by DC Little
The man had gone listless as she dressed him, urging her actions that much more. She shrugged out of her bow and pack, quickly untying the bear skin, shimmying it under him as he moaned in pain, and wrapping it around him. His eyes never once fluttered open, and fear pushed her on.
She yanked her knife from its sheath on her thigh and in only a half dozen quick, efficient strokes, the branch broke free from the tree. The guy had done his best, but he must not have had a knife or anything besides the string that lay broken to work with.
A quiet groan escaped him as the branch came loose. She chipped away at the pool of frozen blood beneath his leg until she had enough room to cut the branch there as well. Her time interning with Laurie and Lexi gave her confidence even though she had never encountered a man pinned by a tree branch like this. But there had been hunting accidents where they had to remove misfired arrows from fellow hunters.
Mercy chewed her cheeks as she remembered what the healers had said about puncture wounds like this. Something about not taking out the object until...until...she growled. Standing up, she looked at the man once more, collecting data as she did. The guy had not come from the wilderness. His clothes were from the World Before, old, worn out, stained, and incredibly dirty. His boots were the same. Her father still had boots like this, though he mostly wore moccasins now. They all did.
The guy had to have come from the Forbidden Land with rectangular buildings that had multiple rooms inside and who knows what else. This guy would have answers. Even if he hadn’t had the eyes, she had to save him.
She noticed the bottom portion of his leg bent at an odd angle and sighed. Not only skewered, but broken...she would have to splint his leg. She battled with priorities. If she didn’t get him warm soon, he would die from hypothermia. Yet, if she didn’t set the bone quick enough, it could cause death or disfigurement.
Steeling herself, she pulled back the fur to look at his face. His lips chattered. A good sign. She would set his leg, then work on a shelter.
Setting a leg wasn’t easy without help. Luckily, the break wasn’t bad. Laurie and Lexi had her help when Colton had what they called a compound fracture. The bone had come out of the skin. Mercy was one of the few there that could keep her stomach while assisting Lexi. Blood never bothered her, though some girls had even fainted.
After cutting a few straight branches and shearing them clean, she pulled a strap of leather out of her pack, and assessed the break. Her tentative touch led to the guy moaning, but she kept exploring until she found the break. Closing her eyes, she ensured she had the knowledge to do this. She sat in confidence, having set a few bones before, even one in her own brother.
With quick movements, she rested her knee above the break and pulled gently but efficiently down from her hold above the ankle until she felt the bone settle into place. It was just the one, a very lucky break. She double checked her work noticing that the guy hardly even flinched during the set. She had to work faster.
After wrapping the sticks on both sides of his leg from ankle to hip, she looked at the stick in his thigh one more time. Warmth first. Scanning the surrounding area, she noticed that the guy had already created a little trench against the tree, giving them the best shelter around for now. She pulled out her digging bone, the shoulder blade of a deer, and used it to dig further under the tree until she almost hit dirt. The hole was rough and not quite big enough, but it would keep them warm for tonight. The fallen tree already covered one side, which made it that much easier to finish.
Using the bear fur, she tugged and pulled the surprisingly heavy, limp man into the shelter. After settling the unconscious bundle, she cut free several branches still thick with needles to keep the warmth in and the snow out, for it fell heavily once again. With the shelter covered, she went to work on building a small fire near the entrance.
Not only did they need warmth, but she needed to brew him some tea. As she explored the area around the shelter for dry tinder and dead branches, she went through the list of what Laurie had taught her. Willow bark for pain, because as your body heats from hypothermia, it hurts like the devil, but not too much willow bark because it thins the blood. Yarrow to assist clotting and to build up the blood. He had lost so much. Comfrey for swelling and healing the bones. She had those in the herb bag Laurie gave every person in camp before their first solo hunt.
Mercy started the tea and turned toward the puncture wound in the leg. Her gut clenched as she remembered what Lexi had said. Pulling something out of a body like that, if not done properly, could cause further damage and even kill the person. While she fed the fire and prepared the tea, she relived the arrow in Kevin. Lexi had cut off both the top and bottom of the arrow so she could pull it clean through as easily as possible.
If she couldn’t stop the blood with compression...the thought made her cringe. A lingering smell haunted her memory, a smell a person never forgets—the smell of burning human flesh.
Mercy blanched at the idea of having to burn both the entrance and the exit wounds on the young man. Her gaze fell onto his face. She would do anything to save him, even endure the stench she wished to never smell again.
>>>—ORION—<<<
Warm liquid dribbling down his throat woke Orion. He swallowed the bitter substance, then turned his head away.
“Stop being so stubborn and drink.” The voice sounded more fearful than angry and was still the sweetest voice he had ever heard.
He opened his eyes, blinking several times to push away the blurriness. His eyelids moved as if in slow motion, and still nothing came into focus except a shadowy figure outlined by firelight. Gentle hands turned his face, rubbed the side of his mouth, and then set the warm, herby-smelling cup against his lips. He tried to move his head away again.
“Seriously, buddy, if you want to live, you have got to do your part. Just swallow!” He recognized the voice...the red-headed angel that cut him loose from the tree.
More liquid spilled into his mouth. He did as the angel instructed as his other senses slowly came back to him. Specifically, his throbbing head, burning hands, and his leg that felt on fire and squeezed to death at the same time. As the pain broke into his awareness, his brows scrunched, squinting his eyes. He could see the angel in the dim light this way.
Funny, here, in the dark, wherever they were, she almost seemed human.
“The pain pretty bad?” she asked, empathy lining her voice.
“Yeah,” he croaked, though the word seemed to have stuck in his throat, letting only a grunt escape.
“Then drink. It will help with the pain, the swelling, the bleeding, well, just about everything.”
This time when she offered the tea, he gulped the hot liquid as quickly as he could, anything to get rid of the pain that made his thoughts collide and mush together until he did not know what was going on. Images of his dad filtered in. Hadn’t he talked with his father? All the talk of heaven and hell, this place didn’t seem like either.
Yet, the angel.
She smoothed his forehead, and her hands gently swept along his brow and around his scalp. The warmth soothed him, but an underlying zap, like the tingle you feel after sliding your feet along carpet...something that he had the luxury of as a kid. His mother had called it static electricity...yeah, her touch felt like that.
“Did the tree hit your head?” She murmured the question in a way that sounded rhetorical as her fingers probed a tender spot. She leaned over him to inspect it, her earthy-sweet smell soothing him. “No bleeding. I wish I had arnica oil with me to help with the swelling, but the tea should do it.”
She sat back on her heels to look at him. His lids drooped, obscuring her from his vision for long moments at a time. He should feel odd that she sat there and stared at him. Instead, he wondered what color her eyes were and if her lashes matched the bright red of her hair. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as his eyes fell and didn’t open until the light from outside shone brightly.
A chill ran down
him, causing his eyes to flash open, but once again his vision blurred. He reached out for the blanket covering him, but his hands met not wool or anything material, but fur...thick, rough fur. The only fur he could remember touching sat on carcasses soon to become food.
He tugged on the fur, recognizing it as what had covered him during the night, and snuggled into its warmth. Memories flashed through him, of warmth from a body lying next to him, of fiery breath on his cheek, of a sweet-earthy smell that set his heart racing. The angel...she had slept beside him, keeping him warm, soothing him, and holding his burning hands in her own. How in the world had he slept through that?
Where had the angel gone? His eyes slightly focused, and he saw he lay in a tiny shelter of sorts with a small fire near the entrance. There was barely enough room for him to stretch out. Trying to do so sent jolts of pain through him. As sleep numbness wore off, his body ached with a vengeance.
Outside he heard a steady thwack-thwack until a whoosh, like a miniature echo of yesterday’s nightmare, landed with a thump. The memory flashed of watching the tree come at him and not being able to escape through the deep snow. He could have died. He should have died. Was he dead?
As the pain increased, reality came with it. If he still felt pain, he couldn’t be dead. The image of his father, though? The man’s condemning eyes still tore at him. If he wasn’t dead, then he needed to get back to his sister.
Orion pushed himself up, gasping with the pain of the movement before crashing back into the heavy fur around him. A warmth seeped from his leg, and he looked down to see fresh blood soaking the wrap around his wound.
Crunching steps sounded closer. Through the entrance hole, he could see what looked like feet made of branches coming toward him. Crazy thoughts swirled in his mind until he saw knees drop to the snow and a beautiful head of red duck inside the shelter.
“Oh, you’re awake. Good. I was wondering how I would get you on the travois without hurting you. It was hard enough dragging you in here last night.”
She ducked back out, and he saw her nimble fingers untying straps around the tree feet. When she crawled all the way into the shelter, the tree feet had stayed out, leaving her in long, leather boots...boots that looked more like socks.
She busied herself, scrunched over the fire, putting herbs in a cup that she settled in the coals. Then she turned toward him, pulling her eyes away quickly when they met his. She pulled up the blanket to look at his leg.
“You’re bleeding through, ugh.”
Orion didn’t know if she was disgusted with him bleeding or with him bleeding all over the thick fur she had wrapped around him, but either way it made him feel awful.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice sounding rough and muffled.
She glanced at him briefly, proceeding to mumble to herself. The words made little sense to him, so he leaned back, too tired to hold himself up anymore. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of her rummaging around and muttering to herself. Soon, he felt her messing with his leg. When the compression came off, the wound surged with warmth and pain.
He didn’t understand the words she murmured, but he understood the vehemence behind them. With quick adept hands, she placed something warm and wet over his wound and hastily wrapped it back up. A groan escaped his lips as she tightened the bandage.
“I’m sorry that hurts, but if the bleeding doesn’t stop…” Her words faded off, and the ominous silence spoke more than needed.
“W...what can...I do?” He pushed the words out.
“Stay still. Rest. Pray.” The one word directives hit him as odd but meaningful.
He nodded, lying farther into the furs and closing his eyes once more. She fed him more of the bitter tea and disappeared.
When he next awoke, she was talking to him. Beside him were two long poles with a sort of hammock between them. She was pointing to them as her words finally sank into his consciousness.
“We need to keep your leg still and straight, but if you could push yourself up onto the travois...well, it sure would make this a lot easier.”
It took several frustrating minutes, but together they had him lying between the two poles to her nod of approval. She then wrapped him in the fur and tied him down onto the poles.
When he realized what she was doing, his eyes flew open wide and then narrowed on her.
“No one likes to get tied up. I get that.” She folded her arms and for the first time he noticed the long, leather cape-like garment she wore was as green as the pine needles around them. “If I don’t tie you, you could slip off while I’m pulling the travois and injure yourself further. You’re not exactly coherent.” She sighed, squatting down and wrapping more leather straps around him. “So, why am I even bothering telling you?”
“I get it,” he said, no longer resisting and laying back against the poles.
After tying him like a hog to a spit, she brought him another cup of bitter tea. “The ride will be rough. You’ll need to sleep through most of it, so drink up.”
“Thank you,” he whispered before guzzling the liquid and promptly falling asleep.
Next, he woke to the melody of the angel’s ramblings. He didn’t bother to let her know he had awoken, for the sound and lilt of her voice kept him in a soothed state. The motion on the poles jostled him, rocking him back and forth, but otherwise he traveled smoothly. The more he fully woke, the more he wondered how the girl, or he should say young woman, pulled him along, seemingly with no effort.
Yet, he heard the strain in her voice as the camber of the travois changed, leaning him more upright as she climbed a hill. Still, she continued to pull and muse, talking of her family and a place called Zion. That name sounded foreign to him, like it belonged in a far off land. He blinked his eyes, focusing on the snow-laden branches over him. Today they contrasted against a clear blue sky. The snow sparkled like those clear jewels the Old Man had shown him from time to time, like the stone in his mother’s ring, the one his father had given to her.
The jump his mind made almost had him sitting straight up. In fact, if she hadn’t tied him down, he might have accomplished the feat. Could this Zion be where Chantry lived? Could this angel actually be the enemy?
“Oh, you waking up back there? I could use a rest anyway,” she said.
Orion felt himself lowered. His heart racing, he watched as she came around his litter. She stretched her mittened hands and alternated with squeezing and opening them. When her eyes met his, she hesitated, almost like she recognized him before she averted her gaze. After discarding her mitten, she reached out to touch his forehead, cheek, and earlobe. Static electricity tingled along his skin, confusing him all the more.
“You’re feverish.” She turned, rummaged in her pack, and withdrew her canteen. “Good. It’s still semi-warm.”
When she placed it to his lips, he struggled, trying to free an arm from the restraints. Thinking of her taking him into enemy territory made his insides quiver as he lay there helpless and tied up like a papoose. “Untie me,” he croaked, wiggling more.
She watched him for several seconds, and he realized then that her eyes were as green as the trees that surrounded them, as green as new grass in spring. He suddenly didn’t feel as frightened.
“Feeling a little claustrophobic?” She cocked her head. “Or is it something else?”
She drew her cheeks in, and he wondered if she chewed them. His sister did that sometimes when she was nervous.
Watching him closely, she untied one binding, loosening it enough he could pull his arms free. As soon as she did, she tightened the bindings once more.
“When you fall asleep again, I’ll have to tuck your arms back in. Otherwise they could get dragged along the ground and do further damage.” She reached for his hand, her gentle touch along his fingertips feeling like sparks from a flame. “I’m hoping we warmed them soon enough, and that the healers can do the rest.”
He looked at his own fingers. Seeing the slightly waxy shine to them
made him nervous. He reached up to touch his nose, though his fingers had little feeling.
“Your nose is perfect.” She cleared her throat and stood up. “I mean, it’s nice. I mean, fine. There is no frost damage that I can see.”
Orion felt his lips quirk at her floundering. He couldn’t help that it was the cutest thing he had ever seen. Normally, he would spout off something funny or distracting, but his tongue seemed as tied as the rest of his body. Pain ebbed through him and thirst drew his eyes off the amazing girl in front of him to the canteen she held.
She saw his gaze and handed him the canteen. “You’ll need to sleep. That fever isn’t a good sign. I’m no healer and camp is still…” She looked into the distance, a small line etched between her arched red brows. “Too far away.”
He thought of her sleeping next to him, warming him with her body heat. Flashes of the memory shot through him in teasing tendrils. Then an image of his father invaded the pleasant imagery. He met her eyes once more. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home,” she said simply, packing her bag back up. “Zion. A place where you can get the help you need.”
The only defector camp he had heard of this far from a coalition was Chantry’s. Could there be more? He fought the idea. On the one hand, he could be right where he wanted to be. On the other, as he watched the girl shrugging into her pack and tucking the fur around him, he didn’t want her to be the enemy.
His mission was simple. Infiltrate the camp. Glean as much information on how it worked, what they ate, where they found their food, their water, and everything else they needed. Once he obtained the information, kill Chantry and escape back to Meyers to tell him everything.
At least, it had sounded simple in the warmth of the Old Man’s office. Right now, it didn’t sound simple at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
