“I can’t tell yet, wait, yes. I see them. Stop hammering.” Shirin wanted to run forward to hurry them along, but she trusted Geller when she’d said she needed to stay right where she was.

  As she’d been doing for the last candlemark, Sábria gently stroked Caitir’s hair and spoke softly into her ear. “The healer’s coming, and you’re going to be fine. Do you remember Master Healer Haria? She’s excellent at controlling pain, and pretty soon, you won’t feel a thing.”

  Jenx was the first to come through. She reached back and held out her hand, which Haria took with a grateful nod. There was a lot of debris, bricks, and rocks lying around, so Jenx didn’t relinquish the older woman’s hand until she’d led her to Caitir’s side.

  Sábria had anticipated that the older healer would need to kneel next to her patient, and she’d had Prita run and buy cushions from the Merchant Quarter. Prita had returned with colorful, square floor pillows preferred by the desert nomads, and Sábria had ordered them placed next to Caitir’s side.

  The healer’s eyes immediately locked onto her patient, and without even realizing the pillows were there, she knelt on the one with the bright blue zig-zag pattern to begin her examination.

  Caitir stared at the curious black bird that had just joined the flock. “Your feathers are all black.”

  Haria’s skin was as dark as Sela’s, and she blinked and looked at Sábria, who explained Caitir’s disjointed symptoms. “Caitir sees us as birds. She’s completely confused and doesn’t know who she is or who any of us are. She’s not slurring her words, though, and can still put together short sentences. The head wound is on the back. I think they must have thrown her from that hole in the wall up there, and it looks to me like she probably landed on her arms and head. She has a stab wound in her back and a slice across her belly. I’m pretty sure both arms and several ribs are broken.”

  “Has there been any blood around her mouth, nose, or ears?”

  “Out of her ears, yes, but not continuously. Do you want me to move so Kara can get closer?”

  “No, the less we move her, the better until we can get everything stabilized.” Haria gently felt the back of Caitir’s head. Concern flashed in her eyes as she palpitated the soft, swollen flesh.

  Without putting any weight on Caitir, Kara straddled her legs and lowered herself down to her knees. She put a hand to Caitir’s eye. “I’m just going to look in your eye, okay?”

  “Don’t peck it out, Bird.”

  “No, I’d never do that. I’m putting my hand over it, and when I remove my hand, my face will be very close to yours so I can see your pupil. Is that all right with you?”

  Caitir closed her good eye, but Kara stopped her. “Even though my hand will be covering it, I need you to keep your eye open.” She covered the eye and turned to Shirin. “Could you bring a torch closer, Commander?” As Shirin held the light as close as possible, Kara leaned in and quickly removed her hand. She studied the eye for a minute and blew out a breath. “Thank the Goddess.” She turned to look at Haria. “Definite reaction, My Lady.”

  Haria nodded absently as she continued to palpate the back of Caitir’s head.

  Caitir winced, tried to bat her hand away, cried out in pain, and then passed out.

  With head injuries, Sábria knew enough not to have given Caitir any dursium dust for pain, but seeing Caitir jerk her broken arm and pass out from the pain had her wishing she hadn’t had so much experience with wounded warriors over the turns.

  The probing continued while Haria continued asking questions. “What did you give her for the pain?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Anything to make her sleep?”

  “I knew you’d need to see her pain levels, check her mental acuity and speech, etc. I didn’t give her any drugs whatsoever.” Sábria’s voice took on a hard edge, as though it were Haria’s fault that she’d had to sit in a filthy alley with her wounded Blade for over a candlemark, unable to give her anything for the pain. “She’s passed out twice, each time because she’s tried to use her arms. Her broken arms, Haria. Yes, we splinted them, but—” Now her voice caught, and she had to stop speaking or risk allowing her emotions to bleed through.

  Knowing the stress Sábria experienced every time one of her Blades was injured, Haria understood the anger in her words. “It’s a good thing you didn’t. If you’d given her dursium dust, which I teach Blades to give for pain when they need to transport to the healer hall, that could have been a disaster. One of its properties is a minimal amount of blood thinner, which, in most cases, is acceptable. In this instance, it could have caused more bleeding in her cranium, which would have put more pressure on her brain, causing more damage than has already been done.”

  Sábria’s gaze sharpened. “Please tell me the mental deficiencies she’s exhibiting are temporary.”

  “I can’t tell you that. The hallucinations might be temporary, and they might be permanent. I’ll know more when I spend time with her at the healer hall. I also don’t know the extent of her internal injuries.” She’d already looked beneath Caitir’s tunic but lifted it again. “Judging by the color of the bruising here and here, two ribs, maybe more, are broken. Her respirations were normal when I arrived, at least for someone in such extreme pain, indicating the ribs haven’t punctured a lung.”

  Kara had been steadily working to replace Sábria’s hastily-applied splints with ones that would better stabilize Caitir’s arms. “What about that eye socket, My Lady? It looks shattered.”

  “Let’s hope not. I couldn’t palpate it when she was awake, but—” Haria’s words trailed off as she carefully felt the bones around the socket. “I don’t feel what I’d expect to if it were shattered, but I can’t be sure with this swelling. I feel some movement, but—” She looked quizzically at Sábria, “What ethnicity is she?”

  “What?” The question came out of the blue, and it took a moment for Sábria to gather herself and answer. She looked at Shirin, who shrugged. Sábria cast back to when Caitir had first arrived at the Temple fifteen turns earlier. Quite often, if she could remember the first interview, she could recall details of a person’s past.

  It was Prita who hesitantly stepped forward, “My Lady?”

  Not used to junior Blades interrupting a conversation of this import, Shirin turned to rebuke the youngster.

  Sábria quickly stopped her. “Yes, Prita? Do you know where Caitir is from?”

  Prita had seen the anger in Shirin’s eyes, and her courage deserted her. Her voice came out barely above a whisper, “She—” It was well known that when the Arch Priestess asked a question, you answered. Prita straightened her shoulders and took strength from looking directly into Sábria’s eyes. Her voice was steadier on her second try. “She was my handler a few times when Jenx was away. Sometimes, she’d ask me about growing up in a noble family, and once, she said she was from the Plethar Valley, south of Goldcrest. I remember because my Uncle is Goldcrest’s Vice-Chancellor.”

  Haria nodded decisively. “I thought so. Look here.” She ran her finger along the eye ridge of the uninjured eye. “Certain characteristics are present in most of the more insular communities throughout Cibía. The peasants in the Plethar Valley are known for their large bone structure, which would explain why her eye socket remains more or less intact. It would also explain why her cranium wasn’t crushed on impact.”

  Ailith, who’d been standing at rest next to the wall awaiting orders, grinned, “Ya mean she’s got a hard head.”

  With an exasperated look, Haria nodded, “Not nearly as hard as yours, Ailith. I’ve never known anyone with a more stubborn, harder head than you. But physically, yes, it means Caitir has a hard head.”

  Because of her extreme worry for her Blade, Sábria’s smile was brief and strained when she asked, “Can she be moved on the punt? We have no other way to get her out of here.”

  “Yes.” Haria joined Kara in stabilizing Caitir’s injuries. “The trip down the tributary was a smooth one. It only became rough when the Captain had to move across the current and then ordered the trib runners manning the poles to dig them in and the Blades to stop the punt in front of the gate, grab onto the pylons that remained from the original dock and anything else they could and hold on. Once the ropes were tied fast, the punt settled again. I believe we’ll be fine once we have her secured and the Captain takes us into the current.”

  Shirin had been thinking ahead, and she asked Geller, “Doesn’t this tributary come out near the shipping lanes on the bay?”

  “Aye, but better than that, it goes right by th’ Alder Street docks.”

  Snapping her fingers, Shirin straightened. “That’s right.” This was their first break of the day, other than Ailith finding the river gate, of course. Sure, the trib runners could have pushed them upstream if they had to, but Shirin hadn’t wanted to take Caitir, Sábria, and Haria through the Foreign Quarter. Alder Street ran right past the Clayborn district, which was full of middle and upper-class businesses and homes. Compared to the Foreign Quarter, getting them through Clayborn would be a simple matter of not attracting too much-unwanted attention rather than repelling attacks from those who hated Sábria and everything the Blades stood for.

  Sábria watched Haria pull a vial of white powder from her valise, shake some into her hand, and, holding the hand beneath Caitir’s nose, lightly blow it into her nostrils. “What are you doing?” She watched as Caitir stirred and gradually regained consciousness. “Wouldn’t it be better for her if she was unconscious while we take her to the Temple?”

  The first vial was returned to the valise, and a second, filled with liquid, was brought out. “No. I want to control everything about this trip. I can’t have her regaining consciousness on the punt or even while she’s being carried in the litter. I needed her awake so she can drink this. It’s a pain compound that doesn’t thin the blood, mixed with enough caneleid powder to keep her asleep until we reach home.”

  By the look on Kara’s face, she was as surprised as the rest by this seemingly convoluted thinking. Everyone had been relieved when Caitir had passed out. Everyone except Haria, that is. This was precisely why Sábria had insisted the Master Healer, herself, be brought to Caitir at any cost.

  While it was true that Kara was younger than the Master and could have easily been hoisted up and over the wall, she didn’t have Haria’s extensive knowledge. She was gaining more and more experience every turn and would one day be an excellent Master in her own right. But Haria was the best in the Empire. There was a reason she held the highest office in the Healer’s Consortium. Elyon had specifically brought her to the Temple because of her medical prowess, and Sábria had learned long ago to trust the woman who kept her Blades alive if at all possible.

  Putting a gentle hand behind Caitir’s neck, Haria pulled her off Sábria’s shoulder. “You’ll feel this bottle against your lips. I’ll tip the liquid in, and you’ll swallow it. Do you understand?”

  The idea confused Caitir, who squinted her one good eye at the healer. “I’m not a baby bird.”

  “No, you’re not. You’ve hit your head, and your thinking is a bit scrambled. I’m Master Healer Haria, and holding you is your Arch Priestess, Sábria. You trust the Arch Priestess, don’t you?”

  Caitir slowly turned to look into Sábria’s eyes. She studied them momentarily, her one good eye moving back and forth between Sábria’s two. “Birds don’t have blue eyes.”

  Sábria agreed. “No, they don’t. You can trust me, Caitir. You always have.”

  “Your eyes. I’ve always trusted your blue eyes.”

  “Then drink what the Master Healer is giving you so we can take you home.”

  Haria put the vial to Caitir’s lips, and she drank what the blackbird was giving her. After a short while, her thinking blurred, and when her head lolled onto Sábria’s shoulder, everything faded to black.

  CHAPTER 6

  It took them the better part of the following two candlemarks to get Caitir back to the Temple. Sábria remained with Caitir for the rest of the day, but once Shirin had seen Sábria and the Master Healer safely back within the Temple walls, she returned with Geller and several Blades to search the abattoir for more crossbows. What they found horrified them.

  Hundreds of human bones lay heaped in a pile in one of the animal pens. In another three pens, they found one hundred or so skeletons laid out as though they’d been lying on straw-filled pallets. The straw was gone, of course, but the remnants of the pallets remained. That must have been where they’d brought everyone who’d fallen ill with the plague. They’d left them to die and walled them up so the illness would not only be contained within the Codpiece, but they’d gone one step further to keep it walled up within the abattoir.

  They’d returned to the Temple well after dark. After a long bath and a change of clothes—at Haria’s orders, everyone who’d been inside the abattoir was to burn the clothing they’d been wearing and take a long bath with some of her specially prepared soap—Shirin had come to Sábria’s rooms in the Sanctum to give her report and, hopefully, unwind. “I’d heard rumors that there had been times the Empire locked down the Codpiece when sickness ravaged the poor and left them to fend for themselves, but I’d always considered that a tale told by nobles to keep the populace in line. You know, ‘if you misbehave, we’ll shut you off from the rest of the world’ type of threats. But, Sábria, that’s exactly what they did.”

  Sábria rose to get a second bottle of Omune Chiaretto. Her concern for her friend had grown in the last half-candlemark simply because they’d gone through most of one already, and Shirin was still pacing the room. “Haria said the fever was well-documented, which tells me that healers did attend to the sick.”

  “Did they?” Shirin poured the last of the first bottle into her glass and continued to pace. “Or did they treat a few as test subjects and throw the rest in with the dead cows and pigs to slowly die without herbs or medicines? Do you honestly think any of those bones belonged to the learned healers of the time? For that matter, do you think any healers went into the Codpiece at all?”

  Sábria rejected that kind of thinking. “How else would they have studied the illness and affected a cure? There are always good, honest healers who risk their lives to help the sick and find a cure. They would have been working day and night, regardless of where the illness was, to do what they could. Perhaps, just like with the Deathbell Disease, there was a point beyond which the victim couldn’t be saved. What would you do, Shirin, if you were responsible for saving every man, woman, and child in Sarlogne, possibly even in Cibía, from a plague ravaging the Codpiece? What would you do if you could stop that plague from spreading by walling in those who couldn’t be saved?” Sábria poured herself another glass and brought the bottle back with her to the sofa. “What if they found the cure and were able to save the ones who hadn’t progressed past the point of no return and needed to wall up those who still carried the disease but were beyond hope?”

  As Arch Priestess, the realization of what she might be called up to do one day chilled her to the bone. “What a horrible decision to have to make. And you know what? I might have to make that kind of decision one day. I pray to Elyon that never happens because, in all honesty, I’m not sure what I’d do. I do know I’d die within the walls of the abattoir giving succor to those who were dying.”

  It took a third serving of wine for Shirin to feel even a little bit settled. “You know what else we found?”

  Sábria sighed. She didn’t want to know what they’d found. Not really, anyway. Seeing Caitir so broken and confused had wreaked havoc on Sábria’s emotions, too. They still didn’t know whether her Blade would live, let alone wholly recover her faculties, and the only reason she’d left her at the healer hall was that Osstendler had personally tracked down Caitir’s lover, Arane, who’d mistakenly heard that both Blades had been killed. She’d gone out on a vendetta, searching for her murderers. It was only after Arane had come running into the healer hall to confirm Caitir was still alive and to reassure Sábria she wouldn’t leave her side that Sábria felt she could leave to get some much-needed rest.

  Sábria was tired, and the wine was finally loosening shoulder muscles that, when word had come of the attack, had wrapped around the base of her neck and pulled tight in both directions. Then, when they’d found Mita, the ends had warped into painful knots, sending shooting pains up into her head and down her spine.

  Seeing Caitir lying in pools of her own blood had nearly done her in. She was exceptionally good in a crisis. But one crisis, then a second, and finally a third, had driven her emotions into hiding. Even though she’d shut down, her shoulders and neck still pulsed with excruciating lightning bolts of pain. It was all she could do to keep from vomiting up everything she’d eaten over the past twelve candlemarks.

  What she craved now was peace and quiet, not this recitation from her Second about how bad the end of her day had been. Yes, it was her job to listen and counsel, but at times, she was the one who needed someone to care for her. Usually, that was Shirin. Or, if she were lucky, her Dreyuthan friend, Lady Knight Isobel, or Gwe, the captain of the sailing ship, Polperro, would help her relax and unwind. But now Shirin had her own pain, and Sábria was the one she turned to when she needed to vent.

  Sábria really didn’t want to know what else Shirin and Geller had found, but she knew her friend needed to talk things through, so, with another sip of wine, she turned and watched as Shirin paced from one side of her sitting room to the other. She heard the irritation in her own voice because all she wanted was to rest and destress. “No, I wasn’t there, Shirin. I only walked through the building on our way to the river gate, and my mind was one hundred percent focused on Caitir. I couldn’t tell you anything about what the interior looked like or even how many Blades accompanied us through that hell hole. What else did you find?” She’d been too preoccupied with her own stress to notice before, but now Sábria’s alarm bells went off as she noticed Shirin’s hand shaking as she lifted her glass to her lips.