by D. M. Almond
Elise dropped the bloody cloth into a bucket of cold water again, swirling it around to get as much of the filth off as possible, then pulled it out and wrung the water over the pail. Her aching hands carefully worked back and forth, cleaning the long cuts running down Farmer Benn’s spine. His shirt had been torn to shreds when a skex had attacked him from behind, and they had stripped the bloody rags off, laying the unconscious man face down on one of the wooden tables in the town hall to tend his wounds.
The long log cabin was filled to bursting with the groans and moaning of other wounded victims from the skex attack. As soon as Elise finished tending to one patient, another would be brought to her in an almost infinite stream of her friends and family. Very few made it out of the raid without being injured in some way, though they would all equally share the psychological damage for years to come.
She had been working non-stop since the Walker brothers left the village to warn the capitol, and it was starting to catch up with her. Elise’s arms were sore, her fingers barely able to move anymore from hours of cleaning cuts and stitching wounds. She had no tears left to shed, her blue eyes stinging red and swollen, and her curly blonde hair was frayed, hanging wildly from a bun she had tied behind her head.
Rygor cleared his throat, startling her. “Madame Elise…”
Elise turned around, red-faced, “Oh…I didn’t hear you come up,” she said, realizing she must have been nodding off while taking care of Farmer Benn. “What is it, Rygor? Do you have a final count?”
He solemnly nodded. “Yes, Madame Elise. We are up to sixty-four wounded, seven of them minor injuries, but the other fifty-seven...”
That number loomed before her. Sixty-four of her fellow villagers. “And how many are still missing?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“We are still tallying it up, Madame...but I can tell you it’s not good.” Rygor wrung his calloused hands together with a faraway expression creeping across his face.
Elder Morgana had been teaching Elise the ways of leadership since she was a mere babe, seeing some potential in her for greatness. She had been preparing Elise for this moment all her life. Surely, the village Elder had not anticipated that a skex attack would be the catalyst to put Elise in the role of village leader, but everyone seemed to be falling right in step with it. A stream of villagers had already come to Elise, asking her what to do next or how to solve a medical predicament.
When she was young, all she wanted to do was spend time with the Walker brothers, not knowing then that she would fall madly in love with one of them, but Elder Morgana, the boy’s surrogate mother, had always told her she needed to focus on her studies so she could one day become a wise leader for Riverbell. At the time, Elise had scoffed at the notion, but after the disastrous events that had engulfed her peaceful farming village, she had finally come to fully appreciate just what knowledge she possessed.
Firming up, Elise rubbed the weariness out of her eyes, willing herself to put on a show of strength for Rygor’s benefit. “Now is not the time to dwell in sorrow, Rygor. Now is the time to help those that need us most and to keep our heads clear.” She tried to sound confident and wise through parched lips and the lump in her throat.
A light flickered in his eyes and he began to nod. “Oh, I know… I know, don’t you doubt it,” he said, as if convincing himself. He looked into her glazed eyes, which wore puffy red bags under them. “It’s just, I keep thinking about those monsters, and it’s got my blood freezing.”
A flash of the horrible skex feasting on her friend Garrison, a young man her own age they used to play hide-n-seek with, ran across her mind’s eye. The image of him screaming and clawing the ground while tentacles pulled the skin off his back in strips haunted her. Elise closed her eyes tight. “We mustn’t dwell on such things,” she said.
“You’re right, Madame, of course. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I certainly don’t envy those poor wretches in Fal. They’ve no idea what Hel is about to rain down on them, do they?”
Elise dropped the cloth to her feet, the memory of Garrison replaced by images of Corbin thrashing underneath the slavering insect.
Bertha, the village baker caught her pained expression. “Would you get out of here and go do something useful?” Bertha snapped, moving away from the table beside them and clapping the side of Rygor’s shoulder with the flat of her hand. “You’ve gone up and worried the poor lass.”
Rygor rubbed his shoulder, ashamed that he had forgotten about Corbin racing to warn the capitol. Surely if and when the swarm arrived, he would be there to face them…if he even made it there in one piece. Rygor stumbled over an apology and quickly retreated to the other side of the log cabin to tend what wounded he could help.
“Never you mind him, sweet girl, he don’t mean nothing by it. Just being a stupid man, that’s all,” Bertha comforted Elise, patting her shoulder soothingly.
“Oh, I know he didn’t mean nothing by it. He just wasn’t thinking before he spoke.” Elise hid the panic in her voice with a cough as she bent over to pick up the washcloth and place it back in the bucket. “Besides, even if he hadn’t mentioned it, I still can’t help but think about poor Corbin out there all alone.” As she finished the thought, tears she could not believe were still in her began to pour out of her eyes uncontrollably.
Bertha pulled her in, cradling Elise’s head against her heavy bosom and stroking the young woman’s hair. “Now now, my dear, you know as well as anyone how capable that young man is. If there was ever a person could take care of himself, surely it’s Corbin Walker. And he ain’t alone. Why, Logan is out there with him too.”
Elise nodded, her sobs muffled under the large woman’s embrace. Corbin was not only the finest hunter in Riverbell, but also one of its most skilled warriors. In fact, he was only matched in prowess by one other person, his older brother Logan. Except where Corbin spent years honing his skills under the disciplined tutelage of Sensei Rimball, Logan seemed to be a natural talent who possessed lightning fast reflexes and brute strength to match even the finest fighters. Many in the village even claimed that if he had not turned his back on Rimball’s teachings at a young age, Logan would have been even more adept at the techniques than his younger brother became.
She knew the real problem facing them was not their ability to defend themselves, but their ability to get along for more than ten minutes at a time. It seemed the older the brothers grew, the more bitter and grouchy Logan became. It was heartbreaking to see the senseless rift that had grown between them.
Elise pulled herself back a step, gripping Bertha’s arms and slowly nodding. She prayed the woman was right, and even if she was not, Elise had to have faith that the Walker brothers could make it to Fal in time to warn them before anymore senseless death occurred.
“Thank you, Bertha. Sorry I lost my head for a moment there.”
Bertha scrunched her pudgy nose. “Oh, darling, it’s nothing to apologize over. To think this is the way you would inherit the mantle of leadership…it’s all almost too much to take.”
Agreeing with the insanity of it all, Elise sent the older woman to fetch clean water while she returned to tending Farmer Benn’s wounds, wrapping them with strips of cloth she had torn from a pile of old dresses they had stacked in the corner. Looking down the length of the cabin, she found the next villager in need of her assistance and wondered how many more were crammed into the nearby community hall.
The image of Corbin being mauled by a skex assaulted her again. Clenching her eyes shut, Elise shook her head hard to ward off the visage. No more time for silly fears, she thought, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.
Looking back at the rows of victims, she knew that her attention was sorely needed here and now. Yet as Elise moved to help one of the men lift a wounded woman so they could stitch up a wound over her ribs, she could not help but wonder where her fiancé was at that very moment and whether he was even still alive.
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