In the end, it was a deer Need managed to attract, and not an elk, but in all other ways it was precisely what she wanted. Old, with broken antlers, already looking thin this early in the winter, the aged animal would not have outlasted the snows. Vena followed her directions carefully, as they poisoned the poor beast by means of counter-Healing, hamstrung one leg, as if it had just escaped from a wolf, and drove it over the ridge and down into the enemy camp. the men there fell on the weakened beast, seeing only their good luck, and never thinking that there might be something wrong with it other than exhaustion and injury. The toxin Need had infused into the deer's blood and flesh was only slightly weakened by cooking. A clever poison, there was little or no warning to the victims of their fate; most ate, fell asleep, and never woke. By daybreak, all twenty men were dead or dying~and Vena came down into the camp to dispatch the dying, and found herself in charge of eleven of her fellow novices.
Not one of whom could be trusted even to look after the others, much less find her own way back to safety.
Confidently, she turned to Need for advice.
'Damned if I know what to do with them,' the blade replied. 'I can Heal their injuries, but the rest is up to you. Demonsbane, girl, I only made blades before I made myself into one! You're the one with the hands and feet, and they know you, they probably never even met me!
I'm fresh out of clever ideas. Time for you to come up with one or two.' So it was up to Vena to deal with the girls; to try to rouse some of them from their apathy, and to figure out what to do with the rest. And to drag the bodies of the poisoned fighters out of the camp, to get her eleven charges fed and sheltered, to make sure the horses were tended to.
It was nothing less than hard labor, although she gave herself a selfish moment to build the fire back up, and warm herself by that fire until her bones ',no longer ached. then she took a little more time to stuff herself on the bread and oat porridge (not beans, after all) that was cooking over the fire-avoiding the charred venison and the pot of venison stew.
She freed the novices from their cages in the four prison wagons, but most of them didn't recognize her, and the ones that did reacted to her as if they'd seen a ghost-terrified and huddling speechless in the corners. She tried not to look too closely at them after the first encounter; the girl wasn't one she had known, but her eyes were so wild, and yet so terrified, that she hardly seemed human anymore.
She led the girl, coaxingly, away from there, across the snow, and into the only wagon without bars and chains; the one that held the provisions. When she offered the girl a blanket, taken as an afterthought from one of the bedrolls beside the fire, the poor child snatched it from her, and went to hide in the darkest corner of the wagon.
She repeated the process until she got them all herded into the wagon, where they huddled together like terrified rabbits, their eyes glinting round and panicstricken from the darkness of the back.
During the long process of getting her former fellow students into the provision wagon, she'd tossed out everything else that had been in there. Now, in the last of the daylight, she sat on a sack of beans and went through everything she had thrown on the ground, and all the personal belongings that were still in the camp. She felt very strange, rifling through other peoples' possessions, at least at first. But soon sheer exhaustion caught up with her and she no longer saw them as anything other than objects to be kept or discarded in the snow. Blankets went straight into the wagon behind her; hopefully, the girls still had enough wit left to take them. the best blankets she kept for herself, as well enough food for the girls for a few days more, and in a separate pack, provisions for herself.
Finally, the unpleasant job she had been avoiding could be put off no longer. She tethered all the horses next to the wagon, then harnessed up one, the gentlest, the one she had marked for her own. Trying not to look at the bodies of her former enemies, she threw a hitch of rope around their stiffening feet, and towed them one by one to a Point far beyond the camp, leaving them scattered around a tiny cup of a valley like dolls left by a careless child. then she returned to the shelter of the wagon, and the non-company of her charges. All of that work had taken another precious day. She got the girls fed and bundled up in blankets as best she could, spending a sleepless night listening to the screams of scavengers when they found the bodies, and making sure none of the eleven wandered off somewhere on her own. It was, possibly, worse even than the nights she had spent waiting for the raiders to return.
In the end, it was the horses that gave her the idea of how to move them, and what to do afterward. Vena was a country girl; where she came from, a horse was a decent dowry for any girl. A pair of horses apiece ought to be enough to pay for their care until someone could come get them, later.
She roused six of the girls to enough self-awareness and enerjy that they could cling to the saddle-bow of a horse-even if half the time they stared in apathy, and the other half, wept without ceasing. the other five she put in one wagon, with the rest of the horses following behind, tethered in a long string. then she coaxed Need into using her magic to find the nearest farm.
It proved to be a sheep-farmer's holding rather than a true farm; hidden away in a tiny pocket-valley, she would never have found it if not for Need.
To the landowner she told the truth-but cautioned him to tell any other inquirers a tale she and Need concocted, about a plague that caused death and feeble-mindedness, killing all the men of a village where she had relatives, and leaving only the healthiest of the girls alive. She offered him the entire herd of horses (save only the one she had chosen for herself) to tend to the novices. Her only other condition was that as soon as possible he was to send a message to the nearest temple of the Twins, telling what had happened and asking for their aid for the girls.
As she had expected, the offer was more than he could possibly refuse, and when Need read his thoughts to be certain he would keep the bargain, she found no dishonesty. Winter was an idle time for farmers and herders; he had a houseful of daughters and servants to help tend the girls. And sons to find wives for... it would be no bad thing to have a mage-talented girl for a bride for one of his boys. Such things tended to breed true even if shock made the girl lose her own talent, and a man could do much worse than have a wife who could work bits of magic to help protect herself and her home, and to enrich the family, if she was able to keep practicing. Hedge-wizardry and kitchen-witchery was easy to learn; it was having the power to make it work that was granted to only a few.
She agreed on their behalf that if any of them chose to stay with him and his boys, there would be no demands for reparations from the Sisterhood. then she saddled and mounted her horse, and turned back to the hunt. they were now weeks, not days, behind the enemy, but he was burdened with wagons and hysterical girls, and Vena was alone, and now a-horse. As she turned her mare's head back along the trail, Need finally spoke.
'Demonsbane, girl! Why didn't you put that fatuous sheep-brain in his place? Brides for his sons-what did he think you were, some kind of marriage-broker? And where did he ever get the idea any of them would want to live out their lives making herb-charms and tending brats and lambs?' the sword grumbled on, for a while, and Vena let
