In the end, three of the ten scouts had perished while fifteen of the ambushers were felled. The corpses of those that faced Ferron had been crushed into pulp, organs held together by the armor that they wore. There were five of them scattered along the gully, the paste that was their bodies leaking endlessly into the soil around them. The grisly sight forced Valentin to understand how Ferron’s choice to join personally saved the scouting party.
Some of the horses were not recovered in the storm and forced some of the party to depart without their steeds. The corpses of friend and foe alike were tethered to the returning horses and dragged along the muck of the gully. If any had still clung desperately to life, they had now certainly drowned in the mud.
Valentin did not dwell on the fates of the dead for long. The pain in his body rattled his attention towards the throbbing wound that had yet to lessen. Rain of the early cycle pelted them with cold water and drained the energy from Valentin’s body. His endeavors turned to staying awake. He did not wish to be another body dragged behind the horses, clattering off the rocks and roots of the path.
Eternity passed inside the forest. The procession moved at a crawl due to the weather and the additional burden placed on the horses. The deluge of water continued as though spirits willed the entire region to be submerged. Water soaked through Valentin’s boots and sank his feet into two chilled puddles that sloshed in his wool socks.
Even when they left the tree line and entered the village, Valentin did not truly realize it. He was numb by then, as though he were not within his own body. He was a passive observer of a body possessed by something else. His mind slept as his body continued.
The small creek had grown significantly in size and ferocity since he had rode over it earlier that day. It drank greedily from the sky and had hastened in its speed, rushing off to wherever it spilled out. Snapped branches and other refuse that had been carried from upstream swept by at speed. Crossing would be dangerous for a regular person. It would be easy to become another piece of debris to be lifelessly delivered to the end.
In his delirium, he silently watched Ferron motion to Hrost and both men dropped to their knees with the backs of their palms laid flat to the ground. Elane stepped upon the men’s outstretched hands. With a crackle of energy racing up their arms, they threw the deggan over the width of the water. The distribution of favor between the throwers were clearly uneven and she tumbled through the mud on the other side. She rose unsteadily to her feet and brushed off the muck, no doubt offering a mean glare to the ones that threw her.
Ferron gave a curious glance towards Hrost, who was knelt over coughing his lungs out. Silently, Ferron signaled for the old warrior to leave in favor of another able bodied one.
Morna, seeing the throw before, decided to trust in her own abilities. With a long running start, the warrior’s legs sparked and catapulted her cleanly across the newly birthed river. Her boots planted on the other side and she slid for a moment before regaining her balance and stood beside, an even less pleased, Elane.
Now that messengers were dispatched to the other side of the creek to inform the main camp of what transpired, Ferron led the remaining group towards the village that Tiarna Marche once called his headquarters.
It was not in the best shape, many of the homes had taken damage during the Armée’s brief, but devastating rampage through the settlement. The ones that were untouched were shuttered to weather out the storm.
However, the ones that Ferron had captured and spared the battle prior were more than willing to take in the waterlogged warriors. Valentin had noticed when passing through the first time that several of the buildings in the village had been damaged or destroyed altogether. While Ferron had put a halt to the looting in exchange for provisions trading and camping, the order had come too late and a portion of the village had everything taken from them.
Valentin was given itchy clothing while his armor dried and fed a meager soup crafted of ingredients of early Bláth. The flavor was unremarkable but it left a pit of warmth inside his stomach that slowly spread throughout the rest of his body.
The boy curled up near the fire and dreamed of growingly twisted iterations of the battle that he had just survived. A battle if Ferron wasn’t there, a battle if he hadn’t reached Hrost in time, and, most troubling, a battle without Morna. The dreamscape warped everything into unidentifiable shapes and concepts. Spirits of sleep annihilated the familiar and replaced them with indescribable alterations that still felt starkly real.
He awoke, and while the visions evaporated, the more striking thought remained. Morna had saved his life, further complicating things within his mind. Even his dreams agreed that no matter how it was twisted, that woman’s desire for him was what saved his life. Ferron was too far, Hrost was surrounded, and the other scouts were focused on surviving.
Where did that leave him? When he thought of her, unpleasant emotions still bubbled to the surface much more than the gratitude of his rescue. He still wanted distance between them. What was it that he wanted from her to spare his mind? Would her death finally end these emotions, this sickening aberration that pulsed inside him? He doubted it, but some part of him still desired retribution. What kind, however, remained undetermined.
He chased his tail within these thoughts for a while. The rain on the thatch roof was still pattering, even on the following day. The only interruptions for a time stemmed from a shooting pain whenever he moved his shoulder a certain way. He had awoken with his arm compressed in cloth. When the cloth was changed, it revealed a ghastly purple splotch on his shoulder. He silently thanked his Aunt Yvonne at that moment. The armor that she had provided had also played a large role in his ultimate survival.
He was left alone in the hut for much of that following day, only seen by a woman living in the house to feed him and check his arm. Ferron had arrived to eat around midday. He spoke to Valentin about the effort to ford the river with the help of the village. He bemoaned at the lack of knowledge that Celfor possessed about the region, saying that the noble was ill prepared for a drawn out conquest.
Every Bláth, the creek would grow in the rain storms that covered the region before dwindling to the small size that the invaders encountered. If the rains had come before Ferron attacked, they would have been delayed even further, playing deeper into the stratagems of the mysterious foe that Ferron had taken special interest in.
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A stone bridge further upriver allowed small groups to pass between the village and the camp. The exchange of supplies and warriors would ultimately serve to hasten the efforts to ford the river in more locations.
Valentin’s first visitor from across the stone bridge was Zalavo. It was easy to detect the man entering the hovel before Valentin could even see him. The man was doldrums given flesh. His even energy and neutral personality cut even more sharply on days where the sky was chaotic.
He lowered himself to Valentin’s level with the same facial expression he always equipped and immediately went to inspect his shoulder. There was little in the way of conversation between them. It was something that Valentin appreciated about the healer. Zalavo made comments to himself about the state of the wound but had yet to speak to Valentin directly.
The healer poked and prodded and twisted the shoulder, taking note of Valentin’s reaction to the pain that entered his body.
“A mild shoulder injury,” Zalavo concluded. “Only the flesh is bruised without any signs of a breakage. It will hurt for several days but the young heal quickly. I can brew something that will dull the pain but there will be nothing else required.”
Zalavo poured water into a ceramic vessel dotted with holes along the top edge. From a small pouch, he procured various herbs and spices and ground them with a mortar and pestle. He scooped the paste into the vessel. Finally, he uncorked a familiar red vial and placed a few drops into the concoction. The brew was set on a rack over the fire.
“What is in that vial? You seem to use it in everything,” Valentin questioned with curiosity.
Zalavo raised a dubious eyebrow at the boy’s question. He uncorked the vial and held it under Valentin’s nose. “You tell me what it is.”
A familiar aroma filled Valentin’s nose. It was something that he had smelled quite frequently since he joined Ferron. His stomach grew agitated at the scent in remembrance of the ordeal it had been put through recently.
“Blood.”
“Indeed,” Zalavo confirmed, returning the vial to his pouch. “My blessing stems from the blood of the Silorans. My flesh mends wounds and cures illnesses, in proper amounts.”
“Then what is the purpose of the tea if the blood is what is healing me?” Valentin responded.
“Using the proper remedies means that I only need to use a little blood to make it effective. Without the rest of the ingredients, you’d need to drink half this vial. It would do nobody any good if I die from blood loss trying to address so many battlefield wounds.”
“I see,” Valentin responded, understanding the answer.
A quiet returned between the two until the vessel began to make whistling noises as steam poured from its holes. Lifted from the rack, the vessel ceased its screaming and the contents were poured into a cup.
Valentin blew on the simmering contents of the cup. He tried to nurse the liquid on his mouth, but the searing on the tip of his tongue urged for more patience from the boy. Instead, he used the warmth of the cup to head up his hands.
Zalavo returned to his feet. “I will return tomorrow to brew you another dose. You should be fine after that. Until then, I urge you to remain here and rest.”
Before the healer could depart, Valentin asked one more burning question that was in his mind. “Did you manage to save all those wounded from before?”
“Those that had the will to continue living will survive. I have created the path for them, they just have to take it.”
Valentin’s second visitor was Leith. The druid looked exhausted compared to when Valentin had first met the man. It had only been a handful of days since the previous battle and Leith looked like he had yet to sleep since then. He dragged his body into the hovel. His spirit hung somewhere above him and threatened to detach entirely.
In one hand, he carried a steaming bowl of soup. In the other, a loaf of bread. He wordlessly set the food before Valentin. The boy poked at the soup for a short time before speaking to the specter that stood over him.
“You should sit and rest a moment, Druid Leith. You look exhausted.”
The druid slid towards the floor with a grunt. His head tilted back and his eyes transfixed on a nondescript section of the ceiling.
Trying to prevent Leith’s energy from spoiling his meal, Valentin dug into his soup. He tore some of the bread and allowed the porous crumb of the bread to grow soggy with the hot liquid. He stuffed the soggy mass of food into his mouth and savored the flavor. The broth was richer than normal, a much more pleasing meal than he had experienced in several days.
“Thank you for the meal, Druid Leith,” Valentin said graciously, unaware of how hungry he had actually been. “Why did you deliver it personally? Miss Anne has been bringing me my meals recently. I’m sure you had more important things to do than be my porter.”
Leith spoke in a soft voice that only tickled Valentin’s ears with sound. He spoke without sound while continuing to crane his neck towards the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” Valentin spoke up after he failed to hear the druid. “You need to speak up.”
“Burning them tomorrow,” Leith croaked. “This was the only opportunity to offer you your power without others noticing. I thought it’d taste terrible after all this time, so I offered to bring your meal and slipped it in afterwards.”
The soaked corpses of those slain during the ambush were not able to be burned with their bodies and the weather in such a condition. To prevent anything from spreading into the village, the bodies were covered in a canvas tarp under a tree. Leith and Maeve would take shifts praying over the corpses to keep the curious tendrils of yet named spirits away for a time.
Valentin stared into his bowl stoically. The revelation of the flavor improvement in his dish upset him for a variety of reasons. The prime among them being he had enjoyed this soup more than he had the previous iterations. Should he feel horror at the knowledge? This blood was several days old at this point, left open to the elements. Should he be relieved that his reaction was not nearly as severe as the first time?
He took another bite to see if this knowledge changed his feelings. The taste was worse now with the understanding of the ingredients served. This bowl had some morsels of shredded meat within it. Valentin seized in horror over the possibility. Surely, it was too far. His imagination was running away from him.
“Leith,” Valentin began, almost too scared to ask. “What meat is in this soup?”
“Rooster,” Leith responded listlessly. “Got kicked in the head by a horse and broke its neck. Why-”
Leith’s mind answered the question he was about to pose.
“The Mother weeps,” Leith said, his head dropping to one side so that he could watch Valentin.
The boy, just relieved that he had not crossed a boundary he had not prepared for, finished the soup. It was not as good as the initial bite, but it did not revolt him like he had feared.
The energy within him bounced around erratically after he consumed the power. It felt like the currents of favor that flowed through him were interrupted by the introduction of this new source of power. He focused inward to try to untangle these knots in his favor and return it to the normal, unnoticeable flow.
“Am I being punished?” Leith seemed to ask the spirits that resided above him. “These past few days have been some of the lowest in my life. My belief in those above me is shaken, taboos that I believed carved into immutable stone have been shattered, and the dead that I’ve seen stacked in pyres for me to send off. You know, I typically reside over the burning of individuals. Sometimes multiple in the case of a tragedy or disease. I burned a hundred in a night and those around me commented as though the only thing remarkable about the battle was how ill equipped some of the enemy was.”
Valentin did not respond immediately, for he did not have an answer to the question that Leith asked. He had been wondering the same thing about his own position and an answer had not reached him. Perhaps everyone was being punished in their own way. But if they were receiving unseen retribution, who was the one delivering it upon them?
“If you are being punished, what would you call those that died?”
Leith’s head rolled back to the ceiling.
“Fuck.”