by Cathi Shaw
Caedmon tightened his arms around her and she felt his body wracked with sobs. She wrapped her arms around him and, as the storm raged outside, the two of them offered each other what warmth and comfort they could in their grief.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Thia woke slowly. Pain knifed through her skull with a throbbing rhythm making her long to return to the nothingness of unconsciousness. But she was awake and there was no escaping that something was very wrong.
Panic engulfed her as she tried to remember what had happened. Was it a seizure? The throbbing in her head was familiar but, no, this felt different somehow. Pushing the lure of unconsciousness aside, she forced her heavy eyelids open only to be confronted with darkness. The black was so thick she didn't think she'd be able to see her hand in front of her own face.
She tried to lift her hand to her face to test that observation but she found couldn’t. Fear washed over her. What was wrong with her arm? Thia wriggled, confused at first and then she realized that it was wedged to the ground beneath a very heavy weight. She tried to shift herself but she found she was pinned from shoulder to hip by that warm weight. She focused for a minute, feeling the cold, hard rock floor beneath her and the heavy lifeless but warm weight on top of her.
Thia took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart and immediately began coughing. Dust was thick in the air. She tried to focus. What had happened?
She shifted again and felt something warm and sticky on the side of her face.
Closing her eyes she tried to make sense of what her body was telling her. She was on a stone floor. And suddenly the memories came flooding back. The cave! Rocks falling.
Her vision came back to her. She had seen this before it happened. She tried to sit up but the weight on top of her was unyielding. Thia wriggled a bit more and got her hand free from where it was pinned beneath her. She reached up. Warmth muscle. It was a person on top of her. Her fingers explored some more and she encountered soft curls. Teague!
"Teague," she moaned. "Get off me."
But there was no response.
Thia pushed again but Teague was a dead weight. Suddenly her heart lurched to her throat. Was he actually dead?
Panic made her shift hard to the left. His body tipped to the right and Thia was able to squeeze out from under him.
"Teague," she said again more firmly. But still there was no response. She remembered the blood in her vision. Fear suddenly gripped her heart.
Reaching blindly in the dark, Thia felt the front of his shirt and could just barely feel his chest rising and falling. He was breathing.
Relief coursed through her making her dizzy. He was unconscious but alive. Obviously he was injured. She tried to see through the blackness in the cave to no avail. She needed light.
Crawling on her hands and knees, Thia slowly inched her way toward where she hoped she’d set up their sleeping area. It was hard to tell which direction she was going in the stark darkness. She remembered leaving their bags near the back wall of the cave. In her bag she had flint and steel along with a candle for light. She needed to see what was wrong with Teague in order to help him.
Her seeking fingers suddenly snagged on a piece of canvas – one of their travelling bags. Pulling it toward her she opened it in the dark and began to grope inside. Her fingers closed around an arrow tip and her heart sank. It was Kiara's bag.
A cry of despair escaped her lips. She’d forgotten about Kiara. Her sister was stuck outside in the storm without her supplies. Tears filled Thia’s eyes again. She remembered all too well Caedmon’s words about the danger of being caught outside in a storm. If Kiara hadn’t found Caedmon, her sister had no chance of survival, especially with her pack trapped inside. Her throat tightened convulsively as images of Kiara lying frozen in the snow flashed before her eyes. Stop it! She told herself sternly. There was nothing she could do for her sister right now. She just had to believe that she was well.
Thia forced herself to continue feeling through the bag. She knew Kiara also had fire-starting equipment in her pack.
A few minutes later she had found a tinderbox and lit a small candle. It was difficult to see through the still settling dust but what she could see made her heart sink in horror. Teague was half buried in the rubble of the collapse. It turned out that only his torso had been pining her to the ground, that's why it had been relatively easy for her to wiggle from beneath him, despite his weight. From the way he was positioned she could only guess that he had tried to protect her from the falling rocks and in so doing had been buried himself.
Thia swallowed as she made her way back over to Teague. She knew she wasn't strong enough to pull him out of the rubble so she didn't even try. Dragging her eyes away from Teague she looked at the pile of rocks blocking the entrance to the cave. It looked as though half the mountain had come down there. She doubted that Caedmon and Kiara would be able to dig through the pile even if there hadn’t been a dangerous storm raging outside.
Thia bit her lip as she wondered just how stable the rocks were. At the far end of the cave in, opposite from where Teague was buried, there was still the occasional rock tumbling down into the cave. It looked very unstable. She swallowed in sudden fear as she realized that if she tried to pull Teague from the rubble she might end up burying both of them.
Thia blinked suddenly as tears pricked her eyes. She hated to feel useless at any time but right now it was even worse. If she left Teague where he was, with his legs crushed in the rubble, he would eventually die. And while she had no idea just how severe his injuries were, she sensed they were very serious.
Teague. She sent out a silent call to see if he would respond to her subconsciously. They had been practicing using the silent communication a lot since she'd had her last seizure. She remembered when she'd regained consciousness from the seizure in the inn. Teague had been holding her head gently and sending soft reassurances to her as she surfaced from the vision.
Teague. She tried again but he didn't move. Thia moved the candle close to Teague face. He was extremely pale and had a faint sheen of sweat coating his features despite the frigid temperature. She blinked quickly, trying to not let fear overcome her.
Get it together, Thia, she told herself. She was a healer. She had dealt with serious injuries before. She knew what to do in emergencies and was often called upon with or without Brijit.
Pushing back her fears and taking a deep breath, Thia looked around the cave. That's when she noticed the passageway Teague had found earlier. It was still open. Her heart lightened suddenly as she remembered what Teague had said about a possible passage through the mountains. They might yet have a means of escape, if she could somehow ensure that Teague was well enough to move.
The three bags were piled in the back of the cave, far away from the rubble. Beside their belongings was the large pile of firewood that Caedmon had brought before he left to find Kiara.
Thia remembered how angry he'd been that Kiara had wandered off. She hoped he'd found her sister. Kiara was going to need to rely on the supplies Caedmon had in his bag if she hoped to survive in the brutal cold of the mountains.
Thia went back to the bags and began to take inventory. She had four candles. They wouldn't last long but the firewood was heaven sent. Sending silent thanks to Caedmon for his foresight, she quickly created a small fire pit and spent the next quarter of an hour coaxing the damp wood into a blaze. As the small flames weakly licked the wood, Thia nodded in satisfaction. A source of heat would be key to their survival.
Caedmon had collected enough firewood for three days. She knew this because Teague had teased his brother about being a bit excessive with the amount of wood he'd found. Caedmon had replied that it wasn't unusual for mountain storms to last for more than three days and his brother would be thankful for his preparations if they ended up being stranded for that long. Little did Caedmon know how true his words would prove to be.
In addition to the candles and the firewood, they had enough water to
last them for a while since all of them had refilled their canteens at a stream they’d found on their midday break earlier that day. Thia felt a pang when she realized that they also had Kiara's water which mean her sister had none. But she knew the constant worrying for her sister was not going to help either of them. She needed to focus on things she could do something about.
Turning her attention back to Teague, Thia considered her options. She couldn't leave him where he was, he was too far away from the fire and the rocks were unstable. She needed to free his legs somehow and then try to move him. The easiest way to do that would be if he woke up but if she couldn't wake him then she would have to find a way move him.
She walked closer to where Teague was lying, holding the candle up to examine the rubble. How could she avoid a further cave in, she wondered then she shook her head and carried the candle close to where Teague's lower legs were buried. And what she saw had her heart sinking again.
Teague's right leg was buried beneath his knee; she couldn't see how badly it was injured without moving some of the rocks. His left foot was also buried in the rubble.
Thia furrowed her brow in concentration. Perhaps if she started moving the rocks herself rather than trying to pull him from the rubble she'd have more success and less chance of causing the rocks to crush them both.
It was time consuming work. Thia would move one rock, pause and listen to make sure the heap seemed stable and then move onto the next rock.
After what seemed like several hours she was exhausted. She'd made some progress but Teague's left foot was wedged beneath a massive boulder and she didn't know how she could remove that. His right leg was mostly freed now and it was definitely broken, in several places by her estimate. This was very, very bad.
Thia didn't even want to think about how they would be able to leave the cave if Teague did regain consciousness. He was not going to be able to walk any time soon. She felt tears of frustration and fatigue rise up in her eyes.
Shaking her head she went back to her bags and found her medical supplies. Now that she could get at some of his injuries, she would do the best she could to treat them. She also pulled Teague's sleeping roll from his bag along with a sweater he had buried in the bottom of his bag. She slipped the sweater under his head and wrapped the roll around him as best as she could. She would have liked to have put the roll beneath him, as he must be freezing on the hard cold rock floor but there was no way she could lift him to do so.
Thia then turned her attention to his broken leg. She had no supplies to set it and if it started to heal, it would have to be rebroken. That was assuming he lived long enough for his leg to mend.
Thia pushed that dark thought away. Instead she focused on finding her supplies to clean the nasty gash. She did so, flinching at the white bone that was clearly visible through his torn flesh. For once she was relieved that Teague hadn't regained consciousness. She could only imagine how much pain he'd be in if he woke. And she had nothing for pain relief.
Finally admitting that there was little else she could do for the moment, Thia reached up and pushed her hair out her face and encountered a crusty, sticky mess. She remembered the sensation of warm sticky liquid dripping on her forehead when she’s first regained consciousness. She explored her forehead a bit with her fingers and winced. Clearly she'd cut her forehead in the cave in. From what she could feel it was not too deep but she couldn't really tell the extent of the injury without a mirror. Honestly infection was the biggest worry she faced at present – for both Teague and herself. Taking a small amount of water, she cleaned the wound the best she could without seeing it.
Thia then found her own sleeping roll and for good measure took Kiara's as well since her sister couldn't use it. She had a cold dinner of bread and dried fruit and stoked up the fire. She went back to where Teague was lying and made her own bed right beside him. It might not be as warm or as safe as further back in the cave but she needed to be near him for reasons she couldn't explain even to herself. Deep down she wondered what she would do if he died in the night.
Teague. She tried to get a response from him one more time but to no avail. Closing her eyes, Thia finally gave in to her tears and cried herself asleep.
****
When she awoke, the fire had burned down to embers. Cursing under her breath, Thia gathered the driest, smallest branches she could find in Caedmon's pile and coaxed the fire back to life.
To her surprise she had not dreamt at all during the night, if it was night. Technically it could be any time of the day or night but with the darkness in the cave, she could only assume that her body was on its usual day/night cycle. Usually her dreams were vivid and at times she would dreamwalk but fatigue had pulled her into a deep dark sleep of nothingness.
Her head ached and she reached up to where the gash was on her forehead and felt that a large lump had formed.
She continued to tend to the fire and Teague most of the day, trying to keep herself awake despite the fatigue that was pulling at her. She remembered that Brijit had always wanted to keep those that had suffered a head injury awake.
Teague's freed leg looked much worse than it had before she fell asleep but it was his buried foot that worried her the most. Several times that day, Thia checked his leg for any telltale red streaks on the skin of his leg, signs that would indicate the tissue was dying and he was succumbing to blood poisoning. But the skin above his foot retained its normal hue. Thia felt a sense of relief but she also wondered how long it would be before the tissue in his foot died. The boulder that trapped his foot was enormous and she had her doubts as to whether any blood would be circulating in his foot.
In desperation she continued to try to contact Teague. She decided that if he hadn't regained consciousness by that night, she would dreamwalk and see if she could contact him that way. She had never dreamwalked and not been able to find him before.
When finally she stoked the fire for the night and settled into her sleeping roll next to Teague, Thia felt his forehead and was alarmed to feel how hot it was. Desperation washed over her in a sickening wave as she stared at his unresponsive face. Please, Teague, please wake up. I can't do this alone, she pleaded. But his face remained relaxed in deep sleep and Thia fought to hold back the tears that threatened yet again.
The firewood pile had diminished by more than half and she didn't want to think about what she would do if he died or worse if she ran out of supplies and was forced to leave him by taking the tunnel.
Tears still wet on her cheeks, Thia fell into sleep, intent to dreamwalk to Teague but when she awoke later, she hadn't been able to contact him and his whole body was burning with fever.
With a sense of foreboding, Thia lit the candle and checked the skin above his leg only to see the red streaks like fingers snaking up his leg.
"No!" she cried, dropping her head onto his chest. "Teague you can't leave me. I need you," she sobbed.
Desperation engulfed her. Brijit always said that recovery from blood poisoning was almost impossible and that was with the best medicines available. Here Thia truly had nothing that could realistically save Teague’s life. No medicine, no Brijit … and she was starting to believe no hope. The thought of life without Teague crippled her. She put her head down on his chest and wept.
After Thia had soaked Teague’s shirt with her tears, she became aware of a sound beyond his breathing. Thia froze then slowly turned so she was facing the tunnel. A kind of rustling sound was coming from the darkness.
The rustling was coming nearer and nearer. Something was in the tunnel!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mina became aware of herself gradually. She heard bird song in the distance, as if it were spring, but for some reason that felt wrong. Her limbs were heavy, as if they were pleasantly weighed down. She opened her eyes a crack to the brightness of daylight. Above her was an unfamiliar ceiling of warm knotted wood. Where was she?
She opened her eyes wider and tried to turn her head but a stab of pain
flashed through her skull. Her head instantly began to pound and she felt as if it were going to split in two. A low moan filled the room and she realized it came from her own lips.
"Hush, darling." Brijit's gentle voice was soft and soothing. A moment later she felt her mother's cool fingers on her forehead, stroking away some of the pain. It felt so good, that soft, patient touch, just what she remembered from being ill and in bed as a little girl. Mina began to relax. "You're safe," Brijit whispered.
Mina's thoughts focused for a moment. Safe? What strange thing to say. Safe from what? She tried to open her eyes again and was assaulted by a bright light.
"Don't try to move just yet, Mina, you've been through a lot."
Her eyes drifted closed. It was too hard to stay awake. With Brijit's gentle touch soothing her, she closed her eyes and drifted back into soft sleep.
****
The next time Mina surfaced, she found she was able to open her eyes without the stabbing pain assaulting her. Now it was very dark in the room. She turned her head slightly and could just make out Brijit's shadow as she sat near the bed, her chin on her chest. Her deep breathing and soft snores filled the room.
It was night then. But where was she? Mina strained her eyes to examine the room in the dim light. After a few moments her eyes adjusted to the darkness and as she squinted she saw that the bed she was lying in was huge. This was very different than her humble corner at home in the Inn. She shifted on the bed, noticing for the first time the linen sheets that were cool and crisp on her skin.
Curious to learn precisely where she was, Mina tried to sit up. Immediately the room began spinning and bile rose in her throat. Hastily she lowered herself to her pillows, breathing hard.
