Thawed Fortunes (26 page)

Va'del tried to ask for food and water, but
the noise that finally slipped out of his mouth didn't even sound
human let alone recognizable.

A guardsman appeared a second later with an
odd expression on his face. Va'del thought that he should try and
reason out what the expression was, but the other man held Va'del's
head up and poured something cool into his mouth, and as the
blackness reclaimed him, he found that he didn't care.

##

The next time Va'del woke up, the temperature
had returned to something more like what he expected. A new, older
guard had replaced the first one, and although he seemed to be
taking care to school his face into calm indifference, Va'del
thought he detected relief combined with a respect that bordered on
reverence.

"I'm Peters. Guadel Vi'en said that you'd be
thirsty, and hungry."

Va'del managed a nod, and then waited while
Peters retrieved a bowl of soup and patiently fed it to Va'del a
spoonful at a time.

"Are the women all okay?"

Peters paused for a second, as if not sure
how to answer the question. "Sir, I was instructed to get one of
the Guadel when you woke. I think maybe it would be best if we just
wait until they arrive."

Va'del's world seemed to be spinning. It was
hard to breathe, and he didn't understand what was happening. Even
the youngest of the full guardsmen had been treating him as little
more than a jumped-up candidate for the whole trip. Peters should
be lording his knowledge over Va'del rather than leaving to get the
others.

All of the unanswered questions pulled at
Va'del, but Peters had already left. The sub-Guadel knew it was
stupid to try and get up, that in moments someone would be back to
tell him what was happening, but the near-panic rising inside him
wouldn't allow such thoughts to gain a proper foothold. Instead,
Va'del tried to pull himself out of bed, somehow sure that if he
didn't get up in time, he'd never see Jain again.

Si'mon came into the room just in time to
catch Va'del before he fell. Peters, just visible behind the
caravan master, looked amazed that Va'del had managed to even
move.

Si'mon thanked the guardsman and then gently
pushed Va'del back down onto the bed.

"Don't move. You're going to get your fill of
moving before we're through, but for now you need to conserve your
strength."

"What happened, what didn't he want to tell
me?"

Si'mon took a deep breath. "We succeeded in
taking the castle. Mostly due to the fact that Vladir left only a
token force here, and those poor souls were nearly all cut down by
you and Javin when the two of you tore through the place like a
pack of starving snow wolves."

The information registered, but it was
unimportant because it couldn't be the source of Peters' unease.
"We found the women upstairs in one of the towers. They'd been
drugged from the time they were captured, and they're in a bad
way."

"What do you mean? Take them off of the drugs
and they'll be fine."

Si'mon shook his head, and for the first time
that Va'del had ever seen, the caravan master looked like he was
about to cry. "It's not that simple. Whatever they were using to
make sure the women couldn't touch the power was addicting. Much
more so than anything we have up in the mountains. We lost Bernice
before Vi'en realized what was going on."

"Withdrawal?"

"Yeah. We got the rest of them back on the
stuff quickly enough to avoid any more deaths, but some of the
women aren't in very good shape. Vi'en tried to cushion the
withdrawal for one of the women, but it was just too much for
her."

Va'del's mind spun with the implications of
what he'd just been told. "If we can get them back up to the
Capital there are enough healers there to bring them out one at a
time."

"If we could get there. Our gear is all still
here, but there isn't any way we could carry that many women all
the way up the mountain, and even if we could do that, Vladir's
army is between here and there."

The thought of Jain lying in a drugged stupor
pulled at Va'del's heart, and he looked up at Si'mon with
disbelief. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

Si'mon nodded reluctantly. "Jain and the
other Daughters weren't drugged, at least not enough to become
dependent. Vi'en saw them leave with Vladir's army, and they were
walking under their own power."

"So we rescue them, and they provide the
assistance that Vi'en needs to keep the rest of the women alive
while they come off the drug. Let's organize a party and do it
now."

Va'del waited while the wiry old man looked
for words.

"There are complications. I can't really do
it justice, how bad everything is right now. Most of the male
Guadel aren't really completely sane right now. We've always been
more or less at peace with the idea that our wives might die in
battle, but the odds were heavily on the side of us being cut down
first. To watch them go slowly like this is more than most can
handle."

"You're here." The words came out more
accusatory than Va'del meant them to, but somehow he couldn't bring
himself to really care.

"Sophie's always been a strong one, she's
better off than most, and she isn't my first wife. Not to say that
I don't love her, but I watched my first wife Margie die from a
wasting disease years ago. I told myself then I would have done
whatever was necessary to heal her. I won't sit at the bedside of
another wife and just watch her die over the course of weeks. I'll
be with you, as will as many of the Guard as we can spare."

Why is he deferring to me...I'm the only one
with a wife able to link right now. That essentially makes me the
ranking member of the party.

Va'del shook his head. "You stay here and
send another guardsman instead. There is no need to tear you away
from your wife, and your worry for her might distract you at a key
time."

Si'mon might have argued, but Vi'en arrived
and shooed him out.

"He's convinced you to go through with his
insane plan?"

Va'del nodded, suddenly more uncomfortable
than ever with his wife's knowing looks. "It isn't insane, it's the
only way to save our sisters."

Vi'en shrugged. "That may be the case, but
it's still crazy. You're not up to making that kind of trip, let
alone fighting once you arrive, and then turning and running all
the way back here. Even if you were, the Baron will be hot on your
tail. How long do you really think it will take him to break into
this keep? We don't have enough people to successfully man the
walls, and it's almost certain that he has some secret way
inside."

Va'del shut out the tiny voice inside him
that agreed with what his wife was saying. "All of those things are
concerns, but this is our only option. I'll have to trust you to
get me back on my feet in time to do what needs to be done, and in
Si'mon and the Goddess to come up with solutions to the other
problem."

Vi'en snorted. "There is only so much I can
do, which you should know by now after being busted up so many
times. You had a low-grade infection, so I raised your temperature
to help your body fight it. I've accelerated the healing process
slightly, but if I'm going to be any good to you on this rescue,
that's all the patching up I can do."

Silence reigned for a moment as Va'del
processed the fact that Vi'en was planning on coming along and
linking with him. Somehow he'd thought it would be easier to
contemplate linking with her after having done it once, but the
actuality of the link had been worse than he'd expected. He wasn't
sure he was capable of going through that again, but if they were
going to rescue Jain and the others it appeared he once again had
no other choice.

Va'del finally nodded. "Well then, I suppose
I'd better try and get some more sleep. Tomorrow is going to come
all too soon and I'd rather not face it strapped to the back of a
gurra again."

When morning came, Va'del found out he wasn't
to be strapped to a gurra, but rather to a horse. Not all of the
residents of the castle had fought the Guadel. One of the more
sympathetic of those who'd chosen to help was the Baron's stable
master. As soon as the man had learned that there was some kind of
trip in the works, he'd offered the use of his charges.

The stable master had taken one look at the
young man limping down the steps of the keep, supported on either
side by a guardsman, and refused to put him on a horse. Vi'en had
argued with the tiny, gnarled man, but he'd remained unmoved. In
far more pain than he'd expected, Va'del had listened for as long
as he could stand it, and then, suppressing a surge of anger at the
delay, ordered the man on his left to get him astride one of the
beasts even if they had to saddle it without the stable master's
help.

The argument had stuttered to an immediate
halt despite Vi'en's best efforts to keep it going, and the stable
master looked at Va'del with surprise. "You lead this group?"

Ignoring the spluttering outrage of his wife,
Va'del nodded past his pain.

"In that case, we'll have a horse saddled and
ready in a quarter glass."

Sitting propped up against a saddle, Va'del
had a few moments to wonder at the man's change of heart. It seemed
too abrupt to account for any of the logical explanations Va'del
had been able to muster.

As his assistants finished preparing the last
of the horses, the stable master knelt down next to Va'del and
offered him his hand.

"I've had my fill of seeing man and beast
used ill at the whim of Vladir and his ilk, but if a man wants to
use himself up in the pursuit of something important to him, he
deserves nothing but respect. I'm Mark."

Va'del grasped the man's hand weakly as he
wondered what horrors Mark had seen during his service to the
Baron.

"I know only rumors about your purpose, but
it seems that you all aren't experienced with horseflesh. Might be
I could provide some sound advice if you were to fill me in."

It was a given that Vi'en would say that they
couldn't afford to trust the man, that there was too much risk he'd
betray them to Vladir, but looking into Mark's eyes, Va'del thought
he could see a kindred spirit, someone who wanted to do the right
thing because he finally had the chance to do so.

##

Vi'en must have spent the whole day fuming,
but Va'del was in so much agony he hardly noticed, and most
definitely didn't care. Mark had promised to give him the horse
with the smoothest stride in the stable, but every time the beast
moved, Va'del worried that his stomach wound was about to break
open.

After the second break in a two-cycle period,
Va'del waved Peters over and gave him whispered instructions to tie
him to the saddle, and then bring over some of the drug that Vladir
had used on the female Guadel.

Peters had looked at Va'del for several
seconds, and then nodded and did as he was instructed. Va'del
purposely took a much smaller dose than what had been given the
women, but even so after drinking the foul-tasting concoction that
Peters pressed into his hands, found himself quickly spinning away
towards unconsciousness.

The drug never actually brought a complete
loss of awareness, but mercifully interposed a barrier between him
and the pain. Va'del still knew he was in pain, that he was risking
further damage to his body, but those two facts lost their
significance, quickly ceasing to concern him as much as the
interesting rhythm of his horse's breathing, or the way the shadows
bounced across the ground, keeping time to the wind.

Just before dusk, the drug began to wear off,
and Va'del started to find himself able to string together complete
thoughts. The pain quickly became excruciating, and he called out
to Peters for more of the drug, but it was Vi'en who drew up
alongside his horse.

"You're not getting any more of that. We're
stopping soon and you'll need to be able to eat. The resources from
your healing are coming as much from your own body as they are from
me, and after missing lunch, your body is starting to consume
itself."

The pain beat at him, and Va'del wanted to
protest, but he knew Vi'en was expecting him to, that after being
inside his mind she thought he was too weak to do what needed to be
done. Unwilling to give her the satisfaction of seeing her
prejudices confirmed; Va'del swallowed his argument, clenched his
teeth, and nodded.

When they finally made camp for the night,
Va'del slid down off of his horse and managed to make it to a
large, flat rock before his legs gave out, so his collapse looked
at least somewhat intentional.

There was still so much that needed done to
set up camp, and Va'del knew that good leaders mingled with their
men during exactly these kinds of mundane tasks. He needed to get
up and set the proper tone.

Appearing as if he'd been conjured there,
Peters was suddenly at Va'del's elbow, and he had a stubborn set to
his face that seemed to say he'd taken it upon himself to ensure
that his new commander didn't move.

Va'del felt a momentary
flash of irritation, bordering on anger, and then mentally shrugged
as Si'mon's parting comment finally made sense. Apparently Si'mon
hadn't been kidding when he'd said that savvy old men like Peters
were really the ones running the Guard despite what the officers
might think.
I suppose it might be less
than ideal for me to confirm my weakness before all of the men by
collapsing while I'm trying to help someone set up a
tent.

Over the next few minutes Va'del's small
group of officers all trickled by to confirm their assignments. The
stress of the day was such it was progressively harder to pay each
man the attention he deserved, but finally the last one finished up
his report and left. Va'del was just contemplating closing his eyes
and forgoing dinner, when someone cleared their throat.