The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [88]
That morning Elessi had invited Branna to come with her. “They should know you,” Elessi told her. “If I am sick, will you feed them?”
“I will,” Branna said. “Will they take the food from me?”
“If I say so. So they have to know you.”
While they ate, the children kept glancing Branna’s way. The four girls looked frightened, three of the boys looked angry, but the fourth boy stared out into space as if she didn’t exist. As they walked back to camp with the empty baskets, Elessi commented on it.
“That was bad,” she said. “Basbar wouldn’t look at you.”
“His name is Basbar?”
“He says so.” Elessi shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything, but names don’t have to mean anything, do they?”
“They don’t, no. If one of the changelings gets sick, do you think they’d let Neb help them?”
“They wouldn’t, not yet.” Elessi considered this with a small frown. “They need to know Neb, too.”
“I’ll ask him if he’d like to come with you next time.”
“My thanks.” Elessi grinned at her. “I’d like that.”
Neb was more than willing to let the changelings grow accustomed to him. As he remarked to Branna, they all had hard lives ahead of them.
“What’s going to happen when they grow up?” he said. “And have children of their own?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder if the children will all be changelings, too.”
“It seems likely. I’ll discuss this with Dallandra.” Neb paused, thinking. “I should have asked Laz if the Gel da’Thae ever give birth to children like this.”
“Laz is gone?”
“Off to hunt for the dragon book.”
“Did you thank him before he left?” She laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I did.” He turned his head and kissed her fingers. “You were right. I needed to do that.”
“That gladdens my heart to hear.”
“I knew it would. Ye gods, you nagged me enough about it!”
They shared a laugh.
Branna had entered their tent to find Neb gathering up his herbal supplies. The two gnomes, the gray and the yellow, were attempting to help him, but their aid soon devolved into throwing packets of herbs at one another. Branna banished them back to the etheric, then picked up the packets and returned them to Neb’s sack of medicinals.
Since she, too, was studying herbcraft, though not as intensely as he, Branna joined him when he went to the tent where Dallandra had set up her improvised surgery. Most of the injured men had healed enough by then to get outside to the sunlight, but Hound still lay on his blankets. When they knelt down next to him, he woke, yawning, and turned his head to look at them.
“How’s the arm?” Neb said.
“It aches,” Hound said, “and it’s hot and swollen.”
Neb swore under his breath then began to unwrap the bandages from the wound. As soon as he got them off, Branna could smell the corrupted humors.
“It’s gone septic,” Neb said. “Well, we’ll have to do somewhat about that.”
“Don’t cut off my arm!” Hound tried to sit up then fell back, shivering with fear. “Ye gods, how can I live—”
“Hush now!” Branna laid a hand on his forehead. “That’s the last resort, and there are lots of things we can do first to treat it.”
“Indeed,” Neb said. “Branna, will you start a fire over on the hearthstone? I’ll need hot water. I—” He abruptly stopped speaking and stared at the filthy bandage in his hand. “Ye gods!” he whispered. “There’s some live thing on this.”
Branna looked, saw nothing but pus and old blood, then opened her sight. Sure enough, the matter on the bandage had an aura, only a faint reddish glow, but a sign of life nonetheless.
She studied the wound, a deep gash in pale flesh, sticky and green with dead matter. Even if the wound had been giving off some sort of emanation, Hound’s own aura glimmered