The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall Page 12

  “Let me heal them,” Soek said.

  “No. He hurt them so he has to heal them.”

  “This is wrong and you know it.” Aylin padded down the stairs and dropped beside me. “You’re torturing him.”

  “He did this, he can fix it.” I reached for the next person.

  “Nya, stop!” She yanked on my arm.

  I shrugged her off. She stared at me, pleading. I stared back, but she wasn’t going to talk me out of it.

  “Healers don’t kill. It’s time one of them learned that lesson.” I’d teach the others as soon as I got my hands on them.

  “So this is it now? We’re just as bad as they are?”

  “For the Undying? Yes.”

  Aylin backed away.

  I healed the next person in line. And the next, and the next. The Undying sobbed softly, glaring at me through the tears.

  “Is that all of them?” I asked the old man.

  “Yes. Except for the dead.”

  The Undying had killed them for no reason at all. No, worse. He was probably told to, and that was worse than having no reason. “Go see who else is hurt out there. Bring them here.”

  I unbuckled the Undying’s bracer and pulled it off him. No kragstun lining. So he didn’t even have that as an excuse. Then the other arm. Shoulders. His helmet. He moaned but didn’t fight me. I needed help on the chest piece, but the men he’d planned to kill were delighted to hold him up. I unbuckled the greaves last, pulling them off his legs.

  I grabbed his chin and shook it. “Hey.” He grunted and opened his eyes. I put the greave in his hand, pressing his fingers against the pynvium. “Heal yourself.”

  He looked surprised but clutched the pynvium. His color returned, his eyes cleared.

  I stood. Danello kept the rapier on him. The Undying stayed on the floor, watching me. So did Aylin and Soek. Soek didn’t look upset like Aylin. He seemed fine with what I was doing.

  “Why didn’t you kill me?” the Undying asked.

  “Because I’m not like you.” I turned to the small crowd now gathered in the hall. “Does anyone have any rope?”

  Several folks vanished and returned with various lengths. I tied his hands behind him and his feet to the banister. We’d have to figure out what to do with him later, but for now, this was good enough. I knelt in front of him.

  “Why are you running around killing people?”

  “Like I’d tell you.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll let these folks have you then.”

  His eyes bulged. “Wait!”

  I waited. He didn’t continue. “Listen,” I said, “people are going to die when the Duke’s army gets here. Innocent people. You don’t care about that, but I do. If you act like a real Healer and help these people now, you’ll get a chance to redeem yourself. Otherwise, I walk away and I don’t care what happens to you.”

  He paused, his jaw working slowly side to side. “Fear,” he muttered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were supposed to spread fear. Go building to building, kill people, kill guards, cut through and show everyone that you can’t stop us. Soften you up so you’d be too scared to organize.”

  This had to stop. The Duke couldn’t treat us like stock animals. Couldn’t kill us whenever he felt like it. “Do we seem soft?”

  He glanced away. “You did ’til I found you.”

  “How many Undying are here?”

  “Eight.”

  Down to six now. Six Undying could kill a lot of people, especially if they were all spread out in small groups like we’d seen so far. They could kill and kill until their armor filled up. Organized or not, the resistance wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  But I could.

  The door opened below, and folks started up the stairs. Ten, fifteen, twenty—growing harder to count as they filled the hallways.

  I picked up the greave again, held it out in front of the Undying. “I can either untie your hands so you can heal them, or I can do it and shift into you. Your call.”

  He paled. “I’ll do it.”

  Two men had picked up the Undyings’ swords, and a few women had arrived with rapiers. They pointed them all at the Undying.

  “I don’t have to warn you about trying to run or trying to hurt these people further, do I?” I said.

  “No.”

  He healed them one by one. I checked afterward, just to make sure he’d done it right. When he was finished, I tied him back up again.

  “Now what?” Danello said.

  “Kill him,” cried someone in the crowd. A few more agreed. Even Danello seemed okay with that.

  I shook my head. “No. We need Healers and we need information. We’ll keep him here and find out what we can. Maybe heal more injured who haven’t had time to reach us yet.”

  “He’s the enemy!”

  “We’re not murderers.” I looked at each person in turn. The ones who glared back I stared at until they looked away. “When more soldiers come, and they will, you’ll need him. Would you risk your families to get revenge?”

  Shamed faces stared at the floor.

  “You heard him. The Duke is trying to soften us up. Break our spirit. There are more of us on this island than them, yet we’re the ones hiding. We’re the ones fighting each other, looting our homes, and kidnapping our friends.”

  “How are we supposed to fight them?” someone asked. “They don’t die.”

  I pointed to the dead Undying on the floor. “He did.”

  “You’re the Shifter. It’s different.”

  Danello stepped forward. “I killed him, not her. Undying die quick if you hit them in the eyes. They don’t have time to heal themselves.”

  Impressed murmurs ran through the crowd.

  “A small blade is all you need. Better if you can throw it. We have those in every kitchen and tackle box in the city.”

  “Long, thin steel’ll work too,” said a woman, waving her rapier.

  Danello smiled. “It will.”

  “We can fight back, even against them,” I said. “Show them that we aren’t soft, and if they want what’s ours, they’ll have to send more than half-trained soldiers in pretty blue armor to get it. And if they try, it’ll cost them more than they can afford.”

  A few folks cheered. The rest nodded, determined gleams in their eyes.

  “Gather everyone who can throw a knife well,” Danello said. “Those who are fast and accurate with a rapier. Swords are too big and won’t work, but those who own them can help defend the others. Guard the bridges, and when the Undying try to cross, you stop them.”

  “Yeah, put ’em down!”

  “Show the Duke what for!”

  “No more hiding!”

  Those from other buildings left, heads held high, chins set. So different from the scared folks who’d scurried inside not long ago. The rest went back to their apartments, except for the older man I’d saved earlier.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Spread the word,” I said. “The Duke is on his way. We need to fight and we need to protect those who can’t. Get them out of the city or into brick buildings, places that won’t burn.”

  He frowned. “The Duke really is coming?”

  “He is.”

  “Guess we’ll have to be ready for him. You gonna fight him with us?”

  “I’ve been fighting him my whole life.”

  He nodded and walked away, a smile on his still-bloody face. “Good enough.”

  I grabbed the rope and hauled the Undying to his feet. Danello kept the rapier on him. “Soek, Aylin, gather the pynvium armor, please.”

  They stripped the other set off the dead Undying and grabbed what I’d already removed.

  “We’ll keep him upstairs for now, but he’ll need to be guarded by folks who won’t kill him when our backs are turned. We can hand him over to the resistance once we make contact.”

  “Nya, this is crazy,” Aylin said. “What are you doing?”
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br />   “Fighting.” Even when we were losing, Mama and Papa fought. Grannyma, too. Now the Duke was threatening us again. He’d broken more than our bodies. He’d broken our spirit, and unless we got that back, we didn’t stand a chance.

  “I thought we were leaving?”

  I hesitated. I had said that, hadn’t I? “We are, as soon as we meet with Ipstan and find Danello’s da. Oh, and get Lanelle back.”

  “Then why say all those things?”

  “Because we might as well help while we’re here.”

  Aylin and Danello dumped the pynvium armor into a trunk Saama brought out. Heavy stuff, and pretty too, if you didn’t think about what it was used for.

  Saama recruited the two husky sons of a fisherman down the hall to help guard the Undying. They tied him to a chair and watched him like cats with mice. Tali watched too, her eyes narrowed. I didn’t like suspicion any more than fear, but at least she was showing some kind of emotion.

  “Is that really one of the Undying?” Saama asked.

  “He is.”

  She tsked. “Well Saints and sinners, he’s just a boy.”

  “Young minds are good and pliable,” Tali said. The Undying jerked and looked at her. I stepped between them, blocking his view.

  “He might be a boy,” I said, “but he’s still a murderer.”

  “And now everyone will know how to kill them,” Danello added. “They won’t be able to terrorize us anymore. We’ll be able to make them fear us.”

  The Undying started laughing. “You really think you have a chance against the Duke?”

  “We can fight you now. We can beat your army.”

  “Don’t you get it? There won’t be an army. The Duke is going to sail up and burn every last building to the ground. These little isles you have? Your little soldiers at the bridges and docks, ‘keeping us at bay’? You’re being herded. He wants you there where it’s easier to kill you.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  He smirked. “Why do you think we were here to scare you, keep you in your homes? You’re a bunch of fishermen, with no armor and no real weapons. We could cut you down without even trying, but why risk good soldiers on trash? While you’re all dying, we’ll be boarding ships at the League and leaving this hunk of rock to burn.”

  THIRTEEN

  I knew there’d been a good chance the Duke planned to burn the city, but hearing it stated so plainly—so coldly—made it all the more real.

  “If Geveg dies, you’ll die with us,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Not if I get out first.”

  He thought he would too. He’d been scared before, but of me, not them. Or maybe this was another way of trying to scare us, part of some plan to help him escape. I’d done similar things before.

  But it made too much sense to be a lie. The Duke had the Undying and thousands of soldiers. A city that was split down the middle, with Gevegians struggling on one side and Baseeri on the other, and looters out for themselves in between. Even if we convinced everyone to fight and somehow outnumbered them, what good was an army if there was no one for it to fight?

  I turned back to the others. “The city should evacuate, like the farm did.”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” the Undying said. “The Duke controls the river and all the roads to Geveg.”

  The Duke had to be close to Jeatar’s farm by now. How long would it take him to destroy it and move on? A day? He had brought his army, so he must have planned on using it somewhere, even if it wasn’t on us. Did he plan to take over the river towns? The marsh farms? Or maybe the plan was to crush them and keep on marching. If so, we might have as little as a week before he reached Geveg.

  “Put him in Saama’s room, please,” I said. We needed to talk without him hearing and spinning lies just to prey on our fears.

  The two husky boys grabbed his chair and dragged him across the floor and into the other room. They shut the door but stayed with him.

  “We should meet with Ipstan right now,” I said. “I don’t know what we can do, but they need to know all these attacks are part of a trap.”

  Saama nodded and headed for the door. “I’ll fetch those girls of mine. They’ll know someone in the resistance who knows Ipstan.”

  “What about Lanelle?” Danello said.

  I groaned. “She’ll just have to wait.”

  “We’ll need Healers if we’re taking on the Duke.”

  “We’re not staying,” Aylin said quickly. “We’re not taking on anything.”

  “But she came here to fight.” Danello went to the bag and pulled out the pouch of jewels. He picked out a small gem and slipped it into a pocket. “If we’re leaving, we can at least give the resistance Lanelle.”

  Some trade. Us for her. “Then let’s go get her.”

  One of the girls Saama fetched ran off to find someone who could take us to Ipstan. The other took us to the bridge to the looters’ isle. Tali stayed with Saama. I hated to leave her behind, but she was safer inside than out where she might attack someone again.

  The streets weren’t so quiet anymore. People ran back and forth, some carrying baskets, others with old rapiers and bits of armor that needed a good polishing. Preparing for war.

  Ten people guarded the bridge now, and four had several knife sheathes on their belts. They’d moved fast as fright to get defenses in place against the Undying. A good sign.

  “These folks need to pay a ransom,” the girl said as we approached the guards.

  “You’re her?” one of them asked me, his face full of hope. “You’re the one who stopped the Undying?”

  “Him too.” I pointed to Danello. “We’ve all fought them before.”

  The bridge guards stared at me, but no one came close. It was almost … reverent.

  Danello cleared his throat. “How do we get back the people the looters kidnapped?”

  “We’ll ask for an exchange,” one of the men said. “We’ve done it a few times already.”

  He walked to the middle of the bridge and called out. A man from the other side appeared from behind the barricade and took a few steps onto the bridge. He kept his sword ready. They spoke, then both returned.

  “He’s getting someone,” the guard said. “A man named Optel is in charge over there. Sometimes he comes, sometimes he sends a thug.”

  After a few minutes, two men appeared and walked to the middle of the bridge. One was obviously the thug, big and stocky, a heavy sword in his hands. The other wore fancy clothes that didn’t fit him well. Probably weren’t even his.

  “Lucky you, you earned the boss himself,” the guard said. “Come on.”

  We followed him across the bridge. More guards came out and stood behind Optel. One for each of us.

  “Who do we have that you want?” Optel asked with a smile. His brown hair had blond streaks through it, and his hands were rough and callused. Fisherman probably. Not husky enough for a farmer.

  “A girl about my age,” I said. “Brown hair, bad attitude.”

  Optel grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know that one. I can sell her to you for”—he looked us over, but something in his gaze said he wasn’t guessing what we could afford—“say one hundred oppas.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding?” our bridge guard said. I hid my relief. It would have been a lot more if they’d known she was a Healer. At least she’d been smart enough to stay quiet about that.

  “She’s not worth that much,” Aylin said. Soek nodded emphatically behind her.

  Danello handed me the gem. It was worth more than one hundred oppas, but we didn’t have anything smaller. “Bring her to us.”

  Optel’s eyes gleamed when he spotted the gem, but he got his excitement hidden again. He muttered something to one of his guards and he ran off.

  “Looks like I’m getting the good side of the deal here,” he said.

  Optel’s guard came back with Lanelle, her hands tied in front of her. Bruises covered her jaw, and one eye was swollen shut. She seemed
shocked that I’d come for her. I felt only a little guilty that I’d debated against it.

  Optel smiled and held out his hand. “One final detail and the transaction is compete.”

  I handed him the gem. Lanelle darted between us. I cut her bindings, checked her injuries. Banged up, but nothing serious.

  “Thank you for doing business with Optel’s Supply and Demand. Let us know if we can be of further service in the future.” He laughed and turned away, his guards closing in behind him.

  “I should have let you bring some pynvium,” Danello muttered, hands tight on his rapier.

  “Trust me, I wish I had.” But satisfying as it would have been, we’d need all the weapons we could get for the Duke and his blue-boys.

  I glanced at Aylin.

  No, they’d need all the weapons they could get. We’d be gone way before then.

  Shrieks reverberated in the stairwell of Danello’s apartment building.

  Tali’s shrieks.

  I raced up the stairs, my heart thudding. People stood in the halls, looking worried, but not scared enough for more soldiers to be there. I grabbed the door latch to Saama’s apartment, but it was locked.

  “Tali!”

  The door flew open. Saama waved a hand inside, her face pale. “She just went crazy!”

  Another shriek. Tali darted around the room. She sobbed between shrieks, shaking her head, muttering, though I couldn’t make out the words.

  “What happened?’ Danello asked.

  “She just went after him!”

  The Undying lay on the floor, a knife hilt sticking out of his eye. He was still tied to the chair.

  “Sweet Saea, Tali, what did you do?” Fear and fresh anger surged through me. They’d done this to her. Made her this way.

  “She killed him?” Lanelle said.

  “He started talking about how we were all dead. He got real descriptive about it too.” Saama shuddered. “Kept saying what the Duke would do to us. She just went for the knife and then for him.”

  Everyone spoke at once, words falling over each other. Tali pressed her hands against her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.