by Sandra Elsa
The border guards shuffled nervously. Pink tore her gaze away from the seeping wound and watched as Johann turned his anger on the strangers. “How dare you bring that to my granddaughter? She has consented to help you while we live here. She will have nothing to do with the likes of that...thing lying on the ground.”
Three of the men fastened their gaze on their boots. The fourth looked into Johann’s rage and spoke with a calm born of a righteousness of principle. “I don’t know your reasons, but if we can discover the purpose of these scouts it would be worth whatever you wish us to pay. I'm not without resources.”
“We don’t want your gold.” Johann was vehement.
The stranger turned and acknowledged his partners. “We have followed this man for five days, hoping he would come close enough to Dylan’s farm that if any of us were injured trying to capture him, your granddaughter could Heal us. These men are just farmers. The fight could have gone badly for us despite our numbers, but if she will not Heal him, it has all been for naught.”
Pink looked at the wounded man again and for the first time pried her eyes from the wound, to notice the uniform and the emblem. The same markings that had been stamped on the warhorse’s saddle and bridle, were emblazoned across his chest. Covered in blood now, and ragged, but clearly it had been a many-pointed star, surrounding the head of a fierce looking cat. From the conversation flowing around her, and the emblem on the uniform, she deduced that this was in fact one of the Telgarn soldiers.
As Johann argued with the men, Pink knelt beside the soldier watching as the charcoal gray color he possessed faded to black. If she waited for them to finish arguing the man would be dead. She did not look on him as friend or foe but simply as someone she might be able to save.
Removing the linen bandage she placed both hands on the man’s side, searched out the blood vessels and Healed the larger ones, she sealed off the smaller ones to stop the blood loss and checked for damaged organs. The wound was deep. She reached within the gash, and using her magic to guide her fingers sorted out the damaged tissues. Loops of intestine had been completely severed; she pulled these out and discarded them. Once the pieces that were already beyond saving, due to insufficient blood supply, were gone she grafted the two ends back together. She moaned in pain, catching Johann’s attention.
Her bloody hand pressed to her own side. Johann laid a restraining hand on her shoulder, but as soon as she could breathe easy again she continued to probe the wound. The top of the pelvic bone had been shattered. She pulled out fragments, searching carefully with second-sight to make certain she had them all.
The bone and the intestine were the worst of the damage. He was not beyond saving, but he would never walk right again, and losing that much intestine could not possibly be a good thing for anyone. If time and circumstance permitted, perhaps she could put him back to rights after he was no longer at death’s door. Pink looked at the bone splinters lying on the ground and knew at this point it was beyond her to replace them. She healed the fractures of the largest pieces. Last she attempted to Heal the abdominal muscles. She heard galloping hoofbeats slide to a stop behind her, and felt Angel’s soft muzzle on her shoulder. But pain and blackness overcame her before she finished the task of repairing the huge slash in the muscle.
Pink awoke to blindness. She panicked but the pain inflaming her side was debilitating. She couldn’t move or see. She blinked, focusing on slow cautious movement, ascertaining that her eyes were in fact open, she forced her head to turn just the slightest degree and stared straight into Angel’s worried black face. She must have been passed out most of the afternoon. Vision returned as her mind adjusted to the shift in time. Angel hovered over her, threatening anybody who dared to approach, with bared teeth and pinned ears. Even Johann stood outside Angel’s reach.
Her return to consciousness had been a result of the last surge of energy Angel sent to her. He nickered softly as she stirred. She gazed into soft black eyes reflecting the pale yellow moonlight.
Her side hurt. Nowhere near as bad as it had before she lost consciousness but still enough that she gasped with a shortness of breath when she moved.
Johann heard her. “Sever the link,” he instructed. “You are still connected to the patient, that’s why Angel cannot help you.”
Projecting herself from her body she saw what Johann spoke of. She had been working on the soldier when she passed out. A strand of green energy connected her aura to his. His aura was still grey but it was lighter and possibly she was seeing some of the healthy green color remaining in his. Nevertheless she severed the connection. Angel snorted his approval. She needed to get herself better, if she was ever to achieve anything more than a stalemate with the man’s condition.
With the connection severed Pink sunk back into her body and Angel nuzzled her hair. The pain dissipated this time. She remained weak, but with her fingers wrapped in Angel’s mane, she pulled herself to her feet.
As she got up, Pink thanked Angel and released her grip. He retreated to the far end of the field. Johann came up and wrapped an arm around her waist. She gasped as his fingers contacted the place where so recently she had suffered incapacitating pain. Realizing that it no longer hurt, she leaned heavily on him. Allowing him and one of the strangers to help her into the house.
Johann did not take his eyes from her and she knew he was assessing the strength of her aura. “I almost let these men kill that horse of yours.”
Pink closed her eyes. “If you had, I would probably have died.”
“You think I don‘t know that?” His voice was gruff with the frustration of impotence. “I monitored you all afternoon. Any time your energies dropped he strengthened you. Until you awoke, there was little anybody could do.”
Valla had an herbal tea waiting. Pink reached for it, then stopped, staring at the dried blood covering her unsteady hands. Without a word being said Valla placed a bowl of water and lye soap in front of her.
When her hands were clean, she took the tea and drank it, savoring the mildly bitter flavor of chamomile.
“Food,” Johann ordered. “She needs to eat to get her strength back.”
The man that helped carry her in was the one that had stood up to Johann earlier; he had the bearing of a soldier. His gaze traveled now between Pink and Johann. “What about the...”
“He is not important.” Johann cut him off. “My granddaughter almost killed herself helping him. If he lives so be it. She will not do anything else tonight.”
The man turned to Dylan, knowing he would lose any argument he might present at this time. “Where can we put him?”
Before Dylan had a chance to respond, Johann said, “You may keep your pet anywhere I am not. I’ll thank you to keep him far from the stable.”
Dylan rose and led the man outside as Valla placed a bowl of stew in front of Pink.
Pink washed more thoroughly after eating, then leaned on Johann to walk to the barn. Johann hovered over her, like a mother duck. She managed to convince him to turn around long enough for her to peel out of her clothes and put clean ones on. In moments she was asleep without sparing another thought for her patient.
Sunlight streaming through the barn windows woke her. She was still weak, but she urged her tight muscles to rise. The clothes she dropped to the ground the night before were folded neatly in the stack that needed washing. The barn door was closed and Johann sat in a chair beside it, nodding off. When she approached, he woke up, shifting from drowsing off, to alert and ready for trouble. “You just leave that soldier alone.”
“He’s just a man, Johann. Obeying orders the same as you did when you were in the army. He doesn’t deserve to die simply because of where he’s from.”
“They obey a man who's insane. If they can’t see that, they do not deserve to live.”
Pink stood beside him. Johann had been very good to her. She hated to argue with him but she was not about to let the soldier die. “If Dylan and the border guards can get useful information fro
m him, wouldn't it be worth saving his life. They went for months without sending any scouts and now they're arriving with regularity. Doesn’t that make you the least bit curious?”
Chapter 14
