Bren posi oned himself to where he could see March. He saw the blood soaked band around his friend’s head and watched him wince as he wiped his bloody hands on his pants. Bren started to worry. They wouldn’t stand a chance if they got stuck in the woods in the dark. With both of them lame and smelling like a feast, all sorts of hungry things would come sniffing. He felt li le relief when March tried again and grinned proudly a er finally pulling the sword free of the wyvern.
March searched the cavern for something to wipe the sword’s blade clean.
His gaze finally landed on Bren, who was staring straight back at him with true fear in his eyes. March disregarded the look and walked over and pulled the dead man’s pack out from under Bren’s head. He opened it, and luckily, right there on top was a rolled up woolen cloak. It was exactly what he needed to save his friend. As he pulled it free, a fat leather pouch fell out of the roll. It chinked to the floor just beside Bren’s ear. Bren struggled to grab it while March went about rummaging through the rest of the backpack.
“March look!” Bren said excitedly. He rolled to his side and poured a pile of shiny gold coins onto the floor. “We're rich!”
March found a wine skin and was sniffing the spout to try to see if it held water or wine. It turned out to be some sort of liqueur. It probably had a
fruity aroma at one me, but now it smelled of nothing but pure grain. He braved a small sip as he turned to see what Bren was carrying on about and nearly choked. Whether from the strength of the drink or from the sight of the pile of golden coins, he would never know. He forced himself to swallow and felt the burn of the liquid all the way down his throat and into his belly. He nearly choked again when he saw that Bren had only dumped out a small por on of the contents from the pouch. Bren was holding the heavy bag of coins in his hand and grinning ear to ear.
Without hesita on, and with the eagerness of a small child reveling under the Giver Man’s tree on full winter’s morn, March dropped down to his knees and began rummaging through the rest of the contents. To his disappointment only two items remained. Neither was as glamorous as the bag of coins.
“What’s le ?” Bren asked excitedly.
“Only an old book and a scroll tube,” March said flatly. “It’s all for nothing if we can’t get you back home. The wolves don’t take bribes.”
He regre ed saying it as soon as it came out of his mouth. It wasn’t right for him to scare Bren like that. It would be hard enough to get Bren over the ridge, even if his idea worked, and all the harder if either of them panicked.
A er giving Bren the skin full of the liqueur, March laid out the cloak and began cu ng it into strips. A er that, he gently took off the blood soaked pieces of the shirt he had ed around Bren’s leg. The cut looked like a long black gooey line. March wished he had a way to s tch it up, but the nearest needle was back over the ridge with their other gear. He thought about leaving Bren here and making the trip alone, but thoughts of what
could happen to his friend lying defenseless in the cave made up his mind for him.
“You pouring, or me?” March asked, poin ng from the wine skin to the gash.
“I’ll pour it,” Bren sounded reluctant. “You have to hold my leg s ll so I don’t pull it all back open if I jump.”
“All right,” March couldn’t help but laugh. “But you’re such a giboon. I ought to just leave you here, take all this stuff and go buy myself a castle.”
Bren tried to laugh, but the an cipa on of the pain to come kept him from it. March put one hand on Bren’s knee and the other on Bren’s hip. Then he nodded that he was ready. Bren took a big swig from the skin. Then, before he lost his resolve, he poured a generous amount of the liquid down his thigh just as he swallowed.
To March’s surprise Bren just looked at him stupidly. It seemed as though he wasn’t feeling any pain at all. Then, Bren’s face slowly flushed pink. It quickly graduated to a bright reddish color. Soon it looked as if Bren’s head would burst. Then the scream came.
It was long and loud, and it was followed by several quick sharp huffs that sent spi le flying from Bren’s mouth in every direc on. He looked pleadingly at March and started to scream again, but mercifully his eyes rolled back into his head as his body succumbed to the pain.
March wasted no me. He first padded the wound with a folded piece of the cloak. He bound it once more with strips so that it wouldn’t pull open on its own. Then he bound it again with a second layer of strips. A er pu ng the sword back in the scabbard, he laid it along Bren’s wounded
leg. He made sure that the ball of the hilt was ju ng just past the bo om of Bren’s boot heel. He was glad to see that the p of the sheathed blade was above Bren’s hip, nearly at his armpit. He strapped the sword to Bren’s leg with more strips of the cloak and some lengths of rope. He ed a fancy knot around Bren’s foot and the hilt, so that the sword couldn’t come sliding out of its scabbard. Finally, he slipped the thick leather sword belt under his friend’s waist then buckled it ghtly around Bren and the sword’s blade. He hoped that most of Bren’s weight would be on the tempered steel and not on his leg.
March took a moment to rest a er his labors. He wanted desperately to be back over the ridge and in their camp before dark. He rounded up everything he could find, including the coins from the floor of the cavern.
He put them all into the backpack. He strapped Bren’s bow and quiver around his shoulders, and took the me to remove three of the arrows from the body of the beast. Then he decided to take some proof of the kill.
With his skinning knife, he cut the fore claw off of the creature, and a er wrapping it in what was le of the cloak, he forced it into the pack. He shouldered the load, and a er a quick look around to make sure that he had go en everything, he went to wake Brendly.
It was a slow tedious climb. The sword splint was awkward, but it worked.
Bren was more or less just stumbling from tree to tree. He clung to the lower branches and used his muscled arms to keep himself from falling all the way down.
March was carrying the packs and finding that keeping the bow ready was a chore all by itself. His ruined palms wouldn’t close around the grip correctly and even the slightest squeeze of his hands caused extreme pain.
To make things worse, he could feel the icy burn of his skull where his scalp
wasn’t covering the bone anymore. He would have just fallen down and cried if it weren’t for the heart wrenching determina on Bren was showing by just keeping himself upright.
Ever so slowly they con nued the journey upward, figh ng their pain as they climbed. They stopped to drink from the wine skin and to eat some dried beef but found that it was a mistake. The short reprieve allowed their bodies to relax but caused their wounds to s ffen. Bren felt far worse than he had when they had started from the cave. March didn’t feel much be er. The strong content of the skin, that the skeleton had so generously preserved for them, did very li le to ease their suffering, but Bren found himself wan ng more of it. March let him finish what was le before they started back up the mountain.
They climbed some more and eventually the ridge came into view. Bren used the sight of it to strengthen his resolve. He used all that he had le in himself to get there.
March wasn’t far behind, but blood loss had him feeling dizzy. He was sure that the s cky wetness that he was feeling running down his back was as much blood as it was sweat. A glance at the sun told him that they probably wouldn’t make it back to the camp by nigh all, but since they would be within the kingdom’s boundaries, and traveling downhill, he felt that their chances were good of ge ng there alive. That is, if he could keep from passing out. He was sure that Bren was having a harder me of it. It amazed him that Bren hadn’t done much more than grunt and wince on the way up. Bren had to be in incredible pain. March’s wounds were superficial in comparison.
“Well that was the hard part!” March managed to say between breaths as he gained Bren’s side at the top of the ridge.
Bren was holding desperately onto a branch to steady himself and he was gasping for air. He managed a grim smile.
March plopped down heavily onto a rock and began rummaging through his pack un l he found his water skin. A er taking a long drink, he handed it to Bren’s trembling hand. Bren finished it off then he playfully tossed it at March before he started down the mountainside.
“We're not stopping here,” Bren called out over his shoulder. “And you’d be er hurry up and lead, because if it’s up to me, we are going straight down into the valley.”
March reluctantly got to his feet and started a er his friend. He was completely amazed at the way Bren was handling the pain.
It was dark when March finally found the camp. He wouldn’t have found it, if not for the many tracking and hun ng lessons he’d learned from his father and two older brothers over the years.
The stars weren’t very bright this night, but the moon would be up soon.
He’d use its light to check Bren’s wounds.
Bren was in a bad way. Several mes, on the last por on of the trek, he had stumbled into trees and shrubs. Once, when his red arms wouldn’t hold him up any longer, he had fallen into a s ff-legged heap on the forest floor. He was stretched out now, under the shelter March had made for them the previous night. March made him drink the remainder of their water, and then helped him eat some dried beef before le ng him pass out.
