The first thought I had, when I had any again, was that Hell wasn’t quite as warm as I’d thought it would be.

Hearing came after thought. I could hear the crackling of fire, and that seemed appropriate. Insects chirped and wind whispered through leaves, which seemed a bit out of place. The surface beneath me was hard and uneven, but I rested on a rough cloak or blanket. My hands searched and I found grass.

Alive. I was still alive. The thought gave me more worry than relief. Where was—

“I wouldn’t suggest moving too much,” a scratchy, mellow voice said. “You’re in a bad way, son, and I put a lot of effort into those stitches.”

I opened my eyes and ran them over my surroundings. I was in the forest still, and there were stars overhead. A campfire crackled nearby, and I had been stripped naked. My body was covered in layers of bandaging and, though sore, I was no longer bleeding my life out into the woodland undergrowth.

I was not alone. A figure sat opposite the fire, watching me. He was an old man, somewhere in the uncertain years beyond fifty, with a fringe of gray hair around a wide, leathery face tanned by sun. He was clad in a thick brown robe and watched me with deep-set, patient eyes the color of a moonlit lake. a pair of spectacles covered those eyes, making them appear huge and owlish.

“You,” the old man said, “should not be awake. I gave you some very strong poultices.” He frowned as though annoyed at me.

I didn’t reply, instead testing my own body. I wiggled my toes, then my fingers, making sure everything worked. Everything hurt, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. There was a curious numbness throughout my whole body, and something in the back of my mind muttered a panicked warning at that. I tried to speak and my voice emerged as a dull, nearly sub-audible croak.

The old man — a monk I thought, by his woolen robes — stood to hand me a skin I found to be full of water. He helped me drink it, and I was familiar enough with being wounded to let him. When I was able to speak, I did so in a hoarse whisper. “You’re a healer?” I swallowed, trying to better wet my throat. “A priest?”

The old man’s thin lips twitched. “A doctor, actually. Olliard of Kell, at your service.” His eyelids lowered and he inclined his head in something approximating a bow.

A potion brewer, I thought. An herbalist. He’d mentioned poultices, which explained the numbness in my limbs and my blurry thoughts. “How…” I tried to sit up and nearly blacked out as a lance of agony went through my hip.

Olliard of Kell laid a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. He was gentle, but surprisingly strong for his age and size. When I was back in position he nodded and said, “you’ve been down for nearly a day. I found you not far from the road. Or, Brume did.”

I frowned and looked around. There was no one else in the camp.

Olliard chuckled at my confusion. “My chimera. She and my apprentice are collecting water presently, at the stream nearby. They should return shortly.” He gestured toward one edge of the clearing.

“Ah.” I settled back, feeling myself relax a bit. A big part of me wanted to leap up and grab the nearest weapon, but I sensed I wasn’t in any danger. Stay calm, Al. If this man wanted you dead, you’d be dead.

The kindness of strangers. It seemed something more than a miracle, in the post-Fall world.

Olliard shuffled off and began to sort through the contents of a large pack. The fire crackled, and the wind played lazily through the leaves. I took the opportunity while the doctor’s back was turned to search for my equipment. I saw a suspicious cloth bundle nearby the right size for my weapon, but no sign of my clothes.

“My apprentice has your clothes drying near the stream,” Olliard said without turning. “They are quite ruined, but I’m afraid I had nothing else which can fit a man your size. Your weapon is there.” A long, calloused finger pointed toward the bundle I’d noticed.

I idly ran a thumb along my ring, checking it was still there. He’s not a thief then, I thought, and relaxed more.

“Then I owe you thanks,” I mumbled, still struggling to get much volume.

“You owe me nothing,” Olliard said. “This is my profession. We should both thank the Heir that I found you when I did. Another few hours, and there wouldn’t have been anything I could do.”

I was glad his back was turned and he couldn’t see me go still. A man of piety, then. I quelled the surge of shame I felt and settled back on the blanket, closing my eyes.

I lost time. When I was aware of the world again, Olliard was speaking with someone else in a low tone, his scratchy voice tinged with frustration.

“What would you have me do? Leave him there to die?”

“No, of course not.” The second voice was higher pitched, younger. A young woman’s, I thought, or even a girl. “But you don’t know who he is. He looks like some kind of brigand, and—”

“And that matters?” Olliard’s voice was arched, impatient. “We do not pick and choose who we help, Lisette. We are healers, not judges.”

“And if he was one of the men who attacked the monastery?” The girl, Lisette, asked. Her voice was tight with barely suppressed anger. “Who murdered my sisters and put my home to the torch? Would you heal him even then?”

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It was a while before the doctor replied. When he did he sounded tired. “That is not fair. He is not one of those men.”

Lisette’s voice became calmer, more reasonable. “The bells in Vinhithe were ringing for hours the other day. Something happened in the town, and there have been more patrols on the roads since. What if he had something to do with the commotion there? What if the mayor’s soldiers are trying to find him?”

“That is not our concern,” Olliard said, and his voice had become something more solid than it had been before, unbending as iron. “We will not leave him to die or turn him over to the ill mercies of the guard on suspicion. We will give him the chance to show us his quality before we damn him.”

“But—”

“That is the end of the discussion, Lisette.” Olliard sighed and spoke more kindly. “What would the abbess tell you?”

There was a pause, and Lisette answered in a sullen tone only lightly tinted with shame. “She would tell me to cleanse my heart of hate and let Her pass judgment.”

“Yes. This man has done nothing to earn it, other than carry arms. Perhaps he is a man of violence, but there are many such in the world and not all are monsters. Now, Brume is hungry. See to her, and then get some rest.”

“…Yes, master.”

If there was more conversation after that, I didn’t hear it. Darkness took me again.

******

When I came to again, it was morning. I needed to piss something fierce, and my mouth felt like it was full of scuttling dung beetles. Groaning, I shifted, winced, and managed to move a couple of inches.

“Be still,” a familiar, impatient voice said. I felt a cool hand on my collarbone and opened my eyes. A girl a year or two shy of twenty knelt over me, her features tense with concentration. She was golden-haired, wore the same brown robes as Olliard, and watched me with wary eyes brighter than the cloudless sky above her. When she saw me looking at her, those blue eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into a frown.

“You’re the apprentice,” I croaked. “Where’s the old man?”

“Sleeping,” Lisette said. “He’s been tending you for nearly two days. Now be silent. I need to redo these stitches.”

She was working at my collarbone, and it was only then I started to actually feel what she was doing — restitching the crossbow wound I’d taken in the shoulder. Long, thin fingers moved with assured dexterity, pulling lengths of thread from swollen flesh.

“Not very polite for a nun,” I mumbled.

The girl stiffened, and I winced as her fingers tightened on the thread. Her blue eyes flashed with anger as they fixed on mine. “How did you know I was—”

“Heard you and the old man talking,” I said, forcing myself to keep still so she didn’t inadvertently make the hole in my shoulder wider. “He mentioned a monastery and an abbess.” I glanced at her and, judging her age, made a guess. “You were a novice.”

The girl sniffed and continued to work at my shoulder, somewhat less gently than she had before. “That’s none of your business.”

“Sure,” I muttered. She was right, and I fell silent as she bound my wound. I closed my eyes and felt something more about the girl with my less worldly senses. There was a subtle thread of power running from her fingers as she worked, weaving itself into the fabric of the fine string even as she wove it into my flesh.

Aura. She was using magic, and a particularly delicate kind. The effort she made was very nearly subconscious, though I didn’t think the girl herself was unaware of it.

Not just a novice nun and a doctor’s apprentice, but a genuine cleric. Was the old man one, too?

No. There had been no trace of aura in the pastes and medicinal teas he had given me. I could be wrong, but my instincts told me that the girl had power, and the old doctor was just a skilled, but mundane, healer.

I would have to be cautious, lest she sense my own magic. I didn’t much feel like answering too many questions just then.

Almost as though sensing my guard going up, Lisette glanced at me without stopping her work. “We found you in a bad way. Your hip is broken, along with three ribs, and this wound practically went all the way to the other side.” She nodded at my shoulder. “Bruises, internal bleeding, the onset of infection… one might think you’d just come out the wrong side of a battle. Funny, though; there haven’t been any wars around here in years.”

“I’m glad,” I said mildly. “Wars are a bad business.”

“If not a war, then how were you injured?” The question was mild, remote.

I suppressed a sigh. “I had a disagreement. Weapons were involved.”

“I see.” The young healer’s fingers worked more stiffly, and I had to suppress another wince of pain as she tugged at my abused skin. “We also found tracks where we picked you up. A chimera, Olliard thinks, and a very large one. Yours?”

“Never much cared for them,” I said, shrugging the shoulder that didn’t have a hole in it.

“Then who did it belong to?”

I turned a sour look on the girl. She returned it without a hint of apology and lifted a golden eyebrow.

I showed the neophyte my teeth in a humorless smile. “An angel.”

Lisette’s cheeks reddened and I spat out an involuntary curse as she tugged on the threads and broke one, leaving the edges of my wound neatly stitched together. She stood, brushed down the skirts of her woolen robes, and stalked off without a backward glance.

A low chuckle drew my attention to another blanket nearby, where Olliard lay. His eyes were on his apprentice, his lips pursed. He glanced at me and rolled one shoulder in a shrug. “Try not to tease the girl. She has very little humor in her, I’m afraid, and for good reason.”

I recalled another part of the conversation I had heard. “Her monastery was attacked?”

Olliard winced as he propped himself up on one elbow. There were shadows under his eyes despite the early hour, and his age showed, but he nodded in answer to my question. “Only a couple of months ago, now. Bad business.”

“You mentioned brigands.”

“Of a kind,” Olliard confirmed, his lips setting into a thin line. “It isn’t a tale to sully a fine day like this.”

“…Fair enough.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, sweating a bit from pain. I still needed to piss, but didn’t think I’d be standing just then. Two days… probably the two physicians had already cleaned me more than once.

Still, I held it.

Olliard spoke again after a few minutes. “So what’s your name, stranger?”

Sleep was approaching fast. Lisette must have given me more medicine. I mumbled a reply. “Alken.”

“Shame we met under these circumstances, Alken.” There was a rustling of dead leaves as the doctor shifted again. “We’ll be heading off soon, and intend to take you with us. The road will be rough, but you need a proper bed to recover in. There’s a small village perhaps a day or more north of here where I know some people. It will be safe.”

I opened my mouth to speak. Closed it. It wouldn’t be safe, though my hazy brain was struggling to come up with a reason why.

“Should leave me,” I muttered.

“What was that?”

“You should leave me behind,” I said.

“Nonsense. You can’t even walk!” Olliard sounded offended at the suggestion.

“Could be trouble for you,” I said. My thoughts were growing more distant, but some kernel of urgency kept me awake. Hunted. Vinhithe. Bishop. Don’t want them to get caught up in—

“Should leave me,” I whispered.

But he didn’t hear, and I fell back into a dreamless blackness.