“Of course,” Dale replied, then groaned as Leese walked off.
Alton glanced at her in surprise. “Is Leese not treating you well?”
“Too well. I must be her only patient. Why can’t anyone else around here get sick or break a leg or something?”
Alton sat before his tent doodling in his journal. He mulled over what he’d seen in the cracks in the wall, the patterns. Eyes. And faces. Some of these he drew with their tormented expressions, but he was no artist and he scribbled them out. When he’d taken Dale to see the cracks and she saw nothing unusual, he became unsure of his perceptions. He couldn’t make out the faces either. Maybe he hadn’t been looking at them at the right angle, or the sunlight was different, or…He just didn’t know anymore. Perhaps he obsessed over the wall so much it was influencing him in odd ways. Maybe he really was cracking like his cousin Pendric. Those rumors were still being whispered around camp.
A commotion distracted him from his scribbles and thoughts of patterns and cracks. Dale emerged from Leese’s tent and declared she was free, followed out by the grinning mender. It took several moments for Alton to realize the sling and bindings had been removed from Dale’s arm.
“Look,” she said, flexing her arm for him and others who gathered around her.
“She’s not to overuse it,” Leese cautioned, “and she’s still to wear the sling for a portion of the day.”
Dale rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to start flinging a sword around or hauling granite.”
Leese looked mortified by the mere suggestion. “I should hope not! It would undo all the good work.”
The next thing Alton knew, Dale was announcing it was time they had a little party to celebrate. An “arm liberation party,” she called it. The cooks of both encampments began pooling supplies, and some off-duty soldiers went hunting and actually returned with a stag, several hares, and some grouse. Alton donated his aunt’s gift of whiskey and his own supply of wine, but it did not take long before Dale had him peeling potatoes. The cooks who had taken a shine to him after all his wood chopping joked with him, teaching him a bawdy song, and teasing him when he blushed.
Both encampments perked up as anticipation of the event spread. Life at the wall was a serious affair, with danger never far and the fear of the wall’s demise hanging over everyone, but this respite was welcomed by all.
Dale was here and there, supervising the fire pit over which the stag would be roasted, directing the collection of wood for a bonfire, and the making of benches to sit on around it. She rounded up various personnel with musical ability and instruments and got them practicing, which picked up the spirits of all who heard them even more. She dashed by Alton’s work station and grabbed a potato.
“Look!” she cried, and she threw it into the air and deftly caught it. “I can do this now!” Then she tossed the potato to him and sprinted off to the next thing.
She was a dervish if Alton had ever seen one.
It was dark by the time preparations were ready. Wonderful aromas wafted through the encampment, making mouths water, and torches and lamps encircled the party area giving off festive light. Dale even coaxed some idle soldiers into cleaning out pumpkins and gourds and carving faces into them. Everyone donated candles and soon faces both humorous and grotesque glowed at them from the shadows. The faces reminded Alton of the cracks in the wall and he shuddered.
The soldiers on guard duty worked out their shifts so all could have a turn enjoying the festivities, and Alton was astonished but pleased by the high spirits exhibited by all as they feasted, sang, and danced, all in celebration of the liberation of Dale’s arm. He knew it was just an excuse she made to raise morale. She was always up to such things at Rider barracks, keeping everyone laughing and coming closer together as family. The seriousness of this place, and her own frightening experience of being trapped in the wall, must have been too much and she deemed the time ripe to break the spell.
Even as Alton was gladdened by the sight of such frivolity, he found himself edging away from the light and gazing toward the heavens. One half of the sky was cut off from view by the looming silhouette of the wall, but the other half was filled with stars. The music and laughter of the party faded away as he became lost in thoughts of his purpose in life and how he seemed to be failing at it. He couldn’t fix the wall. The cracks kept spreading. And was he mad because he thought he saw eyes in the wall?
He was even a failure as a friend. In an inner pocket, he kept Karigan’s letter, still sealed and unread. He feared what he might find in it: words of anger, words of spite. He’d treated her terribly when they last parted; at the time he remained under the trickery of Blackveil. Those dreams still plagued him, still painted her as the traitor who almost made him destroy the wall, but as time passed, he knew those dreams to be lies, poison, and slowly the dreams held less and less power over him. He feared, however, what he had done to his friendship with Karigan—maybe because he wanted it to be more than friendship.
That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? This trying to defend the lands from Blackveil. It was about preserving friends and family, all those things he valued and loved, and he’d practically thrown it all away.
“Here you are.”
Alton started. He hadn’t heard Dale’s approach.
“The party’s back there,” she said. “We’ve lit the bonfire.”
“Just needed some quiet,” he said.