The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [61]
Ghyrryn snarled at the old gnoll and a debate ensued … or so it seemed to Thorn. Perhaps they were discussing the weather, but if so, the gnoll language was quite dramatic. Then Ghyrryn turned to Thorn. “Please.” It was the first time she could recall him saying something that wasn’t an order. “This is Fharg. Let him help.”
Well, I’ve come this far, she thought. She stretched out on the bunk, her bruised muscles resisting the movement. “Very well. But you tell him—no worms.”
Thorn had been treated by halfling healers, which was strange in its own way. Seen in blurred or peripheral vision, a halfling was much like a human child, and it was strange to wake up surrounded by children who appeared to be playing the healer.
Working with Fharg was something else entirely. She’d spent the better part of a week in the company of gnolls, but something was disturbing about having a creature with such bestial features sniffing at her wounds. She trusted Ghyrryn, but a primal part of her was afraid that Fharg would suddenly take a bite out of her.
His treatment was surprisingly effective. Fharg rubbed a numbing oil into her bruised skin, then applied a salve to her wounds. She felt her skin tingling beneath the greasy lotion, a sensation she recognized from the healing potions of House Jorasco; she realized that Fharg used a magic tonic. Then she understood the argument between Ghyrryn and Fharg; the gnolls undoubtedly had a limited supply of such goods, and the healer would be reluctant to use his stores on a human.
Fharg had little interest in conversation. He was quick and efficient, surprisingly so for his age. He paused when he discovered the two crystals embedded in her flesh. “Hurt?” he said, running a finger across a shard and the scarred flesh around it.
Nothing your salves can help, she thought. The memory of that mission flashed through her mind. Hundreds of dragonshards had orbited the eldritch core of Far Passage, serving both to empower the mystical weapon and to prevent Thorn and her companions from reaching it. The pain she felt still was nothing compared to the agony when those shards had torn into her flesh—crystal shrapnel ripping through leather and cloth. When she finally woke from her coma, the healer had removed most of the shards from her flesh … all but these two, which had fused to bone and nerve. At least they were stable; the halfling assured her that she wasn’t in any danger.
Mayne hadn’t been so lucky. He was the only one who’d remained conscious after the explosion, and Mayne had dragged Thorn to safety. He wasn’t hit as hard, but the damage was worse in the end. The shard that lodged in his flesh didn’t stay in one place—it burrowed deeper and deeper until it reached his heart. The healers couldn’t reach it, and he was dead long before Thorn had risen from her coma. She’d never had the chance to thank him. He would have told her it wasn’t necessary. He was just doing his job, and she’d have done the same thing. But Mayne had risked his life to save hers. And she was alive, and he wasn’t.
The stone throbbed as the gnoll’s hand passed across wounded flesh, and Thorn silently asked Olladra why she’d been the one to survive. She’d asked the question a thousand times before, and she received no new answers this time.
“It’s fine,” she said.
Ghyrryn seemed more concerned about Thorn’s health than his own. He’d ordered Fharg to use his healing salves on her, and she felt almost as good as new. He was still battered and bloody when Thorn rose to her feet, but he didn’t want her to waste any time.
“You will go now. We return you to your place.”
“You need rest,” she said.
“Another will lead you.” He whistled and whined, and a familiar figure emerged from the pack around her, carrying a rough cloak of brown wool.
“Jharl!” Thorn said. It was the tracker who’d ridden