“No. Laoch would tell me.”
Mallick’s gaze shifted to the horse, who stood at his ease now. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. And I can sense—not everyone, not every time—but I can sense if one of your ghosts comes at me. Between us, we know. You can’t always know. And you have to take out the primary foe. You taught me that. Take out the primary, take out the next.”
He only grunted, but she heard approval in the sound. And fatigue.
“We should rub down the horses. They’ve been out in this over an hour,” she said.
“They’re strong, healthy creatures. And so am I. We’ll go again.”
But as he got up and started to remount, they heard the shouts.
Mick ran toward them, skimming over the snow at a speed that barely left a trace. His hair, coated with snow, flew behind him.
“You have to come!” he shouted. “You need to come.”
Instantly, Fallon gripped the hilt of her sword. “What is it? An attack.”
“No, no. Sick. People are sick. My dad—you have to come.”
“Slower.” Mallick stepped forward, put his hands on Mick’s shoulders. “What sickness? How many?”
“A lot. It’s fever and chills, and my father can’t get his breath. Coughing. The teas and potions aren’t working. You have to come.”
“You don’t look so good, either,” Fallon pointed out.
“I’m okay. I’m—” Then he contradicted the claim by falling into a hacking, coughing fit. “My dad—”
“Come inside.”
“No, I have to—”
“Inside,” Mallick repeated. “We need medicines. You’re feverish. Fallon, brew tea. Yarrow—”
“Yarrow, elderberry, peppermint. I know. Don’t waste time,” she told Mick, pulling him toward the cottage, signaling the horses to follow.
“Sit by the fire,” she ordered Mick, setting it to blazing.
Ginger, she thought, thyme and honey. For the coughs. Licorice, echinacea, she added as she gathered the fever herbs.
She flashed a mug of water to boiling, added the herbs to steep. “Do you have enough blankets?”
“I think so.” Shivering a little, he shot her a look of desperation. “We need to hurry.”
“What about the shifters, the faeries?”
“The faeries have been trying to help, some of them are sick, too. The pack’s good. At least they were.”
“Drink this. I have to get more supplies. We have medicines in the workshop. Mallick’s getting what we need, and I can get more from here and the greenhouse. We’ll go as soon as we have what we need.”
“Some of the elders are afraid it’s like the Doom. They remember the Doom. They’re afraid.”
“It’s not the Doom.” Putting a hand on his forehead, she looked. “It’s a virus, but it’s pneumonia. You have it in one lung.”
“What is that? What’s ‘pneumonia’?”
“It’s not the Doom,” she said briskly. “Drink that. I’ll be back.”
She raced up to the workshop. “Pneumonia,” she said as Mallick filled two packs. “Viral.”
He nodded. “Go to the greenhouse and gather—”
“I know what to get.”
She dashed off. Her mother had helped heal three people with pneumonia in the village at home, and she’d watched. And Mallick had gone over this specific illness in her healing studies.
She filled another pack, ran back to the cottage just as Mallick came down the steps.
“We’ll make more of what’s needed at the elf camp. Take Mick on Laoch with you.”
Once she’d mounted, she held out a hand for Mick. His hand, clammy and ungloved, shook in hers. “You need to hold on to me. We’re going fast.”
“I can hold on. Go. Go.”
Snow flew as Laoch charged through it. When she felt Mick’s grip around her waist held tight enough, she took Laoch up so he flew just above the snow, gaining speed as they weaved through trees. Mallick would fall behind, she knew, but she could begin to brew the teas.
The moment she crossed into the camp, Mick jumped off. Though he stumbled, staggered, he pushed himself to the hut he shared with his father.
“Anyone who’s well,” Fallon called out. “We need to brew teas.”
Orelana, pale with exhaustion, added wood to a fire. “The teas haven’t helped. We thought they were, they would, or we’d have sent for you sooner. It came on so quickly.”
“These teas will have more, do more. We need to make poultices, and steam pots.”
Around the central fire, she instructed Orelana and three others how to brew and mix, barely glancing around when Mallick rode in.
“The one who is most ill,” Mallick demanded.
“My youngest. My youngest and Old Ned,” Orelana called out, pointing to a hut. “Ned’s granddaughter’s caring for him. She’s not ill. Minh is with the baby.”
Mallick handed Fallon one of the packs. “You know what to do. I’ll begin with Ned.”
She took one of the pots, shouldered the pack, and then a second of her own. “Stay and help make more, Orelana. I know your hut.”
“He’s just a baby. He seemed better, then this morning … He’s just a baby.”
“Help make more.”
Fallon hurried off. She could feel the sickness, feel the fevers raging so hot and high she thought it a wonder they didn’t melt the snow.
She went into the hut where Minh sat on the edge of a cot, bathing the baby’s face with a cloth. “He won’t nurse. He’s not a year old. He’s only ten months old.”
She knelt, ran her hands over the baby. Both lungs held fluid, and the fever spiked high. The eyes, glazed with fever, stared at nothing. Like a doll’s.
“He needs to drink this tea, and this potion.”
“He’s not weaned. He—”
“But you’ll help me,” she said calmly, taking a dropper from her kit. “He’s little, and he won’t have to take much, but as much of the tea as you can manage. That first, Minh.”
While Minh gave the tea to the baby, drop by drop, Fallon took a small pot from the kitchen, used the jug of water to fill it, added herbs, crushed crystals, drops of another potion.
“Now the potion I gave you. Four drops to start.”
Minh struggled as the baby began to fret and fight.
“It has a bitter taste, but he has to swallow four drops.”
Minh gathered up his son, and though his eyes watered, held the baby’s arms down with one of his own, forced the drops down.
“Good, good. Heat the pot,” Fallon murmured. “Water boil and steam rise.” As the water bubbled, she picked up a cloth. “Is this clean?”
“Yes.”
“He’s not going to like it, but I’m going to cover his head with the cloth. You’re going to hold his head over the steam. If he cries, that’s okay. He’ll be pulling the healing steam into his lungs. He’ll cough. It might be bad. But you hold him.”
“Will it hurt him?”
“The cough hurts.” She took another cloth. “But he’ll cough up the fluid, the sickness.”
He coughed, he wailed, and tears slid down the soldier’s face as Fallon caught the sickness in the cloth.
“Lay him down now.”
“His breathing’s better. Is it better?”
“Uh-huh.” Once again, she laid hands on the baby. “Less fluid. But …” She drew more out, into herself. Turned her head, coughed it out into the cloth. “He still has a fever, but not so high. Keep giving him the tea, and keep the poultice on his chest. I’m going to help some of the others, but I’ll be back. We have to do all of this again.”
“Again,” Minh echoed, shut his eyes.
“It won’t be as bad, it won’t be, but we have to do it again. And maybe a third time. It’s harder for the very young and the very old. He’ll rest, and when he does, take the sick cloth to the pot I’ll have boiling outside. It needs to be sanitized.”
“I will. I will. Blessings on you, Fallon. Tell Orelana, tell his mother he’s better.”
“I will. More tea, Minh.”
Like Mallick, she went from hut to hut, treating the oldest and youngest first. Those well enough continued to brew tea, mix potions.
When she went into Mick’s hut, she saw Thomas shivering on his cot. He tried to lift himself when she came in, fell back with the violence of his coughing.
“You have to help,” Mick said. “He had the tea. I got him the tea.”