The Healer and the General

Part 11

"You've got to be kidding me," Demi said as Doyle showed her the healer's tent. Demi wasn't even sure it was a tent. It was covered in animal skins and reeked of death. She was certain that it was worse on the inside. Now she understood why Eric had almost called it a den yesterday.

"I wish," Doyle said. It was clear that this place repulsed him as well. Demi stepped inside and immediately had the urge to gag. Never in her life had Demi wished she'd gotten her mother's sense of smell instead of her father's, until now. The smell was like rotting bodies, mixed with something horribly sweet.

All around the tent were dead animals, on the tables, and strung up at random points. Some were skinned and some weren't. There was a table covered in blood and guts, and multiple buckets filled with the same. Weird runes were scattered around the room, written in what Demi thought was blood.

Walking out of the tent Demi asked, "What did your last healer do? Sacrifice an animal to the gods whenever somebody was injured or sick?" That was the only explanation, and if it wasn't then she did not want to hear it.

"More or less. Old Leech, that's what everybody called him, would bandage you up, then sacrifice some poor animal, and send you off saying to come back if there were any problems." Doyle explained. "I think the only reason our warriors never get injured is so that they won't have to come here." he paused, before further remarking, "Everybody does their best to avoid this place."

"You can't really blame them," A woman said. Demi looked up at the newcomer. She was very beautiful, and had arched ears, meaning she was fae. Her hair was deep gold, and she had gray eyes. Doyle instantly smiled. "Hi, I'm Eva. Doyle's mate." She greeted me.

"Demetria, but I go by Demi." Demi moved to shake her hand but Eva instantly hugged her instead. Demi stiffened, not expecting it, but relaxed quickly and hugged the female back. Eva moved to stand next to Doyle, who was still looking happier than he had before. Demi thought back to the mate part. It seemed like Eva had only said that part to tell her Doyle was taken. Not that Demi was interested.

"Mates?" Demi asked. She had learned a little about mates, but not a lot and she had never actually seen a mated pair.

"Basically two people designed for each other by the gods," Doyle explained.

"Think of it as a single soul split into two bodies. Only fae have mates though, but a human can be mated to a fae." Eva said. Interesting. Demi wondered if witches could have mates. They were half-fae, half-human so it could be possible.

"Have you come to help?" Demi asked, "I could definitely use it." She gestured toward the tent that would be her workspace and cringed.

"I have actually. And I know just the place to get some reinforcements because we are going to need all the help we can get." Demi raised her eyebrows at the female, instantly liking her, but confused by her words.

Thirty minutes later, they were surrounded by about a dozen women, a dozen females, and a dozen children. Making forty in all. Demi was surprised to see so many humans in the camp and to see them interact with the fae no differently than they would another human. And all the children played together, clearly not caring about the shape of their friend's ears. It was everything Demi had hoped to see but never did, at least not in Ura.

"Okay! Everyone Quiet down please!" Eva yelled. She had a surprisingly powerful voice, and everybody instantly listened, "Alright, thank you. Now, you are all here to help our new healer fix up her tent, so I'm going to hand the reins over to her." She looked expectantly at Demi.

Demi hated crowds, and wasn't used to yelling, or giving orders, or yelling orders. She cleared her throat before she began, trying not to seem like she was having an internal panic attack, "Thanks Eva, and thank you all for coming to help with this-" Demi thought of the right word for it, "mess. My name is Demetria, but you can call me Demi, and the first thing I want to do is clear the animal skins from the outside of the tent." She considered what she wanted to do with the inside, but decided to wait until it was clean, "Then I want to get all the dead animals out, and the blood and guts, after that we'll empty the tent and take it down do clean it." Throughout the speech, Demi had rubbed her forearm. It was a habit formed a long time ago, one that she wanted to break.

Everybody went to work, after greeting and welcoming Demi, saying they were so happy that she was here. It made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It took about ten minutes to get all the animal skins off the outside of the tent. There were weird stains everywhere, and Demi wasn't sure what the actual color of the tent was going to be. She decided that she'd somehow use the skins, once they were clean. The dead animals took a lot longer. It was quite sickening how many there were. But once all of that was cleared out along with the buckets of animal guts the tent was a bit nicer.

The women, females, and children took a short lunch break. They had gotten a conversation going about different ways Demi could decorate the tent. The children had started to play a game where one chases the rest around, and once they touch somebody they no longer chase, and the kid that's 'tagged' now chases the rest around. It goes on and on and is quite amusing. Ura had kids, but Demi only saw them when they were sick or injured, sometimes not even then. Some parents didn't want their children around a witch, Demi guessed. She wondered how the people around would react to her being a half-breed.

Demi shook the thought from her head. The group got back to work, always talking about something or another. By the time they got the tent down, the children had become exhausted. Mothers quickly went to take their kids back to their tents to take a nap, before coming back. The group, now down to twenty-six, dragged the bloodstain cloth down to the river. Demi had to stop several times to admire the forest.

The river was about fifty feet into the forest, so it was an easy walk, even with the heavy tent. They found a great place to hang the tent once it was dry and quickly went to work. The river wasn't too deep so they could walk in with no trouble, it also wasn't very fast, so nobody would get swept away in the current. The water was warm from the afternoon sun. Everyone had gotten a bar of soap.

When they finished it had gotten dark and every single one of the group was soaked. Half-way through, the women and females had gotten into a splash war. Working together, they managed to get the tent hung up, and headed back towards camp. Some of the women and females had started bets on what color the tent was, and it turns out that it's actually white. Nobody won.

When we reached camp everybody went towards the 'mess hall', where dinner would be served. Demi stopped, wanting to watch the sunset. She was tired but in a good way. Doyle and Eva stopped with her.

"Why are you here?" Demi finally asked.

Doyle seemed to understand what she asked, "We're looking to make peace with the humans. We plan to make a settlement and show them that the north means them no harm since the southern fae spread the rumor that we would kill them on sight." It made sense. The south had gained support from the humans by lying to them. The best way to undo those lies is to show them.

"Why did you attack Ura?" The attack showed any humans in the south that the north was bad, it wasn't the smartest move.

"They had taken a couple of captives when they attacked us, right when we got here actually." Doyle paused, "And if we were going to make a settlement on this land, we needed to take them out, plus they were mostly southern fae. And we aren't trying to make peace with them, only humans."

Demi only nodded. She didn't understand why they wouldn't be trying to make peace with the south, but it wasn't her place to ask. Actually, it wasn't her place to ask any of it, let alone be answered. Yet Doyle didn't even hesitate.

"Thanks," Demi said.

"Well, enough of that. Let's eat!" Eva broke through the somewhat sullen moment, instantly making Demi smile.

As Eva started to drag Demi towards the smell of meat cooking, Doyle said, "Actually Eva, why don't you go get some dinner. Demi needs to talk to Eric about some things." Demi had no idea what she needed to talk to Eric about. Eva let go of Demi and dragged Doyle out of earshot. They started having a heated discussion, but Eva eventually left, giving Demi a sad smile before going.

Doyle motioned for her to follow him and her mind started to fill with the possibilities. Most were bad and some were just plain tragic. Finally, her nerves got the best of her as they neared the horrible smelling tent Demi had been brought to yesterday. When Demi entered her eyes immediately went to Eric's searching for an answer she wouldn't find. Eric only gestured toward a dark figure that had been tied up on the wooden platform. As Demi got closer she recognized the figure.

It was Elena, chief of Ura.