“We must set the leg, Thakkur and I. We will do it as gently as we can. But there will be pain again when we pull and the bones pop into place. It cannot be helped.”
He felt their paws on his leg, felt them grip and knew a surge of fear at new pain. Their paws touched his leg, investigating, searching, as he lay trying to put down the fear.
“Is the splint ready?” said the white otter.
“Yes, here. And the clay.”
“All right, then. Steady now, boy. It won’t take long.”
And then the pain struck him so his whole body was afire and tears spurting from his eyes, and he heard a crunching of bone. Then it was over.
He felt himself covered again, felt the gentle paws, felt at last the sweet coolness as the wet clay pack was worked around his splinted leg. Then, exhausted, he slept, only vaguely aware of Mitta laying her head on his chest to listen, and then the two otters sitting nearby, talking softly.
“I’m afraid for him,” Mitta said. “The clay will help soak infection from the leg, but it’s more than that.”
“The ribs are broken, too. We will bind them,” Thakkur said.
“But look how old the cuts on his arm are. He has had a long time of being hurt, perhaps being cold and without proper food. There is a sickness there in his chest, as a creature will get when it is harried and cold and without rest.”
“We can only do our best for him.”
“We must get food down him. Charkky and Mikk were right to chew shellfish for him, and I will do the same.”
“We can all do that, if needed. I will choose half a dozen to help tend him, so you can return to your cubs when you wish. We can only do our best,” he repeated. “And make a prayer at meeting.”
“And keep Ekkthurian away from him.” She raised her eyes to Thakkur. “I’m glad he is in your cave, where he will know added protection. Who is this boy? Mikk said there was a terrible battle where they found him. The dark ones, I suppose, raging and making trouble. I do wish humans could be content with the land, and with the riches we all have.”
“Some humans can,” said Thakkur shortly. “It’s the dark ones—Quazelzeg and his kind.”
“If they keep on, nothing will be safe. Nothing will be left.”
Thakkur nodded. “Not even Nightpool.” He patted Mitta’s forepaw. “The boy will tell us more when he is well again.”
Mitta looked at him doubtfully.
“He will get well, Mitta. He must. I feel it is important—that the boy is important somehow.” Thakkur turned and left his cave, and Mitta settled down on a stone bench near Teb and took up her weaving again. Her paws were never idle, those busy otter paws mending and weaving and shucking shellfish, cleaning and grooming herself, changing Teb’s bandages and gently feeding him.
And so began a strange, disjointed, dreamlike time for Teb, when he would wake and see daylight outside the cave, or darkness and stars, sometimes a moon, but with no idea of passing days. He was vaguely aware sometimes of being waked and his head held up, and food spooned into his mouth on a shell, of being told to swallow though he felt too tired to swallow. Aware of things done to his leg, of covers pulled over him or removed. Aware of the furred paws tending him and of the softness of otter voices, of their soft “Hah” of greeting. Strangely aware sometimes of dreams that tangled into senselessness when he tried to remember them.
Often he woke moaning with terror and visions of men with knives bending over him, and then Mitta would come and hold him like her own child and nuzzle his neck until he felt comforted.
But the terror of not knowing who he was, of not even knowing his name, could not be comforted.
Chapter 9
Summer grew hot, but the sea wind helped to calm Teb’s fever. The otters bathed him with cool water and fed him pulverized shellfish and roots and strange fish juices. He drifted in and out of dreams and fragmented scenes and made little sense of anything until one morning, late into the fall of the year, with the sea running warm and green and gulls screaming out over the waves, he woke at last with a clear, eager curiosity and stared around the cave where he lay, and frowned at the white otter who stood tall, looking down at him.
He tried to remember where he was, and why he was here. He tried to put together the dreams of fighting and of dragons, with the otters coming and going and the constant pounding of the sea, the pounding that filled his ears now as he gazed at a patch of sunlight across the white otter’s shoulder, and then at the smaller, dark, round otter who moved beside him carrying a clamshell.
“Mitta,” Teb said, “Mitta.”
They helped him to sit up and placed the clamshell in his lap. He felt starved, but he stared down at the mess of raw shellfish, then looked back at them helplessly. “It’s raw. It’s—”
“You have been eating raw fish all summer,” said the white otter. “I am Thakkur. You are in the otter colony of Nightpool.”
Teb stared at Thakkur and back at the food, and almost retched. “If you could make a fire, maybe I could cook it,” he said helplessly.
Mitta frowned at him. He felt tender toward her, knew she had tended him, only now she looked more angry than gentle. “We do not have fire at Nightpool. This is good food. You have been eating it all along. You need the strength it will give you.” She stood glaring at Teb until he managed to down a piece of the stuff, and found it was not so bad. He ate another—an oyster, he guessed—and soon grinned up at them and finished the lot. And then he felt sleepy again, his eyes so heavy, and he dropped off, watching Mitta tuck the moss cover around him.
He woke much later in a patch of sunlight that shone down from a high opening at the back of the cave. He was alone. It was warm. He stared out through the door at the sea and felt the salt wind in his face. He looked down at the clay cast that held his leg and peered under the rumpled moss blanket to find himself naked. There were scars on his arms and thigh and chest where old wounds had healed, a scar on his arm that he stared at, frowning. It ran through a little brown mark that puzzled him, though he did not know why. He pulled the cover back over himself, and looked around at the cave, at its dark stone walls curving up to the dome overhead. Seats were carved into the walls, and shelves at different levels, and ledges for sleeping, like the one on which he lay.
The higher shelves held objects from the sea, shells of different shapes and colors, and corals. There were some bones, too, and a whitened human skull. And, in one large niche all alone, the immense jawbone of some creature with viciously sharp teeth. Teb thought it must be a shark.
When the white otter returned he sat near Teb and smiled a whiskery grin that made Teb want to laugh. Yet there was a great, calm dignity about the white otter, too.
“Thakkur,” Teb said. “I remember. I guess you saved my life. I guess I don’t remember much about coming here. How did I get here? How long have I been lying here?”
Thakkur’s whiskers twitched. “It has been all summer, and we are now into the fall; the shad are running. You had a very high fever for a long time. You slept a good deal. I expect everything is muddled in your mind. But can you tell me your name? Can you tell me what happened to you?”
Teb tried, and when his name would not come to him, a surge of panic swept over him. He could not remember how he had gotten here, or how he had gotten hurt. He knew his leg had been broken; he could remember the otters setting it, could still remember tears springing at the sudden violent pain. But he could not remember anything before the disjointed scenes here in this cave and some confused, dark dreams that would not come clear.