Windhaven - Страница 40

The pounding stopped. “Raggin,” said a deep voice she did not recognize.

“Raggin? I know no Raggin. What do you want?”

“I’m from the Iron Axe,” the voice said. “You know Val? The one who’s been staying with me?”

Maris felt her fears drain away, and she hurried to open the door. The man standing in the starlight was gaunt and stooped, with a hook nose and a dirty beard, but he was suddenly familiar to her: the barkeep from Val’s tavern. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I was closing up, and your friend hadn’t been in yet. Thought he’d just found some pretty to sleep with, but then I found him outside, lying in the back. Somebody hurt him bad.”

“Val,” S’Rella said. She rushed to the door. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

“He’s up in his room,” Raggin said. “I dragged him up the stairs, and it wasn’t easy. But I remembered he knew people up here so I thought I better come and ask around, and they sent me here. You gonna come down? I don’t know what to do for him.”

“Right away,” Maris said urgently. “S’Rella, get dressed.” She hurried to collect her own clothes and slipped into them, and shortly they were hurrying down the sea road. Maris had a lantern in one hand. The road ran along the seaside cliffs for part of its length, and a misstep in the dark could be fatal.

The tavern was dark and shuttered, the front door braced from inside with a heavy wooden beam. Raggin left them standing in front of it and vanished around back to enter by what he called his “secret way.” When he opened the door from the inside, he said, “Got to lock up good, lots of hard types around here. I got customers you wouldn’t believe, flyers.”

They hardly listened. S’Rella ran up the stairs to the room she had sometimes shared with Val, and Maris came close behind. S’Rella was lighting a candle by Val’s bedside when Maris caught up with her.

Flickering ruddy light filled the small room, and the shape huddled beneath the blankets moved with a small animal whimper. S’Rella set down the candle and pulled off the blankets.

Val’s eyes found her, and he seemed to recognize her—his left arm clutched at her hand desperately. But when he tried to speak, the only sounds he could make were choking, pain-wracked sobs.

Maris felt sick. He had been beaten savagely about the head and shoulders, and his face was an unrecognizable mass of swelling and bruises. A gash along one cheek was still bleeding, and he had dried blood all over his shirt and jaw. His mouth was bloody too, when he opened it and tried to speak.

“Val!” S’Rella cried, weeping. She touched his brow and he shrank away from her hand, trying to say something.

Maris came closer. Val was holding S’Rella tight with his left hand, clutching at her, pulling. But his right arm just lay still along his side, and there was something wrong, blood on the sheet beneath it. The angle at which it lay was impossible, and his jacket was ripped, bloody. She knelt by the right side of the bed and touched his arm gingerly, and Val shrieked so loudly that S’Rella jumped away, terrified. It was only then that Maris saw the jagged edge of bone peeking through his skin and clothing.

Raggin was observing them from the doorway. “His arm’s broke, don’t touch it,” he said helpfully. “He screams when you do. You shoulda heard the noise he made when I carried him up here. I think his leg’s broke too, but I’m not sure.”

Val had quieted, but his breath came in painful gasps. Maris was on her feet. “Why didn’t you call a healer?” she demanded of Raggin. “Why didn’t you give him something for the pain?”

Raggin drew back, shocked, as if those ideas had never occurred to him. “I got you, didn’t I? Who’s gonna pay a healer? He’s not, that’s for sure. Don’t have near enough. I went through his things.”

Maris balled her fists and tried to control her fury. “You’re going to go and fetch a healer right now,” she said. “And I don’t care if you have to run ten miles, you’re going to do it fast. If you don’t, I swear I’ll talk to the Landsman and have this place closed.”

“Flyers.” The barkeep spat. “Throwing your weight around, eh? Well, I’ll go, but who’s gonna pay this healer? That’s what I want to know, and he’ll want to know too.”

“Damn you,” Maris said. “I’ll pay, damn you, I’ll pay. He’s a flyer, and if his bones don’t heal right, if they aren’t taken care of, he’ll never fly again. Now hurry!”

Raggin gave her a last sour look and turned for the stairs. Maris went back to Val’s bedside. He was making whimpering noises and trying to move, but every motion seemed to wrack him with pain.

“Can’t we help him?’ S’Rella said, glancing up at Maris.

“Yes,” Maris said. “This is a tavern, after all. Go downstairs and find the stock, bring up a few bottles. That should help a little with the pain, until the healer arrives.”

S’Rella nodded and started for the door. “What should I bring?” she asked. “Wine?”

“No, we need something stronger. Look for some brandy. Or—that liquor from Poweet, what do they call it?—they make it from grain and potatoes—”

S’Rella nodded and was gone. Shortly she returned with three bottles of local brandy and an unmarked flask that gave off a pungent, potent smell. “Strong stuff,” Maris said. She tasted it herself, then had S’Rella hold up Val’s head while she dribbled it into his mouth. He seemed anxious to cooperate, sucking down the drink eagerly as they took turns pouring it into him.

When Raggin finally returned with a healer more than an hour later, Val had passed out. “Here’s your healer,” the barkeep said. He took one look at the empty bottles on the floor and added, “You’ll pay for those too, flyer.”

When the healer had set Val’s arm and leg—Raggin had been right, it was broken as well, though not as badly—and splinted them, and treated his swollen face, he gave Maris a small bottle full of a dark green liquid. “This is better than brandy,” he said. “It will numb the pain and let him sleep.” He departed, leaving Maris and S’Rella alone with Val.

“It was flyers, wasn’t it?” S’Rella asked tearfully as they sat together in the smoky, candle-lit room.

“One arm and one leg broken, and the other side not touched,” Maris said angrily. “Yes, that says flyer to me. I don’t think any flyer could have done this personally, but I suspect it was a flyer who had it done.” On a sudden impulse Maris moved to where Val’s bloodstained, torn clothing had been piled, and rummaged through it. “Hmm. Just as I thought. His knife is gone. Maybe they took it, or maybe he just had it in his hand and dropped it.”

“I hope he cut them, whoever it was,” S’Rella said. “Do you think it was Corm? Because Val was going to take his wings tomorrow?”

“Today,” Maris said ruefully, glancing toward the window. The first blush of dawn was visible against the eastern sky. “But, no, it wasn’t Corm. Not that Corm wouldn’t gladly destroy Val if he could, but he’d do it legally, not like this. Corm is too proud to resort to beatings.”

“Who, then?”

Maris shook her head. “I don’t know, S’Rella. Some sick person, obviously. Maybe a friend of Corm’s, or a friend of Ari’s. Maybe Arak or one of his friends. Val made a lot of enemies.”

“He wanted me to go with him,” S’Rella said guiltily, “but I went to see Garth instead. If I had gone with him like he wanted, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“If you had gone with him,” Maris said, “you’d probably be lying there broken and bleeding as well. S’Rella, love, remember those rainbirds they left for us. They wanted to tell us something. You’re a one-wing too.” She glanced out toward the dawn. “And so am I. Maybe it’s time I admitted it. I’m half—a-flyer and that’s all I’ll ever be.” She smiled for S’Rella. “But I guess what matters is what half.”

S’Rella seemed puzzled, but Maris said, “No more talk. You still have a few hours before the competition opens, and I want you to try to get some sleep. You have to win your wings today, remember?”

“I can’t,” S’Rella protested. “Not now.”

“Especially now,” Maris said. “Whoever had this done to Val would be delighted to know that it lost you your wings as well as his. Do you want that?”

“No,” S’Rella said.

“Then sleep.”

Later, while S’Rella slept, Maris looked up again at the window. The sun was half-risen, its reddened face streaked with heavy dark clouds. It was going to be a good, windy day. A fine day for flying.

The competition was already well under way when Maris and S’Rella arrived. They had been delayed in the tavern when Raggin demanded immediate payment of Val’s bill, and it had taken a long argument to convince him that he would get everything due him. Maris made him promise to tend to Val’s needs, and allow no one else up those stairs.

Sena was at her usual station by the judges, watching the early contestants fly the gates. Maris sent S’Rella off to join the other Woodwingers, and hurried up the cliff. Sena was relieved to see her. “Maris!” she exclaimed. “I was worried something was wrong. No one knew where you had gone. Are S’Rella and Val with you? It will be time soon. Sher is next up, in fact.”

“S’Rella is ready to fly,” Maris said. She told Sena about Val.

All the strength and vitality seemed to drain from the teacher as she listened. Her good eye clouded over with tears and she leaned more heavily on her cane, and suddenly she was very old indeed. “I did not believe,” she muttered weakly. “I did not—even when that terrible thing happened with the birds, even then—I could not think they would do such a thing.” Her face was the color of ash. “Help me, child. I must sit down.”