Not an acorn at all, but something that stuck in him.
'Zandilar!'
Not an acorn-an arrow. Bro had been struck by an arrow and imagined it protruding from his back. He thought he should keep walking. He thought he should be able to walk. Men walked with their wounds, he'd seen them. Just lift one foot, move it forward, put it down. The foot dragged and Bro lost his balance, very slowly.
The light grew thicker as he fell, but not thick enough or fast enough to keep him upright.
'Zandilar-not my son!'
The light brightened, became too bright. Bro closed his eyes. One knee had touched the ground before he floated into darkness.
'Gently, gently!'
'Hold him steady.'
'Keep him still!'
Bro heard the voices first, then he felt the pain, like fire piercing him back to front. The arrow. He remembered he'd been struck by an arrow. Where? He remembered his father, surrounded by light. He remembered the light surrounding him as he fell and opened his eyes.
'Don't talk, Rizcarn's son.'
'Lie easy.'
He was on open ground, surrounded by torchlit faces, all worried, all talking. Lie easy, they told him-of all requests, that one was impossible. The arrow was in his right-side rib cage, level with his heart. He wanted to lie on his face; he thought it would hurt less, but grasping hands kept him up on his left side. Every shallow breath was agony.
Someone Bro knew but couldn't name-he couldn't name anyone except himself just then-grabbed his right wrist and pulled his arm straight. Bro heard himself screaming. Then there was a wicked knife glinting in the light. They slashed his shirt. Someone touched the arrow and he screamed again, fighting the man at his wrist.
'It's got to come out, Rizcarn's son,' that man said, changing his grip so their fingers interlaced.
'Don't let me die,' Bro whispered. 'Don't. Poppa?'
'Not here. Be brave.'
He tried, but there was one long scream in his throat from the moment they started pushing the arrow forward. His voice broke when his flesh did. He was crying, pleading for the torture to end, as they broke the arrowhead off and screaming while they withdrew the shaft.
'The worst is over,' someone said; someone lied.
Pain blurred Bro's hearing as well as his vision. Though he couldn't hear clearly, he knew they didn't like the looks of the arrow. He caught the word 'poison.'
Bro started shaking. At the very least, poison meant enlarging the wounds and cauterizing them with red-hot steel. The Cha'Tel'Quessir surrounding Bro passed around the knife they'd used to slash his shirt.
Bro knew it had to be done and knew, too, that there was a better way, a better knife.
'No,' he insisted, trying to free his right arm.
'S'got to be done, Rizcarn's son,' the man holding him said.
'My knife. Use my knife. You've got to use my knife.'
The Simbul's knife was too small, someone said while it was still in its sheath. Then, it was too fancy, too well-forged for the brute work of cauterizing a wound. A woman asked where he'd gotten it, who'd owned it before-questions Bro didn't have to answer with two bleeding holes in his side.
The man holding his arm advised Bro to close his eyes and pinched him hard to distract him from the first of the cuts. Bro's legs spasmed; the heaviest men in the camp sat on his hips to keep him still. Someone said he'd faint soon and it would be easier after that.
But Bro didn't faint while they cut him or when they poured honey wine on the enlarged wounds. He didn't faint when he saw his knife moving toward him, lashed between two sticks and distorting the night air with its dull- red heat. Once Bro saw the knife, he couldn't look away.
Someone put his hand over Bro's eyes. Agony took him by surprise, and, finally, he fainted.
Pale sunlight had replaced the stars when Bro opened his eyes again. His chest was tight in bandages that reeked of wine and bitter herbs. Separate bandages bound his arm to his waist. He was in Rizcarn's camp, propped up against a fallen tree. A man knelt beside him, Bro recognized him as the one who'd held his arm during the night and remembered his name, as well: Yongour. He held a wooden mug that steamed and stank worse than the bandages.
'A purgative. If any poison lingers.'
Not thinking, Bro reached with the arm that was bound to his waist. Embarrassed and hurting, he warded the mug away with his left arm and immediately felt for the Simbul's knife. It was where it belonged. He drew it out for examination.
'That's a fine knife, Rizcarn's son, and nothing that you got while living in a dirt-eaters' village. Now drink this while it's hot.'
Bro refused for half a heartbeat, then wisdom prevailed. He took the mug from Yongour's hand and drained it in several unpleasant gulps. The mug slipped through Bro's fingers as he passed out again.
His consciousness flickered all morning. It was mid-afternoon before Bro was alert again. Front and back, shoulder to waist, he was in pain, though nothing like the previous night. A deep breath convinced him he could not get to his feet or walk anywhere before sundown. Then he realized no one had walked anywhere; the camp hadn't moved. The Cha'Tel'Quessir had stayed put, waiting for him to live or die before Rizcarn led them all to MightyTree.
'Poppa?' he asked after the woman tending him had given him a drink of water. 'Rizcarn. Can I see him? Will you tell him I'm awake?'
'Not here,' she replied, the same answer he'd gotten last night before they pulled the arrow.
'Where is he? I want to talk to him… tell him I'm better.'
'Rizcarn's gone. He came back at dawn, before you woke. He said the gods had spoken when you fell and that there were things he had to do alone. We're to wait here until he returns.'
The bandages tightened over Bro's ribs. 'Did he say where he was going?'
'Headed east, that's all. Toward the Sunglade.'
Toward MightyTree. Bro put his hand on his neck. His talisman beads were there. Shali's were gone. He'd given them to his father; he'd been a fool. A fool to look for Rizcarn; a worse fool to swallow anything Rizcarn said. Rizcarn had beguiled him by talking about Shali. He'd soothed Bro's surface hurts and left his deeper questions unanswered.
'You'll be well again, Rizcarn's son.' The woman misunderstood his despair. 'Walking, climbing trees, dancing in the Sunglade.'
Dancing in the Sunglade with Zandilar. Rizcarn had called Zandilar's name as he fell. Bro arched his back against the tree trunk, savoring the pain.
'Leave me,' he asked. 'I need to rest.'
Bro stared at the sun. His eyes burned; he shut them. The woman walked away. He let the tears flow until there were no more. Then he tried to stand.
'Not so fast, Ebroin.'
A woman he'd never seen before sat on the fallen trunk on his unharmed side. He couldn't see her clearly in the sun, but she'd known his name. Bro thought that was a good sign, though Rizcarn had called him Ebroin, too.
He tried again to stand. She laid her hand on his good shoulder. Her fingers were ice; they froze his breath in his lungs.
'They told me you wanted to rest.'
She'd withdrawn her hand and moved slightly, so he could see her better. She bristled with steel weapons and brass studs. Her fitted boots and wine-dyed leathers hadn't been put together in the Yuirwood, but she was, without doubt, Cha'Tel'Quessir. Though there was nothing extraordinary about her brown hair, her brown eyes, Bro couldn't keep himself from staring.
