“But I can’t fight—”

The Captain grunted. “You fought off a demon without sight or movement … I would not call you helpless.”

“I … don’t …”

“If you remember anything, now or in the next days, it would be good to tell us about it,” Harak said. “We know only what Captain Arcolin told us happened, not what happened inside you.”

Stammel lay still a moment. “I want to know why I can’t even sit up.”

Again Verstad grunted. “That would be because you lay for days in a high fever without eating and with only the little water we could drip into your mouth, the flesh melting from your bones: your clothes would be loose on you now. Anyone is weak after a long fever. You will have to rebuild that muscle.”

“I must—I have to be able to get to—to the jacks myself!” He hated the sudden whine in his voice, as he lost control of it, his diaphragm seized in a cramp.

“You must eat and drink first,” Harak said. “Has the nausea passed?”

“Yes.” One word at a time he could manage in close to his normal voice.

“Then we start feeding you. Or rather, your own soldiers will. And you consider giving thanks, Matthis Stammel, for your captain’s quick wit in bringing you here, and the days and nights your own people have watched over you.”

“I—do. I am … I am just …”

“Mazed, still. Very well. We’ll see what some good meals do for you.”

The others were all embarrassed; he could hear it in their voices. Suli alone was not, though still clearly timid with him because of his rank. He finally asked her why his blindness bothered her less.

“My uncle Saben,” she said. “He was kicked in the face by a cow; he had an infection in one eye that spread to the other—it nearly killed him—but after, when he decided to live … he was still my uncle, you see. He still knew everything he had known. He could still tell when one of the animals was sickening, by the sound of its walk, or its smell, better than my father. The dogs knew his whistles; I would take him out to the hill, and tell him where the animals were, where the dogs were, and he’d work them the same as ever. And you aren’t even scarred as he was.”

“And now that you’ve left home? What does he do now?”

“My little brother, who has no desire to leave the farm, is learning his whistles and goes everywhere with him. You did not think I would leave before I was sure—?”

“No. No, Suli, I know you would not. I’m sorry.”

“It is hard, the first year, my uncle said. He thought of finding a ledge, and stepping off into the air. One night he went out into a storm, when everyone else slept. He was sure he knew how to feel his way to the cliff, even in the storm … but the gods led him round, and his dogs found him, herded him just like a sheep, nipping his heels when he faltered. I remember waking the next morning and we all went out to look for him—there were his tracks, around the cow-byre and then in … he was in the straw, with both dogs on top of him.”