Mercedes Lackey - Owlsight

Keisha felt as if she had somehow fallen into someone else’s life. Here she had gone along for years, with nothing more serious than sick sheep and broken bones to take care of, and nothing more worrisome than trying to work her way through those damned indecipherable texts. . . .

And now?

She was living in a Hawkbrother Vale, taking lessons from one of the most famous mages in the world - well, in Valdemar, anyway - learning how to do things that weren’t even in those texts. And if that wasn’t enough, now there was an army in residence, with no less than three full Healers and six apprentices, all perfectly willing to give her extra lessons and advice if she thought she needed it. She had seen more new people at once in the last few days than all of the people she’d ever seen in her life added together.

“Not that you really need much advice,” observed Gentian Arbelo, the most senior of the three. He was also the oldest, bald as an egg, and the thinnest healthy man Keisha had ever seen. “You have all the basic herb-knowledge so solidly there’s no point in questioning it, and you could teach us a few things about the local cures. As for using your Gift - ” he shrugged. “It’s more a matter of practice and getting comfortable with it than needing any advice or lessons. Still, if you want to sit in when any of us work, we’ll be happy to link minds with you so that you can see exactly how we do things.”

“Please,” Keisha responded immediately, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “Please. I need experience, and I’m horribly afraid I won’t have much time to get it.”

“There is that,” agreed Nala Karcinamen, the junior Healer. “If there’s fighting, well, we’re going to wish we had double our number.”

The middle, a robust and cheerful man, of middling height, brown hair, eyes, and beard, who called himself Grenthan Miles, made a face. “Piff! This is Captain Kero we’re talking about! If there’s a way to get this settled without crossed swords, she’ll find it, her and Eldan both. Meanwhile, this is an army, they’re always beating on one another, and that means bruises and cuts. Likely, there’ll be at least one serious fight with a broken bone if we sit about for more than a fortnight. We’ll have hangovers, upset stomachs from overstuffing, all manner of minor troubles. There’s nothing better to practice on, m’dear, and if you botch it up a bit, there’s no serious consequences.” He grinned first at Keisha, then at his two colleagues. “We’ll take her on the rounds and let her use her Gift on ‘em with us as safety. She’ll get practice, we can use the time for some full exams, and that’ll keep every mother’s child in this mothering army up to strength. What do you say to that?”

Nala looked dubious, but Gentian nodded. “Good idea. In fact, it would be a good idea for all the apprentices.” His grin, buried as it was in a bright red beard, was doubly infectious. “By the gods, we’ll spoil those soldiers, though! They’ll think this is how we should always treat ‘em!”

Keisha flushed, her cheeks hot, and Nala gave her a penetrating look. “Have you something you’d like to say, Keisha?” The plump and motherly gray-haired woman looked more like someone’s grandmother than a Healer who’d followed armies literally all her life. She seemed to understand Keisha’s shyness, and how hard it was to volunteer information.

“Just that - I do know some remedies you may not, mostly for common things - and they don’t all have to have - painless Healing.” She flushed even more, her cheeks so warm they were painful. “You want to discourage people from pretending to be sick, right? Or complaining of truly trivial problems? The medicines aren’t very pleasant, but they are very efficient.”

All three Healers burst into delighted laughter, lessening her blushes. “She’ll do, she’ll do!” Gentian crowed. “Oh, yes, she’ll do!”

“You’re sure you want to be here?” Kerowyn asked Keisha as they reached the outskirts of Errold’s Grove just after suppertime - a time chosen when everyone would be home from the fields.

“They know me; you’re outsiders. They know I wouldn’t say anything that can be ignored. If I’m here while you tell them the bad news, they won’t be so inclined to try to pretend it isn’t true.” Keisha really didn’t want to be there, but she knew she had to be; among other things, she figured she might as well get the inevitable confrontation with her parents over and done with. They were going to want her to evacuate with the others, and obviously she couldn’t do that.

“The best thing to do is to ring the bell in the square,” Keisha went on, thinking out loud. “If we ask Mayor Lutter to assemble everyone, he’ll try to find some way of putting it off - or worse, he’ll only assemble people he thinks are important.” She gave Kerowyn a helpless shrug. “He’s good enough at arranging Faires, but I wouldn’t trust him to make any decisions in a case like this, much less make the right ones. He’ll think first of how to keep his own status high and keep getting appointed Mayor, and not concentrate on anything useful. My guess is that he’s been keeping the fact that the barbarians were coming this way a secret. The only ones who probably know are the town council members.”

Kero snorted and looked absolutely disgusted. “Politicians! Always butting in where leaders are needed! No fear, I know the type, and I can handle him easily enough.”

Just ahead, people wandered the village paths in the late-evening sunlight. Some were women, gathering to trade gossip, some were young people, mostly couples, and children played in the yards as they rode in, Kerowyn on her Companion, and Nightwind and Keisha on dyheli. Kerowyn had changed back to her Whites - grudgingly, but Eldan had said severely that her authority as a Herald might be needed to get people to act instead of dithering. There would be no difficulty with riding back after darkness fell, since the dyheli and Kero’s Companion had excellent night-vision, and there was going to be a full moon.

As soon as the children spotted Kero, they ran back to their houses, shouting with excitement. Gods, this is an awful lot of excitement for Errold’s Grove. People are going to be talking about this year for decades, Keisha mused, as folk began to gather beside the road, their faces full of expectation. “Maybe we won’t have to ring the bell, after all,” Keisha ventured, seeing the number of people appearing on their own.

“Good; I want to alert people, not scare them witless.” Kero’s Companion Sayvil stopped, and Kero stood up in her stirrups. “Listen, people - I want everyone in Errold’s Grove assembled in the square, right now! You littles - yes, you and you and you - go to all the houses and fetch everybody.”

The children she pointed to ran off, squealing with excitement at being given an important mission by a Herald. “The rest of you, follow us to the square, unless you know of someone the children won’t likely find.”

Kero took the lead, followed by Nightwind and Keisha and a parade of chattering, excited people. The noise alone will probably bring people out, Keisha thought, as the crowd behind grew larger with every step they took.

The square had been cleaned out since the “reception” for Darian and the Hawkbrothers. How long ago was that? Just days, maybe a fortnight, but it seems like a year. There was nothing in the way of structures there at all, except the Hawkbrother bower near the Temple.

“Don’t dismount,” said Kero, as their three mounts halted, with Kerowyn between Nightwind and Keisha. “We’ll use the height to our advantage. Anyone want to bet how long it takes for this Mayor of Keisha’s to appear, demanding that we go through him?”