Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [115]
“Thorough as ever, I see.”
She shrugged out of his weak grip and escaped, but grinned through her tears, so that was likely all right. He eased open his groundsense a fraction, aware of something deeply awry in his own body’s ground just below his perceptions, but managed a head count of the people in the grove before he tightened up again. All alive. Some very weak, but all alive. Someone had flung himself onto a horse bareback and was galloping for the east camp. Othan was diverted from his farmer-wrestling to tend on Hoharie, struggling up out of her bedroll. Dag gave up captaining, lay back with a sigh of boundless fatigue, and let them all do whatever they wanted.
In due course Othan came back with Hoharie’s kit and some lights and commenced some pretty unpleasant fiddling about down by Dag’s side. Weary Hoharie directed, and Fawn hovered. That the blade should hurt worse coming out than going in made some sense, but not that it should do so more often. Voices muttered, rose and fell. “It’s bleeding so much!” “That’s all right. It’ll wash the wound out a bit. Now the swab.” “Hoharie, do you know what that swab is?” “Othan, think. Of course I do. Very clever, Fawn. Now tie the strips down tight. No peeking under it, unless it soaks through.” “Did he get it all?” “Yes, look—fit the pieces together like a puzzle, and check for missing chips or fragments. All smooth, see?” “Oh, yes!” “Hoharie, it’s like his ground is shredded. Hanging off him in strips. I’ve never felt anything like!” “I saw when it happened. It was spectacular. Get the bleeding stopped, get everyone off this blight and over to the east camp. Get me some food. Then we’ll tackle it.”
The evacuation resembled a torchlight parade, organized by the folks who came pelting over from the east camp, all dressed by guess and riotous with relief. Those freed from the groundlock who could sit a horse were led off two to a mount, holding each other upright, and the rest were carried. Dag was carted eastward feetfirst on a plank; Saun’s face, grinning loonlike, drifted past his gaze in the flickering shadows. Mari’s voice complained loudly about missing the most exciting part. Dag gripped Fawn’s hand for the whole mile and refused to let go.
The east camp didn’t settle down till dawn. Fawn woke again near noon, trapped underneath Dag’s outflung arm. She just lay there for a while, relishing the lovely weight of it and the slow breath ruffling her curls. Eventually, she gently eased out from under, sat up, and looked around. She thought it a measure of Dag’s exhaustion that her motions didn’t wake him the way they usually did.
Their bedroll was sheltered under a sort of half tent of bent saplings splinted together supporting a blanket roof. Half-private. The camp extended along the high side of a little creek, well shaded by green, unblighted trees; maybe twenty or twenty-five patrollers seemed to be moving about, some going for water or out to the horse lines, some tending cook fires, several clustered around bedrolls feeding tired-looking folks who nevertheless were doggedly sitting up.
At length, Dag woke too, then it was her turn to help him prop up his shoulders against his saddlebags. Happily, she fed him. He could both chew and swallow, and not choke; halfway through, he revived enough to start capturing the bits of plunkin or roast deer from her with his right hand and feed himself. His hand still trembled too much to manage his water cup without spilling, though. His left arm, more disturbingly, didn’t move at all, and she suspected the bandage wrapping his left leg disguised even deeper ills than the knife wound. His eyes were bloodshot and squinty, more glazed than bright, but she reveled in their gold glints nonetheless, and the way they smiled at her as though they’d never quit.
In all, Fawn was glad when Hoharie came by, even if she was trailed by Othan. She was accompanied and supported by Mari, whose general air of relief clouded when her eye fell on Dag. The medicine maker looked fatigued, but not nearly