Chapter 33: Consequences II
“You brought the doctor here, Ivan?”
The Hound in question nodded slowly. He hovered a foot away from the doctor, close enough to see what was happening without getting in the way.
“ …I thought since we were trying not to hurt the villagers, I should call someone.”
Sonia was silent for a few moments, and Allan watched her with wary dark eyes. He still looked tired, but not as much as before when he’d had [Mend] constantly active. Spade, Leo realized, had placed her hand on her sheathed sword at some point, but he once again couldn’t discern any specific emotion in those flat grey eyes.
“I see.” Sonia hummed. “It could’ve made for a good bargaining opportunity, but I won’t waste your efforts, Ivan.” She nodded at the doctor, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. “Go on.”
“Sonia!”
Irving’s raspy voice sounded behind them. Leo mentally cursed the man for approaching instead of staying in the safety of his home, and he hurried to both help steady the [Fisherman] and to put himself between him and Sonia.
His face looked pale, and his hand shook a little. Leo wondered if he’d been one of the ones who’d vomited. Still, his eyes remained firm as he came to a stop in front of the Hounds leader.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“I believe that was quite clear, unless you would’ve preferred I allowed Fergus to get away with his behavior.”
Irving shook his head aggressively. “You swore no one would be hurt before the time limit!”
Leo blinked. The elderly man looked genuinely furious.
“I promised the Hounds would not attack. Fergus stopped being a Hound the moment he broke my rules.” Sonia turned to face the man fully, raising an eyebrow. “Your fury is misguided. Don’t forget that you could’ve stopped this had you simply given us the directions when we asked.”
Irving faltered at that, and Sonia continued, gesturing to the village with that bloody hand.
“I do still care for Clearside, you know. I may not have lived here for a long time, but it’s still my birthplace. We’re similar. We’ve both lost loved ones to the lake. We both value this village.” She tilted her head. “Why risk so much?”
“You know why.”
Sonia’s eyes darkened. Leo shifted to block Irving more, but she made no move to attack. Instead, after a few moments of silence had passed, the Hounds leader turned away, readying to leave.
“Three more days, Irving.” She nodded at the body of Fergus and the wounded boy still being tended to by the doctor. “Ferguson wasn’t the only one. A number of Hounds are still quite impatient.”
Her eyes seemed to gleam sharp as daggers in the daylight. “Watch yourself.”
With those final words, the woman turned away and stepped down the street, every passerby giving her a wide berth.
Ivan glanced at her, then back, briefly meeting eyes with Leo, before he turned and followed. Both Hounds soon disappeared from view.
The moment they vanished, it was as though a weight had lifted. The last lingering villagers nearby hurried towards the boy, and Leo himself ran forward.
“How is he?” he asked urgently. The doctor frowned.
“I’ll need to bring him to the infirmary, but I believe his life is not in danger.”
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The [Fragmentholder] exhaled a long breath, shoulders slumping a little at the confirmation. “Thank god,” he muttered. He’d feared the worst. “Can we help you move him?”
The doctor shook his head. “No, I’ve already called for my apprentices to bring a stretcher.” The man looked very tired.
Leo slowly nodded and rose again. Staring down at the wounded boy, he looked very small. Young. He wondered if he had any parents, and if he did, where they were.
There was a shuffling sound to his side, and Leo turned to see Allan had risen as well. He was a little wobbly, and the [Fragmentholder] helped him balance.
“You saved his life,” Leo said quietly, still not pulling his eyes away from the doctor and the other villagers beginning to crowd around the unconscious boy. Irving was among them, the elderly man’s brows furrowed in concern.
“I only slowed the bleeding.” Allan studied him closely, brows furrowed. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
“It was. I was so focused on Fergus I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings.” Once again, he’d gotten tunnel visioned on one thing and neglected everything else.
Allan frowned, his own gaze on the wounded boy. Two villagers had arrived carrying a crude wooden stretcher, and under the doctor’s instructions, they were carefully lifting him on.
“What’re we doing after this?”
Leo glanced briefly back at Fergus’s still corpse, then turned away. His focus landed on Irving, and he set his jaw.
“I need to check something.” His voice got even quieter. “We might be able to end things quicker than we thought.”
Allan nodded. “I’m planning on going to the infirmary for a bit,” he murmured. A flash of that earlier frustration returned.
“I might be a [Healer] now, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t know anything about medicine. If Spade hadn’t been here I wouldn’t have known where to start. I’m going to watch the doctor and see if I can learn anything.” He paused. “As long as that doesn’t interrupt anything.”
Leo shook his head. “No, that sounds good. We’ve still got a little time.”
It would be good for Allan to know more about healing. That, and it was rare for the man to initiate anything on his own. When Leo had first seen his class selection he’d admittedly been a bit hesitant; the former [Rickshaw Puller] had never shown any passion for healing before. It seemed, however, that he was taking his new class seriously.
“I’ll be back by tomorrow morning,” Allan promised. The villagers were beginning to carry the boy away, and the [Healer] frowned at them. Leo gave him an encouraging nod.
“Be careful,” Allan said.
“You too.”
The doctor, Allan, and the assistants soon disappeared down the street. Along with them, most villagers dispersed, eager to get away from Fergus’s dead body. Leo took a moment to simply stare at it.
Like that, fallen with his back up and face hidden, he almost didn’t look like a person. Just an unmoving mass under the blue sky. A piece of furniture or a part of the landscape. The [Fragmentholder] could hardly reconcile the image with the sneering man threatening them with his axe.
It was so easy, Leo thought, for a person to stop seeming human. The hole in Fergus’s chest gaped like an open mouth.
Leo turned away, moving to retrieve the dagger he’d thrown. It had landed on the ground, but the blade still seemed fine, if a bit dirty. He wiped it off and looked around.
In contrast to the villagers, Spade stood near Fergus’s dead body, peering down with unreadable grey eyes. She looked up as Leo approached, raising a scarred eyebrow.
“Did they already carry the boy away?”
The [Fragmentholder] nodded. “Allan went with them,” he explained. “He should be back by tomorrow.”
Leo paused. “Thank you,” he added, voice slow. “If you hadn’t helped Allan…” his voice trailed. He didn’t like to think about the alternative. It was bad enough that someone had gotten hurt because of him. Incompetent, a voice said in the back of his head. This is your fault.
Spade simply hummed. “Think nothing of it. I was simply using my knowledge where I could.”
“[Anatomical Knowledge], right?”
The [Executioner] smiled. “You’d be surprised. A number of executioners heal people as side jobs. There’s a surprisingly large overlap.”
Leo studied the woman carefully. “Did you?”
She laughed, finally turning away from Fergus’s dead body. The blood stained her boots as she moved through the puddle.
“No, I wouldn’t have been very good at it.” Grey eyes scanned the surroundings in a steady, practiced motion. “What now?”
Leo’s gaze darted over to Irving. After the doctor’s departure, the man had begun to carefully hobble back to his home, giving Fergus’s body a wide berth and avoiding the blood with his cane before he finally reached the front door and slipped inside.
Leo remembered how the man had kept trying to return to his home even when running the other way would’ve been easier, moving towards it with a strange insistence.
The [Fragmentholder]’s lips thinned. He might be wrong, but he had to be certain.
“We’ve got some investigating to do.”