Heal and Be Healed

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Trigger warning — this story contains:

- Reference to:

- Sexual violence

- Depictions of:

- Physical violence, gore or abuse.

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The Mother laughed. It was a gentle sound, full of mirth, but not a single soul in attendance took it at face value. Only after her stony features returned to her and her smile faded back into a contemptuous scowl did she reply at last to the man who kneeled before her.

"War?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. The whole summit was silent.

The man, an emissary, kept his head bowed. The eyes of every son and daughter of Obol had gone wide and fallen upon him after the tidings he had brought.

“Yes, Great Mother,” he said. He sounded younger than he ought to have been to make such a journey alone. Perhaps he was not alone when he left, wondered Pelchra. She shuffled where she stood amongst the other disciples in the stands.

“You did ask me to keep it succinct,” the emissary went on. He was bold, for a young man. A heavy axe hung at his side, curved and elegant to Pelchra’s eye, especially for a tool of Woodling origin. His face was scarred.

“I’d now ask you to do the opposite,” the Mother retorted. “War has not found our mountain for longer than its history cares to record. We aid all who pass us by, such is our oath, to Obol; your people know this well. The Coastals know this too. What reason would they have to invade?”

“You’ll recall, Great Mother, that you refused to sign the Treaty of Nesting, some ten-or-eleven summers ago.”

“I refused to let your lords and ladies tax my coinless people. I recall, yes.”

“The Treaty, Great Mother, addressed more than the matter of tithes.” There was a flicker of irritation in his voice now. Only the Mother would dare show such disagreement with a Woodling’s lord in front of him.

“It established territories,” the young man went on, “and the rights of all the kingdoms to their borders. As Obol’s Peak did not claim its own, it fell within the boundaries of the Woodling Fiefs. My Woodlord Bellun’s, to be precise.”

“As your people make so clear, every time they send me a new emissary. I have never met this Bellun,” the Mother said. “What claim does he have to my mountain?”

“Great Mother, I beg of you. My lord did not send me here to discuss the matter of land, nor tithes. I was sent here to warn you of war. A courtesy to those who live under his banner, whether they bow to it or not.”

The Mother glared down at him from her throne of stone and moss. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled just the same, and every one of her children seemed to visibly relax in the stands around their guest. The emissary furrowed his brow, disconcerted.

“Then warn us, traveller,” she said.

The emissary nodded. “The Coastals may have no formal qualm with you, but they have grown resentful of the ways of my people,” he began. “Of the spirits we worship, the songs we sing and the stories we tell. They are a people without gods, forged from greater hardships than my people or yours have yet known.”

“Poor souls,” whispered Pelchra. Several of her siblings echoed the sentiment around her.

“You fear them,” deduced the Mother. “You think you will lose this war.”

“There is a very real chance that we will, yes.” The emissary looked up at her. “Great Mother… Historically, you and your children have not allowed bloodshed in the shadow of Obol’s Peak —”

“Nor will we ever. We will not be made a part of your war.”

“My lord does not ask you to fight. He asks only for the right to defend you and your children.”

“From what? You said yourself that the Coastals have no qualm with us.”

“The Coastal monarchy recognises the Treaty, Great Mother, even if you do not. As far as their generals are concerned, Obol’s Peak is the nearest area of Woodling territory to their own borders, and they are as likely as anything to invade this place first. Not to mention, they are intolerant of gods, saints and spirits, as I mentioned. With every ounce of respect, Great Mother, I’d wager they want nothing of your Obol.”

The Mother looked about the summit, at the nervous faces of her children, then back to the emissary at its centre.

“You said you are likely to lose,” she said, voice softer. “Would your Lord Bellun not prefer to spare his soldiers for your cities?”

“In all honesty, Great Mother, I suspect he would. But we do not take our oaths and policy lightly in the Fiefs; our men are yours if you’ll take them. It would be a small company, mind you, but I’m told we can spare enough to surround the mountain, and do our best to keep them out for a time, if nothing else.”

The Mother’s eyes fell to her children again. She was silent for a few moments, then gestured for the emissary to rise.

“Enough kneeling,” she said. “Let us discuss this in more detail, and in more comfort.”

#

That was four hours ago now, to Pelchra’s count. She and the other children had been dismissed from the summit, to return to their duties until the Mother had come to a conclusion.

She laboured now in the oxen stalls to the mountain’s southeast, on the flat, fertile land that surrounded it. Work assignments on this side of the mountain were less common, and the stalls were small and few in number. Pelchra’s charge was to raise the beasts until they had a team of eight strong adults, enough to pull a plough together, to ridge and furrow the virgin land.

“She would never allow steel to spill blood beneath this mountain. Or on it, for that matter,” said Morsen as if he could read her thoughts. “It has to be something else that they’re discussing. Something she didn’t want us all to have to worry about.”

Pelchra pursed her lips in thought, then poured a bucketload of cracked corn, grown to the mountain’s north, into a trough. Once she was clear of it, Morsen released his admittedly-ceremonial hold on the large, juvenile oxen that was waiting for its lunch. It lumbered forwards and began to eat.

Pelchra placed a hand on the animal’s flank, stroking it as she spoke. “Do you really think the Coastals would invade the mountain? Would… Kill us? Just for following Obol, and for neighbouring the Woodlings?”

“I’ve never met a Coastal,” Morsen said with a shrug. “I don’t think the Woodlings would kill us, but they know us rather well. We’ve healed their scouts and rangers for decades now. The Coastals don’t know our ways any better than we know theirs, really.”

Pelchra nodded, sighed, then stepped outside to gaze out across the fields, with Obol’s Peak to her back. The Coastals’ provinces were almost directly south of here, and she stood nearly on the edge of the land she called her home. A short walk west, and she and Morsen could be at the closest possible point to them without leaving their sacred borders. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“I wonder when they’ll come,” she said, quietly. “If they do at all.”

“One would hope,” Morsen began, raising his voice from inside the stall so that his curious friend might hear him, “that the Woodling’s scouts learned of their plans well in advance.”

Pelchra’s cheeks went hot; she hadn’t realised how far she had wandered, and how quietly she had spoken. “They train good scouts, do they not?” she asked, more loudly this time. “Surely we’ve been given some time to prepare, before the alternative.”

Morsen grumbled, or maybe grunted, in affirmation. An oxen mooed low from behind the stall he worked in.

Pelchra sighed deeply, to quell the fluttering in her chest.

She couldn’t pull her eyes from the southern horizon.

#

The sun had very nearly set when the man arrived. Having taken their break for supper in the stall, flanked by jealous oxen in their pens, neither child of Obol had been outside to see him limp across the grassland.

His hand met the entryway of the stall with a loud slap as he stopped to support his weight on it. Pelchra jumped, and half-choked on the bread she had been chewing. She began to cough and wheeze as Morsen addressed the intrusion.

“Hail,” he said, extending one open hand to Pelchra, as if to calm her, and another more cautiously towards the stranger. The man looked to Pelchra with wide eyes — fearful eyes — then to Morsen as he spoke.

“H-Hail,” he stuttered. He was middle-aged or a bit younger, with a gruff but kindly voice. “I’m deeply sorry, e-especially to you, madam. I didn’t mean to shock you. I didn’t realise anybody was about.”

“No harm done, sir,” Morsen began. His eyes went to Pelchra, who finally hacked her last, belted at her chest, and cleared her throat. Her face, again, was ripe with embarrassment. “Relatively,” Morsen went on, mumbling.

He rose from his stool, and took in the way the man was standing. From the way he was leaning on the stall for support, it was clear to a healer that he had injured his leg. He wore the garb of a simple farmer, with a small satchel of supplies on one hip, and a cheap, sheathless dagger pinned behind a leather belt on the other.

“Do you know where you are?” Morsen asked, as Pelchra drank some much-needed water. They had been eating a cold meal of salted fish and pork, alongside the bread that had made an attempt on her life.

“Obol’s Peak,” said the man. “Or that’s the name of there mountain, anyway. There are supposed to be a group of healers here, and helpers.”

“You’ve found them,” Morsen said, gesturing to himself and Pelchra. “And you’re hurt. Come, sit down on my stool here and we’ll take a look. What’s your name, and what happened to you?”

“Coruff, and… Men-at-arms. Ruffians, only armoured,” Coruff began, wincing as he allowed Morsen to help him from the entryway to the stool. “From the south, they must’ve been. I work a plot of land in the Between, y’see, and — “

“I’m going to need to see the leg,” Morsen cut him off. “Would you rather I pull down your trousers or cut them?”

“Pull them down. Sorry again about this, madam,” Coruff said, eying Pelchra. She smiled a little, and shook her head. “I’m as much a healer as Morsen here is, Coruff. I’ve seen worse than a man without trousers. And, my name is Pelchra.”

“Pelchra, and Morsen. Good then — uh, as I said, I work land in the Between. Spelt, mostly. And I’d never had any trouble with the Coastals, or whoever this lot was, or the Woodlings or any of my neighbours.” He adjusted so that Morsen could tug down his woolen trousers.

“But these men, they came and they knocked on my door, said my spelt was theirs now, damn them. Their sergeant wanted to live in my home, and when I told him no, he had his biggest man pick me up by the shoulders, and push me through my tool shed. I’d only half built the thing, and it came down on top of me.” Coruff winced again, eyes darting to Morsen as he prodded about his leg. “Careful there, Morsen.”

“Sorry, sir. It’s —”

“Coruff.”

“Sorry, Coruff.” Morsen smiled empathetically. “You aren’t bleeding, as I’m sure you can see, but something’s certainly wrong with your knee. It’s a little bruised, but you’d be able to walk on it more easily if that’s all it was.”

“It’s the knee and it’s the shin,” Coruff said. “Smarts something fierce.”

Pelchra bit the inside of her lip, as they went on talking. With what they had learned earlier in the day, she was perhaps a little oversensitive of news from the south. But a group of men-at-arms suddenly moving north, and evicting people from their homes sounded too specific to ignore.

“What happened then?” she blurted, accidentally interrupting whatever it was the two men had been discussing. She swallowed awkwardly in the ensuing silence.

“Yes, well…” Coruff sighed. “Well he took my house, and my wife with it, the sergeant-bastard. I imagine he’s been doing loathsome things to her all night, as well as eating all our food. The big man told me to run away or he’d kill me, so I came here, to the north, because I’d always heard that you people lived in the mountain. I’m rather surprised to find you so far away from it.”

“It’s only a short walk,” Morsen said, chuckling.

Pelchra nodded, anxious. She had always found it to be a unique and unpleasant feeling, to know that a woman was being exploited by a man so far from where anyone could do anything about it. Come to think of it, it was very peculiar in general for a person from the Between to come here, under duress or otherwise. She found herself ruminating on the implications.

The Between was a strip of overgrown nothing between the Coastal’s provinces and the lands of the Woodlings, and was only really good for living away from the world, as Coruff did, or moving between two places of higher importance.

It was probably perfect, Pelchra suddenly imagined with dread, for moving an army. She swallowed. She could feel sweat on her brow.

Morsen seemed to notice her nerves, and shot her a look of caution. He rose. “Coruff, let’s you and I wait here with that leg while Pelchra here fetches some supplies. We aren’t equipped out here to heal you, and the longer you spend sitting down, the better. Pelchra — linen, for the cold, and some herbs, balms, oils or poultice.”

Pelchra rose, only somewhat grateful for the distraction, and nodded to her sibling. “I won’t be long,” she said. “As Morsen told you, Coruff; it’s only a short walk.”

#

The torchlit gate to the storerooms at the mountain’s base grew closer with every nervous step. “I am willing to place my trust in Obol, as ever.” She told herself in the dark, trying to sound convincing. And dark it was, now.

She nodded to herself as she came in through the open gate. “Yes… Yes anything less would be — well, it would bring us uncomfortably close to those who start all these wars, wouldn’t it?”

The storerooms on this side of the mountain were dimly lit, but they were clean, and smelled pleasant. People rarely came here, even in the middle of the night, but it was oddly quiet regardless. Only a single horse was in the stable, just outside.

Pelchra rummaged for the warmest linens she could find, skin slick with fearful sweat. Her mind raced.

Should she warn the Mother, while she had the chance, that a man had come in from the south? Was the emissary still around, to defend them if he turned out to be a threat? The children of Obol were not just pacifist — they had no idea how to fight at all. In an emergency, children's blood would be spilled. But Obol taught that such emergencies simply did not happen. Not on the mountain. Not so long as you would heal, and be healed in turn.

So no, she decided again. She would do nothing, for Obol would have done nothing. She found herself relying on the old Rotes, even as she gathered up the linen in her arms. She was a daughter of Obol, and needed nothing more, she thought to herself. She was a daughter of Obol, and needed nothing more.

But then her hands found something wet and warm in the linen chest, and she froze. She knew the feeling all too well.

Blood, on the skin of a corpse. It stained the linen and clung to her fingers.

She tossed the chest’s heavy contents aside until she could see the body. A child of Obol, stuck by gore to their robes, lay dead at the bottom of the chest. She did not recognise them.

She went cold, and quiet. She could not close her eyes. She could not scream.

The horse outside suddenly whinnied, and Pelchra darted for the storeroom door. The woodling emissary sat atop the horse now, fixing something to its flank. He looked up at her, startled by the creak of the door.

“Ah,” he said, sheepishly. Blood speckled his young, scarred face. “By the look of your hands, you found one of your fellows.”

Pelchra stood frozen, confused and afraid. The emissary bade the horse forward, and what he had fixed to its side came into the light;

The Mother’s severed head hung from an iron hook, by a knot in her hair.

“I do apologise,” the emissary said, sombre. “They have my home, and my wife. Said they’ll pass us by if I do this for them.”

He walked the horse past Pelchra, towards the gate. Blood pounded in her ears. Her voice had fled her entirely.

“Take your people, and move away,” he continued. “They’ve sent a man to confirm my report. He’s out there somewhere.” His axe glistened with blood, bouncing with the movement of his steed. “Once I do, their army will come. They will kill who I have not.”

She stood there staring as he left. He worked the horse into a canter, then a gallop, and very soon after that Pelchra was left alone with her thoughts, and a body, and bloody linens in the dirt. She willed herself to scream, but couldn’t.

She could only watch in silence as the man rode straight for the oxen stall.