RHIDAUNA, The Shadow of the Revenaunt, Book 1

CHAPTER 1 - BOAR HUNT (Part Two)

Once past the dead wood, they were free of the sulfuric fumes as well. Here, the slope was grassy, with slender birches and more than man-high, blooming rhododendrons.

Ghyll sighed with relief. 'We escaped,' said he, gripping Damion's shoulder. 'You...' He broke off as a shriek of madness ripped the night air.

Showering blos­soms, a wild boar crashed through the bushes and blocked their path.

'Stand still!' Sour fear clutched Ghyll's throat, and for a moment he couldn't breathe as he stared at the monster confronting them. He had thought to find them a young male, inexperienced as they were, not this massive champion of swine, with its raised bristles and spittle-stained tusks.

The beast paused for a moment and peered about with myopic eyes. It was so near that Ghyll saw the hot breath steaming from its nostrils.

In a reflex, Damion took a step backward. The boar yelled his fury and threw himself like a two hundred pound battering ram at the boy. With that first, fatal back-step, a root caught Damion's heel and he landed flat on his back in the mud. The boar's left tusk missed his stomach by an inch and opened his left leg to the bone instead. Damion screamed.

In a flash, Olle threw Ghyll one of the two spears he carried. Then, with a wild 'Ayoo!' he buried the other one between the boar's ribs. The swine spun around to this new enemy, bleeding and howling its defiance. Olle managed to evade its attack, while Ghyll sprang forward and rammed his spear with his full weight behind it into the beast's flank. Again the boar turned, roaring its rage through the forest, and tore the shaft from Ghyll's hands. Cursing, Ghyll drew his hunting knife. With all his remaining strength, he thrust the weapon deep into the boar's larynx and stumbled backward. Blood and foam splashed around. Once more, the creature reared up, shaking its head as if in denial, and fell down on top of Damion, dead.

Ghyll heard the heartbreaking sound of Damion's snapping bones and sprang forward to help Olle pull the heavy carcass off their companion. The boy lay motionless; his half open eyes staring in a blood-streaked mask of a face.

'Gods, oh Gods.' Ghyll laid his aching fingers on Damion's ca­rotid. For a long moment, he felt nothing, and his own breathing seemed to stop. Then he caught a far away, faint beating. 'He lives!'

The two knew what to do. Endlessly, the fighting instructor had re­peated it – take care of the victim's safety, sew up open wounds, and carry the victim to the nearest healing master. Since that time, Olle, who was the more cool-headed of the two of them, always carried a few nee­dles and a ball of catgut. Now he sat on his knees in the mud, sewing with a steady hand the edges of the leg wound together.

'Bless the Gods the beast tore no artery. The leg's not bleeding much.'

'No, but his ribs...' Ghyll pursed his lips, while a blizzard of fear shook his body. He got his knife out and began to cut his cloak into long strips, which he bound tightly around Damion's chest.

After he had tied the last knot, they wrapped the unconscious boy in his own cloak.

'That's the best we can do.' Olle flexed his mus­cles and lifted Damion almost without effort from the ground. Then they began the long descent to the horses in the overlook field. As they hurried through the temple, Ghyll half expected a mocking laugh, but all was dark and silent.

It was a long way down, and after a while, Olle's brown face purpled with exertion.

Halfway to the horses, Ghyll raised his head. 'Shall I carry him for a bit?'

Olle shook his head. 'I'm all right.'

'It's my fault.' Ghyll was near to weeping. 'Me and my big mouth. You were right; we shouldn't have come without drivers and dogs.'