Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [6]
The boar was doing Skylan’s job for him, driving the spear deeper into its body, but it was also closing in on Skylan. Its head thrashed, its yellow tusks slashed at him, and they were wet with his blood.
Skylan could do nothing except press against the tree and hold fast to the spear and pray to Torval it did not break. Sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes, half-blinding him. He shook his head to see. His muscles were weakening, starting to shake from the tremendous exertion. He had the dim impression that Garn had joined the fight, striking at the boar with his knife.
Blood flew; tusks slashed. Skylan held fast.
The boar, spitted on the spear, twisted and turned, more than once nearly yanking the weapon out of Skylan’s hands. Gasping for breath, he threw the waning strength of his body into a last desperate spear thrust, driving as deep as he could.
With a slash of its tusks, the boar gave a gurgling grunt and crashed sideways onto the ground. It lay in a pool of blood, its flanks heaving and its feet twitching. Skylan held on to the spear until he saw the life gradually fade from the boar’s eyes. The boar gave a shudder and lay still. Its hatred remained in the staring eyes even after death.
Skylan let go of the spear and collapsed beside the warm, bloody corpse. He lay in its blood and his own beneath the tree and dragged air into his burning lungs. He was dizzy, and now he felt the pain. He looked at his body to try to determine the extent of his injuries, but his clothes, ripped to ribbons, were sticking to the wounds, preventing him from judging their severity. His hands and arms were slashed, and blood and pain were everywhere.
Garn knelt beside him, his own arms bloodied to the elbow. He did a swift battlefield assessment, cutting away the cloth of Skylan’s tight-fitting linen breeches and the long belted linen shirt.
“You have a deep gash in your thigh,” Garn reported after examining Skylan from top to bottom. “But the blood is oozing, not pulsing.”
That was good. Blood pulsing from a wound would have meant Skylan would bleed to death.
“You have lots of other wounds, but the thigh wound is the worst,” Garn announced. He rocked back on his heels. “You are damn lucky,” he added with a smile and a shake of his head.
Skylan smiled, too, through the haze of pain. He was not lucky. He was blessed. His wyrd, his fate, was bound with glory.
CHAPTER
2
Though Garn wanted to carry Skylan back to the village immediately, to have his wounds tended, Skylan refused to leave the boar, fearing it would be devoured by wolves.
“Bjorn and Erdmun will not be far away,” he said, sitting up, propping himself against the tree. “Summon them with your horn.”
Skylan drank water from his waterskin and pressed the remnants of his shirt over the wound in his thigh to stop the bleeding.
He was a quick healer—another blessing from Torval. The wound burned and throbbed, but he did his best to ignore the pain. He was helped by the golden haze of triumph that acted as sweet medicine and eased his hurts. He rested his hand possessively on the boar’s hairy, bloody flank.
Garn brought his ram’s horn to his lips and gave three blasts, two long and one short, indicating that he needed help. He paced about restlessly, not so confident as Skylan that their two friends would be in the vicinity.
Bjorn and Erdmun arrived far sooner than even Skylan had expected, bounding out of the woods with their spears raised. Both skidded to a halt and stared in astonishment to see their friends covered in blood, next to the gigantic carcass.
“That was fast,” said Garn.
“We heard the crashing and roaring, and it sounded like a battle,” said Bjorn, unable to take his awed gaze from the boar, “and—”
“—we came to see what was going on,” Erdmun said.
The brothers often finished each other’s sentences.
The two moved closer, staring curiously at the boar. Bjorn was Skylan’s age, eighteen. Erdmun was sixteen. Neither had ever seen such a beast before.
“Did