Fire Angels

Chapter 19 Part 1 Reconciliation

Chapter 19

The following day, I and the rest of Lady Julia's train, worked hard organizing the recruits. I was relieved to see that Ren Daniel joined us and that there seemed to be no terrible upheaval going on in the ranks of the mages.

It seemed as if every man within a day's march of Vernede had come to join the army of liberation. Very few came from the south. Those who did come brought the hopeful news that Hierarch Jarraz's troops had withdrawn back towards Beenac. The area a couple of days march around Beenac was staunchly Burning Light and no doubt they would make their stand there. Otherwise their news made depressing hearing. For some days now, the Burning Light villages had been heading out towards Sanctuary and more recently, the troops had been forcing the non-believers to go with them. Fire Angels or rather the "Angels of God" were spoken off again and again as being instrumental in this round up. Those who came from that far south had quite often been hiding in the forest and had being coming north anyway, before they had heard of Lady Julia's army.

I worked all day taking names and home villages for the pay roll. The gloomy talk of the men before my table made me wonder that there was anybody left to come.

My fellow name taker was a pale shy young priest-mage. We spoke little during the morning, but at the midday he offered me an apple and we got talking. Like most of the mages in our company he was driven by a deep hatred of necromancy and just like me he was terrified by the step he had taken. He comforted himself that he was really doing what Patriarch Sylvestus would have wanted him to do had he been free to order it. I made the kind of comforting noises I would have liked to hear about there being no excuse for not doing right and how surely no one could punish us for it. I think he must have assumed I was just a healer, for when someone came up and pointed me out within our hearing as the Demonslayer of Gallia, he went bright red and I could not get another word out of him.

Shad was working nearby, handing out the weapons that the Klementari had brought into camp. All day I looked at him and sometimes I was certain he was looking at me, though I never caught him at it. I did my best to concentrate on my task.

Evening came down without my noticing and suddenly ravenous, I took my place in the soup queue with the rest of the camp. Again I saw Shad and again we avoided looking at each other. How stupid this was becoming I thought.

I found a quiet spot in the dark shadows under the tree and sat down to eat my soup in privacy. Symon's mocking words came back to me. Perhaps I should try to talk to Shad. If he still cared for me it was foolish to be going around avoiding each others eyes, especially when who knew what lay before us. A sudden horrible vision of Shad being shot with an arrow came to me then. I felt urge to run to him and say...

What on earth could I say? Please don't be disgusted with me? Please still love me? Now here was a question. Did I want to be loved? Didn't that mean forever. How did I feel about him? At the moment all I really wanted was to find out if he was disgusted with me or not. As for the rest... The thought that I might get involved with Shad again and suddenly discover I wanted to be uninvolved... My God! It would be worse then the situation with Parrus. Shad was no shallow young man. What if I hurt him?

I heard a flapping of wings nearby. I looked up to see Symon, primly sitting on the low hanging branch of a nearby tree regarding me with his head on one side.

"Have you still not sorted things out with that man of yours?" he said. "You and he should talk. I will send him to you."

How could he be so insensitive?

"Hasn't the Wanderer Raven got better things to do with his time that bother about people's quarrels?" I snapped at him.

He shrugged.