Sage Blossom’s Blog

I’d only been home about a hand when it all began.

I wandered through the city gates shortly after the dust had settled from a raid one evening. The jail cells were all empty, as the rogues had fled before being captured, but the city was abuzz with gossip about the day’s events. Looking around at all the commotion I had a horrid feeling in the pit of my stomach and began taking a mental head-count of names and faces of people I passed in the street.

Walking back out onto the docks I failed to notice a presence. When I saw another denizen of the dregs nearby I asked if he’d seen the leader of the local band of she-urts. He said he had not. Back and forth I went, listening to idle chatter flow through the crowds. And after several tours of the square I came back out to the docks where the friend I’d spoken with earlier informed me that the person I’d asked about had been found beaten and severely wounded and had been graciously taken to the infirmary by an over-zealous apprentice healer. The woman in question, a she-urt, would most likely have lain in the street and died had any other member of the populace wandered upon her. At best she might have been kicked into the canal to drown, rather than bleed out slowly from her wounds.

I rushed to the infirmary. To most people, this woman is only a street person. A vagabond and beggar to be tolerated or ignored. Not to me. I spent a portion of my life on those docks and the person lying on her deathbed in the infirmary was one of my dearest friends and confidants. I prayed to the Priest Kings she was not dead as I ran.

Bursting through the infirmary doors I moved quickly to her bedside. The apprentice who’d found her was being berated by one of the younger physicians, but at least the healers were working to save her life. Seems their oaths are worth something after all.

I let my eyes survey the seen and had to bite back bile from what was before me.

She’d been sliced to ribbons. Stripped of her clothing. Bleeding from so many nicks and cuts it’s a wonder you could see any skin at all. Worst of all was the wound on her neck. It was obvious someone had meant that to be the killing blow. I watched, unmoving in my fear, to see if she was breathing. Her chest rose and fell, but she barely drew breath. The physician kept checking for a pulse as if looking for her to die so she could be about other business that night, but my friend’s desire to live must have been strong. Though she seemed to be standing at the gates of the city of dust, her heart continued to beat, body continued to breath. She fought for life.

As my eyes continued to watch the scene play out before me I finally made sense of the symbols slathered in blood on her torso. “Blood Brothers” was written on her belly in what seemed to be her own blood. I whimpered and fought not to gag. Assassins had left their calling card on my friend’s body. Someone had paid to have a she-urt slain. Stranger than that, it had been done during a raid that would have, any other time, completely obscured the act.

I renewed my prayers to the Priest Kings and then for good measure, threw in the old Northern gods that the Torvaldslanders honor. I knew not which she revered most but knowing her personality, figured she wouldn’t mind if I hedged her buts as much as possible.

Now my mind began to race. I watched the physicians work to save her and turned the information over in my mind. Someone had actually paid gold to see a she-urt slain. It had been done during a raid. She had been slain somewhere out of the way and it was only strange fortune she’d been found, stranger fortune that she’d been found by someone so eager to practice his trade of healing that he’d work to save the life of a street urchin.

There was a mystery here. I prayed for the life of my friend. I owed her many times over my own life. And I cherished her strange view of the world and simple expressions of joy and levity. I prayed she would not die. But a smaller voice in my mind also prayed she’d live so I could ask her what had happened that day. For I knew she’d have an interesting tale to tell indeed. If she lived.