Chapter 1
The First Patient
Kraghtol’s head was pounding as he woke up, and he had difficulties properly recollecting what had happened. The last thing he remembered was that he had been out in the forest to gather herbs, and when he had returned, a few of the villagers had been loitering by the small wooden bridge over the Frostwater.
He moved his head a little too hastily to peer down at himself, which caused a pained groan to escape his lips. His body lay sprawled out on his crude bed, which he had extended with a wooden crate at the end to accommodate his tall frame. He was mostly naked and covered with bruises and gashes all over his aching body. They had been meticulously cleaned and dressed with bandages where necessary. Of course they were. Where the damage was not as bad, crusts of dried red blood darkened his natural grass green skin to an almost black tone.
He felt anger rising inside of him, but he was much too tired to react to the sight with more than another groan. At least this time, there appeared to be no broken bones. Small blessings. Kraghtol stilldidn’t really remember what had happened, but the state he was in was enough to fill in the gaps. The guys had provoked him, perhaps mocking the color of his skin, the shape of his teeth or his heritage in general. Maybe they had also pointed out his lack of parents, which was a new trick they had learned over the last few weeks. The deep-rooted anger rose again as he imagined their mocking words. He was angry at the attackers, of course, but perhaps even more so, he was angry at himself. The reason they did this was because it worked every time. Eventually, given enough provocation, Kraghtol would explode, lashing out at everyone around him. Given his larger body, he was a formidable opponent if he did, which was exactly the reason they only engaged him in groups of at least four men.
He realized only by the pain from the bruises that he had tensed again and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths to fight off the rising anger. Only when he was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t punch another hole in his mattress or demolish any further pieces of his furniture did he dare to open his eyes again and push himself into an upright position. He had to ignore the aching pain in his head and limbs as best as he could while doing so. Avoiding touching the wounded parts, he cleaned himself up and dressed in his usual clothing, a simple pair of pants and a shirt made from burlap. They also had dried red blood stains and a few new holes that Kraghtol would have to fix were ripped through the fabric. Just great. He wasn’t very good at sewing, mainly because of the size of his hands, but at least he was unlikely to get into another brawl while he was preoccupied with tasks inside the house.
Before climbing down the ladder connecting his attic to the rest of the house, he took a moment to take inventory in the reflection of the polished copper mirror. At least his face looked good this time. No, Kraghtol corrected himself. Not good, healthy. It was hard to find his face particularly good-looking. As if the grass-green skin that covered his whole body wasn’t enough, his face revealed the Orcish heritage from his father exceedingly well. Dark and dense eyebrows adorned his protruding brow, nearly meeting in the middle. His eyes lay deep in their sockets and couldn’t really be described as brown, but more as an inhumanly golden color. The nose was broader than any other he had ever seen; he had a bit of dense stubble on his chin, and his ears were slightly pointy at the tip. They weren’t as noticeable as Elven ears — or so he had been told — but still enough to stand out from the round ears that surrounded him every day. But of course, the worst part of his face was his mouth, or, to be more exact, his teeth. Growing out from his lower jaw were two large canines that went well above his upper lips, totaling at a length of a good one to two centimetersoutsideof his mouth, depending on his expression. Histusks.
He hated his tusks just as much as the color of his skin, and they represented everything he despised about himself: every bit of Orcish heritage that made him decidedly less human, decidedlysubhuman. He had no idea what his father, the Orcish part of his parents, looked like, but he guessed he must have looked even uglier than himself.
Without his doing, his fists had clenched again, and it took him a few seconds of willpower to unclench them enough to finally climb down the ladder that he now half-remembered going up in pain earlier.
Merrick looked up when he entered the common room. It wasn’t called common room because there were more people living here than the two of them — save for the occasional patient — but because it was a room for everything that wasn’t his or Merrick’s private bedroom: A mixture of kitchen, workshop, examination room and study, all crammed into one place.
“How are you doing, Kragh?”
The older man’s voice was quiet and sorrowful, with a hint of the kind of pity he had reserved for his most hopeless patient.
The half-orc looked away when Merrick checked his bandages and poured himself a bowl of porridge afterwards.
“How many times has it been this month now? Four?”
“Three,” Kraghtol corrected between spoons, even though he was not entirely certain. Where Merrick’s voice was quiet and reserved, his own was low and coarse. It sounded unpleasant even to himself — or perhaps especially to himself.
The old man sighed once more.
“Fortunately, there have been no broken bones this time. At least on your end. Let’s wait and see how the others look when they come in.”
Merrick Wulfspar was the only healer in Mistpine. Whenever there was any severe injury in the village, there was no one else to go to, which meant that whoever Kraghtol beat up either had the choice to come to Merrick or try to get by on their own. Since Merrick had made it a habit not to charge for healing those injuries, it was a loss either way.
Kraghtol grunted indistinctly. This was not the first time they had had this conversation. In fact, it was the third time this month — or the fourth time, if Merrick was right. It was needless to say that Kraghtol didn’twantto be this way. He didn’twantto get into a fight every week. He didn’twantto scare away potential customers for his foster father or be the biggest drain on their precious bandages and medicine himself. And he certainly didn’twantthis eternal burning anger inside of him, threatening to erupt at any moment.
He pushed away the empty bowl, under the quiet observation of the calm elderly man.
“Sorry,” he finally mumbled, producing yet another sigh from Merrick.
“It’s alright. I know you’re not doing this on purpose, so don’t beat yourself up about it. I think the other ones did a pretty good job at that already.”
Kraghtol honestly didn’t know how Merrick did it. How could he just ignore the fact that his foster son was a dangerous thug and even joke about it? Kraghtol was both happy and jealous of the fine sense of humor Merrick wielded like a sharp scalpel. It had the remarkable power of making every situation somewhat bearable.
“How are your organs? Any noteworthy symptoms?”
“No, I’m… fine,” Kraghtol answered defensively. He was overall healthy as far as he could tell himself, and he didn’t want Merrick to worry too much about him, anyway.
“Good. Then you won’t mind going to the forest to gather some Woundwort for me, right?”
“Again? What about the ones I gathered yesterday? Or did Fennew throw them away after he and his friends…”
“Ah, so it was Fennew again. That young man won’t end well if you ask me. But to answer your question: No, all the leaves were there. I did, however, need most of them to dress your injuries, so we’re about as short on them as we were yesterday. I would go myself, but you know, my back…”
Kraghtol was already putting on his boots and didn’t need extra motivation.
“I’ll bring enough this time, don’t worry.” If all he was good for was gathering medicinal herbs from the forest, then at least he wanted to do that well.
