She clumsily shucked off her lébrynja jacket, cursing the lack of her prosthetic arm. By some miracle, the blades in her battle belt had held in place, as had her survival pouch. Hekla unsheathed another dagger and cut a swath from her woolen tunic, which she balled up and held firm against Eyvind’s seeping wound.
Hekla surveyed her surroundings. They were on a pebbled bank in the river’s curve, sheltered from the wind. She knew that when darkness brought the biting cold, they’d need something more to keep them warm. But with Eyvind’s wound, she could not risk moving him, and so she’d have to make a fire right here. Hekla propped the makeshift bandage in place against Eyvind’s side using a rock, then pushed to her feet.
“Don’t die on me, Hakonsson,” she barked, before running into the woods.
Half an hour later, Hekla had a small fire crackling on the river’s shore. She supposed she ought to be grateful to the leech for sucking the life from the trees; between the dried moss and deadwood, it hadn’t taken many strikes of her firestone to get it lit.
Now, using her teeth and left hand, she worked on pulling Eyvind’s wet clothing from him so the fire’s heat could reach his skin. Hekla wondered if this was some dark joke of the gods, forcing her to haul this man’s breeches off, but as her fingertips brushed his cold, clammy thigh, she cursed. If the wound didn’t kill him, the cold very well might.
Setting her sights on his tunic, Hekla worked with maddening slowness, peeling each fiber from the wound in his side. When it was fully revealed, she stared at it, feeling sick. It was deep and jagged, with tiny stones and river muck lodged inside it. Hekla pinned the makeshift bandage back into place with the rock, then set to work.
She pulled the medicinal supplies from her survival pouch and stared at the curved needle and thread for several measured heartbeats. Her mind drifted to that terrible night following Ilías’s death, when Rey’s wound had required sewing.
You’ll have to stitch it,Hekla had told Silla.I cannot with my hand.
Now she gritted her teeth and blinked furiously. How could she stitch a wound with only one hand? But one glance at Eyvind’s pallid complexion and blue lips had her jumping into action. “You must figure this out,” she told herself, “or he will die.”
To Eyvind, she whispered, “This will hurt, Hakonsson.”
And on an exhale, she pulled the bandage away. Methodically, Hekla began cleaning Eyvind’s side: a cycle of flushing it with pre-boiled water from her waterskin, then wiping it through with a swath of her tunic. Throughout the process, Eyvind moaned and writhed. Yet he did not wake, and for that, Hekla was eternally grateful.
When the wound was clear of muck and debris, Hekla sat backon her haunches and eyed the sewing kit. “You can do this,” she muttered, picking up the needle in her left hand and staring at it. “Youmustdo this.”
Hekla slid the needle into the leg of her breeches to hold it in place, then wet the thread. It took her several tries, and many muttered curses, but when she managed to get the thread through the needle, her heart flared with excitement.
Using her dagger, Hekla cut a long length of thread, then heated the needle over the fire until it glowed red-hot. And then she set her sights on Eyvind. Shimmying onto her stomach, Hekla braced her residual limb on the ground.
“You’ll owe me for this, pretty boy.”
With slow but decisive movements, Hekla sank the needle through the bottom edge of the wound, and then the top. Twisting, she repeated the motion until she was back to the start. Transferring the thread to her mouth to keep it taut, Hekla used her left hand to tie it off. As the knot caught on the flesh, pulling the edges of the wound together, Hekla’s heart filled with hope. Could she actually do this?
Hekla had to do it all over again for the second stitch—thread the needle, heat it, shimmy on her stomach, and perform the stitch. Over and over, she repeated this process, until she reached the other side. Hekla knew she could not sew the wound as tight as a two-handed person. But after tying the last of the thread off, she rose and examined her work. Her stitches were uneven, but it was enough—the wound had stopped seeping. Hekla bit down on her lip with a small measure of joy. It was better than she’d guessed she could do.
Hekla added it to the long list offuck yous she’d compiled for her former husband.
Quickly, she dressed the wound, applying layers of moss and securing it all in place with a long strip of linen. By the time she was done, Eyvind’s lips were blue. Goosebumps covered every inch of his exposed skin, and Hekla knew they were not in the clear yet.
He was near the fire’s warmth, but it was winter in the northernreaches—they needed a shelter. Thankfully, this section was on a river bend and driftwood was plentiful. Hekla collected load after load, dumping them near the edge of the forest. Next, she linked her battle belt with Eyvind’s, then strung them between the roots of a felled tree. Hekla then propped the driftwood against them.
When she laid the last piece of flattened wood in place, she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. But she couldn’t—not yet. She dashed back into the forest and found a long, sweeping branch at the base of an evergreen. It took her a few minutes to snap the branch clean, but soon she was dragging it back onto the beach.
Carefully, she positioned Eyvind on the tender boughs, then began the painstakingly slow process of hauling him up to the shelter. By the time Eyvind was protected beneath the driftwood roof, with a fresh fire burning low before him, Hekla’s limbs tingled with exertion. The battle thrill had long faded. She barely managed to peel off her clothing and string it on their shelter’s roof before collapsing onto the evergreen boughs beside Eyvind.
His skin was cold as ice.
“You’d better pull through, Hakonsson.”
Hekla pressed her cheek to Eyvind’s back and counted the beats of his heart. And it wasn’t long before she succumbed to sleep.
Chapter 50
Kovograd, Zagadka
Saga stared vacantly at her reflection in a round of polished metal as Alasa combed her hair. She’d already dressed—not in Zagadkian silks, but in the horsemaiden’s armor Khiva had provided on the steppe. It was absurd to think it had been mere days since she’d sat in that tent, certain that every Zagadkian she cared for would die. Now the Urkans had been driven away, the city of Kovograd and its fortress saved from complete decimation.
The fires were extinguished, and warriors combed the battlefield, pulling the wounded from the rubble and executing any surviving Urkans they discovered. Elisava had turned to Saga for help in restoring order in the chaotic aftermath of battle. With so many mouths to feed, the cellar needed restocking, the wounded needed tending, and builders needed to be fetched to pull down fire-ravaged sections of the fortress. And Saga had lost herself in this daily work.
But today felt different. Kassandr had sent a message informing her that a meeting would be called today. Saga had forgone her fine Zagadkian silks in favor of breeches and buckskin boots, and as she watched her reflection, she felt empowered. Gone was the girl who yearned to hide away in the shadows. Here was a woman, ready to do whatever it took to bring help to her kingdom.
