Chapter 3: The Survivor
Korcari Wilds, just north of the Uncharted Territories; Chasind lands
Splinters of fire pierced his arm and legs from the inside out. Muscles throbbed in sync with his heartbeat. The fever burned in his head, and his thoughts left a wake of pain behind them. He forced his eyelids apart and the light sliced his vision. He groaned and the sound hurt his parched throat and pierced his ears.
"Draw the blinds," someone said in common tongue, colored with an accent he didn't recognize. The light dimmed and he managed to crack his eyelids again. The room around him was out of focus, but he made out rough wooden walls and a ceiling with exposed beams. Not a castle, then. Not home, but not a tent, either. He tried to turn his head to see around him, but it sent him into fresh spasms of pain. Then a hand was under his head, lifting him slightly so that it hurt, but not too badly, all things considered. "Drink," the voice ordered. A tin cup was pressed to his lips, and he swallowed the water that trickled into his mouth. It was wonderful. He was still trying to drink when that person pulled the cup away and he was laid back against the pillow. "If you drink too much you may get sick and vomit."
He blinked into focus. A young woman hovered over him, her pale blonde hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head. A few locks of light hair had escaped the knot and hung around her face, pale, but painted with an intricate design of swirls around her eyes, over her forehead, and down her cheeks to end at her jaw. Her eyes were as pale as her hair and seemed to glow with their own light. One white hand pressed lightly against his forehead. "Your fever's breaking; the infection hasn't spread, and you do not seem to have contracted the taint."
"Taint?" His voice was scratchy. His mind was a blur as he tried to piece together what had happened. "Who are you?"
She smiled. The face paint, which had looked surreal and almost frightening with her ghostly eyes, actually enhanced the smile. "I am Viviane, of the Chasind. And you are Fergus. You told me the first night we brought you here." She nodded and more hands were at him again, this time helping him to sit up so he could see the rest of the room. "It's been nearly a week."
Fergus. Fergus Cousland of Highever, son of a Teyrn, commander of Highever's army until his father arrived at Ostagar. He took in the room some more as his clarity of mind slowly filtered back into him. ]It was very much a country dwelling, though less primitive than he would have expected from a Chasind.
"We don't sleep in hide tents, if that's what you're thinking." Viviane's voice cut through his thoughts. Her smile had disappeared, but she did not seem offended. "If you're curious, you're in one of the Korcari trees. I'll let you see out when you're able to walk."
"When will that be?" Fergus asked, more concerned about being able to walk than the news he was stuck in a hut built in a tree. He tried to sit up, but the fire seared through his stomach and ribs again and he winced.
"You were gravely injured," Viviane said, turning to see him. "Many of your soldiers, as well. The darkspawn came up from the Uncharted Territories. You were ambushed."
He closed his eyes and tried to fit Vivane's words into the gaps in his memory. He saw faces, twisted mockeries of human. There was the scent of darkness and the splash of blood. Screams. Roars. "We were scouting to bring information back to the king," he said slowly. "If they got past us…"
Viviane sat at a small wooden table and began working with her mortar and pestle, shaking herbs out of jars. "That first influx of darkspawn was killed by the dragon," she said, as nonchalantly as if she'd been talking about a Mabari hound. "A hunting party saw the dragon and then came for the rest of us, and we found you."
"Dragon?" Fergus asked, but Viviane only nodded as she worked. "My men?"
"Recovering in other areas of our encampment. Some were tainted and turned." She said this with a note of bitterness in her voice. "You'll have to forgive our hunters for doing what was necessary." She got up to take an iron kettle off the fire, and poured the herb mixture into the steaming water. "The others are recovering from their injuries."
"What of Ostagar?" Fergus's mind was racing as quickly as his heart.
"Disaster," Viviane said, pouring the tea into a handmade stone mug. She sniffed at the steam and nodded her approval. "You and your men are the lucky ones."
Fergus finally took a moment to appraise his own wounds. His legs were splinted and bandaged, but the fact he could feel pain in them was a good sign: it meant his spine wasn't irreparably injured. One arm was also bandaged against his bare torso, which was scratched and bruised, but cleaned of dried blood, and in spite of himself, he blushed. He glanced over at Viviane, who was regarding him with hint of a grin on her painted face. "Due to the nature and extent of your injuries, you'd better get over thinking of me as a woman," she told him. She brought over the tea. "You've not been ill yet after the water, so I think you'll be ready for this."
Fergus reached up to take the mug in his good hand, but Viviane held it out of reach. "Get used to me doing most things for you while you are unwell, too." She stirred the tea with a spoon, then proceeded to feed Fergus the tea as if he were a child. It was beyond embarrassing; he was a future Teyrn, after all. But the more the herbs worked on his injuries, the more his pride dissolved and he realized that he wouldn't have been able to do this himself.
He was reminded of when Oren took sick last winter. The poor child hadn't been able to keep anything down, and he'd burned with fever for days. He remembered Orianna's drawn, pale face; the purple blotches beneath her eyes as she held the cool cloth on Oren's forehead, even though Nan and a mage healer his father had hired direct from the Circle were there. He remembered the mage's kind amber eyes, and the way his straw-colored hair fell in his face, not unlike the way Viviane's did now. Was it a healer thing? To be so consumed with caring for another that you forgot yourself?
Orianna and Nan prayed; even Fianna took a break from her usual habits to come in and sit with her nephew. He'd never seen Fi so serious before or after Oren's illness. It was as if the little boy's plight brought it out in her. She kept glancing between Oren and the mage, and the trio of armed templars that had been brought to guard the mage. Her greenish eyes seemed to dare the mage to fail. And then there was the moment when the mage, Anders, Fergus now recalled, staggered back and proclaimed Oren's fever broken. He was so pale he was nearly bluish, but the templars took him by the arms, thanked the Couslands, and left that very hour.
They took turns spoon-feeding Oren first water, then weak tea, and finally broth. He'd held Oren to him while Fianna took a turn with the mug and spoon. She shook her dark auburn hair out of her eyes. "I don't know if I could do it," she told her brother. "Love someone so much, and then watch them almost… you know." He patted her leg and she managed a smile.
"Are you in pain?" Viviane's concerned voice cut through Fergus. He sniffed and that hurt, but the physical pain was welcome.
"I was remembering my wife and son. And my sister," he said, searching for a kerchief to wipe his eyes, but finding none. "I apologize. You are being so good to me."
Viviane's response was silence. She searched his face with her strange pale eyes then set the mug on the table. "You will likely experience such things while healing. When the body is still the mind has nothing else to do but think. For now, you should rest."
"But I'm not… wait, I am." Fergus felt sleep seeping into him, blurring the edges of his consciousness. The pain faded and his vision grew fuzzy and dark, but the feeling was pleasant.
Viviane collapsed into her chair by the fire and let out her breath in a long sigh. While she'd made her work seem easy and effortless during the survivor's consciousness the fact was it was tiring, achingly difficult work. And no one else was going to help her, because she'd taken the advice of the Witch.
What she hadn't told Fergus the survivor was that the dragon had come to see her. The dragon visited her in her dreams and whispered of the darkspawn threat, and when Viviane had woken to the screams of her people, and had looked out to see that huge shadow of death blocking out the sun, she'd known she would be alone in this.
Viviane was an apprentice healer, but supposed that now she would be fully instated as a healer amongst her people. If they could get over the fact that the Witch of the Wilds had helped her. If they could ignore the fact that the dragon had sought her out for this task.
"Please, Flemeth. Please take him," Viviane had begged when she saw the broken man in the icy swamps. "His injuries are beyond my skills."
Flemeth had smiled that mysterious smile that said she knew more than anyone. "His injuries will push you, child. But if you bring him through this, then you will be seen as truly great amongst your people. Perhaps even his. Besides." Her eyes took on that far away look Viviane had seen on so many occasions when she'd snuck to the Witch's window and seen her talking to her bored, dark-haired beauty of a daughter. Like she was seeing beyond. "I will have my own healing to do on someone who truly is beyond your skills. Call your hunters to take him. Use this." She pressed a pouch of herbs into Viviane's trembling hand. "It will help." And then the mists swirled and the light flashed and the Witch was gone. Huge leathery dragon wings beat the air and Viviane covered her face to protect herself, and then even the dragon was gone, as if plucked from the sky by something even larger and more powerful.
Now as Viviane watched Fergus sleep, she was pleased with how the color had returned to his skin. His pallor was gone, and his breathing was much less labored. She did allow herself a smile, because the men who'd helped carry him in had said she was crazy and he was beyond help.
Perhaps the Witch was right.
Perhaps Viviane would finally find the respect among her people that she deserved. Or they would see Fergus's improvement as a sign of dark magic from the Witch. Viviane sighed. They would see what they wanted to see, and that was that. Spirits willing, she would have him healed and ready to head back to his family soon.
If the darkspawn didn't get to any of them first.
