Elvish healers are?” he asked. “There are fewer of us to mend, after all.”

The two men skirted the edge of the battlefield and walked up the road to the Elvish healing lodge. Féolan was limping now, only just realizing how badly he had wrenched his knee. Propping themselves against the trunk of a huge old cedar a stone’s throw away from the tents, they tried to take stock of the scene before them. The line of waiting patients was shorter than at the Human clinic tents, but it was impossible to tell how critical their injuries were. Everyone, including Tristan and Féolan, was so blood-spattered and streaked that all looked, from a distance, on the verge of death.

“Can we sit while we wait?” suggested Tristan. “I pretty much have to, actually.” He eased down to the ground with a grimace. “Right. Now tell me about Gabi. Where did you see her, and how is she?”

Féolan didn’t answer right away. He was staring at the chestnut-brown braid hanging down one healer’s back. The square of her shoulders, their rise and fall as she wrapped bandaging around and around a patient’s bare chest, was familiar. So was the way she stretched out her back and neck when she was done.

“I think,” he said, “that you can ask her yourself. Look there.”

GABRIELLE TOOK A LAST appraising look at her bandaging. She tucked in a stray end and nodded approval. Helping her patient to his feet, she guided him over to the row of pallets behind the Healing Lodge, where he could rest and recover. She signaled to the healer overseeing the recovery area, who would dole out medicines and watch for fever or other complications.

What a strange experience it was working with healers who shared her methods but not her language. Not that there had been time for talk. Up until this last hour she might have been in a recurring nightmare back at the Skyway Pass. One emergency after another. One hacked and bloody body after another. Elvish or Human, the suffering was the same.

But there had been fewer. Now, at last, they were down to the less critical cases, at least until more survivors were brought in from the field. She cast her eyes along the row of waiting casualties, and then something made her look up.

Two men, dark hair and fair, both as sorry-looking as she had ever seen them. Both alive.

Gabrielle flew out of the tent and over to the great tree where they were propped like rag dolls. Dropping to her knees, she opened her arms and gathered them in—but tenderly, for her healer’s eyes had noted Tristan’s sling.

EVEN HIS OWN SISTER couldn’t tend to him right away; Tristan had to settle for a cup of evil-tasting herbal tea, which he admitted after ten minutes or so did ease his pain. I should have asked for some too, Féolan thought ruefully; his hand and knee sang out now in time to his pulse. He passed the hour’s wait telling Tristan how he had unwittingly rescued Gabrielle from the Gref Orisé.

“She went after my father, didn’t she?” asked Tristan.

“Yes. But I think that is a tale for her to tell.”

Gabrielle had just come for Tristan when a runner approached Féolan.

“My lord Féolan, they wish to question a Gref Orisé prisoner. If you are able, will you come and speak to him?”

“You will have to help me walk, I’m afraid,” replied Féolan. “But yes, lead me on.”

He had expected a bound soldier. Instead the messenger led him to a crude haycart tucked away at the far edge of the field. A couple of Stonewater Elves stood peering in. They turned to Féolan, their expressions doubtful. “We do not know what to do with this one.”

Féolan looked inside with trepidation. Glaring back at him was a scrawny boy in mid-adolescence at most. Face pale and clammy under chopped dirty hair. Fear palpable under the bravado. And sick. There was no question he was seriously ill.

Gabrielle’s fears had come true. With the shock of Col’s death and the momentum of the invasion, Féolan doubted anyone had treated Derkh at all. It looked as though he had been tossed in the cart as an afterthought.

Féolan looked at the boy, his gaze steady and kind. Slowly, the young man’s frightened hostility faded.

Then, very quietly, so only the two of them could hear, Féolan said, “I am a friend of Gabrielle’s. Are you Derkh?”

The emotions chasing one another across the boy’s face would have been comical if he had not been in such desperate shape: Shock. Relief. Hope. Worry. His first words were touching in their selflessness: “Is she all right?”

Féolan smiled. “She’s fine. And she’ll want to see you right away, I expect. She won’t be at all happy at the state you’re in.”

Derkh eyed the tall Elves around his cart. “Aren’t they going to kill me?”

“We aren’t in the habit of killing sick boys,” said Féolan briskly. “They are going to pull this cart to our Healing Lodge, where Gabrielle will try to put right whatever has gone wrong with your wound.”

“Infected,” the boy grunted. He lay back on the straw and closed his eyes. “She warned me.”

GABRIELLE WAS PLASTERING Tristan’s arm as Féolan approached them.

“Ho, there’s a fair-weather friend,” declared Tristan. “You managed to disappear for the screaming and yelling part, I see. Where were you when I needed an arm to grip?”

Gabrielle knew Tristan was exaggerating but not inventing “the screaming and yelling” part. Bonesetting could be a rough job, and after several hours of jostling, his arm had been swollen and tender. It bothered her still that she could not take the time to speed the healing and soothe the hurts, not just for Tristan but for all the injured she had treated this day.

“Hold still, Tris,” murmured Gabrielle. “Give it a chance to harden.” She rinsed the plaster off her hands and took a critical look at Féolan. He favored his right hand, she saw, on top of the limp. “Right, you’re next. Let’s have a look at that leg.”

“There’s someone here who needs you more, Gabrielle,” said Féolan, pointing to the cart parked just outside the tent. Drying her hands on the back of her skirt, Gabrielle walked over and looked over the wooden side.

“Ah, dark gods,” she whispered. “Look at you.” She reached down to feel Derkh’s forehead, though she didn’t have to. Heat almost shimmered off his body. Remorse stabbed at her. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

“Of course you should have,” Derkh snapped. He seemed older than Gabrielle remembered. “This way we both get to live.” Then his manner softened, became childlike. “Can you save me again, Gabrielle?”

Her throat was tight as she thought of what her young friend had been through. “I’ll do my very best, Derkh. I promise.”

THE NIGHT CRAWLED by as Gabrielle fought for Derkh’s life. The skin around his wound was shiny with swelling, a hot angry red that streaked off along the path of the surrounding blood vessels. She was angry too at the callousness of the men who had left him thus, but she had to let it go. There was no place for such thoughts in the healing trance.

By morning the fever was lower, and the red streaks were gone. The infection was localized in a tight circle around the wound itself, and Gabrielle dared to leave him long enough to go in search of breakfast. She found travel biscuits and tea and sat under the big cedar tree to eat and rest. Soon, she thought, she would have to see if she was needed on any cases more critical than Derkh’s. The Human bonemenders would doubtless be glad of her help as well, when she could manage it. The very thought was exhausting. Her eyes closed against the morning sun.

When she started awake, Tristan and Féolan were back, lounging on either side of her. Neither looked much better for their night’s “sleep.”

“Hi. Rough night?” she asked.

“We could ask you the same,” noted Tristan.

“How’s the young lad?” asked Féolan.

“Some better,” she said. “I need to get back to him soon.” She dippered out medicinal tea for both of them, and bullied them into drinking it, and checked over Tristan, proclaiming him as well as could be expected. Then she took Féolan by the good hand, led him to the Lodge and sat him down. The knee, she concluded, would heal itself, but she wrapped it up to give him a little support in the meantime. Then she laid the hurt hand in hers and just held it, remembering the night they had said farewell. His good hand reached up and stroked the side of her face, and without even thinking she bent down and kissed him.

Tristan was grinning at them broadly. “Looks like you two are on good terms again!” Guiltily, Gabrielle realized how much Tristan still didn’t know. She smiled weakly.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it. I have a lot to tell you Tris, when there’s time.”