Free Healer's Ruin by Chris O'Mara Page A

whisper that grated like a razor on skin. 'Lieutenant Jolm says that you are his friend. That he trusts you to do what is required. This is true, yes?'
    Chalos gritted his teeth, thinking back to his meeting with Jolm. A vision of the back of the man's head, twisted and malformed, flashed into his mind's eye. It is good to have friends, Jolm had said.
    'Yes,' said Chalos..
    The corporal laughed heartily and slammed both hands down on the healer's narrow, round shoulders. The healer's knees almost buckled.
    'Good! We are all friends, then!'
    The hands gripped, firmly.
    'Now, I hope you have a strong stomach, Rovann!'
    Chalos was led to the rear of the caravan. At the corporal's gesture, one of the half-castes dashed over and opened the back of the vehicle, folding the door down into a ramp. Then he pulled back the tarpaulin and secured it. The smell of excrement and sweat seeped out.
    The murmuring was coming from that warm, foetid darkness.
    'What's in there?' Chalos asked softly.
    'Prisoners!' said the corporal. 'Riln scum! Slime of the northern kingdom!'
    'What do you want me to do?'
    But he already knew the answer.
    'Heal them!' the corporal grinned. 'So we can start our interrogation afresh!'
    Perhaps it was the combination of the stench and the man's joviality, or the idea of the horrors inflicted on the poor wretches within the caravan, but Chalos suddenly felt sick. He staggered a few steps and slouched to the ground against the side of the vehicle. He pressed the balls of his hands to his eyes and took a deep breath. The corporal chuckled.
    'Come now, little Rovann. Steel yourself.' A small leather flask was thrust under his nose. It reeked of some sweet spirit. Chalos batted it away weakly.
    'I'm alright,' he said, clearing his throat and climbing to his feet. 'I just need a moment.'
    The corporal straightened and looked about, his gaze lost to the blackness between the trees. Narrowed pale-green eyes, the pupils wide and shining, seemed to find a truth there. 'What a rotten part of the world,' he sighed, his armoured torso heaving up and down. 'The sooner we civilise it, the better.'
    Despondency had settled in the healer's heart. He pushed a lock of black hair from his eyes and smoothed his robes with a sharp sniff.
    'Let's get on with this.'
    'Excellent!' the corporal said, secreting his flask away in the folds of his Baldaw Mesh. 'Let us not waste any more time then!' He waved to one of the half-castes. 'Bring the men out!'
    Two of the Tarukadul scurried into the caravan. Pathetic groans sounded amidst much scuffling. When they emerged, they were dragging two tangled lumps that had once been people. Chalos stared, wide-eyed, and fought to control his breathing as the ravaged forms came into view. The fire cast shadows that seemed almost impassable, walls that carved the world of light into abstracted territories framed with blackness.
    'Where do you want them?' the corporal asked.
    'There is fine,' said Chalos in a low voice.
    He walked over to the ramp and stood by one of the bodies. The arms and legs were crooked, suggesting that they had been broken and twisted. The face was a purple pulp. He could hear ragged breathing escaping from the pursed and swollen lips in a soft wheeze. Chalos extended his hands, placing them an inch or so above the ruined limbs, and closed his eyes.
    Such were the demons prowling in his imagination, and such was the doom that haunted him, it took Chalos a couple of minutes to find his mirror but eventually he felt himself sink utterly into the world of magic, immersed in the undulating parallax of light and colour that was so familiar, and so welcoming, that he could already feel himself wanting to relinquish forever the claim the real world had on his soul. If only I could stay here... lose myself to madness and remain... forget all about the Ten Plains King and his war... let them abandon my catatonic body, let it starve here, on these leaves, or drown in the cold river... while my