The Sword of Light - Chapter 3

Rowan looked down at his bond-brother. He looked at the bear, dead on the ground, at the blood and weapons strewn about like the aftermath of a child’s tantrum, and back again. He swore softly and gave Ferin a look of approval that said more than mere words.

Ferin smirked up at him.

Rowan was a man of average height, no more than seven and ten hands tall. His figure was a lean, slimly-muscular thing made for the hunt and little else. His features were harsh and pointed, giving him a feral lookhis eyes were a little too angular, his nose a little too long, his chin a little too sharp. His eyes were the pewter grey of a winter sky, his long, dark brown hair rolled with lime into dreadlocks that cascaded down his back. Each morning, he took a sharpened dagger to each side of his head and jaw to shave away the hair that grew. On a thin leather thong around his neck, he wore a necklace made from the left half of a wolf’s jawbonea jawbone he had taken as a souvenir from the kill whose pelt he wore in winter, and whose image was tattooed in azure woad ink on his left shoulder.

He had been joined that day by three stalwart friendsFinbarr, Volstan, and Hjorineach man the son of a noble warrior; each man more good-humoured, lackadaisical, and rascally than the last. The five companions had grown up together in Loch Coill as boys of a certain standing. Now, as men, they spent most of their days togetherhunting, laughing, drinking, playing practical jokes on one another, and flirting with the women of the tath.

Finbarr looked at Ferin. “You really killed this thing?” he asked, doubt and astonishment in his tone.

Ferin fixed him with a withering gaze. “No. I killed the man who felled the bear and made to take his place.”

The five friends laughed, clapping Ferin on the back and shoulders. Rowan’s hand paused as he looked Ferin up and down, examining his wounds. “How badly are you hurt?” he asked seriously.

Ferin frowned and tried to take account of his injuries. He could feel the white-hot pain of gashes along his elbow and knee where the bear had swat him initially; of his mouth where claws rendered the flesh around his lips. He felt dizzy and short of breath. Perhaps he’d hit his head and chest harder than he’d thought when the bear sent him rolling.

“I can walk,” Ferin said with measured confidence. He stood, but soon found putting pressure on his injured leg sent jolts of pain pulsing through the bleeding limb. He stumbled and grabbed onto Volstan’s shoulder for support. “Perhaps not” he conceded.

“Does anyone have bandages?” Hjorin asked.

The others looked around awkwardly, waiting for someone to come forward with bandages. None did. Hjorin grunted with displeasure. Ferin eyed him obliquely. “You didn’t either,” he pointed out.

Rowan made a beckoning gesture toward Ferin and said, “Give me your tunic.”

“But”

“Your blood, your tunic,” Rowan said in a tone that let Ferin know there would be no argument on the matter. The large man sighed and, with some difficulty, managed to remove his bloodied tunic without aggravating his wounded arm. Rowan handed his bow to Hjorin and took Ferin’s tunic in one hand. Drawing a knife from his belt with a free hand, he began cutting the shirt into strips and tying them in quick, taught tourniquets around Ferin’s arms, leg, and head.

“It’s difficult to tell which blood is yours and which is the bear’s” the hunter remarked coolly.

“This is what comes of wandering off on your own,” Finbarr chided.

Ferin hacked and spit a gob of blood on the ground. “How else should one hunt?”

“Carefully,” Hjorin said.

When Rowan was done, Volstan offered Ferin his shoulder for support and the men started forward, moving awkwardly, almost drunkenly.

“We will need a litter,” Ferin said, “or perhaps a wagon.”

“You are not so heavy, my friend,” Finbarr countered, and patted Ferin’s belly. Ferin pulled him into a headlock. “For the bear,” he growled playfully. Finbarr laughed.

“First to the healer,” Rowan said. “Your bear will still be there once she has finished.”

The five men came upon the healers’ roundhouse within the hour, only to find it despairingly quiet. The small hut sat squat and wide in the curving, cupped hand of the forest trees so that the canopy of leaves was as a second roof. Between the roundhouse and a merry brook lay modest rows of herbs and vegetables. To one side of the roundhouse, a single boxed hive acted as an apiary. A small henhouse (which could have held no more than two chickens at a time) stood against the roundhouse beside a small paddock with a single goat as resident. The goat bleated at the sight of them.

“There’s no one here?” cried Volstan as he made a show of looking around uselessly. Rowan pushed aside the deerskin and thick fabric that covered the doorway and peered inside. It was empty.

He swore quietly. “Where are they?” he growled.

“Perhaps they’re watching the glma games today,” Hjorin offered.

“Rowan!” Finbarr cried suddenly. Rowan turned to see Ferin swooning. Volstan and Hjorin reached out to steady him. Rowan swore again. Ferin’s injuries had seemed inconsequential at first, but he’d been bleeding for too long, walking on injured limbs. He was pale. Weak with blood-loss and battle fatigue. Rowan barred his teeth wolfishly.

Finbarr and Hjorin hurried Ferin indoors and deposited him on a mattress of soft straw and heather. The two men straightened and groaned with the pleasure of being free of Ferin’s weight.

“I am the fastest runner,” Rowan said matter-of-factly, removing his weapons and hunting gear and letting them fall carelessly to the floor. “I’ll return with the healer.”

“Bring the girl,” Finbarr said. “Grandmother is too old to make it at a run.”

Rowan nodded once and broke into a sprint.