A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,43
on, towards a flicker of flame.
They’d dug a fire-pit, a dozen men and women ringed around it, hands warming on bowls of broth, their breath a mist in the air.
A crude hide tent had been erected close to the fire-pit. Fritha nodded a greeting to those around the fire, then stepped into the tent.
She saw Arn kneeling beside a prone form, his dark hair shaved short, his silvering beard neat and braided, as always. He looked up at her as she entered, his eyes pleading.
“Any change?” Fritha asked him. She received a curt shake of his head in answer as she joined him and knelt beside Elise.
“Help her,” Arn said.
“I have tried,” Fritha muttered, feeling a twist of emotions in her belly. Fear, that she would lose her friend—and they were few and far between. Shame, that she was not skilled enough to work a healing; and annoyance, at Arn, at Elise, at herself, that this should bring her lack of ability so unpleasantly to light.
She stroked Elise’s cheek, slick with sweat, remembering the time Arn and Elise had cared for her, when they had found her slumped on the blood-soaked ground, her dead baby in her lap.
I owe her.
Fritha began methodically checking over Elise’s wounds. Her ribs had been manipulated back into position and a collection of broken bones had been splinted where possible—right arm broken above the elbow, both of her legs broken in multiple places.
Shattered is a more appropriate word. Even if I save her, I do not know if she will ever be able to walk again.
But it was the internal injuries that worried Fritha most. Elise was coughing blood and her breath was shallow and erratic. Probably from when the draig had struck her in the chest with its tail, snapping ribs and bruising her lungs. There were a number of other possibilities, all of them worse. Internal bleeding highest on the list.
“Look what you are capable of doing, what you have accomplished so far,” Arn whispered. “The Ferals, Gulla, Revenants…” He stared at her, dark eyes desperate.
“I will try again,” Fritha murmured.
She unlaced a leather vambrace from her forearm, pulled the wool tunic back to bare her arm, and drew a knife from her belt. The blade hovered over her pale flesh and she closed her eyes…
She remembered a woman’s face, severe, hard lines and scars. A fresh cut along one cheek, blood scabbing. A warrior, an empty scabbard at her hip, an iron cloak-brooch fashioned in the shape of a four-pointed star. She was sitting against a tree, chained to it, her hands bound in her lap. Fritha had stood before her.
“Tell me your secrets,” Fritha had said.
The woman had just returned her gaze, strength and defiance in her eyes.
“You will tell me everything,” Fritha had said, drawing a knife.
The same knife she held now.
“Fola agus focail chumhachta, ceangail an fheoil seo, leigheas an cnámh seo,” Fritha breathed now as she drew the knife across her forearm, blood welling in a dark line. “Fola agus focail chumhachta, ceangail an fheoil seo, leigheas an cnámh seo,” she repeated as she turned her arm and held it over Elise, raising her elbow so that the blood trickled down to her hand, gathering into a droplet on one fingertip, fat and heavy, and dripping into Elise’s mouth, another drop on her lips, another, and another as Fritha breathed the words over and over. A sharp wind blew into the tent, swirled around them, sounding like whispered voices.
Elise sucked in a deep breath, her back arching, eyes bulging, and then a long, stuttered sigh, her body relaxing. Her breath seemed a little stronger, a little steadier.
Arn grabbed Fritha’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
Fritha gave him a wan smile.
“It has helped, but I am not a healer,” she said. “I wish now that I had questioned the Bright Star warrior more, and for longer. As it was, to learn this much I put her to the question for three days. But I was focused on other matters. I wanted to create things. But healing…” She shrugged. “Let us see how she responds to this.”
“She will be well. I know she will,” Arn said, stroking his daughter’s brow. He looked up at Fritha. “What is your plan?”
“I am torn,” Fritha said. “Drem and the others could be leagues away by now, so we may never catch them.”
“And is there any point, now?” Arn asked. “The goal was to catch them quickly, before they could send word to Dun Seren.”