Worse, to Hawklan, though, the place reeked of fear and horror. A spasm of anger ran through him.
‘A healer can’t rest while such pain cries out,’ he said, more severely than he had intended. Then, thus triggered, the anger came out as unhindered as it was unjust. ‘But you can, and must. You’re wearier than I am by far. You’ve younger officers who should be doing much of what you’re attempting. Let them do it, they’ll do it better and quicker. We’ve serious problems to discuss when these poor souls have been eased. It’s you who should rest, Ffyrst, not I.’
Girvan took a discreet step backwards.
Urthryn frowned furiously. ‘You’re powerfully free with your orders, Orthlundyn,’ he said barely restrain-ing his own anger.
Hawklan reflected the frown. ‘Fault my logic, Ffyrst,’ he said. ‘Better still, accept the wisdom of your people. Most of them are sleeping.’
Urthryn bit down his reply though it was with an effort. ‘Sylvriss said you were a remarkable man,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk later. When both of us are rested.’
As Urthryn left, Girvan paused briefly by Hawklan. ‘Your remarks were unnecessary, Orthlundyn,’ he said bluntly but without anger. ‘Think about swallowing them later. The Ffyrst is a wise and patient man, but he’s more than tired, he’s exhausted in every way. The journey we made might have been epic, but it was also grim and he left behind much quarrelling and bitter-ness. Then to find the Muster could offer so little at the end… ’
Hawklan nodded. ‘I know,’ he said regretfully. ‘Time and rest will see us all at greater ease. See him settled if you can, then rest yourself.’
When Girvan had gone, Hawklan cast a brief glance towards the group sitting silently around the peaceful form of Cadmoryth. He could do nothing there. He knew that, fisherman all, they were waiting for the turn of the tide that would take their comrade away.
Leaving them to their vigil, Hawklan strode off down the long aisle between two rows of beds. All around him were men, young men for the most part, suffering from fearful injuries. Those with lesser injuries were being treated in other places.
Here were severed and broken limbs; bodies, crushed and mutilated; the terrible gaping gashes and stab wounds made by swords and long bladed pikes. And, like a grim harmony note underlying everything, the thought of what must lie ahead of those who were healed. Maimed, abandoned and alone amongst their enemies.
He caught the eye of a man who in Orthlund might still have been an apprentice carver. He was bearded, but the fluffy blond mass served only to accentuate his fresh-faced youth. From his skull emerged the shaft of an arrow. Hawklan went to him and placed his hands about his face. The eyes slowly looked up at him, but they were blank.
The boy would live, Hawklan knew. Perhaps for a long time, but…
Rest? he thought. Would he could. His body ached with fatigue after the gruelling hours of fighting and then the even more gruelling hours of clearing the battlefield. But he had not lied to Urthryn; he could not rest while so much pain cried out. At their extremities, the warrior and the healer in him had little love for one another and their mutual anger marred him.
‘May I help?’ came a voice as he stood up from the young victim.
Turning he saw first Yengar and Olvric, then the speaker.
All three looked desperately tired. Hawklan sensed the third man for a healer, and his face was elusively familiar.
‘Marek,’ said the man, answering Hawklan’s ques-tioning expression. ‘Healer with the Lord Eldric’s High Guard. We met, or rather, I saw you, when you were… unconscious… at Lord Eldric’s. It’s good to see you whole again.’
‘You were sent with Queen Sylvriss to Dremark,’ Hawklan said, smiling, as he recalled both the memory of Marek’s face from that strange interlude following Oklar’s assault on him, and Agreth’s account of the Queen’s journey. ‘When did you arrive?’
‘An hour or so ago,’ Marek replied. ‘But everything’s so confused we had difficulty finding you.’
Hawklan’s smile broadened. ‘Came with one of the baggage trains, did you?’ he said.
‘Yes, and even that was hard going,’ Yengar said ruefully.
‘We didn’t last two days with Urthryn’s riders.’ He seemed distressed by this failure.
‘Set it aside, Goraidin,’ Hawklan said. ‘That journey will go down forever in Muster lore. It took no small toll of their own. Is the Cadwanwr with you… ’ He cast about for the name.
‘Oslang,’ Yengar said. ‘Yes. And the others are fol-lowing. He’s with Andawyr now, but he’s worse than we are. I doubt he’ll wake up before the rest arrive.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘You two find Dacu then rest awhile, there’s nothing for you to do here. Marek, see how things are, do as your heart moves you, you’re the best judge of your own worth at the moment.’
The Fyordyn looked around the tent and then back at Hawklan. ‘I’m tired through travelling uncomfortably and sleeping badly,’ he said. ‘But I’m sound, and fresh from tending Sylvriss, who in her present condition gives more than she receives.’ Hawklan felt Marek taking charge of him. ‘You on the other hand are almost spent. In a little while you’ll just be another burden. Go and rest.’
Hawklan frowned at Marek’s bluntness, but the healer’s words cut through his weariness and both cleared his vision and gave him the little strength he needed to accept what he saw. He looked about the noisy tent once more and, feeling the awesome weight of pain and fear in the place, realized he had been trying to carry it all in reparation for the part he had played in creating it. That was not healing.
‘You’re right,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve stayed too long. I’ll go for a walk then I’ll sleep-as instructed.’ He tilted his head towards the far end of the tent. ‘The Duty Healer’s over there if you’re going to stay.’
The cold struck him as he stepped out of the warmth of the tent. It was snowing; large damp flakes floating silently and leisurely down through the grey sky. The two Goraidin strode off purposefully towards the Command tent in search of Dacu, and Hawklan turned towards the sea.
As he walked, he let the countless unrepeating pat-terns of the swirling snowflakes fill his mind. Better they than the tangled mass of the thoughts he was still clinging to. He had not started this appalling juggernaut on its life-crushing journey; who could say what butterfly’s wings had? Such threads as he could unravel went back only to that spring morning when a bent and crooked tinker had appeared on the green at Pedhavin, and he could not see even those being woven into any other pattern. Nor, truly, was that pattern an ill one, despite the miasma of pain emanating from the sad heart of the hospital tent. His own words to the dying Cadmoryth returned to comfort him, ‘Who knows how many lives you’ve saved?’
Now, at least, Sumeral’s malice and intent stood plainly exposed; the Morlider were gone, leaving the Muster free to help in the struggle; the Orthlundyn had been tested in battle and their discipline had given them the day against fierce and overwhelming odds. The Cadwanwr too had met some great trial and survived; they would be the wiser for that. A good day’s haul indeed, he thought, even though much of him cried out still at the tragedy that such nets had had to be cast.
The sound of the sea brought him to a halt and he realized that he had walked further from the camp than he had intended. He was at the top of the slope that led down to the remains of the Morlider camp.
The falling snow was already obliterating many of the scars of the battle, though in so doing it was hindering the groups of Riddinvolk and Orthlundyn charged with the task of cleansing the area. Rows of bodies, already covered to protect them from the scavenging seabirds were slowly disappearing under a further, cold, shroud. Stacks of weapons and supplies too were merging anonymously with the whitening terrain.