Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 02] by The Crystal Sword (v0.9) (epub)

Author:The Crystal Sword (v0.9) (epub)
Format: epub
Published: 2013-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

XII

By nightfall Dylan was almost falling from the saddle. His left arm was swollen and puffy and the world was lost in a haze of endless pain. He was hungry and nauseated and so weak he could not unsaddle the horse. He made camp and somehow got a meagre fire ablaze. But the effort to fetch some water and boil it was too much. He simply collapsed on the ground and lay there, staring up at the interlacing branches of the trees overhead and the twilight beyond them. He was fevered and parched.

Thirst finally moved Dylan to the brook, and he thrust his great head under the water, then lifted it out and sucked and lapped like a beast. Runnels of icy water cascaded from his curly hair down his cheeks and into his beard. He thrust his burning arm into the water too. It felt cool and wonderful. Weakly he splashed water into the wound itself.

Dylan crawled back to the fire and got the little bronze pot he carried, then rested for a long while before he could fill it with water and set it to heat. He was sweating and cold at the same time, so he pulled his cloak up under the left arm and over the right shoulder, and huddled in misery. When the water began to steam, he put willow bark into it and removed the pot from the fire. He drank the bitter liquid and thought of Sal, Lady of the Willows, and his mother, who blended into one in his fevered mind. His stomach complained and belched in rebellion, but he kept the tea down somehow.

Sweat drenched his body, pouring out of him like rain, and he was wracked with cramps. With an enormous effort he got more water, draining the pot once before he refilled it again and set it on the fire once more. He shoved a few more pieces of wood into the coals, then curled up on his right side and lay with his knees bent against his chest. His body burned and froze simultaneously, and Dylan had a vain wish that he had not returned to the world of the senses.

Some while later the sweating stopped and the cramp in his limbs eased. Dylan sat up very slowly and made more willow tea, and drank it. He washed the gaping wound with some of the tea, startling the many forest creatures, who had crept to the edge of the firelight to see him, into flight with the violence of his howling. The wound superated messily, and with grim purpose Dylan fetched more water for another laving. He boiled willow bark this time, instead of infusing it as he had before, and let it cool no more than he had to. There were several fine linen cloths in his medicine collection, intended to be used for bandages, though his mother had often told him that to bind a wound was often more dangerous than to leave it open, so

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