Under Guard

[Raffe]

Satisfied Jai was safely able to move, Araya interrupted his sluggish grab at the sword and hoisted him up. For a man he was a fair healer, but broken bones were beyond his remit; it was always that much harder to fix the things you could not see. Even isolating an injury was troublesome, though it was not often a problem when Healing someone; you usually wanted to repair everything. Such blanket Healing in this instance might do more harm than good, though. And assuming Jai wanted a jaw that worked, it wasn’t a risk Araya was prepared to take.

The imbalance of height was impractical, and Jai’s unsteady swaying laboured each step forward all the more. “Fun. Interesting definition you have there.”
Full marks for persistence, though; it was honestly surprising he could form words at all. He passed a conspiratorial glance at the Sister, the only of the crowd to have remained; part exasperated frown, part indulgent tolerance of an errant child. But they barely made it a yard before a frenzied lurch shoved Araya out the way and the delinquent Asha’man was back on the ground to retch up his insides.

Araya sighed. It would take them an Age to stumble in this fashion to the infirmary, and while it would be staffed with enough men to see to most serious ills, it was entirely possible there would be none there capable of mending snapped bones anyway. A sling and a warning to be more vigilant in future was as much as most men could expect of an infirmary almost entirely fuelled by conventional means. And Jai had already expended valuable resources once in recent days. Wrong as it often seemed to Araya, Black Tower lessons could be harsh; his own throat was testament enough to that.

Am I making a wasted journey? Staring unseeing at the gruesome upheaving into the dirt, he reassessed his reluctance to attempt Healing. Undecided, he looked up to find the Aes Sedai who had been tailing them stride away purposefully in another direction, and her departure sparked a trail of thought. What was there to stop a Brother making use of White Tower facilities? As inconsistent a truce as existed, they wouldn’t turn away a man in need. They might sniff and tut and frown, but they would Heal him regardless. The only problem was how Jai might react; not all the failings for true peace were down to Aes Sedai high-handed arrogance; there were plenty of Asha’man resistant to trust the hand that had quashed them for centuries. And Araya didn’t know which camp Jai fell into.

“Done?”
He was already picking the other man up, veins shuddering with the effort it took to wrench saidin to heel. The air shimmered and folded in on itself, and the Pattern burned to accommodate the path of the gateway. One step, two step, three; and then the Gate winked shut behind them.

[[Continued at Homeward Bound]]