On the fourth day, as Sara stirred her soup, she felt the dragon's eyes upon her. She turned and saw Cobalt gingerly stand upright on his three good legs. Sand cascaded off his back and wings and fell from his sides in damp clumps. He stood just long enough to free himself from his blanket of sand, then pulled his wings close to his body and sank back down to his belly.
Sara wordlessly brought him the soup and watched with satisfaction while Cobalt slurped the pot dry.
"Humph," snorted the dragon. "Can't you do better then this? I'd like something with more meat."
Sara grinned. "Let me see your back and I will try to find something tastier."
Oh, if you insist. You won't do any good though," he groaned. "It's an old wound and it's festering."
Sara didn't stand still to argue with the irascible dragon. She hauled her pot to the creek, scrubbed it clean, filled it with water, and lugged it back to her fire. Then she brought out her medicine bag and laid out its contents on a blanket.
Cobalt watched her listlessly.
Sara began her examination at the dragon's wedge-shaped snout and worked her way, scale by scale, back to the tip of Cobalt's blunt tail. The dragon had grown some in the years he had been with Knight Vincit, not only in length but also in breadth and mass. He was about in forty-five feet long, muscular, and well built. Healthy, he would have been a handsome figure of a dragon. Sick as he was, his condition tore at Sara's heart.
One problem was several deep parallel lacerations across his shoulders where the dragon saddle usually sat. From its appearance, Sara guessed the wound was at least several weeks old. Under normal circumstances, a dragon's rider or trainer or even the dragon itself would have treated the wound and kept it clean while it healed, but Cobalt had no human help, and his own head could not pivot around far enough to reach his damaged shoulders. The injury, unattended, had become infected, and how it oozed pus from a black, swollen mass on his back.
The other critical problem was his right foreleg. It had apparently broken, and without splints to keep it straight, it was healing at a bad angle. His right wing, too, had suffered some damage. There were minor tears in the delicate membranes and several large, raw scrapes that looked as if the dragon had fallen heavily on that side.
Sara had seen enough. "I'll be back," she informed her patient, sliding down his side to the ground. She hurried outside to the beach.
After days of clouds and gloom, the wind had finally died, and the sun broke through to bestow its radiance on the sandy white beaches. Sara paused a moment to savor the balmy afternoon, then she hurried down to a cluster of rocks half submerged in the receding tide. Somewhere in one of those tidal pools, she hoped to find a creature particular to Solamnia's western coast, a small, insignificant creature she had seen only a few times.
She searched carefully under the water in the shelter of the rocks until she found two prickly brown things that reminded her of fist-sized cockleburs. Using a stick, she gently pried them loose from their watery perch and pushed them to the edge of the water, where she tipped them upside down and speared their soft underbellies with her dagger. She carried the dead creatures into the cave and laid them out before her fire.
"What are those?" Cobalt snorted.
"Numbtouch sea urchins," Sara replied as she broke off the spines one by one. "They produce a slime on the points of their spines that is a very effective painkiller."
"So?"
"So I am going to use these little points on you while I clean your wounds and…" Sara paused to cast a quick glance at the cave entrance. If Cobalt objected violently to her remedy, she wanted a clear way out.
"And what?" Cobalt prompted suspiciously.
Sara took a deep breath and said hurriedly, "Reset your leg. You see, it's crooked. I shall have to re-break the fracture, set it properly, and splint it, or it will never hold your weight." She stared up at the dragon's head and waited for his reaction.
"That seems like a great deal of trouble for nothing," he said in a mournful tone. "I am so empty. Everything is wasted. I don't want to stay in this world anymore."
Sara crossed her arms and glared at the blue. "Things are different, but by no means is everything gone, Cobalt. Vincit was a good rider; I remember him well. He cared for you very much. Do you think he would want you waste away when there was help and food close by? I can promise you he would never forgive me if I let you die."
Cobalt's head dropped to the sand and his eyes closed. "Do what you want, then," he muttered.
The woman set to work before Cobalt changed his mind She did not like the heavy mood of depression that gripped the dragon, and she hoped that fixing his body would help revive his spirits. Blues could be very touchy when their riders died; some she knew had allowed themselves to die rather face the loneliness and grief. Cobalt, though, had not tried to kill himself, and despite his listlessness and misery, there were flashes of life in his choices.
She dragged her pot of warm water beside his shoulder. With her healer's tools and the sea urchin spines, she started her first task of cleaning the infected wound on the dragon's back. First she cut away the remains of the harness and tossed the saddle aside. Prying apart the dragon's tough scales, she inserted a row of urchin spines into Cobalt's skin and muscles beside the lacerations. The anesthetic took effect immediately.
Alternately washing and trimming the wound, she was able to remove much of the ruined scales, dried blood, pus, and dead tissue. She was relieved to see that the injury was not as deep or as damaging as she feared. When the wound was cleaned to her satisfaction, Sara slathered a liberal coating of an antiseptic ointment over the whole area and laid clean strips of cloth on top to protect it from dirt and sand.
Next she cleaned and treated his wing injuries. His leg she saved for last, partly because of her own nervousness and partly because if he took serious objection to what she had to do, at least his other wounds were already treated.
With one cautious eye on the dragon's fearsome teeth she inserted urchin spines above the break in his foreleg and below it.
Cobalt lay very still, his eyes closed. Only one ear swiveled in her direction.
Sara started talking to him in a low, reassuring voice. "This may feel very odd. Please don't move. I am going to try to pull the break apart again. Fortunately it is simple break, and the set hasn't solidified yet. I hope it will part easily." She continued to talk, describing everything she did and planned to do. As she hoped, the fracture in the bone separated easily under pressure, and Sara was able to manipulate the two ends back into proper alignment. She splinted his leg with driftwood and strips of cloth. Only then did she pull out the urchin spines.
Cobalt let his breath out in a long sigh. A moment later he was asleep.
4
The next several days remained pleasantly cool and sunny. Sara was able to fulfill her promise to Cobalt for something meatier. She brought down a buck with her bow and carried it back to the cave on the back of the old mule.
Cobalt grabbed for the deer so greedily he almost snatched the mule. The mule squealed in terror, kicked up his heels, and bolted down the beach at a speed that belied his age.
Sara spat a curse and ran after him. By the time she returned with the mule, Cobalt slept happily in his sand nest a few broken bones lying scattered around him. She smiled and shook her head. Whether he knew it or not, the blue had taken the path to healing.