Esmir, soldier?” I asked, my eyes still fixed to the east.
“She regrets that she cannot speak to you at present due to matters of state,” the horseman began.
“Go on,” I said, turning to look into the camp for any sign that they were amassing rank and file.
“She would like to speak with you this afternoon if at all possible,” he said.
“Very well. Give her my thanks and tell her I accept.”
The soldier nodded smartly and rode back toward his people.
I turned back to those woods east of the Kullobrini and again my mind began refining the plan, delighting in each nuance, each deadly detail. As the plan sharpened, I thought of the Killain, a strange secretive people to the east of Kollus’s provinces. More and more, we had received reports that the Killain were withdrawing into their own cities and towns, into their own narrow-windowed homes of gray stone. Their solitude, their isolation had changed them, had become their own companion and altered how they saw the world. It would not be long now, we were warned, before their borders were shut.
Perhaps then I had dwelt too long in the house of war, had seen the world through its narrow windows and now the world seemed strange without a struggle of arms. I was home when I was amid the din of men and the rhythm of the march, comfortable in an environment of force and violence that took more than it gave.
The concealing cloth city of the Kullobrini shielded any sign of their cavalry from me and I swung my horse about. In the distance, I could make out riders from the south carrying Eric’s banner. Healers’ wagons lumbered behind and I spurred my horse toward them.
I was surprised to see Eric among the riders and he smiled when he saw me and moved to meet me on the road. As I neared, I could see that Eric’s usually well-trimmed beard was untidy and frazzled.
“War and pestilence, General,” Eric said. “You do nothing in a small way.”
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.
Eric laughed to himself and shook his head. “I’ll not let this illness beat me—it’s almost emptied my northern lands, though I am sick of fighting this plague, sister. This will make four years in the fight. We’ve even burned whole villages hoping to end it.”
“Eric, you can’t stay here,” I warned. “The Kullobrini have been pulling troops from their sentries. They might be readying an attack.”
“Your message said nothing—”
“It began long after my message was sent. You should leave, Eric.”
Eric looked about the camp, the men wearing flowers, the healers moving from tent to tent. “No, I’ll stay. If this beast gets any further among the men, we’ll never contain it. You’ll be left with nothing to fight with, no matter what the Kullobrini decide.”
I looked at him for a long moment and finally nodded. “If that’s what you think is best, then of course.”
“With your permission then, I’ll take charge of the sick and the healers,” Eric suggested. “Of all the battles before us, this one at least I have more experience in than you.”
A soldier’s wracking cough cut through the air, and Eric’s horse jumped at the sound.
Again, I nodded.
“Don’t worry, sister. We’ll beat them both,” he said and turned back to his men as they unloaded poultices and hanging bundles of herbs.
***** ***** *****
By noon, Eric had transformed the camp. Each quadrant now had two great cauldrons of boiling water going at all times for broths and herbal mixtures. The tents of the sick were treated, as well as their blankets. Even the sanctifying charms of the Indinni people who lived in the mountains to the north were hung around the necks of the sick.
My quadrant remained the worst hit with eighty-four cases and three deaths, but it had spread to the southeast quadrant as well, though only twelve cases. The other quadrants remained mercifully clear, but we knew that could change at any time.
The Kullobrini kept to themselves, at least, leaving us only a single battle to fight. Their ships continued to bring firewood and fish regularly, but one shipment was different: assorted plants, the purpose of which we could not determine.
“Tired of fish?” Gonnaban had wondered. “Seasonings?”
“They’re a methodical people, Gonnaban, as you have pointed out,” I said. “They would already know what spice herbs and edible plants are available locally and have been gathering them from the start. It is not for their dinner table.”
“Poison then?” Gonnaban asked.