Scriber by Ben S. Dobson Page A

know, Scriber. They might. It links them to King Erryn, and we believe that Erryn’s Promise, or the King’s supposed failure to uphold it, may be their motivation. But it could just be a name that spread because someone thought it clever. We know little about the rebels—none have been captured alive.” Bryndine looked at me quizzically. “Why do you ask?”
    “I thought… I thought I heard one of them use another name. The Burnt. Was I the only one?” I glanced between them hopefully. If someone else had heard the voices, then perhaps I was not losing my mind.
    “You heard them?” Sylla peered at me suspiciously. “Scriber, nobody heard them. They never opened their mouths.”
    “I heard nothing, Scriber Dennon. Genna?” Bryndine turned to the third woman, who glanced shyly over her shoulder, avoiding my eyes.
    “Nothing, Scriber. I’m sorry.” Genna jerked her gaze back to the horses, as though embarrassed to disappoint me.
    “If you are correct, Scriber, it may be the first thing we really know about these rebels. A small enough thing, but…” Bryndine shrugged. “I will ask the others if they heard anything.”
    “It was nothing, I… I am sure I must have imagined it.” The thought of her spreading word of my madness among her company was appalling to me. “I was not… in my right mind.” Sylla snorted in amusement at that, but said nothing.
    “It is strange, though,” Bryndine mused. “They stay so silent, strike so suddenly and disappear so cleanly. It suggests discipline, but they fight clumsily, like none of them have ever held a sword. We should not have been able to hold off so many, not for as long as we did, and with so few casualties.”
    “How many were hurt?” I felt a twinge of guilt for failing to ask earlier.
    “Six men from Waymark were killed, and one woman was apparently badly burned. The High Commander took a blow to the head, and five of his men died. Between the villagers and soldiers, we carry thirteen wounded in the wagons.” She bowed her head. “One of my girls was badly hurt. She… will likely not survive the journey.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said—but silently, I damned Bryndine to the Dragon. If she had only warned me when she first came to Waymark, none of it would have happened! I had hoped never to feel the weight of another life on my shoulders, but if this girl died, she died defending me. “Is there anything I can do for her?”
    “Only the Father can help her now,” Bryndine said. It was a mildly sacrilegious claim—the Father watched over warriors injured in battle, but the Children were fairly adamant that those warriors must be men. “She was stabbed through the stomach.”
    She was right: a gut wound was a slow, painful death sentence without expert medical treatment. The surgery was beyond me, even if it could be done on the road, lacking proper equipment. But it felt wrong to so easily accept the girl’s fate. “With the proper facilities… the Academy…” I stammered lamely.
    “We aren’t at the Academy, Scriber.” Sylla’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You think we’d just let one of ours die if there was something we could do?”
    “He didn’t mean it like that, Sylla.” Genna came to my defense, laying a calming hand on her friend’s shoulder—but still she avoided my gaze. This timid, gentle-voiced woman was completely different than the one I had seen charge three armed men without hesitation the night before.
    “There may be someone else you can treat, Scriber,” said Bryndine. I already knew what she was about to ask of me, but I could not let on that I had been eavesdropping. “The High Commander took a heavy blow to the head. He has been in and out of delirium since.”
    When they did not know I was listening, the women had mentioned that Uran Ord had some complaint against them, and that they hoped to use me to get back in his good graces. I wondered what was more important to Bryndine: her cousin’s life, or his