15. I'm Not a Healer
After the officer had gone back out to guard the barricade, Idelle looked back to Torran, who already had his eyes closed and his head tilted forward on his chest. Sleeping as quickly as that. She wasn't sure if he'd last the next days it would take to Holmley, but she tried not to worry about that right now. She just needed to get him resting as soon as possible.
Tapping him on the knee, she woke him enough to let her help him move to one of the cots against the back wall. He dropped onto its hard canvas cover, his legs spilling over the side and his arms resting over his eyes. Idelle stood over him, looking down at his tunic and trousers. In the firelight, she saw the bloom of dark red staining the gray fabric from the right side of his waist down to his knee. His chest rose and fell shakily and tension ran through his muscles though he was laying down now.
"Sir," she said, nudging his side. He didn't seem to hear her. She nudged harder this time, nearly tipping him over, but he still didn't stir. "Torran!"
He blinked his eyes open, bleary and confused, but seemingly not registering that she had just called him by his name and not the proper title of address. He merely let his head fall to the side, staring at her.
"You're going to die if we don't treat this," she said, pointing down at his hip and the large stain. She hadn't meant to be so blunt, but the panic was growing in her chest as she thought how close he was coming to leaving it all behind.
"I won't die," he said.
Idelle exhaled in frustration and unbuckled her sword belt to toss onto the other cot. With it out of the way, she leaned over and straightened his bad leg, making him hiss in pain. She needed it where she could see the wound, though, and so she pinned his shin under her knee while she peeled back the top of his trousers and pulled them down just far enough that she could inspect the gash running along his pelvic bone and down his leg.
The healers at the camp had wrapped it tightly in linen, but it was old and dirty and Idelle quickly grabbed Torran's dagger from his belt and cut through it. She tossed the old bandages onto the floor and tilted Torran's hips so she could see the wound in the light of the fire.
It looked far worse than the last time she had seen it on the battlefield. Now that the hard ride and dust and sweat of the journey had had time to work on it, it was a dark purple color and swollen along the ridges. She wouldn't be surprised if she could have seen bone through the gash had the skin not been so puckered. It let off a heat against her fingertips and Torran bore all her prodding with hisses and grunts of pain.
"Those idiots should have cauterized it when they had a chance," she muttered, sitting back and letting her hand trail off his hips. He strained his neck, trying to look down the length of his body at the wound.
"Is it going to stop us?" he asked, the worry in his voice for the lost time and not his own well-being. Idelle hated that.
"It bloody well should," she said, getting up from his side and stalking across the floor. "But I know that you'd just pull rank on everyone and leave anyway. So there's no point in even suggesting we stay." Everything in her screamed to make him rest for the next few weeks, but she knew it would never happen. The queen needed him, and with the Glastonbex armies breaking laws by entering the neutral Essenkirk and using their borders to invade, his support in the castle may be what kept Wynherst afloat.
Rubbing the space between her eyebrows, Idelle turned and gazed into the fire. It crackled merrily, a pretty little thing in a plaster fireplace. It was big enough, with enough coals, that she could heat up the metal enough.
Turning back to Torran and the cots, she grabbed her sword and unsheathed. "I'm not a healer," she said, walking to the fireplace and shoving the blade into the coals at the bottom of the fire, "but my brother and a few in my villager are. I've seen them perform cauterization before, but only when I was a child."
Torran propped himself up on his elbows, mouth a straight line. "Do it," he said, not even waiting for the rest of her disclaimer. She wished he had. Her confidence in her healing abilities was near to none, and she didn't want to sever his arteries when she was trying to burn the wound closed. But she had the heated metal in her hand now, glowing red hot and bending the air around it with its heat. She tried to hide the shaking of her hands as she approached Torran's bed, but he must have seen the fear in her eyes.
"You'll be fine," he said, offering her comfort when she should have been the one to soothe him. He grabbed the side of her leg as she pressed up against his side, pinning his legs down with one hand. She felt him tense, preparing for the burn, and he stuffed a corner of the blanket into his mouth to prevent himself from biting off his tongue. She glanced at his face once, locking eyes with his hazel gaze, and then she turned away. It would be easier to do it if she only looked at the wound and tried to forget the flushed and fearful face that belonged to it.
Holding her breath, she brought the glowing red blade down on each side of the gash, and heard the blood boil and the skin sear. A horrific smell filled the room and Idelle gagged despite herself. Torran went rigid like a board, the color of his skin alternating between red and white and back again. He didn't scream, though she desperately wanted him to. Instead, he held it all in, straining against her restraint but doing his best not to hurt her. He whimpered a little and it was worse than any scream or curse she could imagine. She hated that she was the one doing this to him, but she also knew it had to be done. Whispering her apologies to him in a constant string that felt almost like a prayer, she waited until the blade had cooled down too much to burn any longer. She pulled it away then, amid a fountain of blood, and dropped it to the floor.
She let his legs go and anxiously looked to his face. His eyelids fluttered down and his chest rose and fell with the speed of a race horse. She didn't know if he'd want comfort or not, so she stood uselessly by his side, wishing he could tell her how to help.
It took him ten minutes to calm down and grow still.His breathing evened out and the creases in his brow smoothed. His eyes had been closed the entire time and she thought perhaps he had passed out sometime in that space. She gently pressed on his shoulder, to make sure that he was asleep, and when he didn't respond beyond a soft sigh, she stumbled back and let her wobbling legs deposit her on the other cot.
His blood stained her hands and she stared at them dizzily. He'd lost a lot, and she could still feel it flowing in hot waves onto her hands as she pressed the blade to his wounds. Could she really wake him in just a few hours to ride again? It seemed like sentencing him to death. She wrapped her arms around herself and flopped down, staring at the roof. The smell of burnt flesh still filled the air and she rolled to her side, facing away from him, before she burst into the tears that he had refused to shed.
She fell asleep there, rolled into a ball, the smell of his blood washing over her as she tucked her stained hands close to her heart.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro