Chapter 16 – Camp

We left Lohka and the other rebel with Verin’s body. Yatol asked them to come with us to the camp, but couldn’t get any agreement out of either of them. Eventually we just told them goodbye and set off. I have never been in so much pain. Every step felt like my back would crumple, and every time I flailed out my arm for balance the world shuddered in grey shadows. Yatol never left my side. Kurtis, ecstatic about his new ability, walked ahead with Tyhlaur and Enhyla, talking about God knows what. For all that had just happened, he seemed remarkably happy.

Yatol wouldn’t say a word. I kept glancing at him, torn between wishing he’d speak and hoping he wouldn’t. He just kept his head down, his arm tight around me, his steps as slow as I needed them to be. After a while even that snail’s pace got to be unbearable.

“Yatol, I need to rest.”

“It’ll hurt a lot worse if you stop now. It’s just a little further.”

And he still wouldn’t look at me. Whatever tangle of emotions was weighing on him seemed to seep right through his hand into me. Confusion, grief, anger. I wished I could understand. I wished I could make everything better. I couldn’t even figure out what I felt. I tried to force away that image of Verin, his head twisted, eyes blank and unseeing. He tried to kill me. He tried to kill Yatol.

I closed my eyes. Stumbled at a sudden searing shaft of pain. Didn’t even realize I was falling until Yatol caught me. The next thing I knew, he was carrying me.

“Damian,” I whispered. “Yatol, they’re doing something to him. It’s like I can feel it.”

He didn’t answer.

“Where’s Akhmar? Why can’t Akhmar come?”

“We’re here.”

I craned my neck back to look, saw the tents and fires and a buzz of activity near the center of the camp. Tyhlaur, Kurtis and Enhyla made straight for the large pavilion, and I made a noise of surprise when Yatol turned suddenly aside. He carried me toward a small tent nearby, identical to all the others except for the pole planted outside the entry. Ten carved gourds dangled from it, knocking dully against each other in the mild breeze.

“Shan!” Yatol called as we approached. He bent over me as he ducked into the hazy dark. “Shan?”

When no answer came, Yatol dropped carefully to the ground and deposited me on a soft bed of furs. I grimaced, as much from feeling like a useless lump as from the searing pain.

“I can walk, Yatol,” I said, snatching his hand. “Let’s just go to the pavilion. I’m all right.”

He hesitated, then suddenly knelt beside me, holding my left hand in both his own. “You’re in no condition to go after Damian, Merelin. If you want to come with me, then let Shan treat you.”

That shut me up. I watched him go, cringing at the numb clawing ache in my back. And that other pain, the one I knew wasn’t mine, burning and stinging all across my back and arms.

“Hold on, Damian,” I whispered into the emptiness. “God, please don’t let them kill him…”

Moments later Yatol returned with Shan, and I actually gave a small gasp of surprise. The healer contradicted all my expectations. I was sure he would be a wild-haired, wrinkled old man, the kind with a staff and voluminous robes. But Shan was no older than Yatol. He was wiry and totally bald, bare-chested and covered with tattoos. Literally covered. The broad reddish-brown swirls and dots laced all down his arms and across his torso. I could even see the strange symbols wreathing his calves beneath the knee-length hem of his black pants.

He lit a fire as soon as he entered, striking the flint with a quick economy of motion. One sure strike and the flame caught the tinder, and the tent erupted in light. Then he was back on his feet, gripping Yatol’s arm as though in belated greeting.

“Verin and Lohka?” he said, continuing some earlier conversation. “Saw them prowling about. Wretches. Looked half-starved. Where are they now?”

“We left Lohka.” A pause. “Verin’s dead.”

Shan fixed Yatol with an intense stare, then nodded once and without a word turned to me. I wondered if I should try to sit up, but as if he read my mind he held out his hand and shook his head.

“Don’t move. What happened?”

“Um,” I said.

Great start, Merelin. Now that we had some light in the tent, I could actually see Shan’s face. Brown dotted tattoos followed the lines of his cheeks and brows. They framed the most crystalline blue eyes I have ever seen, even more striking because his skin was so tanned. His mouth was set in an unsmiling line, but I never thought for a moment that he was unfriendly or unhappy. He had the sort of energetic joy that just bubbled out of his whole being, even when his face was still as stone.

I cast an uncertain glance at Yatol, but he just met my gaze in silence, his face almost as expressionless as Shan’s. I surveyed Shan one more time. Half of me expected him to have suddenly morphed into a more appropriate-looking figure.

“You’re a healer?” I finally blurted. “You’re not old enough to be a healer!”

Shan did smile then, a broad grin that lit up his whole face. Then as quickly as it had come it was gone.

“But this isn’t about me. Tell me what happened.”

I blushed and mumbled, “I hit a tree.”

He arched a brow.

“I don’t know how it happened! It was too fast.”

“Verin,” Yatol said, very quietly.

Shan glanced up at him. “Threw her into a tree?”

Yatol nodded. Shan sighed and turned back to me, looking me up and down once. “All right. Your arm got pinned. Bruising, shallow cuts. Abrasion on your cheek. Hold still.”

I froze, and with one motion Shan rolled me away from him, onto my good arm. I felt him tug briefly at the tunic. My face burned as he pulled the cloth up to reveal my back, but he was all business. His hand ran down my spine with steady pressure, pausing when I winced suddenly in pain. I waited while he prodded the area more carefully, just like Enhyla had, then continued checking the rest of my back. Then he took my arm, pushing back the sleeve as high as it would go, and felt over my shoulder.

“Stop!” I cried, cringing and gritting my teeth.

Shan dropped his hands and stood up. “That’s good news.”

“What?”

“Nothing is broken. Back is bruised fairly severely. The swelling will be painful, cause some weakness for a time. You stretched some of the sinews in your shoulder, but nothing is out of place or fractured.”

“I thought I hurt my elbow.”

He nodded twice, cradling his chin on his hand and thrumming his forefinger against his cheek. “Naturally. The pain from the shoulder would spread down the arm.”

He moved away, rummaging through some clay jars at the back of the tent. A smell like camphor and fresh cut grass filtered into the air as he pried off one of the lids. With the jar cradled in the crook of one arm, he kicked open a small chest and pulled out two long pieces of cloth.

“Help her sit up,” he said without turning.

Yatol stooped wordlessly and helped me into an upright position.

“All right. This will ease the pain a bit and bring down the swelling,” Shan said behind me, rubbing some kind of cool salve onto my back.

He put the same stuff on my shoulder, and my eyes and nose started watering with the smell. My skin tingled and went numb, masking the pain. Shan wrapped my arm into a sort of sling, then with the other strip of cloth bound it to my chest to keep it still.

“If you’re anything like Yatol, I know you won’t listen to me. Just try to keep the bandage on for at least a day. And don’t use that arm too much for at least a week.” He poured some liquid into a shallow cup and handed it to me. “Drink. This will help the pain and the healing.”

I swallowed it down obediently, glad it tasted better than Enhyla’s nasty concoction. Shan took the dish and set it aside, then helped me to my feet. He was even shorter than I’d thought when I was laying down – he had a presence that filled the tent, but face-to-face we stood almost exactly level. He clasped my left hand, staring me intently in the eyes for a few bewildering seconds.

“Good luck,” he said. Then he turned to Yatol, gripping his arm and fixing him with the same look. “Yatol. Take care.”

He nodded to us both, kicked dirt over the fire, and was gone. Yatol finally met my baffled gaze and actually laughed.

“That’s just his way,” he said. “Come on. Let’s see what’s going on in the pavilion.”

We made our way slowly across the camp. The activity seemed to have died down around the pavilion, until we got closer and realized that it had just moved inside. The men closest to the entryway moved aside for Yatol and me, some of them smiling, others with stares like hardened steel. I glimpsed Tyhlaur and Kurtis up near the central fire, where a group of men stood with Enhyla.

Yatol went to join them near the fire, so I followed him uncertainly. No one sat. We stood around the fire pit, facing one another, but no one seemed to be looking at any one else. I wondered what they had been talking about before Yatol and I had arrived.

The silence reigned for a few moments, then Syarat turned to Yatol.

“Enhyla says they are coming,” he said. “Tell us.”

I frowned, wondering why he hadn’t asked Tyhlaur that already. But Tyhlaur didn’t seem offended by the oversight. He stood quietly to the side, almost as if he was glad of his anonymity. I wondered if Syarat had heard some rumor of Tyhlaur’s possible involvement with the rebels.

“Tyhlaur and I ran,” Yatol said. “We saw only the lower tip of the main force, and measured their pace. They’re marching slowly, about an Eol’s tread. They seem to be taking their time, but I don’t know why. They haven’t yet breached the Perstaun. We didn’t wait to measure their numbers, for they had just sent out a dispatch to comb the area southward, toward Enhyla’s outpost. We traced around and thwarted them just beyond the hut.”

“You were at Enhyla’s?” one of the men asked, and Yatol nodded. “How did you learn of the Ungulion’s approach before they were upon you?”

When Yatol didn’t answer, Enhyla said, “We had word from Khymranna.”

I glanced at Yatol. His jaw tensed, but he just stared fixedly into the fire. The other men seemed startled.

“Khymranna? He was with Talotyl near Urith’s camp, wasn’t he?”

“Aye, but Urith was overrun and Talotyl is slain. And…Khymranna.”

“No!” one of the men cried. “What will we do without Khymranna? What do we have anymore? All is lost!”

Enhyla and Syarat exchanged a glance, and Yatol still wouldn’t move. None of the three said a word.

“What do you mean?” I asked, finally, when I couldn’t bear the silence any more. “How can you think all is lost when…”

They were all staring at me. I fell silent, face burning with shame. Smart, Merelin. I knew I didn’t have any right to speak here – me, a girl who knew almost nothing about this world or its battles. Except no one rebuked me, they just watched me, expectantly.

“When what, little sister?” one of them asked.

I scuffed my toe in the sand, my gaze flickering toward Yatol. “When all we need is right here.”

Utter silence. I felt their gazes keenly, saw Yatol shift his weight almost imperceptibly. I stood there as long as I could, then turned and limped back to Kurtis. I ran away from them. But I couldn’t go back. I sat down, facing away from them, but realized ruefully that I could still hear their words.

“How did you come so far so fast?” Syarat asked. “You say they have not yet breached the Perstaun, yet you are here. By my reckoning they should be nearly here as well.”

A brief silence, then Yatol said softly, “We did not make the journey by our own efforts.”

Another man broke in, “But even if you believe Davhur’s accounts of a portal…” He fell silent, then went on, “Well, I suppose we must believe that, now. But even so, there is no portal that crosses this world. I don’t understand.”

“I’ve heard of it happening, but only rarely,” Yatol said. “Merelin’s brother invoked the passage.”

“Is that him?”

I didn’t look, but I knew they were pointing at Kurtis.

“No. He didn’t come through.”

I pulled up my knees and buried my head against them. Kurtis laid his hand on my shoulder.

“You don’t think he was taken?”

I waited breathless for the answer, but none came. At least, none that I could hear. But some of the men began murmuring among themselves, and I glanced over my shoulder. Yatol stood straight and still, while Enhyla stared at him in disbelief.

“You’re mad,” one of the men said. “Mad, Yatol.”

“You won’t get any help from us.”

Yatol turned to fix the man with a stern gaze, cold and hard. “I did not ask for your help.”

The man dropped his eyes, shamefaced, and Yatol glanced back at Enhyla.

“The fewer with me, the better. I will pick my own party.”

He had hardly finished speaking when a sudden commotion outside the pavilion caught everyone’s attention. Shouting, footsteps, the crash of something knocking over. I scrambled to my feet, doubling over with a flash of pain. Yatol and some of the other men grabbed spears from the walls of the tent, and Yatol circled back to stand in front of me. Everyone tensed.