To The Princess Bound (2 page)

The big man at the door glanced at the pot on the table, then up at Dragomir, a little frown on his face.  “You okay in there?” Brigamond pressed, trying to peer past him.  “Thor told me to keep an eye on you while he’s up in the mountains.” 

Immediately, Dragomir felt himself stiffen.  Damn Thor and his meddling.  Eight months of meddling, and now he had the entire village intruding on Dragomir’s affairs like they had every right to do so.  He stepped through the entrance and pulled the door shut behind him, forcing the old man gently backwards with his body.  Despite the fact that Brigamond and his two boys were six feet tall and built like gene-spliced oxen, they were still dwarfed by Dragomir’s six and a half, and today, Dragomir used it.  “You said you’ve got a sick horse?” he said, with as much pointedness as he could manage without being rude.

While the two Borer boys always carried an aura of awe and respect around Dragomir, the old man’s
au
, as always, was like a stiff sledgehammer of control, painful to be around.   With a grunt, the old man said, “Yeah, sick.  She stopped eating last night.  We think she’s got colic.”

“It’s worms,” Dragomir said, seeing the malignant energy lines balling backwards up the filly’s intestines and into the stomach like a blood clot.  “How long’s she been like this?”  When he got closer, he could see the sickly red-brown gi of a mass of roundworms in the filly’s small intestine, stopping up the flow of the horse’s bowels. 

Brigamond Borer gave him an irritated look.  “She’s too old for worms.  ‘Sides.  We dewormed her, just to be safe.  She’s got colic.  Just ate something she shouldn’t have and we need you to help her pass it.”  The old man sounded impatient and disgusted that he’d had to drag the horse up the road to see Dragomir in the first place.  It was the fourth time this year that Brigamond had been forced to bring a horse to Dragomir’s farm to save it from certain death.  Each time the old man had come trudging up his road, Dragomir could see the shame rolling off of him in great, unhealthy yellow waves, and he had been brusque and irritable and cantankerous in general.  

Dragomir knew that the self-sufficient jack-of-all-trades hated the fact that he had to seek out his help, and Dragomir suspected the Borer Farm rates of colic were actually a lot higher, but the old man could only bring himself to come to Dragomir when it was an especially valuable animal—like a prize mare.  In fact, unlike most of the villagers of Sodstone—who would routinely bring him such tiny things as sick kittens and baby birds—horses were the
only
animals that Brigamond ever brought to him.  After all, with all the other animals on his farm, Brigamond could just force saltwater down the creatures’ throats and make them retch up whatever was troubling them.  Unfortunately, with horses, there was very little—if anything—a normal person could do to make them vomit.

“So just make her vomit like you did the last one and I’ll be on my way,” Brigamond insisted.  His fist was white-knuckled fingers as he shoved the filly’s reins at Dragomir.  With the other hand, Brigamond dug into his pocket, then pushed a coinpurse at him.  “There’s for your troubles.”  Like Dragomir had set a price for his services, and Brigamond was disgusted because it was too high.  As Dragomir gingerly reached out to take the reins and the purse from the farrier, the old man struck a posture of agitation, checking the sky.

Dragomir grimaced down at the purse.  He always found it difficult to deal with Brigamond.  While the Dormuthian had been raised with a healthy respect for healers, the old man was proud of his independence, and didn’t understand the intricacies of an Emp’s sight.  Clearing his throat, Dragomir glanced again at the malignant mass of dead and dying worms plugging up the horse’s gut.  “Okay, Brigamond.  What do you think she ate?”

Of course, deworming the horse had probably loosened enough of the worms from the horse’s intestines that she was having a physiological reaction—an herbivore suddenly exposed to several pounds of rotting worm-meat—but he knew from experience he would not be able to change the old farrier’s mind. 

“Who knows?” Brigamond snorted disgustedly.  “The headstrong hussy keeps jumping the fence and running off.  Weeds, wood, metal—the monkshood just started flowering, too.  Might’ve gotten a mouthful of the stuff.”

Dragomir flinched at the last.  He cleared his throat, hoping Brigamond hadn’t noticed.  “There’s definitely a lot more monkshood up here than those villages lower in the valley,” Dragomir offered delicately.  He patted the sick filly’s shoulder.  “Maybe the poor girl never got acquainted with the stuff.  Different climate down there in the lowlands.  Terraforming took better, I hear.”

Brigamon rolled his eyes.  “Come on, Emp,” the old man said.  He waved a hand at the big gray animal.  “No need for pleasantries.  Let’s get this over with.”

Like he was a cobbler who was trying to talk him into buying shoes he didn’t need.  Dragomir sighed and glanced down at the tufts of spring grass at his feet.  He knew without asking that the old man was going to tell him to make his horse throw up, regardless of what he was seeing.  He also knew that using up that kind of energy at the wrong end of the problem might kill the horse.  He thought about it a moment, then nodded.  “All right.  I’m gonna need three wild geraniums, a bag of willowbark, a fistful of fireweed root, about fifty elderberries, and about a pound of pinecones from a white spruce. 
Must
be a white spruce.  Black spruce would have the opposite effect.”

Brigamond made a face, obviously not looking forward to a jaunt through the woods.  “I thought you just need to think about it real hard and she’ll vomit.”

“I can,” Dragomir agreed, “but she’s eaten recently and this’ll help it come up smooth.  We
need
it to come up smooth.  Horses aren’t made to throw up.  This’ll keep it from bunching up in the esophagus and choking her.”

Brigamond grunted, then turned to his two boys.  “You heard the healer.  Go get—”

“You should probably go with them,” Dragomir said, too tired to really care about decorum any longer.  “It’s important to get it right.  I’ll keep her alive until you and your boys get back.”

The white-haired farrier gave the horse an irritated look.  “Keep her
alive
, huh?  She close, then?” 

“Close enough,” Dragomir said, running his hand down a long gray flank.

Brigamond shook his head.  “Some fine damned breedstock she’s turning out to be.  Last time I buy from
those
bastards.”  He gestured at his two sons.  “Let’s go.”  He turned, then paused a moment, turned back, and said, “
Fifty
elderberries?”

“Thereabouts,” Dragomir said.  “More would be better, in any case.”

Brigamond grunted and led his two boys away.

Dragomir let out a breath of relief once the old man’s agitated, rigid energy had retreated.  He glanced at the filly.  “Better?”

The filly, of course, did not understand him—communing with beasts was the realm of a Psi, not an Emp—but it relaxed nonetheless.  
Both
of them breathed easier without the Brigamond’s au to agitate their gi lines.  The filly lowered her head a bit further, completely uninterested in the green grass by her feet, panting.  Dragomir could feel the hurt rolling off of her, and it was building into a sharp pain in his own gut.

“You’re a lucky horse,” Dragomir said, tracing his hand down the horse’s side, to the area of the blockage.  “Life got plans for you, girl?”  He felt through the gi lines as he spoke, feeling out which ones were disturbed.  “Got here just in the nick of time.  You an important horse, eh?  You gonna save some soldier from the Imperials someday?”  He ran his hand down her ribcage, feeling the stagnated energy there, drawing it outward with his fingers, getting it moving again.

For her part, the filly just shuddered under his touch, but didn’t fight him.  Animals rarely did.  It was the humans who got scared.  Animals, despite the pain he put them through, knew he was there to help, and held still.

He found the center of the problem, the two gi lines on either side of the blockage.  They were turning black and shriveling from contact with the rotting wormflesh.  His forehead touching the filly’s flank, now, Dragomir considered.  The horse he could save, but this wasn’t the first time that Life had tried to stop him.  He still remembered his brother in the middle of the night, running up the road in his underwear to cut him down.

Softly, Dragomir said into her fur, “All right.  But this will be the last.  One last healing before I go.”  Then…peace.  No more nightmares.  No more loneliness. 

When he received no Sign that Life would try to intervene again, Dragomir took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and sank his consciousness into his core.  The crystalline roar that followed left his body flooding with energy, pouring out his ramas and through his gi lines, setting his whole essence abuzz.  Immediately, he drew that energy outward, sinking his mind into the horse’s stomach-rama.

Immediately, the filly jerked and lifted her head high, eyes beginning to show white.

“Shhh,” Dragomir whispered, eyes still closed.  “Easy.”  He gently rubbed his hand against the filly’s side as he infused her au with a rush of calm from his heart-rama.  “You’ll be fine, girl.  Just another minute or two.”

The horse snorted in alarm as Dragomir began pumping energy into the lines of gi running along her intestines, forcing the lines back into place, spasming the muscles, loosening her bowels.  Yet, despite the horrible feeling roiling through her insides—and the sudden fear rolling off of her—she held absolutely still under his touch.

“It’s working, girl,” Dragomir murmured, still in trance.  “Just hold on.”  He watched as the blockage of dead worms began to spasm and squish as the intestines there clenched, then followed the mass with his eyes as it began to move through the horse’s system, jerky at first, but then with increasing rapidity, like mud being squeezed down a sausage wrapping.  “Almost done…”

With an indignant whinny, the horse lifted her tail and let out a long string of nuggets that became more and more runny as her bowels continued to release, eventually becoming a watery green slurry.  A few moments later, the clump of worms slid free and spattered to the ground, a white mass of dead, rotting parasites about three times the size of Dragomir’s fist.

The filly, for her part, was standing with her legs splayed, head low, panting.

“I know,” Dragomir said, dropping to rub the animal behind the ears.  “That felt real bad.  But you’ll get better.” 

You’ll get better, Meggie…
  Immediately, Dragomir stiffened at the memory that followed.  He ducked his head to the horse’s neck and closed his eyes, tears threatening again.  She hadn’t gotten better.  She had died, in his arms, and all his precious Emp powers that everyone loved so much hadn’t even made her lifeless body twitch, after the Praetorian had shot her in the face.

“You’ll get better,” Dragomir whispered, once again seeing the scene.  Beneath his grip, the gray started tugging at grass.

Two hours later, when Brigamond and his two sons returned with the items Dragomir had specified, Dragomir was still squatting in the yard, staring down at the reins in his fist as the filly cropped the tufts of grass nearby.

“What did you do?” the old man bellowed, before the three Borers were even within comfortable earshot.

“Nothing,” Dragomir said, waiting until they came close enough to explain.  He stood and handed Brigamond back the reins—and his purse.  “Poor thing just took the biggest dump I’ve ever seen over there.”  He gestured.  “Think she got whatever it was out of her system, though.” 

Brigamond frowned at the horse, then at Dragomir, but made no move to take the items he was being given.  “You didn’t do anything?”

 Dragomir shook his head.  “Sorry I couldn’t help.” 

Brigamond frowned at the horse, then at Dragomir, then reluctantly took the purse back.  Squatting over by the gigantic horse-patty, one of the two Borer boys cried, “Holy crap, Dad, it was
full
of worms!”  He lifted a clump of them with a stick and they clung in limp, ivory-white strands, much like a morbid wad of spaghetti.

Brigamond grunted.  “Worms, huh?”  He looked up at Dragomir, and for a split second, Dragomir thought he would try to give the money back.  Then the curmudgeony old farmer shook his head and tossed the elderberries and bark he had gathered aside.  “
Knew
I didn’t need to come all the way up here.  Good breedstock, my ass.”  He gave a disgusted snort and started to turn.  Then, to Dragomir’s frustration, the old man hesitated and turned back.  His cloudy old eyes fixed again on the door that Dragomir had pulled shut behind him.  “You ain’t gotta be alone up here, Emp.”

Immediately, Dragomir bristled.  “I’m fine alone.”

“My daughter’s looking for a husband.  She knows the ways of a farm.”

Dragomir could barely suppress a snarl when he said, “I’m not looking for another wife.”

The old man laughed.  “What, you’re just gonna
sulk
up here, waiting for the next girl of your dreams to what, wander through your front door?  Handed to you on a silver platter?  You gotta go
look
, boy.  You ain’t been
lookin
’.  You been up here mopin’.  Like that halfbreed was the only fish in the sea.” 

Dragomir felt every muscle in his body stiffen at the word ‘next,’ but the last made his anger rise.  “Brigamond,” he said stiffly, “get off my property.”