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Chapter 6

Rose first told Chiko, the only korvi who lingered in Fenwater on any regular basis. He dug gardens and latrines to earn his keep, and said once that his favourite work let him set his feet against the earth and do good, honest hauling. No one paid mind to that comment when asking him to fly; Chiko never complained.

He didn't complain this time, either, only clasped Rose's hands and promised all the speed he could muster. He winged off toward Greenway village, flapping hard, looking like a startled finch sailing away tiny over the trees. Once Chiko's wingbeats melded with the sky currents, Rose returned home, her insides still pinched tight with realization.

"Ah, strike a spark and you never can tell where it'll catch," Syril called as she approached. He was layering his goods back into a cargo pouch, grinning up through his breeze-swaying mane feathers. "But your villagers cleaned me out of the mint and tinctures. A thousand sorries if you had those in mind, Rose!"

Maybe the village truly did sense the same danger Rose did. They would accept her bolstering teas and possibly add a dose of their own tinctures: a little alcohol calmed the nerves.

"It's fine, good Reyardine. But may I ask you for an errand?"

"That's one of many services I offer, friend! My hands are safe to put things in, and I dare say you'd have a hard time finding swifter wings on person or beast!"

Rose held her own hands tight. "Then, would you go to Opens and speak to their leader for me? Ethen needs to know that I'm calling exodus."

"Exodus?!" Feathers rose on his back, their shafts spaced as wide as his spread hands. "Oh, skies, Rose, if you're the only-"

"Please be ready to leave in a moment," she forced out, her mouth wood-stiff. "I've got a payment for you, for your trouble. But you'll need to fly with all the fire you've got, good Reyardine."

If Syril noticed the quaver in her voice, he was kind enough not to comment. He stared with slate-wide eyes, and he nodded.

Rose thanked him. And then went to her storage baskets, hurrying to plunge her hands in, seeking a payment of anything at all.

Aemetkind ran from danger. Plant goddess Verdana built her children with deft senses and crickets' strong legs, so they could sense the wind and follow it to safety. Fear strummed Rose's tendons now - she craved escape like everyone else, but mages never ran when the demon struck. They stood calm and sage. They braced to meet the threat, even if they didn't know how.

As Fenwater village began its exodus, the air felt peculiar - not just from the churning breezes of one hundred people hurrying about, but from a lurid sense of fate, the skin-tingling awareness of a lightning strike an instant away. Rose searched useless through her dry herb supplies, airsensing every aemet footstep stirring dust outside. The shock of the exodus warning was gone; everyone's worry settled now into resolve. They moved in in blade-mouthed silence, with ferrin lolloping alongside to keep watch.

Released dogs barked in the distance, then crashed deeper into the forest; they might still ward off predators, if Fenwater had so much luck. There was no more shuffling from the horse stable, or muttering worry from chakdaw lofts, because those creatures gladly took their freedom in the plains grass. Only a few pigeons were kept, huddled in their locked crates. Rose had always thought pigeons to be simple-minded but now, the wary gleam in their eyes said otherwise.

In the next long moments, Rose checked each of her aemet kin. She turned her senses inward to the wet rhythm of breathing, focusing, letting her visceral wisdom decide. Father hadn't said it in as many words but this was the crucial time, choosing who to order away and who to hold back. Rose chose everyone's fate, now. She had to put faith in her own senses, however queasy the thought felt, swinging loose on a tether.

She hadn't called the exodus a moment too soon: in all of Fenwater, twenty-eight people breathed thickly. The demon's claws were already at their throats and running would bring a weak, exhausted death, possibly a desperate one alone in the fields. That knowledge ran chill down Rose's shell as she shook her head for each one. They all stared terror back - but they nodded for her, and told their neighbours quietly goodbye.

Rose wished the gods' good fortune on the rest of her villagers, in a voice small enough not to break. Families left, making use of their precious time - half of them strung along the forest's south edge toward Greenway, and half broke through the western grass toward Opens. They ran with a gait water-smooth, allowing their antennae little movement, keeping their airsense crisp enough to rely on. They carried drinking water tied against their lower backs and enough mementos to fill their pockets, and they kept sight of their loved ones; nothing more was important. Grass swallowed the fleeing Fenwater villagers, their movement blending away into the grass stalks and wind.

Twenty-eight names rang in Rose's ears, in time with her heartbeat. Their voices filled the training hall - which was a sickhouse now - with cuttings of conversation. Linens flapped and bed-shaped stacks formed. Rose showed the anxiously milling ferrin where to place the dry corn supply, and she turned to the woodpile - there wouldn't be time for gathering fallen twigs. Other, better mages might have had magelings to spare for that. Rose hesitated at the thought of her bundle of silver-faceted coal, reserved just in case. She thought of smoke muddying the air and she shoved the idea away. Fire god forgive them, but there would be no coal in Rose's sick house; they needed as much of Verdana's blessing as possible.

She had scarcely thought that when Fahras approached, rolling a rough-textured weight through the breeze. He beamed at Rose, over his wheel-shaped chunk of chestnut wood, and motioned to the fifteen other ferrin working in the street - hauling wood out of abandoned homes, pulling branches from hearths and woodpiles. The village was Rose's to draw from now. Homes without people weren't homes at all, just houses full of objects; she had to remember that. Dim relief flooded her as she pointed to a spot and watched a woodpile grow.

Within a moment, a pile as high as her hip was nestled against the sickhouse's outside wall. The Irving brothers discussed dry cotton sticks, and those soon stood piled for Rose's use, too.

Some villages had to burn house boards toward the end - goddess forgive them for even thinking it, trees forgive them. Rose remembered clattering sounds jarring through her sleep, remembered panic at finding her airway choked narrow, and heard voices and dry wood's burning crackle. If Fenwater needed to consume its own homes, she supposed, she could use her own south-facing wall. Its knots would burn slow. But that terrible possibility could wait.

The Fenwater ferrin ran more errands in the village, more trifling movements like stitches forming a finished blanket. Every home was picked over for supplies - bedsheets and herb leaves and salt - and all of it piled inside the sickhouse walls. Rose had every physic she could ask for and get. She called the ferrin before her.

"My friends," she said, her voice a weak buzzing inside her body; she was too numb to be scared anymore. "Thank you for everything."

Eighteen sets of ears fell. These folk would work endlessly as ants if Rose asked them to - they would do that for anyone, which was exactly why they needed to be told to leave Fenwater. Breeli and her mate would return with their five kittens soon, and Fahras was off filling water tubs; that modest crowd would be enough. Every other ferrin Fenwater sat gathered before Rose now, whiskers quivering, their attention soaking the air.

"Truly," Rose added, "Thank you. But you need to catch up to your families."

"Not as much as you need help," Miko replied, staring a question. She looked wrong without the Almast family's ankles around her; she looked too small.

Rose picked at a thumbnail, just once, controlled. "I've got plenty of hands here, with Breeli and Fahras and everyone. It's more important that you follow your families, since they'll need your help soon. Other mages will need you. Nearly sixty of our kin ran-"

The numbers loomed in her mind; the panic flooded. The demon sickness might catch all sixty of them, ruthless and thorough. The last words Rose heard from her villagers could be the goodbyes fresh in her memory.

"-And they'll need to be cared for," she said, "so please, go after them. Your friends all told you where they were running to, didn't they?"

Orrelin canted his head. "Will you be all right, though?" He never let the Trey family refuse his help.

"Of course. Arnon knew how to take care of this." If only he had taught Rose. She smiled hopeful; the motion felt mildewed and slick. "Hurry, all right? Gods watch you."

The ferrin hesitated, watching, before they turned away. They didn't believe her. They must have seen through her acting or smelled her fear, and dispersed so slow because their hearts weighed them down.

But they still obeyed. They tied meals inside kerchiefs and, with ears mournfully low, they bolted away after their aemet loved ones. Rose watched black and white tailtips bounce away, and lost track of those, too, in the fields.

She stood, drawn tight everywhere she had yanked words out of herself. People stirred in the sickhouse behind her. Flecks of Breeli's brass voice carried on the wind. Rose stared out at the field and turned back toward the tree-shaded streets; she was scuttling under endless sky, surrounded by trees taller than she would ever be.

Twenty-eight aemets remained, all of whom would smother in the demon's grip if they didn't receive enough care. Rose hoped fervent that her well of strength would last. And she hoped that other villages' mages would find enough strength to help Fenwater: aemet ancestors had learned that more folk lived when they scattered and fled, when they met enough plantcasting mages. Exodus rent a village apart, in the hope that its pieces might be cared for by neighbours. Rose couldn't know what Father went through when he had too many friends to heal. She could guess how much healing there would be, how much heartache and pouring out of strength - but only guess. So many answers lost when one person's heart failed to beat.

Breeli came out of the sick house, then, trotting straight as bee flight to sit at Rose's feet. Rose wondered if ferrin could sense feelings as particular as a need for company; she put aside her thought-wracked questions and watched Breeli pull a sparse-leafed sprig from her mouth.

"What's this in commontongue? Niro says it's good when folk are sick, he just can't grab hold of its name."

Wild ferrin - like Breeli's dear mate had been and still mostly was - had strong-built instincts and a knack for choosing plants. The shame was that they couldn't explain what they knew, not with their simple, eager sign language and newly learned words. Rose stooped to see the plant's leaves better.

"That's alfalfa. It's best used to coax a fussy appetite. Thank him, though." The thought of eating made Rose quiver inside; swallowing food would be the least of the villagers' worries.

"That's fine." Breeli ate the alfalfa sprig, and stared her concern. "Everyone's off on their way, then?"

"I shouldn't have sent so many of them."

Taking Rose's side as they walked, Breeli muttered, "I'll say. They could have helped you, not that the firewood pile isn't a masterpiece."

"I mean I shouldn't have sent away so many aemetkind. I should be looking after them."

"More of them?!" Breeli glared. "Do you remember what happens when the mage has too many?"

Rose looked away at the dirt. She didn't remember what happened, not the way Breeli could see it all happening behind her eyes. "What I mean is, I should be able to care for more folk if they need me."

"Do you know how many Arnon cared for, at the worst point?" Breeli's face softened as her voice did; her mouth twisted like this memory turned sour. "Thirty-three. He struggled like a drowning rat with thirty-three. Hardly more than you've got here, and Arnon had a way with healing like he'd learned from the goddess herself. There's only so much time to trade around, you know, when everybody's so damned sick. You've got plenty cut out for you, don't you dare wish for any more."

How selfish, wanting to do more; Rose throbbed guilty inside. She nodded.

"But I shouldn't have to tell you that, kit. You've got some good between your ears. As long as we get some helping hands flying in, you'll be fine. We'll see you through until then." Breeli jerked her head in invitation, dropping to four feet to patter quicker. "Before I forget, come have a look. We've shuffled the place around a little. I moved your mage things into your house, the better to make room for everyone in the sick house. You can tell me if I've made mud out of it all."

"Thank you."

"Whatever you need," Breeli replied. She looked back past her own orange-clothed backside, grinning. "And there'll be more you need! Count on it!"

Rose would need as many deft hands as the land could provide her. She would need healers, magelings or anyone with a scrap of skill. She couldn't remember, suddenly, whether she'd asked Chiko and Syril to recruit help, or even to return themselves for more courier work - but Rose must have asked them that. No one half trained would make such a gaping mistake. A chill unfurled inside her now, the sensation of forgetting something she couldn't afford to go without.

For one pleading moment, while watching the black-bouncing tip of Breeli's tail brush, Rose put her plantcasting-centered hands over her heart and prayed. Gods watch Rose and those in her care; High Ones forgive her for everything.

Following Breeli through the Tellig house door, Rose ran plant names through her thoughts again, sifting everything that might aid the body's natural restoration. Not knowing in the first place was wretched enough; Rose couldn't forget simply because of nerves. She was only beginning to review the uses of mint when Fahras flashed into the sick house behind her.

"Rose," he said, "I gathered the cotton bolls for you. But I can't find any thyme."

"Thyme?" She didn't recall asking for any. "Why?"

His ears fell limp. "Because Belladonna said pigeon broth with plenty of thyme is good for what ails, and Cliffton's gone off to the coop for her. I'm sorry. I told them what you said."

Rose stifled the urge to run after them both and chide them hard. She had a precious few hours where Fenwater villagers could still lend their hands; Rose needed all the help she could get, every shining drop. Her thumbs found each other and began to pick.

"That's fine. A small walk shouldn't hurt Cliffton, so long as he isn't coughing badly. And I can put herbs in broth just as well as anywhere else." She hoped she wouldn't be asked to break the pigeon's neck - thinking about it made her stomach turn over.

"Oh, herbs." Fahras said it like he had managed to forget about plants entirely. "All right. I'll just get water, then."

"Bring the river, while you're at it," Breeli said.

"If you'd like." Fahras looked between the two of them, his ears cocked wry. "You mean a few more buckets, right?"

Most ferrin couldn't lift a full pail of water, not when electric goddess Ambri shaped her children so small. But Fahras likely improved the cotton harvests by half, diligent as he was in his watering work. Rose saw him in the streets occasionally, carrying his sloshing pail back from the river, drawing damp-dark paths up and down the Irvings' field: he was a gift in stout wrapping.

"Just fill a few big boiling pails," Rose said, "If you would?"

He nodded and was gone.

"So that's the food, the water, the beds, and a whole mess of plants," Breeli said, climbing halfway into a storage box. "Look at this stuff, will you? There's got to be something else you need."

"Healing stones?" The idea sprang to Rose, a blunt-sudden memory of Father with a blinding quartz stone in his hand. "I might need bright and dark healing stones later. For if anyone is ... is suffering."

"Yeah, there's a bag of them over there." Breeli pointed, not bothering to remove her head from the box. "I can't tell their elements apart from a horse pie, but I know they're stones with a charge of something in 'em."

A cursory check - touching each stone and making contact with its cached magic - showed Rose a supply of four brightcasting stones and five darkcasting, all aptly charged. More than enough for pain relief. It was precious little balm on her worry; maybe she wasn't forgetting anything, and maybe there was nothing more to be done. She couldn't take that chance. She knelt by Breeli's side, to sort herbs yet again.