Autumn's morning chill lingered in the air, and the trees — living and deadfall — bore no leaves to mask their skeletal branches. The detritus left behind crackled beneath the scrabbling bodies and the scent of blood drowned the earthy aroma of loam. The terrified shrieks and rabid snarls destroyed any hint of peace.
Grig threw another rock at the Infected badger, catching it above one crimson eye. It didn't slow its charge, and Grig's attempts to crawl away hadn't put much distance between them.
Useless, I knelt next to the smoking fire pit, one hand hanging limp from a broken wrist and the other filled with the hilt of a short dagger. Blood and dirt crusted the blade; what little damage the badger bore had been done with the weapon.
'By Grig, not you. He's over there. Past the badger.' My vision wavered in and out of focus, and my knees felt like jelly. 'There's no choice.'
"Grig!" I threw the knife underhanded, so it skidded hilt-first toward the other man. While he snatched it, I grabbed a piece of firewood and clambered to my feet.
The badger fell upon Grig, careless of the blade. Grig held it off with one arm and stabbed it with the other. I staggered across the campsite to slam the wood against the badger's flank. It snarled and lunged at me, knocking me to the ground. I wedged the branch between us and screamed when I tried to brace it with both hands. The broken wrist failed, and, through black-edged vision, I watched gore-covered claws extend toward my neck. Then the light went out of the mad, red eyes and its black fur became a violent shade of lime green.
Crushing weight fell on me, much more than the badger alone, driving the air from my lungs again. I gasped and shoved until the body rolled off.
'Both bodies.' Grig's limp form lay next to the badger's. With my wrist cradled to my chest, I crawled to his side and checked for signs of life. He still breathed, which eased the breath in my throat, but his flesh was bitten and torn as if…
'Well, as if he went hand to claw with a wild animal.'
I stifled a slightly hysterical giggle and realized the camp still rang with shrieks. Blinking, I refocused on the deadfall.
Tyr scrambled down with more haste than she'd displayed climbing out of harm's reach.
A frisson of anger licked through my veins.
'If she hadn't delayed, could you all have gotten clear?' Tamping it down, I turned back to Grig. 'Breathing is good. Bleeding is not.'
His torn arms and bitten legs were ugly. Blood glued his shredded shirt to his abdomen, and I peeled it away to reveal a mess of open wounds. The shallower slashes had four or five parallel lines. The deeper cuts bulged, and entrails peeked out.
"Bones!" My gorge rose, but I swallowed it down. I yanked my shirt off and crammed it against the worst of the wounds.
Tyr, finally free of the tree, ran over and shoved me, hard.
"Get off him!"
Her words registered through the dull roar in my ears. 'Has she been screaming that this whole time?' I hunched over, fighting to keep my balance and continue applying pressure.
"Enough!" I glared at her. "He needs bandages! Find something."
Veil askew, Tyr ran to her pack. Blood had soaked through my wadded shirt, and I pressed harder. When she returned, she knelt as far from the lime-green corpse as possible and opened a pouch to pull out rolled cloth strips. Then she stopped, frantic eyes staring at Grig.
"Hurry! We need to stop the bleeding. Start with his leg." I nodded toward the bite that bled freely.
"But — I — It needs cleaned first." Tyr back to her pack.
"No." I tried to grab her with the hand not pressing against Grig and gritted my teeth against a scream when the bones grated against each other. Once I could speak again, I said, "We have to stop the bleeding first."
'Your first aid class didn't prepare you for this. He's no Flit, so you can't shift and bubble wrap him. As for taking him to the Post…' The implacable cliff I'd flown over yesterday might have a foot trail, but there wasn't time to find it, get up it, and hike to Ismene.
Tears streamed down Tyr's face, darkening her veil, as she tried to staunch the bleeding.
"This is all your fault."
"What?" I shook my head. 'You tried to warn them, but the Infected was already headed toward their camp.'
"You Butterflies," she said with a sniffle. "If you'd shown up three years ago like you agreed, we Gitano wouldn't be here. And Grig—" She choked down a sob.
"What exactly did we agree to?" I cautiously lifted my shirt; the bleeding had slowed, but not stopped. And I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. A glance assured me that Grig still breathed.
"Are you stupid? Every 20 years, we meet at the river crossing and make the exchange." She lifted her hands from the leg wound and, satisfied that the sanguine flood had stopped, wrapped in with a thick pad of bandage.
"Get the one on his arm next." Exhaustion or draining adrenaline made my arm shake, and I leaned forward to keep the pressure on the belly wounds. "Exchange what?"
"By the Path! Do you know nothing? Our metalwork for your… Those things." She pointed at the badger. "Wait. Your people deal with this all the time. Fix this!" She waved at the camp, Infected, and Grig.
After gaping for a couple heartbeats, I frowned.
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" I raised the stained denim. Dried blood caught near the edges of the lacerations, but crimson life seeped instead of gushing now. The waterskin drew my attention, but I couldn't help thinking that pouring water on an open gut wound was a bad idea. I gnawed my lip, the fresh tang of blood lost in the moment.
"How far is your camp? The main one, not this—"
"What makes you think I'm leading you to our camp?" Tyr paused in the middle of wrapping another bite to bristle at me. "I was against it from the start! If I had my way—"
"Do you want him to live?" Patience wasted, I cut her off with a glare of my own. "There's nothing here except his death. Or we get him to your people, and maybe…" I stopped, unwilling to promise where hope flickered like kindling in a gale.
"Maybe?" Tyr's eyes lost their anger and all that remained was the fear it had masked. "Nuada might be able to heal him. If—" She choked on the words, and I couldn't let it rest.
"No, not if." Gritting my teeth, I stood and forced my knees to hold. "Wrap his belly — tight! We'll need a litter…" My wrist throbbed, reminding me of my damage. I snatched a scrap from one of Tyr's bandage rolls and wrapped it around my broken wrist over my denim gauntlet. 'You'll need something you can drag.'
A pair of saplings, growing in V from the same roots, stood near the deadfall. Each trunk was about as thick as my wrist and extended about four wingspans into the air.
'Big enough, maybe…'
"Do you have anything to cut some wood?"
Tyr scowled, our momentary camaraderie dead, but pulled a packet from the pack. She tossed it to me, and I opened it to reveal a length of rough wire with rings at the ends.
Dismayed, I inspected it. The wire would bite into the wood and pulling on the rings would create a sawing effect. 'Bones. If you have two working hands.'
With the wire saw in hand, I knelt at the trees' base. Wrapping the wire around one trunk, I threaded a stick through the rings, pulled it tight, and began sawing, using the stick for leverage. It wasn't efficient, but it got the job done; the tree crashed down, tearing branches as it fell. Sparkles danced across my vision when I rose, and I braced my feet as the world dipped like a butterfly on the breeze.
"Give me that." Tyr snatched the saw away and set to work on the second sapling.
"Hey!" I glanced at Grig; he was well-wrapped but still unconscious. "I still need to get the branches off."
"The knife's still in that… thing." Tyr didn't look at the badger.
I stumbled over, rolling the extremely green carcass to its stomach. The knife was buried in its neck, wedged between vertebrae.
'That's how he did it.' I checked Grig again — though labored, his breath continued — and fell to the ground beside the badger's corpse. Grasping the hilt, I pulled. The blade remained inside, caught tight, so I set to wiggling it free. After an unreasonable effort, it came loose, and I crawled to my feet.
The sapling's branches trimmed off well-enough, though if the largest hadn't broken in the fall I'd have been stuck. I collected the long strips of bark that peeled away with the boughs and, when Tyr rolled her cut and trimmed trunk toward me, tied the poles into a frame of sorts, using the discarded branches to form a platform for most of the length. Panting through the pain of another forceful reminder of my broken wrist, which wouldn't — couldn't — tie knots, I inspected the results.
'You don't think that's going to hold Grig's weight, do you?' I gnawed my lip and checked on him. 'Still breathing, but that's about it.'
Veil straightened, Tyr had packed away the camp and sat beside Grig, holding his hand. When I averted my eyes from her tear-streaked face, I saw Sorcha's cloak, crumpled and forgotten beside the deadfall.
'That could work, but…' I searched for another option.
"Hey." My voice broke the uneasy silence and Tyr jumped. "Do you have anything we can use to make this stronger?"
Tyr tugged the cloak she'd tucked around Grig higher, then rose to sneer at the frame.
"This wouldn't carry the badger. What've you been doing?"
Flushing, I looked down, rubbing futilely at the blood and dirt smeared across my bare torso.
'She's right. You've wasted time that would be better spent…'
I stopped because I couldn't think of any better ideas. With one more glance at Grig — 'still breathing' — I trudged to the denim cloak, collected it, and brought it back to the frame. The material was worn thin, and I thought I could tear strips if I started with a cut at the edge. My good hand wrapped around Grig's knife hilt, and I tried to brace the denim between my leg and my other forearm.
"What are you doing?" Tyr asked, as the cloak slipped from my awkward grip for the third time. "Even if that works, you're naked. And I'm not lending you a shirt."
Startled, I jumped, and the knife slipped, gashing through my pants. A thin line of blood welled up, and I crumpled, overwhelmed.
"Why are you holding it that way? You're only going to hurt yourself."
I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming at her.
"Butterflies are useless." Tyr plucked a bundle of cord from her pack and began lashing the frame together. In less time than it'd taken me to fell the first sapling, she tied all the joints and cross-branches, topped it with a blanket, and dragged it closer to Grig.
All I'd managed in the same time? Flinging the cloak around myself and checking that Grig still lived.
"Well?" She glared over her veil, hands on hips. "Help me get him on."
How? With one functional hand, I could maybe pick up his feet. Could Tyr lift the rest of him? 'That's about as likely as you hefting him alone.' The sarcastic thought gave me an idea, though.
"Grab his shoulders," I said and crouched to lift his legs over my forearm, flinching as his weight inevitably fell on my broken wrist. I persisted and shoved my other arm beneath his waist. The position put my face on top of his worst wounds, and the scent of blood filled my world. "On three."
"What are you…?" Tyr asked, as she placed her hands under Grig's shoulders.
"Three." Dizzy, I grunted and heaved, lifting and shoving Grig's limp form onto the frame. Breath coming in pants, I assessed the results and could have cried; Grig was half-on, half-off and at least one gash on his arm re-opened, judging by the spreading red stain on the bandages.
"... you trying to kill him? This is the stupidest…" Tyr's words faded in and out, and a niggling thought suggested that wasn't a good sign.
'Wish he'd groan or something. But he's still breathing.'
"Once more, then stop the bleeding." I re-braced and heaved again. This time, Tyr moved, too, and Grig landed slant-wise on the frame.
'Doesn't matter. All his bits are on board.' A giggle bubbled up. 'Keep it together, or Tyr's likely to kill you herself.' I cleared my throat and tried to focus on the now that included Tyr re-wrapping the worst of Grig's wounds. I tucked his pack onto the frame and, as soon as I was reasonably confident that she was done with it, added Tyr's.
When she rose, I staggered to one pole and grabbed it, placing myself with my good hand toward the contraption.
Huffing, Tyr gripped the other, and we hoisted the frame so that half was in the air and the other half on the ground. We pulled, dragging Grig along. Each step jolted my wrist, cradled against my chest, and the uneven terrain caught at my feet and the dragging poles.
'I can't imagine what Grig's feeling.' A glance didn't verify he clung to life, but proved enough to make me stumble.
"Watch it," Tyr said. "This was your idea, so do it better."
I grunted and forced my feet to move.