In the middle it felt like a knife edge separating heat from cold, cutting right through the center of her body.
Her throat was tightly constricted as she lay there, unable to do much more than just stare at the sky that hung above her. Sometimes she saw it, sometimes she didn't, and most of the time she didn't know the difference anymore.
There comes a time where pain and discomfort begin to fade away, the mind compartmentalizing it in an attempt to save what little might be left of one’s sanity. For Elan, that point was reached just before dawn on the second morning, the cold ground under her back now only numbing her shoulders and buttocks as she stopped trying to fight the pain.
The heat of the sun brought no relief this time, not even a momentary return to warmth as the scorching heat of her burns continued to pour off her skin like an open flame. So this time the sun brought only light and pain, but both of those were far in the background for her now, so she mostly just ignored it.
So it was that by the high heat of midday, Elan was so far gone in the recesses of her own mind that she didn't notice the shadow that fell across her face. Nor did she feel the hands that pulled her wrists, blades and all, from the hard-packed ground, then followed it with her ankles before gently pulling her off the ground completely and carrying her back into the ancient caverns next to where she had been staked out.
Water in her mouth and on her lips was what woke her from the depths, bringing her sputtering back as she accidently breathed some of the precious liquid into her lungs.
"Careful, child." A familiar, yet new, voice spoke from the shadows above her.
Shadows? Is it night? Elan tried to think clearly, but found that she couldn't. The water pouring down on her face distracted her as she tried to greedily gulp it down.
"Small sips," the voice said again, and she felt something cradle her head. "Yer in a bad way, child. I'd dare to say that someone doesn't much like you."
The innocuous delivery of the words caused her to choke on the water, eyes opening fully for the first time since she'd been moved. Elan blinked away the encrusted tears and filth that clung to her eyelids and saw a rough-hewn face looking down at her, an expression of concern lit behind the dark eyes and filthy beard.
"W...who...?"
"My name's Kaern, child. Now be silent and drink," the face ordered her. "And after that, rest. Ye'll not be getting back to yer feet any time too soon, I'll warrant."
Normally Elanthielle might have argued, tried to get up, or at least tried to talk to the man she didn't know, but at that moment she had no strength to do anything but meekly follow his orders and drink. When she had drunk her fill, then she lay back and rested, her consciousness fleeing the moment she closed her eyes.
*****
The man named Kaern looked down at the first other being he had seen in many years, wondering at the fact that she was still alive. The sun's burns had just begun to fester, her skin was bubbling from the cell-destroying radiation that had been poured into it, and he knew that untreated it might scar her for life.
He sighed, climbing to his feet, and shook his head.
There was a reason why he hadn't seen any other beings for years. He had little interest in doing so, after all. However, she had met him in the Dreaming, walking a Quest under her own power. That alone made her interesting, despite the fact that she was only walking her Death Quest.
He left the Ancient Redoubt, leaving the young girl lying on the cold, glassy smooth floor. She would be alright there while he fetched what was needed. The chill would bring down her fever, with some luck. Hopefully he would be back before her blood loss once more dropped her core body temperature to dangerous levels.
The sun was still high in the sky, which made things easier for Kaern as he tracked back along the path he had taken to find the errant child at a dead run. He'd passed a patch of cacti near a subsurface spring only a couple miles back, and it would only take him a short run to reach.
When he got there, he nodded with satisfaction, noting that they were indeed the type he needed. A few swipes with his long knife cut the plants down, and he spent a few minutes yanking their spines and chewing idly on the sharp and tough needles while surveying the site with his eyes.
He left the cut pieces of vegetation in place when he found the second thing he wanted and walked over to a slight indentation in the sand, being careful not to get too close. Digging out the surface sand was a matter of another few minutes’ work until he made it down to the sifting, damp dirt that lay below.
The spring was about where he expected, a dangerous, slow-moving bubble of water that could trap a man if he were unwary. The cacti were feeding off of it, lying out at the very edge of the spring's reach. In closer there was the start of thicker vegetation, but nothing substantial, so Kaern knew that this water source was a recent one, or perhaps an intermittent spring that took time to build sufficient pressure deep down under the ground and only came to the surface on occasion.
Either case made little difference, though. He dug deep enough to get open water and refilled his water bladders while he eyed the surrounding area carefully for signs of danger or game. The cacti had been missing needles down low, along their base, so he knew that there were some of the scrawny desert rabbits nearby, but they weren't particularly impressive eating.
Still, they were better than nothing, and the dried strips of meat and berries he carried would only do him for a few days at best.
I'll lay some snares before I go back, he decided, noting a few likely places to do so as well as some local materials he could use. I'll have to come back tonight to check them, though, or the scavengers will get the meat.
When the bladders were full, he carried them over to the cacti and dropped them down beside the harvest he had cut, then gathered up some of the twisted hide from his gear and dug around the sands until he found a rock of a respectable size to make a deadfall trap.
After he'd finished that, he set up three others and returned to gather up the rest of his gear, water, and the cacti he'd cut.
The sun was well on its way down to the horizon when he set out back toward the Ancient Redoubt where he had left the injured child. As he walked, Kaern briefly wondered what her story was. She was very young to have created the kind of hatred he saw in the injuries inflicted on her. Normally demons and bandits were less calculating in their inflicting of torture.
There were exceptions, of course, but those of that sort of twisted mentality tended to prefer staying closer to their primary sources of prey and amusements. It would be rare for them to come out this far from what currently passed for civilization, and if they had, then why didn't they stay close to enjoy the child's suffering?
Kaern shelved those thoughts as the Redoubt came back into sight, his ground-eating stride bringing him back to it in less than half an hour of walking.
****
This time Elan awoke to a cool, soothing feeling on her face, and her eyes flickered open to see the same scraggly-bearded man leaning over her. She tried to shift and move away, but he easily held her in place as he brought something to her face and let it slide down her cheek.
"Don't move," he ordered her gruffly. "Ye need this."
She stopped trying to move then, unable to do anything effective anyway, and let him finish sliding the thing over her face, forehead, lips, and neck. Wherever it passed, the heat from her burns was soaked up for a time and she felt almost human again.