Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) (19 page)

“I am Makmin the caravan master. You do not travel with the caravan.” He towered over me as he examined me from the soles of my boots to my windblown hair that had seen better days.

“No, master,” I replied with a bow that showed my respect.

“What are you doing in the camel yard?”

I kept my gaze down. “I thought I might be able to help some of the sick.”

“You are not Eryl, the herb woman.”

“I am a traveling healer, master.”

He scoffed. “We do not like strangers around the caravans who come to spy out our cargo and report to the bandits in the narrow mountain passes.”

“I am no spy, master,” I said quickly. After learning the punishment for thievery in Rabeen, I did not wish to discover the punishment for spying in Ker. I suspected caravan masters were not kind toward those they thought would harm their caravans.

Makmin waved off my response as if my denial was nothing less than he would expect from a spy. “Where do you travel from?”

“The Shahala lands.” Everyone had heard of Shahala healers, so I thought mentioning my birthplace would help. I drew aside my cloak to show him my many bunches of herbs.

His eyes narrowed to slits. “You were lucky to come through before the Gate closed.”

I said nothing. He would never believe that I had come through the hardstorms with pirates.

Makmin spent a moment or two mulling me over. “And now you cannot return.”

It was not a question, so I did not answer.

“Ker already has Eryl,” he said, not unkindly now. “You best find yourself a small village without an herb woman and set yourself up there.”

“I am headed to Regnor. I have a friend there I can turn to for help.”

But Makmin shook his head, his tone filling with regret. “Regnor has fallen.”

“I would still see if my friend yet lives.” I did not name Lord Karnagh. Makmin might find it suspicious that someone like me would know a famous warlord.

The caravan master shrugged, his expression saying he thought I was doomed and not possessing half the sense the gods gave to field mice. He turned, ready to walk away, but then he stopped. “A Shahala healer, you say? What do you know about camels?”

“Very little, master.”

He watched me for a moment with more interest than before, and then, instead of belittling me for my lack of knowledge, he laughed. “Might be you are the first honest woman I’ve met. I have seven wives in seven caravan stops. Perhaps I have become jaded.”

He shook his head. “Come. My lead camel is sick. See if there is something you can do for him with your herbs. Eryl will not touch him.”

I soon found out why. The camel was possessed by a dark spirit for certain, braying at everyone who came near, spitting at us when we were at an arm’s reach, then biting when we moved in closer.

He was foaming at the mouth, his eyes bulging out of his head. Truly, he was a more frightening sight than the wraith.

“Save him, and I will pay you honest coin.” Makmin squared his shoulders. “But harm him, and I will cut you down where you stand.”

This I believed.

I stayed out of the camel’s reach, wishing he had some external injury. Treating wounds was the same from man to man, animal to animal. But sickness on the inside was difficult to name and even more difficult to cure. What healed a horse might kill a cow. And I did not know what my herbs would do to a camel.

“How long has he been ill?” I asked.

“Seven days.” The caravan master’s tone turned grave.

“Did he eat anything the other animals didn’t?”

The man shook his head. “They all graze together.”

“How is his dung?”

The man shrugged. “All the dung is collected by the inns’ servants. Once it dries, waiting travelers use it for the outdoor fires.”

No help there, then. I tried to think what else I could do to diagnose the humped beast.

I never knew for certain whether my spirit songs truly worked, but I began to silently sing to the camel. Whether due to my singing or not, he stopped spitting and snapping at me and quieted down. I stepped closer and, after a moment, reached a hand out to touch his side. If he bit me, he bit me. I had slept next to a tiger; I could not shy away from a camel that was no animal of prey but a grazer.

The camel did not feel too hot to the touch, nor did he sweat. He did not shiver either. I thought maybe his side was distended, but I had seen so few camels thus far that I found it difficult to tell. Comparing him to the other camels was no easy task either, for he was larger than all the others, and the rest were either standing or lay in some other way, forming different shapes altogether.

When my gentle patting did not arouse his anger, I lay my ear against his side and listened. I did not hear the usual sounds of dangerous bloating.

“What do you think?” Makmin’s harsh face softened. He was near cooing as he gazed at his animal.

Since I could not diagnose my patient at a glance, I decided on a longer observation. “I shall stay with him until I can determine what ails him.”

Makmin nodded and hurried off but came back shortly with a bowl of goat stew. He handed me the bowl, then settled down next to me. “I have been staying out here with him since he fell ill. If he dies, it will break my heart. If he does not survive, neither will I,” he added with enough drama for a Kadar concubine.

“And your wives and children?” I suggested, wanting to cheer him.

But he only looked at me with reproach. “Ryod is my lead camel!”

I nodded.

“Ryod means
treasure
in my people’s language,” Makmin informed me and hugged the beast.

I ate the stew, then shifted closer to Ryod for heat, glad that I had purchased a cloak at the market.

Makmin shifted into a more comfortable position. “I am considered a wealthy and respected man among my people. I have one hundred and nine camels. But if I lose Ryod, I shall be nothing.”

He fell silent for a moment, then said, “When I was a young man of but three camels, before I had even a single wife, I fell in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

His eyes glazed over as he stared off into the night. “She woke my heart up from its great winter. She made my soul sing. She was as slim as the gazelles of the desert. Her laughter was the sound of water in an oasis, the very sound of life. I knew that if I could have her, I would be happy for all the days of my life.” His voice trailed off, as if he was lost in his memories.

I waited for him to continue and, after a while, he did.

“When I went to her father to ask for her, the old man wanted Ryod as part of the bride price.” He gave a shuddering sigh and said no more.

The camel gave a pitiful groan. I patted its side and sang my spirit song.

The caravan master did not speak again, and we both dozed as we sat, me reclining against the camel, and him sitting up with his legs crossed in front of him, leaning on his staff.

After walking in the forest all day, I slept soundly and only woke to a faintly familiar movement inside the camel toward dawn.

“Are you sure Ryod is a male?” I asked Makmin. I had not yet seen the camel on his feet.

The caravan master was already up, standing and bowing to the four corners of the sky, performing some sort of prayers, mumbling, then clapping quietly in what seemed an ancient ceremony.

He turned to me when he finished. “He is the father of half my herd,” he said with pride.

And yet I felt movement again, the same as I might feel with a horse ready to foal.

How was that possible? And then I remembered something and had an idea.

I selected some herbs off my belt and held the bunch up in front of the camel’s mouth. He viewed me with distrust, but then he sniffed. And then he ate. Animals often knew how to heal themselves in the wild and sought out plants that would make them feel better. Whether driven by instinct or led by the spirits, I did not know, but Ryod seemed to sense that the herbs would help.

The camel ate as much of the herb as I would have given a grown man. Then I looked at his great bulk and decided he needed more. I gave him all I had.

The caravan master watched me closely.

I remembered his words from the night before, how my fate was now tied to the camel’s. Despite the chill of the morning, I felt sweat bead on my forehead as I watched Ryod and waited.

Nothing happened. Not even once men woke in the inn and stables and came outside, restarted their dung fires. Not even when the sun rose high in the sky.

“I need more medicine,” I told the caravan master.

He thought for a moment, watched his camel that looked neither worse nor better for my treatment so far. Then he nodded but added a warning. “If you run, you will be found.”

I had no doubt about that, for I had seen plenty of men at the camel yard. Some were his servants, others his passengers. I knew all would heed his word and hunt me down if he was to ask.

As I was leaving the caravan yard, I met Graho waiting by the inn.

“How fares Makmin’s treasure?” he asked.

“On his way to healing, the spirits willing. I am off to gather more herbs.”

“I came looking for you last night and saw you sleeping by the beast.” He sounded amused. “Do you need help in the forest?”

I shook my head. “Picking herbs is easy enough work. And I have the hollow for protection.” Not that it could fight off someone with bad intentions, but it would frighten them off, I was certain. And I did not think the brigands would come this close to the city. I meant to stay within hailing distance of the fields. Marga too might find me.

Graho raised an eyebrow, but then he let me go on my way. I felt his gaze on my back as I walked away.

I hurried off into the woods, more so to generate heat for my body than out of urgency. The camel was not at death’s door as yet. And I was not so certain of my cure that I wanted to hurry back. Rather, I wanted some time to think.

When the hollow appeared behind me, I was glad for his silent company. And I was most certainly glad to see its feet wrapped.
It must understand more than people think.

“I don’t suppose you know about camels?” For all I knew, it had once been a camelherd or, like Makmin, a caravan master.

But the hollow said nothing, just followed me through the woods once again. This time, I did see him eat some wrinkled berries the birds had missed.

I ate the same dry berries and some roots as I found them, collected an armful of the proper herbs for the camel, and returned past midday, leaving the hollow behind in the forest.

As soon as the caravan master saw me enter the camel yard, he came to walk with me. He watched as I fed the camel all the medicine I had brought.

We waited together.

Nothing happened.

But then, at long last, the camel stood with a frightful groan.

“He has not stood in two days.” The last of the caravan master’s hopeful words were drowned out by the loud moaning of the camel.

The sound intensified in pitch and volume, into a wide-eyed gurgling sound of terror.

Hot fury mixed with cold panic in Makmin’s eyes. “What have you done?”

But before he could cut me down, the camel’s other end joined the noisy disturbance. To call what the animal passed a wind would not do it justice. A hardstorm emerged. Even the men around the fires looked toward us with alarm.

Then liquid dung blew from the camel, spraying in every direction. The caravan master and I moved hastily to the head, the only safe place. He held on to the camel’s neck so the animal wouldn’t move around and spray in a circle.

For a while, it seemed the great flood would never end. Then the flow suddenly halted, and the camel made the most frightful noise yet, as if he was being butchered, a plaintive and at the same time outraged cry that would break the heart of the very spirits.

The look in the caravan master’s eyes promised me death.

But something new emerged then, little by little, from the camel’s windy end. A pale creature, wriggling, sliding, larger than the largest river eel I had ever seen.

Men gathered around.

The creature’s head hit the ground, but its tail was still inside the camel.

“River monster,” some men whispered, and they began to say how the camel might have drank a small thing in the river and it grew in his stomach.

But I knew it was just a worm, although more monstrous than I had ever seen.

“The other animals should not touch it,” I said when it came out all the way at last, as long as the caravan master’s staff. “It might be filled with eggs.”

The men murmured with alarm, and even the fiercest of them shuddered. Instead of the prior day’s suspicion, they were beginning to look at me with awe.

With sticks, they lifted the creature and carried it far into the field. At once they began building a fire, and when the flames reached waist-high, they tossed the worm on top of the burning dung heap.

It screeched.

All through this, Makmin hugged his camel with tears in his eyes. But the beast wanted the freedom of movement more than its owner’s affections and ran off at last.

Then the caravan master turned to me, tears of joy running down his face. “You may work your trade in the camel yard of Ker now and forever,” he announced solemnly. “If anyone challenges you, you tell them you are a friend of Makmin. And for the next two days whilst we are still here, I will pay your room and your food at the inn.”

The food I accepted, but I told him I already had a room. I had no great wish to share lodgings with Graho, but these would be my last two days with the children until I found them again.

Makmin bowed to me and hurried off after his camel.

I returned to Graho’s chamber.

As he was out with the children, I took the opportunity to carry a bucket of water upstairs, stand in the washing basin, and bathe. I even washed my clothes and held them above the tallow candle’s flame to dry them a little. Since that was slow work, I tried hanging them out the window into the wind. That worked better, but the clothes were still damp when I put them back on. I started a fire in the hearth and crouched in front of that to finish drying.