Chapter Forty-Three
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I fell onto the cot and didn’t budge. Didn’t have the energy to. How many sick had I—worked with, the past eight or ten hours? The hen fussed over me, straightenin’ my clothes, before coverin’ me with a blanket. Made no sense to try to sleep with the sun threatenin’ to rise. But I closed my eyes.
The hand shakin’ my shoulder was unfair. I’d just lain down.
“A very sick child was just brought in.” It was Gladys’ voice. “She doesn’t look good, Morgan. Please. Come.”
I opened my eyes. By the shadows the sun had to be in the west. I jerked alert, lunged out of bed. My head swam and I promptly landed on my butt. On the bright side, was better than a face plant.
“Saw that coming,” the human woman said.
“I guess I’m not much of a warlock, or I would have, too.”
I blinked away the fog and looked into the black eyes of Louisa. They were reverse stars. Instead of illuminatin’, they sank into the whiteness around them.
“I’ll bring ya a cup of coffee,” Gladys said, and walked away, her leather heels makin’ that ugly clatter against the wood floor.
Humans and their shoes. Can’t grasp it. They need to swear off the thin’s and grow calluses on the bottom of their feet, as Nature intended.
Coffee? I hate coffee. “Tea,” I shouted after her.
“Wakin’ up, are ya?” Louisa asked. “Follow me. The child’s lips go from blue to pink and back. I don’t think she has long with us.”
I didn’t need all the honesty, havin’ just woken. She held out her hand and I allowed her to help me up.
The child, an ogreling hen about four, lay in the next room. Most of those I had treated were humans, not ogres. Would takin’ the three hundred bulls from their homes to edge off war spread the ghoul further among Ike’s clan? Blast that Johanson. His timin’ more than stunk. Not that it ever should have occurred. Just like this plague.
Louisa handed me Bacchus, and I sat on the edge of the sick one’s bed, lay my hand on the tiny hen’s shoulder. Bacchus glimmered, then failed. The meanin’ of that struck me in the chest like a swung limb. Tears poured from my eyes, and I gasped.
Took too long to bring her to me.
Louisa set her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll make her as comfortable as we can,” she whispered.
“What of Delia?”
“Yar suggested plot of tellin’ her no dragons were available, worked. She managed some sleep too, I’m told. Still slumbers. But others in the hills are sick. Ya both are needed. Let’s get ya somethin’ to eat before ya set off.”
I nodded as Gladys entered, carryin’ my tea. She groaned. “No.”
I was glad Louisa acknowledged the woman’s pain for me. I sat holdin’ the youngling’s hand, looked up at the hen who entered the doorway. I didn’t know if I could take her grief. I looked back down. The ogreling’s lips edged from blue to white.
Not fair. Not fair.
Her mama came to the bed and I rose to let her take my place. I strode slowly out of the room.
The Northern invasion is the reason the little hen is dead. I wanted to hunt Johanson down and pummel him, like I did Faeylin. I clenched a fist and shook it. A hand on my shoulder made me jerk.
Between Louisa and Gladys, they were gonna give me apoplexy.
“Ya did all ya could do,” Louisa whispered.
Should have clubbed Johanson the day I met him.
“Tir is waitin’ for ya,” Louisa said. “Time to go help the witch.”
The witch, is what Delia is known by now?
I stopped long enough downstairs to grab a quick bite, and ran outside. Tir rocked his head back and forth. His eyes whirled in that majical way. I gave him a stiff scrub between his eyes.
“What’s with the hair?” the young ogre, Asr, asked. It hadn’t been long ago that he flitted near death.
Everyone asked about the white dreadlocks. Still don’t have an explanation. “Have ya seen Delia?”
“Yes. She looks horrible. Maybe she can be yar next patient?”
I stepped up on Tir’s offered knee—elbow. What is it? A forelimb. Should be an elbow. I slumped between a neck ridge and slapped Asr gently on the shoulder. Tir fluttered gently, and we soared a few feet above the Lake. Tir stroked several more times and ascended. Ten minutes later the dragon winged back hard and settled into the narrowest of openin’s in the pines.
One of those stinkin’ dogs humans like so much raised a ruckus. If anyone slept inside, they wouldn’t remain in that state. A woman stepped out on the porch armed with a broom and threatened to skin the dog. It ran under the steps with a last growl.
Mangy beasts. What do humans see in them?
The woman walked down the steps and out to greet us. Her earlier grimace turned into a smile that transformed her face. She grabbed me by the shoulders and roughly pulled me downward, forced a hug upon me. She repeated the process with Asr.
“It’s a good day it is,” she kept repeatin’. “Glad you could come help dear Delia.”
Axe work back in the woods stopped. As the woman stepped on the porch, a man ran around the corner, a smile burstin’ across his face. He gripped both my and Asr’s hands with both of his. The two humans talked over each other offerin’ us food and drink.
Inside, a tot sat up on a cot sittin’ near the hearth—believe he’d been recently in a bad way. But now he shared a single-toothed grin, below a button nose that didn’t look that different from an ogreling’s snout. In that way, it wasn’t so awkward lookin’. The young lad gave us an energetic wave.
“He was a sick one indeed, yesterday,” the woman gushed. “Thanks be to her.”
Against another wall Delia lay on a fur on the floor. Her eyes were shut, her face pale. Sickly pale. I rushed to her and placed my hand against her cheek. There was no fever. She was cold. I pulled her quilt up to her chin. In my left hand, Bacchus came to life. A swirlin’ mist formed above the witch for a second. Maybe it was my imagination. I closed my eyes and focused. Felt the warm embrace of the ethereal, the lethargy that comes with leveragin’ its energy.
I opened my eyes and glanced at the form sittin’ cross-legged on the floor by me.
I asked him, “When did ya get back?”
“Last night,” Lucas said. “I was huntin’ when ya arrived.”
“Hope ya brought back somethin’ good, ’cause I’m starved.”
We both looked at the woman layin’ in front of me. The bags that had been under Delia’s eyes were less pronounced. Creases in her forehead had disappeared. An aroma pulled my eyes away from her. The wild pig that a child slowly rotated over the hearth took all of my attention. Had to swallow, or embarrass myself.
“Smell good, warlock?”
I looked back at—the witch. Her face was stern, but I sensed amusement.
“May I have my hand back?” she asked.
I jerked my hand off hers. Didn't remember holdin’ it.
“Thank ya for comin’ as soon as ya could,” Lucas said. “I was really worried about her.”
“He does cluck about, doesn’t he?” Delia asked. Her face remained stern. “Let me up. I need to step outside.”
The two of us got out of her way and fixed our gaze on the hearth, as though it’s inappropriate to watch a woman on the way to the privy. Maybe it is. Never had thought of it before.
We both shifted our weight from one foot to another. I had a good excuse, as I tried to get the blood movin’ again. How long had I tranced? Never get used to the way time passes unnoticed, durin’. I looked out the door. The front of the cabin was shrouded in shadows, but considerin’ the stand of trees all about, didn’t mean it was too late.
“I’ve been meanin’ to ask ya,” I said. “That evenin’ ya disappeared on me. What happened to ya?”
The young man’s face reddened. “First I was tryin’ to stay out of the way of a goblin scoutin’ party. I—okay, I fell. When I collected my wits, I looked up and a pack of wolves were circlin’ me.”
“Ya hurried up the mountain, but in the dark, ya climbed the wrong side.”
Lucas’ brows came together and he stared at the points of his boots. “Who’s tellin’ the story? It was awful dark. Anyone could have made the same mistake. Besides. I was already feelin’ a little loopy from my fever, I guess. Then, just thought ya two ignert ogres had tired me out. Should have realized that wasn’t the case.”
“Loopy. An excellent excuse, I mean, explanation.”
Lucas looked up at me. His expression changed, distracted. “Yar presence is bein’ requested.”
“Best be goin’ then.”
I bent toward the hearth and sawed at the roastin’ carcass. The fire spitted at me as fat dribbled into the flames. Lucas handed me a slice of bread he cut off from a loaf sittin’ on the dinin’ table, and I liberated the strand of meat with it.
“By the way,” Lucas said. “What happened to yar hair?”
I ignored the question as I used my knife to better cram the meat into the bread. A chunk that wouldn’t fit I grabbed in my teeth, and carefully sliced it from the rest of my meal. I hissed as it burned my mouth.
“Ya know that yellow-haired ogre hen who works at the Inn?” I asked, lookin’ into the fire.
“Surely do,” Lucas answered. “Louisa’s her name. Good friend of Aedwin’s. She’s brought her up to the lair a couple times. Has a sharp tongue, and a sharper wit about her. Even hoodwinks Ike. Aedwin enjoys that enormously.”
“She’s not—uhhh?”
“Been chased after by every loose bull within fifty miles. But she hasn’t shown a lick of interest.”
“Hmmm.”
“Yeah. Hmm. She’s the niece of Aedwin’s clan leader, former clan leader. Aedwin is the matriarch of her own clan now, of course.” The young man said that with pride, as though he spoke of his own sister. Aedwin is his sister, by bond, as close as he and Ike are.
I nodded, chewed the big bite of pork slowly, to give Lucas time to think of more to say about Louisa.
“Odd name,” Lucas said. “For an ogre hen. Thought that was a human name. Guess with all the tradin’ among—”
“Lots of cultural exchange,” I offered.
“Yeah that. Ya interested in wooin’ her?”
“Rude thin’ to ask,” I blurted.
“Not so rude, among friends.”
A warm sensation crossed my cheeks.
If anyone’s to woo Delia, ya would be the last one I’d object to. “Well, I better get goin’.”
I turned and walked to the door, almost bumped into Delia. There was an awkward silence between us for a moment after we danced to get out of each other’s way. We both studied the floor.
“So you’re off?” she said.
“Yep.”
“Send Tir back for me, will you? Best I be seeing other patients.”
“Will do that,” I mumbled.
She cleared her throat. “Lucas and I talked about what happened. I want you to know I understand. I hold no ill will.”
Faeylin. My cheeks burned a bit hotter. “I’m glad.”
“Bick is setting me up in the Hamlet.” She cleared her throat again. “Describin’ a dandy cabin he wants to build, below his and Gladys’ place. Don’t intend to run away from you or nothing like that, but I guess it isn’t proper for us, you know.”
“I’m happy ya’ve found a place that accepts ya, where ya can be happy.”
Her eyes welled. She didn’t blink the tears away. She reached out and I leaned down to let her embrace me in a hug. Before I pulled away, she kissed me on the cheek, glancin’ off my tusk. Prolly more intimate than she intended. I nodded and left.
Asr lay on a blanket with his head propped up against the nappin’ Tir. The ogre read a book.
“What ya readin’?” I asked, and took a big bite out of my fat-soaked trencher.
“Poems I’ve written. Bound manuscript came back from a Northern printer while I was stuck at the lair.”
“Bet yar parents are proud,” I said around my mouthful.
“Ike is the one who moved me,” Asr said softly. “He cried like a hen.” The young bull’s eyes glistened as well. A lot of eyes waterin’ up around here.
We climbed atop Tir in silence. I felt dizzy from a stream of thoughts.
Ike, a soft-hearted bull-ogre?
The strikin’ golden-haired hen.
Ridin’ dragons as though born to them.
A war barely avoided.
An epidemic to stop.
The young human lad I escorted to Ike’s lair, the one who held a connection to the ethereal. I had to make that boy a part of my life. He’d grow into a warlock. Should be around one of his own. So’s not to be—shunned, like me.
If only I had a mentor, when I was his age.
That Louisa is a fine hen. I’ll have to spend some time about the Inn.
Tir launched as I stiffened with a pre-sight. Or perhaps it was hopeful thinkin’. The golden ogre hen thickened nicely, raisin’ a gang of ogrelings. She was even more strikin’ that way. Bolder. Stood taller and bellowed at me with abandon—with love. I smiled. Liked the idea of it bein’ pre-sight.
Chose to assume that is what it was.
Have serious wooin’ to do.
A new cabin to build, fit for a magnificent hen. And a gang of ogrelings.
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The End
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Thank ya for readin’
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