Sword and Mind

25

The duchess turned her head to the direction her companion indicated, the urgency in his voice making her stomach knot. A rider was slumped over the neck of a blood drenched horse.

"Move!" She pushed her way through the villagers, breaking her tale toward the end. The rider never looked up. He or she simply slid off the horse. By the time the person was slipping, Pallu was at a full run. Her hand shot out to help her mind concentrate on catching the body. For brief seconds, the body hung suspended in the air and then it drifted down to the ground. As Pallu slid down on her knees to a stop next to the body, she noticed the horse was not hurt, simply exhausted. Her eyes fell to the boyish features of the broken person at her feet. Feverishly her hands moved away the clothing and found the source of the blood. A gash close to an artery on the boy's neck. Burns laced various places over his body.

"It's fresh," said the same man who had seen the boy's entrance. "It was probably made a few hours ago."

Pallu had already begun wiping away the dirt and blood from the boy's face. She sighed. He couldn't be more than fourteen. His bloodshot eyes opened and he groaned painfully. "Water. Get him some water."

"He'll not live long," he whispered.

"Pahe, get water," she hissed and looked to the villagers significantly. "Huyi, get something to dull his pain."

"Yes, Master." Both men bowed and obeyed.

The boy kept opening his mouth to speak. With a sickening realization, Pallu saw his tongue had been cut out. She smoothed back his gore crusted hair and spoke soothingly to him. "You're safe now. No worries. I'm going to give you something to help with the pain."

He shook his head, whether from pain or in denial Pallu did not know. The boy pointed back in the direction he had come.

She nodded. "Mages?"

His round eyes went large.

"You are very brave, young man. We are going to get the people who did this to you."

Hyui and Pahe came with their items. With difficulty, the boy drank both. He coughed blood and then laid on the ground exhausted. His body rocked from pain convulsions and then suddenly his body halted. Pallu looked to the village's new leader, Linu, as she draped her fine cloak over the boy's body. "Will you give him a proper pyre?"

"Of course."

"How far away is the next village?"

"'Bout half a day. Maybe more."

Pallu turned and looked down the road, knowing that whoever shot the boy must have done so on the road. They would be waiting for people to come to avenge the boy's death. "Hyui, you and five others stay here." She rubbed her face with her hand, forgetting the blood and dirt covering it. "Pahe, you're with me. Any who aren't staying with Hyui come with us."

"What're ya ta do, Lady?" Linu asked.

She turned to them, the grime on her face and the set of her unshakable features making her look entirely too fierce to be anything other than the warrior she was. "Hunting. Whoever did this is close. I intend to find them. Get some answers." In the back of her mind, Rumah kept trying to contact her. She quickly told her what happened as she went for her horse.

"Master?"

"Yes, Pahe."

"Perhaps they were bandits."

Pallu smiled ruefully. "I wish they were. But when have you heard of bandits cutting out people's tongues? The boy has burn marks." Before he could go on, she pulled back her sleeve to reveal skin laced with scars that eerily resembled a lightening filled sky. "They looked just like this."