“I don’t have the power to—”
“The devil you don’t,” Rex cut in. “You led this army. You united every able-bodied person willing to fight in the territories. You beat the horde. So if you offer Appleton to our allies, nobody will argue with you.”
Could that be true? I supposed it was. “All right. Appleton’s yours. This isn’t the time to talk about such things, but there will need to be…” I didn’t even know the words.
“Treaties,” Rex supplied. “Trade agreements. And the Uroch will probably want to wear those armbands, at least until the last of the old mutants are gone.”
A flicker of pain registered in Szarok’s golden eyes. Those were his people Rex was casually dismissing. We hadn’t killed all of them; there would be stragglers in forest and field, but if we were careful, they’d die out in a few years and their legacy of violence with them.
But I couldn’t help wondering, “Can the few remaining old ones breed … and start the cycle all over again?”
Szarok shook his head. “They’re past the age of reproduction. The future of my people rests in our hands now.”
“That’s good to hear,” Rex muttered.
The Uroch favored him with a sharp glance, before saying, “We’re returning to Appleton now. These bodies are nothing to us since we can’t collect their memories. So the crows are welcome to them.”
That was a way in which we differed, but I didn’t judge him for it. “Might be best. I don’t know how the men will react, now that the fighting’s stopped.”
Rex nodded. “Peace takes time.”
Szarok went on, “The Gulgur have returned to their burrows. They told me to ask you to bury their dead along with your own. I don’t know if they’re interested in treaties or trade agreements, but they’re pleased it’s safe to come into the light, if they so choose.”
“I’ll take care of it. Thank them for me,” I said.
With a lift of his taloned hand, Szarok turned and signaled his surviving warriors with another of those exploding things. They loped away, along the river and out of sight, leaving me to continue picking up the pieces. With each body I turned over and each face I searched, my hope grew fainter. The sun was past its zenith when I found Morrow.
“Tegan!” I shouted, knowing she’d drop everything to tend him.
He was covered in so many wounds that I didn’t know how he was still breathing. Two men came with her, drawn by my sharpness, and we carried him to the tent set up away from the bodies. I figured it, too, had come from Rosemere, and I silently thanked them for their help. There were fires burning and water boiling in huge pots, and women from the village moving among the wounded soldiers with bandages that looked like they had been torn from sails.
“Someone should fetch his father,” I said.
In case he doesn’t make it.
I wished I’d let him inform the governor, as he’d wanted. Then they could’ve had a just-in-case farewell. But Tegan fixed a look of such ferocious denial on me that I stumbled back to the tent’s entrance. “Nobody is going anywhere. Get me a damned pan of water, some clean cloth, and my medical bag.”
I did as she demanded, then Rex and I washed up and assisted her as she cleaned his wounds and then prepared the tincture that had saved Harry Carter. With steady hands, she poured the noxious mixture into the bites and stitched Morrow’s wounds. His men heard about his condition, and fifteen of them paced outside the tent. We’d suffered such losses before reinforcements arrived—I cut the thought as I daubed away the blood leaking from his side. I couldn’t afford to let fear and impending grief distract me. A friend’s life hung in the balance.
It seemed like it took forever before Tegan finished working on the storyteller. He was so pale that it didn’t look like he had any blood left in his body. She dropped to her knees and pressed her cheek to his, and that seemed like my cue to back out of the tent. Along the way, I stumbled, but there was nothing to trip me, only the smooth roll of grassy ground.
Rex steadied me with one arm and said, “You have to eat something.”
“I can’t. I have to find Fade.”
“Eat,” he demanded gently. “Or I’ll tell Momma that you don’t listen to your brother.”
Shakily, I assented, but only because I’d never locate Fade if I collapsed. If he was wounded and unable to call out for help, buried in a pile of corpses—I shook all over, just thinking about it. This battle would never end for me if he didn’t keep his promise.
Rex led me to a fire where village women were warming soup. I took a wooden bowl of it and drank in a few furious gulps—anger because pain would drown me without the protective shell. Then I downed some water and glared at Rex.
“Happy now? Can I go back out there?” Even as the words spewed out in that tone, I knew my brother deserved better than this.
To his credit, he only nodded. “Let’s keep looking.”
More bodies rolled beneath my hands, more dead faces to haunt my dreams. Beside me, Rex was grim and silent, but I was glad to have him. With Tegan tirelessly treating patients and the men looking for their own friends and loved ones, I’d be alone otherwise. And without his calm determination, I might be screaming and tearing out my hair. We’d been searching for some time and it was starting to get dark when Gavin rushed at us.
The brat was so breathless he could barely talk, so the words juddered out in fits and starts. “Deuce, this way … please. Hurry.”
His urgency was contagious. I pushed to my feet and stumbled after him, the riverbank a mass of bodies, so much death. There were small forms, the Gulgur, and larger ones: Uroch wearing armbands, townsfolk with hoes beside them, and the fallen men of Company D. The stench was becoming dreadful. If we didn’t do something about the corpses, they’d poison the river, ruining the tranquil beauty I’d so admired. Rex ran behind me, steadier on his feet.
I hoped with all my heart for good news.
Ahead of us, Gavin led the way with the bloody banner still flying in the wind. The brat ran lopsided, but if he was capable of moving on his own, then he was low on the list of people Tegan needed to see. There were so many who wouldn’t last the night, maybe including Morrow. My own injuries cracked and stung as I churned the earth, trying to keep up.
When the boy stopped, he stood beside a lean figure sprawled upon the ground. And there was so much blood, so much, all over his face, that I was afraid to look closer. As I braced to scream, Fade opened his eyes.
Relief drowned me, and I lost my breath. “You promised you’d be on your feet.”
Memorial
It took thirty-two stitches to put Fade back together. While Tegan sewed, I hovered and paced, shadowed by Rex, who seemed to think I might do something drastic. Mercifully, Fade passed out before she finished. Her eyes were bleak as she raised her head.
“This wound could be tricky.”
“Give me everything that Doc used on you. I’ll take care of him and fight the infection.”
Without another word of protest, as she had other patients to tend, Tegan handed me a collection of dried herbs and bottled remedies. I listened to her instructions, memorized them, and then turned to Rex. “I need your help getting him to Rosemere. We can’t stay here.”
In reply, my brother swung the man I loved up into his arms, and we left the medical tent, leaving Tegan to hover over Morrow and wait for the next soldier to be carried in. Gavin went with us, and I was eager to escape the smell of death. Flies were thick in the air, buzzing in the reeds and laying eggs in something I didn’t want to see. Rex shouted to a boatman; they were in constant motion, ferrying supplies and wounded back and forth across the water. I was desperate for the sanctuary Rosemere represented. Though there might not be any danger on the mainland, I needed to get away from the battlefield.
The fisherman came in response to Rex’s call. He couldn’t come all the way to shore, lest his boat founder, so we waded out, and I helped my brother lift Fade into the boat. Gavin clambered in on his own, the banner still in his hand. It looked more like a rag, smeared with mud and blood, but my symbol was still discernable in the center. Wearily I climbed aboard myself, and the man sailed us silently back to the Evergreen Isle. On the docks, the fishermen chattered about the battle and more volunteers had assembled to help with the wounded.
Our boatman went back out, along with two more, in case they were needed. Villagers peppered me with questions and I answered in a monotone, thinking only of getting Fade to safety. Just when I was about to lose my temper, Stone shouldered through the crowd, his handsome face lighting with relief when he saw me.
“I can take him,” Stone said, but my brother shook his head.
It must have been a matter of pride since Rex had to be as exhausted as I was. With Stone leading the way, I trudged to his cottage, where Thimble stood with Robin balanced on her hip. She stepped back and made room, her face creased with worry.
“How bad is it?” she asked. There was no answering that yet, so I kept quiet, and she turned her attention to Gavin and Rex, who seemed pleased by her care. “If you’d like to wash up out back, I’ll feed you, then you can rest in the loft.”
Stone carried Fade into Robin’s room; it was small, little more than a nook, but large enough for a narrow bed with a feather mattress. He laid him down and said, “Robin will be fine with us for a few nights. Do you need anything?”
“Some soap and water. Clean bandages.”
As he left, I stripped Fade out of his torn and ragged clothes. He had a number of less serious slashes on his shoulders and chest, none as serious as the wound on his side. My stomach clenched when I thought of Tegan pinching his muscle together and sewing tight, before stitching another layer in his skin. Stone returned with the supplies I’d requested and I washed Fade from head to toe. Mercifully, he was still unconscious.
It never occurred to me that he could die, even when his fever spiked later that night. He sweated and thrashed while I bathed him and plied him with the treatments Tegan had provided. There were special teas and poultices to draw out infection before it deepened. While I tended Fade, others buried the dead, burned the Freak corpses, and cleared the battlefield. I didn’t sleep much; a blanket on the floor beside his bed didn’t offer much comfort, but I had to be close enough to hold his hand. I was convinced as long as I didn’t let go of him, his fever would break and his body would heal. I might’ve been delusional by that point from lack of sleep and food, but there was no budging me. Thimble tried, but I snarled at her, and she backed out of the room.
On the third day, Thimble came to the doorway again. “How is he?”
“Better, I think. Have you heard anything about Morrow?”
“Tegan’s with him at the governor’s place. He nearly died in the night, but she opened one of his wounds and brought him back.”
“Multiple infections?” That explained why she hadn’t checked on us.
She nodded soberly. “Why didn’t you tell us about the battle, Deuce?”