Terrible Company Ch. 02

/ /Author's Note: This story, Terrible Company, is sprawling sword-and-sorcery fantasy satire with a diverse cast of characters. Over its many chapters, those characters will have interactions (both with each other and others) that cross many of the lines that exist between Lit genres. I have come to believe that breaking the story into those different categories, as best I can, is the best way to expose the most readers to parts of the story they might dig, and that they might then be encouraged to read on.

Each chapter is written as a self-contained episode, and although there are running gags that continue through the series that enrich the experience, they shouldn't prevent one from starting anywhere in the series (including the final chapter) and enjoying it for what it is.

This chapter features:
Mathilda</a>, the female Dwarf Healer

Enjoy!//

*

"Help," cried a voice from the street, and Paesa jumped. It had been a slow morning, and she was eager to be able to chip in. Almost all of the beds were full, but those patients were mostly beyond her abilities. And, she saw as she rounded the end of her desk and leapt to the door, so too was this one. "Help me," cried an elderly man propped up in a cart. His leg was twisted, and Paesa winced just looking at it.

Another man, much younger, hopped off the back of the cart and started helping the wounded man down. "Are you a Healer?" he asked, looking at Paesa. "My grandfather needs a Healer!"

"Well then," she said, as she stepped next to the elderly man and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, "Let's get you to a Healer. We happen to ha—" Paesa winced as they walked. It was her turn to take a new patient.

"Miss, are you alright?"

The young man was staring at her. He had the prettiest eyes.

"Yes," Paesa mumbled shyly, her chest flushing.

"Well don't just stand there dawdling, girl!" the elderly man cried. "Get me a Healer! Can't you see I'm in pain?!"

"Oh yes," she said, flustering. "Let's get you inside and off your feet." The three of them hobbled through the cluttered lobby and turned left down a short hallway. The elderly man grumbled every step of the way.

"So, are you?" the young man asked softly, as they ambled into a larger room. Four beds ran down each wall, to either side and straight ahead, of which only one of the 12 was unoccupied. "A Healer, I mean." His wavy brown hair fell around his shoulders gloriously.

"Who, me?" Paesa blushed as she shook her head. "I'm just an apprentice. Someday though, Gods' willing." The elderly man moaned in pain as she and the young man spun to set him on the bed. "I'm gonna go get the Healer now," she said, making brief eye contact with the young man that made her middle quiver. She turned and darted back down the hallway. "Healer Iona?"

The serene Elf, tending to a sick girl, looked up from her work and smiled. "Yes, Child?"

"Have you seen Healer Mathilda?"

Iona pursed her lips, her smile souring. "I believe she is in the shrine, communing with her God."

"Thank you, Healer." Paesa bowed, as Healer Iona preferred, doubled back through the lobby, and headed down a different, longer corridor. The large wooden doors that lead to the shrine had never looked so imposing. She took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves, and walked through.

The Temple of Mended Wounds was comprised of eight rooms, of which the shrine was by far the largest. Although the Healers who practiced their craft within the walls of the temple served different Gods, they had all worked in relative harmony to keep a non-denominational place of worship. She herself had been healed there once as a little girl, pulled back from the brink of death after taking a tumble out of a third story window. Every time Paesa entered it, she always felt a kind of serenity wash over her.

That serenity was somewhat undercut by the thunderous snoring of the Dwarf passed out against the side of the altar. There was an empty bottle in her hand, and another one 15 feet away in the middle of the aisle. Mathilda's long black hair was draped across her face, and fluttered gently with each raucous exhale. "Healer Mathilda," Paesa whispered from the door. "Healer Mathilda." There was no response.

Paesa nervously crept across the room, whispering "Healer Mathilda," over and over, but the Dwarf's heavy breathing continued, unabated. "Healer Mathilda," she squeaked as she knelt down, her hand hovering just beyond touching. "Healer Mathilda!"

"Wha'!" Mathilda roared, flailing to slap away the girl's hand. "Where am Ah? Wha'?! Ooooh Fuck." She groaned loudly as she sat up. "Why'm Ah here?"

"Healer Iona said you were... communing with your God?"

"Heeler Iona," Mathilda snarled, as she rolled onto her knees, "is a smug bitch who likes to play word games. Now why did Ah..." She looked down, somewhat surprised to see a bottle still clutched in her fingers. "Oh. Right." She set the bottle down on the altar, and rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands. "Why're you here, lass?"

"I... I-I came to get you," Paesa stammered. "You have a patient."

"My turn already?" Mathilda pushed her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears. "Wha' time is it?"

"Almost midday," the girl said.

"Ohhh, fuck," she grumbled. "Ah really tied it on last night, Ah s'pose."

Paesa bit her lip, and decided to risk it. "I was talking to Healer Flynn, and she said the Widow Ursed's passing wasn't your fault."

"A'course it weren't!" Mathilda growled, shaking the bottle to see if anything remained. "Ah di'int make her sick, bu' that don't make it any easier to watch 'em die."

"Healer Flynn said you eased her pain," the girl said, comfortingly.

"An' Ah'm sure she'll be right thankful in the next life." Mathilda shook her head vigorously and scratched at the back of her head. "Now wha' did that miserable sonnuvabitch send for me today?"

"A broken leg," Paesa said, smiling.

Mathilda blinked and composed herself. "Go to my desk, lass, and fetch me the clear bottle with the brown stuff inside, yeah? The one wrapped in felt cloth."

"Is that one of your blessed liquors?"

"It's at least one of those things," she mumbled under her breath. Mathilda twisted at the hip, her back cracking as she stretched back and forth. Paesa smiled again and headed back toward the lobby.

Her smile faltered, somewhat, when she opened Mathilda's comparatively-tiny desk. There were dozens of bottles of varying sizes and colors, some wrapped and some bare. Paesa was still sorting through them when the little Dwarf rumbled through the lobby on her way to the patient, and the girl cringed as she waited for the yelling to start. She didn't have to wait long. In desperation, she grabbed a clear bottle from the back and ran down the hall.

"—shouldn't be on a horse at all, ye dumb bastard!"

"I fought in the war!" the elderly man protested. "I'll ride whatever I damn well please!"

Mathilda waved the girl over, and grabbed the bottle out of her hand. "Well it's a good thin' Ah've got nothin' better ta do than fix your stupidity." She ripped the cork out of the top of the bottle, and took a swig off the top. Paesa opened her mouth, but the Dwarf immediately laid her index finger across the girl's lips and took another swig. "Works as regular liquor too, lass."

"Are you gonna help me," the elderly man wailed, "or—"

"Shut it," Mathilda snapped, as she handed him the bottle. She grumbled softly under her breath as she took a good long look at his leg.

"Is there another Healer we might see?" whispered the young man as he stepped in front of Paesa. The girl giggled nervously, having forgotten how cute he was, and immediately tried to recover her straight face. "If I'd known she was just going to get him drunk, I'd have taken him to a bar."

"Healer Mathilda may be... uh..." Paesa floundered for a moment, searching for the right word. "Unconventional. Yes. I assure you though, she's quite good."

The young man seemed unconvinced.

Mathilda pressed her right hand down on the broken leg, and reached over with her other hand to tip up the bottom of the bottle. The elderly man sputtered indignantly. "Keep drinkin'," she said, distantly. "Ah'll tell ya when ta stop."

A soft yellow light coalesced around her hand, and Paesa smiled. The cantankerous little dwarf had the bedside manner of an ogre, but no one could deny that her God moved through her. Rhogan sustained her and answered her prayers for healing long after anyone else would had lapsed into exhaustion. Behind her back, the other Healers joked that he always answered her call because the poor deity was terrified of her wrath.

"—can't believe this is wha' you thought Ah'd want," the Dwarf grumbled, and as the volume of her voice rose higher and higher, so too did the brilliance of the glow around her hand. "Mendin' folk too stupid to keep themselves from harm. This is wha' Ah gave up a decade for?"

"Excuse me," the elderly man sputtered, but Mathilda just reached up and shoved the bottle back against his lips.

"Keep drinkin, ya twat." She closed her eyes and focused, and Paesa swore she could feel something. It never happened with Healers Iona or Flynn, but with Mathilda there was always an indescribable presence during healing. She'd tried, on several occasions, to put the feeling to words, and always came up short.

"There," Mathilda said finally. "May Rhogan bless ye, ya dumb fuck. Two days bed rest." She reached up, snagged the bottle back, and immediately took a long pull. "Ah'll be communin' if ya need me," she said on her way out of the room.

"My leg," the elderly man whispered. His grandson tilted his head in astonishment, and Paesa took a deep, slow breath through her nose. She could barely wait until that was her.

"She's good," the young man said softly.

"She's very good," Paesa corrected.

"Well when you become a healer, I'll have to break my leg too."

"What? That's ridicu..." Paesa giggled nervously again. "Oh. Well... um... maybe you don't have to wait quite so long?"

"Maybe I won't."

The girl covered her mouth to stifle yet another nervous laugh, and headed back toward the lobby.

Healer Flynn was back at her desk, making an entry in their ledger. "Are you happily sighing because you got to see Healer Mathilda in action again, or was it because there was a cute boy?"

Paesa gasped. "I-I... wasn't... sighing."

The thin, red-headed woman smiled knowingly. "The boy, then."

"No," Paesa rinsisted.

"He is very cute," Flynn said, grinning.

"Perhaps," Healer Iona said, as she stepped into the room, "if you spent less time moonstruck over boys and more time tending to your lessons, you would be closer to ending your apprenticeship."

Paesa bowed her head and nodded. "Yes, Healer Iona."

"Oh, lighten up." Iona regarded Flynn with a flat expression, but Flynn continued anyway. "The girl needs to know that unwinding is healthy. Otherwise, she'll end up as torqued as the runt."

Paesa squeaked; it was always confusing for her when the Healers disagreed. There was no clear hierarchy between them, which left her serving three masters. Mathilda was the most powerful, and certainly the most skilled, but her method was unique to her God and Paesa was still unsure how much the Dwarf could actually teach her. Iona and Flynn, on the other hand, were model Healers of middling skill and power.

Finally, Iona sighed and nodded. "I've never met anyone who needed a good fucking as bad as she does." Both Flynn and Paesa gawked, as the Elf was not prone to crude language, and the three of them burst into a fit of laughter.

Paesa was the first to recover her composure. "Isn't it our duty to help her then?"

"What?" Flynn gasped, still out of breath. "No. No."

"Actually," Iona said, thoughtfully tapping her lips.

"No," Flynn repeated. "We're not—"

"Not us, " Iona intoned, "but perhaps we could... facilitate something."

"That's insane. This is insane."

"Think how much easier she would be to deal with," Iona whispered. All three of them paused, considering.

***

"Oooo, she's a looker ain't she," Eban brayed. They'd found him two bars over and four pints down. "Forget the gold. She'll be payment enough."

Paesa looked at the other two and shrugged. She'd always thought Mathilda was fair, for a woman, but she had no idea they were working with a real Dwarven beauty. Eban spat into his palm, and smoothed out some of the scraggly hairs in his beard before crossing the crowded room with a confident stride. Mathilda was already seated at the bar, in the same spot she'd been for several hours.

The three of them craned their necks and watched as the Dwarven male scaled the empty barstool next to her, and tried to strike up a conversation. Mathilda was unresponsive at first, which only seemed to spur Eban on. His commentary became more and more emphatic, to the point that they could hear his voice through the din if not quite understand him. The more he talked, however, the more sullen Mathilda appeared. After a particularly jubilant guffaw, she spun and decked him. Eban flew backwards off his barstool and landed hard on his side.

"Wha' a woman," he said as he came back, his eye puffy and swollen. "Dinnae think Ah'm right for 'er, though, if ye catch my drift. Sorry to disappoint, lassies."

***

Finding any Dwarven women in the city had proven to be difficult to start with, but finding one who was interested in other women had been maddening. They'd found seven more male Dwarves who were more than keen on Mathilda in the time it took them to find a lesbian, and none of the males walked away with less than a broken tooth.

"Her?" the female said incredulously, when they pointed Mathilda out from across the inn. "How desperate do you think Ah am?"

"We thought..." Paesa looked at Flynn and Iona for help, but they were just as shocked as she. "We thought she was very beautiful for a Dwarf."

"Whaddya mean, 'for a Dwarf'," the small woman roared. " 'at's a bit racist, don'tcha think?"

The three of them watched the woman they'd pinned their hopes on storm out the door and into the night, and they collectively sagged in their seats. "I don't get it," Paesa whimpered.

Iona suddenly sat up straight, her eyes focused far beyond the wall. "We have been going about this all wrong," she droned, as if in a trance. "If war came to our doorstep, would either of you hesitate to throw yourselves in front of our wards that they might gain precious seconds to escape?"

"Of course not," Paesa said, defiantly.

"Oh," Flynn replied, looking down soberly.

"What?" Paesa looked back and forth. "What?"

"It should be one of us," Flynn admitted.

"Oh." Paesa swallowed hard. "Have... have either of you two ever... um... with a woman?" Both Healers shook their heads, followed by a moment of quiet self-inventory.

Flynn spoke up first. "I mean, I've thought about it, but..." That didn't surprise Paesa. Flynn had always seemed like a worldly woman.

"I... have too." Iona sat stiffly. "What?" she asked, at their incredulous stares. "I have needs."

"Have you had your needs met this century?" Flynn asked with as much of smirk as she could manage.

"Just last week," Iona said, defensively.

"With who," Flynn demanded.

"Not that it's any of your business, but the... Fruits vendor? In the Sallas market?" Flynn gave her a dubious look. "The tall one."

"Oh. Ooooooh. Gareth?"

"Garress, yes."

"He's cute."

"What about you, Child?" Paesa froze at Iona's question. "Have you ever thought about it?"

"...no..."

"Really?" Flynn asked, with a disbelieving smile. "Not even thought about it? I just assumed everyone had."

Paesa, whose sickly expression had been getting progressively sicklier, shook her head. "Not yet."

"Would this be your first?" Iona asked softly, and Paesa nodded. "Don't worry then, Child. It will be one of us."

"What?" Paesa cried. "No! I mean, you were... what, going to pick straw?" Before either of the could voice an objection, Paesa jumped off her stool and looked around. Finding three pieces of straw of unequal length around the floor of the Inn took less than a minute, and her face was set with determination as she strode back to her seat. "I want to help," she said firmly, holding out her fist and the three strands.

"Dear, it's not like—"

"Just because I'm new doesn't mean I'm any less committed," she said, her voice less steady than she would have liked. "I would gladly lay down my life, just like you said."

"You may have to lay down," Flynn added with a smirk. "Those aren't good odds."

"Assuming she doesn't punch you just for approaching her." Iona snidely added, "Given the last few to try..."

Flynn turned back to Iona and stared for a moment. "You and Garress?" she said, disbelievingly, as she shook her head. "Not in a million years."

Iona cleared her throat. "Focus, Healer Flynn," she said, achieving effortless grace in the space between one breath and the next. "So we're agreed then? The short straw will attempt to bed Mathilda?" She raised an eyebrow as she looked at Flynn and Paesa, and each nodded in turn. "Very well then. Healer Flynn, would you like to start?"

Flynn took a deep breath, blew it back out through pursed lips, and quickly plucked a straw from Paesa's outstretched fist. Iona smoothly took the second, and for a few moments, silence reigned. Flynn and Iona looked at each other, at each others straws, and then at Paesa. The girl, for her part, stared down at her hand. At the tiny piece of straw that remained.

"It's not too late to back out, Child."

"No," Paesa whispered. "It's okay."

"We could stay and help you get started," Flynn offered, and Paesa nodded slowly.

"If you're going to do this tonight," Iona said, "now seems like a good time." They all turned to see Mathilda ranting at the barkeep, who had his arms folded over his chest and was calmly shaking his head.

"You go get her," Flynn said. "I'll get us another round."

Paesa slipped off her stool. This is for the greater good, she told herself. Her legs felt numb and her mouth filled with cotton, but her resolve was strong. Each step lighter than the last.

"—had more'n 'at b'fore brea'fast, boy!" Mathilda roared, but the 'boy', who looked to be well into his 40's, merely frowned and shook his head again. "Ah've got coin! Don' tell me ya don' want money, ya greedy bastard!"

"Healer Mathilda?" Paesa interjected. Mathilda's cheeks were flushed, and she peered blearily as she looked Paesa up and down. "Have they cut you off?"

"Aye, lass," she said, looking forlornly into her mug. "Rhogan giveth and he taketh away, miserable bastard that he is."

"Well, we thought you might want to join us." Paesa smiled as she pointed to the far side of the room.

"We who?" Mathilda squinted and stared. Iona waved, and Flynn was just getting back to the table. "Lass, Ah'd rather hump an angry wolverine than sit with those two prigs for twenty minutes."

"There's already a mug waiting for you," Paesa whispered with a grin.

"Well why di'int ya say so?" Mathilda climbed down from her stool and ambled along behind Paesa as they made their way back across the busy inn. "These contraptions are heightist," she complained, as she scaled the stool. "Outta build stairs on 'em."

"Hello Mathilda," Iona lilted, raising her mug at the Dwarf. "I would welcome you to the after-work party, but I think you started that around lunchtime."