A Wandering Soul - Rider 2.1

I was certainly right about not feeling better. Just because the battle had ended didn't mean that people weren't still fighting for their lives. Unfortunately, these battles were much harder because you couldn't just kill your enemy and move on.

No, instead it was a race against the clock. Either the healers managed to fix whatever was wrong, or at least just stop the wounded from bleeding out, or the patient died. And we had been at it for hours. What made it worse was even with the assistance of my mystic codes making the other healers significantly more useful, the sheer numbers of the wounded were an issue. It also didn't help that the codes weren't designed for fine detailed work, more of a 'stop this thing from bleeding' effect. That meant I spent a lot of time elbow deep in some poor bastard's innards removing arrowheads and the like so they didn't die from infection or internal bleeding a few days later.

Of course that didn't mean we were able to save everyone. Some simply died before a healer could make it to them. Others by the unfamiliarity with the new methods I had handed out; one lesson wasn't exactly enough to make everyone expert doctors. And some simply couldn't be healed due to the nature of their injury, thankfully I hadn't personally run into many of those yet. Mostly, I dealt with serious wounds requiring delicate surgery while the rest of the healers focused on simpler wounds.

One particularly unlucky, or very lucky depending on your point of view, man had an arrow miss his heart by millimeters before it snapped inside of him. I was actually using my hands to keep his organs away and a telekinesis spell to extract all the little splinters and the shaft while another magician assisted by immediately healing the little nicks left behind. Once all the little bits were out I let my assistant deal with sealing him up -the wonderful thing about magical healing is stitches usually aren't needed- and used the nearby washbasin to clean the blood off my hands.

I handed off the now dirty towel to one of several women helping run the triage tents, people who either couldn't or refused to run before the battle started, when a messenger ran up to me and handed off a hastily written message. I skimmed it, sighed heavily, thanked the messenger, and then intentionally ignored his muttered 'Lady Alexandria' as he ran off again. I'm going to have to find out whoever started that and hurt them.

That will have to wait for later though. The message in my hand is a direct request from Ajihad to head back to Tronjheim and assist healing Eragon and Arya after their confrontation with the Shade, Durza.

Honestly I was panicking inside. I knew Eragon was likely going to get hurt, it was a pretty defining moment for his development, but I didn't remember anything happening to Arya. Considering she was also the estranged daughter of the Queen of the Elves, her dying here would be a massive political blow to the Varden. So I ended up running back to the marble city after a quick explanation to the rest of the healers that I wouldn't be around for a while.

-o-

The inside of the city was still mostly deserted but enough people were roaming around that I was able to get directions to where I needed to go or snag someone as a guide.

" 'ere we are." the dwarf I co opted for the final leg said as he pointed at a door guarded by a squad of heavily armed warriors. "Ajihad and the Rider are just through there." I thank him and walk up to the group. A quick flash of Ajihad's letter is enough for the guards to let me through the door.

Inside is a scene of barely organized chaos as I watch a short dark haired woman still in armor dancing between several grinding stations, a table full of various herbs, and a boiling pot of some unidentifiable liquid before running back to smear something across an unconscious and face-down Eragon and shove a cup of something down the throat of a barely cognizant Arya.

Ajihad is inside but keeping himself out of the way by hugging a wall. Saphira is also present, as much as she can be, by sticking her head inside through another door.

I greeted the both of them with a nod and took a second to examine the woman running around at the same time. Short, dark curly hair, with dark eyes. Physically, she is my total opposite. Amusingly enough, she seemed even less willing than I was to listen to the leader of the Varden and was actively telling him to get out.

"...I do not have time to watch over some third-rate magician's ego! I've already got my hands full -Ah ah! Drink all of that, Arya- keeping these two alive, I can't afford the distraction."

Ajihad nodded, though he had a slight smile on his face. "I would never. The woman I asked for help is a master in her own right and has greatly improved our own healers with just a few contributions."

"That wouldn't be hard." the short woman muttered.

"And now that she's here, I shall follow your advice and leave. If you require anything, send a runner and I will make sure it is done." Ajihad continued as if she hadn't spoken.

He tilted his head at me as he walked past, leaving me under the angry gaze of whoever this was. I was tempted to curse the man but that would only interfere with healing the two people in here more. So I swallowed my indignation at being volunteered despite not being wanted and maybe not even needed and waved at the healer.

"Right. Sorry about this, I was under the assumption no one was able to help them." I waved a hand at the two injured. "What are you doing and how can I help?"

"Well at least you know not to change going about things in the middle of a treatment so that places you higher than most others here." the woman said without stopping her preparations. "I need to finish another poultice to draw out the rest of the infection trying to set into Eragon's wound. How is your stitching? Arya has a gash in her arm that I haven't had a moment to do more than staunch the bleeding."

I didn't know the first thing about stitching. The most I could do was some half-forgotten lessons on fixing a button from a life that I didn't actually live.

"Probably terrible, but I don't need to." I held up the mystic code in my hand. "This can handle closing a wound easily enough if it's clean."

That actually got the healer to stop for a second and look at me for the first time since I opened the door. "Oh, so you're that Alexandria person everyone has been talking about? I heard you managed to knock some sense into the fools pretending to be healers. I guess your help would actually be appreciated."

"You heard about me?" I asked back.

"I make it a point to be informed about interesting people." She said, "But even the most unconnected people around will have heard stories of you by now, I reckon. Your performance wasn't exactly what we would call subtle now, was it?"

I had to give her that one. A rain of swords and pillars of light were pretty noticeable.

"Yeah, guess not…"

The woman went back to grinding a bunch of herbs into a paste. "Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure something new and exciting will happen soon enough for the gossip mongers to focus on. Enough of them will be focusing on Eragon killing a Shade that your own efforts might fade into the background...in a year or so…"

I groaned at that. I didn't want to deal with random people gawking at me in the streets or randomly running up and asking for blessings. I actually started to miss the Bleach world and how people capable of leveling buildings could walk around like normal people.

"Ah, but where are my manners? My name is Angela." the woma- Angela continued and I actually recognised the name. "Normally I work as a herbalist, but these aren't normal times. Speaking of, how familiar are you with the craft?"

"Alexandria Cross, but you knew that apparently." I shrugged. "I know the definition and some of the basics but that's it. My methods are much more direct." I walked over to the injured elf and started working on her arm. It was a bad cut but while deep, it was also fairly straight. My mystic code was easily able to close it after I made sure the wound had been cleaned.

Angela watched the whole process out of the corner of her eye while she continued working on her mixtures.

"That's an interesting trinket." She said when I had finished. "And you didn't use the Ancient Language at all." Then she handed me another cup full of some greenish potion and instructed me to make sure Arya drank this one as well.

"It's honestly not much. Sure, it looks impressive but all it really does is convince the body to heal slightly faster than normal and blood to clot if it comes in contact with the air. Good for sticking wounds closed if the cut is clean enough but not for much else." Even that was giving the simple device a lot more credit than it probably deserved. Sure it could stick two sides of a cut together, but the wound wouldn't be fully healed and would still leave a scar. "Which means you should be careful with your arm until you've recovered enough to heal it yourself or it heals on its own." I directed at Arya, getting a groggy nod in return.

"Not much is it?" Angela half-said to herself. "In that case, care to look at that one-" she pointed at Eragon. "-and see if there is anything you can do for the scarring? I've done everything in my power to keep him alive, but as you said, my methods are less direct."

I didn't need to look long to realise the wound crossing Eragon's back was beyond my ability to heal. Well, not the wound itself, that would be time consuming since I would need to manually guide the spells myself or create a better mystic code to do it for me, but rather because there was a curse lingering in the cut that I couldn't do anything about. Curse-breaking hadn't been something I needed to study up on beyond knowing how to identify them and counter-curses to my own magic since I hadn't run into anyone capable of them until now. Rule Breaker might have helped depending on the nature of the curse, but since I couldn't Trace it or any other Noble Phantasms at the moment it didn't really matter.

"I can reduce the scarring a little but beyond that, nothing that wouldn't require a lot more time than would be practical." I finally told the herbalist.

"Please, do what you can." she said gravely. "He rid the world of a great evil, but paid a great price in return."

I nodded. There was no reason not to, afterall.

We worked in silence for a few minutes. Both Saphira and Arya had fallen asleep at some point while I was busy doing what I could for Eragon's back and Angela was now carefully adding herbs to a boiling mixture.

"So what do you do when you aren't helping rebels drive off Urgal armies?" I asked while trying to remember what I could about Angela, not that I managed much.

I knew she was a herbalist out of a coastal city Eragon and Brom had stopped by briefly and a fortune teller on top of that. She also tended to appear near major events, but that could have been attributed to the fortune telling thing, and was incredibly knowledgeable compared to most around her. Beyond that...she was mostly the reason many major players of the Varden were able to survive their various brushes with death, and that was about it.

"Oh, the normal things. I make potions and cures for all manners of ails...the occasional fortune telling...and I suppose lately I've done a bit of animal research." Angela said vaguely.

"Animal research?"

I had a feeling I had just made a grave mistake. The gleam in the herbalist's eye was one I recognised belonging to people that had a passion project and couldn't wait to tell anyone they could all about it.

"Oh yes! Tell me, what do you think about toads?"

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