Page 76 of Tending the Ache

He breathes in a deep breath.

"That is rather the problem," Morgan says. "He would burn it down. He has told me so. And if I refuse this, the Jakadi come again in the spring, and they come with the passes open and our southern flank naked, and my brother will meet them in a field because that is the only answer he has ever had." He looks up. "I can prevent that. I am the only person alive who can prevent that, and I can do it by getting on a horse."

"And what happens to you?"

Morgan doesn't answer, and Indrie doesn't push any further.

They sit in the same room with the weight of it between them, two people who have had their choices made for them by men with more power and less care.

Chapter 22

Indrie

It is past midnight when the beating comes at the door of his clinic.

He had not meant to still be here. He had sat down at the examination table to sort the herbs he had not sorted that afternoon, and at some point his cheek came to rest against a pile of dried rosemary and the lamp burned down and that was the end of the plan.

The pounding on the door jerks him upright with his heart hammering.

For one terrible second he is back in the night of the escape, the broken door, the man in his clinic, the scalpel, and his body floods with adrenaline so violent his vision spots. His hands grip the edge of the table and he cannot breathe.

Then the pounding comes again. And a voice.

"Indrie! Open up!"

Bohdi.

The adrenaline does not leave. It shifts, from terror to urgency, and Indrie is on his feet and crossing the clinic before the echo of Bohdi's voice has faded. He throws the bolt on the new door and pulls it open.

Bohdi fills the frame. He is dusty from the road, still in travel leathers, his axe strapped to his back. There is dried blood across the front of his shirt. There is a gash at his temple, crusted and unattended, and his red hair is half-loose from its braids. His face is drawn.

Bohdi is never drawn. Bohdi fills rooms with warmth and noise and the energy of a man who finds life fundamentally amusing. The absence of it is louder than shouting.

"It's the king," Bohdi says. "I need you. Now."

Indrie does not ask questions.

He takes his coat from the hook behind the door. His satchel, the same one he has carried since Kalkoa, battered and worn and irreplaceable, is on his shoulder before he has finished buttoning the coat. He pulls on his boots and follows Bohdi into the dark street.

Bohdi's stride is long and Indrie has to nearly run to keep pace. The cobblestones are hard beneath his boots and his unbuttoned coat flaps behind him and the night air bites at his throat and none of it registers. His mind has narrowed to a single point.

"What happened?" He is breathless and does not care.

"Ambush. On the road back from the border. Jakadi." Bohdi's jaw is a hard line. "They were waiting for us in the trees. Hit us on both sides."

"How bad?"

"Two dead. Several wounded." A pause. "Eskil took a blade between the ribs."

The words land in the middle of Indrie's chest. He stumbles on a cobblestone, catches himself, does not break stride.

"How deep?"

"Deep enough. Through the leather and into him. I bandaged it in the field but the bleeding hasn't stopped and I don't—" Bohdi's voice tightens. "I don't have the hands for this."

"How long ago?"

"Five hours. Maybe more. He rode the whole way. Wouldn't let us stop. Wouldn't let me send a rider ahead." Bohdi makes a sound that is half frustration and half fear. "Stubborn son of a bitch nearly came off his horse twice and still wouldn't let anybody else take the reins."