Simus remained at his side. A silence fell between them then, surrounded as they were by the buzz of talk. Wild Winds could hear horns in the distance. “Horns?” he asked.
“To warn of the monsters,” Simus explained. “Of the wyverns.”
“Describe them,” Wild Winds said. “Tell me what happened. All I knew was the collapsing tent and pain.”
Simus obliged him, describing the creatures in detail, explaining what he knew of the attack and the rescue.
“There is nothing like that in my memory,” Wild Winds said. “Or in the memories passed down to me. Perhaps the Singers know more. Essa lives. He was here, earlier, speaking of our losses.”
“Did he have numbers? Names?” Simus asked.
“I do not—” Wild Winds sighed. “We spoke, but it is a hazy memory.”
“Of course.” Simus shook his head. “Forgive me.”
“We of the Plains are diminished, not defeated,” Wild Winds said. “Seek Essa. He will be the one to decide how we proceed.”
“I will,” Simus said.
The mushroom was beginning to dull his pain, but did nothing for his eyes. Wild Winds winced again at the light, and fumbled for the wet cloth. Simus took it from his fingers, and settled back over his face.
“My thanks,” Wild Winds said, grateful for the relief from the light. “And Simus?’
“Yes?’
“Be good to her,” Wild Winds said.
“My oath on it.” Simus’s voice held a note of joy he’d not heard in a long time. “Never fear. She is the flame of my heart, Wild Winds.”
Satisfied, Wild Winds let the mushroom pull him down into sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Simus finally gave up trying to locate Essa among the wounded and went to ask Hanstau and Cadr for help.
The truths he’d discovered searching for the Singer, however, were dark. He’d walked between the pallets, speaking to a few, observing others, taking a head count and wincing internally at the results. There was no saying this was all; there may be many others that were with their own people, not needing Hanstau’s care. But the living were few.
And the dead numbered far too many.
The wounded and the healthy were starting to stir in the camp. The shock of the recent events was wearing off. He could feel their eyes on him and the weight of their questions.
Pity he had no answers.
He found Hanstau at Haya’s side, cleaning a wound in her upper arm. “We will not use bloodmoss,” he was explaining through Cadr. “The claws of the beasts are filthy and I fear for infection.”
Haya glared at Simus. “Finally,” she said. “Seo? My camp?”
Simus knelt. “Minor injuries, no deaths,” he reported, and watched the tightness clear from her eyes. “Seo was taking the children to a winter lodge for safety.”
“Good,” Haya grunted. “Smart. But what of the future, Simus of the Hawk?”
“Wild Winds told me to seek out Essa,” Simus said.
Haya gestured outward with her good arm, toward a thick patch of the tallest grasses. “Behind there, off by himself,” she said, then sniffed. “Sulking, to my way of thinking.”
Hanstau paused in his work, looked at both of them, and spoke in rapidfire Xyian.
Simus nodded, and Cadr translated for the benefit of the others. “He says that as to Essa, he can heal wounds, not hearts. I don’t understand.”
