Saphiron walked among the wounded, healing those he could and dispatching those for whom there was no help.  Each life he took weighed heavily on his soul, until finally he could take no more and retreated to his small tent among the other healer’s tents.  After stripping off his blood drenched leggings and tunic he washed with the tepid water left earlier by another slave.  He would have preferred it were hotter, but did not wish to leave the tent now that he arrived.  Once clean as possible, he flung himself down on his bedding and wept for each life ended this day, and for two lives taken almost ten years previous.

Saphiron remembered the day the village elder told his father the oracle declared Saphiron would wed Lydia and together they were to sojourn in the flatlands.  They were to leave immediately.  He had never been happier in his life.  Three years they shared a home and hearth.  Three years of knowing her touch, her love, and those last few weeks, the soft swell of her belly as a new life took hold.  He could remember like yesterday how her golden curls resembled a mop of sunshine, brightening even the coldest of winter days.  He remembered her eyes, green as spring grass in the valley that protected their tribe.  He remembered the day the village they had claimed as their own burned, ravaged by the horde from the northeast.  How when they gathered those who survived in the square there were mostly women and children, and him.  How he spent himself those first days healing those he had called friend, neighbor, only to watch the Zaggurnauts spill their blood again.  How he came to the attention of the Warlord, who said he would not kill the children if Saphiron would heal the injured Zaggurnauts.  He remembered the dark haired youth who lost his life because he did not agree fast enough. 

Saphiron remembered the weeping of the women and children, separated from loved ones, given to warriors to use as they would. He remembered their screams late at night and their broken bodies in the light of day.  He remembered Lydia’s defiant screams as she was dragged into the Warlord’s tent where he took her to his bed, and, later, her determined shouts as she delivered a son whom she named Aephratine. 

Saphiron let the memories of the golden-haired, green-eyed infant momentarily ease his pain.  Aephratine, his son; the child the Warlord claimed as his own. 

Saphiron remembered the day the war party rode away from the camp, three years after they had taken their village, and the carnage they came home to find.  Lydia’s lifeless eyes still haunted his dreams; as did his own screams of anguish when Aephratine, along with many of the other young children, was nowhere to be found.  He, who held life and death in his hands, had failed to protect his wife and their son.    

He remembered and wept for all the people who had died that day and the days since as the Warlord searched relentlessly for Aephratine. Spies were sent further into the flatlands only to disappear forever.  Endless raids on the border villages occupied the years as blond haired boys of the appropriate age were examined then discarded.  Despite all the Warlord’s efforts, Aephratine was still lost.  

There had been days where the dying had been so bad that Saphiron prayed Aephratine would be returned, if he were still alive, just so the killing would stop.  Yet, in his heart he hoped that he would not be.  For his wife’s sake.  For his son’s sake. For the sake of his people, who hid among the mountaintops, safe from the killing.

Finally, Saphiron finished his cry.  He ran his fingers through his short blond hair then pulled on a cleaner pair of pants, wrapping his belt around the top to keep them on his lean hips.  Once dressed, he left his tent in search of food.  One of the cooks saw him as he neared the fire and shook his head.  Saphiron sighed and moved on to find another.  After three such attempts, he was allowed to approach the fourth fire where he was handed a bowl of thin soup and the heel of a stale, crusty loaf.  He took his food with thanks and headed back to his tent to dine alone. 

He had just sat down to eat when a youngster ran up to his tent and announced, “Healer, the Warlord requests your assistance, now.”

Saphiron looked at his bowl and sighed, then put it down.  He reached for his tunic, but the boy grabbed his hand, “Hurry, healer.”

Scowling, Saphiron allowed himself to be dragged across the encampment, back to the battlefield, and back through the death… to the side of the Warlord who was kneeling beside a dark-haired youth.  

“Healer, this one, can you save him?”

Saphiron knelt next to the youth and examined him.  There was something familiar yet exotic about him.  He looked up at the Warlord to try to decide if the boy should be allowed to live.  There seemed to be only one wound, and that had been tended already.  His chest rose and fell regularly. 

“Another healer has looked at him?” Saphiron asked anyone.

“They said he would live, but only if you tended him,” the boy said quietly when no one else seemed to want to answer the question.

Saphiron looked at the youth again.  Other than being very pale from a loss of blood, Saphiron could not see anything life threatening to the youth.  “Take him to my tent, I will tend him.”

The Warlord smiled, a fearsome sight, “He will live or you will die.  He is my prisoner.”  The Warlord flicked the gold bands in the youth’s raven-locks, “I will have him alive.”

“Yes, Milord,” Saphiron responded, although no response was needed. 

“You may keep Keron to run for you.” 

The boy smiled gently at Saphiron, then he blushed and turned his face downward.

“Thank you, Milord, but I have only one bedroll in a small tent.”

“Another will be brought for your patient.  Karon will allow you to share the other with him.”

“Yes, Milord,” Saphiron bristled as Karon was apparently born of a free people and therefore outranked him.  However, he said nothing to the boy who disappeared when the prisoner was prepared for transported to his tent.   Saphiron looked at his dinner still sitting where he left it, a thin film of fat congealing on the top, and wrinkled his nose.  He wouldn’t be eating tonight.

Karon had already been busy.  The boy entered the tent with a second bedroll just as the patient arrived.  In no time at all, Karon had the second bedroll spread opposite the first.  Then he stripped the patient of his bloody, torn clothing, and encased him in the warm blankets.  Saphiron watched the boy work and how he handled the patient who did not respond to his touch.  When he had finished, the boy disappeared yet again, only to come back with two steaming bowls of thick stew and half a still warm loaf of bread.  He gave Saphiron a bowl and sat the half-loaf between them.

“You are rather efficient,” Saphiron complimented Karon, who shrugged in response.

“I grew up in the supply wagons,” he answered between bites.

“Your father is in supply?”

Karon shook his head, “My father is the Warlord’s Chief Advisor.  My mother sent me to him so that I may learn how to be a man.”

They finished their stew in silence, then, while Karon took the bowls back to wherever he procured them, Saphiron checked on his prisoner-patient.

“Who are you, young one, that he wants you to live so badly?” he asked as he stroked the youth’s brow, which crinkled under his touch, but the boy did not waken.

The Warlord’s party moved on the fourth day after Saphiron began looking after the youth, but it had been decided that Saphiron would be staying behind with a few guards and the injured who could not be healed yet.  Karon, who proved to be a very capable assistant and bed warmer, would be staying as well, along with a cook and a supply wagon.  The youth still had not woken, but Saphiron was not overly concerned, as there had been no fevers.    Only time would tell with the youth, and time was something Saphiron had plenty of lately.