David Weber - War Maid's choice

Gayrfressa snorted in agreement and took the lead, forging steadily through the grass that was shoulder-high on Boots.

They’d gone only a short distance before Leeana’s merely human nose began to catch the sharp, acrid scent. The gelding noticed it to, and he snorted uneasily. She felt the sudden tension in his muscles as he recognized the threat, and her own pulse quickened, yet there were only wisps of the odor, not the kind of overpowering wave that would have rolled along the breath of a true grass fire. That had to be a good thing, she told herself. Whatever had caused it, the burning or smoldering grass producing that hint of smoke was almost certainly limited enough that she and Gayrfressa could deal with it before it turned into the kind of fiery tempest that wreaked such havoc.

‹ There!›

Gayrfressa’s head rose again, her nose pointing sharply, and Leeana squinted, trying to see whatever the mare had seen.

“Where?” she asked after a moment.

‹ You can’t see it?›

Gayrfressa sounded astonished, and Leeana shook her head. The courser brought her head around to look at her for a moment, then turned back in the direction she’d been staring, and Leeana felt a fresh stab of surprise come from her.

‹I can’t see it, either…if I close my right eye,› Gayrfressa said slowly, and something tingled along Leeana’s nerves as she remembered Lillinara telling them both that Gayrfressa would see more clearly than most.

“What is it?” she asked after a moment, and Gayrfressa snorted softly.

‹ I have no idea,› she admitted. ‹ It’s like…almost like the kind of glow I saw when he healed the rest of the Warm Springs herd, but it’s…wrong. Like it’s been…broken or twisted somehow.›

For some reason, Gayrfressa’s “explanation” wasn’t making her feel any calmer, Leeana reflected.

“And where are you seeing it?” She was surprised by the levelness of her own tone.

‹ There’s a hollow up ahead.› Gayrfressa sounded as positive as if she’d actually seen that hollow before, Leeana noted. ‹ Whatever it is, it’s coming from something in the hollow.›

“Then let’s go see what it is.”

Gayrfressa tossed her head in agreement, and they moved ahead once again, more warily than before. They’d gone perhaps two hundred yards when Leeana saw thin, twisting tendrils of smoke rising ahead of them. She clucked to Boots, pressing gently with her heels to request more speed, and despite his own nervousness, the gelding moved quickly from a fast walk to a trot.

They crested one of the low, almost imperceptible swells of the Wind Plain and stopped suddenly.

An auburn-haired man lay facedown before them, and the grass around him was blackened char and powdery ash. Leeana couldn’t understand why whatever had consumed that ten or twelve-foot circle of grass hadn’t spread further, but she spared a moment to give silent thanks that it hadn’t. Yet even as she realized how lucky they’d been in at least that respect, her brain seemed to be racing off in a dozen directions at once as she tried to find some explanation for how he’d gotten there in the first place. There was no sign of a horse or anything else-the grass around the hollow stood straight and unbroken, with no trace of how he could have gotten here on foot, even if he’d had no horse. It was as if he’d fallen out of the heavens, and his clothing was almost as scorched looking as the grass upon which he lay. And then there was that “glow” only Gayrfressa seemed able to see…

Logic told her she wasn’t going to like the answers to all the questions ripping through her thoughts, but there’d be time to worry about them later. There were more urgent things to deal with at the moment, and she was out of the saddle, dropping the reins to leave Boots ground hitched, almost before the gelding had stopped. Gayrfressa delicately placed one huge forehoof on the reins to make certain he’d stay there, and Leeana gave the courser a brief smile of thanks as she passed her sister on her way down into the hollow.

Thank the Mother I’m wearing boots! she thought, feeling the heat radiating upward from the charred area around the unconscious man. There was a lot of that heat, enough to make the toughened soles of her feet tingle when she stepped out into it, even through her boots, underlining the mystery of why no fire had spread from it. Then she reached him and went down on one knee, extending her hand to touch the side of his neck.

A pulse fluttered against her fingertips. It was weak, racing, but at least it was there, and she exhaled a long breath of gratitude. Then she gritted her teeth and rolled him over onto his back as gently as she could.

His hands were badly seared, blistered everywhere and with deep, angry wounds burned into their tissue, and her stomach knotted as she saw the damage. Burned scraps of skin and flesh hung in tatters around those deeper wounds, weeping serum. It looked as if he’d closed his grip on a white-hot iron, she thought sickly, wondering if he’d ever be able to use those fingers again. His face was burned, as well, although not as badly, and she smelled singed, burned hair. But then her eyes widened as she saw the white scepter on the scorched shoulder of his dark blue tunic.

“A mage! ” she said sharply. “He’s a mage, Gayrfressa!”

‹ A mage? All the way out here? Where did he come from? How did he get here?›

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Leeana sat back on her heels, staring down at the brutally injured man, then looked back up at Gayrfressa.

“We need help, and I don’t want to move him without a healer. Mother only knows how badly hurt he may be inside!” She rose and reached into her belt pouch for the pad of paper an officer of the city guard carried everywhere. “I think I’m going to have to stay here to keep an eye on him, Gayrfressa.” She found her stubby pencil and began writing quickly. “You’re going to have to give this to Erlis or a Balcartha or- no! ”

She shook her head sharply, discarding the note she’d already started and scribbling a different one in its place.

“Give it to Arm Shahana,” she said instead, choosing not to think too deeply about the possible implications of their discovery and the arm’s mysterious arrival from Quaysar.

She felt Gayrfressa’s thoughts matching her own, but the courser said nothing as she finished her hasty note and tucked it into Gayrfressa’s ornamental halter. The huge mare took long enough to press her nose to Leeana’s raised hand and blow heavily. Then she turned, whirling away, and vanished with the blinding speed only a courser could produce.

Leeana watched her go, then got her canteen from Boots’ saddle and went back to her knees beside the injured mage. Perhaps she could get him to drink a little, and if she couldn’t, she could at least cleanse those hands of his.

Shahana Lillinarafressa stiffened shaky knees and straightened, looking down at the still unconscious man in the Kalatha infirmary. She felt as if she’d just completed a ten-mile run, but his breathing was stronger, and his hands looked far better than they had. Despite which, she was far from certain he’d ever be able to use them again, despite all she’d been able to do. It had always struck her as ironic, possibly even unfair, that champions of Tomanak, the God of War, could heal so much more completely than an arm of the Mother. Of course, not even Tomanak’s champions could heal the way one of Kontifrio’s priestesses could, but at the moment they didn’t have a priestess of Kontifrio.

No, you don’t. And try feeling grateful for the fact that the Mother’s at least allowed you to save this man’s life rather than whining over the fact that someone else got a shinier toy than you did!