Stone snarled in frustration and stirred like he was thinking of giving chase.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Moon yelled at him, “it’s just trying to lead you into a trap.” The rest of the half-Fell flight might be just past those distant hills.
Stone’s spines rippled, but he turned and leapt into the air. Moon crouched and leapt after him, flapping up through the dust storm Stone’s wings caused. He was relieved to see Stone head south, back on the route they thought the Hians had taken.
Hoped the Hians had taken. Moon had the grim thought, At least the kethel thinks we’re going the right direction.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The new dose of poison seemed even worse, and Bramble was only vaguely conscious for a time. When she began to fully wake, miserably sick again, she decided it was time to implement her plan. They had no guarantee that Vendoin would keep her promise, and Bramble felt it would be better strategy to force the issue.
Merit leaned over her. “Bramble?”
She whispered to him, “Pretend I’m sick, like you have to take care of me.”
He frowned blearily and put a hand on her forehead. “You are sick.”
She groaned for effect and pushed his hand away. “Don’t try to put me in a healing sleep, you idiot.” She didn’t think he could do it under the effect of the Fell poison, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
“You said take care—Right, right, I get it,” Merit grumbled, and crawled away to the water container.
It took most of the day, while Merit begged the Hians above their cage for help and Bramble groaned and made gagging noises. Merit’s voice grew increasingly frustrated and weary, and parts of Bramble’s body went numb from lying down so long. By the time Aldoan finally appeared in the late evening, Bramble was ready to groan for real.
Peering down through the mesh covering, Aldoan told Merit, “You are a healer. Why can’t you help her?”
“The Fell poison. It hasn’t worn off yet and it stops me from healing her. And I don’t have anything to make a simple for her.” Merit leaned against the wall, his slump of exhaustion convincing because most of it was real. The Hians had lowered a basket of food a while ago but neither of them had eaten. It was fruit and some bread-like stuff, not very tempting, even if they weren’t both nauseous.
There was a long silence, then Aldoan walked away. Merit slid down to sit on the floor, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “It didn’t work,” he said in Raksuran.
Bramble groaned. She thought they still had a chance, but she didn’t want to wreck it by talking.
After what seemed a long wait, Aldoan returned, and said, “We will take her to our physician.”
Merit, sitting beside Bramble, squeezed her wrist in triumph.
Bramble staggered and stumbled down the hall, forcing one of the Hians to guide and help her. With her eyes half-closed she noted the sequence of corridors and stairs along the way. They led her into a cabin two levels above their cage and deposited her on a padded bench. Bramble fell over and curled up as the Hians retreated. She heard them take positions just outside the doorway.
A Hian leaned over her and said in slow, careful Altanic, “I am a physician. I will try to make you well.”
Bramble tried to look both frightened and hopeful. She didn’t want to seem so sick that she couldn’t recover quickly if that seemed a more effective strategy.
To the Hian healer’s credit, she felt Bramble’s stomach and looked into her eyes and mouth, and seemed to be actually trying to figure out if she was injured anywhere, or if she showed signs of more serious sickness. Finally she said, “It may be internal distress from the mixtures you have been given. I will make a new mixture which should help.”
Bramble watched her sort through some small wooden and glass containers in an untidy heap on the workbench. Bowls of plain brown pottery, a pestle, and some tiny cups meant for measuring lay there too. A door in the wall was open to another attached room, and it seemed to contain most of the healer’s supplies, still in wrapped bundles or stacked in light wooden boxes. Above the pile, several waterskins hung from pegs in the wall. Bramble tasted the air but there were too many acrid mixed scents to identify individual odors. The skins were labeled in a language she couldn’t read, but whatever they contained was in large portions, unlike the jars the healer sorted through now. Bramble memorized each label.
The healer stepped away from her workbench and slid the door to the other room shut, cutting off Bramble’s view. Then she brought the draft. Bramble decided there might still be more to learn here, and she flatly refused to drink it.
Steps sounded in the corridor, and she heard the Hians on watch shuffle away from the door. Then she heard Vendoin’s voice.
Speaking Kedaic, Vendoin asked the healer, “Is she truly ill?”
“Yes, I think so,” the healer replied in the same language. “Too much of the drug, perhaps, causing stomach pain. She has no difficulty breathing—”
Vendoin cut that off. “Give her a draft for it.”
“What does it matter?” Bemadin asked.
Bramble managed not to react. That would have quashed any doubts that the Hians eventually intended to kill them, if she had had any.
Vendoin ignored Bemadin. “Well?” she asked the healer.
“I’m trying,” the healer said, with what sounded to Bramble like carefully forced patience. “She won’t take it. Perhaps if the other one could be brought—”
“No, it’s too much of a risk,” Vendoin interrupted again. There was no mention of Vendoin’s promise to let them out of the cage if they took the second dose of poison willingly, which wasn’t a surprise.
“I can’t make her take it,” the healer said. She must have seen something in Vendoin’s manner that told her that answer wasn’t acceptable. She said, “Perhaps she would take it from the Janderan.”
Vendoin made a noise that Bramble interpreted as derision. “He has refused to help us so far.”
“I don’t understand these people,” Bemadin said. “This will save uncounted lives. It’s a risk to us more than to the Jandera.”
Obviously they weren’t speaking of giving Bramble a simple anymore. Her heart beat faster with the knowledge that she might be about to find out why the Hians had betrayed the expedition. But then Vendoin said impatiently, “They don’t understand. I need to get back to work on the translation.”
Vendoin and Bemadin were leaving. Bramble sat up on one elbow and, making her voice weak and hoarse and as pitiful as possible, said in Altanic, “You promised if we took the poison willingly, we could help Delin. Please let me see Delin.”
In Kedaic, Vendoin said, “Very well. Take her to the easterner’s prison. Perhaps it will make him more cooperative.” She added in Altanic, “They will take you to Delin, Bramble.”
“And Merit?” Bramble said, feeling as if her gambit had gone terribly awry.
“No, just you,” Vendoin said, and she and Bemadin walked away.
Bramble hesitated. She didn’t want to be separated from Merit. Particularly after forming the theory that Vendoin might want to test the artifact on Raksura before she went off to find Fell. But she had to take the chance.
Bramble drank the draught, to the Physician’s relief, and slowly climbed to her feet. Aldoan and the other armed Hians led her away down the corridor.
Trying to remember to sound weak despite her urgency, Bramble asked Aldoan, “Will you tell Merit I’m with Delin? I don’t want him to think—To be afraid I—”
Aldoan seemed uncomfortable, but said, “I’ll tell him.”
Seizing the moment, Bramble said, “I’m just afraid Merit will be lonely. We’re not meant to be alone.”