The Dragon of Despair (78 page)

Binding her wounds hurt so much that Firekeeper had to keep pausing to let bright flashes of pain fade from behind her eyes. By the time she had finished her labors she knew that though Blind Seer had been as careful as he might—a thing she knew for her leg bone was not crushed to splinters—still his fangs had sorely lacerated her flesh. She wrapped her makeshift bandages around and around, partly to stay the bleeding, partly to soak up what would inevitably flow.

“My Fang,” she asked him. “Did it go into the muck?”

The wolf nosed around and came back, bearing the bare blade very carefully in his mouth. She took it from him, and slipped it into its sheath, for she knew it would take all that she had merely to move. There would be no more fighting for her.

“No convenient walking staff,” she asked, trying to make light of her need.

“None,” the wolf said, “and no time to hunt. These will be missed and we do not want to await the searchers.”

Firekeeper agreed.

“I shall make do with your shoulder then,” she said.

Bracing herself against Blind Seer, she hauled herself up so that she stood balanced on her good leg, her heavily wounded one throbbing so that she didn’t dare put any weight on it.

They made their escape, leaving behind betraying light, entering darkness that now seemed sheltering rather than obstructive.

Their travel was very slow. Whenever they came to a turning, Blind Seer would pace ahead, leaving Firekeeper leaning against a wall in absence of his support. More than once he offered to let her rest and go seek the others so that she might be carried, but always she refused.

“I would sleep,” she said, “for I can barely keep awake now. Then if I was found I could offer no defense. This is better.”

Whether the wolf agreed or not, he remained with her. Firekeeper hardly knew who she was or where. Her entire world had been reduced to the throb in her calf, to the dozen lesser aches, and a pleasant lassitude that continually beckoned her. She didn’t know when she ceased to move of her own accord and Blind Seer was forced to drag her by one shoulder, the leather vest providing some slight armor against his teeth, but the bruising going to the bone.

At last they came to the entry into the sewer nearest to Hasamemorri’s house. Blind Seer could not haul Firekeeper up, but he managed the rung ladder, and shouldered the cover aside.

He emerged into the greyish light of false dawn, a blood-streaked horror so like something out of the worst legends that the few early risers who saw him fled, not even pausing to scream.

ELISE PACED ABOUT THE KITCHEN
, brewing tea and refining the lecture she was going to give Firekeeper when the wolf-woman returned from this latest impulsive foray.

Derian had noticed Firekeeper’s note and the missing map when he went to ready himself for bed. He had returned to the kitchen, his shirt open, revealing what Elise recalled with a slight blush as a rather attractive chest. Normally, Derian was modest to a fault around her—a lingering remnant of his respect for her as both a woman and a noble. It had been his abandoning this that had given Elise the first sense that something was wrong.

“Does everyone else read this the way I do?” he asked, dropping a grubby sheet of paper on the table where they could all see it.

Sir Jared had answered first.

“Firekeeper’s gone back into the sewers,” he said, slamming his fist into his palm, too polite to curse in the presence of the ladies.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Derian agreed. “She’s taken one of the map copies I made—a finished one, thank the Horse.”

They’d debated about someone going after woman and wolf, deciding at last that Firekeeper and Blind Seer would be too far ahead of any pursuit, that their already attenuated group could not risk any further losses.

“Likely,” Wendee said, drying the same plate for the third time, the only sign of distress she permitted herself, “Firekeeper will be back sometime in the middle of the night, smelling to the skies and as pleased as if she’s done something clever. I’ll set a stew kettle filled with water over the coals to warm before I go to bed. That way whoever is awake can make her bathe.”

Wendee’s practicality, forced as it was, had a good influence on them all. Derian returned to readying himself for bed. Doc left to check the lock on the front door before taking the early watch. The women soon followed Derian’s example and went to bed.

When Derian woke Elise for her turn on watch, her first words had been: “Are they home?”

He’d shaken his head.

“No sign. I’d better get some rest. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

Once she was alone, Elise found herself growing angrier and angrier. Maybe if she’d had siblings or children she would have been better prepared to deal with Firekeeper’s behavior, but she had not. The Archer family had taken “Responsibility” as a motto rather than the more poetic “Arisen from the Soil” suggested by Grandmother Rosene to her suitor. Now Elise was facing just what that responsibility meant, and realizing what a trial some of her own escapades must have been to her parents.

“I wonder if Mother and Father have gone ahead and adopted Deste,”
she thought, and realized that she hoped they had.
“Or perhaps if they have not we can take custody of Citrine when we get back. Jet certainly has done no good for her.”

Homesickness and the routine kitchen chores that fell to the dawn watch kept Elise busy. When she heard the thump on the kitchen door, her first thought was that Derian must have slipped out while she’d been in the pantry and had his arms full with a load of wood for the fire.

Elise opened the door to find Blind Seer on the stoop, his fur spiked with mire and blood, his entire being reeking of filth. Though her mind knew perfectly well that he was no danger, her heart thought differently.

Her scream brought the others—including one of Hasamemorri’s maids—running in. Derian ran directly to the wolf.

“Firekeeper!” he said. “Where is she?”

Blind Seer replied by tugging at Derian’s shirt then turning his piercing, blue-eyed gaze directly on Doc and whining.

“I’ll get my bag,” the knight said.

“Elise,” Derian ordered when she made as if to come with them. “If the two of us can’t get Firekeeper, one more set of hands won’t help. Get water on the boil and the surgery ready. All that blood isn’t from the ‘other guy’ or Firekeeper would be here bragging about how tough she was.”

Immediately realizing the wisdom in this, Elise hurried to obey, brushing past Doc in the hall. Wendee was urging Hasamemorri’s maid out of the way, promising to bring the landlady’s tray up herself.

Before the small kettle of water Elise had put on had time to boil, Doc and Derian were back, Firekeeper between them on a horse blanket that acted as a makeshift stretcher.

“Blind Seer grabbed it as we went out the back,” Derian said, words flowing to cover his evident concern. “He obviously knew Firekeeper was in no shape to walk.”

Doc, who was walking at Firekeeper’s head, added, “If the water’s boiled, bring it. If not, Derian can put on more. Bring what you have.”

Blind Seer hovered in the doorway, obviously wanting to come in but not wanting to get in the way. Elise patted him on the head as she grabbed the kettle.

“Let Derian or Wendee wash you off,” she suggested, “before you come in. You’re a disease waiting to happen.”

The wolf whined in resignation and Elise repeated her suggestion to Wendee as she hurried past.

“Right after getting breakfast ready for Landlady Curiosity,” Wendee snapped, exasperated.

Elise offered a wan smile by way of apology, but didn’t pause.

Once in the surgery, Elise got her first look at Firekeeper and had to stifle another scream. Doc and Derian had stripped off the wolf-woman’s vest, revealing a left shoulder that was black and blue where it wasn’t bleeding. Every inch of exposed skin on Firekeeper’s upper body was scraped and scratched. It looked as if someone had wrapped a whip about her waist, leaving angry weals. Her left calf was wrapped in blood-sodden strips of cloth and caked with dirt.

“She’s alive but lost so much blood that we must get liquid into her,” Doc snapped, his hands moving as he checked and probed. “Derian, make sure there’s more water heating. Prepare it in several small pots so they’ll heat faster. Then bring in some tepid water and see if you can get Firekeeper to swallow some.”

“Right!” The redhead was gone almost before Doc finished issuing his orders.

“Elise, is that water boiled?”

“Not quite, though it’s hot.”

“I want to wait until we have boiled water to unwrap the leg. Start sponging off the shoulder and upper body cuts. Use alcohol when the worst is off. The wounds must be clean before we put ointment on or we’ll just trap the infection.”

Elise nodded, then ventured, “What do you think happened to her? Did she meet some monster down there?”

Doc’s lips twisted in a humorless smile.

“I’d say that this shoulder at least was done by Blind Seer. He must have dragged her I don’t know how far. Poor creature must have wanted hands in the worst way.”

Elise was horrified. She’d never really taken a close look at what the wolf could do, though she’d seen him kill and knew he was deadly. To think that this was what he was capable of when he was being gentle was enough to reawaken fears that she had thought forever gone.

“Is the shoulder broken?”

Abstractly she thought,
The shoulder. The leg. As if they don’t belong to a woman we know, as if they’re just body parts.

“I don’t think so,” Doc replied, “though she may wish it so. It’s going to hurt, even with the best I can do for her. We should be glad that she insists on wearing leather. It’ll be easier to clean the fibers out and leather does offer protection that cloth would not.”

Eventually Derian came in bearing two small pots holding a gallon or so of boiled water between them.

“More’s on and Wendee says to tell you that the bigger kettle she put on last night is coming around now that the fire’s built up.”

“Good,” Doc said. “Set your pots there. Elise, let’s look at that leg. We’ll want cold water to stanch the bleeding if it starts afresh when we unwrap the bandages.”

Derian ran to haul fresh cold water from the well while Elise reached for the stoneware jugs in which they kept water boiled once and let cool. When Derian returned he set the bucket on the floor near where Doc could reach it, then took a bottle of clean water from his pocket and started nursing drops between Firekeeper’s pale lips.

“Is she conscious?” Derian asked after he’d been at work for a time. “I thought I heard her whine when you moved her leg.”

“Conscious or not,” Doc said brutally, “she’s not getting anything for the pain. I don’t dare put her under so far that I might not be able to draw her back.”

Elise knew that meant Firekeeper likely was conscious and feeling everything they did to her. She tried to be gentle, but that was nearly impossible. Some of the blood on the wrappings had dried, cementing the fabric so that it had to be cut away. Other strips had left long strands from the frayed ends of the cloth buried in the lacerated flesh and each of these must be pulled clear.

The injuries to Firekeeper’s calf, once they were fully revealed, made the ones on her shoulder look like nothing.

“Blind Seer again,” Doc commented, “or they met another carnivore of his shape and size. This time there was no vest to protect her skin. The teeth went right into the muscle. It’s a wonder that he didn’t break her leg.”

“What happened, Jared?” Elise asked, hearing a plaintive note in her voice as if she would cry the tears Firekeeper did not. “Did something drive one of them mad down there so that he had to attack her? I’d more easily believe in the existence of another wolf than that either would harm the other.”

Jared shook his head, sponging and cleaning the wounds as best he could.

“Only Firekeeper can tell us,” he said. “Let’s do what we can to save her. I’d hate to be left with a mystery.”

When Firekeeper was as clean as they could make her, Doc and Elise stitched closed the longest cuts. Scrapes and bruises were liberally anointed with ointments and poultices made from calendula and comfrey. Then Doc placed his hands on Firekeeper’s thigh and shoulder, and sent his healing talent into the injured parts with such force that he swayed and would have crumpled to the floor had Derian not caught him.

Derian lifted Doc onto the surgery cot with relative ease, as if Doc’s use of his talent had made the man physically lighter.

“Now we have two patients,” Derian said with a wry smile. “I’ll go see if that broth Wendee was making is ready and pour a mug of honeyed tea for Doc.”

Elise nodded and sank into a chair where she could watch over Firekeeper and Jared both. Outside the windows she could hear the bustle of the market day beginning. In pointed contrast there rose the howl of a freshly washed wolf who wasn’t being let inside until his coat had dried.

XXX