“Ellonlef-ah-Sister Ellonlef, I never-” he cut off abruptly, blinked like a sand owl, then spun on his heel and showed her his back. He wore his customary long, closefitting robe of white linen, and over this a steel breastplate bearing the embossed Silver Fist of House Racote. Like all Aradaners, his skin was dark as an old root, seemingly made darker by an iron gray top-lock that fell from the back of his clean-shaven scalp. Usually he had a stately demeanor, but this day he seemed out-of-sorts and one step from total exhaustion. For him and the rest of the people of Krevar, a long day had been followed by a longer night since the massive quake had leveled half the buildings in the city.
“You never what?” Ellonlef snapped, more out of embarrassment than anger. She tossed the towel away, hastily drew on a robe, and pulled it closed. He muttered some garbled response, and she immediately dismissed his chatter for the babble it was. Likely, he was just more humiliated than she was, and if she allowed him to keep spouting off, he would make an utter fool of himself.
“Lord Marshal,” she said, interrupting him. “Tell me what is so urgent that you have seen fit to barge into my chambers without knocking.”
“Are you …?” he started to look over his shoulder before deciding against it, and jerked his head back to the front.
She had to bite back a dozen sharp comments before saying in pleasant, disarming tones, “Yes, I am covered. Be at peace.”
Otaker turned, albeit cautiously, but would not look her in the eye. Instead, he stared somewhere just past her ear. “I came because, well-the short of it is, you are needed. Through the remainder of last night, my men have dug out scores more people. Most can be seen to by their families or Magus Uzzret. Others are closer to death than life, and need your care.”
“Give me a moment,” Ellonlef said without rancor.
Otaker nodded his way out the door, then closed it.
Ellonlef quickly dressed in her order’s white robes. They would not be white by the end of the day. If she was to spend this day applying poultices, compresses, and bandages to bloody and battered victims, she would look nearly as bad as them by the time she returned to her chambers. There was nothing for it.
She joined Otaker in the corridor, and they made their way through the keep’s dim corridors. More than once they had to step over a broad crack in the floor, or duck under hastily made support timbers jammed between floor and ceiling to prevent a collapse. Despite these gaps and cracks, the sturdy building seemed well enough intact. Doubtless it would have to be rebuilt, but for now it would serve, as it had for generations. The same could not be said for the rest of Krevar.
After the first crevasse had appeared in the earth and raced across the desert to level the Sister’s Tower, more tremors, each successively worse, had flattened half the town and most of Krevar’s outer walls. While Otaker’s concern for his fortress was understandable-it had taken four generations of House Racote to construct the defenses-Ellonlef was more worried about the number of shattered families. Few if any of the folk of Krevar escaped untouched. Even Otaker had tasted misery when his eldest son had been pulled from a heap of rubble. Ellonlef had treated the boy herself and knew he would live, but only time would tell if he would heal completely from his injuries.
With nowhere else to easily care for so many people, Ellonlef had advised Otaker to set up as many large tents as he could fit within the town square, which had a common well and usually served as an open market. Next she had suggested he gather as many healers, midwives, able mothers, and soldiers who had fought in past battles, to tend wounds. After that, it had been a matter of bringing washbasins, building fires to provide hot water, and collecting all available clean linens to serve as bandages.
Outside, the day was blistering, but felt all the hotter due to the thick haze of dust still hanging in the air. Before they were in sight of the square the smell hit them, a mingling of wood smoke, sweat, and blood. If not for that last, it might have seemed like any other day at market.
Ellonlef girded her mind for the coming rigors, both physical and emotional. Men and woman and children would no doubt die this day, while others would lose mangled limbs to sharp blades. Of all the things Ellonlef had been trained to do, healing was the most trying for her. She was adept, to be sure, but seeing the look in a once strong man’s eyes when he learned that some part of him would be lost forever, or telling a women that her child would never again awake, was trying beyond all reason.
As two of the most distinguishable people in Krevar, Magus Uzzret had no trouble spotting Otaker and Ellonlef as they approached the teeming, tent-filled market area. He wore deep blue robes and a woven silver belt common to the Magi Order. Common as well to his order, Uzzret’s head was completely shaved, but he sported a small, pure white chin beard.
As usual, he looked askance at Ellonlef. After nearly a decade, he still only trusted her and her order roughly half as much as she trusted him and his. From the beginning, the Magi Order had taken offence at the Ivory Throne using the Sisters of Najihar as spies-or relying on them at all, for that matter. All that aside, Ellonlef knew that he needed her help, and she was not so stubborn or proud as to make it a point of contention that she was, without question, the better healer.
“Lord Marshal, Sister,” Uzzret said, inclining his head slightly to each. “The day has already grown too short for the work that lies ahead.”
He led Ellonlef and Otaker to a tent marked out by the most moaning and weeping, and without a word, left them to see to another errand.
“If you need anything,” Otaker said, “or if Uzzret proves to be too much of a nuisance, send a runner to me.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and turned away.
After three steps, he turned and said, “Forgive me for this morning. I should have asked permission to enter your quarters. I forgot myself.”
“It is understandable and forgiven,” Ellonlef said, already turning her mind to what needed to be done.
“I hope one day soon you will seek out a good man and husband.”
Ellonlef blinked at him, dumbfounded. “Why would you say that?”
Otaker gave her a wan smile. “Because you are a beautiful and capable woman. I would hate for you to grow old and not take the pleasure of having a special man at your beck and call.”
Ellonlef stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “I’ll have to ask Lady Danara if she feels the same as you do.”
Instead of being worried about such disclosure, Otaker merely shrugged. “She does. My wife noticed long before I did. If not for this morning, I would have no idea just how-” he cut off abruptly, lips tight, spun on his heel, and left her there. The first soldier he saw, Otaker began bawling orders, sending the poor young man running for his life.
Although she allowed herself a moment of secret pleasure at his clumsy attempt to compliment her, Ellonlef quickly dismissed the entire conversation, pushed up the white sleeves of her robes, tied back the waves of her dark hair, and set to work.
Straight away, she saw at least a dozen people cradling broken limbs. She called for a runner to replenish her dwindling supply of splints, strong wine, and swatarin, a potent herb used to induce deep sleep-or if you were one of the Madi’yin, the begging brothers, to bring on visions. While she waited for the splints, she doled out measures of both wine and swatarin. All became a blur of setting bones, cauterizing and bandaging gashes, pouring boiled wine into wounds oozing corruption, and removing those limbs beyond help.
While each procedure seemed to take hours, the day itself fled faster than she would have thought possible. One after another, the wounded kept coming. She stopped counting after she had seen to two dozen. As dusk fell, the numbers began to dwindle, but were still steady. An hour before midnight, they ceased coming at all. By then, Ellonlef’s robes were smeared with blood and dust and she was weary to the bone, but she had a final task ahead of her before she retired.