“We need to keep moving,” Ash urges as soon as everyone is out of the cave. He trots swiftly down the steep hillside. Heppa follows, laden with weapons. Now is not yet the time for doling out medical treatments.
Tric encourages Butterbell down the slope between gripes about how much his gashes burn. “Does your friend have a hut or a glade?” he calls ahead.
Ash does not respond. He pauses every now and then, unsteadily examining their surroundings, and then continues downward. The retreat is decidedly not graceful as they crash through bushes and crunch over the thin snow cover. The sound echoes across the valley. Finally, the group spills out of the treeline onto the pebbly bank of a river. Tric and Heppa breathe a sigh of relief, but Ash continues to look around agitatedly. “This isn’t the right place. She’s not going to be here,” he says anxiously.
“This is a perfect place to regroup,” Tric says, catching his breath. “This water is very healthy and fresh.”
“Yes, this looks fine,” Heppa agrees. “We’ll be in a better position if I can just patch you both up.” Ash does not look convinced. “It won’t take that long,” Heppa insists.
Tric lays a hand on Ash’s shoulder. His brother’s hood has fallen back during the rush down here, and the inflamed cuts across his neck and face show brilliantly red against the pale skin and shaded tattoos. “Look, you’re in worse shape than I am. We should at least stop to let her heal you up. She’s not just a shaman, all right? She has mundane medical skills, as well. She is very good at physical healing.”
Heppa nods in agreement. It’s a good thing too, given what happened with my magic back there. She is not sure what will happen if she tries to manipulate fae energy again; that experiment will have to wait until after she has treated her patients.
Ash sees the wisdom of their words and agrees to the break. Heppa treats him first since he is more injured than Tric. She is relieved to find that there is no dark corruption making the gashes worse; it is simply an accelerated form of infection that has inflamed the wounds. She washes out all the deep lacerations with fresh, cold water from the river and packs together poultices to draw out the infection. She smears paste over the cuts on his face and neck but advises him to let the river water wash out the ones on his legs, if he can stand the cold. It should help decrease the swelling and numb the pain. He accepts her direction and sits along the bank while she sees to Tric.
Heppa treats Tric more quickly, now that she has a firm understanding of the injuries she is dealing with. While Ash was an uneasy, quiet patient, Tric is as talkative as ever, and Heppa is happy to chat with him while she works. “Either that person in the cave up there is undead, or he has no sense of smell,” Heppa reflects, after they have both complained some about how much those rotting creatures reeked. “Seems like a prerequisite for being a necromancer.”
“Didn’t Kachen have no sense of smell?” Tric asks archly.
“But he was taking dapper inkcap,” Heppa says in their friend’s defense.
“Maybe this person takes dapper inkcap,” Tric counters. “Maybe that’s why those creatures didn’t want to eat you.”
“Because I smell like dapper inkcap?”
“Yes.”
It is comforting to engage in their normal banter after the harrowing experience. “He’s really worried,” Heppa observes, looking over Tric’s shoulder at Ash. His weapons are on the rocky ground next to him, ready if he needs them, and he is mending the gashes in his outer leathers. “I hope he’s not mad at us. We’re alive so… there’s that.”
“We were way worse off when we were fighting that wraith,” Tric points out.
“And now at least we know what we’re getting into. We can just go back later when we’re all healed up. You could get your brambles going!” Heppa says excitedly. “You could send them in to pull out one of the spider carcasses.”
“I don’t know about that, but there must have been a necromancer in there, and it’s Ash’s responsibility to deal with that. We’ll get a spider, one way or another,” he encourages Heppa. “He’ll get his antivenom.”
Mate swoops down and walks up to Tric, then begins poking at him, insisting on a peanut. Tric hears a splash behind him, but thinks nothing of it until Heppa exclaims, “What?!”
Tric turns to see what Heppa is staring at. A woman with light blue skin and long green kelp-like hair has partially emerged from the river. Aquamarine scales along her abdomen glisten near the waterline. Her face is similar to an elf’s, but below her pointed ears, gills line her neck. She glides through the water over to Ash, and when she reaches where he is sitting on the bank, he lets his head drop to rest his forehead against hers. Their lips move in quiet conversation, but their soft words do not carry.
“This isn’t too cold for her?” Heppa marvels. The woman’s arms are bare but for jewelry, and her breasts are wrapped in lightweight green cloth decorated with shells and pearls.
“Maybe she’s cold-blooded,” Tric says with a shrug. He considers making a crack, warning Ash about an incoming naga, but he decides not to intrude on the moment of intimacy they are sharing. Instead, he tosses Mate a peanut. “You know, I didn’t think fish-lady, but you got me on that one.” The magpie gobbles down his prize, pleased with the completed wager.