Cai looked around.From the burningheaps of rubble, men were emerging, running towards him.Seeing whowas there and who was missing, frantically counting the gaps, Caifelt the chasm open under him, the gap between joy and unbearablegrief.He jumped as someone took his hand.“Oslaf—what are youdoing?Get up.”
The boy was kneeling at Cai’s feet.Hekissed Cai’s palm, filthy with blood as it was.“Can you be ourabbot now?Really, now Aelfric is dead?”
Cai pulled his hand away.“No!Itdoesn’t work like that.And…” He looked into the ring of facesgathering round him.They were marked with soot and bruises.Somestill looked terrified, some triumphant.All they had in common wastheir focus on him, and a burning trust that melted his last gripon the world.“Why would you want me to?I’ve done nothing but leadyou into danger.Wilf is dead on the beach down there because ofme—God knows who else.”
Hengist stepped forwards.“We knowabout our dead, Cai.It would have been all of us if not foryou.”
“Who else?Tellme.”
“Demetrios, also on thebeach.Aelfric’s man Marcus, though he took three raider devils outwith him.And—”
“Stop it.”
Cai touched his numb lips.Had he saidthose words?No—he’d have heard the grim tally out to itsend.
Fen had come to stand in front of him,gesturing the others back.His firelit gaze raked Cai over.“Stopit.There’s something wrong.What is it, Cai?”
“Nothing.My arm,maybe.”
No.More than that.If he traced hissteps back to the beach, let his fading spirit slip between thecorpses of his brethren to the place where he’d battled withGunnar, he could remember.A blow to his ribs.Just a punch, he’dthought at the time, and wounded men had often reported that tohim—a short-term ignorance of their damage, as if the flesh whengiven too much pain all at once simply thrust some of it aside,laid it away to understand later.Not a fist.A blade.Cai waspleased to have worked this out.He couldn’t have Fen looking athim like that, not with such terror dawning in his eyes.
“It’s here,” he said,finding the rent in his cassock.“I don’t think it’s much,but…”
Fen caught him as he dropped.The turf and the burning sky exchanged places, and he was floating,the earth and Fen’s arms pillowing him.He was stronger than he’dgiven himself credit for—even now he was aware, although it waslike watching and hearing it all through thick fog.Fen laid himflat, easing his head down carefully.That was his last gentlegesture.He tried to haul Cai’s cassock up by the hem, but it hadtangled and caught on something.Swearing, he grabbed the cloth atCai’s waist and ripped.The homespun wool was tough and did notgive easily, but Fen turned it to cobwebs, tearing it apart overthe wound.Cai’s body jerked as Fen leaned close, cleaning awayenough blood to see.He tried to keep still.The pain was findinghim now, though, bearing down on him like avikingrhorseman.He cried out, one hoarseyell.
“Help him!You, whateveryou are called—Odleaf… And you, Cook—find me some wood, somethingto carry him on.Get him to the infirmary.”
“The infirmary burned down,Brother Fen.”That was poor Hengist.Cai wanted to tell Fen to stopsnarling at his friends—that there was no need, no hurry.No point.He stared up into the circle of faces now drifting above him likescared clouds.He couldn’t speak.Fen’s hand came down hard on topof the gaping hole in his side.He went pale at the action, and Caigrabbed his wrist, making him press tighter.
“But all his things…” Oslafleaned over him, shivering.“His cabinet and his medicines—I tookthem out.I carried them off and hid them in thecellar.”
Fen’s fist shot out.It closed in theneck of poor Oslaf’s cassock.“Well, go and fetch them!Wait.Youused to help him doctor people, didn’t you?What does heneed?”
“Sheep gut.Suture.Andsomething to pack the wound.Oh, and it must be washed—he alwaysmade me boil the water first.And some of the poppy, to help withthe pain.”
Cai groaned.Between them they wouldkill him here, if he wasn’t dead already.He wanted to let go, butit was just too damn annoying to hear them.He made a sign to Fento raise him, and he dragged himself up far enough to speak,clinging to the strong arm.“There’s no time to boil…bloody water!Sutures and a needle—now!”
He fell back.Fen’s expression wasalmost comical, caught in transition between fear and hope.Caibegan to hope himself.The wound was bad, but it was blood lossthat had been bringing death in on him with soft-footed tread.Ifit could be stopped now… Oslaf had flown off like a well-aimedspear into the night.Cai stroked Fen’s face, leaving a crimsontrail.“Press harder with your hand.Push some cloth in and pressharder.”
Fen obeyed, his grimace making iteasier for Cai to bear the new rush of pain.A time passed,measurable only in the thud of Fen’s heart where Cai was leaning onhis chest.Then the circle broke apart as Oslaf came shoulderingback through.He was clutching Cai’s leather medical bag.“Holdhim, Brother Fen.I’ll give him the poppy to calm him, then I’llstitch him up myself.I’ve watched him do it often enough.Ican—”
“Give me the bag.”Caithrust out a hand for it.He had no doubt that Oslaf could learn todo it, but his first few tries would be cross-stitch, just as Cai’shad been.Danan had made him practise on a dead sheep.“I said giveit to me!”
“You can’t do thisyourself.”
“Maybe not.Maybe I’ll…diewhile you argue about it.”
He snatched for the bag again.Thistime, to his relief, Fen caught it and dumped it on the groundbeside him.“What do you need?”
“The sheep gut and thatbone needle.Thread it for me.Prop me up.”
Gunnar’s blade had sliced him cleanly.He managed the first four stitches himself, his jaw clenched, headarching back onto Fen’s shoulder.Blood flowed over his hands, andOslaf, sobbing, kept wiping enough of it away for him tosee.
“Don’t cry, stupid boy.You’ll have to be doctor here if this doesn’t work, you hear me?”That hadn’t helped—Oslaf wept harder.“You’ll know more than I didwhen I started.Fen, lift me up a bit more.I can’t—”
“Oslaf, give him thepoppy.”
“What?No.It’ll make meincapable.”
