She moved herself to hover over the boy, then slowly let herself merge with him. Her awareness passed through the skin, a protective envelope of sickly pink energy, damaged here and there by the tiny scratches and cuts any active child could get in playing, and which also had its share of insect bites, which appeared to her as inflamed half-spheres, glowing a sullen red. There was no sign of major infection in the skin, however, and she passed on without soothing the insignificant hurts, saving her strength for a greater foe.
His muscles were next, muscles that were well-developed for a child so young; tough and strong, flexible ropes that twisted and sent off sparks that meant pain as Jendey tossed in fever. There was something deeply amiss here, but it was not within the muscles themselves.
So far, I’ve guessed right. Just to be certain that she had not missed something, she did not sink further to examine the nerves quite yet.
Instead, she went to the torso as she had been taught, to make certain that the source of his sickness was not in the organs, and began with the heart. An infection of the organs could have been pouring paralyzing poisons into Jendey’s blood, poisons that affected the nerve-net, but which originated elsewhere.
At this time, there was no sign of strain or irritation there either, nor in the gut - but the lungs were congested and irritated, displaying the sullen red glow of inflammation. But they were, as yet, no more serious than a bad cold.
But there was definitely something desperately wrong, for all the body’s defenses were mobilized. All along the paths of the blood, the body’s defensive armies swarmed, healing energies flowed, yet they traveled to no central battleground, as if they were confused and could not find a target.
Just as confused and desperate as I am. . . .
She shoved away the thought. Failure was not an option.
She turned her awareness to the spine, sank deeper yet, looking for the black miasma of damage, the sullen murk of attack.
Then she found it - and nearly withdrew, appalled at the magnitude of the problem she faced.
The enemy was tiny, tiny, but numbered in countless millions. It subverted the child’s own body to create millions more selves with every passing moment. No wonder this fever could not be fought with herbs and medicines - it overwhelmed by sheer numbers, killing the child in the act of spawning more selves from his very substance!
But she had seen this kind of enemy before - just not so virulent, and not centered in the nerve-net and spine. At least she knew the enemy’s face now - and she knew how to combat it, provided she had the strength.
She drove down her fear, fear that threatened to send her fleeing back to her own body, all her work left undone. She gathered her own energies, and lashed out at the enemy with lances and light shafts of purest emerald green. The enemy swallowed her energies and millions of attacking creatures perished - a little damaged, but only a little, and in the next moment, the multitude surged back to life and strength.
Now it didn’t matter; now there was nothing but action.
This was the moment when she should have been afraid; she should have given up. But now the instinct of the Healer had her in a grip that drove everything else out of her mind; she was caught in the battle, and could not have pulled away if she wished it. She had been warned of this suicidal drive for self-sacrifice, the trap that the strongest Healers were all too prone to fall into, and if there had been another Healer there, he would have pulled her out. It was too late -
Thought had been squeezed into a tiny compartment cut off from action, crammed in with the terrible, ice-cold fear. Nothing existed for her but the enemy hordes - and the energies with which she lashed them, heedless of what the energy drain was doing to herself.
And more; energy drained from her faster than she could replace it. This was a battle she was doomed to lose - and when she lost it, the enemy would move to take her. But she no longer cared.
You know, this would probably be going better if we hadn’t awakened the Captain out of a sound sleep.
One lantern illuminated the inside of the tent the two Heralds shared; birds twittered outside, expecting the dawn. Inside, Kerowyn made her feelings known, while Eldan had made himself vanish, in a sound diplomatic move.
“You did what?” Kerowyn shouted, with incredulous wrath, when Darian finished his report. Darian stood his ground, backed by the Valdemaran Healers, by Nightwind, and by Firesong; they made quite a crowd in Kerowyn’s tent, but didn’t quite spill out into the open.
He was backed by them, but he had insisted on doing his own talking. “I did this, and I’m not a coward who hides behind other people when it comes to standing by what I did; I can defend myself,” he had told them, and had been rewarded by the approval in the eyes of both Nightwind and Firesong.
He felt a little sorry for Kerowyn’s officers, who by now, if they had intended to sleep until true-dawn, had been denied that opportunity by the shouting. And if it hadn’t been that he’d never been so sure in his entire life that he had done the right thing, he might well have bolted.
“We had a tactical opportunity that wasn’t going to come along again, Herald-Captain,” he said steadily, looking straight into her eyes and refusing to be intimidated by her fury. “Furthermore, you may be in command of the assembled fighters, but I’m not one of the fighters. I’m a mage, and not one under your command. I’m a mage with four years of field experience, as well, and I am accustomed to being expected to think for myself. We had our primary objective. We’ve gotten the language, which Tyrsell can now take from his own memory and give to anyone else. Keisha and I took the opportunity that was presented to us precisely because, in terms of personnel, it offered a substantial gain - versus, at worst, the minimal loss of a single noncombatant. We had the boy in a vulnerable position, and a moment of opportunity to extract a single fever victim, a moment that was rapidly vanishing. Neither of us is a good enough Mindspeaker to contact superiors for advice. There wasn’t time to do anything but act.”
Talk to her in tactical terms, was what Firesong had advised him. Don’t talk to her in terms of Healer’s Oaths or humanitarian motives. Give her gains versus losses. I’m not saying she won’t see and appreciate the humanitarian motives, just that she’s a commander first, and that’s how she’s going to react. Once she finishes reacting to the insubordination, she’ll move right into thinking and analyzing.
Firesong was right; as she listened to him, the scowl faded to a mere frown, and the frown to a grimace. Finally she threw her hands in the air.
“All right,” she acknowledged. “I can see that. I just thank the gods that I don’t have anyone else in my ranks who’s got the curse of thinking for himself.”