Guild Mage: Apprentice

19. Wings at Dusk

CHAPTER CONTENT WARNING

This chapter contains depictions of childbirth, and the threat of violence/things going wrong during that process. It’s not my intent to traumatize anyone; I hope you enjoy the level of tension present in this chapter, but if its too much for you, its ok to skim past the parts that make you uncomfortable, skip them, or whatever you need to do.

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Over the next two days, the walls of Whitehill proved sufficient to ward off the handful of stray mana-beasts that came south. Liv learned what she could from the castle guards and knights when they took their meals in the great hall. Several wolves had spent an entire night howling outside the city, until they’d finally been killed.

"The worst was the cottontail," Piers told her, when she delivered him his extra helping of peach pie. "You think those things can jump normally? The thing leapt the entire wall, and it was the size of a mastiff. Fast, too. Took us hours to kill it."

Liv tried to imagine a rock encrusted, monstrous rabbit racing through the city streets, and decided that she was better off not thinking of it. Inside the castle, they were doubly insulated: first by the walls around the town, and then by the higher, stouter curtain walls of the castle itself. Anything that got into Whitehill would still have a difficult task to get at them in the keep.

By the end of the third day, Lady Julianne’s child had still not come.

"Master Cushing said that he’s going to cut the baby out," Liv told her mother and Gretta. She’d been sent to bed by the baron’s wife, but went to the kitchen first, where she helped wipe down the table and counters so that they would be clean in the morning.

"That’s not a good thing," Gretta said. "Only a Master Chirurgeon would even make the attempt. It usually means letting the mother die to save the child."

"Lady Julianne’s going to die?" Liv asked. She knew that sometimes women did not survive having a baby, but she’d never known anyone it actually happened to.

"No," Mama assured her, coming up and placing a hand on her back. "Stop frightening her, Gretta. If Master Cushing thinks he can do it, he has reason. The man delivered you, he knows what he’s doing. He’ll have wands and charms ready to stop the bleeding and close the cut."

"It sounds terrifying," Liv said, with a shudder.

"Come along to bed now, dove," her mother said. "We’re done here for the night. I expect they’ll want Emma here with us tomorrow, to keep her out of the way, but you might be asked for. Lady Julianne seems to have taken a shine to you."

In bed, by the light of her candle, Liv looked over the words Master Jurian had left in her book, and tried to think how she could use ice to save a woman’s life. Could she freeze a wound shut? She had a feeling that would go badly in all sorts of ways. Finally, she flipped to the charms that the midwife, Rhea, had left her in a different hand. Silently, she mouthed the words. Liv resolved to take the book with her in the morning, and not let it out of her sight. And perhaps, next market day, to get some kind of belt pouch, so that she could wear it always.

When she woke, it was still dark, and someone was shaking her roughly by the light of a candle. "Up, my love," Mama told her. "The bell’s rung from Lady Julianne. It’s going to be a long night."

"Is it the baby coming?" Liv asked, rolling out of bed and reaching for the skirt she’d left in a pile on the floor. "I have to get up there," she said.

"There’s no rush," her mother told her. "She’ll be a while yet. Sophie’s taking some tea up, now; get yourself dressed, and then go see if there’s anything else they need. Gretta and I will be cooking down here, and we’ll keep a pot each of water and wine boiled for bandages."

Liv couldn’t help but rush despite her mother’s words, and she hated having to use a crutch all the more on her way up the stairs. There were oil-lamps lit in the hall outside Lady Julianne’s chambers, and two guards at the door who let her pass without question. Inside, she found Julianne in a shift and an open robe lined with rabbit fur, pacing around her sitting room in circles with Sophie at her side, holding her arm. Master Cushing was sitting in one of her chairs, sipping a cup of tea.

"Oh, good, Liv," Julianne said. "I’m sorry to have gotten you all up in the middle of the night," she said. "It looks like Master Cushing isn’t going to have to perform surgery after all."

"Can I do anything to help?" Liv asked.

It turned out that what she could do was, for the most part, be company so that Julianne wasn’t alone. The long hours that followed were a peculiar combination of long, boring stretches of waiting, and busy-work. Master Cushing was little help; after his cup of tea, the old man dozed in his chair, having absconded with pillows from all over the room. Liv and Sophie took turns helping Julianne pace, or sitting down with her and rubbing her back when it hurt. It was Sophie who ran back and forth to the kitchens with trays of tea, and eventually a light breakfast, which the chirurgeon roused himself for.

"Isn’t there anything else we should be doing?" Liv demanded. It didn’t seem like the old man even cared what was happening.

Liv limped back into the bedroom; she didn’t even know where her crutch was, any longer. When the old baron had torn out large chunks of the second floor walls, to put in the new glass windows, back when Liv was so young she could hardly remember, he hadn’t completely discarded defense. Every window was set with two shutters of stout wood, on the inside wall. Most of the time they hung forgotten, so that the light could come in, flat against the stone.

"What is it?" Sophie asked, looking up from Lady Julianne’s side. Liv swung the shutters closed, one after the other, and then struggled to lift the heavy wooden bar.

"Stonebats," she said. "Come and help me." While Julianne screamed, lost in her own pain, the two girls got the windows barred. By the time they’d finished, Master Cushing was in the room, the two guards carrying over the desk and setting it by the bed.

"All of you stay in here," the older guard said. Liv thought his name might be Mark, but she wasn’t certain. "Bar the door to the sitting room, and don’t open that, or the windows, until we call in to you."

"Will they get in the castle?" Sophie asked. "Are we safe?"

"We won’t let them through the door," the younger guard assured her. Liv and Sophie followed them back out into the sitting room.

Something was stirring at the back of Liv’s mind. "Do they let anyone in when the bell rings?" she asked, before the guard could leave them.

"Anyone who makes it before they close the gates," the older guard assured her. "Whoever you’re worried about, so long as they don’t dally, they’ll be safe. Now bar the door behind us girls, you understand?"

It was a struggle to get the heavy wood in place, and by the time they were locked in, both girls were panting. "Sophie, Liv!" Master Cushing shouted from the bedroom. "Come here. I need you both."

When they got to the doorway, Liv stopped. The old chirurgeon had the numbing wand in hand, and was passing it over Lady Julianne’s swollen belly. "Hold her arms down," he said, and Sophie rushed over to the bed to follow his instructions. The sigils along the length of the wand lit up, and Liv remembered the cool, detached feeling that came with its touch. It was an effect that had not lasted long enough for her.

The chirurgeon raised a knife, and the blade caught the light of the oil lamps. Liv’s stomach roiled when he drew the edge across Julianne’s belly, and a line of red blood welled up.

The room was too hot, and it was all Liv could do to choke back vomit. She backed out of the bedroom, into the sitting room. She didn’t think she could go back in there.

Something thumped against the door to the hall, and Liv jumped. The guards were shouting, and she could half-make it out through the wood. There was some kind of hideous screeching, as well.

"They can sense mana," Liv said out loud, before realizing that no one was listening to her. They know we’re in here, she realized. They’ll want to get to me, and the wands, and Lady Julianne.

Liv scooped her book up from where she’d left it on the bench, and flipped the back, where Master Julian had left her lists of words to try out. She ran her finger over the ink and the page, muttering to herself as she went, until at last she found what she was looking for.

"Kve," Liv whispered. "Wall." She set the book aside, and turned to the door. In the time she’d been searching for the right word, the shouts of the guards in the hall had stopped, but the screeching continued. Something was battering itself against the door, and as she drew in a deep breath, the wood began to splinter. The stone bats were coming through.

"Celevet Aen Kveis," Liv sung, touching the door with her fingers. Mana poured out of her onto the door, flowing up the the ceiling and down to the floor. The wood froze over, but the spell did not stop there. The ice piled on, thicker and thicker, until a solid wall of ice blocked off the entire doorway. The thumping from without was muffled now, but did not abate.

Liv turned back to the bedroom, where Julianne was screaming. "Don’t open this door for anything," she shouted in, and then closed it. Repeating her invocation, Liv covered the inner door with ice, as well, trapping herself in the sitting room between the people within and the bats without.

Liv faced the frozen outer door, with her back to the bedroom, and tried to judge how much mana she had to work with. Two frozen shards in one afternoon had exhausted her, a month ago - but she’d had practice since then. She wished Master Kazamir had measured her right away, and then before he left, so she’d know how many rings she’d gained since then. Could she cast Frozen Shards once? She thought that she could.

The ice cracked. Liv took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out again. There had to be more guards coming. Someone would have noticed the bats break into the castle; they would be fighting to drive them off. Guards could be out there right now. Perhaps the stonebats wouldn’t even make it in before being killed.

A great shard of ice snapped off the door and fell to the floor. Beyond it, the stout wood door was splintered and broken. The face of a stonebat, monstrous and huge, filled the gap, and it screeched. For a moment, Liv considered trying to aim a shard through the hole, but she didn’t trust her ability to hit something so small, and she couldn’t afford to waste any mana.

The stonebat reared back, and Liv got a glimpse of the hallway beyond. She didn’t see any guards. A cold stone settled at the bottom of her stomach. With a great crash, the ice gave way, broken planks of wood collapsing inward. Tucking its wings, the stonebat came through the door into the sitting room. Blue-gold wisps of mana sparked off its stony back, its claws and fangs, and the v-shaped casque on its head.

For a frozen moment, everything was still, and Liv met its eyes with her own. Then, the stonebat threw itself at her.