by Andre Norton
“I shall certainly hope that is true,” said Nolar. “To think that this whole great expanse of land must be nearly empty of life is both sad and unnatural.”
Derren sniffed the early afternoon air uneasily, and glanced up at the low clouds. “It may rain soon, lady. We should try to cross the pit of that next valley and seek shelter for the night among those far rocks.”
His prediction was swiftly fulfilled, as the first heavy drops spattered down before they began the climb up the farther side of the valley. The mountain ponies shook their heads as the initial shower grew into a downpour. When he saw the treacherous character of the gravel underfoot, Derren found his sense of apprehension intensifying. He had just twisted around, beginning a warning to Nolar, when without any advance indication, the entire slope ahead and above them dissolved in a roar of cascading rocks and earth. The rock-slide swept upon them like a hideous gray-brown wave, giving them no chance to bolt or flee.
One moment, Nolar was blinking away cold rain, and the next moment, she and her pony were being whirled and tumbled back down toward the valley floor. Nolar was overcome by a thoroughly disconcerting flood of sensations—deafening noise, choking dust even amid the torrential rain, pummeling rocks that bruised the body and shocked the breath from her ribs. She was dimly aware that she had parted company with her hapless pony, and was rolling and sliding farther down the slope, now half-buried in gritty rocks and soil, now suddenly free and tumbling uncontrollably down, always down. When she finally cascaded to a stop, her legs trapped to the hips by gravel, Nolar wasn't certain for a while that she had stopped rolling. Her head whirled from all the frenzied motion, and she gasped for breath. Was anything broken? She cautiously moved her arms, then dug her legs free. She felt twinges from strained muscles and deeper aches where bruises would be forming, but no stabbing pains from broken ribs, arm or leg bones. Thanks to Wessell's ample clothing, Nolar had been covered sufficiently to prevent more than a few minor abrasions on her hands and face. She was considering herself fortunate, when she suddenly thought of the Witch.
“Elgaret!” Nolar cried frantically, and as quickly stopped, since it was unlikely that the Witch could hear her or answer. She heard a jingle of harness nearby as a pony struggled to its feet, and then, less distinctly, a muffled groan.
“Derren?” Nolar listened anxiously for a reply. The next groan guided her back up the incline. The loose gravel and slippery mud frustrated any effort to hurry, but Nolar fought her way upward until she could clearly see the dark green of Derren's tunic against the churned soil. He was lying on his right side, his head and chest swept downhill. Nolar winced to see rivulets of blood staining the water trickling among the rocks. “Derren?” she called again. “Can you hear me?”
Derren tried to lever himself up on his right arm, but fell back with a choked-off cry. “Do not look upon it, lady!” he exclaimed desperately. “It is not a good sight for a maiden's eyes.”
Nolar continued to slither closer to him. “Neither is my face a pleasing sight to look upon, but while I live, I am here, and perhaps I may do somewhat to stanch your bleeding. It is your leg, is it not?”
Derren could not fully suppress a sob. “It is broken—badly. I fear I see the very bone. Oh, do not look!”
“I have seen bones before, sir,” snapped Nolar, her concern so keen that it burst out as irritation. “You forget that I have lived near peaks where men and beasts fell and broke themselves with appalling regularity. Ah, you are quite right about your leg. I suspect that large, jagged rock half buried just beside you may have caused the injury. Our first necessity is to stop the bleeding. My cloak has been obligingly torn—so I shall employ the loose strip. Let me bind you here, above your wound.” As she eased the cloth strip around his thigh, she glanced apprehensively at Derren, who lay back, pale, his eyes shut as the rain streamed down his face. They would have to find shelter soon, or he would die simply from the chill, never mind his blood loss. She reached out to touch his hand in reassurance. Did she dare to leave him long enough to search for Elgaret?
As if Derren had sensed her thought, he opened his eyes. “You must leave me, lady,” he implored. “Find your aunt and seek shelter before full darkness. I shall follow once I have recovered my breath from the fall.”
Nolar tugged her makeshift cincture tight. “I do not think, Master Derren, that you will be walking far this day on that leg. Nor, for that matter, on your other ankle, which I suspect has also been injured.”
Derren had lost his left boot in the landslide, and Nolar could see that his left ankle was already discolored and swelling. His right leg, however, was in the more urgent need of care. Despite her positive manner, Nolar quailed inwardly as she examined the extent of the hurt. The bones of the lower leg had torn through the skin when they snapped, but there was also a deep gouge along the leg that sluggishly welled blood in spite of her cincture. Shelter—that was an immediate requirement, and then she desperately needed Pruett's herb satchel. As gently as she could, Nolar straightened out Derren's right leg, easing the exposed bones back into the raw flesh. Derren sighed and fainted, to her relief, for Nolar felt she had to pull his torso uphill so that his head would be elevated. The rain, at least, was diminishing, but the air was getting colder. Nolar checked the cincture, which had appreciably slowed the bleeding. She recalled that one of Ostbor's scrolls advised that the pressure had to be loosened at regular intervals if the limb below the tie was to remain alive.
Nolar staggered to her feet, searching the surrounding area for evidence of their ponies or baggage. She tried to remember where Elgaret had been just before the rockslide—she had been back behind Nolar, to her right, for she could recall glimpsing Elgaret from the corner of her eye just as Derren had called to warn them. There, far to the right, at the foot of the landslide. Wasn't something moving? As she skidded and scrambled down the slope, Nolar saw that it was Elgaret's sure-footed pony, nuzzling a dark still form on the ground. Worn out by stumbling through the gravel, Nolar simply sat on what was left of her cloak and slid down the rest of the way. Elgaret's pony appeared to be sound, with all of its gear amazingly in place, although some packs were wrenched out of order. Nolar knelt by the Witch, dreading what she might find. She did not consider herself religious, but she found herself offering a fervent prayer to Neave, Goddess of Truth and Peace. As Nolar slowly eased the Witch over onto her back, she was immensely relieved to see no outward signs of major injury. Elgaret might simply have been asleep, breathing evenly, her eyes shut against the rain. Nolar supposed that the very state of relaxation in which Elgaret rode had probably served her well during the extended fall. The Witch presumably had rolled limply down the hillside without snagging on any obstructions. Nolar carefully felt along Elgaret's limbs, but detected no broken bones.
Recalling how Derren had once attracted the ponies’ attention at a streamside, Nolar pressed her fingers to her lips and emitted a shrill whistle. When she heard a faint answering jingle, she whistled again. Her own pony, limping a little, plodded into view a short distance away. Pruett's herb satchel, its leather darkened by the rain, remained securely fastened behind the saddle. Nolar hurried toward it, talking soothingly to the pony as she went. The pony trembled, but stood still and let Nolar run her hands over its joints and examine its hooves. With some effort, Nolar pried a rough pebble from its lodging in one hoof, hoping that would relieve the lameness. She then led the pony across the scree toward Elgaret's patient animal.
About a third of the way up the slope, an abnormal shape caught Nolar's eye. She left the two ponies at the foot of the slide and trudged up to the strange shape. Her worst fears for the missing animal were quickly verified. What at a glance might have been an oddly bent stick was actually the shattered forelimb of their baggage pony, whose body was buried under the slide debris. Using a broad flat rock, Nolar dug down to the body. The poor creature's neck had been broken, but most of the baggage was still intact and could be salvaged. Soft whickering sounds mad
e her look back down the slope where Derren's pony was now rejoining its companions. Nolar slid down hastily and extracted a spare cloak from Derren's battered saddlebag, together with a blanket to wrap around Elgaret on her way back with Pruett's satchel. She noticed with a pang of loss on Derren's behalf that his small huntsman's crossbow had been ripped away from its lashings in the fall.
When she reached him, Derren was still unconscious. His swordbelt had been sheared, and his sword was gone, but Nolar saw that his dagger remained snug in its regular belt sheath. The light was dimming as twilight settled early in the depth of the valley. Nolar delicately eased the cincture, for Derren's leg below the fabric band was sallow and chill. Bleeding resumed at once, but healthier color also flushed into the leg. Nolar was delving into the satchel for the herbs she would need when a totally unexpected voice echoed across the valley.
“Ho, there! Ho!”
Nolar froze for an instant, then peered into the dusky shadows where a clammy evening mist was already thickening. “Here!” she called hoarsely. “We need help! Here!”
“Hold fast—I come!” the voice responded, and abruptly its owner came into sight, emerging from an adjoining cleft that cut into the valley. He was afoot, flourishing a heavy staff in one hand and clutching a game bag in the other.
Nolar waited, hoping for more assistance, more people, perhaps mounted on horses or ponies, but her prospective rescuer appeared to be alone.
He paused to look at Nolar's huddled ponies and the blanket-wrapped Witch, dropped his game bag, then dug his staff into the gravel and started the climb toward Nolar. He was a broad-shouldered, burly man whose tousled hair was streaked with gray. His size and evident strength reminded Nolar of the helpful innkeeper in Es City. He was wearing an old-fashioned tunic, like one of Ostbor's most ancient garments.
“I heard thy trill a while since. Thou art sorely stricken, lady,” he rumbled in a deep voice as he arrived at Nolar's side. “What's to do?”
“I welcome your aid, most heartily, sir,” said Nolar. “As you see, our escort has been injured in the rockslide. I have the necessary herbs to treat his wounds, but I cannot move him by myself. Our chief need is shelter for the night.”
“I have been hunting,” the man said slowly, as if weighing the opportunities available to him. “It is not far whence I bide. We could go thither before the dark, if it please thee.”
“I should brace this broken leg so that no more damage be done.” Nolar glanced about, worried. “Can you find two sturdy sticks we could bind, one to either side of the leg? I must stay here to halt the bleeding.”
The burly man gave a curious half-bow and strode back down the slope, producing an additional landslide of his own. He returned shortly with two lengths of trimmed tree branches which he helped Nolar bind against Derren's right leg. Squinting along his staff, as if taking a rough measurement, the man said, “He is taller than I. Best that I carry him upon my back.”
Rolling Derren to a sitting position, he squatted, his back to Derren's, reached behind and pulled Derren's arms over his shoulders as he rose in a crouch. Nolar had never seen such a lifting strategy, but it did stretch Derren along the rescuer's back, with both legs off the ground. Once at the valley floor, the man carefully transferred Derren to a pony. He helped Nolar balance Elgaret on her pony, tied his own game bag to Nolar's saddle and set off, leading that animal since Nolar insisted upon walking beside Derren to watch for renewed bleeding from his leg. As they walked, Nolar explained that most of their belongings should be recoverable from the area close by the dead baggage pony.
The burly man peered up the slope where she pointed. “Aye,” he said, “I can see a foreleg right enough. I shall return for thy goods on the morrow when the light is better.”
It was almost completely dark when they reached his hunting camp. He had stretched a cord between two trees and used that line as a brace against which he had constructed a lean-to shelter from evergreen boughs. He needed only a moment to kindle a fire and carry Derren and Elgaret beneath the shelter, out of the cold drifting mist:
As he straightened up, he demanded bluntly, “Who art thou, lady?”
It seemed to Nolar that she had been introducing herself to suspicious strangers for entirely too long and wearisome a time. Her anxiety for Derren's life had worn her temper as raw as his fearsome wounds.
“Sir,” she retorted, “I regret that we have not been properly introduced, but at the moment, my sole concern is to try to preserve this man's life. Can you heat some water for me? I must brew some knitbone tea and make a quantity of poultice, besides mixing an oil of garlic salve for the ankle sprain. Oh, pray do not stand there gaping at me like a fish! Hurry!”
It was only after he turned away, rummaging for a blackened kettle that Nolar realized that the firelight had likely just disclosed to him her disfigured face. The man had stared at her face for a moment, but his expression had not conveyed the familiar revulsion Nolar's appearance so often elicited. Nolar could not quite evaluate his reaction. There had been a certain glint in his eyes that Nolar halfway recognized, but amid the demands clamoring for her attention, its significance eluded her. She had no time to brood. The herbs had to be seen to. She blessed Pruett for his care in packing what she needed. If only there was sufficient knitbone; she could use yarrow as a styptic and astringent if the knitbone ran out, and red clover salve could be applied to fresh wounds, but Derren's hurts were so severe as to be daunting to even the most proficient herbalist.
The burly man gruffly presented her with the steaming kettle.
“Thank you. I shall need another pot, please,” Nolar requested, “and a shallow dish, if you have one, in which to form my poultice. Could you bring me a cup from my saddle bag? That red leather one, over there.”
“I came out a-hunting, lady, not carrying provisions for a troop,” the man complained.
“We have some vessels in our baggage, then. I will fetch them.” Nolar extracted a roll of cloth from the herb satchel. “Kindly tear some of this fabric into strips, if you will, for the bandaging. Make it about three finger widths.”
Nolar fretted at every delay, but took care to mince the knitbone root and leaves so that they would mix smoothly into the salve. She set some of the leaves steeping into a tea for Derren to drink once he was awake. There were those, she knew, who pressed liquids upon the unconscious, but it seemed to Nolar more sensible to wait until the victim could swallow for himself and lessen the risk of choking. On one of their small flat wooden trenchers, she laid out a broad strip of linen as the base for her poultice. She tempered the boiling water with some of the icy fresh water the man had fetched in another jug, and plunged more knitbone roots and leaves into the pot to warm them. The mucilaginous roots helped bind the mass together as she lifted it out to drain before arranging it on the linen. The burly man assisted her in applying the warm poultice to Derren's injured leg. Nolar spread her healing salve on the raw gouge furrowed down the leg, then snugly wrapped the limb with bandage strips. With some trepidation, she loosened her cincture, anxiously watching the bandage for any sign of bloody soak-through. When the cloth remained clean, Nolar let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
The heat of the poultice roused Derren to semiconsciousness. To engage his attention, Nolar addressed him briskly. “Derren! You must drink some of this tea. Slowly … that's good. A little more, please.”
“Sweet,” muttered Derren, licking his lips. “Sharp.”
“So I have heard. Take a little more, if you will. It will help the healing of your leg. It was very fortunate that Master Pruett packed so much of this fine knitbone, or comfrey, as he called it. Perhaps he foresaw that we might suffer broken bones.” She stopped babbling as soon as Derren's eyes drooped shut.
“Now then, sir,” Nolar said to the burly man, who had been listening with evident interest, “we may introduce ourselves while I rub my salve upon the sprained ankle. I am Nolar of Meroney, from the land of Estcarp, a
s is my lady companion, Elgaret. She was sorely injured in the recent upheaval of these mountains—the Turning, as it is being called. Our guide and escort is Derren, a Borderer from the south country. We encountered him upon our road to Lormt, where we sought aid for Elgaret.” She paused in her rubbing and looked at their rescuer, the first truly close look at him she had taken.
At first glance, he had a bland, unremarkable face, with deep-set eyes that glinted red-brown in the firelight. He seemed habitually to finger a single black metal earring in his left ear lobe. His thin lips parted in a sociable smile, disclosing sharp white teeth. Odd fragments of memory rushed through Nolar's mind. She had seen eyes like those once before, and for some reason, there was a link in her mind with sharp teeth. Suddenly, the scene snapped into focus: it had been that wild boar she had seen years before, cornered by Ostbor's hunting neighbors. Her lasting impressions of it were feral eyes like smoldering coals and slashing tusks. Before the huntsmen's spears finally pinned it, the boar had gutted several dogs and savaged three men. Annoyed, Nolar shook her head. Why should she ever have thought of that dangerous animal? She concentrated on what the burly man was saying.
“I wish thee and thy party well, lady. I hight Smire, a scholar's apprentice from a distant, nameless corner of these mountains. My master and I have been lately freed from long immurement due to … illness. I dared to leave him briefly to hunt for fresh food. But where dost thou fare in these wilds?”
Nolar could not say why, but something about Smire deeply troubled her. Looking at Smire, she thought that “scholar” was the last term she would have thought to apply to him. With some chagrin, she tried to remind herself that few would look at her and say “scholar” either, but her disquiet persisted. She had heard of instant, unthinking dislike for a stranger—in fact, she had so often elicited that herself because of her face that she had almost ceased to care when folk drew back as soon as they first saw her. But this aversion was different.