Omar went to the narrow window and saw nothing but the inside of the castle wall, so after tucking the blankets carefully around Riuza, he slipped down the hall with his hand resting on the grip of his seireiken. He received a few strange looks from the men in the dining hall, and a sympathetic smile from one of the cooks, but he hurried by them, eager to see what was amiss outside and to return to Riuza’s bedside.
He wasn’t far from the castle gate when he found the first group of shouters. A dozen angry men and women were pressing in against a young woman with a small girl in her arms and a small boy clutching her skirts. A rock was thrown.
Omar drew his seireiken and called upon the dead samurai in the blade, but the ghost of Ito Daisuke was already there, already guiding his hand. Together they plunged forward and slashed the rock out of the air, sending two jagged shards of stone clattering to the ground. The pieces glowed red and steamed quietly in the icy road at his feet. Omar raised the bright sword to let its light sear the eyes of the mob as he herded the mother and the two children behind him.
“What’s going on here?” he said softly.
Another rock flew and again the dead samurai flicked Omar’s wrist, smacking the stone aside.
“I asked what you’re doing here,” Omar said. “We can stand about all day playing hit the rock, but I’m not going to let you hurt this woman and her children. So you might as well start talking.”
“Get away from them,” an older woman snapped. “They have the plague! Get them out of the city before they kill us all!”
Omar glanced back into the terrified eyes of the mother. The little girl on her chest peeked out with huge golden eyes, and Omar saw the reddish hair standing on the girl’s tall ears. The boy’s ears were even larger and redder, the hair sweeping up to two little tufts above the points of the canine folds.
Omar turned back to the mob with a smile. “We’ve lived with the plague for five long years. You all know the signs of it. What is the first sign of the plague?”
The old woman and the young fisherman at her side glared. “The sweating. The shivering.”
“Yes, exactly!” Omar angled his body to let them see the mother and her children. “And you can all see quite clearly that these poor little ones are not suffering from the sweats at all. And if they are trembling, it’s only in fear from you. Look at them again! Yes, their ears and eyes have changed, but these children are not infected with the plague. They aren’t in pain, they aren’t confused.”
“They will be soon enough!” the old woman shouted.
“I don’t think so,” Omar said calmly. “These children have not been infected with the plague. Look at them. Do you really think a bloodthirsty reaver snuck into the city, sank its huge filthy fangs into their tender flesh as they slept in their beds, and then simply walked away, leaving them to grow ill? Of course not! If a reaver had found these two, they’d have been eaten in two gulps. They’re deliciously tiny!”
A nervous titter ran through the crowd.
“No, this is not the plague,” Omar continued. “This is a miracle. You all know what happens with other plagues, like the pox. Some people never grow sick. Some people grow sick and die. But many people grow sick, and then survive bearing the scars of the plague, never to grow sick again. Don’t you see? These children bear the scars of the plague, but not the plague itself. They’re healthy. And better still, that means they can never be infected by the plague at all, even if a reaver did bite them now. Look at this boy! Look at this little girl!” He pointed to them. “Trust your eyes. This is not the feverish, sickly beginning of their transformation into beasts. This is the clear-eyed, iron-strength of two Yslander children who will live long, happy lives in Rekavik, fishing its waters and defending its walls!”
He scanned the eyes of the crowd and saw the distrust and the misgiving and the fear, but where it had been sharp and vicious a moment ago, now it was muddled with doubt and even hope. Slowly, a few of the younger women came forward to look at the children, and then the younger men, and finally everyone was gathered around the mother and her two little ones. They tugged at the tall hairy ears and peered at the bright golden eyes, but there was soon no doubt among them that the boy and the girl were not stricken with the plague.
“But, how did it happen?” asked the mother. “I mean, if they were never bitten by reavers, then how did they come through the plague at all with these… scars?”
Omar smiled as he sheathed his sword. “Every plague has sown within it the seeds of its own undoing. Somewhere in the world there is some plant or fish or flea, some humble little thing that can defeat these reavers. And that’s what your little ones have stumbled upon. Tell me, have you eaten anything strange in the last week?”
“No.”
“An oddly colored fish, perhaps? Or overripe herbs?” he prodded.
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you killed a spider with a cooking spoon, and accidentally mixed it in with-”
“Never!” The mother frowned indignantly. But then her face softened. “But this morning… this morning there were bloodflies in the house. I thought it strange for winter, for such a dry season. And they did bite the children. Could it be that?”
Omar clapped his hands. “It must be that, you clever young thing. Everyone, did you hear? There are bloodflies in Rekavik, bloodflies in winter, no less. You would think the poisoned blood of the reavers would kill off such fragile little things, but no! The bloodflies have survived the plague, and now they are the cure, they are our salvation. So go back to your homes and wait for the flies. Suffer their tiny, painless bites. And soon we will all be saved from the plague!”
The crowd murmured.
“Are we all going to get big ears like that?” someone asked.
“Probably,” Omar said breezily. “And it may last a day or a year or the rest of your life, but which is the greater sacrifice? To have the keen ears and eyes of a proud fox, or to become a slavering, mad reaver beast that lives naked in the wilderness?”
It took a bit more prodding and reassurance and even threats, but eventually he managed to send everyone home with the notion that the bloodflies were a blessing from the Allfather and that soon they would all be saved from the long darkness of the reavers. But even then, there were more fights to find and more mobs to pacify, and so Omar spent the day wandering the streets, brandishing his bright sword, teasing the truth of the bloodflies from whoever had been bitten, and then convincing the angry and the fearful to go home and embrace their strange new fate.
By the time the sun was setting, Omar had been struck by rocks four times in the head and seven times in the back, but not a single man, woman, or child had been killed or exiled. Even the most skeptical of the house carls and squinting crones had been forced to concede what they saw with their own eyes-that the bloodflies had left their victims stronger and healthier than ever before, at the meager cost of their tall ears and golden eyes. And more than a few children had run home, eager to find a bloodfly of their own, to be the first of their friends to gain the sharp hearing and night vision of a fox.
Finally, Omar shuffled into his room in the castle and flopped down beside Riuza. She was wheezing quietly and trembling slightly. He touched her cheek. “If I thought a bloodfly could bring you back to me, I would run out and catch one for you right now. But I’m afraid not even this mad experiment of mine would help you, dear lady. It won’t be long now.”
The leather curtain in the doorway burst aside and Skadi dashed into the room, a storm of black skirts and scarves and blood-red hair. She caught Omar around the throat as he was still in the process of standing up, and she shoved him back down flat on his back. He choked, struggling to breathe. The knowledge that he couldn’t be strangled to death was a small comfort as the pain in his neck and chest grew sharper.