Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

“We saw the greatward light up, mistress!” Kadie squeaked. “It was amazing!”

“Not as amazing as the men we saw,” Roni said. “Are all the Hollowers so tall, mistress?”

“Night, Roni,” Kadie rolled her eyes, “we’re standing out in the open in the dark and all you can think of is boys.”

“Men,” Roni corrected her, and even Leesha snickered.

“Enough, giggleboxes,” Leesha said, falling easily back to her stern instructor’s voice. “We can talk warding and boys later. Tonight, there’s work to be done.” She pointed to the freshly built operating theater at the far end of the yard. “Go and help Gatherers to their seats as they arrive.” The girls nodded, running off.

“My new old apprentices?” Leesha asked.

“Long as you can stand their prattle,” Jizell said. “They’ll learn far more in the Hollow than they will in Angiers.”

Leesha nodded. “And have more asked of them. We often don’t have the luxury of a clean hospit to work in, Jizell. Before long, they’ll be cutting and stitching folk right where they fell, just to get them back to the hospit alive.”

“World’s marching off to war, one way or the other. Gatherers can afford to hide behind the walls anymore.” Jizell put a hand on Leesha’s shoulder. “But if someone’s got to teach them the lesson, I’d rather it be you. Proud of you, girl.”

“Thank you,” Leesha said.

“How many weeks since you last bled?” Jizell asked.

Leesha’s heart stopped. Her voice caught in her throat and she froze, wide-eyed.

Jizell gave her a wry look. “Don’t look so surprised. You’re not the only one of us trained by Mistress Bruna.”

From all over Hollow County, Herb Gatherers came up the warded road. Some on foot from the hospit just over a mile away by the Corelings’ Graveyard. Others in coaches sent to collect them from the outermost baronies, and everywhere in between. There were even a few from the migrant refugee villages that had not yet been absorbed.

“Bandits,” Wonda said, after they greeted a few of the lean, hard-eyed women.

“That’s enough of that talk, Wonda Cutter,” Leesha said. “This is a Gathering. Every woman here has taken oaths to save lives, and you will treat them all with respect. Is that clear?”

Wonda’s eye quivered, glistening just a little, and Leesha wondered for a moment if she had been too harsh. But then the girl swallowed hard and nodded. “Ay, mistress. Din’t mean no disrespect.”

“I know you didn’t, dear Wonda,” Leesha said. “But you must never forget the real enemy comes from the Core. Their attack at new moon was little more than a feint, and they almost destroyed us, even with Arlen and Renna in the Hollow.”

Wonda clenched a fist. “He’ll come back, mistress.”

“We don’t know that,” Leesha said. “And if he did, he’d tell you himself that we’d best make every ally we can.”

“Ay, mistress,” Wonda said. “Still say you should’ve let me hide the silver.”

Leesha shook her head, counting the women already in the theater and those still on the road. The parked carriages stretched out of sight now, and every Gatherer arrived on foot.

Amanvah and Sikvah were the last to arrive, leaving Rojer waiting in the yard with the other men as they followed Leesha and Jizell into the theater. The chatter of the women grew markedly louder at the sight of the Krasian women standing behind Leesha at the entrance to the floor.

Leesha took a deep breath. Jizell gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze, and she stepped out into the center of the theater floor. The din died instantly.

Leesha turned a full circle, trying to meet every eye in the theater, if only for a moment. Nearly two hundred women leaned forward, waiting expectantly for the ward witch to speak.

It wasn’t nearly enough. As near as the talliers could tell, Hollow County and its environs had swollen to almost fifty thousand inhabitants. Few in number even before these troubled times, many Gatherers had been captured or killed on the road as they fled the Krasian invasion, or fallen prey to the destruction at new moon.

Less than half the women were true Gatherers. Leesha knew many of them from correspondence and interviews when they first came to the Hollow. Some few had real skill and knowledge of old world techniques, but others were glorified midwives, grandmothers who could pull a babe from its mother and brew a few simple cures. Few if any of them could read, and almost none of them, even Jizell, could ward.

The rest were apprentices. Some young girls in training, others older, women drafted into the hospits when the wounded began to mount, likely with no more skill than boiling water and bringing fresh linen.

You’re all Gatherers now, Leesha thought.

“Thank you all for coming,” Leesha called, her voice strong and clear. “Many of you have traveled great distance, and I welcome you most of all. There hasn’t been such a Gathering in the Hollow since my teacher, Mistress Bruna, was young.”

Many of the women nodded to themselves. Bruna was known to all of them, the legendary Herb Gatherer who had lived to be one hundred twenty before the flux had taken her.

“Gatherings used to be commonplace,” Leesha said. “After the Return, it was the only way left to us to pool the secrets of the old world and try to gain back something of what we lost when the demons burned the great libraries.

“It must be so again. There are too few of us, and too much to share, if we are to survive the coming moons. We must recruit as heavily as the Cutters, and train together as they do. My apprentices have been copying my books of chemics and healing—all of you will be sent home with your own copies to study. And from this day forward, there will be regular lessons in this theater, covering everything from healing and warding to demon anatomy. Even some of the secrets of fire. For some I will be the teacher. For others,” she looked back to Jizell and Amanvah, “I too will be a student.”

“Ay, you can’t expect us to take lessons from some Krasian witch!” one old woman had the guts to cry. Many others echoed their approval. Too many.

Leesha looked back at Amanvah, but for all the pride she knew the young princess carried, she remained serene, refusing to be baited. Leesha gave a clap, and her apprentices carried in an injured Cutter on a stretcher. He had been given a sleeping draught, and the girls grunted as they lifted the burly man’s dead weight onto the operating table.

“This is Makon Orchard, from the barony of New Rizon,” Leesha said, drawing the white cloth that covered him down to his waist, revealing black and purple bruising around a neat line of stitches that stretched across his abdomen. “He was injured clearing land for a new greatward three nights ago. I spent eight hours cutting and stitching him back together. Are there any here who witnessed this?”

Six Gatherers and a score of apprentices raised their hands. Still, Leesha pointed to the old woman who had called out. “Gatherer Alsa, isn’t it?”

“Ay,” the old woman said with a suspicious look. She was one of the migrant refugee Gatherers, come from one of the many hamlets that had fled the Krasian invasion. It was true that many of the migrants had turned to banditry, but their desperation had not happened without cause.

“Will you come and inspect the wound, please?” Leesha asked.

The Gatherer grunted, thumping her walking stick and pushing to her feet. Roni moved to escort her, but Alsa swatted at her and the girl wisely kept her distance as the old woman shuffled down to the theater floor.

Despite her gruff exterior, Gatherer Alsa seemed to know her business, inspecting Makon’s injury with firm but gentle hands. She squeezed the stitches and rubbed her thumb and forefinger under her nose, sniffing.