Chapter Fifty-Three: At Rest

Tom and Sesame hurried down the path to the village between the rows of apple and peach trees. The bright pink and white blossoms, together with the relief washing over him that they had finally made it, lent a dream-like quality to the final stretch.

The first villagers he saw working in the rows he shouted at, frantic, to bring help. They dropped tools and baskets and sprinted back to the village. It was all he could do not to run himself. He wasn’t sure Val would survive any jostling, not after two weeks at death’s door.

Her skin was still grey in colour, waxy in texture, and covered in sweat. The slight frown had never left her face. Not a sound had escaped her lips since they left. Her cheeks were gaunt enough for a skeleton.

Smitten whined piteously from beside her. Tom felt drawn thin, as if he were a string pulled to its utmost, a second away from snapping. Two weeks of the highest anxiety he’d ever felt, now pushed to its peak by the promise of salvation at hand. He felt like he was vibrating.

All of a sudden, a group of people came rushing up the path. Most of them were Guards, but there were a few nervous looking villagers too. And one face that made him sure that he was dreaming, that his sanity had broken from the stress, that Val had died, he had gone insane, and he was wandering the Deep as a true madman.

And then she spoke, and she rushed to him and touched his face, and the cool feel of her fingertips on his cheek, brought him back to himself.

“Tom? Tom! What’s happened? Oh Goddess! She’s hurt!”

His mother. What was she doing out here? Was it really her?

He stood, stunned, trying to adjust to this new reality where his perfectly reserved, perpetually composed mother was here. As soon as she saw Val she dropped to her side, and began running her hands lightly over her body, barking at the villagers and Guards to give her space.

His mother tsked, her brow creased with concentration. Her hands immediately sought the wounds on Val’s stomach. She pulled up her shirt, and pressed her hands flat next to the crude waddings Tom had been replacing.

Tom watched nervously, for what felt like aeons. No one spoke.

Then, so gradually he almost couldn’t be sure it was happening, colour began to return to Val’s face. Then she coughed, violently, and began to try and sit up, spasmed, and fell unconscious again.

Tom’s mother kept her hands pressed to the wounds in her abdomen. Her healing skills were not flashy. They never had been. No glowing lights haloed her hands, no motes of spectacular dust rained from them, no miraculous aura shone from her, as with so many other Healers.

Just her hands, pressed to a dying woman. Eventually, she stood.

“She’s stable. Take her to my cottage, place her on the second bed. I’ll be by shortly. Jered, can you take the bear there? Will he understand? If his Idealist is out cold…”

“He’s mine, mother. He’ll follow.”

His mother turned to look at him with a slightly surprised expression.

“Go, Jered. Not too quickly. She’s going to need days more healing, at least. Go.”

The Guard she had named, a well-groomed looking fellow with a sad looking face, started at her commands, then hopped to. He gestured to Sesame to follow.

“Hey there, big fellow. Just follow me, now. Nice and easy,” Jered said, hesitantly.

Tom willed Sesame to follow him, and then to come find him when he was done. Scorn was staring daggers at everyone, as if they might suddenly attack his master. Smitten looked like she had fallen straight asleep as soon as his mother had stabilised Val. The furry grey dog must have been utterly exhausted. She deserved a medal.

Tom watched as Val was slowly taken away into the village. The rest of the small crowd dispersed, excepting the Guards, his mother, and Mayor Corin.

“You’ve got a story to tell, if I’m any judge,” Officer Dale said. The look he gave Tom was strange. The look of a man who’s expecting bad news, and waiting only to find out the degree. “My office, or yours?”

“Yours, I think,” said Mayor Corin. “The look on your face speaks volumes, lad. Better hear this away from any prying eyes or nimble ears. We don’t want to cause a panic.” He looked down the lane, to where the travois was disappearing between the first few houses. He sighed. “Any more of a panic.”

They walked to the barracks, a bigger building, rivalling the town hall in size, built to accommodate the Guard unit in town. It held their sleeping areas, a kitchen and mess, their armoury, a training yard, and an office at one side for Dale. It was placed on the outer edge, bordering the orchards, to give them a quick response should the village be threatened.

On the brief walk, Tom tried to put his thoughts in order. Val was safe. She would be okay. His mother was here. What was she doing here?

They trudged into the barracks, wended through the mess and down a hall to Dale’s office. The rest of the Guards dispersed back to their duties as they returned. Dale, his mother, and the Mayor stepped inside.

The office was larger than Tom expected, though not massive. It held a decent sized desk, with a plain chair behind, and several more in front. A much comfier chair stood in the far corner, a small table with an unlit lamp and an ashtray stood beside it, clearly Dale’s reading chair. They each took a seat. There was a pregnant pause, before Dale finally spoke.

“So, Tom, what in The World has happened?”

The simple question sent Tom’s thoughts down dizzying, winding roads. What had happened? A lot. Too much. How could he say it all? Where did he start?

“What are you doing here?” He blurted at his mother. He immediately felt stupid.

She gave him a kindly smile. “I think you’d best tell us how you ended up here with, Val, I assume?-” She looked to Dale and Corin for confirmation, to which they gave her small nods. “-Half dead. We can talk afterwards, Tom. I have a lot to tell you.”

Tom nodded, putting his thoughts back in order. He took a deep breath.

“There’s so much to tell,” he began, hesitantly. “Please, bear with me.

“Val and I went to scout the orc encampment.”

To their credit, none of them spoke. A few mildly disbelieving raised eyebrows were the biggest reaction. Dale and Corin would have found out the story behind his exile, if they hadn’t known. It would only make sense to know what kind of person was basing themselves from your village.

“It’s massive. Enormous. There are thousands of orcs, tens of thousands, it’s completely out of hand.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Dale was starting to look at him like he was a little loose in the head. The mayor held up his hand for Tom to stop. He didn’t.

“We… I heard them talking. They’re taking captives. They’re taking captive any Idealists they can find and using them somehow. I think it’s how they’ve managed to get Ideals. I think they’re somehow using Idealists to …give themselves Ideals, somehow.”

Now Dale’s face was telling him he was insane. Disbelief was written all over it. Mayor Corin looked irritated at having been ignored.

“Come now, lad. I think some rest might do you good. We can continue-”

“They have Ideals! They’ve taken captives! I’m telling the truth!” Tom said desperately.

“Have you any proof?” Corin said. “This time?” He added, derisively.

Tom sat very still for a second. Then he took two sacks from his inventory and plonked them on Dale’s desk in the middle of them all. He had completely forgotten, with everything else that had happened.

Everyone went very quiet. Dale’s eyebrows looked like they wanted to climb into his hairline, and Corin’s were knitted so tightly they looked liable to knot. His mother was very pale. Dale reached over to one of the sacks, upending it by its corner.

A head rolled out, coming to rest on one cheek. Its beady eyes stared at the wall between Dale and Corin, its piranha-mouth open wide to show a double row of teeth. A small dribble of blood slowly slipped down one of its tusks.

His mother gasped, and now it was Corin’s turn to go pale. Dale simply sat very, very still.

“Told you so,” said Tom into the silence.

“So you did,” Dale said, at length.

“CHAR!” he bellowed at the door. There was the sound of footsteps running. Dale gently placed the head back in its sack. The door opened, admitting the head of a slightly frazzled looking Guardswoman.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go saddle your horse. Quickest you can. Goddess depends on it. Come back here when you’re done. Go!”

She slapped the door shut, and they listened to the sound of Char’s footsteps pelting down the hallway. Corin looked like he had frozen solid. Dale sighed into the silence.

“Goddess, it’s true…” his mother whispered.

“That it is, lady.” He eyed the sacks on the table. “That it is…” He seemed to come back to himself.

“No wonder Val was in such a state. By Goddess, lad, you’re a hero. Brought word to us of the orcs, not once, but twice. Saved Val’s life too. You deserve a medal, not exile to the Hunters. Now, tell me everything, Tom: where is this encampment? How large is it? How many captives?”

Tom furnished him with all the information he could remember, while Dale scribbled furiously on some parchment. He held back telling him the real reason Val had been injured. He wanted to speak with her before they divulged the goings-on of the Hunters to the authorities. By the time they were done, Char had returned, breathing heavily.

“Char, take this letter and these two sacks. I want you to go directly to the Lord General. Directly. You hand these to no one else. You let no one else so much as peek at them. Not even you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” she acknowledged nervously.

“Good. Go. Ride directly to Wayrest, as fast as you can. I want you there by nightfall if you have to ride your horse to death. Go!”

Char sprinted off once again. Dale returned to his seat, looking ten years older.

“Goddess, we’re fucked, aren’t we?” Corin said.

“Not yet,” Tom replied. “We can fight them. I already have. They bleed and die just like we do. We won before. We can do it again.”

Corin didn’t look so sure.

“I need to make preparations. And I need a damned drink. I’ll find you in the morning, Dale,” he said, and left them.

Dale glanced at Tom and his mother. His look spoke volumes.

“I thank you for your service, Tom. Really, I can’t thank you enough. Val has done a lot for this village, over the years. She’s saved all of us more than once. I don’t want you to think me churlish, but I have a lot to see too, now. So much to do…” he trailed off.

Tom took the hint. “Thank you, Officer Dale. I need to go see Val anyway. Sesame’s probably scaring the villagers again, too.”

Dale barked a laugh at that, short and harsh. “That big lump will be the least of their worries soon, I’ll wager.”

Tom let his mother lead him from the barracks. She took them down the main street, and off a smaller lane, to a tidy cottage just out of the centre of the village. Sesame was waiting outside. He had spoken with him through their bond, not wanting to leave Val while she was weak, and Tom hadn’t forced him too. He had been busy, besides.

He gave Sesame a quick scratch as they stepped inside. His mother led him to a room at the back, where two beds were arranged in a small, cosy room. The room was ascetic, for the most part, neat, tidy and clean to the extreme, the beds dressed in starkly white sheets and covers. Val lay upon one. Tom’s heart lifted as he saw her. Colour had definitely returned to her.

His mother immediately began a more thorough check of her, quickly finding the wound in her back as well. She cut away Tom’s rough bandages, then she pressed hands over her wounds again, directly against the skin. More colour flowed into her. Her cheeks grew a little pinker, the greyness receding. Her breathing sounded a little easier. She stirred a little, but didn’t wake. The relief Tom felt was palpable.

His mother redressed her wounds with clean white bandages from a shelf at one end of the room. Then she stood, and drew Tom into the kitchen area, seating him at a small table. She set a kettle to boil.

“She’s going to be okay,” she said, reading his thoughts. “A couple of days and some more healing and she’ll be right as rain.”

Tom visibly crumpled, as if the only thing keeping him going had been the sheer terror of his mentor dying. And indeed it had. His mother gave him another gentle smile.

“She’s had a rough time. The wounds were deep, and they only just missed major arteries. It felt like she’d weathered the full duration of some nasty debuffs, and she was poisoned, too. She’s lucky to have you, Tom. You saved her.”

Tom felt his throat knot, and tears blurred his eyes. Gratitude. It was an emotion he was completely unused to. He had no defence against it.

“Why are you here?” he asked, and burst into tears.

In moments, he was swept into an embrace. His mother held him for a long time, cradling his head, shushing him, telling him it would be okay. Just like she had so many times before. Only now it wasn’t him she had had to heal.

Eventually, when his tears stopped, and his throat turned from an ugly, burning twist between his head and shoulders, to a merely wobbly-feeling mess, she spoke.

“I’ve left your father, Tom. We have …separated.” Tom looked at her, uncomprehending.

“That day, after the Hearing. It was too much. It had always been too much, I guess. I just couldn’t see it. I spent so long with him …he had strangled me. And I didn’t even realise until I had become lifeless. I’m so sorry, Tom. I should have done more.”

That threatened to set him off again, but he regained himself.

“It wasn’t your fault, mother. I know just as well as you what it was like. I’m glad you’ve left him.”

“Please, call me Mags. I’m not sure I deserve to be called mother.”

Tom held her gaze for a long moment. “You said you left father. That doesn’t explain why you’re here, though, mother,” he said, deliberately.

She beamed at him, and he saw moisture gather in the corners of her eyes too. “Well, once I left, I went home. The Splint House was glad to have me back. They never liked your father, though they never said anything. It would have stretched the bounds of propriety. That, and they always hoped he might actually turn the Cutters around.”

She trailed off for a moment. “I got so bored, though. For the first time in twenty years it felt as though I had stepped back into the sunlight. I was free. I thought ‘I have Healing’ and I couldn’t stop thinking of you, and so I bought this little cottage here, and set myself up as the village Healer.”

“I bet they were overjoyed,” Tom said warmly. Many Idealists had the odd healing skill, but those with proper healing Ideals were rare. It would have been a real coup for one to just wander into Corin’s Grove one day and ask to set up shop. They would have leapt to accommodate her.

“They were, yes. It’s been nice to feel …needed. To be of use.” The kettle whistled shrilly, then, and his mother deftly poured them two cups. She took a wooden serving board from a pantry, and heaped upon it some cheese and fruits.

“Now, it’s been how many months since the Hearing? Six? You must have some stories for me! There’s a bench just outside, let’s go sit. You can introduce me to that great big familiar of yours. Bring that little pot from the second shelf. I bet he likes honey!”

Tom immediately felt Sesame’s full attention on him, pressing on him down the bond like a child at a candy shop window.

He did indeed like honey.