“No,” said Elsie at once, coming towards me. “You are to stay—”
“I want to see the town,” I told her firmly. “And I need to see Mag.”
Before she could reach me, I sat up, and I gently batted away her hands when she tried to push me back down. Despite her protests, I rose from the straw pallet where I had been laid.
It was not till then that I realized I was in the common room of the Lee Shore. Mag’s inn could not have looked more different. All the tables had been cleared out, and the floor was covered with four rows of pallets holding the wounded. Healers and helpers moved down the line, providing more pillows, fetching water, and seeing to their patients’ needs.
“Are these all who remain?” I said as I fought painfully to my feet.
Though she clucked her tongue at me, Elsie at last abandoned her attempts to force me back to bed. She took an arm and helped me rise to my feet. “Of course not,” she said. “Every tavern and inn throughout Northwood has been turned into a sickroom. Those that were not burned down in the attack, anyway.”
“Help me to the door,” I said.
“You mean to go outside?” she said, horrified.
“I told you I need to see Mag. If she is not in here, then yes, I need to go outside.”
Elsie glared up at me and did not budge. “I am not sure how else to tell you this, and I do not understand why I have to, but: you nearly died, you great idiot.”
I smiled at her. “I am no stranger to injury. I will be fine.”
“No stranger indeed. You seem well acquainted with head injuries in particular.” But she sighed and moved forwards, helping me hobble towards the inn’s front door. With her help, I pushed it open.
And there was Mag.
She stood across the street, leaning against the building opposite. Her head was tilted back, resting against the wall, and her eyes were closed. Dirt covered her face, her arms, every scrap of her clothing. A great deal of blood was mixed in with it. But as I looked closely, I could see that none of it was hers. There were no rents in her skin, no angry red wounds. Not even a scratch.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at her, entirely dumbfounded. And as I stared, Mag opened her eyes and looked at me. A small smile tugged at her lips.
“Mag,” I said. “You are alive.”
“Albern,” she said. “You are up. That is good, I suppose.”
Gone from her voice was the lifeless, heartless monotone of her battle-trance. This was the Mag who was my friend, who did not mercilessly cut down her enemies, but who provided beds and food and rest to a band of children who had come down out of the mountains with her old mercenary companion.
I walked towards her. Elsie tried to help me, but I had almost forgotten her, and I pulled away from her grip. The pain in my body, even in my head, was forgotten. I went to Mag and put my hand on her shoulder.
“I am sorry, Mag,” I said. “Sky above, I am so sorry.”
Mag shrugged. “It was not your fault, nor mine. Blame the ones who did this.” She gestured vaguely at the town. “Something is happening, Albern. If that was not clear to both of us before, it should be now. It is bigger than either of us, bigger than poor Loren and her friends. All we can do is try to weather the storm and pull the ones we love through it with us.” She turned her gaze away, looking into the blood-soaked mud of the street. “And sometimes fail.”
“Mag—”
“Leave it,” she said. There was just a hint of sharpness in her tone, enough to make me obey.
After a long moment, I spoke again. “Before I went down, I saw you surrounded. I thought I saw you wounded.”
That seemed to bring her out of the darkness her thoughts had cast her into. For a moment she smiled, and it was like we were on the campaign trail again, trading boasts around a campfire. She stepped forwards and held out her arms. “They did surround me. I fought my way free. Do you see any wounds?”
I did not. I sighed. “You are frightening sometimes, Mag.”
“Only sometimes?”
“But … but then what happened?” I pressed. “How did we drive them away from Northwood, in the end?”
Mag frowned. “I have only an answer that is both poor and troubling. I do not know that we did drive them away. They simply turned and marched into the mountains. No one knows why.”
My jaw clenched. “I would like an answer. And I would like them to answer for other things as well.”
“As would I,” said Mag. “But now that you have risen, many things need tending to—and one of them, in particular, was not one I wished to tend to until you were awake.”
My shoulders sagged. “Sten.”
She had cleaned him already. I helped her wrap him in cloth. But when I moved to lift him, she shook her head.
“I will take him,” she said, and her expression brooked no argument.
She lifted him into her arms. Now, Mag had always been strong and well-muscled, but Sten was a large man. She was breathing hard before she reached the southern gate, and her steps began to falter before we were a span away from the walls. But she did not stop, not even once, and despite her staggering, she never seemed close to dropping him.
Near the bottom of the Reeve, she laid him down at last. She had prepared the place in advance, and a neat pile of wood lay there to receive him. His final resting place. I could not help but think of how Loren and I had buried Jordel in
