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The steep trail probably would never be spoken of in glowing tones of recommendation to any traveler looking to explore Ostia's scenic countryside outside of the castle city proper. Today, with cold autumn winds gusting against the slope and it being too early in the day for the rocks to have absorbed the watery sunlight, the trail had almost nothing to recommend it. The path didn't even connect directly to the Ostian city proper, but ground to an end on one of the trade roads to the south. The northward span of this trail petered out into a track at the top of the rise, and ended in a coal miner's camp.
Fiora liked it, though. The trail was peaceful, if you had good company, which she didn't, and the views as she trudged laboriously up the slope were breath taking.
“Your horse has rested enough!” Serra complained behind her. Where she found the breath when she was wheezing like a bellows was one of life's little mysteries.
Fiora glanced over her shoulder at Artemis, winging peacefully beside them, carrying all the supplies minus the spear in Fiora's hand, and the staff Serra was using to as a prop in her efforts to get higher up the mountain. “I think not, Sister. If we are ambushed—”
“We'd see the ambush coming from leagues away!” Serra groused, the blue crystal of the staff flailing as she swept it over the barren rocks cascading down the mountain, to the grassy pasture land below. “My feet hurt! I want to rest them!”
At least Fiora had managed, after two years, to get it into Sister Serra's head that making her wants known by demanding them was not the way to get them seen to. The mercenary knight captain, of course, had no idea what happened in Ostia during times when she was not on retainer, but it was not really her problem if others bowed to the bossy cleric. Just as long as Serra respected Fiora's personal rules, everything would be fine.
“We're almost to the camp,” Fiora strode to the flattening of their trail, and the trampled patches of earth that suggested a track of sorts through tumbled rock walls. “You may rest your feet there.”
“No I won't! I'll be running about distributing medicines for a bunch of sweaty ungrateful oafs, and you know it.”
As honesty always was the best policy in Fiora's book (unless honesty was likely to wound a person's pride, or cause their respect to dwindle in the eyes of others, but Fiora tried not to admit to her personal caveats too often), Fiora shrugged, and waited for Serra to catch up.
“I do, but I know much of your industry is due to the exalted position the Lord of Ostia has given you. You could, if you chose, rest before running about. But you do not because you feel the gravity of your position. It is very admirable.”
The look the perspiring healer shot at her could have melted lead. “Stop trying to manage me!”
Fiora's teal eyebrows shot up, but she led the way down the track rather than stop for an argument. Serra, however, clearly wanted to have the argument out. “I mean it! Everyone patronizes me and tries to get me to be simpering or meek! I can recognize it, you know. And I don't think much of you when you do it, oh knight captain!”
“I was being serious. Being assigned to be healer and medic to difficult places like this is an honor.”
“It's a way to get me out from under our Lord Ostia's feet,” Serra's snarl was almost making the rocks on either side of them vibrate. “I know he and Oswin think I make the place look untidy.”
“These new mines are very important to Ostia's security,” it was not a particularly good line. Fiora's voice tended to sound flat and insincere when she was trying to be reasonable. “Having sources of iron outside of Etruria for the armor that has given Ostia it's fame is of vital importance.”
“You're supposed to say that I look radiant as the morning and never untid—”
Wheeling above them, Artemis screamed, and then, as Serra and Fiora came out of the rocky defile to a small camp clustered around a hole in the rock face, Serra screamed. Fiora did not precisely blame her. There was one young boy giving them quite a view of his insides pinned to the earth by a long spear. He was very obviously dead, but covered in the moving twitches of flies, which gave him some semblance of life.
Otherwise, the camp was deserted. It had certainly been looted, but it was deserted. Fiora whistled for her mount. Serra clung to her. “If you go after whatever did this, who'll protect me?!”
Fiora had to admit that she was impressed by Serra's calculation post screaming, but then again, Serra had probably gotten all inclination toward vaporing instead of thinking of her advantage out of her system two years ago. “I need to see if there are any places the miners could have hidden. I'll do it from the air. Artemis can land in a heartbeat.”
“You mean that large black hole in the rock doesn't look like a good place to hide?” Serra pointed at the mine shaft.
“It also could be an ambush point. I need to know all the options that the people who lived here had. You try to see if anything is salvageable in the tents.”
She could already see that the tents had been slashed and smashed, and she doubted that there was anything that they could use, but it gave Serra something to do, while Fiora surveyed the area. Artemis' wings creaked as she whooped into the air. Swift Oh well, at least she didn't need a running start.
The mining camp was just a collection of tents against a rock face. No trails lead up, and only one lead down, though if you went along the higer edge of the mountain you did come to near by stream. The ground beneath was, well, rocks, gravel, and more rocks. Not a lot grew up here, and there wasn't much of a path to follow. If any miners were alive, and from the size of the camp, there had been more than one lone boy, they were hiding in that newly dug shaft.
Fiora had been expecting signs of bandits, but there were none. Still, bandits would be more familiar with the terrain than anyone else, and ruthless in that special outlaw way, and probably had been the cause of this disaster. If no one else was left alive, that would mean hunting the mountains the limited time between now and harvest for at least the bodies of the miners.
She and Serra would have to take the boy's body back to Ostia for whoever his family had been in any case. If they slept the night at the abandoned mine, they could be in Ostia, double loaded on Artemis, which the mare would not thank Fiora for in the slightest, in two days, maybe one an a half if they pushed Artemis, but however they managed to roll up that boy, she wouldn't allow Artemis to be forced beyond a light flight. That meant Fiora would have to walk. Serra was too slow afoot, and too inclined to dither over steep parts of the trail.
“You,” Fiora murmured in her pegasus' ear, “are not going to like my plans for you in the slightest. Please be brave.”
Something waved yellow and scarlet against the dull canvas of the ripped up tents, far from where Serra was picking her way through rubble. Fiora patted Artemis' neck, and pressed in with her knees, shifting forward on the saddle.
Artemis landed neatly, her wings kicking up some dust. Fiora jumped down. The dash of color arresting her eye turned out to be one of those fabrics that looked yellow when you looked at it one way, and red when you looked at it another. The design was worked in white, but it was impossible to tell what the design was originally, given where the cloth had been torn. She didn't need to see it though. The colors and the richness of the fabric told her too much. This was a lord's banner, or dress. A bandit might have won a scrap of cloth, but—She looked north. Etruria's tenuous claim to the land round about began a day's journey away from here.
“I hear breathing coming from that, that hole in the mountain!” Serra yelled. “Now will you believe that there's nowhere else anyone could have gone!”
“You're right,” Fiora turned to her companion, and led Artemis toward Serra's gleaming pink figure. “Do you know much of Etrurian heraldry?”
“Well, of course! I, after all, have to keep up my knowledge of worldly matters for the sake of my fam—ooh, that's pretty!”
“I've seen this kind of cloth in Aquelia, on some lord's banner,” Fiora told her. “I can't remember which one, though. I don't suppose there is enough of the sigil left for you to identify—”
She stopped. Fiora had trained enough recruits to knighthood to know the expression of someone who did not want their bluff to be called, but had realized that they were in too deep and now actually had to prove that they knew how to wield a sword from pegasus back. Serra's expression was filled with the determination to lie her way out. Fiora fixed her with a long look. Serra met the gaze telling her not, under any circumstance to lie. She narrowed her eyes, and her pretty lips jutted forward into a stubborn pout.
“You'd make a brilliant Eliminean nun,” Serra muttered. “All hard edges and scowls.”
“This scrap of cloth is very torn and small. I wouldn't expect a herald to be able to tell me what family this belonged to. It was just a hope. We had better check for the miners. I will go first.”
“I'll see about getting a torch. One of those broken tent poles should do,” Serra replied, tugging speculatively on a pole. Fiora didn't know if she should be worried by the light of eager fire starting that dwelled in Serra's expression. Some people just needed to burn things on occasion. Some people got excited about burning things on occasion.
Had Serra ever talked with Matthew about this? Fiora couldn't remember any reluctance on Serra's part in passing over a torch when the thieves were on look out, but then again, Fiora found Matthew difficult company, and the other thief she had known completely untrustworthy. Lord Hector obviously had others on his payroll, but they kept out of sight of the real soldiers, in general, and Fiora felt this was how it should be. She should probably ask Matthew, just in case, if letting Serra handle fire in times of emergency was a good idea.
“Stop looking as though I'm a evil enchantress after your soul!” Serra grumbled, fumbling for her flint in the bottom of her pack.
Fiora laughed at that, and caught Serra's surprised look as she readied her spear. Stalking towards the mine shaft unfortunately allowed Fiora to consider all the possible ambush tactics that might have been used on two people entering a dark enclosed area. There was no one lying in wait in the craggy folds around the mountain. Serra would stay at the mouth of the shaft, and be able to mount Artemis and fly if there was trouble.
The real problem was that if this raid had been made by Etrurian bondsmen and their lord, and they were currently resting in this shaft instead of trapped miners, declaring her allegiance to Lord Hector was chancy. But Etrurians respected the soldiers of a lord where they might kill serfs, or mercenaries, even if it would be obvious that she was an Ilian mercenary once anyone caught a glimpse of Artemis.
Fiora squared her shoulders. “Hello? Is there anyone in there?” Serra was right, she could hear breathing this close to the shaft mouth. It was accompanied by a groan, which gave her more inspiration. “I've come with an Eliminean healer. We're here to dispense our holy duty. Is anyone in need of aid.”
Serra sidled up, gripping a weakly burning tent pole and rag affair. “Now you're making yourself sound like a nun?” she murmured, almost covering the second groan that echoed from the cavern, but not the echo-y:
“Hello? Please, can we come out, now?”
Someone else hissed: “I don't think he can move, Drake.”
These were not the accents of Etruria's rolling riverlands. Fiora stepped forward. It had been cool in the mountain face. In the mine shaft it was frigid. The glow of the torch didn't do much, but it did reflect off enough surfaces. Eyes, Fiora thought. Seven people's eyes. And I'm just a shadow in front of a torch. They're bound to be scared.
“Who needs help?” she asked carefully. “Please, get up, one at a time, and leave, except for the injured and whoever has been taking care of that person. I'll see if we can get your friend outside, at least.”
There was one man on the ground. As the other miners brushed past Fiora, she bent to examine him. “It's his legs,” someone said in the dark. “They slashed him up a bit, but we reckon the bad bit happened when that great horse stepped on him.”
Fiora felt dried blood and hot skin as well as cloth. She imagined bandages being put on in the dark. The man on the ground whimpered. “Serra! We need your staff.”
“You need more than that! This woman's eye was taken out, and no one has cleaned anything. You all need a serious healer. Isn't it just providence that I happen to be here. The Saint truly smiles upon you today. And she is very sorry that it has taken so long for the light of her smile to reach you, but here I am at last, radiant as the dawn!”
Fiora would have snapped, but she heard the chuckles, and the torch light was growing near. Serra paused for a moment to tell one of the last miners something in an undertone and then she was handing the torch to the person who had told Fiora about the horse. In the new light Fiora realized her fingers were covering part of a gash being held together, sloppily, with bandages, and hovering on the edge of another gash which had managed to escape bandages totally, but had been the source of most of the dried blood that she had felt under her finger tips.
She moved her hands before Serra had to bat them away. Hearing the sigh over her shoulder, Fiora turned to meet Serra in full righteousness mode, a ready-made icon of healer exasperation with her hands on her hips. “Good, at least you know I don't need anyone's fingers in his wounds. This young lady actually knows what's happened, so she will help me. You, however, would best serve everyone by
going out there and separating the least wounded from the most wounded. And make sure that boy is covered. I pulled some tent over him but, with the wind you never know.”
Fiora only looked back once, at the little little circle of torch light. Serra flicked a pigtail over her shoulder, just before her staff lit a dim blue. Fiora had seen Serra basically re-attach one of Raven's arms once. This man was in fine hands. Fine, but bossy hands.
Maybe, Fiora thought, seeing the five people outside picking listlessly through their former homes, bossy was something you needed in a healer. She was surprised that no one was arguing. Recriminations were generally the first order of business, once threat had passed.
She found out quickly that the reason no one was arguing was that had been their whole day yesterday. Arguing over whether it was safe to leave the mine. Arguing over why they had ever thought they could make the camp permanent before winter set in, having come here in the late summer. Arguing over whether they should go after the missing. And there were missing people. The soldiers—and every miner was certain that they were soldiers, Etrurian with good arms, and a knight on a horse leading them—had taken away those who had not fled into the pits of the mine. A camp of eighteen, with two families and some additional working men was now at seven.
“Poor Shep,” the old woman who had identified herself as the eldest, and therefore the spokesperson. She looked on as Fiora tucked the canvas around the dead boy. “He was just a little bugger they wanted to get out of the stone mason's guild and give him some practical with propping and shoring.”
“He's not from one of the families here, then?” Fiora had hoped it would be easier. Just hand him over to those who knew him and let them bury him.
“No. Ostia City lad. The guild will sort him out.”
And we'll have to get him there, before he begins to smell. Fiora lashed cords around him. “We'll need to march tomorrow at first light. Ostia is a three day journey.”
“I understand,” the elder looked around, and then asked: “What did you bring in the way of food?”
“Not enough for nine people over four days. I'm hoping some of the food stuff won't have spoiled or been taken. Once we get off the mountain I'll be able to fly out to any of the near by farms, or maybe even hunt. Then we'll at least have something.”
“Something is always better than nothing,” the woman agreed.
Something flashed in the corner of Fiora's vision. She turned to see Serra bending over the woman who had her face sliced nearly in half. What had been this woman's left eye was oozing villainously, but as the staff moved and shone, Serra said something to make the woman's grimace turn to a small grin, and the miners around her chuckled.
It struck Fiora, forcibly, that Serra was not the selfish girl that she had remembered. She still complained and harangued, and was impossibly, marvelously, ridiculous, but she used it now. It was her armor and spear, and she used both weapons to great effect.
Serra was actually a decent person.
The idea astounded Fiora. She thought of the healer as being self-absorbed—a trait Fiora knew only too well herself, and worked hard to correct—and Serra was self absorbed. She had to be. The self she was absorbed with was a healer, a fixer, and mender of things. Selfless people with those kinds of powers died out or died young. And she was pretty. Extremely pretty. Fiora felt embarrassed for staring at the animated face, and then felt embarrassed for thinking about the slender arms in blood stained gloves.
She smiled to herself. If she was one of her sisters, she would do something about this sudden knowledge. Even if that something was admire hopelessly from afar, or toss Serra into the next fancy bed she found, and make cunning arguments for Serra to stay there. But she wasn't one of her sisters. She was a mercenary trying to earn the money to recreate a full mercenary wing, because the solo life was not for her. She was the realist, and realism said that Serra liked large men, with positions of power and wealth, and being the healer for an Ilian pegasus company would mean summers on campaign and winters in Ilia, neither of which would appeal to Serra.
Fiora needed to stop being such a romantic. At least Serra wasn't too serious, observant and kind for her own good. Just kind in an odd camouflaged way.
Drifting was not a very Fiora kind of action, but the mercenary did notice a subtle sidling quality to her movement that translated better into drifting over rather than marching over as Serra stood up, dusted off gloved hands and declared herself satisfied.
“I've got everyone looking for food,” Fiora told her, before focusing on the stained gloves. “I can show you where the stream is, if you want to wash those.”
“Cold water will just set the stains,” Serra replied airily. “And we'll be back at Ostia soon enough. They've served their purpose and prevented me from staining my soul, so what need I care? Ooooh, I can't wait to get back home and have piped water, and enjoy the lack of muck. Can you do my part in digging the grave? Pleeeeeeeeease? It would be no problem for a fit lovely mercenary like yourself.”
Fiora went still, her senses clanging. “We're not leaving the boy here. His family is in Ostia City.”
“I can consecrate the ground, if that's your worry. But I can't have half starved people who've spent three days hiding in that hideous black cave use the only decent stretcher to carry a body back down this horrible mountain! For starters, I need that stretcher for John. He really can't walk any distance, and maybe won't ever be able to. I won't have my healing disrupted by forcing him—”
Fiora grabbed her arm, and hustled Serra with her rising voice away from the surreptitiously glancing miners. “I'm not saying we give the body a stretcher. I've got the boy wrapped up. It can be carried like a sack. But I'm not leaving his family with nothing! You bring back soldiers. You don't tell people: we saw your son dead, but sorry we were too busy to bring him back with us. Have you any idea what that's like for a family? Without a body they trick themselves into thinking it was just another battle field mistake. Someone else died! We can't get vengeance just yet, but we can give solace, which is so damn important.”
Serra blinked. Her nose rose into the air a few ridiculous notches. “Don't be—don't be such a warrior in front of me. Damnation is a serious oath. And we have to be practical. There are only two of us who are healthy, and you're the only one with a serious weapon. We can't weigh down the party with a corpse.”
“Listen to yourself, Serra. That boy was someone's child. He deserves the respect of a burial with his family. And I am a warrior. I will be one in front of you whether or not it's convenient for your practicality. This is what I do. I bring the remains of people home.”
Serra looked as though she was about to pull a full on pout, with associated hissy fit, but something changed in her expression, and she looked over Fiora's shoulder at the seven people. “What if we had found them all dead?”
“I'd be making a lot of trips up and down this mountain. On my own, from the sounds of it.”
“You'd need a holy cleric like me to perform the sacraments,” the color of Serra's hair seemed to be flooding down her forehead, and draining slowly into her cheeks. “I couldn't leave you alone to bungle it. And you have to get back to your home before harvest. I would just have to insist on getting a proper escort together.”
Was Fiora really hearing that note in Serra's voice? As though the sister was impressed. Fiora felt smug, and knew it was sliding into her face and voice. “Stop being so considerate, Sister. You'll ruin your reputation with me.”
“Maybe it's a reputation that needs a little ruining,” Serra flipped one of her pigtails over her shoulder, nose ratcheting back up. “You've been treating me like a child. I've aced down dragons, and the mundane boring work of being a cleric for House Ostia, both of which are perfectly dreadful life changing experiences. I want—I would start with being your equal, and then we go from there?”
“I,” wonder if she could read my mind, Fiora thought, as the words caught in her mouth. She ws blushing now. Start with being a friend. “would like to try that very much, Serra. Now, shall we get this lot started down the mountain before the sun sinks too low.”
“You're in charge of the body, understand?” Serra glared.
Maybe later she would be able to tell Serra about what it was like, wondering if her mother had fallen on a distant battlefield, or if she had just left because Fiora was too self sufficient, Farina too proud, and Florina too needy. Maybe she could explain the expressions on the families of her former command, when she came back with nothing more than their bridles, because what the Black Fang had left wasn't capable of being carried, and vengeance had driven her.
Maybe Serra would explain why she had chosen to relent. These were the kinds of things that friends could say to one another. Things tht colleagues would not. But for now, they had to get some half starved people and one corpse down a mountain. “You organize the setcher bearers for your patient, and I'll handle the boy,” Fiora told her partner. “Then we'll go home.”