A Battle Lord’s Heart (4 page)

Chapter
Three

Liam’s
Theory

           
Yulen rushed into the main lodge
where the dozen men who had arrived minutes ago were waiting. “Powell? Report.”

           
“We’ve been hit twice by a rather
large army of Bloods,” the sub-lieutenant responded.

           
“How large? What would be the
estimate?”

           
The man thought for a moment. It was
clear their escape from the compound had taken a great physical as well as
emotional toll on the party. All of the men from Bearinger were close to total
exhaustion.

           
“Around two hundred, but it could
have been more. Hard to tell in the middle of the night.”

           
“They attacked at night?”

           
“Yes, sir. Both times.”

           
“Casualties?” Yulen asked as his
eyes swept back to the side door where he’d entered.

           
“Four, but casualties were heavier
on the enemy’s side. Better than a few dozen.”

           
“Is the compound secure?”

           
“Yes, but Verris sent me to see if
we could have more men. And to see if you had any specific instructions.”

           
Again Yulen’s eyes locked onto the
far door. This time the sub-lieutenant felt obligated to mention it. “Sir, is
something the matter?”

           
“Matter?” The Battle Lord stared at
him. Blue-gray eyes quickly assessed who else was in the room, finally resting
on a trusted face. “Sorcher, see if Atty’s still at the new lodge, or if she
got sidetracked.” The soldier rushed out as the messenger from Bearinger began
to elaborate on the circumstances regarding the attacks.

           
“The attacks are crude. Nothing more
than a massive surge coming straight at us.”

           
“What kind of weapons are they
using?”

           
Powell shook his head. “Mostly
ineffective swords and a couple of crude bows. Quite a few axes. It was as if
they just wanted to swarm over us. Several times they pressed up against the
walls and tried to chop their way in.”

           
“Was there any sign of a leader or
someone who seemed to be giving the orders to attack?” Yulen questioned.

           
“Not that we noticed.”

           
“How far apart were these attacks?
When was the last one?”

           
“The first one was a week ago. The
second, the night before we left to come here. It was during the second raid
that we noticed something unusual, which prompted Verris to send us here.”

           
“Noticed what unusual?” Yulen asked,
his gaze swinging back to the side door. It was obvious to everyone who he was
waiting for.

           
“This, sir.” The soldier stepped
forward and handed the Battle Lord a small wrapped object. “They were carrying
it when they attacked.”

 
         
Yulen
quickly unfolded it to find himself holding a ragged, blood-stained pennant in
colors that were half red and half blue. The colors that were the symbol of
Alta Novis. He glared at the sub-lieutenant. “Where did they get this?” he
demanded softly. The pennants were not easily obtainable. Without exception,
they flew from the top masts of the highest buildings in a compound, or from
observation towers set along the perimeter, so that people approaching could
see which Battle Lord was in charge. It was clear the one he held had been torn
from its moorings.

           
Again, Powell shook his head.
 
“We don’t know, sir. It’s not from
Bearinger, that we know of.”

           
Not from Bearinger. And definitely
not from Alta Novis, or he would have been informed. Yulen felt an iciness
crawl over his skin. That left one other compound that was flying his colors.

           
“Sir!”It was Del Ray yelling at him
from the side door. The man’s face was white. “Sir, Sorcher’s taken Atty to the
clinic!”

           
Without taking time to question the
man further, Yulen jumped off the table where he’d been sitting and ran for the
door under the stairwell that led directly into MaGrath and Madigan’s private
quarters. From there he knew he could go straight into the adjoining clinic,
rather than have to go outside and around the lodge to the main entrance in the
back.

           
Several people looked up at the man
who strode past them with long, hurried steps through the outer waiting room
and into the back area where the physician did his examinations. MaGrath was
already leaning over the prone body of his wife when Yulen arrived. Sorcher
stood to one side, his eyes on the wilted figure beneath the single blanket on
the narrow padded table.

           
“Sam?” Yulen asked briskly.

           
“I noticed the front door was open
at the new lodge, sir, so I looked inside. That’s when I found her just inside,
lying on the floor, out cold.”

           
“Was there any sign of a struggle?
Any sign she’d been attacked?” Yulen snapped, more harshly than he realized he
was asking.

           
“No, sir. It was like she’d just—”

           
“She fainted, Yulen,” MaGrath’s
calmer voice interrupted. He looked up from his examination as Yulen turned
toward him. “She passed out. There’s no need to worry. Pregnant women are
notorious for it. Their hormones are going crazy, they get a bit over-stressed
or over-exerted, and down they go.” His eyes drifted over to where the soldier
nervously stood. “You’re dismissed, Sam. Thanks for bringing her in. She’ll be
all right.”

           
His last remark managed to calm the
lieutenant. Nodding, Sorcher left the room. Yulen crossed over to the table
until he was standing directly over Atty’s still form. MaGrath had opened her
jacket in order to check her heart and the baby. He found her cold hand lying
beside her, and wrapped it inside his warmer one as he stared down at her face.
Other than a small scratch right above her left eyebrow, she looked as if she
were asleep.

           
“The baby’s fine, Yulen,” the
physician reassured him. “It was the second thing I checked.”

           
“You’re sure?”

           
MaGrath sighed loudly, letting Yulen
know he was quite good at his job, despite the man’s hesitation. “I heard
Bearinger got hit by Bloods.”

           
Yulen met the man’s dark gaze.
Without a doubt the physician was trying to draw his concern away from the
woman resting beneath the blanket. “Yes, they did.”

           
“What do you plan to do about it?”

           
“I don’t know yet, Liam. I can only
worry about one thing at a time, and right now all I can think about is Atty.
Are you certain she’ll be okay?”

           
“Well, if you’re asking me if she’ll
faint again, the answer is I don’t know, but it’s possible. We’ll just have to
keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t injure herself or the baby.”
MaGrath cocked his head at the Battle Lord.
 
“Have you got an extra minute before you go back to those men?” When
Yulen glanced back at his wife, the physician added, “She should be coming out
of it pretty soon. I’ll ask Maddy to stay with her in case she does before I
return.” He walked around the examination table and gestured for the man to
follow him. “Come. There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

           
Reluctantly, Yulen laid her hand
over her slightly swollen belly and bent down to place a gentle kiss on her
forehead before turning to follow the older man into an adjoining room. MaGrath
left him alone momentarily while he summoned his wife to watch over Atty, then
quickly rejoined him, closing the door behind them.

           
They were in what Yulen thought of
as the physician’s inner sanctum. Here the man played around with experiments,
mixed noxious concoctions, and basically performed a lot of physician things
the Battle Lord had no way of perceiving, much less understanding. MaGrath
waved him over to one table where there were several glass vials seated in
wooden trays. A small journal was open before them, and Yulen immediately
spotted Atty’s name on one of the pages, along with the name of Wallis and
other notations he could identify. He waited for the man to continue.

           
“When we got back from Wallis, I
started doing a little investigating on my own time. Ever since I had all those
discussions with Gilter...you remember him, their physician?” At Yulen’s nod,
MaGrath picked up the journal and flipped over a few pages. “I’ve been making
some notes and doing some comparisons.” Taking a moment to heave a big sigh,
MaGrath asked, “Do you realize how incredibly lucky we are that Atty hasn’t
miscarried by now? Do you have any idea what kind of odds she’s dodged at this
stage?” He smacked the journal with the back of one hand. “In the past six
years every single woman with the exception of two, every single female who’s
managed to get pregnant has lost their first conception.
All
of them,
Yulen, except for two.
Two,
Yulen. Two who didn’t originally come from
Wallis, but who got pregnant elsewhere before moving to Wallis.”

           
Yulen swallowed. Hard. “You’re
saying that every woman who’s gotten pregnant in Wallis has lost her first
child.”

           
“Yes. That’s what the records say,
and they don’t lie,” MaGrath concurred. Then a big grin spread over his face,
and he stuck an index finger in Yulen’s face. “But! I want you to think back,
Yulen. Think back to the first time we saw Atty. Think about how the people of
Wallis appeared. What they were going through. What do you remember?”

           
Yulen dropped his head as he
searched his memory. He remembered the terrified faces. The sunken cheeks and
wide eyes with dark circles around them. The gaunt frames of a compound facing
starvation near the end of a cruel winter.

           
Then he remembered when Sorcher had
dragged the semi-conscious figure of the skinny kid they’d found shooting
arrows at them with deadly accuracy from the top of a building. A skinny kid
who turned out to be a thin, hungry woman who had fiercely struggled to protect
her people against overwhelming odds.

           
“I remember the people were
starving. Trying to survive.”

           
MaGrath nodded emphatically. “That’s
right. They were malnourished. They’re still malnourished, Yulen. They eat well
when there’s plenty for their hunters to bring back, but did you notice there
wasn’t one overly plump person at Wallis? Okay, I’ll give you Twoson, but he’s
got all the signs of a pancreatic imbalance. But on the whole, they’re not
getting enough to sustain them at a healthy level. And they haven’t for
generations. It doesn’t take a super smart person to understand that if you
keep a whole compound of people near starvation levels for generations, it will
eventually kill them off.”

           
Flipping the pages of his journal,
he continued. “But for the past six months Atty’s been living here, she’s been
fed and fed well. She’s been drinking milk like it’s going out of style. Milk
full of rich butterfat. And you can tell by just looking at her that she’s
filled out. She’s lost that sunken appearance. Her hair is thick and glossy.
Her eyes are bright. Her skin glows. And although I’ll give you that some of
that right now is because of the baby, our little bluebell has gone from a
scrawny young woman to a full-fledged, ravishing beauty, if you haven’t noticed
the looks she gets.”

           
Yulen perked up. “Looks? What
looks?”

           
The physician barked out in
laughter. “My God, you are the most unknowledgeable lovesick sap I’ve ever
known.
 
Atty, our sassy little Mutah,
draws men to her like bees to a flower. But Atrilan, our beauty, has those same
men seated at her feet, ready and eager to do her bidding. I’m told strangers
to the compound have been known to become enthralled when she walks by them.
Oh, don’t worry, Yulen. She’s so deeply in love with you, you’ll never have to
worry about another man catching her eye. But you need to be aware of the power
she has over others, a power I don’t think even she realizes she has.”

           
He turned to plop himself down on a
nearby stool. “As long as we’ve known her, Atty eats as if every meal is her
last meal. As a result, her body has adapted, and she’s no longer suffering
from a lack of essential nutrients and vitamins. However, if she were still
living in Wallis...” His voice trailed off to allow the Battle Lord to draw his
own conclusions.

           
“She would have lost the baby by
now, simply because her body wouldn’t have been able to adequately nourish it.”

           
“Yes!” MaGrath affirmed. “At least,
that’s my theory. Oh, but I’m not finished. Look at these.” He lifted the tray
of vials, many of which contained dark-colored liquids and sediment. “Atty
found that pouch of tunsul leaves. You know, the pouch she couldn’t find before
we left for Wallis? Anyway, I caught her throwing away the leaves and I asked
to have them, to run them through a few experiments. Just to chase a hunch, you
understand.”