Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild

by Peter Plasse

  “Understood.”

  The captain drew forth a sharp knife and released him from his bonds. He slowly brought his hands around in front of him, the movement causing him to pant with pain. He held them out in front of him. They were grossly swollen and an alarming color of purple. He tried to move his fingers but found he could not.

  Biliar arrived on the run, and the captain ordered, “Stay with her. If you hear me yell, kill her at once.”

  “Yes, Captain,” he returned. He sat down on a log and pointed a crossbow directly at Jessica’s heart from a distance of about ten feet away. Blake stood and followed the captain towards his tent. He noticed that the camp was as it had been the night before. It didn’t look to him like they would be moving out soon, and he thought that that might be related to the bad state of the captain’s eye. As he walked he kept trying to flex his fingers. Some of the color had returned to his hands, as well as some feeling, but he still couldn’t move them.

  It only took about fifty paces to get there, at which point he asked the captain for permission to speak.

  The captain granted his request.

  “Sir,” he said, “I can’t move my fingers. I will need one of your men to assist me?”

  “I suppose,” he said, “But no tricks. I remind you of Biliar’s instructions.”

  “Understood, Sir,” said Blake. “No tricks. Might it be Gall?”

  The captain opened his good eye wide in response to this odd request, but didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed aside the tent flap and went inside. Blake followed him. “Gall,” he called out.

  “Sir,” came the reply from right outside the tent.

  “Find Oddwaddle and have him stand guard outside the tent. You go over and assist Biliar in guarding the lady Human. He knows what to do.”

  “Yes, Sir,” came the reply, and Gall moved away to his assigned task.

  Blake looked around. He had expected it to be dark inside; clearly not what he would have wanted to perform a medical examination, but it was as light as the early morning outside, perhaps brighter. He glanced at the roof. From the inside, he could see it was made of a remarkable material that shone brightly, almost like an overhead light.

  The tent was perfectly well organized, with a small raised cot in one corner at the end of which was an assortment of weapons. On the opposite side was a small field table on which was unfolded a map. Blake moved over towards it and tried to glean as much information from it as he could. He did manage to spot Mount Gothic, far to the west, while the captain’s back was turned. He immediately turned his gaze away from the map as soon as he spotted, out of the corner of his eye, the captain turning towards him.

  The captain seemed not to notice. Rather, his mind seemed to be elsewhere as he said, “Gall is just a boy, a simple boy, in no way suited to the life of a soldier, let alone a soldier far away from home doing battle. Why have you asked him to assist us?”

  “No particular reason,” Blake answered. “It’s only that we had a brief opportunity to speak a moment ago, and he greatly admires you, and I thought it would be good for his self-esteem to help in the saving of his captain’s eye.”

  The captain didn’t speak right away as he absorbed Blake’s response.

  “You Humans are a most odd race,” he said at last. “Here you are, facing death in the cooking pots of the Trolls in a few days, and yet you seize the moment to try and somehow help one of my men, boys, to feel better about himself. I find that strange. Very strange.”

  Blake raised his eyebrows and looked the captain in the eye. “Doctor,” he said. “Part of the oath.”

  Oddwaddle called out that he was standing by outside, and the captain told him to summon Gall, who entered the tent shortly.

  “You called for me, Captain?”

  “Yes, Gall,” he said. “You will do what the doctor says.” He laughed a brief, staccato laugh. “Unless he asks you to kill me.”

  “Sir.”

  “The first thing I need you to do is fetch me a pot of some warm water. Not hot. Slightly warm will do it.”

  Gall looked at the captain.

  “Do it,” he said.

  “And what, may I ask, Doctor, is the warm water for?”

  “To soak my hands, Sir,” he answered. “I’ll need the use of them if I’m to save your eye. How did your eye get like this?”

  “Running,” he answered. “We were running, and I tripped and fell, and a sharp stick poked me right here and broke off.” He pointed to a spot below the eyelid. “I pulled it out, but I think that there’s something still in there.”

  “Then there is,” said Blake.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Doctor,” he said. “Have you had any blurriness of your vision?”

  “No,” he said. “Other than the fact that it hurts, and is obviously swollen, I’m seeing fine.”

  “Good,” said Blake. “That means the eye itself is not injured. And there is no infection in it yet. That is very good news.”

  Gall entered the tent, carrying a large bucket. He tripped and fell, and the water splashed all over the captain. He looked terrified. He fell to his knees and begged forgiveness. “Oh please forgive Gall, Captain,” he cried. “Gall is so sorry. Gall deserves to be whipped. Gall will go get Jebwickett straight away. Straight away, Sir.”

  He started for the tent opening.

  “Gall. Stop right there,” said the captain. In a tired voice, he continued. “It’s all right. Go get another pail of water. Whipping you is not going to fix my eye, now is it?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Gall. “Thank you, Sir. Gall will go get some more water and this time be more careful.”

  He fairly lunged out the entry, catching his head on the tent flap and threatening to take down the whole tent.

  “Permission to speak, Sir,” said Blake.

  “Granted,” said Captain Pilrick.

  “That was kind of you, Sir.”

  “Do you Humans think that Gnomes are incapable of showing kindness?”

  “No, Sir. I surely did not mean to imply that. Despite the fact that I am indeed Human, there is something extremely important that I would like to talk to you about as soon as we take care of your eye, with your permission of course.”

  “I will consider it based upon the outcome of my eye.”

  “Of course. Might I also beg of you one other thing?”

  Captain Pilrick, in a voice laden with exasperation, said, “All right, Human, out with it. But be warned, my patience is wearing thin.”

  “It’s a simple thing, really. My wife desperately needs to relieve herself. Would it be okay for her to do so as soon as possible?”

  “Take care of my eye first,” he snapped. “Then we will talk about it. If my eye comes out all right, she may relieve herself whenever she needs to until we join the Troll forces. If not, she will arrive there quite soiled.”

  Blake kept his head down and said nothing.

  Gall entered the tent with another pail of water, which he almost dropped again, but Blake saved the spill by catching him as he stumbled. By doing this, he was forced to turn and face the small table with the map on it. He scanned it as quickly as a brief moment would allow and noticed an “X”.

  “That’s our current position,” he thought.

  He tried to place the bucket of warm water on the table to further his chances at studying it, but Captain Pilrick said, “No, over here,” pointing to another small table on the other side of the tent.

  He put his hands in the warm water and asked Gall to massage his fingers. His chest hurt terribly, and his breathing was definitely shallow, but at least he wasn’t short of breath. Slowly, he began to regain feeling, which started as a mild burning and worked its way up to a horrific feeling of both hands being on fire. He started sweating profusely, but he held on and it passed in a few minutes. Little by slow his fingers began to move, and in another few minutes he had regained full use of them. He asked Gall to get him a small towel, and clean
ed his fingers and hands meticulously as he would do before examining any patient in the ER.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Thank you, Gall. Now let’s have a look at that eye.”

  It was an easy problem to figure out for a seasoned ER doctor. There was an obvious puncture wound under the eyelid, draining a scant amount of pus. He felt around carefully and could tell there was a fairly large piece of wood trapped under the eyelid, just as the captain had thought. That was the good news. He had a diagnosis and therefore knew exactly what to do. The bad news was that he knew he would need to open the wound up and remove it. That would mean incising the skin of the captain’s eye, and he knew his patient would be way less than thrilled with that prospect. There was also a serious infection spreading around the eye, which might prove problematic down the road despite perfect care here in the tent, but he would have to cross that bridge when he came to it.

  He stepped back from his patient and said, “Permission to speak, Captain.”

  Captain Pilrick looked at him straight away and said, “You are speaking to me as my doctor now. We can dispense with the formalities. That will, of course, change when you are back to being my prisoner of war. But for now, please stand at ease.”

  “Very good,” said Blake. “Thank you. Okay, here’s the deal. You have a large piece of wood that is trapped underneath your lower eyelid. It is obviously infected. As I already said, the infection to this point is far outside of the eye itself. But if allowed to continue, the infection will soon spread into the eye, and you will lose it. You will then, almost certainly, also lose your life when the infection spreads from there into your brain. We have only one option.”

  “And what is that?” asked the captain. He looked very suspicious of everything Blake had said up to now.

  “I have to operate and remove the piece of wood, and then we have to clean the base out thoroughly. After that, we will need to apply a compress to the wound three or four times a day to draw out the rest of the infection. That will be as important as the actual operation itself. If we do all of these things, your eye will be cured and restored to normal. If we do not, you will soon lose your eye and, as I have said, your life.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?” he asked, “The part about ‘operating’?”

  “Good question. I will need to make a small incision and expose the foreign body, the piece of wood, that is, and remove it. It’s quite simple, but it will be very painful. Is there anything that grows in these parts, or do you perhaps have anything here in your camp that deadens pain?”

  When the captain didn’t answer right away, Gall interjected, “Pigwart!”

  The captain and Blake both looked at him.

  “Pigwart,” he said again. “Gall knows it works because once Gall was preparing a salad for a large group of guests. We were having a private celebration of the new-year, and Gall’s sister, Jubra, picked the greens. Gall didn’t check them, and everybody’s mouth went numb, numb, numb. Gall thought they were dying. Gall was in trouble for that one. That was not fair. Gall did not pick the greens. Why did Gall have to … ?”

  “That’s enough, Gall,” said the captain. “Do you know what this Pigwart looks like? Can you go pick us some right now?”

  “Of course,” said Gall. “Gall will go get some right now. Pigwart grows everywhere. It is easy to find. Pigwart grows on the side … ”

  “Gall,” said the captain. “That will do. Go and pick us some Pigwart and bring it back right away. Quickly, now.”

  “Oh yes, Captain. Right away, Sir.”

  He nearly tripped over his own feet as he once again departed the tent.

  “He has a good heart,” said Blake. “He’s obviously anxious to please you.”

  The captain looked at him. “You don’t talk like any Human I have ever met,” then, “Biliar!” he called out. “Let the Human lady go relieve herself. I will watch this one.”

  “Yes, Sir,” came the response.

  “My wife will be grateful,” said Blake.

  Gall, true to his word, returned in a few minutes with enough Pigwart to anesthetize a battalion. Blake crushed a few of the leaves, grinding them into a fine paste. “I will need a piece of clean cloth. Another towel, if you have one.”

  The captain rummaged around in a chest in the corner of the tent. Holding up a small piece of cloth, he asked, “Will this do?”

  “Perfect.” He applied the paste to the eye, over which he applied the cloth after soaking it in the still warm water and wringing it out. “I will need a very sharp knife; the smaller the better. It must be very sharp. Tell me when the area is feeling numb.”

  “Can I trust you this close to my face with a knife, Human?” asked Captain Pilrick.

  “If you couldn’t trust me,” said Blake, “we wouldn’t be here. I am acting as your doctor, not as your prisoner. Not that that won’t change when I am done being your doctor.” He smiled.

  He was amazed when the captain smiled back at him. At least he seemed to smile. It was kind of hard to tell with his Gnome face.

  “And when will that be?” he asked.

  “In a few days, after we have given the compresses a chance to work and dealt with any complications that might arise.”

  “I see. Fair enough.”

  “I thought we had already established that,” Blake said softly. The captain didn’t get it.

  He checked the wound with the pointy end of the small knife that Gall had gotten for him. It seemed numb. He made a small transverse incision and identified the offending piece of wood, which he carefully picked out with the blade. He rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more with water that he had instructed Gall to boil first. It was a perfect field operation, and for the first time since he had come to this medieval world, he felt almost good about being there.

  “Your eye will be fine, Sir,” he said, beaming. He held up the piece of wood and showed it to his patient.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” he said back. “Now, Captain,” he continued, “might I please have a few minutes of your time. I beg it of you, Sir. It is of the utmost importance that we speak. We need to put a tea-compress on your eye anyway, so you will be indisposed for longer than I need you. I give you my word that I will neither try and escape nor harm you in any way.”

  “You don’t need to give me your oath,” said the captain. “You already have.

  “By all means, let us sit and have this cup of tea.”

  Blake laughed. “Not a cup of tea, Captain. A tea compress, for your eye.”

  “Pigwart, tea compresses, what is next?”

  Blake folded his arms and shrugged his shoulders, even though doing it hurt terribly.

  “Doctor's orders,” he said.

  Doreen ran. Like she had never run before. She knew it was run or die a horrible death, and she knew she didn’t want the latter, so she ran. For hours she ran. Hours, and hours, and hours. In her mind it was no longer a question of could she make it to the mountains, only when. She kept her head down for most of it to make sure she didn’t twist her ankle on some unexpected footing, glancing up only occasionally to make sure she was headed in a straight line towards her goal. Other than that, she thought of nothing but her footing. She blocked out every other thought. Nothing mattered except escaping from the gruesome death that she knew would be her fate unless she kept herself upright with her legs moving.

  The sun went down and she ran by the light of Inam'Ra’s twin moons. The sun came up, and she was still running. Nothing entered her mind but stride after countless stride. She saw the mountains were definitely closer, so she ran faster. When it started to rain and the footing became treacherous, she kicked off her moccasins, barely breaking stride, and kept running.

  She lived to run. She ran to live.

  She came across a wide stream and plowed through it like it wasn’t even there, stopping for only a few moments at the far side to take several quick gulps.

  It stopped rain
ing and the sun was getting low again on the horizon when she saw that the mountains were right on top of her, which spurred her on.

  The sun went down for the second time and she kept right on. Her mind was numb. Her legs felt leaden. Her breathing came in great gasps, and just when she felt she couldn’t go another step, she reached the end of the Great Slovan Plains and began the steep ascent into the foothills that marked the northeastern border of Ravenwild.

  She stopped and looked around. She was all mixed up. She looked behind her for the first time since she had left Erik... was that his name?... and there was nothing but the flatlands illuminated by the moons. For a while she couldn’t remember why she had been running. She began to walk up the slope in front of her. It felt odd walking. She happened on a mountain stream and fell down hard on her face, drinking it in. Throwing up most of what she drank, she rested a while and drank again. She rested some more and drank one last time.

  She crawled as far as she could manage off the trail.

  She passed out.

  “You were right,” said Diana.

  “I’m glad you finally admitted it,” said Jared, then, “About what?”

  “About being safer by coming closer to Slova. We haven’t seen a single sign of any Gnomes or Trolls in days.”

  “Oh. Yes. Well, it’s merely a question of the mathematics. The numbers dictate that the troop count would be lowest here. No matter the size of an army, any army, the number of troops is finite. We believe they have mounted an all-out offensive against Ravenwild, and that takes so many. Then, they need to maintain a force to defend Ghasten should the Ravenwild army be crazy enough to mount a counteroffensive, and that takes so many. Meanwhile, the Gnomes will soon be withdrawing to Vultura for the winter. Most are already headed there and the stragglers will, of course, freeze to death. All this being the case, because there is nothing here to either assault or defend, I was thinking that it gives us the best chance of going undetected for as long as we need to survive.