“Shouldn’t we go back that way?” She pointed in the direction from which Wolverine had come. After all, the trail was clear enough. “There may be people where they came from that need help. There may be survivors,”
They stared at her in silence for a moment. Then Kel leaped into the air without another word, powering purposefully upward but remaining below the canopy of the mammoth trees so that he could follow the trail.
There seemed nothing else more appropriate to do, so without further discussion, the rest of the party mounted up and followed in his wake.
Keisha heaved a sigh of relief, which no one but her dyheli noticed. :A bit difficult for you, are they, Healer?: he asked dryly. :Not the easiest lot to deal with.:
She snorted; he knew as well as she the kinds of strain all those angry people were putting on her shields. Not that she wasn’t angry, but perhaps because she was a Healer, she’d learned to be pragmatic. You couldn’t save every patient - although you tried; you couldn’t solve every problem - though you did your best. She knew from the moment that she saw all the armed fighters that there was nothing they could do for the prisoners, much as she and everyone else would like to.
Turning their attention to something they could do something about had been the one thing she could do about the situation. She was just glad that her attempt at redirection had worked for Kel; he needed an outlet, a constructive outlet, before he flew off and did something foolish.
Now she steeled herself for what they would find at the end of the trail of trampled vegetation. Whatever it was, she knew that it would surely put a different set of stresses on them all.
It was dusk when they reached the village that they would later learn belonged to the Red Fox tribe, a group that long ago had split from Snow Fox. Kel had gotten there long before, had given them a grim summary of what they would find when they got there, then flew off on a mission of his own - and an important one, second only to the Healing Keisha would be doing when she arrived.
Kel went hunting, for there was nothing left to eat in the village, and at the moment, no one capable of hunting or gathering. Absolutely nothing edible of any kind had been left - the village had been scoured right down to the spices. Even leather, curing hides and scraped skins had been taken.
They did not need to follow the trail to find the village; the wailing of women led them there. But there was no heavy scent of smoke, for the raiders had not troubled themselves with burning any of the log houses. It was not their intention to leave the survivors without shelter, because it was not their intention that all of the survivors should die.
It had been candlemarks since the raiders hit this place; long enough for the women to gather their dead and lay them out for mourning on a single rough pyre, long enough for the wounded to receive the rough tending that was all a tribe without a Shaman could give them. The Shaman - much younger than the Shaman of Snow Fox - had been laid out with the rest of the dead by his wives, who were the source of the wailing. The rest of the women were too numb for anything but silent mourning - and at a single glance, Keisha knew they had their own internalized wounds to deal with. No one had touched the Shaman’s three wives, possibly for fear of a curse, but by the condition of the other women, clothing torn, faces bruised, and the vacant look of someone who has endured too much, they had not shared this protection.
Forewarned by Kel, Keisha was armored against their pain, emotional and physical, as the group rode into the village. Hywel preceded them afoot, calling to the survivors that help was coming; by the time the rest rode in, it was too dark for the northerners to see what they were riding, which probably spared them the fear that would have come when they saw the unfamiliar mounts. They had already endured too much, and even a little more fear might well push them over the edge of sanity.
Keisha left the organization of the survivors to the others, and went straight to work on the most seriously wounded, concentrating only on pure Healing with her Gift. Shandi and Karles supported her, lending her new strength and energy when hers faltered - then, when they were exhausted, Darian took their place. It was very, very late when she finished with the last woman; the moon was high overhead, though obscured by thick clouds, and all she wanted to do was eat and sleep - not necessarily in that order. She blessed the darkness that hid the ravaged village; with no fires outside tonight, and all of the inhabitants drugged into a semblance of sleep in their own homes, there was finally a measure of peace in this shattered place.
Darian led her into a log house, which by the trappings had belonged to the Shaman. When they entered, and all three of the Shaman’s wives descended on them, pressing food rations, venison and a hot herbal drink on her, she was too tired to be surprised, but she was very grateful.
The women left them at the hearth fire where the others had gathered - including the dyheli, Karles, and Kel, which did surprise Keisha, Kel most of all. “What are you doing here?” she asked, staring at him stupidly.
“The folk of Rrrred Fox arrre not inclined to trrreat a gift brrringerrr as an enemy,” he replied simply, and left it at that.
Judging by the fact that all of the party were eating chunks of well-roasted venison, Kel’s gifts had been generous indeed. “What can you tell me?” she asked, knowing by Darian’s rigid expression that he had learned far more than he really wanted to know.
Darian’s voice was tight with suppressed rage as he answered. “This wasn’t just a raid,” he said. “They hit this place at dawn. They took out all the sentries just before they were going to be replaced by the dawn crew, then hit the village itself. When they had taken the village, they started harvesting.”
She was startled alert by the odd word. “Harvesting?” she asked, incredulously.
He nodded, his lips white with anger, a vein in his temple throbbing. “The warriors that survived they crippled - or didn’t you notice all the missing index fingers on their bow-hands? They did the same to the older boys, so they couldn’t possibly grow up to be warriors. Without an index finger, they can’t pull a bow or use a sword.”
“But - harvesting?” she repeated.
“You were Healing them - you know the secret wounds they had in common. The invaders did their best to make certain that every woman here would be left pregnant, regardless of her age. The ones that still had husbands were left behind, the ones that had infants were left behind with their babies, and girls too young to breed. The rest were taken, along with the older girls and younger boys, as you saw. They took every scrap of food, and anything that was valuable - but they left the bare essentials, and they left the houses intact.” She actually heard his teeth gritting as he snarled silently. “They intend to come back, Keisha. They intend to come back as soon as these people have started to recover. They’ll take girls old enough to breed, and young boys, and strip the place again. And they’ll keep coming back, as long as there is anything left of Red Fox.”
“These are not our people, Darian,” Steelmind said, in that slow, deliberate way of his. “We have already done more than they would expect from an ally.”