Ok. You
know the drill - I don't own Lodoss or the rest of the Lodoss crew. I'm only borrowing them for a little
while. I promise to return them
unharmed! ^-^
I DO own
Healer Veris, however, as well as Vesper and all the people in Vesper. *New Character Alert! *
-_-;
Chapter Three: Old
Habits…
She dreamt of
the war horns that called the ragged ranks of soldiers to battle, the piercing
tones clear and bright in the anxious, storm-looming air that pressed down on
her. She dreamt of seeing soldiers on
every side of her as far as she could see, the plain a swarm born by a blue and
silver wave.
She dreamt of
seeing the tide of the Marmo army against the horizon, the dark wash of humans
and monsters dwarfing the army of King Fahn and poised to strike like a dam
waiting to burst. She dreamt of the stillness
that hung over them all as they stood waiting for the horn to call them to
action.
She dreamt of
the battle call, and the answering collective growl that seemed to rise from
both sides of the field, a sound that rose above the shaking of the earth as
men and horses charged towards one another with deadly abandon, faces contorted
in battle-rage.
She dreamt of
the dragon. The great beast that rose
from the ranks of Marmo and rose ponderously into the air with a thunderous
scream of promised violence, to circle in the sky above the army. There were no words in her vocabulary for
the great size of the beast, nor the overpowering sulfurous, carrion stench
that the wind from its wings brought, nor the terror that burst in her at the
sight of it. It screamed and spewed
forth a river of flame that washed the Valisian army in blazing death.
She dreamt of
the faces of the soldiers that had been brought to the Healers' tent, and the
smell of blood and burnt flesh that choked her as she surveyed the wounded. There were too many to count, too many to
help, too many dying all around her.
She dreamt of
the sword in her hand, the slim Elven blade that her father had made, the runes
obscured by dark Orc blood. She dreamt
of her pale hands stained dark with ichor, the battle cry of rage pushed beyond
fear issuing from her own throat, as she flung herself forward towards the army
of Kanon. She dreamt the feeling of the
sword pierce through Orc and Kobold armor.
She dreamt of the Orc sword raised high above her, faster than she could
block, poised in the split second before it would descend and impale her, and
she remembered…
* * * * * * *
Veris woke
violently in semi-darkness to the sound
of her own harsh cry issuing through jaws clenched tightly in fear, her heart
pounding in an irrational tempo against her breastbone. For a blank moment her eyes were blind, lost
in the chaos of her own thoughts. There
was a brief, unutterable moment of panic as her hand fumbled for a sword that
was no longer there. Then she
remembered she no longer wore her sword even as she slept, and the warm,
suffused glow of dawn brought the familiar shapes and contours of her bedroom
into register under her gaze.
Dreams
again. Never the same one twice, these
days.
Sometimes
she could remember them, and sometimes she couldn't. She dreamed about the war most often, and occasionally about her
parents. They always left her thus:
sweat-rimed and chilled, sheets unpleasantly damp with her own perspiration
tangled about her shivering limbs.
Veris tried to calm the racing of her heart with a
few carefully drawn-out breaths.
In. Out. Easy.
The dream fear was already fading, leaving her with an unpleasant, dry
taste thick in her mouth. Her eyes
instinctively went to the space between the nightstand and the bed, where her
family sword stood propped, in easy reach should she ever need it. The sight of the sword was at once a relief
and a reminder of what haunted her, and she felt guilty at the reassurance she
immediately felt knowing it was still there.
As if you could ever lose it, she thought to
herself with an odd mixture of humor and pessimism.
After a moment of getting her breath back, she
realized she was awake for the morning.
She was too finely wound to relax enough to give in to sleep again, and
the clinging, sweat-damp sheets were not appealing at all. She pulled back the covers and stood up,
grumbling only half-heartedly to herself.
The truth was, rude awakening or no, she probably would have been awake
about now anyway.
There was a small basin on her dresser waiting next
to a pitcher of water, and she moved towards it, yawning broadly. A foggy mirror hung over the basin, and she
caught her reflection in it and paused for just a moment.
A thin, pale face stared back at her, looking
entirely too solemn for its own good.
The large green eyes were too wide to be completely human, and if there
was any further doubt the slight point of her ears marked her as
half-Elven. The tousled hair that fell past
her shoulders was a distinctive color that hovered somewhere between red and
gold, and even when she was being kind to herself Veris could only think of it
as a funny, smoky color that seemed to defy both classification and current
style.
"Well, Veris, and a good morning to you," she said
to the mirror, ruining the solemn image by making a face at her
reflection. It was far too clear a
morning, and she did not want to let her dreams ruin the day before it had
begun, especially those dreams that it seemed she would always have. She tried hard to push them out of her mind
as she poured water from the pitcher into the basin carefully. Pulling back her sleeves, she bent and
washed her face in the basin of cold water.
It helped to clear her mind of the last vestiges of dream fog.
Face still dripping, she went over to her armoire
and opened it to the soft smell of fresh laundry and the lavender she had hung
to keep the moths away from her clothing.
Her wardrobe was scant, and out of long habit she pulled the soft,
slate-colored robe she always wore off its hanger and over her head. Under it, she slipped on a pair of loose
trousers, with plenty of pockets for the odds and ends she always seemed to be
needing.
She wore the grey robe of a Healer. Veris had worn the Healer's robe ever since
she was eighteen, although sometimes she was not sure how much she deserved to
wear them. She remembered her dream
suddenly and sobered, almost unconsciously wiping her hands on her robe as if
to rid them of some stain.
"Don't
be an idiot," she told herself sharply.
"You have more important things to do this morning than mope about
things you can't change."
She
sighed.
She moved to pick up her brush from the
dresser and began to pull it through her hair. She could not help smiling ruefully at herself for her habit of
speaking her thoughts out loud. Not that this was an entirely new phenomenon,
but she supposed living alone for nearly a year and a half could only have
exacerbated the habit. She didn't mind
this habit so much but sometimes it was embarrassing when she forgot herself in
front of the villagers and held lengthy discussions with no one in particular
about subjects only she was keeping track of.
That certainly didn't help the eccentric image she had undoubtedly
already earned herself, but in general the villagers seemed quite willing to be
forgiving of all her quirks, including that one. The thought made her smile affectionately, before a frown of
concentration formed itself between her thin brows as she pulled her hair back
and braided it fiercely into something very like submission.
By
the time she had finished getting dressed, the sun was up and she could hear
the rooster crowing mightily from the barnyard. She ran down the stairs into the infirmary, pausing only to slip
into a pair of thick, ugly boots before running out into the morning.
The
air that hit her was cold and clear, and she immediately was chilled despite
the sturdiness of the robe she wore.
Muttering to herself about the need to wear more clothing, she let
herself in by the gate and hurried into the barn yard. Shooing a couple of chickens out of the way,
she struggled to open the barn door, pushing it with some effort along tracks that
were old and stiff.
As she opened the door, dust swirled in the
sunlight flooding into the old barn, and the soft beating sound of wings sprang
up as pigeons rose to the rafters, cooing softly in half-hearted alarm.
It
was amazing, Veris thought to herself, how the smell of a barn in early spring
could still be so reassuring to her.
The sweet smell of hay and the woody, dusty odor of the cedar chips that
Garn delivered for her every month hit her nose immediately. It was mingled with the molasses scent of
the feed stored in the grain room and underlayed by the acrid odor of horse
urine – even that didn't smell bad, only pungent.
The
barn was rough and time-grey around the weather-worn edges, but it looked fine
to her – welcoming and warm. Perhaps
because it was her barn, she was less inclined to see the faults.
An
aggressive whicker broke the calm silence insistently. Veris chuckled to herself and made her way
to the only occupied stall in the barn, dust motes eddying in her wake.
"Good
morning, girl," Veris greeted the small brown mare, who immediately answered by
giving another whicker and pushing her nose ungently into the young half-Elf's
hands to see if she had food there.
When it became apparent that Veris wasn't holding out on her, she put
her ears back in frustration and snorted, sounding for all the world as though
she were disgusted with her owner.
"I'm
going, I'm going," she said
placatingly, heading towards the grain room.
She had to smile at the mare's irritability. The mare was not sweet tempered at all; in fact, she had nipped
Veris several times over the years.
However, she was an intelligent horse and she had saved Veris more than
once, and Veris had never thought of selling her.
She
filled a scoop with horse feed, shaking it to measure it evenly. At the sound the mare began stopping her
foot, nickering eagerly.
"I'm
coming! Impatient creature," Veris
scolded without heat, dumping the feed into the mare's bucket. The horse bared her teeth at Veris calmly
and dug in, munching contentedly. Veris
sighed, shaking her head, and went to fill the scoop with chicken feed. Walking around the barnyard, she scattered
the feed on the ground, and the few chickens she had came running to greedily
peck at what she'd scattered.
Morning chores done, she wandered back into the barn
and sat on a hay bale with a soft sigh, listening to the mare chew. Her life had fallen easily into this
routine, and she enjoyed the normalcy of it.
She had been living in the small, rural
village of Vesper for…well, it would be two years, come winter. It hardly seemed possible that so much time
could have passed since Veris, weary and heartsick with traveling, had spied
the village tucked away in the rolling hills of what had to be Alania's most
southern point. It had been a beautiful
place even then, buried under a thick blanket of snow, and she had known almost
before approaching the village elders that this was where she wanted to stay.
The
acceptance had been so easy. No one had
asked questions about her past, nor had they seemed to care that she was
half-Elven. All they saw were her
healer's robes, and every one of the villagers had been so damned grateful to
have a healer worth anything, they had simply held out their arms to her and
she had walked right in. She had never
been anywhere else where the same held true.
She was always so afraid that one day, she would wake up, and find that
all of it was gone.
"Healer
Veris! Healer Veris!" A voice called, shattering her
reflections. For a moment, Veris froze,
and then she smiled, seeing a familiar face appear in the sunlight at the barn
door. Easy there, she told
herself with a wry smile, it's not an emergency every time your name is
called, not anymore.
"Morning,
Lira," she said to the young woman that had appeared at the door, holding a
basket in her arms. "Is there something
I can do for you?" The young woman
moved into the barn, her scuffed walking shoes making a purposeful clatter on
the barn floor.
"Morning,
Healer," the woman said, her friendly, open face smiling broadly. "I knocked on the door but didn't get an
answer, so I hope you don't mind me interrupting your morning chores."
"Oh
yes, I was hard at work," Veris said with a grin, indicating her seat. Lira chuckled.
"Well,
don't let me disturb you then," she said.
"I was sent round to thank you for your help the other day." Veris nodded.
"Ah. Yes.
Your mother, how is she?" The Healer asked. Lira nodded.
"Very
well, thanks to you. She's much
better." Veris nodded, mostly to
herself, her professional concern fulfilled.
"She sent your favorite," Lira added with a wink, pulling back the cloth
covering the top of the basket to reveal a few dense loaves of apple bread.
Veris
took an appreciative breath of the fresh bread, and her stomach growled
audibly. The women both laughed.
"That
was good of her," Veris said, standing to take the basket. "I suppose it's no secret how much I love
apple bread."
Veris
had learned early that business in Vesper was not conducted in the manner she
was used to. There was very little
money in Vesper, and as it was a small, isolated village, it had returned to
the primitive system of barter and trade.
People paid for the Healer's services not in gold, but most often with
services in return for her Healing. It
was the reason she could get fresh cedar chips for the barn every month, free
feed for the mare and the chickens, and fresh apple bread for breakfast. It was a good life, and so far Veris had not
missed having gold at all.
"I've
also been ordered to help you if there's anything that needs doing," Lira
replied, looking hopefully down at the short Healer.
Veris
looked up at Lira, who stood taller than her by nearly a hand. It was
spring, the middle of planting season, and Lira was probably looking for a good
excuse to keep away from the arduous work expected to be done around her
farm.
"Well,"
the Healer said, deciding to help the young woman, "I was planning to go look
for some herbs I've almost run out of, and I could certainly use company." She grinned. Lira grinned back, looking relieved.
"I'd
be happy to help," the young woman replied promptly.
Veris
sometimes forgot how young most of the villagers in Vesper were. Lira's dark hair and pale grey eyes made her
look older than she was, until she smiled.
Most of the villagers had dark hair and skin roughened from working
outdoors in all weather; Lira's skin was permanently ruddy at her cheeks,
giving her a healthy, high-colored look.
Veris, with her pale, half-Elven slightness, looked rather out of place
among the sturdy farm people of Vesper.
She supposed she looked rather younger than she actually was; it was
notoriously hard to guess the age of Elves and half-Elves alike, because they
aged so much more slowly than humans.
"Let
me just put this in the kitchen," Veris
said, indicating the basket of bread.
Lira nodded.
When
Veris returned, with an empty basket hung in the crook of her left arm, she was
buckling on the Elven sword with casual grace.
She noticed Lira eyeing her and smiled ruefully. Most of the men in Vesper wore swords, and
some of the women did as well, but she knew it must look rather hypocritical
for a Healer to be wearing a sword.
However, she could not leave without it.
"Old
habits are hard to break," Veris said almost apologetically to Lira, who smiled
understandingly. Veris knew the young
woman did not know exactly what she meant by that, but knew also that she
probably wouldn't ask – personal questions in Vesper were rare, and she was
glad of it.
"One
never knows what one might meet, this close to Kanon," Lira added
agreeably. "Why, just the other day my
Da spotted some kobolds moving through the woods towards Flaim." Veris raised her eyebrows.
"Hmm,"
the Healer said. "Well, at least it
wasn't Orcs."
* * * * * * *
By late
afternoon, the sun had warmed the air so that it was nearly hot, and Veris had
rolled her long, full sleeves back to keep them out of the way. She and Lira had made their way into the
woods that surrounded Vesper thickly, laughing and chatting together as they
searched for the herbs that Veris required.
Lira seemed
especially ready to talk, and Veris was quite content to let her young friend
fill the silence with cheerful chatter.
She was most inclined to talk about one of the village boys that had
been helping her family in the fields recently.
"Think you'll
marry?" Veris asked eventually with an indulgent grin, cutting off yet another
long-winded description of the young man's virtues. Lira blushed, and returned the Healer's grin with one of her own.
"I guess I have
been talking a lot about him," she said with a sheepish laugh. "Who knows what will happen. Da certainly likes him, and Mam will come
around, if I'm serious." Veris nodded,
pleased with Lira's forthrightness.
"What about you,
Healer?" Lira asked, looking slightly sly.
"Don't you think you'll ever marry?"
Veris snorted in a quite unladylike fashion, which made Lira laugh in
surprise. It always startled her when
the somewhat delicate-looking Healer did something decidedly un-delicate.
"Not likely,"
the Healer replied. "I'm too stubborn
to get married." Besides, she
added to herself, not in Vesper - half-Elves can't marry humans. We'd outlive them by a hundred years or more. She stifled a sigh.
"Well, you
shouldn't give up," Lira said.
"Besides, Vesper doesn't want to lose you so we're all hoping you'll
marry and stay here." She gave the
Healer a cheerful grin, and Veris chuckled amicably.
The Healer
looked down at the basket she held, which was full of the greenery they had
picked and smelled of a pungent combination of herbs that were invaluable to
her work. Like most Healers, Veris knew
a few healing spells, but she suspected the use of magic in Vesper would make
the villagers uncomfortable, and so used the old-fashioned methods whenever she
could.
"Well," she said
to Lira, "I think I've got everything I need for today, so perhaps-" Veris cut herself off abruptly, her head
coming up to listen with sudden intensity.
"Healer?" Lira
asked, puzzled. "What-?"
"Shh," Veris
cautioned. "I heard-" The soft rustle in the underbrush came
again, slightly louder; Lira heard it this time and froze. Veris very deliberately put her basket down
and rested her right hand on the sword hilt at her left hip. She faced the direction of the noise with
poised stillness, her eyes sharp in the dimness of the forest. The half-light did not bother her as it did
Lira; Veris could see in the dark with the same ease as she could see during
the day.
"Show yourself," she said in a calm, flat voice that
had nothing whatsoever to do with the jovial tone belonging to the Healer that
Lira knew. This voice was devoid of
humor, the normally relaxed half-Elf now drawn into a tight crouch, coiled with
purposeful energy.
A kobold crashed
clumsily through the underbrush, holding a spear and wearing armor that looked
a bit the worse for wear. So. This one wasn't a wild kobold, but had been
recruited into the army at some point.
From the looks of things, there was a Marmo sigil on its
breastplate. The border to Kanon was
not far away from Vesper at any point, and Veris realized the possibility of
straying monsters from Marmo-occupied Kanon was quite likely.
If it was asingle
kobold, there was no problem. However,
they often traveled in groups. If there
were more than one, Veris was sure she was going to run into trouble.
"Lira, get
behind me," she commanded without any change in her tone. There was no argument to be brooked with
that voice, and the young woman did as she was told.
"Well?" Veris
asked the monster, fairly sure it could not understand her. "What do you want?" Her voice was still flat and chill, her face
a mask of calm that fell over her quite naturally.
In response, the
kobold attacked with a high-pitched, growling yell, swinging its spear with no
great accuracy but with shattering strength.
"By the iron
balls of Fa-" Veris started to splutter the old soldier's oath, and stopped
herself ruefully, remembering Lira. Old
habits again…. She sidestepped the
clumsy attack easily, and, thinking of the young woman behind her, felt no
compunctions about stabbing the creature through the throat with almost uncanny
precision as it passed her.
The thing died
with a gurgle, and Veris looked down at it unemotionally.
"Healer, behind you!" Lira cried, and Veris whirled
to see another kobold rushing towards the young woman. Stepping in front of her, Veris knocked the
kobold's spear out of the way with the hilt of her sword and slashed its throat
as it passed. It turned with a high
pitched growl of rage, and she saw that she had misjudged slightly, missing the
artery. Blood seeped from the gash in
its throat, but it was still on its feet.
It rushed them again, swinging its spear, and Veris ducked under its arm
and stabbed it where the armor left a gap between shoulder guard and breast
plate, under its furry arm. It fell
with a horrible cry, clutching at its wounds.
Eventually its writhing stopped, and it fell still.
Stone-faced, Veris flicked blood from the
Elven runes on her sword with a quick, downward whipping motion of her arm, and
sheathed the sword in the same swift, graceful motion. She turned to Lira, who was watching her
with wide eyes, looking rather pale.
"Healer,"
she breathed in astonishment.
"You…that…so fast…" Veris
shrugged, unable to say anything, and picked up her basket with a strange,
disconnected nonchalance.
"Kobolds,"
the Healer spat in disgust. "Come on,
Lira, let's get back before we run into any more of those things." Lira blinked at her, seeming to come back to
herself with an effort. She followed the
Healer hesitantly, unsure what to make of the dispassionate chill in the
Healer's face.
They
were halfway home before Lira spoke into the fragile silence surrounding them.
"The
elders will want to know about the kobolds," Lira said. "And my da.
Healer, you saved me."
"That's
my job," Veris said, and suddenly her voice broke, and she began to tremble
violently, her face draining of color.
"Healer?"
Lira asked, concerned. Veris shook her
head.
"I'm
alright," she said through chattering teeth.
"Just…give me…a minute." The
cold objectivity had faded, leaving her with a sense of guilt-ridden horror at
herself. Killing…even now…it still came
so easily . It was only afterwards that
she could feel any thing; during any sort of skirmish like the one just now,
the chill detachment from her own conscience was all too easy and felt
completely natural.
…Just
a kobold… one part of her mind wanted to insist rationally. It didn't matter that it was a monster that
would have killed her as quickly as she had killed it, had it been able. The thing that bothered her was that it was
so effortless, an act of death brought about by the same hands that should work
only to heal. The healer who is also a cold-blooded killer, she thought
to herself, shaking. Did Lira see
how easy that was…for me? I had hoped…I
would never have to do that again.
"Healer,"
Lira said again. "You fought in the
wars, didn't you?" Hoping she didn't
look as miserable as she felt, Veris nodded.
"A
lot of the villagers did, too," Lira said, "when Alania joined Valis against
Marmo, many in Vesper enlisted, too. I
wondered where you had learned to move so fast. I just froze – you really saved my life." Veris looked up, surprised by the
understanding in the young woman's voice.
"Just
be glad you didn't have to fight in the war," Veris replied, smiling a bit
wistfully. "We in Valis had no choice
in the matter."
"Ah,"
Lira said. Then she grinned. "No wonder you have an odd accent," she
said. "You're from Valis. We all wondered." Veris made herself chuckle, trying to swallow the old feeling of
guilt and adrenaline, tucking her hands into her belt to stop their
trembling.
"I'm not
the one with the odd accent," she said, sounding something like herself at
last.
"Still, you'll
probably get a lifetime supply of apple bread for sure, now," Lira said after a
moment, looking thoughtful. She met
Veris' eyes with a cheerful smirk, and startled, the Healer laughed.
* * *
