The next hour passed in a misery of snow and cold, wind and exhaustion. When Kellea made an abrupt halt and scrabbled about in the snowy hillside on our right, I could do nothing but stand huddled in my cloak, numb, dull, too tired even to ask what she could possibly be doing. To my astonishment, she, her horse, the packhorse, and the spare mount we’d brought for Gerick disappeared abruptly in a direction that couldn’t possibly be right. But I forced my frozen feet to follow… into a cave, deeper and wider than I could reach with my arms, and wonderfully out of the wind. I vowed never again to travel without a Dar’Nethi Finder.
We lifted Paulo down first. Then, while I felt my way carefully with hands and feet, leading the horses a little deeper into the cave where they couldn’t step on us, Kellea worked at starting a fire. She had never learned how to manage it with sorcery. From the mumbled oaths as she worked her balky flint, I guessed that fire-making would be the next thing she learned from the Dar’Nethi swordwoman.
Carrying blankets and what extra clothes I could grab from our packs in the blackness, I crept my way back to Paulo. I bundled him up and wrapped my arms around him, trying to share what little warmth I had, willing Kellea’s flashing sparks to catch whatever she had found to burn. When the first sickly flame split the darkness, long before it provided any warmth, I sobbed silently in gratitude.
The cave looked like a way station for bandits. All manner of odd things lay about: broken crates, a few barrels, a spilled bag of blue-dyed yarn, chewed by generations of vermin. The blackened fire pit lay near the mouth of the cave, filthy with half-charred animal bones and unrecognizable muck. But a good supply of dry firewood was stacked beside it.
Paulo was awake and shivering uncontrollably, eyes glazed with misery, lips bloody from holding back his cries. His skin was pale and clammy. “We’ll soon have you warm,” I said, as Kellea ripped twigs from the larger pieces to feed her hungry flames. Fumbling with a waterskin and my handkerchief, I wiped the dirt and blood from the boy’s mouth.
As soon as the fire was blazing, I turned to Paulo’s injuries. Kellea knelt beside me, stroking his forehead while I cut away his muddy breeches and leggings. I tried not to let my voice reflect the grim sight I was uncovering. “About time we got you some new clothes, Paulo.” Oh, gods have mercy…
“I’ve brought a few things,” Kellea said quietly over my shoulder. “I’d best get them.”
Kellea’s herbs weren’t going to do much for Paulo. His lower left leg was broken in at least two places that I could see, possibly one more from the way he moaned when I touched his swollen knee. A shard of bone protruded through mangled flesh and sinew above his ankle, and he was bleeding profusely. At the least we had to straighten the breaks and stop the bleeding. Yet, even if we could keep the injury from killing him with sepsis or blood loss, I doubted the limb would ever be usable.
Kellea unrolled a small leather bundle containing a number of paper packets and small tin boxes. Tearing open a packet, she crushed several dark green leaves in her palm, transferred them to Paulo’s tongue, then gave him a sip of wine to wash them down. “This’ll make you sleepy, so it won’t hurt so very much. We’ll give it a little time to work before we see to your leg. Same as we did for Graeme when he was hurt. You remember.”
He nodded ever so slightly.
I tried to blot away some of the blood from his ankle, but when I so much as touched the grotesque wound, he sucked in his breath and his face went even whiter. Little whimpering moans caught at the back of his throat. “Ah, Paulo, I know it’s awful. But we have to press on it a bit to stop the bleeding. Can’t have you leaking all over the blankets.”
While Kellea stoked the fire to roaring and put a pot of water on to boil, I held the ragged remnant of Paulo’s breeches on his wound. First we cleaned the wound with wine and boiled oak bark from Kellea’s packet and forced the bone back inside, and then I held his upper body while Kellea pulled and twisted his poor limb into some semblance of alignment. Gripping my arms, he buried his face in my breast and did his best not to scream. But he couldn’t manage it. His racking sobs tore me to the heart. After a while he fell insensible again and we finished the horrid task as best we could. From a small tin, Kellea extracted an oily yellow paste and spread it onto his torn flesh, then bandaged and splinted his leg with pieces of a broken crate, binding it with lengths of our rope. So pitifully little we could do.
Kellea was almost as pale as the boy when she was done. “It’s far from straight, but I just can’t get it to move any more,” she said. “We’d have to use rope and pulleys to make it right, but even then I’m afraid we’d just do more damage. I’m no surgeon.”
I threw Kellea’s cloak over her shoulders as she dribbled willowbark tea into Paulo’s mouth. Then I moved the horses farther into the deep cave and unsaddled them, giving them a cursory wipe-down with a piece of sacking Paulo kept for that purpose. We couldn’t afford to have them die on us. I dared give them only half a ration of grain from Paulo’s emergency supplies. Who knew how long we’d be here? By the time I had done what I could for the beasts and hauled the rest of our supplies close, Kellea had fallen asleep.
All through the night we took turns watching Paulo and feeding the fire. I forgave the bandits their crimes in thanks for the wood. Paulo shivered and moaned quietly, and I gave him more of the willowbark tea. What on earth were we to do?
At some time, I fell asleep without waking Kellea. When my shoulder was touched lightly, guilt set me apologizing even before I could unglue my eyelids. “Is he all right? I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I fought my bone-weariness to sit up, but my dream refused to be banished with the opening of my eyes. Paulo lay beside me, his cold hand gripping mine. His face was pinched and pale, but bore a trace of his old grin as he gazed up at the one who knelt on the other side of him.
“This will hurt for a moment,” said the newcomer, his voice quiet, weaving a cocoon of peace and reassurance, “but nothing as to what you’ve done already. Then I’ll be with you, and we’ll take care of it. All right?”
Paulo nodded, a silver knife flashed in the firelight, and Karon’s words of healing scattered embers of enchantment like fireflies through the cave.
CHAPTER 14
A Dulcé had shaken me awake. “My lady,” he whispered. “Would you be kind enough to step outside where we could speak? I would most appreciate it. The Prince has said it will take him a goodly time to care for the boy.”
“Yes… yes. Of course.” This could not be a dream if I was stammering so foolishly. “Of course I’ll speak with you.”
Kellea’s blankets lay empty, no sign of her in the cave. I wrapped my cloak tight, dragged my eyes reluctantly from Karon, who was binding his bleeding arm to Paulo’s, and stepped into the dawn light. Kellea wasn’t outside either. The only tracks in the snow were the sun-melted muddle of our foot-and hoof-prints from the previous night.
The Dulcé followed me out of the cave.
“I didn’t even feel it change,” I said in wonder, pulling the pink stone from my tunic and clasping it in my hand to savor its lingering warmth. “We had a difficult evening.”
“So it would appear.” The bearded man’s eyes glinted with good humor. “And, in our great hurry, we most rudely gave you little warning.”
Recovering some measure of politeness, I said, “You seem to know me, but I’ve not had the pleasure…”
“My name is Bareil,” he said, bowing in the way of the Dulcé, with one arm extended and one behind his back. “Dulcé, as you see. Guide to Master Dassine for thirty years and now privileged to perform that service for Prince D’Natheil.”
“Where is Dassine? I’ve news of such urgency…”
His smile dimmed. “Master Dassine is dead, my lady. Two days ago at the hand of unknown assassins.”
“No! But what of the Prince… his recovery… his future…?”