Tara Tevald
Hudson woke with a start at the sound of the carthorses’ panicked whinnying. He threw open the flaps of his tent, quickly slinging his pack over his shoulder. The campfire had gone out, but he could still see some ways into the dark.
Two men stood at the edge of camp—one large, one about his size. As Hudson emerged from the tent, a crossbow bolt shot past him. He fumbled for his holster in a panic before his hands found the grip of his gun and drew it. Shit. He couldn’t catch a fucking break this week.
Another bolt flew past, this time towards the panicked driver. He was still struggling with his sleeping bag, desperately trying to get out of it and reach for his sword. There was a crash as the cart was tipped over, flames starting to lick at the wheels.
Hudson fired a shot at the man with the crossbow with a loud BANG that not only missed its target but also spooked the horses even more, straining against their reins that were tied to a nearby tree. He couldn’t get a good shot on these assholes.
The bandit answered him with another shot in his direction. This time, it hit him in the shoulder. He sank low into the grass, letting out a steady stream of expletives as white-hot pain erupted from the wound, dripping down his arm. Fuckers had got his right arm; he couldn’t hold the gun steady anymore.
There was a snap as the horses broke free of their reins, running off into the night as the larger of the men came closer, brandishing a heavy club. Who the fuck robs somebody with a club?
He switched hands and fired another shot. Another miss. Another shot from the man with the crossbow, narrowly missing Hudson. Behind him, he heard a pained wheeze. The driver had been hit. Hudson fired another two shots, this time, he hit the man with the crossbow.
The one with the club was running towards him at full speed now, he fired another shot. A hit, but it didn’t slow him down, hitting him in the leg. Hudson pulled the trigger again, only to be answered by a click. Empty. Shit.
The bandit took a swing at him, he ducked, grabbing desperately at his belt for his shortsword. He drew it from its sheath as he took another swing. He ducked again, expecting for him to swing high, but the weight of the club slammed into his leg at full force with a sickening crack and he crumpled to the ground.
His ears were ringing from the pain as the bandit swung again. This time, Hudson thrust his shortsword upwards as the bandit swung down, burying it in his abdomen as the club grazed the side of his face.
The bandit fell, clutching at his chest as Hudson drew the shortsword out of him. The genasi tried to scream in anguish, but it came out as a gurgle. After a few choking gasps for air, he was silent.
Hudson tried to stand, but the moment he tried putting weight on his left foot, pain shot up his entire leg, causing him to buckle again. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled over to the driver. His entire body seemed to protest with every movement as the bolt in his shoulder, the stitches in his side, and his leg seemed to work in unison to make every inch he crawled more painful than the last. The smoke from the burning cart stung his eyes, making every breath a choked wheeze as he pressed on
There was no way that the driver was still alive, he could smell the blood pooled in the grass under the driver’s motionless body. The bolt had struck him in the chest.
The fire from the cart was spreading now, catching the nearby trees and brush.
He tried again to no avail to stand, crawling away from the flames and towards the road. Black edged his vision as he got closer and closer, the ringing in his ears growing louder and louder.
When he finally reached the road, his body couldn’t take it anymore.
He could have sworn he heard the sound of hoofbeats as everything went dark.
When Hudson finally awoke, he could feel himself being dragged across the dirt road. Someone’s hands were hooked under both of his arms, pulling him by the armpits. He started kicking and thrashing, clawing at the dirt road, sending bolts of pain up his arm and leg. His shoulder throbbed, still wet with blood.
“Stop it!” Whoever was dragging him had stopped moving. “You’re going to make it worse!”
He continued struggling, flailing until his good arm was free, searching for his gun, his sword, anything.
“I’m trying to help you, you asshole!”
Oh, he knew that voice. He stopped.
“Kipling?”
“You couldn’t go three days without getting yourself hurt again?” Kipling started dragging him again. “Really?”
“What are you—” He started coughing, the back of his throat burned. He needed a moment before trying to talk again. “What are you doing here?”
Kipling merely grunted as he continued to drag him off of the road and onto a blanket. He set Hudson down and sat on the ground next to him, panting. “You’re heavy.”
Hudson wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed since he’d blacked out. It was daylight. The air smelled of smoke, but the sky was clear. Craning his neck, he was just about able to make out the scorched grass on the other side of the road, and the burned-out husk of the cart. It was quiet, save for Kipling’s heavy breathing and the trees blowing in the wind.
Kipling passed him a canteen. “Drink.”
He took it eagerly, the cool water washing the dryness from his throat.
“Slow down.”
Hudson did, after a moment, and passed it back to him.
Kipling took a drink and set the canteen down. “Can you sit up?”
It was awkward and slow, being only able to use one arm, but he somehow managed. Kipling unstrapped the bag from Hudson’s back and set it behind him so that he could lean on it.
“Okay, deep breaths.” Kipling retrieved a pair of scissors from his bag. “Shoes and belt off.”
He complied.
“Tell me what happened here.”
“Stopped for the night, cart got ransacked.” He rubbed his eyes. “Bandits are gone, I think. Driver’s definitely dead.”
“Okay. Okay, so, you’re bleeding, kind of a lot, I’m going to need to cut you out of your coat and pants.”
He winced as he shifted positions. “Can we- can we not cut the coat open?”
“What? Why? You’re bleeding, and you have an arrow in your shoulder! I think getting it- getting it out is more important than a cut sleeve!”
“Please?”
“Ugh, just—fine, fine. I’ll be really careful, and just cut along the seams, but it has to come off. I’ll—I’ll fix it after, okay? There’s already a hole in it.”
The bolt had definitely left a jagged tear in the shoulder of his coat as it had made its entry. The shaft of the bolt moved ever so slightly with each heartbeat as the wound throbbed. It needed to come out. He gave Kipling a hesitant nod.
“Alright, hold your arm out to your side, if you can.”
He grit his teeth as he did as he was told, screwing his eyes shut from the pain. Kipling steadied his arm with one hand and held the scissors with the other. “I’m-I’m going to start cutting now, okay?”
Another nod.
He looked away as Kipling brought the blade of the scissors to the seam of his coat where the sleeve met his shoulder. He could feel it coming loose as he cut more and more off.
“Almost done,” he said. “There.”
The sleeve had been cut again down the arm of the sleeve, until it was one wide piece and could be slid off the bolt shaft.
“Gonna have to do the same with the shirt, too.”
He nodded. He couldn’t have cared less about the shirt.
“There we go,” he said as he removed the shirt. The fall air left goosebumps on Hudson’s skin. “Just the pants left now, okay? There’s—there’s no way you’re moving your leg like that.”
He nodded again, and Kipling started cutting down the leg of his pants. Hudson had to restrain himself from shifting away from the sharp blade coming towards his groin. He cut from hip to ankle before repeating on the other leg and sliding the mangled slacks out from under him. He started gathering some other items from his bag. Bandages, another blanket, potions, and a few things that Hudson couldn’t quite identify the purpose of. Kipling started looking him over, now that the injured areas had finally been exposed. He put a hand on the arch of Hudson’s foot. “Wiggle your toes for me?”
He did as he was told, biting his lip as the slight movement shot another strike of pain up his leg.
“So, good news.” Kipling unfolded the extra blanket and covered his bare legs. “Your stitches, miraculously, stayed closed this time, and you haven’t bled out or suffered—from what I can tell—any serious head injuries yet.”
“Yet?”
“Well, the day’s still young, and you seem to be a magnet for injuries.”
*“Fucking—*just… get on with the bad news.”
“Your leg is definitely broken, and there’s an arrow in your shoulder.” Hudson watched as Kipling made a flicking motion with his hands and rolled up his sleeves. “It looks like your tibia was only broken in one place, but it’s out of alignment, so it’ll need to be put back where it’s supposed to go.”
Hudson had suffered a lot of injuries in the past, but never something as bad as this. Never something that kept him from moving. With the full moon getting closer and closer, there would be no way of it healing properly. No way of running if they found him again. If his leg was truly broken, he was as good as dead out here. There wouldn’t be another town for a few days, at least, and that was on horseback.
“Remember this, from before?” Kipling asked, snapping Hudson out of that particular train of thought. He held out a blue bottle, the stuff he’d used to numb him for the stitches last time. Hudson nodded. “I’m going to clean that arrow wound of yours the best I can, and then I’m going to put this on it. It’s going to sting. I need you to stay still while I put it on because a wrong move could drive that arrowhead further into your shoulder. Understand?”
He nodded again.
Kipling retrieved his canteen and poured some water onto a cloth, dabbing gently at the wound as Hudson bunched up the blanket he was sitting on in his hands.
“Tell me when the stinging is gone.” The blue bottle was brought back out, earthy-smelling contents being poured onto a wad of cotton and brought to his wound.
He took in a sharp breath as it touched him. He wasn’t kidding about the stinging, it felt like he’d shoved the bolt back in. He clenched his jaw, trying to remain still as his wound throbbed, sharp pain pulsing with every heartbeat. Kipling’s free hand was on his other shoulder, holding him there. At some point, the pain subsided, leaving only the throbbing and the cold from the tincture.
“It’s gone.”
He removed his hands from his shoulder. Hudson relaxed his grip on the blanket as Kipling dug through his bag, pulling out two quills and a pair of scissors. Hudson watched with confusion as he snipped off the tips of the feathers with his scissors.
“The arrow tip is barbed,” he said as he began removing the plumage from the quills, sitting away from the blanket so that the bits of feather wouldn’t get everywhere. “Pulling it out on its own will just hurt you more. Learned this trick a long time ago for removing them.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“…It’s a bit hard to explain in simple terms, but basically they make it so that your shoulder doesn’t get ripped up as I take it out,” he explained as he brought the quills over to him. “The quills are hollow, so they’ll go around the barbs like a sleeve. You ready?”
Hudson nodded.
“I need you to stay as still as possible. Look straight ahead; don’t look at your shoulder.” He got into the same kneeling position he’d been in when he’d cleaned out the wound. “I’m going to start now, okay?”
Another nod.
It was an… odd sensation, as the two quills were stuck into his open wound and twisted. It wasn’t painful, but the deep feeling of the quills moving around inside of his shoulder unnerved him like nothing he’d felt before.
“Well, another good thing—it didn’t hit the bone.”
His skin stretched as the quills were separated, the motion stopping as they found the barbed ends of the bolt tip. He bit the inside of his cheek as Kipling pressed down on his shoulder with one hand. With the other, he pulled the quills and bolt shaft until it was finally dislodged. He held it out in front of him with a smile, still dripping with his blood.
Hudson’s stomach turned a bit, looking at his open shoulder. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, but still unpleasant nonetheless. He shouldn’t have looked.
“Still numb?” Kipling asked, setting the bloody bolt aside. He flicked his hands again, and the blood on them seemed to simply evaporate from them. He took out some of the bandages he’d set aside earlier with one hand while bringing a fresh wet cloth to his shoulder with the other.
“Yeah.”
“This was a pretty clean cut, so we won’t need to stitch that one up.” Kipling gently pressed a wad of cotton to the wound and began to slowly wrap his shoulder in bandages. They were tight around his shoulder. The throbbing was back, but it was dull. Not painful, just present. “This’ll have to be changed out tonight, I want to keep a close eye on it. Do you need a breather before we continue?”
“I’m fine. Just get it over with already.”
“Alright.” Kipling slid the bag out from behind Hudson and moved the blanket from his legs to cover his chest instead. “Lie down.”
“Wait.”
He stopped to look at him.
“You’re not going to numb it first?”
“I’m afraid not. Unfortunately, with a fracture there’s only so much I can do for the pain before it’s been set properly,” he said, spreading Hudson’s legs apart. Reflexively, he moved to close them, but Kipling held them open. “Relax. It’ll go quick, though, and then I can get right to healing it.”
He laid down, his back flat against the blanket.
Kipling placed a hand on his injured leg, before glancing over at him. “I’m going to press on part of the bone and align the two pieces back in place. I’m going to be pushing inwards on your leg, and it’s going to hurt. I need you to stay still while I do that, okay?”
He nodded. He screwed his eyes shut, deciding that watching Kipling do that wasn’t a good idea, and bunched the blanket below him in two tight fists, as he’d done with the removal of the crossbow bolt.
Usually, when doing something like this, the ideal scenario is that there’s at least two people working on the patient: one to set the bone, the other to hold him down. Ideally, it also wouldn’t be in the middle of the woods, far from any other healers if Kipling screwed this up. Unfortunately for him, though, he was on his own.
He could feel where the two pieces of bone had been displaced as he gently pressed at the flesh of Hudson’s calf. He aligned his thumbs with where the two broken ends of the bone were, double-checking the placement by feeling for the breaking point, and pressed down hard.
Hudson, to his credit, remained still, but he screamed. He was breathing heavily, eyes shut tight. Kipling didn’t blame him one bit for that.
“The worst part is over, alright?” he said in a soft voice. He put a hand on the arch of his patient’s foot again, feeling the steady pulse under his fingers. Good. From his bag, he took out another roll of bandages and a leather splint. Hudson still hadn’t opened his eyes, still reeling from it all, but Kipling continued on. “You can relax, this next bit won’t hurt. I’m just going to make sure that your leg stays still while it heals.”
He moved Hudson’s leg so that it was propped up over his lap. The slight angle allowed him to reach under the leg and wrap it properly. He wiped it down with an alcohol-soaked cloth before he started to wrap it in snug bandages. It was important to keep the leg straight with the foot at a right angle to the rest of it to make sure that the fracture would heal in the correct position.
With the bandaging done, he slid the splint on. There was a flexible ring that he slid Hudson’s leg through, which was similar to a garter. There were two stiff rods on either side of his leg, as well as another carved piece of wood that cupped the back of it, with each part covered in leather to prevent discomfort and to add a bit of flexibility to accommodate legs of different sizes. He then buckled the two straps that went across the leg, tightening it to fit him.
By the time he’d finished, Hudson seemed to be doing a bit better. His breathing was steadier, and he looked a lot less tense. It was clear that he was still in a lot of pain from the occasional twitch or grip of the blanket while he was winding the bandages around his leg.
“Still with me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Hudson spoke through clenched teeth. He couldn’t imagine how much pain he must be in after this ordeal.
“You want to sit back up?”
“Yeah.”
He brought Hudson’s bag back over and gently helped him into a sitting position, putting the blanket around his shoulders. Once he was situated, He brushed a hand over the bound leg, beginning to course some anima through it. He could feel the two pieces of bone beginning to form hair-thin connections. A good start, but this was going to take a lot more work for it to heal completely. “So, from here, I’m going to be using some magic to speed up the healing process.”
“How long will it take to heal?”
“With multiple uses of magic throughout the entire process, it should be a few weeks.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “If you try putting weight on that leg right now, you’ll end up breaking it again, and there’s no guarantee that after that it will ever heal properly.”
“What’s today’s date?”
“Oh, uh… Monday the tenth, I think? Why do you ask?”
He put his head in his hands. “I only have one week.”
“One week for wha—” And then it clicked. “Oh. Oh. That’s not good, is it?”
“Very not good.”
“Do injuries carry over?”
“Yes. It’s happened before,” he said. “Any time I get hurt as a bear, I wake up with wounds when I’m myself again. When I’m injured before turning, I’m also wounded as a bear.”
“So you wouldn’t be able to move as a bear, right?”
“I don’t know. There’s a possibility, but I’m not going to count on it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I have to stay in the splint, it’s going to break the minute the moon rises. So, at the very least, I’ll have to remove that before that happens. Same with any bandages. They’d end up tearing anyways.”
Kipling grimaced. Traipsing through the woods with unprotected wounds and on a broken leg… not only would that risk infection, but also a slew of other potential health risks. Not to mention his stitches, which have already come undone once before.
“How have you managed injuries of this scale in the past?”
“I haven’t. Usually, it’s only a few arrows or some cuts. If it’s a twisted ankle or something, usually it’s from the full moon, and it has time to heal in between. I’ve never broken a limb before.”
“How did you even break it in the first place?” As the first spell ended, he started up another one, continuing to pulse his anima into the wound. Despite the slight chill in the air, he was starting to sweat.
“One of the bandits had a club.”
“Really? Not very subtle for a bandit to carry that.”
Hudson shrugged. “At this point, I don’t really question the shit luck I have.”
“So, you fought them?”
“Yeah, what else was I supposed to do?”
“Fair point,” he said. “Is there a way to make sure that you can’t move as a bear? Maybe blocking off a cave entrance? Restraints?”
He shook his head adamantly. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You think they wouldn’t hold?”
“Blocking a cave, maybe, but we’re too far from the Dragon’s Back to find any large enough for that,” he said. “And you are not getting involved in this. I am going to take you to the next town and drop you there before the week is out, and then you’re going to stay there until the full moon is over.”
“With that leg, you’re not taking me anywhere,” he pointed out. “So, you’re planning on just limping into the woods, taking off your splint and bandages, and then what? Hope for the best? How do you plan on getting back if your injuries get worse?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then enlighten me, tell me this plan you’ve clearly already made up, and how it won’t end up with you right back in the infirmary tent. Which, by the way, is the best-case scenario for you.”
“I’ll be fine*.* I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“Will you? Really? Or are you just saying that because you don’t know how to accept help?” Despite how much of a stubborn ass Hudson was being, he continued to pulse anima into his wound. He took a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Getting angry wouldn’t do either of them any good here.
“Look, you’ve had a really hard couple of weeks, I get that, and I know that you don’t want to be around me, or anyone, but just think for a second before you try and head out on your own. You have a leg that you can’t walk on. You have stitches that will need to come out soon. That bag, by the way? Not under thirty pounds, you know that they could come out again with that on your back, right? You have a wound in your shoulder and a broken leg that are both going to limit your movement even further. Walking the next five feet will be hard for you, let alone the fifty miles you still have to go before getting to Woodhurst.”
Hudson was silent, looking down at his lap.
“Just… let me take you to Woodhurst, we can figure out what will happen for the full moon on the way. I can heal you more as we go to help with the pain, and to help things go as fast as they can in terms of recovery.” He could feel his anima reserves running dry, so he dropped the spell. “If you give me some time, I can probably think of a way to help with the leg when you have to turn.”
“What are you going to do, carry me the whole way there?”
“No.” He pointed across the road. “That is.”
Hudson turned to face the horse that Kipling had rode in on, eyes narrowing.
“…Fine,” he sighed after a pause. “You’re right, I don’t really have a lot of other options, do I?”
“Not unless you plan on limping the whole way.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fifty miles, that’s what, two days?”
“Just about, I think.”
“What time is it?”
“Well, I think it was the late afternoon when I got here…” Kipling looked at the sky. “Sun hasn’t set quite yet, so I’d say around five or so?”
“We should get going,” he said. “Staying the night here isn’t safe, we’ll have to find somewhere else to camp. There’s a good chance that whoever burned the cart last night is still around. We still have an hour or two until the sun sets, if we leave now, we can at least put a few miles between us and here.”
“I’ll bring the horse over, and then I’ll help you on. When we stop, I’ll see about getting you a crutch to lean on.”
“Wait—”
“Yes?”
Kipling could have sworn that Hudson’s violet cheeks had gotten a bit red. “Can you help me put some pants on first?”
Tara Tevald ’24 is the Senior Editor at Pitch. She has been developing a fantasy novel for the past five years.