Drone

7 The Sommerfeldts.

Lill Sommerfeldt knelt over the face-down young man who occupied her son's cot. He stirred in a feverous frenzy but didn't wake. With only a towel draped over his backside, she examined his wounds.

Several knife scars marked his body, and even a few that she figured to be gunshot wounds. She had never seen a gunshot victim, but she concluded nothing else could have made the round, jagged scars. Those scars told a story from years ago and weren't the problem.

The problem was the cuts that lay across his back. Obviously, the mark of a whip, those she had seen before. More curious to her than the man's wounds were his tattoos. No respectable Relrin or Sharderin even thought about getting tattoos; maybe if he were a pirate, that would make sense. But she had never heard of pirates sailing up Rulkite River, so she doubted that.

She set her role of clean bandages to the side and stirred the steaming ointment she had prepared.

"I don't like it," her aged father Frode declared from the doorway, leaning on his cane. "You fished 'em out of the river. What do you know about 'em? He could be a criminal or a runaway debtbond."

Lill frowned at her unconscious patient. The shade of his burning gray skin showed that he was only part Sharderin. It was likely he was undebted.

"I don't think so, pa. I searched his body. He doesn't have a debtbond brand." Her debtbond brand seemed to itch just under her collar as she said it. She and her whole family were debtors of the Prime Paramount Alred, slaves in all but title. Not that she ever complained. Comparatively speaking, they were treated better than other debtbonds, and besides, she was one of the last Sharderin women to exist, having been in Chimgar at the time of the purge.

"The only brand he had is this one under his eye," Lill elaborated. "It's fresh, but I've never seen a debtbond brand like this. It's sharderin. I don't know what it means."

"Are you sure you searched his whole body?" Her older and lengthy brother Ivar snickered from the doorway.

With a huff, Lill seized a wooden cup that young Rasmus had left in his room (despite her command to clean up) and hurled it at the man, who leaped away with a yelp.

"That's enough from you, I think!" she snapped. "And besides, he's young enough to be my son!"

Ivar chortled, bounding back into view, and she cursed as there weren't any other projectiles easily within reach. There was the strange metal trinket she found on the man, but she didn't want to break it, whatever it was.

"But where did he come from?" Frode asked grimly, dismissing his children's squabble.

"He probably washed in from Colgar," Ivar said.

Frode leaned on his walking stick, his frown deepening. "If he washed in from Colgar, that would mean...he had to pass through Pit Forest.

Ivar groaned. "Right, the haunted forest!" He rolled his eyes. "Maybe he was raised by demons and will hex us with his Stigki powers for taking 'em in and patching 'em up, is that right?"

Lill sighed at her brother's faithlessness. "You've never seen the demon wall."

"Right." Ivar dismissed with a wave of his hand. "And the witches that fly on black wolves. You're right, I haven't seen any of that, and you know why?"

"Because you've never looked," Lill muttered.

"Because they don't exist!" He waved his hands emphatically. "God, devils, witches. I'll believe when I see."

"Kel, forgive my stupid brother," Lill prayed aloud, making sure Ivar heard her.

The motionless man grunted and muttered something she couldn't understand. She turned her attention away from her faithless brother and back to the mysterious washup.