Chapter 28: Wound Treatment
By the time we left the swamp, the sky had gone completely dark. Fortunately, there were no shadows pursuing us from behind—at least not for the moment.
We didn't find a relatively dry patch of high ground until we reached the second mountain pass, where a section of wind-sheltered rock face offered some protection, and beyond it stretched an open view of the path we'd come from. Cade's weight on my shoulder had grown so heavy that I had to shift the direction of support every dozen steps or so. During that final stretch, I'd practically been dragging him along—his right foot could still cooperate, but his left had been trailing behind him, carving a continuous mark into the ground.
I helped him sit down at the base of the rock wall. The instant he leaned back against the stone, he let out a soft exhale—I couldn't tell if it was from pain or genuine relief.
I got a fire going using the method Cade had taught me. This time, it worked.
I spread out all the remaining herbs from the cloth bundle on the ground and picked out two types that would be effective for wounds.
Then I turned to him.
"I need to see the wound."
"I know."
He fumbled with the buttons of his coat with his right hand, his left hanging uselessly at his side—the shoulder joint had already taken on that distinctive shape of dislocation, the bone visibly out of place. His hand trembled when he reached the third button.
I took over and undid them myself.
"Hope you people don't have a tradition where seeing someone's body means you're responsible for them," he tried to make his tone light, but a muffled grunt undermined the attempt.
"Don't move."
Once the coat was open, the left shoulder of his shirt underneath had been soaked through with blood, dark stains spreading from the shoulder toward his chest, following the paths of vessels beneath the skin. I'd already placed Osric's bone talisman against the side of his neck—the bone-white edges had begun to darken, a sign it was being consumed.
I cut open the left shoulder of his shirt. There was no room for modesty now, so I simply stripped off all his clothing. His torso was covered with old scars from years past. But my focus was on the fresh injuries.
The wound was deeper than I'd estimated from the outside. The spider's forked claw had pierced through the muscle layers of his shoulder, nearly reaching the bone. That punch from the rock creature had pushed the entire joint out of position by a third of an inch. Subcutaneous bruising had already formed, extending from the collarbone all the way down to his upper arm.
What made me most nervous were the black traces.
Those were the tracks left by toxins entering the body—darker than blood, following the subcutaneous pathways toward the internal organs. The bone talisman had temporarily suppressed the speed, but it was still advancing. But the talisman wasn't specifically designed for healing wounds after all. I calculated the time—at the current rate of spread, it would reach his chest cavity within seven days.
"I need to relocate the shoulder joint first."
"Mm."
"I'm not a professional. It's going to hurt."
"You don't need to emphasize that."
"You'll need to bite down on something."
He gestured to me with his right hand. I pulled a folded belt from the side pocket of the cloth bundle and handed it to him. He took it and put it between his teeth.
I had him lean against the rock wall, positioning his entire left upper body at an angle where I could apply force. Then I placed my right hand on the joint of his left shoulder and my left hand on the other end of his upper arm. I took a deep breath.
"Three, two—"
Before the expected "one" arrived, I threw my full weight down.
The joint made a dull sound as it went back into place.
Cade's entire body went rigid. The muscles in his jaw bulged as he bit down on the belt, making no sound from his mouth. I heard the withered grass beside him snap as his right hand clenched it.
After about five seconds, he spat out the belt.
"Alright, I hope I didn't make you permanently disabled," I said.
"Mm. Not bad craftsmanship for a layperson."
The restraint in his voice made me uncomfortable. I would have preferred if he'd complained.
I began treating the wound.
Cleaning, disinfecting, stopping the bleeding, then cleaning again. While I worked, I had him talk to distract himself.
"Those two creatures—have you seen them before?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Species, behavior, weaknesses. What I can do medically is limited. I need to know what type of poison I'm dealing with."
"Alright." His voice was starting to drift a bit—the combined effect of blood loss and exhaustion. "The spider type is a low-level creature. I could handle one on my own normally. The problem was its scales had been reinforced."
"What kind of reinforcement?"
"Dark sorcerer's overlay. Normally with that scale hardness, my Coldveil would have cut through on the first strike." He paused to cough, bringing up phlegm tinged with blood. "The magic coats the creature like paint—the creature's original characteristics remain in place, but the durability increases."
"What about the dog-shaped one?"
"Subterranean dwelling creature. Its eyes have basically lost their function—it relies on smell and some kind of sensory ability we can't name. Your powder was the right move."
"How did you know I would throw powder?"
"Those things you were gathering on the road—I'd been wondering what they were for. When I saw that dog, I understood."
The needle and thread in my hand paused, then continued.
"The rock creature."
"That one belongs to a different category—not something that crawled out of a rift. From what I can tell, though I'm not clear on the magic, it looks like the dark sorcerer molded it on site using his own blood."
"I saw that crystal absorbing his blood. So creating that rock creature cost him his life."
I set down the needle and thread. My stitching was a bit crooked, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
"That dark sorcerer came to kill us."
"Not us. You."
I didn't stop the work in my hands, continuing to apply anti-inflammatory herbs over the sutured wound.
"They went to all this trouble," I said, "which means I'm important enough to them to be worth a life."
He paused after that deduction.
"That technique of yours—where did you learn it?"
"The veterinarian who treated horses' external injuries at the palace taught me. The external medicine for horses is about the same as for people—interchangeable."
He let out a short laugh that carried a hint of pain, but he still laughed.
"So right now I'm being bandaged by someone using veterinary methods."
"If you want better treatment, you can pass out and spare yourself from hearing about it."
"Can't do that. What if you take advantage of my unconsciousness and sew my mouth shut?"
"I can do it right now."
His words made my technique somewhat chaotic. I had to redo the wrapping once before I got his bandage right. He watched me quietly the whole time, thinking I didn't notice when he secretly sniffed my hair as I passed the bandage across his chest.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For saving me back there."
"Don't say that. We're even."
I put away the tools and pushed the fire a bit more toward his side.
"I wasn't much use," I continued.
"You haven't studied the sword, and you're not proficient in magic. Just surviving is good enough."
"In that fight, I prepared all those things, but the effect was limited. By the final blow, all I could do was open my mouth and speak."
That caught his interest. He lifted himself slightly away from the rock wall and asked me seriously.
"You said one word and stopped everything. How did you do it?"
"That was one-time only. How it happened, I don't know. How to make it happen again, I know even less."
He grunted and leaned back again. "At least it worked. Without that word of yours, we'd be dead."
I kept my gaze on the remaining roll of bandage in my hands, the firelight making my face flush red. I continued gathering up the herbs spread on the ground.
After that, we fell silent for a long time.
The fire burned steadily. He leaned against the rock wall, eyes half-closed. I thought he'd fallen asleep.
I finally had time to continue organizing my notes. I wrote down the day's events in my notebook, then suddenly thought of something else and spoke to the resting Cade.
"That dragon."
He opened his eyes.
"The color of the scales and eyes," I recalled while sketching in my notebook, "were the same as that dead young dragon."
A piece of wood in the fire cracked open, scattering sparks.
"Kin," he made the judgment. "Or parents."
We both left the words "it saved us" stuck in our throats. The firelight flickered between us. Dragons don't interfere in human affairs—that's basic common knowledge for everyone. More accurately, it had gone for revenge and happened to help us resolve the crisis in the process.
The fire burned for a while longer, and my eyelids began to grow heavy. But I couldn't let the injured person keep watch. I forced myself to stay alert and continued poking at the fire.