blood will burn out the poison of their fangs. At least, it cannot be a greater poison, I am sure.”
But he had doubts, for all his confident words. Andiene helped him, as they worked on Syresh first, and then on Ilbran, cutting the broken fangs from their wounds, rebandaging them with crushed sandray leaves and vulnese. When the griever’s blood was poured into the wounds, it seemed to boil and smoke. Syresh woke and fought them; Ilbran lay as quiet as death.
The other one, Lenane, they left to the last. Her wounds were lighter, with only one broken-off tooth to remove from a tear in her arm.
“Lucky as any catlen minstrel,” Kallan said. She healed quickly. The next morning, she was up and walking at first light, though with a heavy limp, and one arm hanging unusable. She watched Kallan warily—another one, it seemed, who had no use for a kingsman. When she saw Andiene, she tried to make a courtesy. “My Lady Andiene.”
“I never gave you my name.”
“I heard you last night.” A flash of mischief lit up her face, showing Kallan her nature, bright as mid-day. “All are not asleep who have their eyes closed. Now I know why my songs please you so.”
Andiene gave her a resigned smile. “Very well, since you are up and walking, you may do the cooking.”
Lenane moved awkwardly but cheerfully to brew a pot of savory broth, taking spices and herbs and dried meat from her pack. “Where did you get the meat?” asked Andiene.
“I forget.”
It seemed an innocent answer to Kallan, but Andiene laughed and choked on the broth she was drinking.
He rose and made the rounds of the wounded ones. Syresh was awake, alert, and had no great fever. Kallan spoke lightly as he held the cup of broth up for him to drink. “Well, it seems that I will make no more use of my surgeon’s skills today.”
The younger man flinched and glanced down at himself, as though to reassure himself that all his limbs were there.
“We cut the grievers’ teeth out of you. Does your head ache?”
“Yes.”
“Natural enough. I may have hit you a little harder than I needed to. You’ll mend.” Kallan went on to where Ilbran lay, knelt beside him and tried to pour some broth down his throat.
Syresh lay back. Lenane limped over to him. “You fought valiantly,” she said.
“And you also.”
“I marvel that we all live. My claws were not made for such things as that.”
“I know,” he said. “They were meant for punishing insolence.”
She grinned, but then her face became sober. “I have never seen such wonders. Is she truly Andiene—of my song?” He nodded. “And you? You have no look of the magician about you, but you traveled with her. What kind of a creature is she?”
“Mistress of fire and storm, I know that much, but little more. I serve her, that is all.”
She smiled at him, and then limped over to where Kare lay.
“How is she?” Kallan asked.
Lenane gave him a bright and wary glance. “The child? She sleeps soundly.”
“Too soundly?” He joined her, and bent down to shake Kare by the shoulders. She made no response, no movement even. “She was like this once before,” he said, but the memory did not reassure him.
This time, her pulse was fainter, her skin was cold, and blanched as a lanara petal, no hint of warm blood in it. His hand looked brown as wood beside hers. Nothing else to do, so he began to comb her hair as he had seen her father do, so often, so clumsily.
Andiene came and stood beside him. “I lay like that for some days, so they told me. What is her name? Kare? He named her after her mother. They were gentle people.” She smiled a sweeter smile than any that Kallan had seen on her face. “Where are they now, I wonder, his father and mother?”
“I fear they came to evil,” Kallan said. “They are dead. They died … by the king’s orders.”
Andiene looked to the north, as though she could see through the safehold wall, and all the leagues of field and forest and mountain. “Another score to settle. Still another one!”
Chapter 18
Before their wounds had healed, the summer heat was upon them. Kallan thought to himself that no man’s life was so long, his experience so great, that he could watch and be ready for the summertime. If he had studied the star patterns more carefully, he would have realized that the time