Hod was lying on the ground on his back, writhing from side to side, clutching and clawing at his leg and openly bawling. His face was screwed up in pain, mottled red and pale and popping out cold sweat. And no wonder. By whatever evil chance, Copperhead’s shod hoof had scored a direct hit on the boy’s right kneecap, shattering the bone and pulping the flesh behind it. Blight it, blight it, blight it…!
Tanner gasped. “What happened?”
Dag said, “Horse kicked him when he went to poke in my bags for grub.” Which won him a sharp look upwards from Fawn—You knew? They would deal with that aspect later. Dag surged forward.
To find himself blocked by the gray-haired and very solid Mape. “Don’t you touch him, Lakewalker!”
Whit and Tanner knelt by Hod, trying unsuccessfully to soothe and still him as he beat his fists on the ground and howled.
Dag unclenched his jaw and said to Mape, “I have some skills in field aid.”
“Let him through,” cried Fawn, at the same moment as Whit called, “Dag, help!” Reluctantly, Mape gave way.
“Fawn, get a fire going, for heat and light,” Dag instructed tersely.
“We’ll need both.”
She skittered off wordlessly. Dag knelt by Hod’s right knee, and let both hands, real and sputtering-ghostly, hover over it. Absent gods, I shouldn’t be attempting this. A quick ground match, to slow the internal bleeding—the joint was already swollen tight against the fabric of Hod’s trousers—to dull the blazing nerves…Dag’s right knee screamed in sympathy. He gritted his teeth and ignored the ground-echo. Hod stopped howling and just gasped, staring up wild-eyed at Dag.
In a few minutes that seemed much longer, the men had Hod laid out on a blanket and his trousers off, an operation he tried to resist and that made him cry some more, though whether from pain or shame Dag was not sure. He apparently owned no underdrawers; Tanner dropped a blanket over his nether parts. All four wagon-lanterns and the new fire, bless Fawn, laid golden light on the unpleasant sight of the ruined joint, bulging, mottled, and already dark with blood beneath the shiny skin. Shards of bone pressed against the skin from the inside, and each of Hod’s shudders threatened to push one through.
“Can you do anything, Lakewalker?” asked Tanner.
“’Course he can!” asserted Whit valiantly. “I’ve seen him mend broken glass!”
“This is bad,” said Dag. “The kneecap’s floating in about six pieces, and one tendon is nearly torn through. This needs a lot more than splinting and rest.” I shouldn’t even be thinking about this without another medicine maker to guard me from groundlock, or worse. There’s good reasons they work in pairs. Forty miles to the closest other Lakewalkers tonight, down the road to the ferry camp at Pearl Riffle. Eighty miles round-trip. Not even Copperhead could do it, even if a real medicine maker would come out for an injured farmer, an event so unlikely that it would make some kind of history.
“Is he gonna cut off my leg?” sobbed Hod. “Don’ let him go cuttin’ on me! Can’t work, nobody’ll give me money, can’t go back, Hopper’ll beat me again if I go back…”
Hopper? Oh, Hod’s tent-brother—brother-in-law, Dag corrected himself. Some tent-brother.
“Hurts,” wept Hod. No one doubted him.
“Dag…?” said Fawn in a small, uncertain voice. “Can you…do anything?” She made a little gesture toward his left arm. “Any groundwork?”
A simple ground reinforcement was not going to be enough here, and Dag had, absent gods knew, no prior affinity with this boy the way he did with Fawn to give him subtle routes into his body and ground. He looked into Fawn’s huge, dark, scared, trusting eyes. Swallowed. And said, “I can try.”
He settled down cross-legged by Hod’s right knee, stretched his back, which popped, and bent again. Tanner and Mape, kneeling on either side of the boy, looked at him fearfully. “How hard should we hold him down?” asked Tanner, and “Should he have a leather strap to bite?” asked Mape.
This isn’t some farmer bonesetter’s bloody amputation, blight it! Dag shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.” If it was going to work at all, that is. He brought his right hand and left…the sight of his useless hook suddenly irritated him immensely, and he undid the straps of its harness and cast it aside. Try again. Right hand hovering over left…stump. Come on, come on you blighted ghost thing, come out, get in there. Hod was whimpering, staring up at him in overwhelming horror. His terror beat on Dag in hot waves. I have to open to this ungodly mess of a child. One breath, two, three—Hod’s breath slowed and Dag’s sped, until their chests rose and fell in synchrony. Right hand over left, stroking, coaxing…and then it was there, invisible ground projection, sinking down slowly past Hod’s skin into the broken flesh and its swirling, agitated ground.
Dag grasped the ground of the shattered bone fragments. His fleshly hand darted to the uninjured knee, to test and trace the song of its wholeness. Like that. Just like that. Sing it so. Dag began a low humming under his breath, far from musical, but he could feel the power in it. Fragments shifted, moved beneath the tight skin…
This was nothing like so simple as welding a glass bowl back together, amorphous and uniform; these structures hid more structures inside them, going down and down and in and in. But this little edge might hook again to that, that to the other, this torn blood vessel find its mated end, and gently, so delicately, kiss and make up. Minute after minute, fragment after fragment. His groundsense was wholly concentrated on the puzzle before him; the world outside both their skins could have cracked open wide with the roar of a thousand thunders and Dag would not have noticed. This vessel and that splinter and that one and that one…This was why medicine makers worked with partners for deep healing. Somebody anchored outside had to be able to break into the fascination. Lest you keep spiraling down and in and down and in and not ever come up and out again.
I can’t do it all. I have to stop before I spend myself broke. Patch and tie, and let it heal the rest of the way itself—even real medicine makers do it that way. Get out, old patroller, while you still can. He’d thought nothing could be harder than matching his ground with Hod’s, until he came to unmatch it again. He sensed Hod’s chest rise, and deliberately broke the rhythm of his breath with the boy’s. Let go, old patroller. Get out of here before you hurt your fool self. Let go.
He blinked his eyes open on firelight and lantern light, and knew himself sinfully lucky not to be groundlocked. I overdid it, oh, I sure did. Dag drew a long, long breath, and awareness of his own body returned to him at last.
Unfortunately.
Except that Fawn had three blankets wrapped around his shoulders before the second shuddering shiver shook him, and a basin thrust in his lap before his stomach heaved, and a cup of hot water held steadily to lips like cold clay. He took several grateful gulps, only spilling a little in his ague-like shakes. The hot liquid met his ascending dinner and forced it back down, and his stomach didn’t try again. “Guh,” said Dag.
“Don’t try to talk,” said Fawn, and explained over her shoulder to someone, “This happened the last time. He goes all cold and sick for a while, but then he comes out of it.” Her worried eyes added to him, I hope.
Dag found his voice at last, and mumbled, “Fawn, Whit, find two strong slats and some ties of some kind, cloth strips or whatever. Make Hod splints down each side of his leg like a bonesetter’s. Tie above and below the knee, firm but not tight. Keep it straight and still. It’s still going to be swollen up, and it has a lot of mending yet to do on its own. Blankets, something, get him warm, keep him warm. He can’t walk on it yet.”
“He’s going to walk?” said someone, in a voice caught between awe and disbelief.