"Then I suspect that they fare that way still."
Tip drew in a deep breath and let it out. "It's no way to live, you know-on the ground with no fire and nought but cold food to eat."
Imongar nodded. "Much like an animal, neh?"
They stood and looked a moment longer, then Tip said, "Did they launch the fire arrows?"
"Aye, as planned," replied Imongar, "last night and this dawn as well."
"Good," said Tip. "By that sign alone they will know I am safe."
"Ha!" barked Imongar, "I would not call being surrounded by a Swarm to be safe by any means." Imongar looked about, and seeing that none were near, she added in a low voice, "Too, here in Dendor a dreadful sickness has come, cast over the walls by the Spaunen."
Tip looked at her wide-eyed. "Dreadful sickness? Cast over the walls?"
"Aye, a dark ill. Some twenty-four days agone the-"
Tip shuddered and said, "They cut up the dead and flung the parts over the walls, using those, those-"
"Trebuchets," supplied Imongar.
"Yes, those trebuchets." Tip looked out. The great catapults were yet there, along with other siege engines: tall towers on ponderous wheels and dry-moat spans and scaling ladders and the massive rams. "We saw what they did, Imongar, my comrades and I. From the ridge. From up there it was appalling, but down here it must have been horrible beyond all words. That was the day we left for Kachar to fetch the army of Dwarves."
"Well, Tipperton, that was but the first day of their vile casting. For three more days they flung the dismembered dead into the city-Rucha, Loka, Gulka, men-it mattered not to the Rupt, their own dead or ours, all were cloven asunder and the parts hurled over the walls.
"The king ordered all and sundry to gather up the remains and bear them to the plaza to be thrown on a great flaming pyre." Imongar now shuddered. "Ai, the smell of burning flesh, 'twas whelming throughout all of Dendor."
"But what has this to do with the illness?" asked Tipper-ton. "I mean, how came such a sickness to be?"
"Ah, Tipperton, you ask a question which has puzzled healers down through the ages. Some say it is a curse, some a spell, some say divine retribution… yet this we know: the first to fall victim were a handful of those who had borne remains to the fires, but others have been stricken since. Buboes pustulant and black, boils seeping, raging fever, a terrible stench: those are the symptoms. Few survive, despite what the healers do, and those who die are burnt, just as were the dismembered battle dead, though in the prison yard instead of the city plaza."
"Prison yard?"
"Aye, that's where they burn those slain by the scourge."
Tip frowned but did not pursue the story behind that strange custom. "Is it widespread?"
"Not yet, but with pestilence, none can ever say."
Tip looked south. "If this dark illness is what Beau has told me of, then he has a cure, or thinks he might."
"Beau?"
Tip pointed at the far ridge. "One of my companions."
"And this cure…?"
Tip frowned in concentration. "Silverroot and gwyn-thyme, if I remember correctly."
"Silverroot I've heard of, but gwynthyme?"
"I seem to recall that both have other names: what these may be I have no idea, but Beau can tell us when the siege is broken. All I know is that gwynthyme is a golden mint and proof against poison. It saved Lady Phais from death by envenomed Ruck arrow. Vulg poison they said."
"Vulg poison? Ai, this golden mint must be potent."
Tip nodded. "So I would say."
"Well then, Tipperton, you must go to the healers and tell them what you know."
"Well, I don't exactly know much more than what I just said. It's Beau who knows the cure, if a cure it is."
"Still…"
"Look, we don't even know if this is the same disease Beau told me about," said Tip, hopping down to the banquette. "Regardless, where do I go?"
"To the prison-that's where they quarantine the ill- but you will need a pass. Captain Brad on the west gate can give you one."
"Oh, Brud," said Tip, sighing. "He and I didn't exactly hit it off when first we met."
"Nevertheless, he can give you a pass to the healers. And don't discount him, Tipperton, he is a good warrior, though stern."
"And suspicious," said Tip, then barked a laugh. "I mean, who else would believe one of the so-called Litenfolk to be a Ruptish spy?" Again Tip laughed, and Imongar smiled. Then Tip looked west and north along the banquette toward the distant west gate. "But all right, it's the dark ill we are speaking of and if I can help… -I'll go see him now."
As Tip walked away, Imongar turned and faced south, faced the Swarm, faced into the pulse of the Dread and stood ready to spend years of her youth should the need arise.
"A cure for the scourge, and you would see the healers?" asked Captain Brud, his voice low.
Tip nodded.
The man pulled a drawer open in the table and took out a parchment. As he dipped the nib of the quill into the inkwell, he said, "Take care to whom you speak of this illness, Sir Tipperton, for even the knowledge that pestilence is within Dendor will drive some men to rash acts."
At hand, Alvaron grunted. "Perhaps so, Captain Brud, but if indeed it is the dark plague, then it will not remain a secret long."
Brud nodded grimly and then stood and pointed out a back window of the upper gatehouse and said to Tip, "That grey building, squarish, made of stone, next to the tower, see you it?"
"The one with the wall all 'round?"
"Aye," said Brud. "It is the prison."
"Gaol," said Alvaron.
"Oh my, a jail that big?"
Brud shrugged. "Not all of it is a prison… just the upper floor. The rest is where the town wardens live, or used to."
"Used to?"
"Aye. Instead of warding those walls, now all are warding these."
"As are the former inmates," said Alvaron. "Pardoned by the king if they would but wage war."
Brud grimaced as if at something repugnant, but then said, "Regardless, that's where you'll find the healers."
Tip shook his head and cocked an eyebrow. "Who would have thought it: healers in jail. I wonder what Beau will say when I tell him."
"It is the safest place to take those who have fallen to the"-Brud paused.
"The pestilence," said Alvaron. "Modru's gift to Dendor, I would say."
"Oh."
Brud folded the paper and held it up for Tip to see. "This pass will admit you through the wall gate and to the door, but not inside, for I would not lose you to this dark ill."
Tip looked up at Brud in surprise, and Brud said, "Sir Tipperton, I was wrong about you. Even so, I do not apologize, for you came from the Swarm and asked to see my liege lord, and I beg no pardon for thinking of him first. And now you are one of his scouts, and for that I am glad: anyone who can slip undetected through an entire Swarm is welcome to serve my lord, and I am pleased we now stand together."
Brud smiled and stuck out his hand, and Tip grinned and took it, his own small grip lost in the man's.
"And now, your pass." Brud handed the Warrow the signed parchment.
"Gwynthyme, eh, the rare golden mint. Yes, I know of it, though we call it bladguld-goldleaf. Even so, we have none. But rotensilver-the root of silver-that we have in plenty, though it saves precious few of those stricken."
Tip's face fell. "Oh my, and Beau used the remainder of his gwynthyme to cure Lady Phais, five doses in all."
"Well I'm afraid that it'll take more than five doses, my lad," said the healer through the bars on the door, "for within these walls there are many who have fallen victim to the scourge and many more yet to-" Of a sudden the healer's words jerked to a halt and he looked past the buc-can. Tip turned about, and there behind him and through the warded gate of the prison wall came a white wagon driven by a man in white, white scarf about his face.