Chapter 40 Lukas
40
Lukas
He came to with a start to find Karolis bending over him. ‘Lukas, are you still with us? I need your help!’ Where in the name of heaven were they? A sharp rise to one side, a ravine to the other … ‘Don’t try to move yet,’ Karolis said. ‘We’ve fallen onto a sort of shelf, a thing that wasn’t here before, and Matiss is stuck. Sit up slowly, let me help you.’
He could sit; that was a good thing. But they were … He looked about. They were in an impossible spot. He must have been knocked out. What had happened? He couldn’t remember falling, let alone all of them falling, though it felt as if he had new bruises. Matiss was groaning in pain; he was wedged between the branches of a small, spiky bush that looked barely strong enough to support his weight. Aleksis was trying to cut him free, while standing on the same unlikely shelf not far off. Lukas looked up. A long way to the top. Long and steep. And … His heart lurched. He forced the words out. ‘Where’s Stasya?’
The pause before Karolis spoke told its own tale, as did the way he kept his voice to a murmur. ‘We don’t know. Right now, we need to free Matiss, then try to get him up to the top. I think he’s dislocated his shoulder. It’ll be almost impossible for him to climb. But I can’t deal with the injury down here.’
Stasya. Fallen to her death. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t be gone forever. Lukas made himself stand, though his body hurt all over. Made himself speak. ‘I’ll carry Matiss’s pack up, then climb back down. It’ll take all three of us to get him to the top.’
‘Good. See if you can get the pack over to the safe side. Take care on the way, we need you.’ Briefly, Karolis put a hand on Lukas’s shoulder; it was the recognition of a bond between brothers. ‘Aleks, what can I do to help?’
Lukas was halfway up when a tawny butterfly appeared, fluttering in to land on his arm as he attempted a particularly tough haul between the awkward purchases this cliff allowed. He swallowed another curse. The butterfly flew upward, just far enough to show him there was a good handhold he hadn’t spotted before. He stretched for the projecting stone, positioned his right foot, dragged himself up. The butterfly moved again, hovering over a crack where he might possibly wedge the toes of his left foot to support the next effort. It moved its wings as if to say, Come on, then , and he did so. Any help was welcome, though the thought of trying to get Matiss up here appalled him.
Now the butterfly fluttered away from him, up to the top, then came down again. Was it trying to make him fall now?
A voice from up above. ‘Lukas? There’s a good handhold about an arm’s length above you to your left. Take your time.’ Stasya sounded as if she was crying. Crying, but being a leader. Doing her job. His own tears had begun the moment he heard her voice. She was alive. By all that was wonderful, she was alive.
‘Pass the pack to me,’ she said as he reached the top.
Somehow, he managed to get the thing off his back without dropping it. Could that butterfly have been Flip? There was no sign of dog or bird now, but he was in no doubt that something had helped him. But there’d been those shadow-men in the mist, pulling them down, wanting them to die. Crazy. The whole thing was crazy. It made no sense at all. But never mind that. Stasya was here. She was safe. Right now, that was all that mattered.
‘I’m going back down,’ he said, allowing himself one long look at her face, seeing the tears, knowing that however hard this had been for the rest of them, it was doubly so for her. ‘Matiss is injured. Stay here, we’ll need you to help get him up.’ And he would have said something more, but he heard Matiss groaning and headed back down instead. This was too big for words.
There was no time to speak of what might or might not have happened, or how it was they had all survived. Matiss was in terrible pain. The awkward climb to safety had been a nightmare, his screams fit to curdle the blood. It would have made sense to get right away from this cursed spot, to walk to that nearest tract of forest and find a place of shelter before doing anything else. But the big man’s face was a mask of suffering. What had to be done must be done here, now, at the end of the ridgeway where there was enough level ground for them to spread out some bedding and take off their packs. All of them were exhausted and shocked. But there would be no resting for a while yet.
‘His shoulder joint’s out of place,’ Karolis explained, fishing items from his pack while Lukas and Aleks settled Matiss on the bedding, doing their best to keep him calm. ‘We need to get it back in position quickly. Ever helped with something like this before, Stasya?’
‘Broken limbs, yes; but not this. Tell me what to do and I’ll help as best I can.’
Karolis gave her an assessing glance, then spoke in a murmur, with his back to the injured man. ‘I want you kneeling beside him, on his good side, and keeping him as still as you can. This is going to hurt him a lot, and he’ll probably fight against it. Stay strong and steady. Once I get the joint back in place the acute pain will die down, perhaps quite quickly.’
Stasya moved into position without a word.
‘One hand on his left shoulder, and a strong hold on the left arm. I’ll be exerting a lot of force on the right arm while I manipulate the joint back into place. Keep hold no matter what. We don’t want to have to repeat this.’ Somehow, Karolis was managing to sound steady, calm, confident. He crouched down beside the injured man, who was moaning in pain. ‘Matiss, I won’t lie to you. This is going to hurt like the devil, but it has to be done. I’ll be as quick as I can, and it’ll help if you can stay still. Lukas, we may need you to help hold him. Keep alert, everyone, and do as I say. We all work together, yes?’ He bent to take off his boots, surprising Lukas.
No words could truly capture what followed. Later, Lukas remembered how quiet they had been coming up the mountain; what care they had taken to avoid raising their voices above a murmur, lest pursuers should hear them. Stasya knelt by Matiss, holding him firmly and murmuring words of comfort. Karolis, standing on Matiss’s other side, took hold of the injured arm, stuck his bare foot, toes first, into Matiss’s armpit, and pulled hard. The big man let out a shout that rang far, far across Heartwood Forest. Birds rose from the trees nearby, screaming in response. Still pulling on the arm, Karolis performed a twisting, turning manoeuvre, waited a moment, then relaxed his hold. Matiss released a great sigh. It was as if the tension left his body almost instantly. A kind of magic, Lukas thought. Or as close to it as you could get.
‘It’s done,’ Karolis said. ‘Just lie there a while, friend. You’ll need that arm in a sling before you move. Lukas, you might see if there’s something we can use. Anyone want to give up a shirt? He’ll need some strapping around the chest, too, to keep the arm safe as it heals. I’ll prepare a draught for him. Painful experience, that.’
Matiss put his good hand over his eyes and muttered, ‘Great heavens, man. That felt … like being … ripped apart. Thought I might … pass out …’
Karolis was carefully measuring something from a small bottle into a cup, then topping it up from a water skin. ‘Lukas, help him hold that arm across his chest, bent like this. Go gently. Now help him sit up. Slowly does it. Yes, good. Just sit awhile, Matiss. Breathe. And when you’re ready, drink this. One sip at a time. Try to keep still while I get the sling organised.’
‘First … torture … then … poison,’ Matiss said, with the ghost of a smile.
‘No poison, just good herbs. I don’t think we’re ready to talk about what just happened. But we can’t move on for a while. Stasya, could you manage a story? Then, when Matiss is ready, we’ll find a safer spot to camp.’ Karolis glanced at Aleksis, now crouched by Matiss’s side. ‘We can’t go far. Certainly not before everyone’s had a night’s sleep.’
‘Karolis?’ Matiss croaked. ‘Thank you. Thank … all of you.’
‘No need for thanks. Just recover soon, will you? Nobody makes tea the way you do.’