“I’m sorry!” he whispered. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” His fingers were quick and strong as they pulled at Theos’s trousers.
“This wasn’t quite the sort of undressing I was hoping for,” Theos grumbled, but Finnvid ignored him, easing back the bandage from the wound in his thigh and then hissing in dismay.
“It’s worse than last night,” he said. “It was a little red then, but now it’s well on its way to looking infected.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Theos said, wishing Finnvid would stop getting distracted.
“It’s starting to get swollen,” Finnvid said firmly. “And there’s heat to it. That’s not good.” He turned away and rummaged through his pack. “I’ve already used the best ointment I’ve got. There’s medicine I can give you to drink, but it might upset your stomach.” He frowned. “It’s probably more important to fight the infection than to worry about getting your strength back. I’ll give you the medicine, and if all you can eat is broth, that’s too bad.”
“Have you considered that it might be the brothcausingthe infection?” Theos tried. He didn’t know much about medicine, but he knew how he felt about broth.
Finnvid didn’t even answer, just kept burrowing through his bag, so Theos lay back down in the dim light and tried to convince his cock that the excitement was over. Unless maybe he could ask Finnvid to check out the swelling down there and see if he had any treatment for it . . .
Theos smirked, and Andros sat up from his own blankets. The shelter wasn’t that large, but Andros had still managed to lie down in a way that made it clear he was somewhere else, not part of whatever Finnvid and Theos were up to. One of those little tricks that made communal living a lot easier. Now, though, Andros was clearly back to being part of the group. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked Finnvid.
“Not much any of us can do, really. I’ll clean the wound—it’s warm enough in here to put ointment on it and leave it uncovered. I’ll make him drink some medicine that should help.” He frowned in Theos’s direction as he added, “And I’ll make him drinkbroth, unless he can eat solid food without immediately seeming ill.”
Andros nodded with a worried look at Theos. “I need to get going as soon as there’s a break in the weather. I’ll show you how to set the snares before I leave, so hopefully you’ll have some fresh meat to make your meals more interesting—and you can boil the bones for Theos’s broth.” A quick grin, and then his face fell back into a more serious expression. “If he gets strong, he can get you both to Windthorn, but don’t let him bully you into going faster than what’s safe for himandfor you. Just because he can move doesn’t mean he’s at full strength.” He hesitated a moment before saying, “If hedoesn’tget strong . . .” He winced at Theos apologetically but continued, “If things go bad, and he doesn’t make it, go back to the Elkat valley. Blame us. Tell them the kidnapping story. I won’t say otherwise, assuming anyone ever asks me.”
Assuming he was alive to ask. Theos looked at Finnvid’s stricken face and remembered that the Elkati had lived a sheltered life until very recently, and probably wasn’t used to life-and-death situations. He needed some time to adjust, so Theos said, “I could sure go for some breakfast. At this point, even broth sounds good. Any of that lying around?”
“I’ll make some,” Finnvid said absently. Then he whirled toward Andros, his expression fierce. “And Theos will get better, and we will walk to Windthorntogether, and we will see you there and deal with the warlord and— Well, I don’t know exactly what will happen after that. But it’ll be somethinggood.” He shook his head as if disgusted with both of them. “By the sword, the gloom and doom you two come up with! Everything is going to be fine!” He shoved his pack aside, stomping toward the exit tunnel in a manner that would have been slightly more intimidating if he hadn’t been bent almost double to avoid contact with the low roof. “I’m going outside to pee,” he said firmly. “When I get back in here, you two will be talking abouthappythings.”
He dropped to a crawl and headed out through the tunnel, and Andros looked over at Theos with a laconic shrug. “He’s a little testy in the morning.”
“He’s touchy all day long. Must be an Elkati thing.”
Andros nodded sagely, then pulled a long strip of jerky out of one the packs and dipped it in the melted lamp butter. “Delicious,” he said.
Theos’s stomach flipped, and he wasn’t sure if it was in anticipation or disgust. “Toss me a piece,” he urged. “Quick, before the Prince of Broth returns.”
Andros did as he was told and watched with interest as Theos chomped a chunk off the end of the stick of jerky and started chewing. Theos could tell as soon as he began that it wasn’t what his stomach wanted. But he chewed anyway, doggedly grinding away, and swallowed with determination. He could practically feel the meat sliding down his gullet, arriving in his stomach—and he and Andros both heard the angry churning as it landed.
Andros leaned over and yanked the rest of the jerky out of his hand. “Don’t let him see you with that. If you puke it up, I had nothing to do with this.”
Two fierce Sacrati hiding from an Elkati civilian. Probably not a story Theos would want to tell in the dining hall. “I owe him,” Theos said softly.
“If you come out of this alive, you will. If you don’t, though . . . I’d just call it even.”
“That’s fair,” Theos agreed, and he leaned back to wait for Finnvid’s return.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Andros left in the early afternoon, laden with butter and jerky and bread. Finnvid hadn’t been invited into the conversation that resulted in Andros deciding to try the shorter, harsher route through the mountains, hoping to beat the other Torians back to Windthorn. Finnvid was glad he’d been left out. He hated the thought of Andros being in danger, especially by himself, but who was he to tell the others what chances they should take to protect their people? How could he contribute anything but noise to that conversation?
So he’d stayed quiet as they’d talked, washing the bandages he’d just lifted from Theos’s wounds, and then crawling outside to let them dry in the sun and freezing wind. He should boil them, but Theos and Andros had decided it was too dangerous to build a fire sufficient for such a task. “You’d need to use wood, and the smell of wood smoke travels. It could be enough to send them searching for us,” Theos had said, and Andros had nodded in agreement.
“I’d think the smell of melted butter might tip them off as well,” Finnvid retorted, but he knew that the small flame inside the den wasn’t producing much odor.
So he hung the cloths and hoped the sun would bleach them clean, and he stood by Theos as they watched Andros set off into the wilderness alone. Then Finnvid took Theos’s hand and tugged gently. “Back inside,” he said firmly. “You have a fever, and pushing yourself too hard won’t help anything.”
“Pushing myself tostand up?”
“For now, that’s too much.” Finnvid shooed Theos into the den and scrutinized him as he sank onto his blankets, clearly exhausted. “You need to drink more—”
“If I drink any more broth, I’ll drown.”
“I was going to say more honey-water. And I’ll give you another dose of the medicine. And then you should sleep.”
