though it was not the army he sought but shelter instead-boulders, a cave, a fold in the stone-anything out of the wind.
Pushed by the yawling blast at his back, across the slope and alongside the bluff he struggled, the deep snow grasping at his trembling shanks, the buccan growing weaker with every stride, a fever seeming to rage through his veins. Ahead through the racing whiteness, he saw what appeared to be a darkness on the stone of the bluff. A shadow, but wait, night is at hand, so how-?
Slammed from behind by the blizzard, Tip was smashed to his knees, but when he tried to stand again, he had not the strength. Crawling, floundering, creeping through snow, Tipperton made for the dark place ahead… to come to a low opening in the stone, a hollow out of the wind.
Scrabbling, struggling, back among the rubble he crept, as far from the blizzard as he could get, ten or twelve feet at most. Panting, he dropped his saddlebags and lute-his bedroll had been lost or abandoned somewhere along the way-and he hitched about and faced the opening, sweat runnelling down his forehead and cheeks in spite of the cold.
And he was burning up.
Blearily, Tip felt along his ripped sleeve to find his arm bleeding beneath. Oh lor', I've been bitten by a Vulg.
Captain Brud's ominous words echoed in Tip's mind: 'Vulg's black bite slays at night… slays at night… at night… night.'
As darkness clasped the land, searing with fever Tip leaned back against the fissured, crack-raddled rock, Vulg poison raging in his veins, while outside on the shrieking wind there yawled a juddering howl.
Chapter 20
In the Dendorian prison, Beau languished abed, too weak, too enervated to rise. Even though his pustulant boils and dark buboes continued to recede, he recovered but slowly, his fever-wasted flesh stubbornly refusing to fill out on his bones no matter how much he ate, though to say fair, his appetite seemed to languish as well. That he had been ill was patently clear, for to the edge of death he had been borne by the plague, to the edge and nearly beyond. Yet the blending of silverroot and gwynthyme in a single tisane had drawn him back, had rescued him, along with some five hundred others, though it had come too late for nearly three thousand more.
People came to the prison to see the wee healer, for surely he was Adon-blessed-how else could you explain the miracle he had brought to the city? But the wee one was entirely too weak to accept public accolades, and so many who sought audience were turned away at the prison gates.
Even so, over the next weeks, Beau had a number of visitors, particularly healers who came to praise him, and those who came to worship: patients yet in the prison who had been saved by the remarkable grace of his cure. And in the early days of these visits, he would tire quickly, and often a caller who came to see him would find the wee buccan asleep. Many left him small gifts; many simply knelt and kissed his hand, and if Beau was awake at the time, he was deeply embarrassed by such adulation.
Lor', but this must be how Tip felt, the Hero of Dendor and all; the Hero of Mineholt North, too, though there the Dwarves were a deal more level-headed than the Humans here seem to be.
Ten days after Tip and Bekki and Phais and Loric and even King Agron had said farewell, Beau was allowed to rise. And though his legs quivered and it seemed as if he would faint, still he vowed never again would he lie a prisoner abed, even if he had to crawl to the privy, never again. With help he tottered to the toilet at the end of the hall, and when he returned to collapse on his cot exhausted, he first set his bedpan outside the cell and muttered, 'Never again,' again.
Another three weeks passed, Beau now gaining flesh, and every day he grew stronger.
Anxious to follow Tipperton, Beau marched into the chief healer's office nigh the prison door. Sitting at the desk within was Halga, leader of the healers ever since Bragan had died of the plague. She looked up from her work as Beau came purposefully in. 'I'm fit to travel,' he pronounced.
'No you are not,' declared Halga.
'I am, too.'
'Nay, wee one. Shall I demonstrate?'
Beau groaned. 'Look, Lady Halga, just because I need to sit down and rest when I get to the top of the stairs, that doesn't mean-'
'Oh, but it does, Sir Beau. Tell me: what would you advise a like patient who happened to be in your care?'
'Why, I'd tell him to go and do whatever he-'
Halga squatted and looked into Beau's eyes.
'-urn, er, that is-' Beau couldn't meet her gaze, and finally he said, 'All right. You win. But just as soon as I can top those stairs without stopping to rest, then I'm going, permission or not.'
'Beau, even now you need no one's permission to get up and go. Yet heed: if you do go now, then there is every chance you will become a liability along the way and never reach the end.'
Beau sighed and nodded, and Halga said, 'Another week or so, and then we'll see.'
During the week, Beau helped the other healers tend a handful of patients much in the same shape as he, the few who had been drawn back from death's door. All other living victims of the plague had recovered wholly, had been discharged, and the sequestrated surrounding buildings had been given back over to their original purposes.
Those patients left had been moved to the lower quarters of the prison. And the prison itself had once again become a jail, though the inmates were few, most having marched off to war; now in the cells were new-caught felons waiting for the king's steward to pass judgement on them.
In any event, Beau tended a few patients, and every day practiced walking the stairs, getting stronger with each pass up and down.
On the sixth day after confronting Halga, there came a bustle at the front gate, and a guard was assigned to escort a tall person into the lower halls.
Beau was summoned.
As he stepped into the chamber, Beau saw a man, an Elf, nay, a Mage. Tall he was with brown eyes and auburn hair and dressed in a brown robe. He seemed to be youthful, though with Mages one could never tell.
The Mage scowled at the buccan. 'So you are Sir Beau Darby, the Litenfolk who found the cure for the plague?'
At Beau's nod, the Mage smiled and sat down and gestured toward a second chair. 'I am Farrin, late of Black Mountain.'
'I've heard of you, Mage Farrin,' said Beau, climbing into the seat.
At Farrin's raised eyebrows, Beau added, 'From Mage Imongar and the others. You were part of their circle of seven, or so Tip did say, though you were off looking for Stone Giants to get them to side with us. Did you find them and will they join in the battle against Modru and his ilk?'
A brooding look came over Farrin's features. 'Aye, find them I did. But as for siding with us, the chances of that are slim.'
'You must tell me all about it, for Tip will want to know.'
'The other Waerling? The one who went off with the king?'
Beau nodded. 'Yes, and I hope to catch up with him soon and join with- Oh my.' A look of dismay crossed Beau's features.
'What is it?' asked Farrin, glancing 'round. Finding nothing to note alarm, he turned back to the Warrow.
Beau looked up at the Mage. 'Dara Rael's rede.'
'Rede?'
'Aye. 'Seek the aid of those not men to quench the fires of war.' That's what she said, there in Arden Vale,
