“So long as only the enemy dies.” Marcus growled. “Up now. We need to be ready when the Warlord calls us forward.”

We mounted up, with Gils scrambling to secure the pack horse with the healing supplies. The leather jerkin was chafing at the back of my neck, and I shrugged, trying to get comfortable. How did these people wear this all the time? But then I looked over at Rafe, wiping his eyes, probably from the fumes. I sighed, and resolved to live with the discomfort of my armor. At least for now.

As we moved out, Prest leaned over, and handed me a small wooden shield. I took it, surprised at its weight. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

He grinned at me, his teeth white against his dark skin. “Hide behind it.”

Iften had moved his warforce into position, ready to strike like a sharp knife. The warriors were poised, lances rattling in the quivers attached to their saddles. Their horses were churning the ground with their hooves, eager to run. My horse, on the other hand, was drowsing, his head hanging low.

From where I’d been positioned, I could see the village, with the ‘P’ on the gates, the blood now dried and brown. It looked small and vulnerable to my eyes.

“All right, Lara. I say again, what is ‘plague’?”

Keir sat next to me on his horse, in full battle gear. Those blue eyes that had been soft and warm in our bower under the alders were cold and hard.

Having talked to the others, I was ready for Keir’s disbelief. I described a plague, and told him the precautions the village would have taken. “To a Xyian, the ‘P’ on the gates is a warning of horror and death.”

“We know nothing such as that.” Keir offered, staring at me intently. Iften was seated next to him, but he said nothing, choosing instead to glare at me through his blackening eye. I returned Keir’s look calmly, never so conscious of the gulf between us as that moment. Were we so very different? And if so, could we ever truly understand each other? My fears surged a hundredfold, for it meant that he had no understanding of what he faced.

I gestured toward the village, careful to keep my head still so that the helmet would stay in place. “Keir, the plague is a danger greater than any army, and your weapons are useless against it.” I’ll never know why, maybe the look on my face, but thank the Goddess, Keir listened. He turned his head and looked at Rafe. “Has she told you what to do?”

“At least ten times,” Rafe flashed us a grin, his eyes still watering. “I’ve donned my armor, Warlord, against the Warprize’s invisible foe.” His voice sounded odd, what with the cloth in his nostrils and mouth. “I’m ready.”

“The skies be with you.”

With that, Rafe turned his horse, and started toward the walls at a walk. We’d gone over the various words for illness and plague, and Rafe had repeated them to me. He was to approach the gates, learn what he could, and report.

I shifted in my saddle, making the leather creak beneath me, startling my horse. He flicked his ears back, and I patted his neck to reassure him. I’d have to think of a name for him.

I looked out, and Rafe seemed to have barely advanced. Another fidget on my part drew Epor’s attention. He had positioned himself on my right, by my horse’s head. He turned his head so that he could see me from the corner of his eye. “Warprize, if an arrow flies, we’ll head for the rear, away from the combat. Is that clear?”

I nodded, which just made the helmet tip forward and block my vision. I pulled it back into place. “I understand.”

“A pity,” Isdra’s low comment came over my shoulder. “He’s never tied a warprize to a tree before.”

The chuckle from the others made me smile too, a bit ruefully. Somehow I didn’t think it would take much on my part to get Epor to make good on Keir’s threat.

As Rafe continued to amble down the road, fear clutched at my heart. What if I was wrong? What if the villagers were defying the Warlord? If so, they were defying me as well. Queen of Xy, I’d made the decision to bind our peoples together. Or at least to unite with Keir for that reason. They could be resisting my decrees as well as breaking their oaths to Keir.

If so, this army was poised to teach them the error of their ways. I had no false notions as to the strength of the village’s walls, or their weapons. Keir would kill everyone, and burn the village to the ground, as an example as well as a punishment. When word went back to Water’s Fall, what effect would that have on my people? My Council?

Yet I almost prayed for a rebellion. Better that than plague. Goddess above, how could I explain the dangers to a people whose worst illness was a head cold? Plague respected no boundaries, no rank, or worthiness. You couldn’t rush the treatment of plague either, forty days being required to assure that the contagion was gone. How could I tell Keir that he’d have to wait that long?

I shifted the shield on my arm so that it rested in a different place on my thigh. How did they carry these heavy things all the time?

There was another factor, one that I didn’t even want to admit to myself. The last plague to afflict Water’s Fall had been the sweat some twenty years past. I’d been a babe at the time, and been told that I’d had a minor case that I’d recovered from quickly.

Could I deal with this on my own? Never mind that the supplies I had with me might not be enough, that was an entirely separate issue. Could I diagnose and treat an entire village?

My horse sensed my unease, shifted his weight and stamped his front foot. I patted him again, letting him settle down. Maybe something from the Epic of Xyson would do. I frowned trying to recall what Xyson had named his battlesteed. Blackheart? Stoneheart? Something-heart. I had a copy with me, I’d look and see. Of course, that horse had been a warrior, a true battlesteed. I smiled as I felt my horse shift its weight, and lower its head, clearly about to take a nap.

I felt my shoulders relax a bit too. I’d learned at the hands of Eln, a true Master of the healing arts. I’d learned the symptoms of the four major plagues, could recall their history back to Xypar, some five generations back. We’d had warning before being exposed, messengers could be sent, help would arrive.

But like Gils, confronted by a living, breathing, wiggling patient for the first time, I had my doubts.

‘The first rule is to never let them see your doubt.’ Eln’s voice whispered in the back of my head. ‘You try. That is all you can do. All any of us can do.’

I smiled at the mental image of my master, but the smile faded from my face.

Rafe had reached the gates.

He seemed so small, seated on his horse before the walls. He was staying at least a horse length away from the structure. I saw him tilt his head, and call out to the villagers, the faint echo of his voice reaching us on the wind. I held my breath, but no heads appeared, no rocks, no arrows. Just silence, and the sound of the warriors around us.

Rafe called again, and then set his horse to walking back and forth in front of the gates as he stared at the wooden structure. I held my breath, and then had to breathe again and again as he stood before the walls and called. My sorrow grew as the silence did. How many were dead? Or dying?

Keir signaled to Ortis, who put his head back and warbled a cry. Rafe raised a hand, turned his horse and headed back to us.

At the midway point, he stopped as instructed, took out the bottle of vinegar, and leaning over, washed his hands and face with it. I’d told him to repeat the action, and watched as he did it four times. I could just make out his lips moving at this distance, and I was sure he was invoking each of the elements.

Once that was done he rode up to us, his face red from the scrubbing. “Warlord, there was no response, no sound, no movement that I could see through the chinks in the gates.”