John didn’t attempt to push his will against the talisman. He knew that would simply overpower and destroy it. Instead he tried to pull at it. Gently, he coaxed its warmth into him. The fine carvings glowed a pale gold.
John felt heat and breath. He tasted the faint salt of a man’s skin. A sound like a supplicant gasp brushed over his ear. The intense ache in John’s thigh grew warm and then eased. John pulled at that warm strength a little more.
The talisman shuddered against John’s palm. The soft, whispered gasp seemed to grow more ragged until it took on the tremor of a sob. Slightly alarmed, John quickly dropped the talisman back into his pocket.
John had no idea of what to make of that, but he felt better – at least strong enough to endure the climb up into the hayloft. He went to where the saddle blankets hung. The pungent odor of tahldi sweat emanated from them.
Then John heard someone outside the stable doors. He stepped back into one of the empty stalls. Moonlight poured into the stable and then Saimura leaned in through the open door. He held his rifle at the ready and glared into the darkness of the stable.
"It’s me, Saimura," John whispered.
"Jahn?" Saimura said his name as if he couldn’t quite believe it was him. "What are you doing in here? What did you do with my talisman?" There was a tremor in his voice. John wondered suddenly if he’d somehow injured Saimura when he’d tried to use the talisman.
"I tried to use it. I’m hurt," John replied. "But I didn’t know what I was doing."
"Where are you?"
"Right here." John stepped out from the stall.
"Why are you in the stable?" Saimura peered through the darkness at John. John moved closer so that a little of the light from outside fell on his face. Saimura stepped back at the sight of him but then stopped. He lowered his rifle.
"I didn’t think I should be seen by everyone in the hostel. Not looking like this," John said.
"You’re right," Saimura said. His expression was still oddly drawn. "I hadn’t thought about that. Sorry."
"It’s fine," John said. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know what he thought was fine. "I could use a blanket and something to eat if you could manage it."
"You look like you need bandages and stitching as well." Saimura started to turn away, then paused. "Will you be all right until I get back? I should only be a few minutes…"
"I’ll be fine. Thanks."
Saimura stepped back and closed the door. John considered sitting down on one of the tack benches. He didn’t know if he’d be able to stand again if he did. He gazed up at the beams of the roof. For the first time he noticed the clusters of birds up there, huddling close to each other. Something scuttled along the edge of the rafter. A weasel, John realized. They were such adaptive animals.
Yellow lamplight flashed through the crack beneath the stable doors. Instinctively, John drew back into the shadows of the stall. Saimura came through the door carrying a lamp. Lafi’shir followed, holding blankets and a leather case. Saimura pulled the stable door shut.
When John emerged from the stall, the lamplight felt like a spotlight as it fell across him, illuminating the full extent of his bloody state. Saimura stared at him in silence. The lamp shook in his hand, making shadows jump up the stable walls. Lafi’shir’s eyes widened enough for John to see the whites.
"I didn’t want to just walk into the hostel." John moved closer to them. Saimura hung the lamp on a wall hook and stared intently at John’s injuries.
Briefly, John feared that Saimura might bolt from the stable. But then he seemed to regain his composure. He walked to John’s side.
Lafi’shir followed Saimura. He glanced over John’s neck and thigh, then shook his head.
"How the hell are you still standing up?" Lafi’shir asked.
"If I lie down I don’t think I’ll get back up."
"Lay the blankets down for him," Saimura said.
Lafi’shir scowled at the stable floor.
"Just a minute." Lafi’shir picked up the saddle blankets John had considered earlier and tossed them on the floor. He spread the finer bedding over the saddle blankets.
"I’m going to need warm water," Saimura said.
Lafi’shir set the leather case down beside Saimura and left the stable.
"Jahn." Saimura addressed him softly, soothingly, as if he were speaking to a wary animal. John smiled at him.
"I know I’m in bad shape, but I’m not going to panic. What do you want me to do?"
"Let me get you undressed." Saimura sounded a little more like himself now, calmer and sympathetic. "I need to see the extent of your wounds."
John nodded. He didn’t try to remove his own clothes. Saimura stripped his coat and thick snow pants off with the gentle efficiency of a man well used to treating the injured. Just as he finished, Lafi’shir returned with an enamel basin and a second lamp.
Saimura then peeled John’s shirt off his back. John felt the dried blood clots pull away. Fresh blood trickled down his back and over his bare buttocks. Deep pain seemed to wrench up from his bones. He shuddered.
"Can you keep standing?" Saimura asked.
John didn’t trust his voice. He nodded.
"Are you sure," Saimura asked.
John nodded again. He needed to know what the Rifter was capable of. He needed to prove to himself that he could do more than just survive pain and exhaustion, but that he could take strength from it.
"All right." Saimura whispered incantations over the basin of steaming water and then washed John’s wounds. John expected the pain to intensify as Saimura rinsed the blood and torn flesh from him. Instead the water dulled the hurt. It smelled sweet and John wondered if Lafi’shir had poured yellowpetal into it.
John glanced to Lafi’shir, who sat on one of the weathered benches. He stared at John with both of his hands buried deep in the pockets of his heavy coat. John wasn’t sure if it was an effect of the harsh lamplight, but Lafi’shir’s face seemed deathly white.
"This may hurt," Saimura said from behind John. John heard him open his leather case. He glanced down and caught the flash of polished blades, needles and forceps against the dark luster of the leather. John lifted his head and stared up into the rafters. He tried to pick out the shape of the weasel again.
Saimura pushed something into his torn shoulder.
John choked on a cry. A rush of rage surged through him. Crumbling mountains and black, shattered skies flickered in John’s thoughts. The air shuddered. John clenched his jaws and drew the furious, churning power back into himself.
His pain receded. His fatigue seemed to lift.
He felt Saimura pause.
"Just a few more," Saimura told him.
John simply nodded in response and continued to focus all of his will against the reflex to lash out in pain.
One by one and in total silence, Saimura pulled the bullets from John’s wounds. John thought he could feel Saimura’s hands shaking, but he didn’t think too hard about it. He concentrated on his own anger, restraining it.
Saimura stitched the bullet wounds in John’s shoulder and back closed. Then he rinsed John’s back again with the warm yellowpetal water.
"I don’t think your neck or thigh will need stitches." Saimura wiped his needles down with an acrid, red fluid and then replaced them in the leather case.
"I feel better already," John said.
"You should rest," Saimura told him. As soon as he’d packed away his medical supplies he withdrew. John turned back to thank him only to catch an expression that was as much horror as exhaustion on Saimura’s face. Then it was gone.
John wondered what could have caused such a change in Saimura’s demeanor. Had he sensed the fury crackling in the air as he’d removed the bullets from John’s body? But then Saimura had been acting strangely since he had first found John in the stable. The sight of his torn body might have simply overwhelmed Saimura.
Then John remembered Saimura’s strained demand to know what he’d done to his talisman. It had trembled and whimpered when he had drawn strength from it and Saimura had found him in the stable only minutes after that.