From the weapons on the walls and the bedrolls around the room, Briar guessed that this was that gang’s main den. Either they trusted him or they were desperate. When the cluster of Camelguts near one wall gave way, revealing his patient, Briar knew he’d been called in desperation. Ham-mit’s face was swollen and black with bruises.

“Light,” Briar said, dropping to his knees next to Hammit’s mattress. Someone passed over a lamp that filled the air with the scent of burning fat.

Some healing was the lot of every plant mage, since they not only grew many ingredients for medicines, but they made up the medicines themselves. In the last three years, Briar had acquired a great deal of medical knowledge. First he pried open each of Hammit’s eyes to look at his pupils. Both were completely dilated and remained that way as Briar moved the lamp to and fro. Normal pupils would have grown or shrunk depending on how much light fell on them.

Briar turned Hammit’s head. One side of his face drooped, as if he’d had apoplexy. Gently he felt through the fallen boy’s hair, ignoring the bugs — lice or fleas — that ran over his hands as he checked the skull. There was a dent behind Hammit’s ear. The other boy had been panting when Briar started; now his breathing slowed. Briar checked the pulse in his throat: it, too, was slow. With both pupils opened up all the way, he knew they’d waited much too late to call for help.

He sat back on his heels, slow fury heating his belly. “What happened?”

“Found ‘im in the fountain at Cedar Lane and Street o’ Hares near dawn.” The speaker was a boy who had been pitching coppers with Hammit the day before. “He left to visit his ma last night, and never come back. He come around a bit near midday. Said he never saw who got ‘im.”

Briar tried to think of a way to tell them what was coming, without saying that if they’d gotten him to a healer right away, he might have lived. With the bleeding in his skull so gradual that it had only begun to kill him now, even the slowest Water temple healer might have fixed things if the Camelguts had taken Hammit in right away.

He was still trying to control his anger and helplessness when Hammit’s mouth opened impossibly wide, revealing shattered teeth and bloody gums. His body stiffened; his arms went straight as his palms turned out from his body. The Camelguts shrank away. As tough as they were in the streets and in battle, this was unknown, alien.

“You’re a pahan — fix him!” cried the girl who had fetched Briar.

He clenched trembling hands. He’d seen this often enough to know it for what it was. Hammit collapsed. The air blew from his lungs in a last escape, bubbling through his nose and bloody mouth, until his lungs were empty. The Camelguts drew close as Briar checked the pulse in Hammit’s big neck vein. There was none.

“He was dead hours ago,” Briar said softly. “His heart and lungs kept going for a while, that’s all. That’s why one side of his face was all funny. His head was bleeding inside somewhere.” He closed Hammit’s staring eyes. Before they could pop open again, he drew two copper davs from his purse and placed them on the eyelids to keep them shut. He’d wanted to use silver — he’d liked Hammit — but that would have been asking too much of the Camelguts. This gang didn’t have enough money that they could afford to bury silver with their dead.

For the thousandth time Briar wished he’d been a healer rather than a green mage. Medicines only did so much. Sometimes it took a magically gifted healer to turn the tide. Briar was there too often when such times came around, and the only mage in sight was him. It was Lakik the Trickster’s favorite joke on him.

Two more Camelguts, a boy and a girl, lurched through the door. The girl’s face was bruised, the eye on that side puffed completely shut. To Briar it looked as if she had been clipped hard on the cheekbone.

“Vipers,” wheezed the boy, helping the girl to sit. “They was on her when I got there.”

“Will you try to help this time?” demanded the girl who had summoned Briar.

“He’s a pahan, Mai, not a god.” Briar’s defender was the one who’d said where Hammit had been found. “You do medicines, but you can’t heal, am I right?”

Briar nodded and went over to the injured girl. At least he could do something for her. With the balms in his kit Briar lowered the swelling and eased the pain of a shattered cheekbone. That was something, and it was more than the Camelguts would get from any local healers. Only the Living Circle Water temples offered free medical care to the poor, but Chammurans mistrusted foreign temples as well as foreigners.

No sooner had Briar finished with the girl than a third victim lurched into the room, one broken arm dangling. He, too, identified his attackers as Vipers. He’d also seen the weapons they had used, small, rounded batons that were far heavier than they looked. “Sounds like blackjacks,” Briar commented as he examined the newcomer’s arm.

“Since when could they afford those?” demanded the fiery Mai. “This is more of that takameri’s doing, I bet!”

“They won’t have hands to hold their new toys when we’re done with them,” snarled another member of the gang. They clustered together to lay battle plans as Briar finished his examination of the newest victim. His request for two long, straight pieces of wood for splints only distracted one Camelgut from the conference. As soon as he gave them to Briar, he went back to planning.

When the splint was secure, Briar told his patient and the girl with the broken cheekbone, “Look, I know the Living Circle Water temple is an eknub place, but the healers work for free and I’ve done all their medicines. You won’t have to pay so much as a copper dav. They’ll have someone who can do broken bones. It’s on the Street of Wells — let them know you talked to Briar Moss.”