The elf’s chest rose and fell erratically, her closed eyes like bruises in the bloodless flesh of her face.
Sparing a look across the bridge, Fern saw Tullah watching, fists on hips, braided hair whipping in the wind.
“Like a fucking vulture,” she muttered.
Gingerly inspecting Astryx’s side, she peeled away the cloth of her tunic to reveal a long, clean gash that immediately over-spilled with blood. Fern’s knees went wobbly. “Godsdammit.” She spun to face Zyll. “You have something in that coat of yours for this, don’t you? In one of those pockets? You have to.”
The goblin was already rummaging through them, pointed tongue out in concentration. Her hands emerged with a bundle of linen in one fist and Breadlee in the other. With a quick slice she hacked off a wad of the fabric and tossed it to Fern, who, amazingly, managed to catch it.
“Ugh, I’m still vibrating,” said the knife. “Stop waving me around!”
“Holdinghere,” said Zyll, indicating Astryx’s wound with Breadlee.
With a nod, Fern first unbuckled Astryx’s baldric and, with great effort, slid the sheath out from under her back. Then she pressed the wad of linen against the wound, where it immediately blossomed red. The goblin straddled the elf’s chest, passing one end of the remaining strip of cloth to Fern. With one paw occupied stanching the wound, she used the other to assist Zyll in another awkward maneuver to lift and pass the wrapping under Astryx’s back.
The elf moaned and muttered something unintelligible as they cinched the bandage tight across her chest and tied an ugly knot to keep it in place.
“Becareful!” pleaded Nigel.
Fur clumped with sweat, Fern panted and took a step back, overheated despite the frigid snow burying her paws.
She stared from the fallen warrior to Bucket, who stamped nervously nearby, ducking his head toward the elf in clear anxiety. Any satisfaction at sort-of dressing Astryx’s wound vanished immediately at the impossibility of getting her up onto the horse’s back.
“There’s no way in all eight hells,” she whispered, despair threatening to choke her.
“Help me . . . up,” came a weak voice.
Fern turned to find Astryx’s ghostlight eyes burning into her own. The elf had struggled to one elbow, trembling with cold or effort or shock. Her wound had already leaked through the dressing and was dribbling into the snow again. Zyll crouched at her other shoulder, providing grim support to keep her upright.
Fern’s impulse was to protest, to insist that there was no way the Oathmaiden should in any way move, much less scramble atop a horse.
But that was stupid, because if she didn’t, they were absolutely all going to die.
“Here, you can help,” she said to Nigel as she slogged over to drag him from his snowbank.
She’d expected him to be heavy, but her estimate was woefully short of the truth.
His point trailed through the snow in a wavering line as she lugged him the short distance to Astryx, who wavered almost as much. Fern wasn’t tall enough to stand him vertically with her paws on his hilt, so she gingerly grasped his blade and managed to arrange him pommel-up.
With a sharp intake of breath, Astryx wrapped one hand around his crosspiece, gathering her strength before hiking a knee and getting a foot underneath herself.
Supported by the goblin and rattkin, and using a blubbering Nigel as a walking stick, the elf squared herself with Bucket’s side.
Afterward, Fern would have had a hard time articulating how the three of them managed to get the Oathmaiden astride her horse. The blood that painted his side was evidence enough of the battle.
With increasingly numb fingers, Fern and Zyll got Nigel into his sheath, then slid it through one of Bucket’s girth straps. When Fern looked up from securing him with one of the dangling bits of leather, Astryx was unconscious and sprawled across the horse’s neck.
“We have to get the hells out of this snow,” she muttered, casting about for any sign of the road that had been buried in drifting white. She blinked. “The bells—where are the bells?”
Zyll seized a fistful of Fern’s cloak. She cocked one of her enormous ears into the wind, then pointed upslope. “To be following. Bring Buckley-boy.”
Fern couldn’t hear anything but wind moaning through the crags.
Then the goblin began to forge her way in the direction she’d indicated. Fern retrieved her satchel and slung it over a shoulder, then stood on tiptoe to grab the side of Bucket’s bridle. He obligingly dipped his head lower so she could reach it, and she led him after Zyll.
But not before turning back to holler at Tullah—
“I hope you fucking freeze!”
