| |
––––––––
She found him lying on the side of the road, bruised and bleeding but not entirely unconscious.
Coming from the town square, Joss Brevyn had been scouring the roadways from atop her horse, his dark brown coat matching the wagon trudging along next to them. Her short, equally dark hair was tied back to keep the heat off her neck, and her honey-colored eyes were tired but alert. She observed out of habit when, in between the creaking of the wagon’s wheels, there came the unmistakable groan of a person.
Signaling to her assistant who directed the wagon, he pulled on the reins, bringing the blue roan mare to a stop. Joss continued to listen, noticing a break in the bushes lining the other side of the road as if something had fallen there. Then, within seconds, the sound came again.
“We have a live one today?” her assistant asked quietly as Joss dismounted. She didn’t have to look at Henrik Vanzant to see his amusement of finding a body that wasn’t dead this time.
“Seems like it.” Taking the small pistol from inside her boot, she followed the noise, approaching the area cautiously. Pushing some branches out of the way, she found him, lying back against the ground. The brush had broken his fall and parts of itself in the process.
It wasn’t uncommon to find a body nestled in the undergrowth near the roadways, whether resting for a moment or eternity. What struck her as odd was how he landed. It was as if he had been pushed from a carriage or wagon, thrown away in hopes to never be found again. While that, too, wasn’t uncommon among the riffraff lying in the underbelly of Galmoor’s society, it was a curious thing to see who had been tossed aside.
Given the stranger’s size and frame, he looked well-built and fed, and despite his clothes being torn and stained with blood, she could tell the fabric was good quality, tailored to fit him. These were small but blatant signs he was on the more affluent end of the social spectrum. With most of Galmoor on the mid-to-poor end, she would have placed him easily as a noble. However, the way he was beaten and discarded told a different story, a method usually bestowed on someone from the seedy parts of town. Even those she found robbed on the roadways hadn’t received this kind of pummeling. The wounds were inflicted with such passion and anger that it couldn’t be anything but a personal attack.
The fact that the man still fought to stay conscious surprised her the most. His nose was broken and one eye swollen, the other barely able to stay open. His hair was an unruly mess of tainted gold, tinged with dirt and caked in blood. When she came towards him, he pulled away, a helpless attempt at evading an attack he’d already lost.
“Easy,” she soothed, keeping her hands in front of her so he saw she meant no harm. He stared, seething and trembling, until eventually his muscles relaxed, a sign he had given in.
“Henrik, grab the gurney!” she called back to her assistant, who had hopped off the wagon and stood a couple yards back, his own dagger in hand. Both horses remained on the other side of the road, their training evident in how relaxed they were in their stances, beyond used to this type of scenario.
Upon hearing her request, Henrik hurried to the back of the wagon, moving the supplies around so he could get the makeshift stretcher out.
As he worked, Joss put the small pistol back in her boot and began analyzing the stranger’s injuries, talking comfortingly to him. “You’re bad off, but I’ve seen worse,” she told him, realizing that while some of the blood had dried, a few of his wounds were still fresh. That only meant whoever had done this wasn’t too far away.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asked, but the stranger only laid there. Whether he understood her or not, she wasn’t sure. His half-shut eye wasn’t a good indicator he was even paying attention, though a part of her had a nagging suspicion he was more lucid than he looked.
The bruising was ugly and the cuts were deep, but the most concerning one was in his upper thigh, peeking through a large rip in his pants. She tried to control the bleeding with her own belt, wrapping it high above the wound and against the main artery. She tightened it as best she could, latching the belt in one of the holes she had purposely made for this exact occasion.
Henrik reappeared, placing the gurney nearby. Without prompt, he used his dagger to start cutting some of the branches in order to move them out of the way. “Where are we going to take him?” he asked, feeling out the situation. While they were still on the outskirts of Galmoor, the town of Lochaven wasn’t too far away, often an alternative place to bring the dead and dying when needed.
“We’ll take him home.”
Henrik stopped in his tracks; hand in midair, a cut left unfinished. “Joss, we can’t,” he breathed out, his hazel eyes round in disbelief.
“All the infirmaries are overcrowded. His wounds will get infected and there’s a good chance he’ll lose his leg. He has better odds with us.”
Henrik couldn’t deny any of it. There was no surprise that the border wars had lasted too long, and it didn’t help that their ally—the kingdom of Correnth—had recently pulled their soldiers back home for unknown reasons. The shift had caused the injured to accumulate, pushing them deeper into Aselian’s land for help and leaving all the nearby infirmaries overcrowded. Most of the injured that journeyed this far had been well enough in the beginning, but there were so many and they kept coming, the quality of care reducing to mere hopes and prayers. It didn’t help that the shipments of supplies coming from Correnth had stopped as well, making medicines and other goods hard to come by. What was left over from previous shipments had been hoarded at the front lines, leaving fellow villages to fend for themselves.
“We’ve done this before,” she reminded him as she too worked to remove the interfering branches by hand. There had been a handful of others before this man, and she expected more would follow afterwards.
“What if he finds out—” Henrik stopped himself, running a hand through his tussled, mud-brown hair.
What if he finds out what we are?
It was a question he couldn’t fully ask, yet Joss heard it just the same. She eyed him, unable to answer. Only one man they had saved caused trouble, a very long time ago. The rest had simply left, making sure no one knew what household had helped them. But none of them had worn nice enough clothes like that one before, his physical state similar to the man who laid before her now. The contrast hadn’t gone unnoticed, making her just as uncomfortable as her comrade.
Joss looked at the stranger on the ground, finding his eye closed as he breathed more deeply. “I’ll see if Garrett can spare a room,” she concluded, falling back to clearing a path.
Neither said anything more as they worked, clearing enough room so Henrik could lift the man’s legs and pull him out of the undergrowth so he was parallel with the gurney. Every action sent the man seething—at one point, growling—as they moved him into position, scraping over branches and foliage that weren’t reachable.
Now in the clear, Joss examined him better. “Lacerations on his shoulder, three-to-four bruised ribs, if not cracked,” she noted as if reading a list. On and on she named his injuries, most of them bruises with a few shallow cuts. “We’re going to need the blanket,” she said offhandedly as she analyzed his shoulder again.
Hurrying to the wagon, Henrik grabbed the blanket nestled under some kindling. Jogging back, he helped Joss lift the man’s body as carefully as they could, allowing room for them to work the blanket underneath the stranger so it would cradle his head and shoulders.
“We’ll need to be quick to lift him so we don’t make these injuries worse,” she reminded Henrik as they finished, who nodded in understanding. Henrik didn’t like the plan, she could tell, but saying she would talk to Garrett gave him hope that this stranger wouldn’t be their burden. There were food rations due to the influx of soldiers coming and going, and the thought of feeding another mouth that also needed ample amounts of medicine was wreaking havoc on Henrik’s nerves.
Joss got into position at the man’s shoulders, gathering the ends of the blanket, while Henrik went back to the man’s feet. “Sure you don’t want to trade?” he asked, knowing Joss needed to rest. Their job at the town square earlier had been more exhausting than normal, and both could feel their own muscles ache as they worked around the beaten man.
“I’ll be fine. I want to make sure this shoulder is protected,” she explained. She hadn’t realized how bad that injury was at first because she’d been so focused on the deep cut on his thigh.
“Ready?” Henrik asked.
With an assertive nod, Joss used the blanket to help lift the man up and over, Henrik following along perfectly. The man was dead weight, something they both braced themselves for, moving as quickly as possible before losing their grips. Just as the stranger let out a painful grunt from the movements, they laid him on the gurney.
“Take his feet, I’ll take the head,” Henrik instructed, to which Joss didn’t fight as she tied the ends of the blanket to help keep the stranger’s arms from falling over the sides. Taking their posts, they both lifted the gurney and began the trudge back to the wagon.
Walking backwards, Joss tripped over a stone in the roadway, the misstep being close to her horse, which caused him to snort in surprise. “Calm down, Drakon. It’s been a long day,” she mumbled as they rounded the wagon.
Henrik lifted his end of the gurney onto the bed of the wagon. Expertly switching places as the man laid suspended in between them, Joss, who climbed into the wagon, lifted the gurney enough so Henrik could help slide him in. Setting him down as gently as they could, she was pushing some of the rope they had bought out of the way when a word escaped the stranger’s lips.
“Aric.”
Stopping, Joss stared at him, finding his eye squinting up at her. In the light, she caught sight of his eye color. It was a bright shade of green, flashing like sunlight through leaves.
“Aric,” she repeated.
Something moved underneath the blanket, and she found it was his arm sliding up to rest on his chest. With blood-stained fingers, he tapped his chest tiredly.
His name, she thought.
“Very nice to meet you, Aric,” she replied sincerely. “We’re going to take care of you as best as we can. The road is going to get bumpy, so you’ll need to hang on a while longer.”
With a final smile, Joss moved away, jumping down from the wagon and meeting Henrik’s gaze, seeing that he had overheard the conversation. There was a worry between them, hesitation that she would say too much to the stranger. But seeing she didn’t, Joss watched him swallow the lump in his throat before he nodded to her and climbed into the front seat of the wagon.
Stifling a sigh, Joss gathered Drakon’s reins, mounting swiftly into the saddle. She minded the ax, still nestled in its holder with the leather wrapped around its blade for protection. Directing the horse forward, Joss stayed next to the wagon as Henrik clicked to the mare, the wheels of the wagon creaking forward as they moved. The stranger in the back fell silent despite the uneven jolts of the wagon’s movements, and Joss stared at him for a moment to see if he was still alive until suddenly that one good eye opened, glancing up and around at the sky before closing again.
Joss admired him for it; she knew men who cried over much less.
The trio continued down the roadway, meandering through the countryside. They passed under trees, crossed over a stone bridge where a lazy river glided by, stretching for miles in both directions. Slowly the cobblestone fences of the neighboring farmlands disappeared, replaced by wild brush, making up the wilderness that collected itself on the edges of town. As if to mark the occasion, Joss spotted their cottage, its peak roof standing dark among the thick greenery that suffocated it.
Driving the wagon off the roadway onto the lane that wound straight to the cottage and barn, Joss noticed the riders first. There were three of them, two perched on their horses, acting bored. The third was pacing, and she knew that pace before she saw the man’s face.
Even if they wanted to be quiet, the wagon announced their arrival for them. The riders perked up and the man came to an immediate halt, his bald head gleaming with sweat that contradicted the fullness of his gray beard and mustache. Neither Joss nor Henrik picked up the pace, forcing the man to meet them halfway, trudging towards them in such an assertive way that Joss wondered if they should have saluted when they stopped in front of him.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, crossed arms emphasizing his question.
“Pleased to see you as well, Quinn. You look as ravishing as usual,” Henrik replied with happy sarcasm.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed at him. “Cut the crap. I’ve been waiting here for over half an hour.”
“Such a long wait,” Henrik murmured, silenced only when Joss interrupted.
“We found a gentleman on the side of the road who needed help,” she explained.
“Playing doctor again?”
Joss could have taken it as an insult, but instead of feeding Quinn’s enthusiasm, she let the comment slide. “Was there something you needed, or did you just miss us so much from this morning?”
“You’re being summoned to Mortem Hall. A man needs to be interrogated.”
Joss stared at Quinn before her eyes wandered to Henrik. They both understood what interrogation meant, especially when it involved the jailhouse.
“It can’t wait until tomorrow?” she asked, leaning over in the saddle, the weight of her exhaustion showing.
“Lord Vaspin is already there, which is why I came to get you personally. He wants his confession immediately.”
Joss knew things like this typically weren’t dire matters unless someone close to the council was wronged and needed retribution right away. Quinn didn’t often leave the jailhouse, so when he did it meant it was urgent. His presence was a stronger message than the actual summon.
A moan escaped from behind, and while the two remained synced in their stance, Quinn stood up straighter. “You brought that injured man here?”
“He’s seen worse days,” Joss quipped as Quinn marched to the side of the wagon.
“Jesus, really?” Quinn balked, staring at the bloody mess before him. “You might as well put a bullet in his head and call it a day.”
“Good thing I’m his doctor, then,” Joss remarked, causing Henrik to grin.
Shaking his head, Quinn snapped his fingers, which instantly awoke his men. Dismounting their horses, they came forward as eagerly as new soldiers. “There’s a man in the wagon. Get him into the house. Henrik, you’ll stay with him. Joss—” Quinn eyed her “—we have to go.”
Joss didn’t reply, but then again, she didn’t have to. Quinn marched back towards his horse, finished with the conversation.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay doing this alone?” Henrik asked, knowing interrogations could be messy. It was the part of the job that actually made him cringe.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Joss smiled reassuringly to him before nodding her head to the stranger who was being dragged out of the wagon, his grunts and groans a sign they weren’t being gentle about it. “At least you have help getting him inside.”
“By how they’re handling him, he may be dead by the time they set him down.”
Joss stared after the stranger, curious about him as they carried him down the lane and across the yard. “Give him a small dose of the moon vine. It’ll put him out, so he’ll sleep through most of the pain. Use some of the neem oil to clean the minor cuts. Keep compresses on the deeper ones to help stop the bleeding, if need be. I should be back in time to take care of the rest.”
“What about the thymelock?”
Joss shook her head. She had already diluted what they had to stretch out the amount so they could make do, not knowing when another shipment would arrive at the local apothecary. “We’ll use it later, when we have to,” she replied.
Henrik nodded as Quinn reappeared, on his horse and eager to leave. No more words were exchanged as Quinn continued his quest back to Galmoor. Reluctantly, Joss turned Drakon back around. Quinn pushed his horse into a gallop, and while Joss followed, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back one more time, hoping she would be back before it was too late.
