Maybe his destiny was to drive a king to madness.
The convoy made way. The druid went by wagon with the injured warrior, making routine checks on his wound. By evening, they’d put leagues between them and the pile of bodies. Though the stench of blood was still clotted in his garments. The men gathered by the fire and a post was made around the perimeter to keep watch.
“Don’t be careless with it,” the druid chided, helping the man out of his mantle. His name, he learned, was Alak. Alak was a good listener and didn’t talk too much. “Come by the fire and let me get it stitched before we lose the daylight.”
The druid slid off the end of the cart and turned to help the man down. Alak was a fair measure larger, and the druid had to use both hands to steady him. As he took a seat aside the pit, the druid sifted through his satchel. He had made a bone needle and had bartered some thread in the villages in the days prior, though had not expected to need it so soon. With careful hands he cleaned the wound and prepared his tools with a flask. With a knowing look, the druid held the flask out in offering.
“Aye,” Alak said, taking a long swig.
Suturing flesh was a gruesome business. It was quiet, but some distant murmuring about the pit. The Vaich had not spoken since morning, save a loud and heated argument between he and Aard Rask, which everyone heard and pretended not to. No one ought to have been privy to a father berating his son, and indeed, the druid might have closed his eyes and imagined the king as an unruly child. After that embarrassing display, the Vaich hid himself away in his tent, and with his silence, the mood for revelry had died.
“There,” said the druid, paring off the thread with the edge of his blade.
“Ye’ve been a great help to me,” said Alak. “I thank ye, woodsingr.”
The druid nodded and let the man go off to fetch his plate. For a time, the druid observed the Féin. Some sent him curious glances, as if wondering what trick he might perform next. Others went on, ignoring him entirely. Korv was there, hobbling about the camp. Memory seemed to spare hima great deal, but the king’s beating had not. The “why” seemed a question on no one’s mind.
No one’s… except the druid’s.
Try as he might to forget what happened in the forest, it pinched at him like unseen pests. The Vaich’s frustration burned at him hotter than any ill-intentioned touch. A body was a body, but a mind another matter. He supposed, in that battle, he had won.
But the druid felt no joy. He couldn’t recall the shape of it. Even out here, beneath the sky, he was made no more whole. The parts of him that had been left along the way were scattered to the wind, and he returned to his wilds most unfamiliar.
It ached.
Not the heat of the fire or that undeniably sought-after place between his legs, but the ring on his finger and the crown on his head. He was born soft and fleshy and had been made into metal, and felt ugly and resentful of all of it.
And who was to blame?
Men or their gods or unlucky happenstance?
Maybe he ought to give up. Maybe he ought to have let them all become bones on a battlefield.
They were already so very hollow.
“Fine dagger, that. Ken how to use it?”
Startled, the druid looked up to see Nacht. He hadn’t heard him come up. In fact, he hadn’t heard anything. It seemed less a testament to the enormous man’s prowl, and more to do with the druid’s quiet dissolution.
“I…” He tried to remember the question. “No, I’ve…”
“It’s no use to you if you cannae wield it. And you ought to, out here on the road.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but my people do not believe in violence.”
“Maybe they should.”
The druid felt a flicker of anger, but the holler shook his head. “It willnae be their choice in the end. That’s the matter of it. If you cannae defend yourself, your principles are dust.”
“So we should lower ourselves to meet those who would create violence against us?”
“Aye.”
The druid scoffed, but the holler’s hand obscured his view. Nacht didn’t touch him, but waited, his face patient. Gingerly, the druid placed his own within, until his palm was swallowed up by the larger man’s girth. Despite the warrior’s unsurprising strength, his restraint was sure in the gentle way he handled. His thick fingers remained loose around him, as if inspecting.
“Soft,” he muttered, “though… not delicate. Callouses, even now.”
“I am an herbalist,” said the druid. “Not a fighter.”
