Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 02] - Owlsight Read online

  “I don’t advocate that,” Grenthan protested, his hands up as if to ward off a blow. “I’m just telling you what Lord Breon would say!”

  “But we have no cure, no treatment,” Nala pointed out. “We don’t even know what we’re facing. Where does the Oath put us? Are we to serve everyone, or the greatest good? Are we to try to save outsiders at the possible expense of unleashing a plague on thousands of our own, innocent people?”

  “I don’t think that there is any doubt that we are to serve everyone, friend and enemy alike; the Oath is crystal clear on that point,” Gentian replied stiffly. “I can’t imagine how you could interpret it otherwise.”

  “You can’t serve anyone if you’re all dead,” Keisha said slowly, and shook her head. “We don’t even know how this thing spreads. You could all be infected by now; for all we know, Eldan and the rest brought it back with them from their parley, and it’s only a matter of time before we all get it.”

  Instantly, their faces all went blank; she waited while they searched within themselves for signs of infection of any kind. It didn’t take very long, they were so used to doing so, and the looks of relief told her that at least that fear was groundless.

  “So it isn’t instantly contagious. Still—” She let the sentence hang in the air, not needing to add, “it could have been.” She let the thought sink in, then continued. “I can’t see how we have the right to expose our own folk just so we can treat these strangers.”

  “We won’t get anywhere by not treating it,” Nala said, at last. “The question is, how? From what you told us, these barbarians would welcome us if we just marched straight into their village!”

  “And they might equally slit our throats if we couldn’t provide instant cures,” Grenthan countered, fanning himself with his sleeve, as the air inside the tent became close and warm. “Yes, I agree, we must act, but I don’t relish the notion of putting myself so completely at their mercy, which might well be nonexistent. Look, I do agree with the Oath in principle, but I have serious reservations about, applying it to a pack of folk who eat their meat raw!”

  At that moment, the hertasi returned, with Tyrsell at its side. Keisha quickly explained what she wanted, and the king-stag readily agreed.

  :Do brace yourselves, please,; the dyheli said calmly. : You are unused to this, and it will be something of a shock to your minds.:

  The experience wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic as getting the Hawkbrother language, but the “lump” of memory-images hit each of them with a palpable impact, much as if they’d been struck by a stone, leaving them reeling for a moment. Keisha managed to stammer thanks; Tyrsell nodded gravely in return and left the tent without a word, giving them all the peace to sort out the jumble of sights and sounds, emotions and visceral sensations that came with the memory fragments.

  The three experienced Healers actually sorted things through a lot faster than Keisha would have thought, possibly because they were all used to sorting through the chaos of a battlefield. Of the six Healer Trainees, three felt unwell and had to go lie down, and the other three sat blinking owlishly and a little stunned during the rest of the discussion. Keisha had been ready for the experience, and was the first to recover, waiting for the rest to make what they could of what they’d been given.

  “This definitely isn’t anything we’ve seen before,” Grenthan acknowledged. “At a guess, it spreads through direct contact, the way a cold does.”

  “I think it might be less contagious than a cold,” Nala added thoughtfully. “Otherwise, everyone would have been struck down when it first appeared. And I think that low temperatures, winter-chill, probably kills it, or at least makes it dormant—after all, these people spend their winters in tents in a chillier climate than we have—did any of you get that memory? Of the way they go from fall to spring without ever once getting out of their fur clothing, not even to couple? They must smell to high heaven, but that might be why they don’t catch the disease in winter. It can’t spread through the frigid air, and there’s nothing I’d call physical contact during the cold moons. It could spread through flea-bite, I suppose. Fleas hibernate, when the cold doesn’t outright kill them.”

  “I did get those memories,” Gentian seconded, and shuddered. “The cleanliness of these people leaves a great deal to be desired, at least in winter.”

  “Well, given how cold it gets, I can’t see that I blame them,” Grenthan said diplomatically. “It’s also beside the point, which is the question of what we are to do.”

  “I’ll tell you what you won’t be doing,” said a wrathful voice from the open tent flap. “You won’t be marching into a barbarian village, giving aid and comfort to plague carriers, not while I’m in command here!”

  Kerowyn strode into the center of their circle, and glared at all of them with impartial impatience. “What’s more, if any of you try, I’ll personally have you bound hand and foot and tied to a tree to prevent you from going anywhere! Dear gods, why am I being saddled with a wagonload of idiots? Where is your sense? Where is your loyalty?”

  “Our loyalty is to our Oath, as it should be,” shouted Gentian, who had gone red in the face with anger as Kerowyn spoke. “Captain, I might remind you that it was a Healer who stuck to his Oath many years ago who kept you from becoming a cripple!”

  “Healers don’t take sides,” Nala seconded, with a little less volume, but no less force, and a glare just as fierce as Kerowyn’s. “That’s the Oath, and a good thing, too!”

  “Damn you, people, what about the rest of us?” Kerowyn shouted right back, her eyes so cold with rage that they sent chills down Keisha’s spine. “Just what are we going to do if you all get sick and die, and the barbarians decide to make a fight of it anyway? What are we supposed to do if they decide you aren’t trying hard enough to cure them, and figure to encourage you with a bit of creative torture? Or slit your throats, because you couldn’t help the ones already crippled?”

  “What idiot would assume all of us would go into the camp?” Grenthan countered with derision. “Great Lord, since when have Healers ever abandoned a post they’d been assigned to?”

  “The same idiot who heard you discussing just that would naturally make that assumption,” Kerowyn snarled right back.

  “Whoa!” Keisha shouted, jumping to her feet, and bringing the entire shouting match to a halt. When they all turned to stare at her, she fought down the impulse to run out of the tent, swallowed, and sat down.

  “We can’t go into the camp, Herald-Captain,” she said in a more normal tone of voice. “We’d already decided that. We don’t know these people or what they’ll do, we don’t know their language, customs or superstitions, and we have no way of predicting anything they might assume. All we do know is that they have legends of Healers, and as we are aware, legends are difficult things to live up to.”

  “Not to mention that not even an idiot puts himself completely into the hands of people who already considered kidnapping and coercion,” Gentian said gruffly. “Cap’n Kero, some of us have been with you for a very long time, and the very last thing we’d do is leave you in the lurch. What we do agree on is that our Oath demands that we try to help these folk, and that the Oath comes first, even before our loyalties. And you wouldn’t have it any other way. There’ve been plenty of your people who’ve been cared for by the Healers on the side opposite yours, and you know it.”

  “The other thing we agree on is that this disease is enough of a danger to Valdemar that we don’t dare ignore it and hope it sticks to the barbarians,” Nala said stiffly. “Whether you like it or not, we can’t leave until we’ve found a treatment, and we can’t do that without treating the barbarians.”

  “Even burning the camp and its occupants might not stop it,” Keisha put in, softly but shrewdly. “Since we don’t know how it spreads at all, some of the biting insects might well be carrying it now, and it will be only a matter of time before it spreads to us. We really do have to find a cure, or at least a palliative
.”

  Kerowyn looked very sour indeed, but conceded their points. “Just promise me that you won’t do anything until after you’ve consulted me,” she added, with a look that told Keisha that if they didn’t agree, she would follow through on the threat to truss them up like dinnertime fowls.

  She got that promise—from everyone but Keisha, and Keisha could hardly believe it when she didn’t seem to notice the omission.

  “I hope it spreads by fleas,” sighed Nala when Kerowyn had left. “Dear and gracious gods, I hope it spreads by fleas, the way Boil-Plague does. Fleas, we can do something about, but who can stop the air from flowing?”

  Keisha got up for a moment and took a quick peek outside the tent. Then she returned, as the others watched her curiously. “I actually have an idea,” she said diffidently. “If you want to hear it.”

  “Go right ahead,” Gentian urged. “At the moment, we’re dry.”

  “If we could get the barbarians to send one of the sick people out, one of us could go into quarantine with the sick person. That way no one would be at risk except a single Healer.” She swallowed, then continued. “I figured I’m probably the best one to do that; you can’t send an apprentice, and you know that. You all say I have a really strong Gift, you all agree that I’m as good as any of you with herbs and medicines. I’m the obvious choice because I’m the easiest one to replace.”

  That started another argument entirely, with all three of them coming up with whatever they could think of to deter her from any such idea. The strongest argument against her plan was that she didn’t have experience in using her Gift, especially not against something deadly. “Oh, I agree that you’ve done very well so far,” Gentian half-scolded, “but that was against tiny infections, colds, belly-aches! Not against a fatal illness, not against something no one has ever seen before!”

  Keisha shrugged, pretending indifference. “Diseases work the same whether they’re mild or serious,” she pointed out. “A tiny infection and a rotting limb are the same. It’s just a matter of degree.”

  “The idea does have merit, though,” Nala said, after keeping her own counsel while the others argued. “It would keep infection from spreading to the rest, and it would keep the Healer out of the hands of the barbarians. I’d be willing to try treatment on that basis. I’ve survived plenty of plagues before this; what’s one more?”

  “And just how are we going to get a volunteer barbarian?” Grenthan asked shrewdly.

  “We could ask?” Keisha suggested timidly.

  No one laughed at her, although she more than half expected them to.

  “Well, the barbarians have obliged me by falling in with my second choice of tactics,” Kerowyn sighed, as Darian belatedly scrambled into his place in the council-circle, feeling much better for a good, long sleep. “Your Hawkbrother scouts reported that they were building up walls around their camp and fortifying them; I sent a deputation out to them to see what they’d do. They didn’t meet my people with arrows, but they also didn’t show so much as the tips of their noses.”

  “Grand,” groaned Lord Breon. “We’ve frightened them, and now they aren’t going to move one way or the other.”

  “Not without a visitation from their miraculous Ghost Cat, is my guess,” Kerowyn agreed, and ran her hand along the top of her hair. She cast a speculative eye at Firesong, who shook his head.

  “Don’t even start on what you’re thinking,” he warned. “I wouldn’t create a Ghost Cat illusion for anyone under circumstances like this. Firstly, I don’t know how it’s expected to behave, and secondly, what if it is an Avatar? Are you willing to risk the anger of a god? I’m not! Not even one who’s working outside his own lands!”

  “It was a thought,” she replied wistfully.

  “A bad one,” he countered, leaving no room for further argument. “Why don’t you just set up a siege and hold them in place until they give up and surrender?”

  “They do have to eat, so they are going to come out at some point, but a siege under these conditions is far from ideal,” she responded. “It certainly wasn’t what I had in mind. And only their gods know what they’re planning in there; it could be anything. Remember, only a third of our troops have seen combat. All of theirs have.”

  There’s that sickness of theirs, too; what if part of their plan is to somehow spread it to us ? What are we going to do then? Darian was worried, and he wasn’t the only one, for he heard Lord Breon confide to Eldan in a whisper, “I wish I could just pour oil on that entire nest of vipers and burn them out.”

  “Perhaps, we’re pushing them too hard,” Eldan said aloud, in reasoned, measured tones. “After all, these people have been through a very great shock in meeting us; they’ve had their lives threatened, and they’ve seen that we have animal spirits of our own. We meant to intimidate them; we may actually have intimidated them so completely that they feel they are in a corner. What we should do, I think, is to give them time. We need to cultivate patience in dealing with them. In fact, I think we ought to pull back all our visible troops, and leave only the birds as sentries.” He smiled thinly. “They’ve seen that we have birds who might well be totemic spirits with us; the birds standing sentry alone should be enough, because now they will never know when a bird is one of ours or just a simple forest creature.”

  Kerowyn shot him a strange glance, as if she hadn’t expected that from him, began to open her mouth, then closed it again, looking very thoughtful. “That’s got some merit,” she said, after a moment. “What do the rest of you think?”

  Darian kept his mouth shut; he had an idea of his own, and he wasn’t going to broach it. What he didn’t reveal, he couldn’t be forbidden to undertake.

  “Personally, I think that’s reasonable,” Starfall spoke first. “It’s not as if we’re under an arbitrary deadline to get this solved. We can afford to be patient with them.”

  “If they bottle themselves up, their own Summer Fever may solve the problem for us,” Snowfire added.

  “Harsh,” Starfall said, “but true.”

  “Maybe you aren’t under a deadline, but I’ve got Harvesting coming up, and my lady has a wedding planned. She’s going to take it poorly if it’s got to be delayed because we’re playing nursemaid to a lot of greasy, fur-wearing barbarians,” Lord Breon muttered, but he made no further objections.

  “They’ve come out of a terrifying situation, and just when they thought themselves safer, were met by more frightening people.” Eldan spoke as if he had thought this over already. “If we meet them with mercy, who knows how they will react? They could become the best allies Valdemar has ever had! Our ancestors were refugees, just as they are—and who knows, maybe our own forefathers were closer to being greasy fur-wearing barbarians than to us, their descendants.” He cast a glance at Lord Breon who had the grace to look a little ashamed. “We have never refused a refugee because he came with a burden of powerful enemies, and even though the enemy this time is a disease, I don’t see why that should change our attitude.”

  “Give them at least three or four days,” Firesong urged. “That’s my counsel. Who knows, but maybe they’ve bottled themselves up to invoke this Cat Spirit of theirs, and if it is the Avatar of any reasonable deity, it should tell them to be sensible and go along with us!”

  “Oh, surely!” Kerowyn replied, with more than a touch of sarcasm. “I don’t know how many gods you’ve had to deal with in your time, but being sensible has not been on the agenda of many of the ones I’ve come across.”

  “Perhaps not sensible according to your needs and desires, Captain,” Snowfire said with absolute politeness. “But I’m certain it was sensible to those who worshiped those gods—always providing, of course, that the ones interpreting the gods’ will were honest. Case in point—Karse before Solaris.”

  “Huh. Good point.” She sat down and looked all around the circle. “So, pull back and patience it is. Anybody have any objections?”

  Clearly there were none that anyone thou
ght worth mentioning, so Kerowyn declared the meeting at an end, and she and Snowfire left to meet with their respective troops and scouts and give them their new orders.

  The debate in the Healers’ tent had gone on for most of the day, and showed no signs of stopping. Nightwind had joined them, as the only representative of the Hawkbrothers, and she had concurred with the consensus that something would have to be done about the Summer Fever and quickly, before it crossed to the allies.

  “It’s summer now,” Keisha pointed out. “What if another outbreak starts among them? What do we do then?”

  “We’d have to impose some sort of quarantine, I suppose,” began Grenthan.

  “That could be difficult if we’re in the middle of armed conflict with them,” Nightwind said dryly. “Just how would we enforce it? Insist that only healthy people be allowed on the battlefield? Hold inspections for fever and sneezes before anyone can fight?”

  Keisha choked back an involuntary laugh at the absurd image that conjured up; no one else seemed to find it funny, except perhaps Nightwind herself.

  “I wonder—” she started to say, then stopped.

  “What?” asked Gentian, who had become the default leader at this point.

  “Well, I just wonder why these northerners don’t have any real Healers of their own?” she continued, flushing, thinking that it was probably a stupid question. “I mean, the shaman seems to have done herb-Healing and that sort of thing, but no one uses the Gift....”

  Apparently no one else thought it was a stupid question, because a wary silence descended on the group. Finally Nala cleared her throat uneasily.

  “In Karse, before Solaris, they used to test children for the Gift of Healing and sacrifice them if they were too old or too strong-willed to be indoctrinated into the priesthood,” she said slowly. “You don’t suppose that these barbarians do the same thing, do you?”