Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen (27 page)

“Go around to the other side of the bed. I need you to pull back the skin on his left leg before I make the incision. Once I stop the blood flow I will need you to wrap your hands around his thigh, squeeze hard and pull the skin and muscle up as hard as you can.”

Grundel just stared at the leg and nodded.

Hellen wrapped the leather strap around Jabaal’s leg. She put a small steel rod through the strap and began turning it. When the strap was digging into the skin she turned in two more full turns. To Jabaal’s credit he showed no signs of discomfort. Then she looked at Jabaal. “Are you ready?”

Jabaal looked her in the eyes. “Yes,” was all he said. He looked up at the stone above his head and fell into his meditation. He gave himself over to Kalime. He drew into himself. He could see through his own eyes, but he was not connected with his body. He was in his mind.

Hellen looked at Grundel. She put her finger on Jabaal’s leg a hand above the knee. ”Squeeze here and pull everything up toward his body.”

Grundel wrapped his huge hands around the leg. He pulled back on the tissue.

Hellen stood on the other side of the table. The tourniquet had stopped the blood flow. There would still be all the blood that was trapped in the leg below the tourniquet. “I am going to have to cut twice. The first cut will be through the skin and outer muscles. When I make that cut I will have you grab hold of that and pull it back.”

Grundel just nodded.

Hellen took the smaller of the two blades, which wasn’t more than an inch long. She put it blade up, level with the table and slid it into Jabaal’s leg. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to be aware of what was going on. She slid the knife up, cutting through the skin and outer layers of muscle. When her blade came free of the top of the thigh she put the blade in on the other side of the leg and brought the blade toward herself cutting through the other side of the leg and over the top. She left the skin on the back of the leg uncut.

She looked at Grundel as she blotted away the blood with the rags that Master Gibbins had left.
“Let go of the leg. Grab the severed muscle, and pull back on it.”

Grundel sli
d his fingers into the ring around Jabaal’s leg and pulled back.

Hellen waited until he had pulled the muscle back as far as he
could. It was only a finger’s width but it was enough. She started at the bottom again. This time she let the longer knife cut down to the bone, severing all the muscle and sinew connected to the bone. It began retracting immediately. When she had finished cutting through all of the muscle and the bone was bare except for the tissue between it and the table, she slid the knife under the leg about six inches down. She cut up through the skin. This made a long flap of skin. Finally she cut up through the muscle toward the bone. When she had exposed the bone on all sides she picked up one of the rags. She made a small cut in one side of the rag. She wrapped the rag around the bone using the slit in the cloth. Then she looked to Grundel again. “Take the rag and pull it back as far as the muscle will allow. The more of the bone we can expose the better.”

Grundel took the rag and pulled it back up toward Jabaal’s body. He didn’t know how the man was taking all this pain. Hellen was working fast. For everything she had done
, it hadn’t been more than maybe a minute, two at the most. It was still slow and painful, it had to be, but Jabaal hadn’t even made a face.

At this point Hellen had to ask for further help. “Master Anwar
, if you could hold onto the bone. Try to keep it as steady as possible.”

Anwar looked at the leg that now had a section of the bone exposed. “I will hold the whole leg in place. That way you can focus on sawing, and not worry about the bone moving around when you get halfway through it.”
He reached out with his magic and applied equal pressure to all sides of the leg. It would be more stable than anything any of them could do by holding onto the leg with their hands.

Hellen pushed on the bone slightly to test it. It did not move. She picked up the bone saw. The saw had small teeth
, with the teeth facing in alternating directions so the blade would cut in both forward and backward strokes. The teeth were wider then the blade so that the saw was less likely to get stuck as it cut into the bone.

To make the first groove she went as high up on the bone as she could without entangling the cloth that Grundel was holding back all the flesh with. By doing this she would ensure that the bone would be cut back far enough that it would not protrude into the stump
and press against the inside of the flesh. The flesh and muscle would heal over the end of the bone, giving the bone a chance to heal better and enabling a prosthetic stump to be used without being extremely painful.

She laid the teeth of the saw on the bone as close to the handle as she could, then she slid the blade back toward herself. She did this three times until she was comfortable with the small groove she had made. After inspecting the groove she place
d the teeth in it again and began sawing back and forth in earnest. With Anwar’s help holding the leg steady as a rock, she made the smoothest cut she could have ever made. When the bone was cut through she pushed the amputated leg away from the stump. Then she picked up the bone snips and cleaned up the edges of the bones to ensure everything was smooth.

Now that the stump was cut
away, Hellen took the rag from Grundel. She sorted through the flesh and began tying off the artery and large veins. When she had tied them off, she loosened the tourniquet around the leg two turns. It was still slowing blood flow, but it wasn’t stopping it altogether. She cleaned out the wound with warm water.

With the wound cleaned
, Hellen pulled the muscle and ligaments down over the bone. Then she pulled the flap of skin over the stump. She used her knife to cut the flap so that it lined up with the rest of the skin. When she had finished sewing the stump closed, she dressed it. When the wound was sufficiently wrapped she turned and looked at everyone.

“It is done. The dressing will have to be changed a few times a day so that they do not stick and the wound doesn’t get infected. The stump should stay elevated on a pillow. If it is ok
ay with all of you I would like to stay until the stump is healed.”

“What about your clinic back in Freeman
?” Anwar asked.

“My apprentice has it well in hand. She is more
than capable,” she answered.

“You are more
than welcome to stay. You saved my friend. Evermount is at your service. Anything you need, just let me know,” Grizzle told her.

Hellen nodded, and then began cleaning up the mess.

Anwar stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Evermount. The dwarves had gathered all of their dead. All that was left were tens of thousands of orc corpses littering the field. The dwarves had enough to deal with just now, and he felt responsible. He might not be able to fix everything, but he could do something about this.

He pushed his magic out into nature again. This time he was careful not to allow himself to get lost in the power. He gathered the wind at one end of the field. From mountain to tree line
, the winds built. When the winds were blowing over the entire area he pushed out more magic. The winds blew harder and harder. Then the bodies began rolling. A few began to flip up into the air when they hit others. He pushed more of his magic out. The bodies began to roll more steadily. Some were flying dozens of feet through the air. He added one last push of magic and the bodies were all rolling and flying through the air. He held there.

He was afraid of overdoing it. He didn’t want to lose control again. The wind was clearing the bodies
well, so he focused on controlling the magic. It took over an hour, but he had cleared the bodies. The closest orc corpse was three miles away from the base of the mountain. Some would have been tossed into the woods, but he wasn’t focused on those. The animals would take care of them. The animals in the area would be fat for a long time. He transported himself to where he had sent the bodies.

He had
focused the winds toward a single spot, so the bodies had not continued to scatter once they had gone as far away as he had intended. The bodies were still spread over a mile in either direction from where he stood, but he was confident that he could handle it. He raised his wall of fire. He slowly spread the wall until it was over a mile long. When he had it the length he wanted, he began increasing the heat of the flame. Typically he had just made fire. When a wall of fire ran over someone’s body it was usually enough to take them out of the fight. On top of that, being burned over that much of their body was usually fatal. But now he was trying to incinerate the bodies. He continued to increase the heat. When he was finished the fire was hot enough to melt stone. He focused on holding the amount of magic he was using in check. He concentrated on maintaining this amount of magic. If he concentrated he wouldn’t lose control again. He allowed the wall to slowly creep over the bodies until everything was burned. The vegetation, the stone, the corpses—the fire left only ash and charred ground behind. For half an hour he watched as his wall of fire crept over the mile of land. When it was past the last of the corpses he cut off the magical link with the wall. The fire extinguished, and he stood staring at the square mile of scorched earth. It hadn’t even taken much from him. What was he capable of? He had to learn to control this power or eventually he would lose himself to it.

Jabaal laid in his bed with his stump propped up on a pillow. When he had come out of his meditation the pain had been unreal. He had grabbed hold of his mind and pushed down the pain. The pain was still there, but he was able to keep it in the back of his mind. Hellen had stayed after she was finished. Everyone had stuck around after the surgery to make sure he was ok
ay. Eventually they had all left, but not Hellen. He had wanted to try to get up, to use the one leg he still had, but she had refused to allow it. She had argued that the pressure would open the stitches in his other leg. It would be at least a week before he could get out of the bed. She didn’t mean for him to wait alone, though. She had stayed all night. They had talked for hours. She had been there this morning when he woke as well.

“I am amazed by your faith. I find that most men have strong faith when they are in need, but after a tragic event like the one you have faced their faith is weakened if not lost altogether. You have spent hours telling me about how great your god is. Why is it that you do not blame him for the pain you have to endure
?” Hellen asked him.

“I am a man of faith. That means I trust that Kalime is going to take care of me. He has a plan for me. Somehow the loss of my leg will reap its own rewards. It is not my place to challenge the plans of my god. It is also my faith that helps me hold the pain you speak of at bay. With the power my god has given me I am able to suppress the pain instead of relying on the herbs. I had nothing but my skill with a blade before Kalime. Now I have my faith. I don’t know what my path might be, but I know that he will provide me with one. If I did not have Kalime all I would have would be two swords and one leg. As Grizzle
asked before, what is a warrior with one leg? The answer would be useless, but what is a man of faith with one leg? He is still a man of faith.” He felt like he was preaching to her, but she listened intently. She seemed to be sincerely interested in what he was saying.

“Your faith is refreshing. I have never seen a man so devout. Seeing your faith makes me rethink my stance on the gods. I have always believed them to be selfish, but I can see that you truly care about your god. I believe that your faith will guide you. There are very few real men of faith in Freeman. There are many men who practice their faith out of routine, but very few who truly follow it. The ones who do are radicals. They take up singular causes of their faith, and follow them to extremes. Men like that are why I have never taken any of the gods. I am not saying I want to take Kalime as my god, or any of the others, don’t get me wrong. I am just saying you have inspired me to be more accepting of religion, and maybe I will eventually find the god for me.”

Hellen spent every day with him. They talked about everything, where they grew up, the things they liked, the things they didn’t like, what they hoped to accomplish in life. The only person Jabaal had ever talked to about his wife had been Anwar. But now he found himself able to talk to Hellen about it.

He told her about the man who had jealously lusted after his wife. He told her how his wife had become pregnant and how the man had brutally murdered her, stabbing her multiple times in the stomach. It was hard to talk about, but she was
a good listener and a good friend.

It was three days before she allowed him to get out of bed. Grizzle, Anwar, and Rundo watched as Grundel helped him out of bed.
Jabaal stood on his right leg, holding onto Grundel’s shoulder. The pressure made the stump hurt more, but he didn’t say anything. He had barely been standing a minute before she made him lie back down.

“We need to wash your body today,” She told him w
hen everyone was gone.

“I can wash myself
,” he told her.

“We can’t submerge the leg in a tub yet. We will have to wipe you down with
a wet cloth for now. I have kept the wound clean, but we need to wash your body as well.”