‘I’m not sure,’ I said. There wasn’t much pain. But I’d heard that the shock of a wound could keep a man from feeling pain at first. I turned away from Duril and staggered a few steps towards the fire, fumbling at the front of my shirt as I went. It seemed a private thing; I wanted to be alone when I discovered how bad it was. I managed to unbutton my shirt and pull it open just as he caught up with me.
‘Good god, help us!’ he muttered, and it was a prayer the way he said it. Before I could stop him, he leaned forward to probe the injury with his fingers. ‘Oh, thank all that’s holy. It’s just a jab, Nevare. You’re hardly hurt at all. A flesh wound. And there was a lot of flesh there to wound, begging your pardon. Oh, thank the good god! What would I have said to your da, before he killed me?’
His knees seemed to give out on him and he sank down to sit beside Dewara’s fire. I turned a bit away from him, strangely embarrassed that I was not hurt more severely. I wiped my bloodied hands on my shirt and then gritted my teeth as I prodded at the cut on my belly. The sergeant was right. It was scarcely bleeding now. I felt humiliated that such a minor injury could have stopped me in my tracks and made me drop my own sword. A fine soldier son I was! The first time I actually faced an enemy in combat, the old man had disarmed me with a minor poke in the gut. The thought of my own proud sword lying in the dust shamed me. I went to retrieve it.
The light was going rapidly. I found my blade by touch, sheathed it, and then stooped to pick up Dewara’s swanneck. For one boyish instant, I thought of keeping it as a trophy. In the next, I felt repulsed by such a vainglorious thought. I hadn’t even killed the man who’d wielded it. I shifted it in the firelight, and watched as it illuminated the gleaming bronze blade. Then I went queasy at what I saw. A full four fingers of the blade’s tip was bloodied. It had gone that deep. With my free hand, I groped at my injury. No. There was almost no pain.
It made no sense.
I carried the swanneck back to the fire where I could look at it more clearly. Sergeant Duril was recovering from his fright at my injury. He stood up as I approached the fire. ‘Leave that!’ he ordered me harshly. ‘Leave everything, just as it is. We need to get down that trail before it gets any darker.’
He walked away from me. I stood alone in the firelight and stared at my blood on the blade. I lied to myself, pretending that perhaps it had run there. I knew it hadn’t. The swanneck had pierced me, had gone right into my gut. And my flesh had simply closed itself when he pulled it free. The blade fell from my hand and landed in the flames. I turned and walked away from it.
I didn’t look at Dewara’s body as I passed. When Duril announced, ‘We’re leading the horses down the trail, at least as far as the switchback,’ I didn’t argue with him. Instead, I followed him just as trustingly as I had always followed him when I was a boy.
I didn’t dwell on what we left behind us. I doubted that either the boy or the old woman would admit to anyone that they had betrayed Dewara’s hiding place. Even if they did, even if we were connected to his death, he had attacked me, and Duril had saved my life. It felt strange to leave him lying where he had fallen, but it would have felt even more wrong to take his body and bury it elsewhere.
Darkness filled the narrow canyon like water fills a bucket. ‘Can you ride?’ Sergeant Duril asked me gruffly.
‘I’ll be fine. It wasn’t much more than a scratch.’ I hesitated, and then asked him, ‘Are you going to report this to my father?’
‘I’m not going to report this to anyone. Neither are you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, relieved to have that decision taken from me so firmly. We mounted our horses and he led the way back towards home.
We rode without speaking through the deeply shadowed canyon. When we emerged onto the plain, we came back out of night into evening. The last light of the setting sun still washed red across the flat lands. Duril stirred his mount to a faster pace and I pushed Sirlofty up alongside him. He didn’t turn to look at me when he spoke.
‘Well. You got what you were after?’
‘I did and I didn’t. Dewara’s dead. I wasn’t after that, not really. But I don’t think he would have let it end any other way, once he knew what I’d done. But I don’t think I solved anything tonight. I’m still fat. According to Dewara, I’m still in Tree Woman’s power.’ I shook my head wildly. ‘And it all sounds like a strange old tale told by a fireside. How can I believe anything so bizarre?’
He didn’t say anything. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I pondered everything that had happened. ‘He knew,’ I said at last. ‘Dewara knew what had happened in my dream. And he couldn’t possibly know that, unless he was there. And to him, it was just as real as our visit today. According to what he believed, the Tree Woman somehow enslaved me with her magic and doomed me to be, to be – this!’ I could scarcely contain my disgust. ‘If I believe him, I’m doomed to be this for the rest of my life, and perhaps worse things will befall me. Maybe I will go on to betray all of Gernia!’
‘Easy, boy. Don’t give yourself too much importance,’ Duril warned me, a sour touch of humour in his voice. It jabbed me.
‘But if I don’t believe him, if I say magic doesn’t exist or has no power over me, well, then, none of it makes sense. Then there’s no reason for me being fat, and that makes it even harder for me to know what I’m going to do about it. How do I manage it, Sergeant? What do I do? Believe Dewara’s truth, and give up because the magic will use me as it wills, or believe in my father’s world, where I don’t know why I got fat and nothing I do seems to change it?’
‘Hold up a minute,’ he suggested. He reined his horse in and I pulled Sirlofty to a halt beside him. He dismounted and tightened his cinch. ‘Came loose coming down that trail,’ he observed. Then he looked up at me, squinting his eyes against the fading sunset. ‘Never used to do that, Nevare. The “keep fast” charm held it tight. And now it doesn’t. That’s proof enough for me. The plains magic is fading. Will you think me a fool if I say I’m sorry to see it go?’
‘I’ll never think you a fool, Sergeant Duril. But are you saying that you believe in magic? You believe I went somewhere with Dewara and that Tree Woman stole part of my soul, and that I took it back and killed her? And you believe that my being fat is not my fault but the magic affecting me?’
Duril mounted his horse again. He didn’t say anything as he kicked him to a trot. I started Sirlofty after him, and in a few moments we were cantering. Before full night fell, we were back on the river road. We went more slowly in the dark and finally he answered me.
‘Nevare, I don’t know how to tell you what to believe. On the Sixday, I worship the good god, same as you. But every time I saddled my horse for the past thirty years, I’ve made the “keep fast” sign over my cinch. I’ve seen a windwizard, and I’ve seen gunpowder send a bullet on its way. I don’t really understand how either one worked. I guess what I believe in is whatever works best for me at that time. I think most men are like that.’
‘What am I going to do, Sergeant?’ I didn’t expect him to have an answer. I was shocked when he did. His voice was grim.
‘We both have to pray to the good god that you can find a way to turn the magic against itself, I suppose.’