Disciple, Part I: For Want of a Piglet Read online

  I’d forgotten to breathe.

  Sir Kiefan heaved up and threw Anders off like a blanket, proof of his strength Blessing. The prince brushed needles from his woolens, apparently unconcerned.

  “The king should let you compete in the joust,” Sir Anders said, on the edge of my hearing. “It would make for a more challenging tournament.”

  “We can’t have any accidents.”

  Anders laughed. “But if it’s a fool’s quest across the Eispitzen, you’re first in line.”

  Kiefan shot him a look. “Call the saints fools at your peril.”

  Anders seemed less than worried. Sheathing his sword, he went to his water skin for a drink. I’d forgotten all about my book in watching the duel, I realized, and searched for my place on the page.

  “You brought a book?”

  My finger on my place, I glanced up as Sir Kiefan crouched beside me. “Master Parselev wanted me to finish it. The dialogues about logic, if nothing else. It’s to help me learn Arceal as well.”

  He leaned to look, braided knight’s crest hanging free. “May I?” he asked, and took the book from me. Keeping a finger on my page, he checked through it. “Oh, I remember this. d’Ovio Alain, isn’t it? I read ‘On fear and love’ from this. Father didn’t give me time for any of the other dialogues.”

  “I’m partly through ‘On proof’ and I’m to read ‘On reason and clarity’ as well. Master Parselev didn’t mention ‘On fear and love.’”

  “It’s about ruling. Whether a ruler should strive to be loved or feared. I don’t suppose a physician would have much need of that. Unless one should fear one’s physician.” Sir Kiefan said that with a smile as he handed the book back. Ilya was right; he did smile sometimes.

  It nearly distracted me from replying. “No, love is far better for physicians. Trust. Honesty.”

  “Ah, honesty.” Kiefan settled cross-legged beside me. “To be honest, I wanted to read ‘On reason and clarity.’”

  “To be honest, I’ll be too slow in getting through it.”

  He considered. “I’ve spoken Arceal a bit. Perhaps I could help?”

  Our eyes met and my mind was struck dumb by the thought of being tutored by the prince of Wodenberg. “I’m sure you could,” I managed to say.

  “Though I’ve never had reason to teach anything. Haven’t had time for a squire, even.”

  I bowed my head. “Your honesty is appreciated.”

  “Well, you are my physician now,” he said, and then pressed his mouth shut as if he hadn’t expected that.

  It hit me, too, that I was sole physician to half a dozen strangers now. “I should’ve asked Master Parselev for your history,” came out of my mouth unbidden.

  “He didn’t tell you about the headaches, then,” he said, his voice dropping to near a mutter.

  A snowflake landed on the open book. Fat, slow flakes tumbled down, swirling when a breeze wandered by. Boristan, at the fire, said, “They didn’t jest. I didn’t smell snow coming.”

  I closed the book, asking Sir Kiefan, “You have headaches?”

  He was looking up at the snow, but he nodded as he stood. “Ilya, we’ll need to shelter the fire. Where’s Bjorn and Ulf?”

  “Just gone to look about, m’lord.”

  Then Kiefan was helping Ilya unpack another tarp for our shelter and I noted the headaches to ask him about later. Bjorn and Ulf came hallooing through the thickening snow soon after. They’d seen proof of lamia, both nearby and only a few days old.

  Chapter 5

  Snow still fell when Ilya shook me awake in the middle of the night. The patter of flakes on the overhead tarp blended with anxious whispers and sharp coughs. A pony puffed nearby and hooves shifted.

  “Ulf says stay close,” Ilya whispered in my ear. “Get the bedroll off and flat so nobody trips. Careful of Acorn, he’s right here.”

  I blinked and rubbed at my eyes and a whiskery horse nose nudged my cheek. Acorn shifted away as I struggled out of my bedroll and to my feet. I put my arm over his neck for balance as I kicked the heavy blanket off and tried to spread it flat. Puck snorted, close by too.

  The fire, half sheltered by our tarp lean-to, had lowered to glowing coals. Ulf and Sir Kiefan stood on the far side with their backs to it, one with bow and nocked arrow, the other with sword in hand. Kiefan asked something of the woodsman and he muttered a reply. Beyond them, the black forest waited, crusted by a layer of snow that glowed blue when moonlight fought through thin patches of the clouds. Tumbling flakes kept up a quiet patter as we all fell silent, even the ponies.

  Fear drove off the lethargy of waking so late, but there was nothing to see in the clusters of squat pine trees and thickets. Ulf and Kiefan moved a few steps apart, tense and alert. I wanted to ask what was wrong.

  Lantern eyes lit up beyond the fire, paced by, and vanished. A shape moved across a snow-laden pine branch. That coughing sound came again, from the moving shadow, and it was answered from behind me.

  Ilya, holding Acorn’s bridle beside me, whispered, “Mother Love, we’re surrounded.”

  I sidled closer to the middle of the tarp, though it meant letting go of the solid mass of the pony. Ther Boristan stood holding Puck. A few steps out from that side of the lean-to, Bjorn faced the forest with bow and arrow ready. Beyond him, another pair of eyes caught the light.

  “I could stoke up the fire,” Ilya raised his voice to a murmur.

  Ulf answered, as he was closest. “They’re not afraid of fire. Whatever you do, stay together. Stand and fight.”

  I looked over Puck’s rump, and Sir Anders stood watch on that last side with his sword in hand. A snow-covered bush there offered a clear backdrop for the form that stalked across it. The lamia were perhaps the size of a hunting hound, if bulkier in the shoulders. Their tails ran long and hairless, and lashed like a cat’s.

  I felt around in the dark mass of bedrolls and found my medicine bag. With it on, I was a little more useful. I’d taken my dagger off for the night, but I’d be little help with it.

  A bit of wind drove the snowflakes in my face for a moment, then they fell back. The lamia stalked their circle around our smaller circle and coughed to each other in little patterns. Snow slowed its pace, and the moonlight strengthened. I watched along with Ulf and Ilya and Acorn, all of us shifting on our feet.

  The lamia went still and silent. Ulf’s bow rose as he drew his arrow halfway.

  Snarling, a lamia charged from the trees. One long bound and the shadow split into two, one diving across Ulf’s sights and drawing his bow, the other angling straight on into Anders. Puck shimmied back with a whinny, yanking Boristan off his feet. A second bound and the lamia threw itself under one blur of steel but the second blur as Anders twirled Blessing-fast caught the beast low in the spine. It screamed, far too human. Puck and Acorn wove and fought to get free, and someone’s rump knocked me down. Hooves stomped all around me; I scurried under a pony’s belly, only to stop short when movement on the snow yanked my eyes up. Four paws broke the white as the lamia angled toward me, the vulnerable one on the ground, and fangs caught the moonlight a moment before an arrow took the monster in the neck. It crashed from a full run.

  Then, nothing. The ponies snorted and stamped, but after a few low whistles and clicks from Sir Anders they settled. Snowflakes kept pattering, definitely slower now. We waited.

  In the distance, though not so far as I’d like, a lamia sang. A second joined it, cycling from louder to softer and back. Further away, a third note answered.

  Ulf and Bjorn returned their arrows to their quivers. “They’re done, m’lord,” Ulf told Sir Kiefan. “They’re reporting in to their lords.”

  “They won’t return?” Kiefan returned to the fire, sword lower.

  “Not tonight.”

  He surveyed the forest again. “They were testing our strength.”

  Ulf nodded. “They know what bows are, and they’ll remember who has one.”

  “We killed two. Will that weaken them?
”

  “They hunt and lair in small groups, but there’s always some master in the distance answering songs.”

  Sir Anders kicked the one he’d killed and lifted a paw with the point of his sword. “Any chance we’ll get back to sleep?”

  Bjorn laughed. “It takes cool blood to sleep after that. You’re entitled to keep its teeth, since you killed it. They bring luck.”

  “Have you seen the kir fount on Mount Woden?” I asked Boristan as we walked through the mist. Last night’s snow had melted quickly, but the vapors lingered around our ankles.

  “Nobody goes to the fount itself but the saints,” he answered. “It’s near the peak. But I’ve been near enough to the Pool, with the abbot, to feel its kir. Through stone walls, it’s so strong.”

  Soon after we packed up camp and set out, I’d felt a faint tingle over my heart. As we followed the shrinking Felsherz up, it strengthened. Even though I was tired after lying awake most of the night, the draw of the kir kept my feet moving. “Stronger than this?”

  “You can feel it already?”

  I looked back at him, surprised. “You can’t?”

  Boristan smiled. “You must be sensitive, m’lady.” As we trudged on, he added, “As Master Parselev chose you for an apprentice, that should be no surprise.”

  We’d been put in the middle of the party, along with Ilya and both the ponies, so that a woodsman and a knight could guard us ahead and behind. The only noises in the forest were birdcalls and snow sliding off pine boughs.

  The two dead lamia had been strange even in daylight. They were wolves raised on the kir-rich waters of the fount, Ulf had said. Their skulls had lengthened, their skin thickened to leathery hide over their hindquarters and their rat-tails grew long. The remaining fur on their forequarters was harsh, and a spiny crest rose between their shoulder blades. Even slack and dead, something about their eyes and face recalled a human’s. There was a structure to it, a hint of cheekbones, despite the lupine muzzle and the fangs.

  A few blows with the pry-bar and the menfolk had pulled out all of the monsters’ fangs as prizes. Bjorn had shown me the distinct serrations that distinguished lamia’s teeth from wolves’. Fakes were common enough, he’d said.

  We followed the trail around tangles of rock and tree trunks that avalanches brought down during the winter. Young pines sprang up eagerly in the path of a slide, but even the older trees were small now. Brambles grew thick and close to the path, catching on my felt cloak. Topping one last rise, we clustered for a moment within view of a reed-lined pond. The stream, all that was left of the Felsherz, gushed out of it and down the slope. A heron took off from the cattails, heavy grey-blue wings thumping as it rose.

  Ulf held up an arm and turned to remind us, “Stay together. The fount’s just off the north side.”

  I could have told him that by how it tugged at me. The trees on the north side grew taller, thicker, and as the trail led us up I could see how they’d twisted in growing. Not content with that, they’d also coiled over as if bending to drink from the fount.

  Puck’s head was up, ears forward, and he actually hurried ahead as we approached. “Now I feel it,” Boristan said, perking up himself. “Just a little fount, but it’s still kir.”

  The near-human shriek from my left paralyzed me and the reeds on my right exploded. Puck shrilled and knocked me to the muddy ground as he bolted. Boristan stumbled and a black mass of crest and fangs and whipping tail tackled him. My feet scrabbled and I lunged up, off balance and blank-minded. The lamia’s snarl sounded just behind me, far louder than any shouts. I ran, blind. The monster galloped after me, roaring, and it landed on my back like a falling wagon. Crusty snow in my face, blood in my mouth, a thousand pounds of snarling heat pinning me down.

  A crash and a yell and the lamia landed on its shoulder beside me. Instantly, it was up and lunging and I was scrambling to my feet again. Growling and screaming — the scream human for sure. I swung around to see the lamia shake Bjorn hard and rip a mouthful from his bicep. Blood, a kir fount of its own. The gushing scarlet etched on my eyes clear as day. I kept running.

  Trees scratched at me as I careened through them. Three lunging steps and I glimpsed the lamia, this time, looked it right in its leaf-green eyes as it tackled me. I screamed. Its hot breath, stinking of carrion, and the teeth —

  Light flashed on metal and the hideous head fell on me, spasming and drooling. Its hot blood splashed my scrunched-tight face. A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me from under the beast’s dead weight. I hit my rescuer’s warm side, threw my arms around his waist and clutched. His arm wrapped across my shoulders. His chest pumped, breathing hard, and he twisted in my grip, shifting his crouch, to look for more trouble.

  My face was against his cloak; I wiped my eyes clear on it. His sword drew a straight, bright line across the jumbled mass of autumn-gold shrubs around us. His breathing slowed. Kiefan spared a glance at me. “Hurt?”

  I shook my head. He stood, bringing me along by the shoulders, and let his sword drop to a lower guard. I found my feet and his arm loosened.

  In the distance, a shout. “M’lord?”

  “Here!” he called back, turning toward the pond.

  “Bjorn,” I breathed, remembering; breaking loose, I pushed past a young pine and cast about. “Bjorn?” I called. Silence. Past a second tree, I found the blood — sprayed droplets on golden leaves, a long stain on the ground. Bjorn’s bow lay nearby, and a few loose arrows.

  Kiefan came up beside me. “Here!” he called again, and I heard someone approaching.

  Ulf came on the scene from the other side, and stopped short for a moment. Then he grimaced and knelt to pick up the bow.

  “Can you track them?” Kiefan asked.

  Cords rose on Ulf’s neck. He covered his hawk’s eyes with one hand and fought with his answer for long heartbeats. “We can’t leave the others long enough,” he said eventually. “And all we’ll find will be pieces.”

  My throat knotted too tight to speak.

  Kiefan put a hand on Ulf’s shoulder. Voice thick with emotion, “He died defending us. The Shepherd will give him a place of honor.”

  Ulf held his tongue and avoided looking at me when he stood.

  The six of us regrouped at the kir fount while the lamia sang in the distance. It was a little pool between the thick roots of pines, fed by a spring at the deep end that burbled in a little fountain. The water glowed warmly, in the shade, and threw off bits of rainbow where it tumbled. The moment I laid eyes on it, I was thirsty. We humans dipped handfuls from wherever we could — Anders hopped across for more room — and even just a mouthful soothed and strengthened. The ponies shoved their way up to the little creek that ran down to the pond and drank from that.

  After slaking our thirst, Ther Boristan said a few words for Bjorn, our brother disciple who we had known only a short time, but now owed much to. I kept my eyes on the toes of my boots, wiping away guilty tears.

  Then there were wounds to see to while the men filled all the water skins from the spring. I cleaned Boristan’s gash with plain water and, taking another gulp of kir, laid my hand on his wound. The lamia’s fang had sliced across his collarbone, tearing wool and flesh alike and laying the bone bare. Bjorn’s arrow had found the beast’s heart a moment later.

  I called the fresh kir up and it came, rising in a warm tingle in my chest and flowing along my arm to my hand. It drew up the disrupted patterns of kir in Boristan’s wound until I could see them clearly. Lines and whorls of colorful kir moved through his flesh, through all flesh, in a set pattern. Wounds and illness disrupted the patterns, and though the body would work to repair its patterns the process was slow.

  From my Blessed memory, I took the correct pattern for skin and muscle in a simple area such as the collarbone. Flicks and twists with my mind shaped my kir to match the memory. My charm flooded down onto the wound, overwhelming it, and the flesh responded. The gash knit together into a red weal.

  “Thank
you, Dame Kate,” Boristan said, checking it as best he could. “Heal the wool, too?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t studied cloth.”

  “Perhaps I’ll have a chance to do it myself.”

  Ilya’s bite, on his calf, was more serious. When Acorn bolted along with Puck, Ilya had run after both ponies and been pulled down by a lamia. Ulf’s arrow had taken it between the eyes. Anders had held three of the monsters off our pack-laden ponies when they’d been pinned between the pond and the stream’s headwaters. One lamia was dead and the other two had run.

  Rolling up Ilya’s hose to his knee, I prodded the half-dozen half-crusted tooth marks. They still bled a little. He bit his lip and hissed through his teeth. I had seen a dog bite like this, a year ago, and Master Parselev had put my hand on his so I could see how he mended the patterns. I took another drink of kir and called it up. The muscles of a calf were far more complex; a meridian shot through the bundles of whorled kir, and the disruption the fangs had caused put up a fight.

  As I worked, the frozen instant of Bjorn under the lamia’s jaws, his muscle tearing, flashed past my eyes. A damaged knot of kir slipped out of my focus and danced away, jostling its neighbors and unsettling their dance. Ilya tensed with a curse as the jostle propagated in a ripple, knocking whorls together and tangling some. I countermanded it with more kir and the proper pattern, but it was spreading outside the part I’d seen under Master Parselev’s guidance.

  Grabbing a water skin, I took another swallow of kir and put my spare hand on Ilya’s other, unhurt calf. Using that for reference, I halted the spreading damage. I combed through Ilya’s tangled kir again, careful, and checked the patterns against his other calf. It took longer than it should have, and he’d found a stick to clench in his hands for when it hurt.