Chapter 9 Sage
Sage
By the time Sage has gathered and piled up everything they can salvage—her personal supplies and weaponry, their packs, fewer than half of their food stores that haven’t been trampled into the dirt, and the scattered cold-weather clothing and blankets left unshredded by teeth and claws—Bramble is nearly done tending to the party’s assorted injuries by firelight.
They finish wrapping Tea’s ankle in cabbage leaf and cloth while lecturing the despondent spellcaster about keeping her weight off it as much as possible over the next two days.
“Can’t you heal it now?” Remy asks impatiently, ever an eye on making it to the Swallow before the season turns.
“I prefer the gifts of the natural world to the gifts of greater beings when the injury isn’t urgent, and when remedies will work as well as magic.”
Remy shoots Sage yet another disappointed look, and she can’t blame him; trust her to hire the only healer in Harrow who is shy of beseeching their god and prefers poultices to prayers.
Araphi’s forearm is similarly wrapped, after slathering it with a paste of yarrow and calendula and an herb Bramble tended and harvested in their home village, which they say will leech the poison from the shallow wound and help it heal.
Thankfully, the wolf’s barbed spine only gouged the skin rather than piercing deeply.
Her swoon had as much to do with shock as pain.
“It’ll ache as it’s mending,” they caution Araphi, “and it may scar a bit. But look at it this way: You’ll be able to say you had a brush with a barbed wolf and lived to tell. ”
With a withering glare, Remy dissuades Bramble from examining him, before stalking off toward the ruins of his tent.
Meanwhile, Nura is the only one uninjured and seemingly unbothered among them, munching happily on a squash and cabbage hand pie scooped out of the wreckage.
(It only had a little dirt on it, she insisted.)
At least they still have Reaper, ever loyal.
Sage had caught a flash of him around the time the wolf grew threefold, and diverted just long enough to whistle him back.
He’s no worse for wear, thank the gods. Sage stands at the edge of the firelight, stroking his flank soothingly even as she twists the knife of her own shame and guilt to slice at her heart.
Araphi is sorry for failing to tie up the horses properly and neglecting to relieve them of their burdens, costing them their mounts and more.
Tea is sorry for casting an enlargement spell on the wolf when she meant to shrink it, costing them their supplies.
But this really is all on Sage, the loss credited to her poor leadership.
If she hadn’t retired early, if she had checked on the horses and the perimeter before retiring, if she hadn’t allowed visions of Araphi to distract her…
A twig snaps underfoot behind her, and Sage tenses a moment before Bramble announces, “Your turn, boss.”
“I’m fine,” she insists, then stifles a hiss as she turns. The fight and the collision with a tree trunk certainly didn’t do her any favors, but she clenches her teeth. The last thing her party needs now is a weakened leader.
Alas, Bramble asks, “If that’s true, how come there’s blood on your shirt?”
“It was already like that. See the stitches? Brush with a bandit’s ax blade in the Swamplands. I couldn’t toss a whole shirt because of a little stain. Only had the two.”
“Righteously monastic.” They don’t seem swayed, though.
Sage relents, unbuttoning her loose woolen shirt to slip out of it, hoping Bramble will be satisfied by a look. She shivers in her linen chestwrap (far more comfortable than stays for winding through undergrowth, and far more convenient than a shift).
Bramble politely declines to remark upon the souvenirs of adventuring written across Sage’s body, though their eyes flicker briefly across the old, once-vicious scar that runs a full hand’s length from her lower left rib across her stomach.
They circle her to prod at her back with large but gentle hands.
“You hit that tree pretty hard, but nothing feels swollen,” they appraise.
“Try and move the shoulder? Carefully, though.”
She rolls her shoulder slowly, and while it isn’t pleasant, the joint doesn’t feel particularly tender. “See?”
They back off, raising their hands in surrender.
“All right, all right. Just tell me if it swells or stiffens up or starts to feel loose in the socket. And tell me if there’s any trouble breathing, as that could mean bigger problems. Meanwhile, I’ve got a heartleaf paste to help the bruising; just give me a minute. ”
“Might as well save your supplies.”
But Bramble’s already rooting through their pack. “Listen, boss, is this a party or isn’t it?”
“I’m not your boss,” Sage reminds them, then glances around the clearing at their cluster of tents. “But yes?”
“A party takes care of each other, just like a village. Which means you have to let us help you, at least some of the time.”
“And what if the party wants to help by fighting a barbed wolf with a burning stick?” she asks wryly.
The distant firelight flickers off the shockingly symmetrical planes of Bramble’s face as they produce a small jar from their satchel, scoop out a generous amount of gingery-smelling green paste, and rub it between their palms to warm it.
“Maybe you should give her a weapon,” they say simply. “And our wizard too.”
Later, lying atop her bedroll on her belly to let the heartleaf paste harden (and gods be damned, the herb does ease the dull ache of the tree’s impact), Sage considers this.
She’d counted upon Araphi’s hopelessness in a fight, and rightly so.
She just never counted upon Araphi’s attempting to fight.
That was her true mistake, and a costly one.
Because Araphi, an uncrowned princess of Harrow with no adventuring experience who left behind a life of luxury—not to mention a fiancé—to trek to the Northlands and back with an utter nobody of a party leader is brave if she’s anything.
Sage will correct that error first thing in the morning.
They’ll have to decide the best course of action, with their mounts and supplies depleted, but they can spare an hour to teach Araphi and Tea the most basic points of parrying and stabbing.
It may come in handy sooner rather than later, should they meet with any trouble on the road.
She’ll even ask Nura to help out, which should shut Bramble up about parties and villages.
Sage closes her heavy eyes against the firelight and folds her arms over her head to muffle the snores and sighs of the other party members sleeping under the open sky, and the pacing of Remy’s boots, the Agent having claimed first watch.
At least the adrenaline and the comedown after battle have cured her of her insomnia, she thinks just before she drifts into sleep.
“First things first; widen your stance. Feet apart and braced, with the weight on your back foot till you thrust. Hold it forehand, like this.” Nura adjusts Araphi’s grip on her practice dagger—whittled from a slim branch to serve their purposes after their meager breakfast—avoiding the bard’s bandaged wound.
“Now move your back foot first and follow through with your shoulder; don’t just jab with nothing behind it.
The power doesn’t come from the arm, but from your body. ”
The teenager’s proving herself a much better teacher than Sage would have been.
Sage is nearly as skilled with her daggers as she is with her bow, but far less skilled at slowing down and explaining herself to a pupil.
She’s largely here to help, parrying Nura’s blade for the purpose of demonstration as their party fighter explains forehand and backhand thrusts, a proper guard, and how to cut from the side rather than rushing forward with the blade above her head, as Araphi had first attempted.
Tea sits on the stump of a fallen tree, nursing her ankle and sullenly clutching her last remaining book to her chest as she watches Araphi practice.
The bard isn’t particularly menacing in a lavender riding dress and pants, both of which seem too diaphanous to be practical, but they never get tangled around her boots as she lunges and dodges gamely.
“Now, if they come up behind you instead of from the front, you’ll want to spin and parry with the flat edge of your dagger, like this”—Nura demonstrates on Sage’s blade—“and then back into your stance.”
Araphi’s bright eyes track Nura’s movements, then she fumbles with her practice blade. “What if they take my dagger from me?” she asks.
“Don’t let them,” Sage insists.
“Fine, then. What if I drop it?”
“Why would you—”
“Good question!” Nura slices cheerfully through their bickering. “It’s important to know how to avoid a blade, even when you haven’t got one. Let’s say your enemy has you at knifepoint, again from the back. Sage, behind me?” she prompts.
Dutifully, Sage slides into position, with her arm across Nura’s chest to hold the tip of her dagger to Nura’s throat.
The fighter is shorter than her, but deceptively wiry.
“Now watch, both of you,” she reminds Tea.
“I bring my hands up like this, see? Like I’m showing the enemy I’m not holding a blade. ”
“Because you dropped it,” Araphi goads, meeting Sage’s eyes over Nura’s head.