Savn frowned. If Vlad’s neck was broken, could he move about like that? Savn tried to think of what the Master had said about such injuries, but he couldn’t remember hearing about them. The Master had spoken about the neck as the stream that fed the mind, and that if the spine were severed, the brain would starve from want of thoughts. Maybe this was what he meant; this was what a body did when there were no thoughts to guide its actions. It was horrible.
And then, as if to underline the ghastly sight, Vlad’s delirious babbling ceased long enough for Savn to hear an awful sucking, bubbling sound that came from somewhere on his body.
As Vlad began mumbling again, Savn wondered what could cause the sucking noise. If the lungs had been pierced, that might account for a wheezing, but would the escaping air sound like that? Probably, he decided. But still ....
There was a dagger at Vlad’s belt. He removed it and one of the jhereg hissed at him.
“Shut up,” said Savn abstractedly. He cut open Vlad’s jerkin down the middle and pulled it aside, exposing a chest full of dark, curly hairs. Was that normal for Easterners? He didn’t stop to give it further thought, because he saw the wound at once—about halfway down on Vlad’s right side. There wasn’t all that much blood—Savn almost wished there were more, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the pink tissue that was lying open—but what there was of the escaping blood bubbled and frothed.
Vlad’s breath was still coming rapidly, and was very shallow. Oddly, though, only one side of his chest—the left side, away from the wound—was rising and falling. And what bothered Savn most about the queer chest movement was that he’d seen or heard of such a thing before.
Where? When?
He looked at Vlad’s face once more; it was grey, but seemed no more so than it had a moment before. He looked again at Vlad’s chest, watching the left side rising and falling rapidly, while the right side hardly moved. It was familiar, and it wasn’t. He closed his eyes, and tried to recall Master Wag’s words.
“I found it because I was looking for it. It isn’t the sort of thing you can see easily....”
That couldn’t be it, because it was easy to see.
“I was looking for it because I found the broken rib. And I found the broken rib because it was hit in the side.”
Wait, though. “It”?
“... the sort of thing you can see easily in a pig.” Yes! Cowler’s stud-hog, butted by their goat. Cowler had spent ten minutes on his knees begging Master Wag to look at it, because Birther was off somewhere, and Master Wag had finally agreed only because he thought Savn might be able to learn something useful. “We’re a lot like pigs, inside, Savn,” he’d said, and refused to make any jest on the subject. Yes.
Vlad was still mumbling. Savn tried to ignore him and remember what the Master had said. It hadn’t been that long ago. “... knocked a hole in the Cave of the Heart, so the lung collapsed ... no, not the heart, the Cave of the Heart, where the heart and the lungs live. Same thing can happen to a man, you know. You’ll learn about that some day. Now, go fetch a bottle with a plug, and you’ll learn what I can do with a couple of reeds. Good thing this was a hog; they have the same sort of lungs we have, which I told you half an hour ago, though you probably weren’t listening, as usual. You’ll learn about that, too, someday. Run along now, before this smelly beast up and dies and makes a fool of me.”
The procedure came back to him, and with the memory came the fading of hope. He had the water, which he’d brought for Vlad to drink and to repel the Imps of Fever from the wound, and there was even a wax plug in it, but he had no reed, nor anything that could be used as one; none of the plants that grew around here were both hollow and wide enough to work, and it would take hours to reach the river and return. Vlad didn’t look like he would live for hours.
He glanced at the sword which he’d dropped next to Vlad. If it was hollow, it would be perfect; long and flexible ...
He stared at the empty sheath at Vlad’s hip. How well-made was it? Savn had drunk from leather flagons; leather could certainly be made watertight.
He had to hurry, but there was still time for thought. He’d waste less time if he figured out what he had to do, every step, before he did anything else. Finding the sheath was enough to give him hope; he began to think that everything he needed was here if he could just find it; what he had to do was get it right the first time. How could he make the puncture? No, he didn’t have to; the sword that had cut Vlad had made a fine puncture; all he had to do was to seal it up while he was working on it, and then again afterwards. How?
Well, for the first step, his hand would do well enough, but how about later? The sheet he’d taken from Tern’s house certainly wasn’t airtight; could it be made so? Was something that was watertight also airtight? It had to be; how could air get through if water couldn’t? Well then, if he could find a candle, he could melt wax onto the cloth from the sheet.
He took Vlad’s belt off, found his belt pouch, dumped it out, and looked at the contents. There was a piece of flint (why would a sorcerer need flint?), a few odd-looking sewing-needles (but no thread), a few scraps of paper, a purse with several gold coins in it as well as some silver, a bit of wire, a few small clay vials of the kind that Master Wag kept potions in, but no candles. Well, that made sense, why would a sorcerer need a candle? Then he frowned ... the wax plug on the water bottle? He’d have to melt it, but it might work. So he’d need a fire. Okay, there was plenty of wood around, and he could set the cloth near the fire, and then cut shavings from the plug and set them on top of the cloth where they could melt and make an airtight seal to put over the wound; it wouldn’t have to be very big; the wound itself was less than an inch wide.
He should cut the strips first, before doing anything else, so he could have them ready. And he’d have to cut the bottom of the sheath.... What about the second tube? Oh, yes, there was the sheath for Vlad’s dagger. That was also leather. Would they both fit in the jug?
He felt an instant’s panic at the thought that he’d dropped the food sack somewhere, but it was sitting next to him, where he’d set it down while he looked at Vlad. He took out the water jug he’d gotten from Tern. Yes, the mouth was good and wide. It would be hard to jam the leather sheaths through the wax plug though, and he’d have to be careful not to push the plug out, or rather in. Well, he had the dagger, he could cut holes in it.
How much water should be in it? He wished someone would make a jug one could see through. Well, about half-full would be easiest, because then he could be certain that the long sheath was in the water and the short sheath was out of it—or was it supposed to be the other way around? No, that was right: “wound to water, air to air,” Master Wag had said. “Why?” Savn had asked. “Because it works,” the Master had replied.
Savn went through the entire procedure in his mind, and when he was sure he had it right, he cleared a three-foot circle of ground, gathered a few twigs and leaves and struck a small fire with his own flint an arm’s length from Vlad. He got it going, added a couple of branches, and found a few rocks to set next to it. While they were getting warm, he cut several strips from the bedsheet he’d taken from Tern’s house and set them on the stones.
The jhereg hovered around, looking interested; Savn tried not to think about them. Vlad seemed greyer. His arms and legs were still moving about without purpose, and he’d shifted his position slightly. The odd angle of his throat seemed to be worse, too. His speech was still unrecognizable. Savn remembered that Master Wag had said something about the heart being crushed if the Cave of the Heart became too small. Savn started working faster.