Anwar looked at the leg that now had a section of the bone exposed. “I will hold the whole leg in place. That way you can focus on sawing, and not worry about the bone moving around when you get halfway through it.” He reached out with his magic and applied equal pressure to all sides of the leg. It would be more stable than anything any of them could do by holding onto the leg with their hands.
Hellen pushed on the bone slightly to test it. It did not move. She picked up the bone saw. The saw had small teeth, with the teeth facing in alternating directions so the blade would cut in both forward and backward strokes. The teeth were wider then the blade so that the saw was less likely to get stuck as it cut into the bone.
To make the first groove she went as high up on the bone as she could without entangling the cloth that Grundel was holding back all the flesh with. By doing this she would ensure that the bone would be cut back far enough that it would not protrude into the stump and press against the inside of the flesh. The flesh and muscle would heal over the end of the bone, giving the bone a chance to heal better and enabling a prosthetic stump to be used without being extremely painful.
She laid the teeth of the saw on the bone as close to the handle as she could, then she slid the blade back toward herself. She did this three times until she was comfortable with the small groove she had made. After inspecting the groove she placed the teeth in it again and began sawing back and forth in earnest. With Anwar’s help holding the leg steady as a rock, she made the smoothest cut she could have ever made. When the bone was cut through she pushed the amputated leg away from the stump. Then she picked up the bone snips and cleaned up the edges of the bones to ensure everything was smooth.
Now that the stump was cut away, Hellen took the rag from Grundel. She sorted through the flesh and began tying off the artery and large veins. When she had tied them off, she loosened the tourniquet around the leg two turns. It was still slowing blood flow, but it wasn’t stopping it altogether. She cleaned out the wound with warm water.
With the wound cleaned, Hellen pulled the muscle and ligaments down over the bone. Then she pulled the flap of skin over the stump. She used her knife to cut the flap so that it lined up with the rest of the skin. When she had finished sewing the stump closed, she dressed it. When the wound was sufficiently wrapped she turned and looked at everyone.
“It is done. The dressing will have to be changed a few times a day so that they do not stick and the wound doesn’t get infected. The stump should stay elevated on a pillow. If it is okay with all of you I would like to stay until the stump is healed.”
“What about your clinic back in Freeman?” Anwar asked.
“My apprentice has it well in hand. She is more than capable,” she answered.
“You are more than welcome to stay. You saved my friend. Evermount is at your service. Anything you need, just let me know,” Grizzle told her.
Hellen nodded, and then began cleaning up the mess.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Recovering
Anwar stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Evermount. The dwarves had gathered all of their dead. All that was left were tens of thousands of orc corpses littering the field. The dwarves had enough to deal with just now, and he felt responsible. He might not be able to fix everything, but he could do something about this.
He pushed his magic out into nature again. This time he was careful not to allow himself to get lost in the power. He gathered the wind at one end of the field. From mountain to tree line, the winds built. When the winds were blowing over the entire area he pushed out more magic. The winds blew harder and harder. Then the bodies began rolling. A few began to flip up into the air when they hit others. He pushed more of his magic out. The bodies began to roll more steadily. Some were flying dozens of feet through the air. He added one last push of magic and the bodies were all rolling and flying through the air. He held there.
He was afraid of overdoing it. He didn’t want to lose control again. The wind was clearing the bodies well, so he focused on controlling the magic. It took over an hour, but he had cleared the bodies. The closest orc corpse was three miles away from the base of the mountain. Some would have been tossed into the woods, but he wasn’t focused on those. The animals would take care of them. The animals in the area would be fat for a long time. He transported himself to where he had sent the bodies.
He had focused the winds toward a single spot, so the bodies had not continued to scatter once they had gone as far away as he had intended. The bodies were still spread over a mile in either direction from where he stood, but he was confident that he could handle it. He raised his wall of fire. He slowly spread the wall until it was over a mile long. When he had it the length he wanted, he began increasing the heat of the flame. Typically he had just made fire. When a wall of fire ran over someone’s body it was usually enough to take them out of the fight. On top of that, being burned over that much of their body was usually fatal. But now he was trying to incinerate the bodies. He continued to increase the heat. When he was finished the fire was hot enough to melt stone. He focused on holding the amount of magic he was using in check. He concentrated on maintaining this amount of magic. If he concentrated he wouldn’t lose control again. He allowed the wall to slowly creep over the bodies until everything was burned. The vegetation, the stone, the corpses—the fire left only ash and charred ground behind. For half an hour he watched as his wall of fire crept over the mile of land. When it was past the last of the corpses he cut off the magical link with the wall. The fire extinguished, and he stood staring at the square mile of scorched earth. It hadn’t even taken much from him. What was he capable of? He had to learn to control this power or eventually he would lose himself to it.
Jabaal laid in his bed with his stump propped up on a pillow. When he had come out of his meditation the pain had been unreal. He had grabbed hold of his mind and pushed down the pain. The pain was still there, but he was able to keep it in the back of his mind. Hellen had stayed after she was finished. Everyone had stuck around after the surgery to make sure he was okay. Eventually they had all left, but not Hellen. He had wanted to try to get up, to use the one leg he still had, but she had refused to allow it. She had argued that the pressure would open the stitches in his other leg. It would be at least a week before he could get out of the bed. She didn’t mean for him to wait alone, though. She had stayed all night. They had talked for hours. She had been there this morning when he woke as well.
“I am amazed by your faith. I find that most men have strong faith when they are in need, but after a tragic event like the one you have faced their faith is weakened if not lost altogether. You have spent hours telling me about how great your god is. Why is it that you do not blame him for the pain you have to endure?” Hellen asked him.
“I am a man of faith. That means I trust that Kalime is going to take care of me. He has a plan for me. Somehow the loss of my leg will reap its own rewards. It is not my place to challenge the plans of my god. It is also my faith that helps me hold the pain you speak of at bay. With the power my god has given me I am able to suppress the pain instead of relying on the herbs. I had nothing but my skill with a blade before Kalime. Now I have my faith. I don’t know what my path might be, but I know that he will provide me with one. If I did not have Kalime all I would have would be two swords and one leg. As Grizzle asked before, what is a warrior with one leg? The answer would be useless, but what is a man of faith with one leg? He is still a man of faith.” He felt like he was preaching to her, but she listened intently. She seemed to be sincerely interested in what he was saying.
“Your faith is refreshing. I have never seen a man so devout. Seeing your faith makes me rethink my stance on the gods. I have always believed them to be selfish, but I can see that you truly care about your god. I believe that your faith will guide you. There are very few real men of faith in Freeman. There are many men who practice their faith out of routine, but very few who truly follow it. The ones
who do are radicals. They take up singular causes of their faith, and follow them to extremes. Men like that are why I have never taken any of the gods. I am not saying I want to take Kalime as my god, or any of the others, don’t get me wrong. I am just saying you have inspired me to be more accepting of religion, and maybe I will eventually find the god for me.”
Hellen spent every day with him. They talked about everything, where they grew up, the things they liked, the things they didn’t like, what they hoped to accomplish in life. The only person Jabaal had ever talked to about his wife had been Anwar. But now he found himself able to talk to Hellen about it.
He told her about the man who had jealously lusted after his wife. He told her how his wife had become pregnant and how the man had brutally murdered her, stabbing her multiple times in the stomach. It was hard to talk about, but she was a good listener and a good friend.
It was three days before she allowed him to get out of bed. Grizzle, Anwar, and Rundo watched as Grundel helped him out of bed. Jabaal stood on his right leg, holding onto Grundel’s shoulder. The pressure made the stump hurt more, but he didn’t say anything. He had barely been standing a minute before she made him lie back down.
“We need to wash your body today,” She told him when everyone was gone.
“I can wash myself,” he told her.
“We can’t submerge the leg in a tub yet. We will have to wipe you down with a wet cloth for now. I have kept the wound clean, but we need to wash your body as well.”
Hellen looked into her eyes. “I am not embarrassed to be seen naked, but I have begun to develop feelings for you, Hellen. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to be naked in your presence. I will ask Rundo to help me when he comes back today.”
Hellen stared into his eyes. “I admit I have feelings for you as well. I asked to stay and help with your recovery because I admired you, but now I am truly beginning to care for you. I haven’t felt these feelings before, and I am a bit unsure how to deal with them. When you are healed I have to return to Freeman. I feel like I may only be setting myself up to be hurt.”
Jabaal looked into her eyes. “Hellen, I don’t know what the future holds for me. What I do know is that I want to get to know you. I want to be around you. I know there is something here and I don’t want to lose it before we have even had the opportunity to see what it might be. Give me a couple of weeks, and let us see where it goes from there. Maybe I will come to Freeman with you.”
Hellen was overcome with emotion. She had come to care for him very strongly in only a couple of days. To hear him admit he had the same feelings was like jumping in cold water on a hot day—refreshing and shocking at the same time. “I will stay here with you for a couple of weeks, but I need to send word to Freeman.”
The next few days they spent all of their time together. Jabaal was allowed to get out of bed for a couple of minutes a day. Rundo brought him soap and water each day and helped him undress and dress. The rest of Evermount was preparing for Grindel’s funeral. It would be a couple of weeks before the dwarves of the other kingdoms all arrived. That would be when Jabaal would have to decide whether his future lay with Hellen.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Dwarf King’s Funeral
It had been a month since he had lost his leg, and today was Grindel’s funeral. A couple of days ago Grizzle had brought in a metal peg leg. He had said that a wooden one wasn’t reliable.
Jabaal sat on the edge of the bed while Hellen helped him strap on the leg. The leg was a hollow steel rod with a cup-shaped area at the top that was fitted to his stump. Grizzle had apparently measured it when he was asleep. Inside the socket was a lining of wool. The socket covered the stump most the way up to his groin, giving him plenty of support. There were straps on the front, back, and side that connected to a belt around his waist, and that belt had suspenders that went over his shoulders. They had set it up so the straps could tie into the belt of his pants. He would just have holes in the waist of all of his pants where the straps came through to tie into the belt. He wore a cotton shirt under the suspenders and a regular shirt over them. The suspenders could be worn like normal suspenders, really: they were a little thicker then normal suspenders, but they weren’t terribly uncomfortable. Jabaal knew that it would all take some getting used to, but all in all it wasn’t a bad system.
Grizzle said he was working on something better then the peg, but it would help him get used to a prosthesis for now. Hellen had told them that it was still early to be using the peg. The wound was mostly healed, but it would still be painful to put pressure on the stump. Jabaal had decided he would take the pain if it would give him a chance to get out of this bed.
The first day had been terrible. The leg didn’t bend or give at all. He basically had to use the peg by swinging the lifeless limb forward, then balancing on it while he brought his good leg forward. Grizzle and Hellen had each taken one of his hands. He had tried to walk on the stump but it felt more like he was putting his weight on the other two and hopping to his good leg. He was just using the stump to help him hold his weight. The bottom of the stump slipped on the stone a couple of times when he had put all of his weight on it and tried to use it like his real leg. He had fought through the pain for close to an hour when Hellen finally said that she wouldn’t allow him to continue. She was very stern, and even Grizzle didn’t dare argue with her. He couldn’t help but smile.
Grizzle had taken the peg leg and filed some grooves in the bottom in order to help prevent it from slipping. The next two days went the same as the first. It was awkward, but after an hour or two each morning and night he was starting to get used to the motion of the leg. He couldn’t go far, and it really was still very painful. He was also very unbalanced and often used the support of the person next to him to keep from falling. But he was able to get around, which was thrilling. He just had to practice. Hellen had told him that the pain would go away in a few more weeks. It wasn’t the excruciating pain that it had been a few weeks ago, but it was still a lot more than just sore.
With his prosthetic leg firmly in place, Hellen helped him dress for the funeral celebration. Dwarves celebrated death. To die meant that you were going to be with Bordin. The death of the king would be a huge celebration, to be sure.
Dwarves from the other two inhabited kingdoms had arrived over the last two weeks. There were four dwarven kingdoms in all. Evermount was the biggest and the home of the king over all the dwarves. The other three were Shinestone, Haufen, and Teifes Loch. Haufen had the closest relationships with humans, and did a lot more trading with them. Tiefes Loch was actually a deep mine, not a mountain. Shinestone was empty of dwarves after Miskrull had killed them all. That issue would surely be addressed after the funeral, as well as the issues of Grizzle becoming king, and what to do about Grundel the half-dwarf prince.
With the help of Hellen and Anwar, Jabaal limped his way to the biggest hall in Evermount. The room was packed with hundreds of dwarves. so that there was hardly room to move. Dwarves made a path for them as they made their way to the front. Jabaal was to be seated at a table to the front. He was a hero to the dwarves and the best friend to the king on top of that. Dwarves cheered him as he passed. He realized that most of them were already drunk. It was a celebration after all.
At the front of the hall, towering over everything else, was a huge stone sculpture. It was close to twenty feet tall and more then twice the size of the moment it replicated. There was a huge twenty-foot-tall orc with his hands choking the king. The king’s arm disappeared into the chest of the monstrous orc that held him suspended in the air by the throat. Jabaal had been there when it had happened. Apparently others who had also been there had given the sculptor a good description of the event. The orc’s size had been exaggerated a little in comparison to Grindel’s, but Jabaal would never say that out loud. Dwarves liked their heroes and their stories. He had no intention of downplaying either.
Finally they made it to the table at the
front of the room. They were not at the head table, but the next table closest to it. The head table featured King Grizzle, Queen Anna, Grundel, and the kings of the other two dwarven kingdoms. Jabaal sat down next to Rundo. Hellen sat down on his other side, and Anwar sat at the end of the table on the other side of Rundo.
After sitting for close to an hour, the first plate of food came out: potatoes cut in quarters and fried in oil and cheese. The cheese was a smoked oshpeck made from goat’s milk.
It was another hour before the second plate came out. The dwarves were beginning to get rowdy. The food might be slow in coming, but the ale was not. Jabaal had no intention of drinking ale. He had enough trouble trying to stay upright on his stump. Hellen was drinking the dark ale, much thicker and darker then the lighter ales the humans normally favored. Anwar was too concerned with staying in control to risk alcohol.
Hellen was looking at the plate suspiciously. “What is this?”
Jabaal smiled. “It’s roasted cave slug and onions. They aren’t actually slugs. It just looks kind of like a slug. They are almost all meat so they are great meals in a cave. They taste a bit like rabbit.”
He watched as she took the first bite hesitantly. After the first bit she seemed to enjoy the food. She had actually done well. Dwarf food was often an acquired taste, but Jabaal happened to love it. Finally, while everyone was eating, Grizzle stood up on the dais.
The room calmed down as everyone’s attention was directed to the new king. “My father has gone to be with Bordin. May the fires of his smith burn forever,” he said, lifting his mug. Cheers followed and mugs were lifted. When it was quiet again he continued. “Grindel Stoneheart was a great king. He wouldn’t have wanted us to waste a bunch of time on words. Let each of you remember him in your own stories. Tell each other of them. I will only say this: The last time I saw my father was at the base of this mountain. As I cut through orcs trying to make it to my king’s side I saw that huge orc wrap his hands around his throat.” He pointed to the statue of the king and the orc. “Just when I thought he was finished I watched him bury his hands in the big orc’s chest. They fell to the ground, and died together. Let us drink to the king, and to the orc who gave him a well-fought death in combat. May we all be so lucky.”
Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen Page 20
