Chapter Twenty-Three
~
Mid-afternoon Lucas took a turn for the worse, but by the next mornin’ his eyes drifted open for a time. He remained awake long enough for us to get some broth down him. When he slept after that, he twitched, moved about, like one asleep, not unconscious. He slept one more day before risin’ and complainin’ about bein’ hungry.
Outside, Iza trumpeted.
“I must go and see what’s come of the two goblins,” Ike muttered. He glanced back at Lucas who was bein’ fret over by Delia at the table, before stridin’ to the door. I followed him, an edge of concern raspin’ at me.
I heard Taiz’lin tell Ike, “Everyone is aware and settled.”
“I know, but we have thin’s to discuss,” Ike argued.
“Johanson is appropriately irked.”
Ike grinned. I remembered the stiff words between him and the stuffy human days earlier. They weren’t friends.
“The goblin clan leader will have to be patient,” Taiz’lin continued.
Delia gave me an irritated frown. “They’re speakin’?”
I nodded. Would she learn to hear them?
“None are interested in further spreadin’ the ghoul that causes the sickness. They wish ya to stay where ya are.” Wasn’t the first time I’d said that. Maybe I’d learned my lesson, visitin’ the Hamlet too close to havin’ the fever.
“Has anyone else become sick?” I asked.
Ike looked down at the porch floorboards. “Aedwin and Asr. Gladys is with them at our lair. They began feelin’ poorly last night.”
“Janding?”
“Well, still,” Taiz’lin answered. “Maybe the ghoul doesn’t like orcs.”
“Ya should go to Aedwin,” I said.
Ike stepped off the porch and looked up at the bright, clear sky. I had learned there was no need to prod Ike. Just because he isn’t speakin’, didn’t mean his mind is idle. He probably worried of the greater valley community too.
“I know Aedwin is just gettin’ sick, but Lucas doesn’t need ya anymore.” I couldn’t help another nudge.
“Don’t wish to abandon ya here,” Ike said.
The statement confused me. Abandon me at my own home? I stood studyin’ the back of Ike’s head.
“He’s made a couple odd statements like that to me too.” Taiz’lin’s thoughts were muffled somehow. It took me a moment to understand why. He spoke only to me, without the amplification that came with includin’ his rider. “Is he gettin’ sick”?
I walked around the ogre and faced him, reached out and felt his forehead. It was damp with sweat, and hot.
“Ya thought ya could hide this from us? As though we wouldn’t notice when ya fell over?”
“I hoped I was just tired, the travel, sittin’ up with Lucas.”
“Get inside and let’s get some soup into ya before ya can’t take anythin’ in.”
Ike looked down at me, irritation scrawled across his face. “I’ve never been sick before.”
“Ya’re prolly gonna be a horrendous patient.” I walked toward the door.
Ike murmured, “I don’t want ya wavin’ that stick at me like ya did Lucas. It was spooky.”
“He didn’t complain. Ya won’t either.”
Delia sat at the dinin’ table across from Lucas. She drew her eyes away from the glass marble, what remains her favorite Hamlet gift. She used it as a focus point as I suggested when we worked together on Lucas. It still held energy, just as Bacchus maintains a thread after each of my reaches into the ethereal. The marble glimmered in her palm.
“Now Ike.” She said it as a statement.
I nodded. Delia hopped down from the ogre-sized chair and waved Ike to sit. There was a sadness in the woman’s eyes that scared me. Had she experienced a pre-sight? As Ike sat, Delia stepped behind him, reached up and around him placin’ her hand across his forehead, pulled him gently back against her head which she tilted against him.
Ike’s eyes opened wide. He glared at me like an ogreling facin’ a paddlin’. She should have asked for permission. She was oblivious though, eyes closed, marble clutched tightly in her other hand, raised high in the air.
Lucas twisted in his chair and looked questionin’ly at me. Lucas was never conscious when we worked on him, so what she was doin’ to Ike must have looked more than odd. I nodded to Lucas. It was the best reassurance I could manage. I felt obligated to join the woman. Grabbed Bacchus, which leaned in her spot next to the door.
It’s all so new. What do real wizards do? Mumble enchantments? Do what feels right, more likely, I told myself. I walked to Delia and pressed my hip against her, gripped Ike by the shoulder.
Bacchus reacted without promptin’. A filigree of light flowed between the staff and Delia’s upraised hand. My hand tingled. I’d never felt the power pull from the ethereal so readily. It was unnervin’ for a moment—empowerin’ and heady as the moments passed. The rushin’ force moved into my arm and shoulder. I felt like stone bein’ tapped by an artist’s chisel. The room darkened. The aura pulsin’ between me and the witch brightened.
I jolted, as though wakin’ after driftin’ off unintentionally. Delia had pushed away from Ike. She stood two steps away, bent like a hundred-year-old hag. I felt as exhausted as she looked. The whole right side of my body ached.
“I have to lie down,” Ike said. He stood and walked to his bedroll, untied the knots holdin’ it together, and kicked it to spread it out.
I helped him get comfortable. Ike looked back at me, with fear in his eyes, emotion that tightened my chest. Why? Pre-sight?
Don’t let it be so. Don’t let Ike—
Outside, Taiz’lin trumpeted softly, a long, forlorn sound that vibrated through the shutters. Was that what drew the shiver across my neck?
“I love ya,” the dragon whispered.
“I’m just gonna take a nap,” Ike told him.
Ike hardly rustled upon his fur. His eyes closed, and his face relaxed. I stared at the young bull. He was so strong, virile. An imposin’ edifice.
“I love ya too, Taiz.” Ike’s message was already heavy with sleep.
Delia gasped. She held the fist graspin’ the marble against her breast. I walked to the door and set Bacchus into her place.
“Don’t tell Aedwin. No need—to—worry her—none.”
I knew that was a wasted thought. Tae, her brown bull, probably knew the instant Taiz’lin knew, which meant Aedwin knew as well.
“The folks in the Hamlet are gonna be terribly distressed to hear Ike is ill,” Lucas said softly.
I thought back at the dismissive way the orc hen spoke to Ike. She didn’t seem to be overly impressed with the ogre. I studied Lucas. He looked like he should still be on a bed fur. There were black circles under his eyes, which narrowed as though he stared into the sun. His face remained pasty-white.
“In a couple hours we’ll work with him again, when we recover,” Delia said.
“Could ya help Aedwin and Asr?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know if we even helped ya,” I told the human.
Delia let out a noise that sounded like a mama’s warnin’ to an ogreling reachin’ for a hot fire iron. “I know ya felt it. We eased Ike’s temperature, eased his aches. He’ll sleep better now because of it.”
I looked into the angry woman’s eyes. I hoped we’d done more than that for the young bull. But I couldn’t help but worry. Were we seein’ the beginnin’ of an epidemic? Only young, healthy folk had experienced it thus far. But when it hit the young and the old, what would it do?
“Johanson will find a way of blamin’ this on the goblins,” Lucas said.
I looked at Delia. How had she contracted it? She was a loner, around no one. “Did ya cross anyone’s path, before ya got sick?”
“I certainly wouldn’t have set and shared a tea with a bunch of goblins.”
“Then—”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Lucas said. “It’ll give them an excuse.”
“Excuse for what?” Delia asked.
Emotion filled Lucas’ face. “Two years ago Johanson wanted to start a war. He looked eager to go to battle.”
“I heard,” I argued, “the Northerners accepted many trolls back in their former stakes.”
“Most communities rejected them. Peace just needs to be given a chance.”
“It would help if we knew where—”
“I tell ya it doesn’t matter. If a war starts, those of us livin’ in the middle of it here in the Range will be wiped out, and we’ll—”
Lucas didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. The horrors of the early wars were well taught to the young of all races. Originally it may have simply been to instill how cruel the others were. Thankfully, it eventually evolved into an explanation of the blackness we all shared.
Why would anyone want to restart it?
“The shallow-minded can only remember the bad, not imagine how differently it could be,” Delia said.
“Iza? Will you ask one of yar brothers to fly over the northern road, find out if Johanson has reinforcements on the way?”
~
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