“They have no leader, not in the sense you mean,” I told him. “Where are the men who manage the hunts for you? What about healers?”
Darni was scowling. “ ’Sar needs a healer, if we do nothing else here.”
“Yes, I know.” I stifled my irritation. “Healers or trackers might be able to tell us where the Mountain Men are attacking. Does anyone have a map?”
Both wizards shook their heads but Sorgrad looked up from making a rough head count. “I know the lay of the land around here pretty well.”
“Where would we find a healer?” I asked the man.
“Yonder.” He pointed to the outcrop overhanging a wide, shallow cave. We picked our way through the dense gathering, unease rippling outward as ’Gren and Sorgrad were noticed, blond heads in stark contrast to the varied shades of red and brown all around. The tenor of the murmurs was distinctly unfriendly. The Folk who had arrived with us dropped away to their own people, the sharp tone of questions rising here and there. I smiled reassuringly at Sorgrad but he remained grim-faced. The air grew thick with tension rather than heavy with the apathy of defeat; these Folk might lack any formal leadership but they could still find common cause in lynching Sorgrad and ’Gren quick enough.
A daunting number of people were wrapped in soiled blankets on the broad shelf of rock beneath the crag. Green poultices and oddly stained dressings covered wounds to arms, hands and heads. A double handful of men and women were busy among the prostrate figures, lifting heads to give sips from wooden cups or pellets of closely wrapped leaves for chewing. One of the healers was kneeling beside a gray-haired woman whose eyes were hidden beneath a swathe of linen.
“More work for us, Bera?” he asked with a shadow of a smile. Old blood was black on the front of his tunic and caked around his fingernails.
“This is Harile,” our guide nodded. “A leg wound for you and a puzzle for the rest of us,” he told the healer.
Usara limped forward and Harile’s attention immediately focused on the mage’s stained dressing. “Let me see.”
Usara leaned on his crutch, unlacing his breeches awkwardly. He gritted his teeth as Harile gently eased the foul linen away. The bruising was now a nauseous greenish purple covering most of the wizard’s skinny thigh and the wound looked ominously swollen and angry, seeping with yellow pus. I’d thought Usara had been lucky to catch a glancing blow; after all, if the bone had been broken, we would have been in a great deal more trouble. Now I wasn’t so sure. He might well lose the leg anyway and that infection could kill him regardless.
Harile spoke rapidly to a woman of easily twice my heft, round-faced with a solid bulk to her. She poured water from a kettle hung over a small and smokeless fire and added a judicious selection of herbs from a bag at her belt to the bowl. As she approached, I realized she was singing Orial’s healing song under her breath. Harile picked up the refrain in an absent whistle, using the warm and fragrant liquid to wash away the crusted mess. “The bruising makes it look worse than it is.”
Usara’s shoulders sagged and he scrubbed a trembling hand over his face, a pathetic figure with his breeches around his knees, shirt grubby beneath the soiled front of his gown. Testing one’s magic against the wider world is all very well, I thought, but that’s a wizard who’s going to be mighty glad to be safe on his hidden island again. I wondered if he’d make it with one leg or two.
“There are herbs we can poultice to promote healing,” continued Harile. “We can dull the discomfort and you must rest for your body to mend itself.”
“You’ll be fine, ’Sar,” said Darni briskly as the mage eased his breeches up painfully. “Now, where were you attacked and by what numbers?”
An older man with wiry white hair fringing a bald pate above a lean, keen face pushed past Bera. “What do you know of the storm that has burst over us?”
“This is Apak,” said Bera hastily. “The eldest of trackers.” He was backed by a double handful of people looking just as hard for answers.
Darni looked down with unconscious arrogance. “I am an agent of the Archmage of Hadrumal, Planir the Black. Usara is a mage deep in his confidence and Gilmarten is a wizard of Solura, traveling with us.” His tone forbade further inquiry but Gilmarten bowed hastily.
“Are mages to blame for this calamity?” Apak returned
Darni’s haughtiness in full measure, thumbs tucked in his belt. “We know the Men of the Mountains are backed by magic, make no mistake.”
“I can assure you their enchantments are none of our doing.”
I was relieved to hear a more moderate tone in the big man’s words but Apak snorted, unimpressed. “And what of you three?” His eyes and those at his back were hard and distrustful. I felt ’Gren stir beside me, reacting badly to the palpable hostility coming from all sides.
“We were looking to trade in the Western Ranges,” said Sorgrad soberly, accents of Col resonant in his words. “We were summarily expelled from the heights and we have been pursued with murderous intent.” He indicated Usara and the rest of us still spotted with blood in our stale clothing, his expression neutral in the face of accusing stares.
“What do the Men of the Mountains want with us?” demanded Apak, pent-up frustration finding a target in us. “Why are we fugitives in the wildwood that should shelter us?” He was spitting and stumbling over his words, Forest accents distorting his fluent Tormalin. “Me and mine were grazing our donkeys in the upper margins while the grass was good, the women harvesting herbs, the rest hunting hare or fox. We set our sura in the customary places; the Mountain people have turned their flocks to the upper pastures by now and are busy at their diggings, but some always travel down to trade metal goods and pottery for herbs and woodwork.” The anger in Apak’s face faded to perplexity. “When we saw some men coming, we thought nothing of it, but they carried swords and spears and outnumbered us two for every one. They called us thieves and parasites, cursing us for hunting their lands, saying we stole their pelts. They burned our sura, broke whatever they could lay hands on or cast it into the flames. The women were taken against their will, those who resisted whipped raw.” Burning rage surged in his voice. “We hunt those slopes both sides of Solstice but leave them willingly when the season turns. Mountain Men come down from the heights and we move south before the snows.” His voice trailed off as he gazed into some evil memory. “We fled, what else could we do?”
We were the center of attention, Folk moving closer, abandoning their low-voiced conversations.
“And then?” prompted Darni with more gentleness than I expected.
“Not enough for them to drive us from the margins,” spat Apak. “They followed us deep into the greenwood. Every time we halted, we were attacked, no matter how we sought to hide or evade them. Those standing firm were cut down and those who fled were trapped with magic.” The word was a curse on his lips, echoed in murmurs from those ringing us. I was looking for the fastest way to get clear. Sorgrad and ’Gren could take care of themselves and Darni and his mages would just have to take their chances.
“What was the nature of the sorcery?” demanded Usara.
“What do I know of magic?” Apak glowered at Usara before turning his wrathful gaze on Sorgrad, who was doing his best to look wholly inoffensive, and ’Gren, who was fidgeting with growing defiance.
“Just tell us what happened,” I requested politely.
“People ran mad.” Apak’s voice shook. “Men who know every bend of branch between here and the southern seas were utterly lost. Some ran in terror from sister or brother, straight onto the blades of the uplanders. Others turned on their own, striking them down with hand, knife, fire irons, cook pots.” His perplexity and trepidation was mirrored on faces all around. “The Men of the Mountains laughed to see it and then they killed them.”