“I am a nurse,” Lynette said, setting her bag on the ground. “And you are injured. So I’m here to treat you.” She pulled out a cloth and poured water onto it, holding it up expectantly. “Unless you’d like to get a raging infection from all the dirt in that wound? I’m assuming salases get infections the same as humans do?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then turn around and let me clean it.” Lynette was just as blunt and forceful about doing her duties as a nurse as she was about protecting her son, so Koradan turned around, presenting his back for her attention.
“Oh look, they need help clearing some of the rubble out of the tunnel,” Sigmore said with a forced casualness, already moving in that direction. “I’d best be off. Yell if you need anything.” So apparently, Sigmore had arrived in time to witness Paul coming out of the tunnel and Lynette finding out that he’d been inside the mine. And he’d reached the same conclusion as Koradan; that Koradan was about to get his ear chewed off.
Did Lynette yell at Paul?Koradan asked Ashd. If he was lucky, he could get a vivid replay of the event through Ashd’s memory of it.
No Lynette yell. Paul yell at all people. Get help in tunnel. Lynette quiet, sad. Can’t read emotion Lynette. No mind merge.
Lynette had been sad? Was that better or worse than her being angry? And what exactly did ‘sad’ mean, when seen through the eyes of a vreki? Ashd could read Koradan’s emotions by simply concentrating on his rider. But what about Lynette? Was she disappointed? Resigned? Terrified that she’d nearly lost her son?
Koradan glanced back over his shoulder, seeing the tension in her expression as she carefully wiped the dirt away from his wounds. From the feel of it, the worst cut was down his right side, running from his shoulder blade to his hip. It stung every time she ran the cloth over it.
“Are you angry with me?” he asked, keeping his tone soft. Getting defensive would only make things worse.
“Yes,” Lynette said, her voice sounding tight. “But I’m also grateful. You saved my son’s life.”
“But I wouldn’t have had to save him if I hadn’t taken him into the mine in the first place.”
“Well, that’s true enough.” She poured a last trickle of water over his back, then set the cloth down and began rummaging in her bag for something else. “But to look at it another way, it’s very likely that the pair of you just saved the lives of eight men.” She pulled a pouch out of the bag, then glanced over at Paul, who was sitting on a rock near the mine entrance. Mitch was crouched down in front of him as he consoled the lad about the near disaster. It must have given Paul a nasty scare.
“I learned a lot about coming to terms with occupational hazards when Kai was in the army,” Lynette said. “It can drive you mad if you let it. As a young woman marrying a warrior, there’s a period at first where you spend every night sitting in front of the fire, worrying about whether or not he’s going to come home again.”
Lynette opened the pouch and poured a small pile of pale dust into her hand. “This will dry out the wound a bit and stop the bleeding.” Koradan felt her sprinkling the powder over his back, the sensation like the wings of dozens of tiny insects.
“And the worrying goes on for a while,” she said, picking up the story again. “The waiting, the cursing him for being away and cursing yourself for daring to believe that falling in love was worth the stress of it all. But then, sooner or later, you have to make a choice. Either I was going to divorce Kai and find someone with an entirely less exciting career, or I was going to find a way to get on with life. So I did. I started training as a nurse. I spent more time with my friends. I stopped listening to every stray rumour about what had happened over at the gate. And for twenty-three days out of every cycle, the gate was shut, so I could spend time with Kai, enjoying life, just like I’d imagined we would.”
That was interesting. Koradan hadn’t spent much time thinking about what the humans did while the gate was closed. For twenty-three out of every forty-six days, the gate stood open, guarded by the human army, but for the other twenty-three days, after the mystical portal closed, he supposed all those men had to go and do something else; training, spending time with their families, making babies and raising their children.
“Living in a town of miners, the risks are lower,” Lynette went on, “but it’s by no means a safe occupation. And when injuries happen, they tend to be severe. I had assumed that Paul would go to work in the mines one day. Not just yet – I thought I’d have a few more years of peace and tranquillity first, but even so, I was prepared for it to happen one day.
“But as it happens, he went in with you. And then a piece of the tunnel collapsed, and then you put your own life at risk to save his. And from what Paul says, you didn’t really have to stop and think about it.
“I saw the piece of rock that came down on you. It would have killed a human. I’m honestly not sure how you survived, except to say that people must be made of bloody tough stuff, where you come from.” It wasn’t quite a thank you, but it was probably as close to one as he was likely to get.
Koradan turned to face her, reading both sincerity and anger in her expression. “I would never intentionally cause Paul any harm,” he told her, willing her to believe him. “The salas warriors live by a strict code of honour. We would all sacrifice ourselves before letting any civilian be harmed.”
Her jaw tensed, and she seemed to be thinking hard about something. “I’m looking forward to the day you leave,” she said finally. “If only so that you stop putting my son in harm’s way. But until then… well, it’s hard to argue with the results. We’ve got five men free and another eight pretty close to it.” She paused, biting her lip, her eyes roaming over him like a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out. “I don’t like you, Koradan. You, and your dragons, and your swords and armour. You’re all far too out of place in our world. But I suppose that doctors and nurses also live by a code of honour. Friend or enemy alike, if someone is injured, my job is to treat their wounds.” He waited for her to tell him which category he fitted into. But instead, she merely shook her head. “So, here we are, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” Koradan said, not entirely sure he understood her. “Here we are.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lynette stared up at the sky, feeling torn between hope and despair; hope that there was a very real chance they could rescue eight more of the men who formed the backbone of their little village, and despair that there was a rapidly decreasing chance that they would manage to do so today.
There had also been no progress on the eight men trapped in the lower chamber, which was a problem Lynette was trying hard not to think about.
But that wasn’t to say there had been no progress at all. The ‘quick job’ of taking a few canteens of water in for the men trapped in the main tunnel had become a much more extensive task, with Mitch and two of the other miners ferrying supplies of water, food and lamp oil in and out of the mine for an hour or more, along with a variety of medical supplies for the injured men. Empty canteens had quickly been replaced with full ones, until the men had not only drunk their fill but had collected a supply of water to last the night and into the next morning. More supports had been added to the passageway and much of the rubble cleared, though everyone knew that the mine was still unstable, and for that very reason, they were working with all possible haste to free the trapped men, while at the same time they were forced to move slowly out of caution, given that another rock fall could happen at any moment.
Now, though, a debate had started up about what they should do next, with people milling about uncertainly. It was impossible to tell when the sun was setting from their little alcove tucked into the side of the mountain, but a couple of hours after the tunnel had nearly collapsed on top of Paul, the sky began to grow noticeably darker.
“We’re going to lose the light,” one of the women said, peering at the scattered piles of tools and planks around the clearing. “We can’t work in the dark.”
“We’ve got lanterns,” one of the miners replied. “Down inside the mine, it’s not going to make any difference whether it’s daylight or not. We’re used to working by lamp light.”
“Everyone is exhausted,” Morgan said, trying to sound reasonable. She’d been a godsend today, taking over a lot of the logistics while Lynette focused on treating the various injuries – not just from the trapped men, but minor cuts and scrapes that had happened in the course of trying to free them. “I don’t want to leave the men here any more than you do, but we all need to rest. And we need food, and to fill up the canteens with more water.”
