Chapter 12: The Peculiar Efficiency of Ministrians

Several guards stood strong and imposing at the gate of the large fort. In contrast to these daunting figures were a couple dozen Trohls slouched with rags on their backs. They were all younger men, or mere boys, with their hands atrophied and curled in toward their chests. They huddled at the side of the road; malnourished, defeated, ignored. One of the captors cursed and kicked at a nearby boy. Used to such harsh treatment, the child dodged the attack.

“Why do you assault him?” Toar complained.

“These sinners?” the soldier snorted. “They are punished and set out here, free to die and spare the earth of their burden,” he smirked.

“What was their crime?” Toar asked.

“They asked too many questions,” the soldier grinned.

As they entered the fort, Carringten and Baet regarded it with a warrior’s eye. To one side of the fort were the buildings of the Ministrians; offices, barracks, warehouses, mess halls, also the tents and shanties of the commoners. The other half was a prison for Trohls. A fence of uneven wooden slats, six to seven feet tall, ran around the prison. The wooden slats looked weathered and easily overcome. Baet suspected he could break the boards with his bare hands. Still, the walls of the fort were a good twenty feet high with multiple towers and a continuous parade of armed guards. The fort was a hive of uniformed activity. Patrols marched, guards eyed everything with suspicion, while various officers moved about with their entourages.

In contrast, the Trohls sat about and mostly did nothing behind their fence. Most of the slaves were women, children, and the infirm. Just like the caravan that passed, there was a lack of fighting age men. Baet frowned as he considered what this might mean for him and his companions.

“Where are your doctors?” Carringten asked the guard.

“They are summoned,” his captor replied.

Shortly, four men arrived. Carringten was not impressed. They looked disheveled and sleep-deprived. He wondered how they hoped to care for someone on the verge of death when they could not comb their own hair.

“Well, let us see what we have...” Celt said as he stepped to the litter. He pulled the blanket from Creigal, cut the duke’s shirt, and lifted it. He coughed as the sickly sweet smell of rot intensified.

Murmurs arose from these other men as they whispered in astonishment at the duke’s infection. Celt dropped the shirt then turned and lifted it again so he might gape at the monstrous infection once more.

“Well, I don’t... I don’t know that I ever...” he began. “This man is all but dead. There is nothing we can do for him,” Celt said as he scratched at the rat’s nest on his head and let Creigal’s cut shirt drop from his hand.

“Nothing at all?” the captor asked. “What if I said he was a man of great repute?”

The surgeons whispered among themselves for several seconds as they continued to stare at the hideous rot. They poked and prodded Creigal’s side. Creigal moaned in protest and squirmed under their indelicate fingers. Celt came away from the other surgeons. “It is not possible,” he frowned and shook his head. “At any moment he will die.”

“Non, you old fraud,” Toar snapped at the man. He turned to his captor. “There are adepts among my people that can cure this. If I can find one among those others…” he waved at the people in prison.

Celt’s mouth hung open as he stared at the uncivil young Trohl. He sputtered and stammered, then interrupted. “Look here, you backwater savage! Any bigger than a man’s hand, and the infected never lives! This infection is five, six hands, easy! We will not throw time, effort, and good medicine after such a lost cause!” Celt turned to his cronies and they all nodded emphatically.

“A man’s hand...” Toar repeated and shook his head, then turned from Celt. “The village where you found us, are the inhabitants among this pitiful lot?”

“Except for some of the smarter men...” the guard shrugged.

“Hazle lived in that village. She can heal him,” Toar replied.

“What makes you think so?” the guard asked.

“She healed me, and my condition was quite like his.”

“Nonsense!” Celt shouted. “If that were true, you would have a fantastic scar!”

“You wish to see it?”

Celt nodded.

Toar hopped off his horse, pulled down his pants, and revealed the massive web-like scar on his butt.

“How is it possible?” One of the surgeons began.

“It is a fraud!” Celt said as poked Toar’s scar with his unkempt nails.

Toar flinched at being touched. He frowned and pulled up his pants in short order. “If this Hazle is here, she can teach you all to heal the rot,” the lead guard said to the surgeons. He turned to one of his own men. “See the Trohl into the pit and try to find this witch.”

As Toar left, the surgeons continued to admire the spread of rot on Dandifrod’s side. “How long has he suffered this mess?” one of the surgeon’s asked.

“A week,” Carringten answered.

“It is not possible!” another gasped. “Two—three days max! That is all they ever live!”

Carringten shook his head. “There are ways to retard its progress.”

“How? How have you done this?” Celt asked.

Carringten shrugged. “You will have to ask the Trohl when he returns.”

~!@#$%^&*()_+ 12.2 +_)(*&^%$#@!~

Toar wandered about the prison and asked after Hazle. “She is an apothecary and a midwife. She is a healer of exceptional skill,” he explained to yet another prisoner.

The woman shrugged and wandered away with a bothered expression.

“I know Hazle,” a passing man volunteered. “She delivered my son and my daughters—before these barbarians stole them,” he whispered this last part.

“I am Toar. I was in your village many years ago and apprenticed to the witch for some months.”

“I remember the look of you. You were younger and skinnier back then,” he smiled. “My name is Brankellus,” he said, and shook the young Trohl’s hand.

“Where can I find her?” Toar asked.

Brankellus shook his head. He leaned in close and whispered so the guard might not hear. “She went east, two days before the Ministrians came for us. She is surely alive and far from this sadness!” Brankellus smiled. He turned to several others. “They can tell you. She is not here.”

Toar frowned.

“Don’t be sad,” Brankellus told him. “She is free! It that not the best of it?”

“I am in want of a healer and I need one of such high skill,” Toar revealed.

“If you knew her, then you know she had many apprentices,” Brankellus noted. “Some are here. You will see. I will send for them.”

Shortly, a bright-eyed girl appeared. She was quite young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years. “I hear there is need of a healer,” she said, as she glanced nervously at Toar’s escort. “If I am given medicines, I will do what I can to help.”

“You are so young,” Toar frowned.

“I studied under Hazle over half my life. I may be young, but I assure you, I was the best of her pupils,” the girl stated.

“A man suffers the bugger rot,” Toar replied. “He has suffered seven days. He is quite on the verge.”

“The bugger rot...” The girl blanched. “If there is no one else to heal him, I shall try—but I have little hope,” she shrugged. “I have only assisted the cure of the rot, and I found the treatment confusing. If there is time to go slow and study, I may be able to heal your man.”

“You said there are more apprentices?” Toar asked Brankellus.

Brankellus shook his head. “If Lilyanah cannot cure it, the others will be no help. She is the best among them.”

“There are three of us here,” Lilyanah began. “The others have only apprenticed a few years. We can do many things—but there are advanced techniques that are still beyond us—including the siphoning of the rot,” she shrugged.

“Give it up,” the guard admonished. “Is it not clear to you that the gods come for your master? Your time is better spent praying for his soul.”

With a heavy heart, Toar gave the villagers a weak nod. “Thank you for your time,” he said as he walked out the gate and returned to his friends. As they approached, Toar found several more men gathered around Creigal’s litter. They counseled among themselves a short distance from their prisoners. “Who are these?” Toar whispered to Carringten.

“They did not announce themselves—though the men sure stood up crisp when that one approached,” Carringten replied.

“Can they heal the rot?” Toar asked.

“Non, but they whisper of some traveling witch doctor with knives and a bag of herbs,” Carringten shook his head. “They say he set a guard’s broken arm and neatly stitched a couple others.”

Toar frowned. “The rot is a long way from setting a bone or stitching a cut. Besides, knives and herbs do not make a healer. For all we know, he is a cook, and a bad one at that.”

“They seem convinced,” Carringten shrugged. “Did you find your Hazle?”

Toar shook his head.

“Then what other option is there?”

“Not that we have much say in the matter...” Baet added.

“It is best this high officer is involved. The surgeons would likely kill our master and not even mind it,” Carringten spit. “At this point I feel they only want to study his corpse.”

“This stranger might kill him all the same,” Toar replied.

“Without treatment, he is already dead,” Carringten shrugged. “At least he shall have a chance.”

The high officer turned to the nearest guard and gave a nod. Several men lifted the litter with Creigal on it and started away.

“That settles it,” Carringten said. He turned to their guard. “Sir, if they take our master to this witch doctor, send this man with him. He is a healer and can gauge this stranger’s capacity.”

“He is not needed,” the guard claimed. “Do not fear! If there is something that can be done for your master, it will be done; Gliedian takes a personal interest,” he whistled to his men. “Take these three to the pit and see they each get a cot!”

“Then we are common prisoners?” Carringten asked.

“You are nothing without your lord,” the guard told him. “If you value your life, pray for his.”

“Give me a priestess, and I shall pray and worship into the wee hours,” Baet stated with a smirk.

One of the guards cuffed Baet across the back of his head. “Get moving, you!” he snapped.

The guards herded them into the prison. Once inside, the guards turned away and promptly ignored them.

“So much for getting a cot,” Toar noted. “What now?”

“This wall won’t keep us in,” Baet said in a low voice.

“We may get out of the prison—but we won’t get out of the fort,” Carringten noted.

“Too many guards...” Baet frowned.

“We need to know where they took our master,” Carringten noted. “When it gets dark, I’ll do some reconnoitering.”

“And us?” Toar asked.

“Let’s bother your cousins and see what they have to say about this place,” Baet suggested.