Hila and Mordecai 2
If you read last Sunday’s blog post, you already know what this one is about—a novel in development and some of the short stories that I have written in exploring it. The stories provide me with glimpses into Hila and Mordecai’s world. This next story, called Little Deaths, speaks to the magic system I am slowly creating. It also shows that Mordecai is as much mentor as familiar to Hila. I didn’t include an image for this story, as I reused the one from the original story, pictured above.
As Hila and Mordecai entered the fourth encampment in as many days, the smell of mortifying flesh assaulted her nose. The agony of the wounded and dying invaded her soul. She had been warned but had not really understood what service would truly mean.
As in every camp, her arrival precipitated a wave of hope. It was this that sustained her, allowed her to press forward. She needed no guide to lead her to the injured. Even without their fevered moans, their broken flesh called to the magic within her.
Staggered by the intensity of the suffering, Hila shuttered her senses, halting long enough to draw on Mordecai to steady herself. The owl opened himself to her, feeding her the strength she would need to withstand the suffering that even now battered against her senses, threatening to overwhelm her.
“You are tired, Hila,” the familiar whispered for her ear alone. “You open your senses to the flood. Take only one burden at a time.”
“Aye,” Hila replied. Feeling steadier, she realized she had been walking blind, drawn only by the all-consuming pain of the wounded.
With eyes cleared of its haze, she saw clearly the camp and its inhabitants. Rows of tents stretched as far as she could see. Soldiers, young and old, huddled in twos and threes around small fires, seeking companionship and comfort as much as warmth. And a small, but growing entourage gathered behind her, respectfully waiting for her to resume her walk. The wounded belonged to these in one way or another.
Hila opened her senses, just enough to allow a trickle of the suffering to enter. Stifling a gasp at even this much, she found a smile for her volunteers, then led them onward.
No fewer than fifty persons stood with Hila as she stopped at the medical compound. The stench of death lay heavy in the air as the Master Healer greeted her with a relief born of desperation.
“Thank the gods. We despaired of a witch coming at all.”
Hila, aching with guilt at the suffering and death on all sides, opened her mouth to apologize.
No, Mordecai’s thought came. Aloud, he said, “Many are the souls that call to us, Healer.”
Disarmed by this direct address from a familiar, the Healer bowed his head. “Forgive me, my concern for my patients has made my tongue sharp and my gratitude dull.”
“I take no offense,” Hila said, sending silent thanks to Mordecai. Without another word, she strode unerringly to the pallet on which the soldier nearest death lay.
A bandage, brown with wound rot, covered a foul-smelling abdominal wound. The woman, barely into her adult years, lay still as death. Hila brushed fingers over her fevered brow, bringing them to rest in the center of her forehead.
“Who gives of their days, so this woman may live?” Hila chanted the words, projecting them so those outside the tent would hear.
In solemn chorus, the volunteers replied, “We freely give of life for life.”
“Then shall I bind it so.” Reaching out, Hila opened to the life force of the volunteers, taking but a tiny portion for each, for many had come to give. She bound the forces, exchanging an even smaller measure of each for an equal share of her own. Opening herself to the wounded woman, she pulled the damage from her body, its pain raging through Hila’s own. Even as Hila took the wound into her own body, the life force bound within her cleansed it, leaving Hila exhausted but whole.
As Hila let go her connection to the woman and the volunteers, a grain of each remained with her, even as she left grains of herself within each of them.
She withdrew her hand from the now cool forehead and continued on to the next patient.
I’ll throw in one more, quick story here. I knew, when I wrote it, that it was part of Hila’s world. I didn’t discover until the next story, which I’ll include next week, how it would fit in. It’s called Lost Kingdom.
Cadau’s sharp eyes searched the landscape far below the cliff on which he came daily to watch. Last of the watchers, the great wolf partnered a throneless king who yet served his lost kingdom. Or rather, the kingdom lost by his great-grandfather in a war that still plagued a land and people who had forgotten why they fought.
Anything? Myrdal’s thought came, attenuated by the distance between them.
Only the normal rhythm of the valley, Cadau replied. Wait. A flicker, more a movement of magic than of substance, drew his attention. There, beyond the tree line. A witch and her familiar approach.
Then the war has reached this last bastion of peace.
Cadau felt the sadness and loss in Myrdal’s thought. It echoed his own. I shall take the pass down to greet them. They will be tired and hungry.
And I shall prepare for the battle to come.
Looking forward to the next installment!
I love it, tell me when the book is available.