The Deepest Poison Read Free Page A

rights.”
    â€œTheir motivations aren’t our worry. We needed to know the source, and now we do.” I walked away and stopped. Miss Leander had stayed in place, frowning at the water tanks. A low airship thrummed overhead.
    â€œThe Wasters didn’t simply remove some of the enchanted rods, or steal our herbs,” she said, the latter in a whisper. “This is more. It’s not dysentery, or cholera, or any of the enteric illnesses that strike a camp because of natural zymes in the water. I know the songs those maladies create. This is new, something different. It’s intentional poison.”
    I nodded. Wasters were worthy of many expletives, but for a certainty, they were not stupid. I reached into my satchel for pen and paper. I did not trust this news to travel accurately by mouth. It took a few moments for me to write a letter to the Lieutenant Commander now in charge of Five, and another to be expedited to base camp. All water tanks, all medician storage, must be guarded.
    I finished, rather pleased with myself. Miss Leander was unusually skilled, but her focus had been myopic. I had done what was required and inspected the tanks to find the problem. The crisis was not over, but we could proceed from here.
    Miss Leander had wandered a short distance away to pace the embankment just behind the water tanks. Her wand and satchel smacked her hip with rhythmic beats. “There’s no way to know where the water was poisoned. It could have happened in the tanks when the medician rods were removed, but the river is the ultimate source. But how far upriver? Where? ” She stared across the water at the white slope.
    â€œThat doesn’t matter if the rods function.”
    â€œBut there will always be men who lazily fill their canteens from the river or go bathe—­”
    â€œIn which case, they get what they deserve,” I snapped. Why couldn’t she let things be? “It’s not as if we can put water samples in a circle and listen for zymes. We—­”
    A trumpet’s blast echoed across the shallow valley. We froze for a split second as horror sank in, but we quickly shifted out of our paralysis. Miss Leander unholstered her wand from its loop as I did the same with mine, the two of us relying on the weapons we had on hand.
    Cantonment Five was under direct attack.
    We ran through the tent-­lined avenue. Around us, soldiers scampered for their duty posts—­and then we crossed to the stricken side of the camp. Men unable to stand dragged themselves behind barrels and sandbag walls, loading rifles with trembling hands. Others remained prone in snow that persisted in the shadows of the lane.
    Miss Leander quite suddenly spun like a Mendalian dervish and threw herself to one side. I had a split second to wonder why, then the brown blur of a riderless horse lunged from between the tents.
    I had no chance to dodge. I crashed into the horse, its shoulder as solid as an iron mooring tower. My backside met the dirt, the gray sky whirling as if viewed from a child’s spin-­about. Trumpets and hoofbeats and yells took on a tinny cast. I touched my head and found sticky warmth.
    Then Miss Leander was over me, her hands yanking me up. “The blood was the horse’s, not yours. You just have a concussion, thank the Lady! It’ll pass by the time we reach the wards.” She dragged me forward.
    At that moment, I hated her, this most brilliant student of mine. For her vocal and fervent faith in the Lady, for the sensitivity that warned her of the horse’s approach by the cry of its blood, for how she lorded her blessed insights over me without even intending to.
    Before I found Miss Leander, I had been the most powerful medician in Caskentia. My aptitude at a young age even enabled me to have an audience before the late King Kethan. Now it was as though I wore the customary headmistress title of Miss Percival simply because I had borne the