Sworn To Conflict: Courtlight #3 (2 page)

Their coats grew dense and cold resistant so that even in below-freezing temperatures they were not affected. Their body’s natural strength was increased threefold so that they could go days on the hunt without resting or eating. The pads of their feet were given dexterity so that even on the slick and icy slopes of the mountain passes they could hunt any prey, and their eyes were layered with an extra clear lid that changed their already acute perceptions to a three-dimensional layer of heat. All of this and more were attributes the mage hunters of the chimera were able to use on their hunts.

But it was that last magical gift which was the most useful for this patient. Turning on the heat vision, she looked over Ciardis with the assessment of a predator eyeing prey. Chimera would never bring magically or physically ill prey back to their nest or their kits. The mages among their kind could see and assess the illness of the animals they hunted from a great distance, allowing them to avoid the poisoned, the moribund, and the cancerous.

As she looked at Ciardis’s body through the slits of cat’s eyes, her mage sight turned her vision from color to shades of gray except where the red of heat signatures lay. One large mass of swirling colors of red was straight in front of her. The burning red and bright orange of Ciardis’s radiating body heat even while the girl shivered from frostbite. The area around her beating heart was the strongest, which boded ill for the rest of her body which shone with less fervor. But she hadn’t given up her fight to live just yet. Maris leaned closer, optimistic for the girl’s recovery. For the most part she was physically healthy, but Maris’s fur lifted up off her back in alarm when she switched from heat vision to an assessment using mage sight. The gift of mage sight was something different. It was an ability she’d learned to use only after being trained alongside human mages. It would allow her to assess the girl’s mage powers after looking over her physical form with the heat vision that came to her from birth. What she saw when she completed the transition made her fear for her patient’s life.  A magical malaise covered the young woman’s whole body from head to toe. This one was threatening to kill her long before the effects of winter would push her body to deteriorate from the bite of the frigid air and cold snow.

The malaise looked like black nodules, throbbing as they took nourishment from Ciardis’s body and depleted her core. Carefully, Maris prodded the nodules in Ciardis’s body where golden lines from the young woman’s magic were seeking to fight off the illness. The golden lines circled each black nodule in a swirl pushing at its mass as they tried to contain the virulent darkness, but she watched as one after the other the gold swirling lines were drained into the black nodules—much more quickly than she would have expected. Ciardis’s magic wasn’t strong enough to combat whatever the malaise was. As she rose out of her healer’s state, she opened her mind to Ciardis’s mage core and couldn’t halt the hiss of anger which escaped from her lips.

The girl’s core looked like a tiny button when it should have been twenty times that size, even for the lowliest of mages. Maris pulled back and wrapped her mind around the fact that this young woman was suffering from magical exhaustion. It was a very rare day when the depletion of a person’s magic extended so far that their body shut down in an attempt to counteract the strange void of an essential part of the body: the mage core. It would explain why she seemed to have such a severe reaction to the winter’s cold when she had only been outside for minutes. Maris sighed and flicked her ears. The girl had depleted her mage core doing who knows what. Or someone else had depleted it for her—a much more depressing thought.

Deciding that the best action would be a healing sleep, she firmly but gently urged Ciardis to go into a deeper sleep. One that would prevent movement of her physical form and even dissuade mental activity, including dreams. She watched carefully as Ciardis slipped into a dreamless darkness where her mind would float free of worries. As she observed her progress Maris continued to renew her patient’s body strength, replenish the power source, and smooth the frayed edges of the depleted mage core as best as she could.

“With enough rest and plenty of care, the girl’s core will revive itself,” she muttered to herself.

“Ciardis,” came a deep baritone voice from behind her. “Her name is Ciardis.”

Turning slightly, she looked at General Barnaren and snarled in anger. Maris wasn’t feeling too kindly to the fact that Barnaren had been the one with the girl before she came. If he was responsible for her ill health even the gods wouldn’t save him from her fury. She was feeling protective of her patient as a healer should. But more than that she felt furious. Furious that someone had depleted this poor girl’s magic and it had happened under Barnaren’s watch. Maris’s teeth were bared as her lips curled back from long fangs and the orange slits of her cat eyes glinted with fire.

The general had fought wars and slew many men on the battlefield. But even he froze in the face of that threat. The tent was too small to back farther away even if he had been so inclined. He was too proud—even in the face of an angry chimera. He looked nervous with beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Maris was one of the best healers in the land, with an implacable nature and a quiet efficiency. But it was well known— a chimera, when angered—was unstoppable. She, like all of her kind, looked like the white tigers of the north, and at times acted like it. Fiercely independent and skillful hunters, chimera were silent and deadly adversaries. Tales were told and all ended the same way – one didn’t encounter an angry chimera and live.

And Maris was definitely angry.

Her snarl echoed in the small tent as she barely held back the urge to claw him to death.

“I have known you a long time, Barnaren, which is the
only
reason why you do not lie curled on the ground with your entrails spilling from your open gut,” she said.

Coldness leeched into his eyes as he faced down the deadly healer who towered above him. She wasn’t in a blood haze – her eyes hadn’t turned red with deadly intent nor had her claws fully descended. But it was close enough, and he would be a fool not to be well aware of how many of his men it would take to kill her if she descended into the blood haze. She would kill without thought or regret for as long as another opponent came forth. All in an effort to protect the young, unconscious girl lying behind her on a cot. With Ciardis helpless and the chimera healer stepping in as her protector, they would all be in danger.

“How could you allow her to be drained?” she demanded, “We may be losing this war, but we have never descended to such vileness.”

“I didn’t drain her. Neither did any of my soldiers,” he said with an assessing look at the sleeping young woman on his bed.

“Then who did?”

He had to know that she would hunt down any person he named. If they were anywhere within the vicinity of the camp, they were a threat to everyone in the camp. Stealing the power of mages was a deadly offense ever since the Initiate Wars and was punishable by death under the laws of the court of the magistrate. Even if they weren’t nearby, she could probably still find them. Chimera were excellent hunters and trackers. Snow and ice were no deterrent.

“She transported herself here,” he admitted. “From where, we don’t know, but obviously wherever it was that she came from it wasn’t good.”

Not mentioned was the fact that Ciardis’s ability to just appear in the midst of their camp was a security breach of epic proportions.

Maris rescinded her claws. She could smell the truth on him.

“We must find who drained her. This kind of magic isn’t legal for a reason.”

“We will,” he said with steel in his voice that promised retribution.

Maris turned back to her patient with a flick of her tail. “Out.” It was a command, not a request.

He hesitated.

“She needs to be given ointment,” she said as she cocked her head back towards him with gruffness in her voice. “You will not be able to speak to her anytime soon.”

He nodded and exited the tent, intent on speaking with his subordinates. As he left, an attendant arrived carrying the brazier with water
.
Irritation flowed through the healer’s veins at the long wait.

“Put it at the foot of the cot,” the healer said with a glance over at the attendant. Before she could snarl at him she noted with approval that the attendant had taken the time to heat the packed ice until steam rose from the confines of the pot. That was good—it would make her treatments much quicker.

He did as instructed while keeping his eyes glued to the floor. The whole camp knew how protective Maris was of her patients. Add in the fact that this patient was female and he didn’t want to do anything wrong. He fought to stand still and not back away when the healer came over from her patient’s side.

Ignoring the human, who stank of fear, Maris reached into a pouch at her waist and dropped herbs into the boiling water of the kettle. The air soon began to fill with the heady aroma of steamed mint. With a satisfied purr she went back to Ciardis’s sleeping form.

“You may go.” The attendant left without a word.

Pushing back the covers, Maris hummed a chimera tune that was more purr than melody. Pushing Ciardis’s hair back from her face with a gentle touch, Maris reached into her pouch to produce the ointment. She proceeded to spread the thick paste all along Ciardis’s heart points: her collarbone, her wrists, her ankles, her waist, her forehead, and her chest. It was a steam-reactive treatment that would enhance the magical healing Maris had already produced. The paste started to absorb into Ciardis’s skin even as Maris pulled and pushed the covers back around her body. It would fight any infections that dared to manifest and give her nourishment as her body sought to replenish its depleted stores of energy.

Quietly, Maris sat down in a corner, produced two needles and a ball of twine, and began to knit. She settled in with the patience of a mother watching over her cubs. She waited an hour and then checked on the girl’s body temperature again. Ciardis was warming up. Her skin no longer looked so blue in the stifling hot tent. The medicine had also fully absorbed into her body.

Maris’s fur was beginning to accumulate water droplets in the heat of the room. But she wouldn’t leave the enclosure or her patient. She flicked her ears back and forth in irritation at the sensation, but otherwise ignored the gathering condensation.

At that moment the general returned, clearing his throat to alert Maris. She’d known he’d been coming before his steps had echoed outside the door. From five feet away it was clear that the general, with his distinctive ground-eating stride, was approaching the tent. Her hearing was quite acute. But courtesies mattered—at least to humans.

“She’s doing quite well,” Maris announced. “She’s also filthy. Have an attendant—a female this time—help me. Tell her to bring combs, the treatment for lice from my tent, soap, towels, and a bucket.”

“Please,” she added with a curl of her upper lip.

The general nodded and stepped out of the tent once more. 

After the attendant returned with the necessary supplies, they got to work. They stripped Ciardis of the blankets and added more steam to the room with occasional splashes of water on the hot coals. The attendant attacked the snags in her curly hair, which lay bunched behind her with an assortment of twigs and dirt caught in it. Maris handled the streaks of mud on her skin and tore away the clothes that were already torn with jagged edges, as if they’d been ripped. She must have been in a fight or an accident of some kind. By the time they finished cleaning her off, the female attendant produced some of her own clothes for Ciardis to wear, which Maris gruffly thanked her for, her ears pointed forward in earnest.

The woman smiled with a short military salute and left the healer to her work.

T
wo weeks passed before Maris woke Ciardis Weathervane from her deep sleep. Two weeks was a long time. Long enough for a prince heir to assign a team of mages to scour the empire for one lost woman. Long enough for them to find her.

Ciardis woke up in stages. Her consciousness came first. Her head felt clogged with a thick fog. One that was slowly fading. She became aware that she was lying flat on her back at the same time she realized she was no longer cold. And then the tingly sensation of her body waking up began to take over, and her senses returned. She twitched her fingers and felt the scratch of rough linens beneath her fingertips. She felt the urge to yawn, but more than that, she wanted to see. The crease between her eyelids felt crusted, as if a long time had passed since she had last opened them. Grimacing, she cleared her lids of the dirt and opened her eyes to gain a glimpse into where she was. It was a dark and enclosed space with very few discernable features.

But wait...there was a light at her feet. She strained her eyes against the small glare that felt like a bright sun in her weakened state. But she wanted to see. She
needed
to know where she was. Taking stock of the feelings in her body, she determined that nothing felt broken or out of place. With a heave she pushed herself up, managing to get her chest to rise a few inches off of the bed. She fell back down onto her back in exhaustion from that small effort.

She tried to catch her breath from that small exertion. Then she heard voices. Straining her ears, she couldn’t make them out. They were just outside of the place she was in, but the sound was muffled. She reached above her to touch the moving walls. Fabric.

I’m in a room of fabric
, she thought with some confusion as she trailed her fingers over the rippling sloped walls above her.
But where?

The last thing she remembered was confronting the Shadow Mage. She had had run-ins with him as they sparred off and on throughout the weeks of her stay in the Ameles Forest. The Shadow Mage had been unstoppable, killing hundreds of
kith
even after her arrival at the Ameles Forest with Meres Kinsight, Vana Cloudbreaker, Alexandra, and Terris. The Shadow Mage had always been one step ahead of her, laughing at her antics with a mockery born of cruelty. She’d gone to the Ameles Forest to stop the killings of untold numbers of
kith
at the behest of the head of the Companions’ Guild, Maree Amber. A woman she had come to learn was also a member of the Shadow Council—a deeply secretively organization in the Algardis Empire whose express purpose was to eliminate threats to the crown. Maree Amber, of course, had died protecting her charge – a rather ungrateful Weathervane at the time.