(Path of the Dragon Mage: Book 2) 4. Horse Maiden's Mercy (Patreon)

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Corvus caught Gwen as she collapsed. NightShade let out a brassy bugle of challenge which was echoed by half the horses in the camp. Baby Neville, who had been silent and deathly still, opened up his blue eyes and wailed. Dania let out a scream of her own and bent to scoop him up. Outside, her horse, a gelding, neighed out his own scream.

"Gwen!" Corvus's voice was lost in the sheer amount of noise. "Please, no... no..."

He pressed two fingers to her neck. Her skin was hot and damp with sweat. It seemed to take an age until – there! The briefest flutter of a pulse. Then another.

She was alive. Weak, but alive. She had chanced her life on the flip of a coin and had come out a winner.

So why had she collapsed?

No, you may not come in! Charm snapped inside his head and growled aloud.

He looked up to see Dania's gelding trying to force his way through the tent flap to see what had gotten his partner so emotional. Dania clutched the squalling baby to her chest, sobbing hysterically.

Between that, Charm who took up a good portion of the tent, and NightShade who was dancing nervously around... there wasn't much room. Someone was about to be trampled. Or eaten, if Charm got her way.

"NightShade, she's fine. You can't be in here. You, either." He pointed to the gelding. "Out!"

Both horses shot him a look of pure derision. He might be of the clan but they didn't have to listen to him.

Charm reinforced his order with a low growl that shook the ground under them.

"Gwen will be fine," he told NightShade.

The horse snorted and Corvus got a vague impression of a threatening 'She'd better be' from the animal. He had consumed a few extra companion essences over the last few years and his Deep Communication spell had increased to where he could make himself understood by Corvus – when he wanted.

Dania's gelding pulled his head out and NightShade walked out with a toss of his head.

Corvus slid his arms under Gwen's form and lifted. Oomph. She was heavier than she looked. Tall for a young woman and well-muscled due to years of hard riding, she wasn't a lightweight. He staggered to his own cot he used as a bed and set her down on it. She breathed, though it was shallow.

Transferring life force hadn't done this. He'd used the Spark of Life rune himself once. It only transferred a portion of the life force from one person to another. His guess was she had drained her mana reservoir by activating the rune.

"Runes are boring, Corvus. They’re your thing, Corvus. Not mine," he grumbled in a high parody of her voice before dropping into his own. "Yeah, until you need them."

He couldn't believe she'd taken that risk, and he planned to tell her all about how stupid she'd been... when she woke up.

First, he would see to the baby.

He turned to Dania. "I need to examine him."

She didn't seem to hear, too busy cooing and laughing in joy. The baby was red-faced and screaming, and she couldn't be happier.

"Dania," Corvus said, "He needs water. Fetch him a bottle and I'll take a look at him."

Finally, she seemed to hear him. She hesitated for a moment – unwillingness to part with her baby plain in her eyes. "Gwen fixed him, didn't she? What did she do?"

He saw no need to hide the truth from her. "Transferred a piece of her life force to him."

Dania stared. "You couldn't do that? What about them spells and such?" She looked at the rug... which now had the muddy imprint of a hoof in the middle. Thanks, NightShade.

"It's dangerous," he said, "She very nearly could have lost her life."

"She’s the Horseman’s daughter. She knows her duty," Dania said but handed the outraged Neville over before running out of the tent to get to the bottle.

Ungrateful brat, Charm said. I could eat her and leave the baby parentless. Is that what she wants?

Corvus shook his head. Her words hardly mattered. They just added another layer of frustration to the growing maelstrom in his heart.

It was easier to focus on Neville than sort through his own feelings. He brought the squalling boy to the rug and activated the most basic diagnostic runes. Luckily, his mana had recovered enough for that.

A series of lights appeared over Neville's body – all showing normal.

When he had stepped into the position of Clan Healer, he had inherited all the texts and scrolls from those who had held the job before. Most of it detailed how humors interacted with the body. However, there were a few crumbling pages filled with odd phrasings; Cells and immune system, which sounded like the Path system but made no sense in that context.

And here and there had been scattered runes. Some of those had been diagnostic tools.

All the lights blinked green, which was good... but they had blinked green while Neville had declined due to the Blight, too. Until the very end when his body started to shut down.

Do you think it worked? Charm asked.

"I'm cautiously optimistic–" he started to say. A standard healer's answer. That had been in the texts as well. But this was his dragon he was speaking to. Someone who knew his heart better than he did. "Yes, I think her stupid hare-brained idea worked."

You're angry.

"Yes, I'm angry! How many times have I offered to teach her runes? Yes, her mana pool is minuscule but she could grow it. She can have magic at her fingertips, but she doesn't care–until it suits her! Until she almost throws her life away doing..." He trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut, hating himself for his next thought.

Of course, Charm could guess anyway. Doing something you feel you should have done.

"I've used that rune before."

On my egg, to save me. That was good, this would have been foolishness.

"He's just a baby."

Now you're going to go out and save every child in the city’s Blight wards? she said, throat swelling in a way she got just before she was going to breathe sunlit fire. Don't pretend you weren't thinking it. If you could find a way to save this child, you would have gone straight there.

"That's not a bad thing!"

It is when it has a fifty percent shot of killing you. She hissed. Which gives a fifty percent shot of killing me. You might be soft and squishy for this baby, but I am not.

“Charm–“

I'm not the only one. You saw how upset NightShade was. Horses don't die, but he would have lost his companion forever. And all this for a baby? It doesn't even talk fluently yet.

Neville had calmed his screaming, though he was still very fussy. No wonder. He was probably thirsty, hungry, and judging by the smell, could use a diaper change.

He sighed. "I can't think that way."

Great, then I'll do the thinking for us.

"I'm the clan's healer."

Then why does it frustrate you so much?

As usual, she had cut to the heart of his annoyance. He wasn't angry at Gwen – well, yes he was – but at its heart, he was angry with himself.

With a grimace, Corvus brought up his skills list for them both to see.

Basic Skills

Animal Handling: Intermediate 4

Animal Healing: Beginner 9

Climbing: Beginner 3

Cooking: Beginner 8

Emotional Control: Intermediate 11

Dragon Riding: Beginner 5

Firestarter: Beginner 9

Horseback Riding: Intermediate 2

Haggling: Beginner 7

Healing (Herb): Beginner 5

Herblore: Beginner 9

Hunting: Beginner 8

Leadership: Beginner 9

Trick Riding: Beginner 7

Combat Skills:

Short Sword: Beginner 7

Wield Machete: Beginner 3

Wrestling: Beginner 8

Horse Folk Martial Art: Beginner 9

Magical Skills:

Rune Charge: Intermediate 20

Rune Lore: Intermediate 14

General Skills:

Rune Magic: Intermediate 25

Subskill: Rune Ownership: Beginner 7

Literacy: Intermediate 37

Subskill: Forgery - Beginner 9

Deception: Intermediate 17

Subskill: Detect Lies - Intermediate 10

Subskill: Diplomacy – Intermediate 15

Dual Wield - Beginner 8

Wield Machete (dual wield) - Beginner 3

Throwing Accuracy: Intermediate 21

Knife Throwing (dual wield) – Intermediate 19

"I didn't gain a single skill from this, which makes sense because I didn't do anything, but... look at this, Charm. It's unbalanced. I'm not where I should be. My skills are unbalanced and I just feel... stalled."

She cocked her head.

It's not bad if you were Path of the Healer.

"Not great for Path of the Dragon Mage." He sighed and admitted something to her that he could not say to anyone else. "Healing is an honorable profession, but I could someday be King. Right now I'm fit to heal noblemen of gout, not lead them."

Maybe you're not stalled. Maybe you're ready for your next step.

With a wince, he looked at his three choices.

His first subclass had been Hedge Witch. That had dovetailed nicely into a Witch Doctor subclass upon accepting the elders' request to step into the role of a healer.

His next three... were strange.

Witch Professor

Runic Combat Medic

Rune Merchant

These had caused him no little stress because none of them seemed tied to the Horsemen clan. It meant, one way or another, his time was the clan was coming to an end.

Corvus might be frustrated with his current lack of growth, but he had loved his time living among the clan. The last couple of years had been the happiest of his life. He wasn't sure he was ready for it to end.

But it was coming to the point where he wondered if they were holding him back.

The woman has returned, Charm warned.

Dania rushed back into the tent, a bottle of water in hand. The moment it was put to his lips, Neville started sucking vigorously.

Dania looked at him. "Well?"

"I'm cautiously optimistic," Corvus said.

* * *

Gwen started to stir and wake well after dinner.

Corvus, who sat at her side, silently handed a cup of water freshly dipped from the camp's well.

"How is he?" Gwen asked, struggling to sit up.

"Sleeping. A natural sleep. You healed him, for what it's worth."

She gazed at him for a moment through startlingly blue eyes.

"You're angry with me."

"I'm angrier with myself for not having the courage to activate that rune, first." Talking to Charm had helped him work through his feelings. "But yeah, I'm angry at you, too."

Gwen nodded. She didn't apologize. Instead, her eyes went distant.

Ding!

Quest Log (Gwen, Daughter of Tiana)

Quest: Horse Maiden's Mercy

The Wind Runners of old knew that they were only as strong as their weakest member. Now, one of your weakest is failing. Do you have what it takes to risk yourself and give an innocent a new lease on life?

Rewards: New Path user added to the strength of your clan.

Failure: None. This is an optional quest with a 50/50 % chance of success or death.

He swayed in place, feeling like he'd been punched. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked down. "Because I wasn't going to do it, at first. That's why I ran off. I couldn't stick around and watch the baby die when I... I had the chance to save him. I remembered that rune you used, and when you told me the price. I didn't want to do it."

He stared at her. Gwen had never once admitted she'd been too afraid to do anything. He didn't think she was capable of it.

"What changed your mind?"

She shrugged. "I knew it would eat at me, having the ability to act but not the willpower. NightShade tried to talk me out of it, but... I made him take me back. It worked out."

"And Neville will be able to walk the Paths," he said. He suspected that was the case – Larissa said she gained her ability when she overcame the Blight as a baby. But the wording of the quest was as good as confirmation.

"Yeah, but it won't happen until he's ten, right? He'll just be a normal kid until then?"

He nodded, sitting back. "He'll be a normal kid after. Just one with a clearer Path–"

"No he won't," she said, suddenly fierce. "I'm almost as strong as my brother, and he's looking to be the strongest in the village. I can outride my Dad, the Horseman, if I want. NightShade can run on moonlight. And you–"

"What about me?"

She scoffed. "Okay, you can't outrun me, but you remember everything you read. Your brain is like a book with perfect print. You're barely eighteen and the best healer the clans had ever seen, and you aren't even trying to be one. You can throw a knife, pin a horsefly to the wall, and then set it on fire with a rune. That's not normal."

He took that in for a moment, hesitated, then asked. "Do you wish you never learned to walk the Paths? Do you want to be normal?"

"Don't be stupid," she said then abruptly pushed the blankets aside as if she had not been laying bedridden a few minutes before. Her ability to recover was well beyond his.

"You should rest. You drained your mana. That's not–"

"I'm fine. Gotta go apologize to NightShade for putting him through that." Gwen stood on her tiptoes, threw her arms around his neck, and brushed her lips against his cheek.

It was over before he could recover. All he could do was stare stupidly down at her. "What was that for?"

"For not yelling and carrying on, even though I could tell you wanted to." She smiled impishly and turned to go.

Sputtering, Corvus said, "Maybe I haven’t gotten around to it yet!"

She waved off his words. Then, just before she reached the door, someone threw the flap covering the entrance aside.

It was Markus, the second in command for the clan's Horse Warriors. "Corvus, you're needed in the Horseman's tent immediately."

"What's wrong?"

Markus's lips were pinched in a thin line, barely visible under his bushy mustache. "The city guard's up in arms. They claim a dragon has been spotted in the sky."