Dragon's Fire Read Free Page B

her, she’s impossible to get back to sleep.”
    “What are you doing camped out here on Gar land?” the first man asked.
    “We’re heading down to Southern Boll,” Zist said quickly. “We were hoping to trade tunes and news.”
    “That’s harper’s work,” the man said.
    The man was only visible as a shadow in the night; Zist couldn’t see his face. The question was, was the man one of the Shunned or one of Hold Gar? And if he was from Hold Gar, was he the same one who’d burned the other wagon—if that’s what had really happened?
    Cayla took the decision out of his hands. “We’re hoping to sing to those that harpers wouldn’t.”
    “You wouldn’t know any healing would you?” the woman at the back of the wagon called out anxiously. “For my Jenni’s got a terrible fever.”
    “I don’t know much,” Cayla said cautiously.
    The woman rushed from the back of the wagon and into the firelight. In her arms she held a tightly wrapped bundle, which she started to thrust into Cayla’s hands but stopped, thinking better of it.
    “Maybe you ought not,” the woman said. “My Jenni’s got a terrible fever; I wouldn’t want your wee one to get it, too.”
    “We’ve probably all got it,” the man by the fire grumbled sourly. “Three dead already…”
    “They weren’t the ones in the wagon a ways back?” Zist asked thoughtfully.
    “You found them, eh?” the man replied. Zist nodded and the man peered at him thoughtfully. “Thought it was some holder folk who set fire to the wagon, didn’t you?”
    He saw Zist’s reaction and laughed bitterly, shaking his head.
    “Other days it would have been,” the man said, and spat toward the fire. “Some of them
holders
would do it just for fun.”
    “You shouldn’t say that, Malir,” the woman snapped at him. The baby in her arms bawled feebly and she forgot whatever else she was going to say, instead peering down worriedly at the baby and feeling her forehead with her free hand. Horrified, she cried to Cayla, “Oh, she’s burning up! Is there anything you can do?”
    “When did the fever start and were there other symptoms?” Zist asked, turning to the woman.
    “What about those others you mentioned?” Cayla asked, turning to Malir.
    Malir gestured to the woman across the fire.
    “Yona knows it all, let her tell it,” he said, turning abruptly and disappearing into the shadows to confer, Zist guessed, with the others who had kept out of sight.
    Zist turned back to the woman, Yona.
    “Here, sit down by the fire,” Cayla said, gesturing to a comfortable spot.
    “Start heating some water,” she ordered Zist, “and get the herbals from the wagon.” She paused, frowning, frantically reviewing in her head the lore she’d learned from Mikal about fevers. “I think Carissa is safe enough in the wagon for the moment.”
    “She is, with my man and his crew guarding us,” Yona declared.
    As Zist set about his errands, Cayla turned to the other woman, for the first time able to examine her carefully. Yona’s face was lined with dirt, grime, and the strain of years of rough living. Even so, Cayla noted, there were laugh lines around her eyes. Life had been hard on Yona, Cayla surmised, but not unbearable. At least until now.
    “So tell me about the others,” Cayla said, making herself relax in order to encourage Yona to do the same. “Who got sick first and when was it noticed?”
    “Mara was first,” Yona said after a moment’s reflection. She shook her head, adding, “It’s hard to remember, because Kenner got sick just after and then their baby, little Koria.”
    She raised her eyes to meet Cayla’s and told her, “I’m the one the others come to for healing in our group. Not that I know all that much, it’s just that they started asking once and they’ve never stopped.”
    Cayla nodded understandingly.
    “So it was Mara, Koria’s mother, then Mara’s mate, and finally their baby—was that the order?”
    Yona