Heart of Dorkness

Scourge Eighteen - Sore

My feet are more sore than they’ve ever been by the time we’re approaching the second outpost on the route south of Vizeda.

It’s been a super long walk, and I’m glad to see the end in sight. My friends look exhausted too. Even Felix, who's the lightest and most fit of us, isn’t walking with her usual happy bounce and is trudging along as if she’s having a hard time carrying herself.

The worst part of it is glancing at the boys. They’re a bit tired, sure, and dusty from the road, but not one of them looks as tired as we do.

“At least there’s someone at this one,” Esme says.

I glance at her. She’s shading her eyes from the light of the setting sun and looking out ahead, so I follow her gaze to the walls of the outpost ahead.

Unlike the last outpost, this one isn’t atop a hill. There aren’t any hills for it to be atop of. The entire area around us is made of flat, nearly barren fields. There are patchy woods further out, and a river maybe ten minute’s walk away from the road, but not much else. There is more interesting stuff to the east, woods and mountains that stand out in the distance, but that’s about it.

The outpost is much larger than the last. It has the room to sprawl out, and I suppose that in such open terrain, they can see any monsters coming from a long ways out and prepare to react in time.

The tiny figures of guards are standing above the walls and in the towers. People!

When we finally arrive by the gate, they’re opened up from within, and the caravan rolls into a continuation of the road that clearly split the outpost in half.

To our right, on the west side, is basically a small town. A lot of little homes crammed in together, with just enough room around them for gardens and a couple of chicken pens. To our left is a large barracks next to a larger roadside inn. There’s a stable past that, and what looks like a training yard behind that.

A couple of guards jog up to the front of the caravan as we come to a stop, and I see Teo climb up to gesture Esteban forwards.

I really should be paying more attention, but my feet are killing me, so I just flop up against the side of the cart and hiss as I pull my feet off the ground. The worst part is the pain in my shins. I didn’t know those could hurt just from walking a lot.

I’m almost dozing when Teo walks over to us. “Girls,” he begins. “We’ll be unloading a good portion of our stock. Can you take care of bringing Inigo to the infirmary? Should be in the barracks.”

“Thanks,” I say as I hop off the cart. My feet hitting the ground makes me want to wince, but I hold it back. I don’t want to appear weak. “We’ll take care of it, no worries. Are we staying at the inn?”

“We’ll talk about it after,” he says. “Just get our friend taken care of. And maybe see if the local healer can do something about your feet. We have another few days of walking ahead of us, and we’re not going to slow down for any of you.”

“Right,” I say. “Thanks.”

I glance at my friends, but none of them seem ready to protest. Esme picks up the logbook and tucks it under an arm while we move over to the cart that has Inigo. He’s on the very back, with a few spare blankets bunched up under his head and tucked up to his chin to keep off the chill. He’s asleep, which at least means he’s not babbling as much.

“How do we do this?” Bianca asks.

“One per leg, and two of us grab his upper body?” I ask. I narrow my eyes. “Wait, no. I’m being an idiot.”

I close my eyes and focus, then carefully I cast a spell. It’s tricky, I need to modify it on the fly for what I have in mind, but it’s not beyond the parameters of the spell. When I’m done and I blink my eyes open, there’s a hovering board next to me, long and rectangular and with a loop on each end.

“One of your shields?” Felix asks.

“Yup. It’s not going to be the sturdiest thing, and I need to stay focused to keep it solid, but it should be usable.”

“Nice work,” Esme says.

I bring the shield up to a hover next to Inigo, and with the four of us working together, it’s not too hard to get him up and onto the shield.

I can’t float him around. Not without exhausting myself, and even then I don’t think the spell would hold up. So we grab the shield by the ends and heft the man up with shared grunts of effort.

A few guards stare as we wobble past with the obviously injured man between us, but no one stops us.

Esme flags someone walking out of the barracks and asks them where the infirmary is, and from there we get some directions towards the very back of the building.

It’s awkward, carrying such a long burden through tight corridors, but we manage with only a few bumps along the wall. I’m worried that we’ll wake Inigo up, but other than a few groans he doesn’t seem entirely responsive.

The infirmary is a long room with a low ceiling. There are three beds pushed up against one wall, with curtains separating them, and a small office space at the end where a middle-aged man is reading from a large book. He glances up when we walk in, then notices Inigo.

“What happened?” he asks as he bolts to his feet and runs over.

“That’s a long story,” I say. “We think he might be poisoned or something. We found him at the outpost to the north of here.”

“And you brought him here instead of checking on him there? Did the healer there not know what to do?” he asks.

“There is no healer there, so we brought him here,” I say, a touch miffed at the tone in his voice.

He sniffs. “On the bed, the middle one. Carefully.”

My friends and I move Inigo right over the bed, then I dismiss the shield spell. He falls through the puff of black magic and lands on the bed. We were only holding him a finger-length over the mattress, so it’s not much of a fall.

“Black magic?” the healer asks.

“A modified shield spell,” I say.

“You’re a cultivator?” he asks.

“We all are. Well, maybe not Inigo here. Can you help him?” I don’t really care about Inigo all that much. He seems nice enough, but he’s still just a stranger.

“Tell me more about his situation?” the healer asks. He checks Inigo’s pulse with a finger to the man’s neck, then touches his forehead for a moment before he starts to undo Inigo’s shirt.

“We found him at the next outpost to the north. He’s the only person that was there. He said something about... I think being forced to drink something?”

He nods, then walks over to the cabinets at the back of the clinic and starts to rifle around for something. “If he’s still alive after this long, then it’s likely that he’ll be able to fight the poison off the rest of the way.”

“He has been praying to Luto,” Bianca says. “We suspect that the god has intervened to keep him alive.”

“A blessing, huh?” the healer asks. He pauses a bit, then nods. “That’s possible. Uncommon, but not unheard of. That means that Luto himself suspects that he will live. That helps.”

“Are you a grief cultivator?” Felix asks.

The healer shakes his head. “Just a plain old healer. Though I’ve worked with my share of grief cultivators before. You girls can leave, I’ll take care of this man.”

“Ah, well, we have a bit of trouble too,” I say.

He glances up and eyes all four of us in turn. “What sort of trouble?” he asks.

“We’ve been walking a lot, I think all four of us have blisters on our feet.”

“Ah. I was worried you had women issues,” he says with a sigh. Seriously? “I don’t have the herbs for those. But feet, that I can help with. Sit on the other bed and take your boots off. There’s a jar of water over there. Clean your feet off. Make sure they’re dry, humidity can worsen the blisters.”

I sniff. Of course he jumped to such a silly conclusion.

Esme rushes to do as he asks, finding the jug and a few metal bowls that she fills with water.

“Add salt,” he says. “From the blocks. The box with the blue ribbons, third shelf up. Three tablespoons per bowl. Soak your feet in it for twenty minutes. Then dry them well,” he says absently while checking on Inigo.

“Will it cure the blisters?” Felix asks.

“No. Time will cure them. This’ll just help them along.”

“Then how do you get rid of them?” I ask.

“Walk more often until you stop developing blisters,” he says. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to focus.”

***