Blade of Erogrund

Chapter 25- Word from the West

Strong muscles and toned abs built his solid core beneath scarred skin, but a sickening shade of red painted an ill sight that ebbed from the gashes. Hilthwen placed the back of her palm on his forehead for a moment prior to sitting back, defeated.

"Infection. He must've sustained these at least a day ago, judging by the spread of it. He's got a burning fever, too."

"Anything we can do?" Matthias asked.

"Not really. Maybe if he was in the apothecary's, but I'm no herbalist or healer. Other than washing out the wound, I've no idea what to do."

A thought filled Godric's mind with surprising abruptness as though it had appeared like one of the ribbons in his dream. "Is there any bethra herb around here?"

Matthias wrinkled his nose. "Bethra? That weed is almost everywhere out here, so what?"

"I don't know, but the clerics put some on my cuts when I was at the apothecary's. Maybe it would help."

"And maybe it would kill him," Matthias cut in sternly. "You're no healer, Godric. You're here for the patrol because you have to be. Leave the keeping people alive part to us."

"If we don't do something soon he's dead anyway," Hilthwen argued. The girl stared Matthias down for an instant before he shook his head.

"Fine." Matthias said, glaring. "What do we do?"

"Grab the leaves, boil a little water, and cook it into a tea. There should be some bandages in the bags we can use to soak it up and apply to the gashes."

"That's not how the apothecaries did it. From what I recall, they made it into a poultice and rubbed it on the cuts."

"I'm sure that's more potent," Hilthwen murmured, carefully cleaning out the cuts with a cloth, "but these cuts are too deep. If we tried to put leaves in, we would never get them out, at least not without using up all of our water supplies."

Almost an hour passed and with it the end of the night. By the time steam was rising from the boiling tin of water over the fire, the sun's first rays had just begun to break the solid black of the night horizon. Matthias dropped a generous handful of herb leaves into the water, sending the vaguely familiar aroma of bethra wafting through the camp in a scent imitating a mixture of garlic and must. The pungent stench continued even by the time they had wrapped the man's chest in the bandages.

It wasn't until the sun had risen like its own tongue of flame above the scanty tree line to replace the light of the dying fire that any response to the tea was noticeable.

The man's breathing had grown deeper since they had applied the bandages but stubbornly he had remained otherwise unchanged. Hilthwen, Matthias, and Godric took turns holding a cool cloth to his forehead in a futile attempt to break the fever, but to no avail. Despite the frigid torrents of icy air that continued to blow the cloth perpetually heated with little impact on the injured man's condition.

Each also took their turn watching intently for any sign from Biren-Larath of an envoy or patrol, but the tall grass of the hills refused any sight other than the dull swaying of its stalks in the whipping wind.

Godric sat on one of the boulders watching the man and holding the cloth to his forehead. Every now and then it would be exchanged with another that sat in the tin beside him in a small pool of water where the air was kind enough to chill it significantly. Hilthwen had just risen to take a turn around the camp while Matthias sat not far away, gazing blankly toward the hills with his spear at hand.

Just as Godric went to remove the cloth from the man's head, a ragged cry escaped his chapped lips and he frantically darted up before stumbling and falling to his knees. Matthias jumped from his seat to where the man had fallen, but the man would not be condoled. His strong arm grabbed a stone from where he fell and he swung it into the boy's legs, sending him tumbling to the ground.