Do you mean signs of local wild men or signs and portents in the skies and the earthly compass?
Velindre saved Kheda from having to answer as she opened her eyes and yawned. She sat up abruptly as she registered the daylight slipping down the cave entrance, digging her fingers into her stiff neck. 'I thought we were going to try to get back to the Zaise before dawn.'
'You needed to sleep yourselves out.' Kheda was unrepentant. 'I learned from Dev not to risk encountering
any magic-wielding enemy with a half-exhausted wizard at my side.'
Their voices roused the younger mage. He moved sleepily before coming fully awake and instinctively clutching at his stump. 'Ah, cowshit and cockleshells.'
Kheda saw pain carving a deep cleft between the mage's brows. 'Let me have a look at your leg.'
'It'll be alright.' Naldeth spoke through clenched teeth.
'He's a healer,' Velindre said acerbically. 'Let him see it.'
'You can help me shell breakfast.' Risala tossed another rejected nut into the depths of the cave.
'My pleasure,' replied the magewoman dryly. 'Once I've attended to my own more immediate needs.'
'Can you help me up,' Naldeth asked roughly, 'before I piss myself like some cripple?'
As Velindre stepped past Kheda in the narrow confines of the cave, the warlord offered the mage his arm. Naldeth gripped his forearm and Kheda hauled him upright. Jaw clenched and sweat beading his forehead, the younger man clambered awkwardly out of the cave behind Velindre.
Risala concentrated on shelling more nuts, the only sound in the cave the sharp splitting. 'Have you any thoughts on what we'll do once we've got back to the ship?' she asked at length, not meeting Kheda's eye. 'Will we sail for home?'
Kheda hesitated. 'If we agree that's for the best.'
He saw the old woman looking inquisitively at him and then back at Risala and fell silent.
What would you say, if you could say anything we could understand?
Some moments later, he heard Velindre returning, her voice terse and practical. 'There are enough uncertainties about wielding magic in this place. You don't need the
additional distraction of physical pain, not if it can be relieved, even a little.'
'All right, very well,' Naldeth snapped as he slid down the cave's awkward entrance slope and resigned himself to unbuckling the straps around his waist and thigh. 'I'm not used to walking for so long, not over such rough ground.'
'No, I don't suppose you are.' Kheda gently pulled the metal leg aside and looked keenly at the dust- and sweat-stained trousering wadded around Naldeth's stump.
No blood; that's a mercy. A sore might not ulcerate in this dry heat but if it took an infection, I don't know what we'd do. I couldn't cut the thigh bone any shorter without physic or proper instruments and I doubt we could nurse him through such an ordeal, even if we got back to theZaise.
Velindre considerately turned her back and sat down next to the old woman. She watched her deftly cracking the nuts for a moment and then took a handful of the pile closest to her. Similarly averting her eyes, Risala pulled the mouth of her leather sack wide to receive the green kernels as she began splitting her share of the ruddy shells apart.
Kheda carefully unwrapped the cotton. It stuck and Naldeth flinched. Kheda got out his dagger and looked up to see that Naldeth had blanched beneath his tan. 'I'm just going to slit the seams,' he assured him. 'And a little water will make this go easier.'
'Not out of some muddy hole,' Naldeth said roughly.
'No.' Kheda reached round for Risala's flask slung on his back. 'Our aged friend over there showed me roots that hoard rainwater from whatever wet season this place might have. Trust me, it'll be as clean as if it had been boiled. There are similar plants in the drier isles of the Archipelago's eastern reaches.'
'If you say so.' Naldeth didn't sound overly convinced.
Kheda deftly cut the trouser leg's seams and rapidly moistened the stuck cloth with a trickle of the precious water. 'Whoever doctored this for you did a good job,' he said with well-disguised relief as he laid bare the mage's stump.
Nevertheless, the white scarring where some unknown physician had sewn up the flap of skin to seal the amputation had split in a couple of places. Pale-pink flesh beneath had oozed a little clear fluid into the cotton. Above the scarring, the shrunken muscles of Naldeth's pallid thigh looked swollen and bruised where his weight had borne down into the leather cup concealed within the metal leg.
'What does she want?' Naldeth twitched a fold of cotton over his exposed mutilation and scowled past Kheda.
The warlord turned to see that the old woman had shifted so she could see what they were doing. 'There's no harm in her—' he began.
'Where are you going?' Risala's question went unanswered as the old woman stood up, brushing nut shells from the lap of her wrap, and scrambled out of the cave.
'Not far.' Her bitten fingernails proving inadequate for the task, Velindre was using the tip of her dagger to split the nuts. 'She's left her belongings.'
'And the food's in here.' Briskly, Kheda sliced a scrap of cleanish cotton from Naldeth's ruined trouser leg and moistened it to wipe away dust crusted along one scar. 'Do you have any nuts like those in the north? They're surprisingly sweet.'
'No.' Naldeth cleared his throat and strove for an even tone. 'I don't recall seeing anything like them.'
'Assuming we can eat this splendid breakfast without some wild men turning up to dig us out of this burrow like rats, what do we do then?' Velindre asked.
'Do you feel any wild wizard nearby?' Kheda looked around at her. 'Or a dragon?'
Velindre paused in shelling her nuts. 'No,' she said at length. 'Not anywhere close.'
'Do you?' Kheda glanced up at Naldeth as he continued cleaning the mage's scars.
'You don't want me working any magic while I'm in such discomfort.' Naldeth grimaced. 'We might as well light a beacon to let that skull-faced wizard know where we are.'
'What's she got there?' Risala frowned as the old woman reappeared at the cave mouth.
She made her way gingerly down the rocky slope, waving a handful of twigs each bearing a few withered leaves. Stripping off a few, she tucked them into her mouth and chewed for a moment. Then she bent down to take Kheda's hand and spat into his palm. The pulpy mess gave off a powerful odour.
'What is she doing?' Naldeth was revolted.
'I think she's trying to help.' Trying not to recoil from the stickiness in his hand, Kheda took a cautious sniff. 'It can't be poisonous if she's chewing it.' Familiar notes in the scent teased him but more were wholly unknown.
An astringent? It smells vaguely like one of the pastes that galley rowers use to dress their blisters.
The old woman made an impatient clucking sound with her tongue and bent stiffly to push Kheda's hand towards Naldeth's thigh.
'You're not putting that on me.' The mage shuffled backwards, alarmed.
Kheda took pity on him. 'No.' He twisted his hand out of the old woman's grasp, shaking his head. Her face fell pathetically as she stood upright, shoulders drooping with disappointment. Kheda tried to reassure her with a friendly smile as he took the twigs with their scant leaves
from her and handed them to Naldeth. 'But you can chew on a few of these and we'll use the pulp on your scars and bruises. It can't hurt and at very least it'll keep dirt out of the broken skin.'
Naldeth regarded the twigs with misgiving. 'Can't we just mash them up with some water?'
'We've scarcely enough water for drinking,' Kheda reminded him. 'Besides, it may be that spittle brings out some virtue in the leaves. That's the case with some Archipelagan ointments.'