Dragonsbane (Book 3) (18 page)

The first layer of skins was stiff with dried gore. He knew from the smell alone that Griffith’s wound was badly infected. But it wasn’t until he pulled the last few strips away that he realized just how serious things were.

Misshapen lumps warped the line of Griffith’s arm. Purple bruises blossomed down the length of it, swelling against the sharp hills pressed up against his flesh. His hand sagged over his wrist, hanging uselessly at the end of his mangled arm.

Puncture wounds dotted the lumpy flesh in twin arcs: one line on the top of the limb, and one underneath. They were swollen and puffed, weeping a mixture of white and red. Any other healer would’ve cut it off at the elbow and been done with it. But Kael thought he could fix it.

The trouble was that he would need Griffith to stay awake. His arm was so badly mangled that at some point, he would need him to move his fingers just to make sure he’d gotten it all put back together properly.

It was going to be a long, painful process — more than any child should have to bear. But Kael had a plan. “I’ll make you a deal: you tell me about your wound, and I’ll tell you about mine.” He gestured to the mangled arm. “How did
that
happen?”

Griffith shrugged. “It was the red devil — the King beast of Titus’s army. He was taller than my father, his body was covered in blood-red fur. His claws were nearly the size of my chest. Gwen clubbed him over the head — otherwise, I think he would’ve finished me. The devil got a taste for my blood, though.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I could hear him chasing me
the whole time we ran down the mountains. But I’m not worried. Gwen’s going to hunt him down and make me a necklace of his claws.”

“What makes Gwen think she can kill him?” Kael said.

“She kills everything. And if she says she’s going to do something, she will. So I’ve told you about mine.” Griffith jerked his chin up at Kael’s scar. “Now tell me about yours.” 

“Fair enough. Well, one day, I was sailing off to fight the Witch of Wendelgrimm when this nasty storm blew in …”

Kael drifted in and out of his story while he worked. He pressed the infection from the punctures and sealed them closed. Then came the tricky part: Griffith’s arm was so severely broken that he had to split his skin open and patch the bone together from the inside.

Though it must’ve been incredibly painful, the boy never flinched. He asked Kael every detail about the tempest and his battle with the Witch. Then once that story had been told, Kael showed him the scars on his leg — the rounded marks left by the wolf monster that’d mauled him in Bartholomew’s Pass.

He grimaced when Kael told him about the wolves — though it probably had more to do with the bits of bone floating around in his arm than the story. “You got bitten too, then. Did it hurt?”

Kael slipped out of his concentration for a moment to mumble: “Of course it did.” He was trying desperately to figure out which pieces fit where. It was like working on a very slippery, bloody puzzle —

“Did it hurt a
lot
?”

“Yes, it hurt a lot.”

“Did you cry?”

“No.”

Griffith snorted. “Be honest. Did you —?”

“No, I didn’t cry,” Kael snapped. He jerked himself out of his trance completely, with every intention of telling Griffith to kindly shut it. But the look on the boy’s face stopped him short.

His chin was pointed stubbornly upwards; the freckles across his nose stood out like stars against his pale skin. “I cried when the red devil did this to me. I didn’t mean to, but it hurt so badly and we’d run so far …” His good hand trembled as it balled into a fist. “I hate it here. I want to go home.”

It was difficult not to hurt for Griffith. Kael had spent his whole life dreaming about running away from Tinnark, going off on an adventure through the lowlands — perhaps he would even accomplish something so great that he would be made a knight of the realm. But at the end of every dream, Kael had always imagined what it would be like to come home.

He’d imagined the looks the Tinnarkians would give him when he walked through the streets. Marc and Laemoth would burn at the sight of him; Brock would have to eat his words. Roland would be overjoyed. He would wrap Kael against his boney chest and say he’d known all along that he was bound to do great things.

And Amos … well, Amos would be so proud that he would have to actually admit it — out loud and for all to hear.

Tinnark was where Kael’s adventures always began. It was the reason he left — but it was also the reason he returned. In many ways, growing up in such a miserable blot of village had given him a reason to dream in the first place. It had taken him a long while to realize it, but Kael finally understood just how important Tinnark had been.

So many of his dreams hadn’t been about the adventure, at all …

They’d been about coming home.

Once Griffith went quiet, Kael was able to finish quickly. He pieced the bone fragments together and sealed them into place. Griffith was able to wiggle his fingers and move his wrist around, so he figured he’d set it properly. Now all he had left to do was seal the split he’d made down Griffith’s arm.

He was just about to begin when he felt a pressure on his hand. Griffith traced the jagged scar that Eveningwing had left behind, the one that cut between his fingers. “What about this?”

“That was given to me by a man who thought he wanted to kill me, but we wound up being good friends,” Kael said simply.

He sealed the gash shut and had gone to smooth the scar when Griffith jerked his arm away. “No, I want to keep it. Maybe someday I’ll give
you
a scar,” he added with a grin, “then you’ll always remember me.”

The brightness in his eyes darkened Kael’s heart; the daring edge of his smile cut him like a sword. Griffith’s face was a painful reminder of one he would never see again. He could do nothing more than nod stiffly back.

He was relieved when the boy finally left.

Then Gwen walked in.

“Don’t get too comfortable, mutt. You’ve got one more patient,” she said as she strode towards him. She stood with her hands on her hips, eyeing him through the purplish bruises that spread out from her busted nose.

Kael set it quickly, cracking the bone back into place. He reached to seal the split on her mouth, but she knocked his hand away. “I’ll tell you when you can touch my lips, mutt.”

He had no interest in touching her lips. “Fine. Was there something else?”

She pointed to a mass of dried blood near the top of her shoulder. When she pulled her shirt taut, he saw a hole about as big around as a man’s finger torn through the furs.

Kael scowled — a flimsy defense against the sudden burn in his face. “I can’t work through that small a hole. You’re going to have to unbutton your shirt.”

“Sure I have to.” Gwen’s hands went to her tunic. She looked him in the eyes as she undid the first bone clasp. “You men are all the same, always trying to catch a glimpse —”

She looked rather shocked when Kael reached across and ripped the hole open, tearing it to fist-sized. “I’m not trying to glimpse anything. Now hold still.”

“Whatever you say, mutt.”

He tried to ignore the way her words slid across his ears.

There was a hole in Gwen’s shoulder. Her skin was puckered around it and the edges were swollen red. He could see a nasty infection growing in its center. But the most unsettling thing was the ring of deep cuts that surrounded it.

They reminded him of the scars he’d seen on Baird’s eyes. The cuts fanned from her wound like bursts from a star — jagged in some places, raised and scabbed along their ridges. Some of the lines had slipped and been cut too deeply. One of them wept red drops down her skin.

“There’s a piece of something lodged in there,” she said.

Kael placed his hands. His toes curled as he felt the depth of the cuts. “How many times did you try to dig it out?”

“Several,” she growled.

Gwen sat still while he worked. Kael had to split her skin open to get the object out. It took him several tries to latch onto its slippery surface. But when he finally did, the object came out cleanly: it was the full head of an arrow. 

“Are you finished?”

“Just about.” Kael sealed the last bit of her skin closed and smoothed the scar away. “There.”

Gwen rolled her shoulder a bit, testing it. “Good work.” Her skin was quite a bit paler than it’d been before, and it made the black design on her face stand out sharply. “You’re free to go.”

Kael followed her to the door. “I’m not going anywhere without Kyleigh.”

“Suit yourself. But if you stay, you’ll be expected to work. I won’t have any layabouts squatting in my village.”

“Fine.” Kael followed her down the hill, past the charred houses and into the heart of Tinnark. “Where’s everybody gone?”

Gwen looked at him as if he was stupid. “It’s dinner time.”

“All right, but where are they …?”

The words stuck in his throat. A shadow of a building lurked at the top of his eyes, and he realized they were headed towards the Hall.

Memories rushed out of the darkness: the Hall’s roof was ablaze, its walls were warped against the heat. Brock, the head elder of Tinnark, lay dead beside it. After what had become of the hospital, he didn’t know if he had the courage to look at the Hall. It was only after several deep breaths that he forced his gaze up.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

The Hall was restored. New shingles lined its sloping roof and the air was heavy with the scent of fresh pine. The oaken doors had been re-carved and set into place. Twisting images of dragons and warriors adorned their surface, locked in an epic struggle.

“How …?”

“How what?” She followed his gaze to the Hall and snorted. “Please, that’s nothing. Give them a couple of weeks, and my craftsmen will have this village looking decent again.”

“You have craftsmen?”

“Of course I have craftsmen. Who do you think does the cooking?” she said with a smirk.

Kael’s pace slowed as his eyes wandered over the Hall. The two large beams that stood on either side of the doors had been carved into the shapes of bearded men. They were dressed for battle, each with a rounded shield across his chest and his axe raised high.

He recognized the axe immediately: it was the same weapon Gwen carried … wait moment. The bearded men’s axes had two heads — Gwen’s only had one. He glanced down at her belt and saw there was ragged nub where the second blade should’ve been.

Before he could ask what had happened to it, Gwen spoke: “That’s Cadwalader, our first Thane. And my father, Thane Evan,” she said, pointing to the carved warriors. “They were the greatest dragonslayers in our history.”

Kael snorted. “There aren’t any dragons in the mountains.”

“Have you been to the summit?”

“Well, no —”

“Then you ought to keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, people might figure out how stupid you are,” Gwen retorted. “There
are
dragons in the mountains — well, I suppose they’re more like the frost-breathing castoffs of dragons. But they’re the closest things you’ll find on this side of the northern seas.” She arched her chin at the images carved into the doors. “
Wynns
is what we call them. They’ve lived in the mountains for so long that they’ve lost their wings. Their breath bites like winter and they’ve got these great heavy claws they use to burrow through ice.”

Roland had always said there were monsters living at the summit. Still, Kael had a difficult time believing they were wingless, burrowing dragons. “Are you cert — would you stop that?”

He tried to move away, but Gwen stepped on his heel. “Fate’s fingers, you walk too slowly. Move, mutt!”

She clomped on his heel again, and Kael was tired of playing. He outran her easily, reaching the Hall doors several paces ahead. He stopped to open the doors — but Gwen didn’t. Instead, she lowered her shoulder and smacked into him from behind.

There was a loud
crack
, a roar of cheers, and the next time Kael blinked, he was lying on the floor inside the Hall. His limbs were splayed in every direction; a large chunk of the door was trapped beneath him. Splinters the size of his fist ringed his body in an arc. The wildmen seated around the many tables grinned down at him though their beards.

Kael heard steps clomping up behind him and flipped over quickly. “What,” he howled, “in
Kingdom’s
name is wrong with you?”

Gwen leaned against the man-sized hole in the door, her bluish-black lips pulled back from her teeth in a grin. “How was your trip, mutt?”

“You could’ve killed me!”

“Are you dead?”

“No —”

“Got any scratches? Bruises? I bet you’re not even sore.”

Never, in all of his life, had Kael wished to be wounded. But Gwen was right: he’d just been launched through several inches of pine, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. “Well, still … you’ve ruined that door.”

Gwen shrugged. “The craftsmen will have it rebuilt before you’ve finished sobbing about it.” She ducked through the hole, and the Hall fell silent. “Do you know why you’re not hurt, mutt? Because you didn’t have a chance to doubt it
, this time. You didn’t have time to see it flying towards you, didn’t have time to fret about how badly it would hurt. Fate shoved you through a door —”