Fever
Torleif let out a frustrated breath and stared down at the blood and grime that stained his hands. He had just set down the unconscious body of a young man on a free spot on the floor of the temporary infirmary they had set up. They had come across a small village, set up their camp there, and commandeered one of the houses to take care of their sick. There was no time to set up anything better so they just had to make due.
Their company fell victim to an ambush as they were fleeing towards the south after what happened in with Brynjar. They had run into the group of soldiers on the way that had attacked them on sight. The rebel forces had many people injured or sick in the group after the complications in the north and they were under a lot of stress after losing Brynjar. So when soldiers attacked, they barely managed to defeat the soldiers without losing too many of their own in the process. However, there were still a lot of injuries and the injured took up all the floor space in the living room and kitchen of the small house. The butcher from Griven fell in this last assault, leaving them with one man less among the inner circle of the rebellion.
Torleif glanced towards a bed in the very corner where Matthias was sleeping. He was still completely out of it after having fallen off his horse and they found out his wounds had become badly infected. That boy had been a blessing to them all. He had no training in the way of war, but his instincts had saved them more than once and people had started looking up at him like a leader despite his young age. Matthias had stepped up to take charge when he himself had been too out of it and foolishly drank to escape reality.
It had been several days now where Matthias was in and out of consciousness. Fever was making him delirious and he kept muttering nonsense in his sleep. Eir seemed to have less and less hope each time she checked on him. She admitted to have no idea if he would ever wake up or not, that none of the herbs she used did anything to lessen the infection from the strange magical wound. If anything it was getting worse, his veins had started to blacken in a way that was similar to what had happened to Brynjar. Whenever Matthias was awake enough, they tried their best to get some get some nutrition in him to keep his energy up and maybe let his body fight of the infection. However, they all knew the milk and honey they mixed and the occasional spoonful of soup forced down his throat would not be able to sustain anyone for any length of time. Matthias was growing weaker with each passing day no matter what they did.
Now Eir rushed back and forth with medical supplies, barking out orders to the others helping her out. On her second pass by Torleif, she stops to kneel down beside him and firmly squeeze shoulder, carefully balancing a basket of supplies in the other arm. "Stop blaming yourself for what happened today." Her tone is much sharper than any healer should have any right to have. "Now pull yourself together and get out of here. You are in the way and I have patients who need me." Eir followed Torleif's glance towards Matthias. "Your staring will not make him any better" she remarks sharply before standing up and about to move away.
Will he be okay?" Torleif asks weakly before she has a chance to leave. "I didn't even realize he was so badly hurt until he fell off that horse. He did so well helping after we lost Brynjar, the thought did not even cross my mind. After this last attack, we have started to run out of people in leadership. We have plenty of people who want to take charge, but we need someone the people want's to follow and that kind of trust is not easily earned."
Eir shifted uneasily on her feet. "I told that boy his own stupidity would be his doom. He refused to rest and let his body heal when I specifically told him to do so. He always had something he needed to do that was more important than his own health. He did not come to me when the infection first showed, something that allowed it to become much more serious than it should have. Now all we can do is hope that his body is strong enough to fight the poison on its own. I have tries all the herbs I know can stop something like it, but so far nothing seems to be working." She sighed heavily. "I want to hope that he gets well, I wish to save as many lies as I can, but we have to be realistic about this. The longer time it takes for him to wake up, the less of a chance there is that he will wake up at all. Now please excuse me."
She readjusts the basket balanced between her arm and hip and moved towards the kitchen where more patients were resting. Passing the front door, she almost walked right into Tino, trying to sneak his way in. "No!" She barks firmly. "You can head right back out again unless you have an injury that needs attending to. Your friend has not woken up yet and you sulking by his bedside will not make any difference in his recovery." Eir shoots an angry glare at Torleif. "Please give your scout something to do to keep him out of my hair and make sure to tell Berwald that I do not wish to see either of you three lurking about in here again."
Torleif laughs bitterly at her words and watches the angry healer march out of sight, quietly muttering a string of curses to herself. Tino is chewing on his lips and stares at the bed in the corner. Matthias looks strangely peaceful compared to the other occupants. His bedding is soft grey where most of the others are a mess of red stains. He had been peacefully sleeping, even when an entire battle raged around them.
Torleif pushes Tino outside and closes the door behind them. "We better leave the woman to her work," he mutters and pats Tino on the back before heading off in a different direction. He had a lot of work to do and people were looking to him for guidance.
Matthias was vaguely aware of some distant sounds reaching him. He had to admit he had been hearing many strange things as of late. After the events with Brynjar and everything, his world had been in a bit of a blur. He had no idea of how much time had passed since then, the days melted into each other and voices tended to blend with each other and never made any sense.
However, this new sound stuck with him and he realized it was somebody singing. It was a soft deep voice, the strange words were strangely calming, and Matthias hung on to every word even if he could not understand them.
Matthias was deeply intent on listening. The words were of a language he had never heard before, but they were alluring and Matthias realized that the voice seemed to lift the fog that lay over his mind and had done so for days. He slowly became more aware of his surroundings. His body was uncomfortably warm but he assumed there was a hand on his chest that moved in a comforting pattern and left the skin it moved over soothingly cool.
Matthias blinked open his eyes, but immediately had to close them again. Only the pale moon outside that shone in the window poorly lit up the room he was in, but it was enough to send a searing pain shooting through his skull and he kept his eyes shut. The song died out and the hand on his chest disappeared. Matthias could not stop the quiet whine of protest that left his lips, wishing for the calming voice and hands to continue and take his discomfort away.
"Relax, don't try to move too soon," The voice whispers calmly. "I had no idea this would happen or I would have tried harder to return sooner. I could not get to you with all the healers constantly walking about, but they seem to finally have gotten control and left for the night. The crystal I gave you was meant to protect, but the magic must have been used when I used the same crystal to kill that man and it poisoned you."
The words allow Matthias finally to place the voice. "Lukas" he muttered weakly, his voice comes out hoarse and raw and leaves his throat burning.
Lukas does not confirm but Matthias knows it is he. "The herbs I gave you will take some time to take full effect but they will remove the toxins from your system. You will remain weak for a couple of more days. Your healer might be good, but she is obviously not trained to take care of injuries that are magical in origin."
"I should call for a guard," Matthias hisses quietly and finally opens his eyes to look at Lukas who sits right next to him, drying his hands on a rag. "You murdered Brynjar in cold blood and created chaos for all of us."
"So you say, but I suspect you will not actually go through with that threat." His voice was just as quiet and eerily calm as before. "Had you been wise you would have killed me the moment I told you who I work for. You could have warned that man I killed from taking that crystal in the first place, but you did not. You remained silent, just as you did all the other times you have seen me. I just did what I had do in order to survive."
"I thought you were ready to die if it could bring peace to the land," Matthias muttered darkly. "And instead you killed Brynjar."
"I don't want to die" Lukas snapped and his eyes flashed angrily. He took a few slow breaths to calm himself. "I don't want to die unless I absolutely have to. If you did not see it, Brynjar's anger would have all of you to destruction if you had let him take charge. He was too strongly driven by revenge to make the right choices."
"Why did you even come back" Matthias sighed.
"I came back because…" Lukas trailed off without answering and looked uncomfortable where he sat. He took a few moments to breathe as if he was having trouble finding a way to admit whatever truth he was holding back. "I came back because I had to make sure you were alright after everything that happened. I didn't really plan to talk to you again after what I did, but I then I found you was dying and I had to fix it since this," He gestured towards Matthias' burned chest "was probably my fault." Lukas' face was blank again, but his eyes spoke of guilt and remorse and Matthias could not find it in his heart to be angry with him.
Matthias groaned and pushed himself up to sit. All of his muscled ached in protest after a long time of lying still. Lukas scooted back a bit on the floor to get some distance between them and Matthias caught glimpse of a faint glow under the sleeves of the commander's thin shirt. Matthias reached forward with the aim of pushing the sleeve up and catch a better look but Lukas was far quicker and pulled his arm out of reach.
"What is that?" Matthias asked.
At first, Lukas did not reply, but when Matthias' brows knitted together in a deep frown, he let out another sigh and pushed up both his sleeves with sharp movements to reveal several weakly glowing, blue symbols following the path of veins going along Lukas' arm and disappearing under his shirt again. Lukas looked down at the symbols, "Punishment" he answered simply and jerked the sleeves back.
"There are times where I am certain that you are dangerous for all of us and that I should just let Torleif and the others stop you, but then you apparently go out of your way to help me. You have warned me and given me tips on how we can win against the soldiers. Then you switch back to something I am sure I should have never trusted in the first place." Matthias runs a hand over his face. "You just never stop making things difficult for me."
Lukas quirks a slight, sad smile at that.
"While you are her, can you at least tell me what the king has planned to do next?" Matthias asks.
Lukas opened his mouth as if he was about to speak, but no words came out and he shut it again. The marks on his arms glowed slightly more under his shirt.
"I guess not then" Matthias muttered. "Can I even be sure that the king has not asked you to come here and trick me intro trusting you so that you can lure us in a trap that will have all of us killed? For all I know those new marks of yours could contain some magical order to kill us and not just be a punishment as you said it was. You might have told the king everything you know about, that you have been helping me out for several weeks, a few months even."
"That is all true" Lukas replied simply, and seeming not at all insulted at the insinuations. "There is no way for you to tell for sure. It would be wisest for you not to blindly trust anything I say anymore. However, there are still things you need to know. Things that my kind would never willingly share with a human or any other outsider."
"You kind," Matthias interrupted, "because you're not human, I remember." He clutched at his head with both hands, rubbing at his temples to fight off a headache. "Wish I could forget that fact though. Sorcerers is one thing, non-human creatures that look like humans but are not is a whole other level of crazy."
Lukas does not move a muscle at Matthias' interruption, instead just continues talking. "Among all the stores and tales that exist in the world, you would be surprised of how much is based on reality. I can't tell you what you need to know, but I can point you in the right direction."
Matthias snorted mockingly. "Right now it just sounds like you are trying to make me believe in fairytales, when we are right in the middle of a war."
"Wisdom lies at the tongues of old women to those who are willing to listen. They have seen and heard o lot in their time and all tales have to start somewhere, passed down through generations."
Steps in the hallway caught their attention. Lukas's head snapped towards the sound. "I have to leave."
"I know" Matthias replied absentmindedly. He was tired, even after sleeping for days, everything hurt, and he was hungry and confused. Besides, he was getting used to the way Lukas worked. He would show up with a speech that shook his reality and then left, leaving Matthias with more questions than answers.
Lukas, still kneeling stretched out his hands as if to touch but seemed to change his mind halfway through, curling his fingers into a fist and withdrawing his hand. "I left some of the herbal mix by your bed. Apply it to the burns on your chest once a day for about two weeks and it should clear out the infection and let it heal normally." He rose and stalked towards a small window, easily avoiding the few wounded, unconscious people still spread out on the floor. He was gone just as the door on the opposite end of the room opened.
The girl that entered gasped loudly, probably in shock and all of a sudden Matthias felt very self-conscious about the fact that he was lacking a shirt and that the nasty scarring on his chest was on full display. He pulled the blanket up to cover it. "Øh, Morning?" he said sheepishly. "I think I've been out of it for a while, is there any food around by any chance."
The girl dropped her supplies. Then she screamed.
It only took moments for Eir and a few night sentries to arrive after the girl let out her shriek. All of them looked equally surprised to see him awake and in relatively good shape. Eir immediately pushed him back down on the bed and ran her fingers over the burn marks on his chest, her eyes wide and confused. Matthias played dumb when she asked who had used an herbal mixture on him that she could not recognize; he was getting good at that.
Torleif was the first visitor that came by next day after the news of his recovery spread and almost crushed him in a hug. Matthias had never seen the war veteran look so disheveled and so relieved at the same time. There were several new lines of worry in his face as if he had aged greatly since Matthias last saw him.
Tino and Berwald both came by in turn. Berwald found a fragile looking chair and just sat by his bedside to keep him company before his duties called him away again. Tino was a blabbering mess waving his arms franticly as he updated Matthias on everything that had happened while he was sleeping. The attack on their company, on how they had barely had won and were camped up in a small village to recover. He only left when Eir came by to check up on Matthias and chased him out.
Eir ordered him to remain in bed for a few more days to regain some strength. He had lost an alarming amount of weight and both looked and felt like a ghost of himself. The healer assured him it was nothing a few good meals could not fix unless he did something foolish again of course.
Four days later, Matthias woke up to find a small stack of papers partially hidden under his mattress, but he had no memories of them. He spread them out over his bed sheets to look at the elegantly scribbled text and cursed his inability to read. A few of the pages contained pictures. The first was a portrayed a group of people by a small beautiful pond, surrounded by vegetation. However, that was only at first glance, at closer inspection it became clear that not everything was as it should be. Some of the people in the drawing had tails; other had slightly sharpened ears pointing out through their hair, disturbing the normality of the picture.
He flipped through another few papers and almost threw them aside. The next picture he found was a much rougher sketch of a face close up. The face twisted into a vicious grimace. Even if it was just a drawing, the eyes seemed to be glowing. The ears were sharper and a just a fraction longer than human ones. The lips pulled back in a snarl to reveal that the teeth too were sharp. The creature barely resembled a human like the first one had, and Matthias could feel his gut clench uncomfortably.
He did not hear the door open and jumped when the bed dipped and Tino flopped down beside him. "What are you looking at?" His voice was almost cheery and it sounded strange to hear when so much death and misery surrounded them.
Matthias wracked his mind for a convincing lie of how he had come by the papers, when he truly had no idea of where that was. He could only assume that Lukas was the culprit, sneaking them under his mattress in the dead of night for some reason. Matthias shrugged, "I was bored and found these papers lying around in one of the shelves, they looked interesting."
Tino stretched out one arm, expectantly and Matthias handed the papers over so he could have a look at them. His eyes furrowed in concentration as he studied the text and pictures. "What's it about?" he asked.
"I don't know" Matthias admitted. "I can't read. The pictures seemed fascinating though."
Tino flipped through another few pages, furrow his brows and found the first where one word on the top was larger and overly decorated compared to the rest. "Vette?" he read slowly and sounded uncertain. "Ever heard about it before?"
Matthias shock his head. It was not directly a lie. Lukas had mentioned he was a vette, but never really explained any further what that meant, so he knew nothing beyond that word. "Not really. You?"
Tino lifted an eyebrow. "I might have heard some stories when I was younger actually. I do not remember much though; it was a long time ago."
But you can read?" Matthias inquired.
Tino shook his head. "Only a little. This is too much for me to go through. However, if you are interested in this stuff, I think Torleif can read. Most people that were high up the military chain learned how read to as part of their training, but I would not want to ask anyone of them to read fairytales at a time like this. You couldn't try Eir if she has any time to see through this." Tino had no problems keeping a conversation going. With him, shutting up seemed to be the bigger issue. He chuckled and handed the papers back. "Of all the things to pass time with you chose to look at pictures from random fairytales, you have been stuck in the infirmary way too long. I think I am not the only one looking forward to getting you back. Everything is a bit of a mess right now and we are scrambling to get back on our feet. Torleif says we have to leave soon so the soldiers won't find us again."
"He is right," Matthias muttered. "We have probably stayed here too long already."
Tino patted him on the shoulder. "We got some reinforcements from nearby villages yesterday, so we will probably set off soon. Eir told Torleif you should be okay to ride in a day or two, so he will probably wait until then. There are a few others too badly injured to come so we will have to leave them behind here, but I don't think anyone wants to leave you behind, especially not after we lost Brynjar." Tino flashed a sad smile at him and looked a little bit embarrassed about his words. "I have to go; I'm next up for guard duty. Good luck with those papers." He chuckled nervously and stood up to leave. "Talk to you later."
The silence seemed almost deafening after Tino's rapid chatter. Matthias sighed and picked up the papers again when the door shut behind Tino. The snarling face stared back at him in a sort of mockery. He tossed the papers aside to avoid looking at them anymore and flopped back on the bed with a sigh.
