When they finally broke out into a clearing, they were beside a lovely mountain river. The waterfall was located about a hundred yards upstream, and although the river seemed to stall in the depths of the splash pool, it quickly picked up speed as it tumbled around boulders on its way down the valley. Their trail followed the river downstream, so they rode in that direction for another hour, until they came across a clearing large enough for them and the horses. By the time they had the horses settled and their campsite set up, dusk was beginning to fall.
Hayley grabbed the coffee pot and climbed down the bank to get some water. While she was kneeling beside the river, a low, painful moan sent chills down her spine. She looked around for a bird or an animal that might have made the haunting sound, but she couldn’t see anything. Finally, she shrugged it off, figuring it was just the wind and an overactive imagination. She had started to climb back up the bank when she heard it again.
“Theresa!” Hayley called out. “Would you come over here for a minute?”
Theresa came running, hearing a touch of panic in Hayley’s voice. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I heard what sounded like a moan, but I can’t see anything. Listen. See if you hear it.”
Both women stood on the river bank, listening to the gurgle of the river, the breeze through the trees, bird calls in the distance, and finally a soft but distinct groan.
Theresa scrambled down the bank to the edge of the water and began making her way upstream through the thick undergrowth that crowded the side of the river. “I’ll look upstream. You try downstream.”
A few minutes later, Theresa spotted what looked like a toddler lying on a boulder close to the other side of the river and directly under a rock overhang. Her first thought was that the child must have wandered out onto the ledge, fallen off, and landed on the boulder below. For the moment she was just relieved that he was in no immediate danger of drowning.
She called for Hayley as she began removing her boots and skirt. By the time Hayley reached her, all Theresa was wearing were her leggings and tunic. She pointed towards the child and said, “I’m going over there and see how badly he’s hurt. It looks like he fell off that ledge, and if he did, I imagine he has a couple of broken bones. Find some splints and something to bind them with. And bring the rope. I don’t know how deep the river is. If I have to swim, I’ll need the rope on the way back. Hurry now!”
Hayley scampered up the bank and ran towards the wagon to get the supplies while Theresa started across the river. The water was only waist deep most of the way, but one small section was shoulder deep. The worst part was that the water was so incredibly cold. Theresa was shivering by the time she climbed onto the boulder, and the constant evening breeze only made it worse. She knew she couldn’t spend much time treating him there. She’d have to get him back to the other side of the river where she could warm them both.
He was lying on his stomach with his head turned towards the bank. She felt along his arms and legs, checking for broken bones. His legs seemed fine, but one of his arms was definitely broken. She held it carefully as she slowly turned him over. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the pool of blood under him. His shirt was so soaked with blood that she had no idea where the wound was. She quickly checked his head, but couldn’t see any injury there. Then she slowly slid his tunic up, trying not to cause more damage to his arm.
While she was looking for the source of the blood, a few facts were slowly registering. For one thing, he might be small, but he was no toddler. Judging by his face, she’d place his age as late adolescence or early adulthood. Another thing that registered was that his clothes were made of some kind of cloth she’d never felt before. It was some kind of fur, like angora, or cashmere, only silkier.
She didn’t find anything until she had the tunic pulled up almost to his shoulders. He had a puncture in his upper chest that looked a lot like an arrow wound. Whatever had caused the injury had been removed and someone had tried to staunch the flow of blood with a mudpack. Theresa looked around to see if she could find any sign of a second person, but there was nothing. Moving him by herself would be dangerous. The wound could open up again and he’d already lost so much blood that any more would definitely be life-threatening, but night was quickly falling and she didn’t see that she had a lot of options.
When Hayley returned, she stayed on the top of the bank so that she was higher than the boulder Theresa was on. She threw one end of the rope over to Theresa, and, when Theresa had the rope, Hayley put some bandages and splints in a cook pot, ran her end of the rope through the pot’s handle, and let gravity pull the pot down the rope to Theresa.
As soon as Theresa splinted the arm and bound it to her patient’s chest, she used bandages and ties to secure the mudpack. Then, after she tied the rope around the handle of the cook pot, Theresa worked on gently sliding his tunic back down as far as possible.
After Hayley pulled the pot with the rest of the bandages back to her side of the river, she tossed the end of the rope back to Theresa.
Theresa used the rope to tie a safety line around her patient’s waist. She lowered herself into the water and reached out to pick him up. She was afraid that he might be heavier than he looked, but he was actually lighter. She held him snuggly against her chest until she got to the deep section. When she reached the deep water, she raised his body in front of her face and felt her way along until she had climbed out of the hole.
As soon as Theresa was close enough, she handed her patient to Hayley and gathered up the clothes she’d discarded. She ran back to the wagon, grabbed a couple of spare blankets, and fixed a makeshift bed near the fire circle for her patient. Hayley gently laid him down on the pallet and turned to start the fire.
When Theresa started to kneel down beside him, Hayley laid a hand on her arm and said, “He’s not bleeding right now, but you’re shivering. Go change into dry clothes while I get the fire going. You’ve been cold and wet long enough.”
Theresa looked at Hayley for a second, then nodded, and darted back to the wagon for dry clothes. By the time Theresa returned, the fire was dancing and Hayley was bringing a pot of water up from the river.
“I thought you’d probably want hot water,” Hayley said as she hung the pot over the fire.
“Thank you, and would you find some woundwort? I want to clean up this area and see what we’re dealing with.” Theresa began untying the bandages. As soon as she had all of the bandages and splints removed, she gently slipped his tunic off and carefully washed the blood away. Once she had the area cleaned, she rocked back on her heels and looked at it.
Hayley walked up behind her and studied the puncture, too. “Looks infected, doesn’t it?”
“A bit, and to get infected takes time. He must have been hurt yesterday. I’m surprised he’s still with us,” Theresa said quietly. “He’s lost an awful lot of blood. There was quite a pool of it on the rock.”
Hayley nodded. “Will he make it?”
“I don’t know. We’ll do what we can.” Theresa bent back over her patient. “Now, let’s see if I can open it just a little to let some of the infection out and woundwort in.” After she was satisfied with the wound, she put a poultice on it, bandaged it back up, and began working on his arm.
“Aaargh,” he moaned as his eyes fluttered open and then slowly closed again.
“Let’s fix him some tea,” Theresa said while she finished securing the splint. She gave Hayley a list of herbs that she wanted in his tea and while Hayley was gone, she used one of the blankets as a large pillow to raise his head and upper chest a little so that he could breathe easier.
He roused a little while she was feeding him drops of tea and when she was about done, he opened his eyes. He looked around like he was trying to figure out where he was.
“Hello, my name is Theresa and I’m a Sister of Healing,” Theresa said slowly as she laid her hand over his. “My aide and I found you on a rock in the river.”
Theresa nodded towards the river.
His eyes drifted in that direction.
“You look like you’ve been shot, and you have a broken arm. I’ve already treated the wound and set the bone. The tea I’ve been giving you should help with the pain and let you sleep.”
He slowly returned his eyes to her face and after a few moments, he tried to speak. “S’accident,” he mumbled, almost too low for her to hear. “Tell father.” It seemed to take everything he had to say that, and he held on to her hand and raised his eyebrows as if looking for reassurance that she had heard him.
“Tell your father that it was an accident, right?” Theresa asked quietly.
A slow smile crept across his face. He closed his eyes, and slept.
“Well, what do you make of that?” Hayley asked.
Theresa shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s important for his father to know that whatever happened was an accident, but where’s his father? Why hasn’t anyone come looking for him?”
Hayley shivered a little and said, “Someone probably is looking for him, they just haven’t looked here yet. I hope that when they find him, they don’t think we did this to him.”
“Surely not. Anyone can see that we’re trying to help. Don’t worry about that.” Theresa fingered her pendant, comforted by the thought that it was there. “I wonder who he is.”
“I don’t know, but I think he’s a gnome.”
“Really? I’ve never seen one.”
Hayley shrugged. “Neither have I, but I’ve seen brownies and leprechauns, and he’s not one of them. A gnome is all that’s left. No one else is that size.”
“I didn’t know there were any gnomes in the area,” Theresa said as she looked around, searching the shadows for movement. Her only experience with gnomes had been about two months ago while they were traveling from Glendymere’s canyon to Milhaven. They had taken a short cut through Davenglen, home of the prairie gnomes. Although none of them ever caught so much as a glimpse of a gnome, their campsite was raided every night. Nothing of importance was ever taken, just little things, like Kevin’s belt and Joan’s potholders.
“We’re not too far from Farowood,” Hayley said.
“Farowood?”
“You know, home of the forest gnomes. King Merdin’s home,” Hayley explained.
“Of course,” Theresa said, unwilling to arouse Hayley’s suspicion by asking who King Merdin was. “Well, let’s let him rest while we fix dinner. Then I’ll give him some more tea.”
Later, after they had eaten and Theresa had given the gnome a little more tea, she brushed the hair from his forehead. She knew he was feverish from the infection in his wound, but his fever seemed to be climbing. If a human were that warm, she’d need to use cold compresses to bring the fever down, but she didn’t know what was normal for a gnome, and she didn’t want to give him chills. Finally she settled for a compromise and put cool cloths on his head and chest. When she checked the cloths a few minutes later, they were warm from his body heat, so Hayley got a few more cloths out of the wagon so that Theresa could switch them out.
Around midnight, Theresa sent Hayley to bed, but she sat up with the gnome all night, spooning liquids into him and trying to bring his fever down with the cool cloths. By daybreak, she was pretty much wiped out.
Hayley got up as soon as the sun’s rays penetrated her sleeping tarp. Once she had a pot of coffee ready to go on the fire, she said, “You need to lie down for a while, Theresa. You’re just about asleep on your feet.”
“I’m okay,” Theresa insisted, as she continued to wipe the gnome’s forehead.
“No, you’re not,” Hayley said as she took the cloth out of Theresa’s hand. “Look, I know I’m not a sister, but I’ve taken care of a lot of sick people. I know what to do.”
Theresa looked at the girl who’d actually had more experience working in a clinic than she had and decided that she was probably right. So after a detailed list of what to look for and Hayley’s solemn promise to wake her if the patient showed any sign of change, Theresa gave in. She crawled into her sleeping blanket and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
Five hours later, Theresa woke up with a jolt. When she scrambled out from under her tarp, she was surprised to see that the sun was directly overhead. She felt like she had just closed her eyes for a few minutes. She stumbled over to where Hayley sat mopping the gnome’s brow.
“Any change?” Theresa asked.
“Not that I can tell. The coffee’s fresh if you want a cup.”
Theresa nodded, picked up a mug, and poured coffee from the pot hanging over the fire. “I’d like to get something a little more substantial than tea in him, maybe some broth.”
“I’ll fix it,” Hayley volunteered as she stood up and stretched. “What about you? Don’t you want something to eat? Why don’t I fix a pot of soup? We could give him the broth and we’d have something a little more solid.”
“Good idea. When was the last time you gave him some tea?” Theresa asked as she knelt down beside the gnome.
“I fixed the last one about an hour ago, but I gave it to him slowly, so he’s only been done with it for about fifteen minutes.”
Theresa nodded and lifted the cloth on his chest. She looked at the area near the wound. “I want to clean that wound again and see if the infection’s spreading. And I think we need to make a fresh poultice, too.” She told Hayley what herbs she would need and then turned back to her patient.
During the afternoon, Theresa gave her patient a cup of fluid every hour, alternating between broth and tea. By late afternoon, his color was beginning to improve, his breathing seemed a little easier, and his forehead didn’t feel quite so warm. For the first time since she’d found him lying on the rock, Theresa felt that there was a good chance that he would live.
While they were sitting around the fire after dinner that evening, Hayley kept looking over her shoulder and fidgeting. Finally, Theresa asked her what was wrong.
“I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like there’s someone out there, out in the woods, watching us.”
Theresa nodded. “Well, we knew that eventually someone would come looking for him. I think maybe they’ve found him. I’ve felt like someone’s watching us, too.”
Hayley looked relieved. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me it’s just my imagination. What do you think they’re going to do?”
“I don’t know, but for now, we’re going to pretend that we have no idea they’re out there,” Theresa said softly. “He should be coming around before too much longer, but he’s going to be awfully weak for several days.”
“Are you going to try to keep him here with us until he’s stronger?”
“That’s my plan, but he might have other ideas. We’ll just have to see how all of this plays out. But for tonight, I don’t think it would be a good idea to leave him out here by himself. He doesn’t need to be watched as closely as he did last night, but if we leave him alone, they might decide that he’s ready to travel.”
“Do you want to move him into the sleeping tarp with us?”
“I don’t think so,” Theresa said quietly. “It’s really not a good idea to jar him around, and if we move him out of their sight, I’m afraid they might feel that they have to rescue him. Why don’t you go on to bed for a few hours. Then I’ll get you up to sit with him while I sleep. That way we’ll both get a little rest.”
After a little convincing, Hayley ambled off to bed.
~ ~ ~ ~
Theresa and Hayley had just finished breakfast Sunday morning when Hayley suddenly gasped and grabbed Theresa’s arm.
“What is it?” Theresa asked.
“Look over towards the river bank,” Hayley whispered. “Please tell me you see two eyes floating over there.”
Theresa looked towards the river, but she didn’t see anything. “Where?” she mumbled.
Hayley tilted her head in the direction of the river. “Right in front of that bush. About
a foot and a half high, maybe a little more.”
Theresa caught her breath and slowly exhaled. “I see them. What, or who, do you think it is?”
“I have no idea,” Hayley said under her breath. “What do we do?”
“Nothing,” Theresa said quietly as she poured herself another cup of coffee. “If whatever it is means to harm us, we’ll know soon enough, and my pendant will protect us. But in the meantime, I don’t want to do anything it may perceive as a threat. Let’s just go about things as usual.” Theresa picked up the mug she’d been using for the gnome’s tea and poured some coffee in it. “I’m going to give our patient a little coffee. It’s time for him to wake up a bit. Why don’t you get the dishes washed up?”
“All right, but I’m going to wash them over here. I’m staying close to you and that pendant until we find out what’s going on.”
Theresa nodded and dribbled a spoonful of coffee into the gnome’s mouth. After she’d fed him about half the mug, his eyelids began to flutter, and then slowly opened.
“Welcome back,” Theresa said with a smile. “How are you feeling?”
The gnome stared at her for a while, licked his lips, and said, “I remember you. You’re the sister I talked to last night. I thought it was just a dream. You said something about a broken arm?”
Theresa smiled. “I’m surprised you remember. You do have a broken arm, but it was a clean break and should heal without much bother,” she said slowly. “The chest wound has been my biggest concern. You lost a lot of blood.” She fed him another spoonful of coffee and continued. “Whoever put the mudpack on it probably saved your life. Unfortunately, by the time I got to you, it had become infected.”
The gnome made a move as if to sit up, but Theresa put her hand on his chest and shook her head. “Not yet. You’re too weak, and I don’t want you to get that wound bleeding again. Here, we’ll prop you up a little,” Theresa said as she lifted his back so that Hayley could refold the blanket he was using as a pillow. Once he was settled again, Theresa said, “From the look of the wound when I found you, I’d guess you were hurt sometime Thursday afternoon, right?”
The Dragon's Flame (The Chronicles of Terah # 2) Page 9