Even I could see that. Worse, at the center of them was an angry wound, crusted, but oozing.
“Is there still some of the arrow in his wound?”
Savette’s hands moved deftly around his back and her face went pale. “I think I feel something.”
“Hubric?” I asked. “Do you know if the arrow is still in your back?”
There was no answer. I checked him carefully, but he was still breathing.
“He passed out,” Savette said. “He probably feels safe enough now that he knows we’re here for Kyrowat.”
That made sense. “We should turn him over and look at the wound.”
Savette nodded and gently, ever so gently, we turned him in his cot and looked at his back. The entry wound was obvious, but the arrow head had been broken off. I could just see splinters of the shaft peeking up through the wound. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I thought about digging that out. I gritted my teeth together.
“Maybe it can wait,” Savette said. “Maybe we can find someone to help him. Leedris Castel is only a day away.”
“Can you just heal him with magic?” I asked.
“You know I can’t. I could just as easily kill him. Maybe if we were in healing arches...”
But we weren’t, and the nearest arches probably had something bad happening there. I was certain the winds we felt were not from an act of good.
“So, we either dig it out or try to go for help, but that wind pushed us off course. I don’t think you could fly against it all the way to Leedris Castel,” I said.
“I don’t think I could, either,” Savette said, biting her lip.
“I’ll go look for supplies.”
What did you use to extract an arrowhead from someone’s back? A knife, obviously. I had a vague feeling that there should be hot water and bandages and a salve of some kind. Maybe a sewing kit.
There was another store room off the main hall that had everything I needed. Like the other rooms, it was lit by holes in the rock far above and the supplies were laid out on long, fully-loaded shelves. Someone had created this place to endure through storms or even siege, like Savette said. I didn’t have time to explore the rest of the room, so I gathered up what I had and returned to Hubric’s side. Savette had lit a fire in a small grate nearby. There was wood in a stone box not far away.
She was already filling a kettle with water from the stone basin. “I can’t believe how well this place is set up. Its like it’s made to be a shelter. I wonder who it belongs to.”
“It must be another Lightbringer refuge,” I said. “I’m pretty certain it was the one Hubric told me to come to after Leng was saved.”
“That makes sense,” Savette said, putting the kettle on the pothook while I laid out the materials I’d found.
I washed my hands with water from the stone basin and then tried to feel for the stub of arrow in Hubric’s back. Ugh. It felt terrible! I tried to grip it with my fingers, but I couldn’t get a strong enough grip on it with all the blood making it so slick. He was still trickling blood all over the white sheets and woolen blanket beneath him. Good thing there were more in the storehouse. Now, where were the pliers I’d grabbed from the supply room?
Savette rushed over with a smaller basin full of water and I cleaned the pliers in the bowl, wiping them carefully afterward with a cloth.
“This had better work,” I muttered, easing them around the arrow, trying to just grab arrow and not flesh. I gripped the pliers hard and steeled myself to do what I needed to, gritting my teeth and ignoring the trickle of sweat running down my spine.
I pulled as hard as I could and Hubric half-moaned, half-yelled in pain. The first pull wasn’t enough. I felt the arrowhead give, but It was stuck on something. Bone? I hoped not.
There are people here. This is a problem. I need a human here right away.
I looked up at Savette, but her mouth had already dropped open. Raolcan must have called to her, too. She leapt to her feet and raced from the room as I turned my attention back to the arrow stuck in my mentor’s back.
Chapter Fourteen
I gripped as hard as I could with one hand, bracing my hip against Hubric’s prone form as I worked at the arrowhead. I tried not to think about the fact that it was buried in bone and not wood, twisting and pulling just like I would to get an arrowhead out of a stump. It pulled free so suddenly that I heard a tearing sound as it ripped back through the flesh and out of Hubric’s body.
I felt like I was going to be sick, but I fought the impulse to take a moment and gather my thoughts. There just wasn’t time. I jammed a cloth into the wound, hoping I hadn’t hit anything important when I dug it out of his rib. How did people recover from these things? How did they survive when their bodies were torn apart? It was almost miraculous that a person could suffer so much destruction and in a few years look like nothing had ever happened.
I cast the arrowhead and pliers to the side and took out the sewing kit, carefully threading the needle with red fingers. When that was ready, I dipped a cloth into the basin and tried my best to clean Hubric’s wound before removing the cloth and beginning to stitch the skin closed. It was like stitching leather slippers, the tug and pull felt familiar and memories of sewing slippers by the fire of my own home came back as I made careful, tidy stitches, not too tight so that they pulled and puckered or too loose where they didn’t hold together.
Hubric must have passed out from the pain. He wasn’t moaning or yelling anymore, and although his breathing was ragged, it was steady and sure. When I was finished, the kettle was boiling. Maybe we should have waited to clean everything with hot water. Was that what you did in these situations?
My hands shook as I poured hot water into the basin and mixed it with more cold water before washing his back again, and then carefully bandaging it. Outside the room, voices drifted toward me, but I couldn’t hear the exact words.
You’re needed.
I hastily took a sheet and blanket from one of the other beds and laid it over Hubric, before rushing out of the room. Hopefully, he wouldn’t wake while I was gone. The Great Hall looked different now that I wasn’t focused on Hubric. It had a huge fireplace and high vaulted ceilings and seating for a hundred people. How many Lightbringers did they expect to come and seek shelter here? We’d need to investigate all the rooms very soon, so we could know if there were other ways in.
I hurried through the Great Hall into the anteroom where the dragons were. In the doorway, I stopped in my tracks. Savette stood right in front of me on the platform, hands raised in a placating motion. In front of the platform, a group of people stood with wary looks in their eyes. The ones in the front – burly men, some grizzled with age, others as young as I was – brandished weapons. Behind them were women and children. I heard one toddler crying. What were so many people doing traveling like this – with no horses that I could see and little in the way of luggage?
“Take off that blindfold if you want us to believe you’re a Leedris,” one of the men said to Savette. His face was grim, like he expected to strike her down.
“The Leedrises are the ones who put us in this mess in the first place,” another man said. “If she is who she says she is, we’d do better without her.”
“No,” I said, quietly, and yet my voice rang in the enclosed room. I hobbled forward, watching as all eyes went to my crutch. Were they assessing it for whether it was a weapon? “Savette Leedris is the Chosen One of legend, and she is under my protection – mine and these dragons’.”
Always one for drama, Raolcan reared up so that his head scraped the ceiling, even though he hadn’t fully straightened. He hissed, showing his teeth.
One for drama? That’s unfair!
“Who are you people?” No one spoke. The men shifted in place like they were assessing whether they could kill a dragon. How desperate were these people? I pointed to a middle-aged woman toward the back of the crowd. “Speak up. What are you doing here with no horses and no baggage?”
&nbs
p; “We’re refugees fleeing the war, Dragon Rider.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What war?”
They looked around at one another as if someone else might decide to speak. Finally, the middle-aged woman spoke again.
“Leedris City is under attack by the armies of Baojang. They swept down from the north and have laid waste to everything in their path. We’re all that remains of our village. We fled before them like game birds before a dog.”
There were barely fifty of them. I felt my heart sink and my belly roil inside me. So, it had started. The Dominion was in the grip of war, and if enemies had swept so far south already, we were in worse trouble than I ever would have imagined. I swallowed a gasp of fear before it started. Now was a poor time to choose to mourn or shake with fright. There was too much to do.
“Why did you come here?” I asked. Was this place so well known that we could expect to see droves of people arriving?
“Handas – an old man from our village – knew about this place,” she said. “He helped construct it when he was a younger man. He was leading us to it when he died on the path.”
“You were attacked?”
She shook her head. “His heart gave out. He had that symbol on his wrist.”
She pointed to the wall and my eyes followed. The Lightbringer symbol was chiseled into the rock. I hadn’t noticed it on the way in. So, this Handas was a Lightbringer and he’d led his people here.
I nodded in understanding. “If we’re going to share the sanctuary of this place you’ll need to stop blaming Savette for your problems. This war is not her fault.”
“How do you know she’s the Chosen One?” the man at the front asked. He and the others hadn’t relaxed their stance. They still saw Savette and I as threats and only were listening to me because I wore Dragon Rider leathers.
“Show them your eyes,” I said quietly.
Reluctantly, Savette drew the scarf down. The room flooded with light until tiny carvings on the walls and inscriptions sprang to life in the dim anteroom and I saw now how dirty and tired the people in front of me were. It was ridiculous for them to be squaring off with us when they needed rest and food.
“Have you seen enough?” I asked. “We want to help you. Savette can do that best right now. Please don’t try to harm her. I have my own wounded to care for.”
When their stances relaxed, I nodded to Savette and turned to leave.
Kyrowat is anxious about Hubric. He says he’s feverish.
Hopefully, I’d find something for fever in the storeroom. Was Kyrowat as injured as Hubric?
Worse, but dragons heal more quickly than humans do. He’s already burning infection away. With care, he will shake he worst of it by tomorrow morning. Fight for Hubric and I will continue to attend to him.
And Eeamdor? He’d clearly had the self-control to let the refugees pass.
I told him to watch but stay hidden.
Probably for the best. I’d go out and watch myself once I had Hubric’s injuries under control. I was halfway out of the room when I heard Savette speaking.
“Come with me and I will show you where food and water are. Bring your little ones.”
I shook off the worry of leaving her with so many armed men. Raolcan would warn us if there was a problem.
They are afraid and that makes them dangerous, but I think they are calming down. I’ll keep half a mind on them. Hurry back to Hubric.
I hobbled back through the Great Hall and back to where I’d left Hubric. The supplies I’d left on the side of his bed had been knocked to the floor and his blankets tangled around his legs. He moaned, mumbling to himself, but his words were impossible to understand. I leaned over him, feeling his forehead. He was burning up with fever. If only one of the refugees had been a White Dragon Rider. Then I would have the help I needed.
I found one of the cloths, wet it from the large stone basin and put it over his forehead before turning to tidy the things he’d scattered on the floor. We might need them all again, and sooner rather than later. I washed out the cloths over the drain, using the hot water from the kettle and then hung them by the fire. Hubric’s leather jacket and linen shirt and leather Dragon Rider boots and leggings received the same treatment and then I tucked his sheet back around him and changed the cloth on his forehead. He’d tangled the sheet again before I was finished. If he didn’t stop moving he’d pull his stitches apart.
“Shhhh,” I said, leaning over him. “Easy now, Hubric. You need your rest.”
He thrashed against the blankets, blood oozing through his bandages.
“You need to rest, Hubric. You are safe here and so is Kyrowat. Rest.” I laid a hand on his arm, trying to help him feel calm, but he didn’t still.
What could I do to calm him? My voice wasn’t helping, and Kyrowat was fighting his own fever. Was there some smell or sound that might be something he was in contact with every day?
Wait! I pulled the book of Ibrenicus Prophecies from my pocket and began to read. I watched as his thrashing stopped and he calmed. I paused for a moment to readjust his sheet, but even that tiny pause agitated him, so instead, I sat on the edge of his bed and read steadily, letting the words wash over both of us like cool rain in the heat of summer.
Hubric grew calm, his breathing regular and the blood on his bandage stopped it’s constant leaking. Good. This was good. I’d just have to keep it up as long as I could. I could hear noise in the next room as Savette helped the refugees. Her calm voice carried over the anxious voices she spoke to. In my mind, I felt Raolcan, ever-present, ever-watching. He would keep us safe while I kept Hubric calm. I read on, trying not to worry about Leng delivering prisoners to Saldrin or what we were going to do once Hubric recovered. I needed to concentrate on this moment and on getting him better.
“For the Light will suffer when the dark grows strong. Many little ones will be lost and the strong oaks will bend and snap but the strong will stay firm to the end and shine light into the dark so that no one goes without hope. When the light is gone, hope dies with it and when the last memory of our foundations washes away, we will have nothing left but our word and truth. Hold fast to the truth, even when it may seem more ridiculous than the lie. Let your word be strong as the mountains, for our word and the truth is all we have, and it will keep us anchored to the end.”
Had it kept Talsan anchored until he gave his life for me? Would it keep Leng anchored as he fought for the same purpose so far from here? Would it keep Rakturan anchored even when the evidence suggested that his heart was divided? Would it keep Savette anchored even though she was so bent on going her own way?
I bit my lip and read on. Savette came in when I was close to the end and brought me soup, but I let it grow cold as I read to the end and began again at the beginning.
Any time I stopped, Hubric stirred and I didn’t dare let him grow wild. Savette changed his clothes and murmured that the refugees were settled and she had checked on the dragons. Still, I read.
The light faded from the room, except for the fire Savette had stoked and a candle she placed on a small bench near to where I sat. I read as she eventually took one of the three remaining beds in the room and fell asleep.
I read as the night rolled on and on in a seemingly endless stream of prophecy and darkness. And my fears and hopes and plans and aches seemed to roll up into the prophecy and find a new significance until I could hardly tell where one ended and the other began but both were sealed into my heart and seared across my imagination.
Chapter Sixteen
You’re needed here.
My eyes popped open at Raolcan’s words. I must have drifted off. Hubric slept fitfully beside me. His hair caked with dried sweat and his face drawn and yellow. That wasn’t a turn for the better. I needed to check his wound.
It will need to wait. You’re needed here now.
I shook my head to clear it, took in a deep breath and fumbled for my crutch. How long had I been asleep?
Maybe
half of an hour. No longer than that.
I tucked the Ibrenicus Prophecies back into my pocket and hobbled out of the room. The Great Hall was lit with a fire in the grate and one of the villagers was tending it. He nodded to me respectfully as I passed. They must have come to terms with Savette and me being here. Strange to think of a village man showing me respect when months ago I would have been ignored by someone like him. Back then I was a drain on the town – a cripple unable to work the fields or bear children. Raolcan had saved me from that when he chose me. I wouldn’t have this life without him.
While I appreciate gratitude and praise, I really do need you to hurry.
I rushed through the door in the anteroom to find him standing shoulder to shoulder with Eeamdor, four purple dragons on the other side of the room from them, necks extended like they were challenging my dragons.
Eeamdor is not your dragon and neither is Kyrowat. That privilege is reserved for me.
Fine. They were challenging my dragon allies. Was that better? In front of them, stood four Dragon Riders all in black, their purple scarves and the random ornamented braids in their hair proclaiming them to be full Purple Dragon Riders. I’d never seen so many Purples in one place before.
Greet them, quickly, before they decide to flame!
Was he saying that the Prince of Dragons couldn’t keep other dragons in line?
Of course not, but do you want me to have to show them who’s boss?
I cleared my throat and eight heads swiveled to me.
“I’m Amel Leafbrought. Sworn of the Purple Dragon Riders.” Was I supposed to give some sort of formal greeting? This would have to do, since I’d missed most of my training along the way.
“That’s Kyrowat, Hubric Duneshifter’s dragon,” the woman in the middle said, her tone accusing and her finger pointing to where Kyrowat lay, still feverish. “Where is Hubric?”
“Hubric lies within, recovering from an arrow wound,” I said. “Kyrowat is also recovering.”
Dragon School: Prince of Dragons Page 5