Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Theo charged across the bridge like a wolf protecting its den. He looked back, ensuring Manos still followed. Breyer and Fee not far behind. When they reached the south tower, Helaina lay in the grass, trembling. He had felt her distress; deep in his gut he had heard that inner call.
Go to her. Now!
He’d been bitten and gored, suffering horrible wounds in these mountains, yet the sound of her screams was more agonizing than all of those combined. He would never forgive himself if she was harmed, if she was taken like so many others.
What was he thinking, putting her out here?
He saw a swirl of what looked to be dark fog. It had dissipated by the time he reached Helaina. Her shadows.
Aaron was on the ground, barely breathing while he lay propped in Helaina’s arms.
“Manos, what did he see?” Theo muttered.
The mind reader looked at his captain with calculated calm. “He didn’t see it coming. His memory is just blood in the dark. Agatha being ripped away into the night.” Manos turned away, horror etched on his face. “She’s gone.”
Helaina’s trembling fingers stroked the hair of the surviving soldier as Breyer ripped his shirt open, exposing his chest.
Please, don’t let it be too late.
She mentally itemized his symptoms. Open chest wound. Short of breath. Breathing rapid and shallow. One of Aaron’s arms was shredded into thick bands. There was bone missing, only muscle filleted at his side. His remaining hand still gripped his heaving chest.
There had to be something she could do. She tried to conjure one of those medical texts she’d read in her mind, recall anything Madge taught her that might help.
“Call for Lionel!” Fee said to Manos, placing her long fingers over Aaron’s chest to stifle the oozing.
Helaina’s muscles went from rigid to relaxed. That’s right, they had a powerful healer here. He had brought her back from the brink, he could do the same for Aaron.
“And get Callum,” Fee added with such pleading in her eyes it made Helaina’s body grow taut again. Her aloof demeanor was wholly gone.
Manos looked at Theodon with pure helplessness. “Lionel left for the northern peak this morning. He can’t possibly get here in time.”
Oh gods.
Theo scanned the darkness, sword in hand. Standing guard in case one of the creatures returned to finish the job.
Aaron stared up at the stars, as if resigned that death was coming.
Helaina exhaled deeply. No, no more death. She would not accept this.
He was sweating and pale, nearly all blood drained from his face. His lips were moving. Helaina had to tilt her head so her ear was nearly touching his lips to hear him.
“I—I can’t breathe.”
Helaina examined him again, her hands covered in gore. “A belt. I need a belt or a piece of clothing. Anything we can tie in a knot or tighten.”
Without hesitating, Fee loosened her armor and pulled the thin white shirt from under her leathers, leaving nothing but a banded fabric around her slim chest.
“A stick—a thick one,” Helaina commanded.
Breyer ran toward the forest, the scorn she had worn earlier long gone.
She came back with the requested item as Helaina began tying the shirt around the shredded limb.
She placed the stick between her teeth as she wrapped and tied the shirt as tightly as she could, creating a tourniquet around the injury.
“Manos, go,” Theodon ordered. The mind reader turned and ran.
Helaina placed the stick flush with the fabric and knotted the shirt again, holding the stick in place with Breyer’s help. She created a crank to tighten the vise around the severed flesh. She rotated it. Once, twice, three times. The pooling blood lessened, then finally stopped.
“I need someone to hold this in place.”
Theodon sank down beside them. Eyes still scanning the distance, he took hold of the tourniquet until Helaina had set it firmly in place with another knot.
Aaron was unconscious now, but his heart was beating.
“The gash in his chest is letting blood pool where it shouldn’t. We need to drain it. But we can’t do it here. It’s not safe, we need supplies. He needs an infirmary.”
Theodon nodded toward the fae. They didn’t need a verbal order. Fee and Breyer picked up Aaron in unison and began sprinting back to the cave entrance.
Helaina rose to follow, but after only a few steps, she stumbled, her leg giving out from underneath her. Theo caught her, swinging her up and over his shoulder without breaking his stride.
He was surprisingly gentle when he lowered her to her feet inside the infirmary, one hand on her hip, the other delicately bracing her back.
For once, she was grateful to him. There was no way she could have kept up, and every minute counted.
She took a moment to breathe in his deep scent of rain and leather.
It calmed her, covering the tang of blood in the air, at least until they separated.
On nearly every wall, there were shelves stocked with supplies.
Jars filled with what looked to be different lotions and salves, bandages, and braces.
Her eyes found an entire separate area of sharp tools and instruments.
Aaron lay on a slab of stone before her, the makeshift tourniquet still holding strong.
Manos ran in behind them. “We sent the fliers for Lionel. They’ll be back by sunup.”
“Does Callum know?” Fee looked up at Manos again.
“He’s still out, I couldn’t wake him. I tried.”
Fee seemed mournful and desperate.
The injured soldier began to murmur incomprehensible words. His chest wound still gurgled and oozed; the puncture went straight through his shoulder and out the other side.
Helaina wasn’t sure what had caused it, a blade or a claw maybe? She snatched a hardy bandage from a neatly formed stack. “Hold this firm over the bleeding.”
While the fae did as they were told, she looked to the shelves of tools. To her surprise—and dread—she found the instruments she was searching for.
She exhaled deeply, trying to steady her nerves. “It’s just like Madge’s procedural manuals. How hard can it be?” she whispered.
She reached for a hollow metal tube the diameter of her smallest finger, a thin razor-sharp blade, and a large glass beaker.
“What are you doing?” Theodon’s grave look gave her pause.
“I told you. We need to drain the blood.” She hurriedly assembled the equipment on a nearby table. “His lung is collapsing from all the fluid. If we get rid of the blood, the lung expands and he can breathe. I can buy us time until Lionel gets here . . . I think.”
“You think?” The captain looked to Manos.
His lieutenant hunched his shoulders upward. “She has some experience, it seems, training . . . she read some medical books—”
“Get out of my head!” Helaina snapped. She heard the audible click of his teeth as Manos closed his mouth, and she began working to remove Aaron’s pants, scanning for other injuries.
“Tell me you’ve at least done this before?”
Helaina hesitated. “I saw it once . . . on a cadaver.”
“The person was already dead?”
“It’s how the healers learn.” She tried to move past him.
Theodon planted himself between her and Aaron, blocking her path. “No, you’re not doing this. You’ll kill him.”
“We’re killing him just standing here doing nothing!” She could tell she struck a nerve, because everyone in that room grew quiet.
“Look, I don’t hear any of you coming up with ideas. Lionel isn’t here. I’m all you’ve got.”
Theodon remained silent and unmoving.
“Are you going to keep wasting time, or are you going to help me?”
They all looked among each other with uncertainty.
It was Theodon who made the first move, stepping aside, making way for Helaina to pass. “Tell us what you need.”
She took a deep breath and gave a nod. She grabbed a labeled bottle from the shelf. “Cover his chest in this and hold him down.”
Theodon nodded and proceeded to douse Aaron’s naked torso in the strongly scented alcohol. As soon as it touched his skin, Aaron woke up with a howling scream.
“Aaron! Aaron! Look at me.” Helaina tried to use the most comforting voice she could summon.
His screams died down.
“Aaron, I need to cut you—just once, right here.” She pointed to the side of his ribs below the pit of his arm. His anguished sob was strangled and dry. He had no tears left.
“I can’t promise it won’t hurt, but it’s going to help you breathe, okay?” She made sure her voice sounded confident and sure.
He fluttered his long eyelashes open to look at her.
“Do it,” he muttered.
Fee took hold of his face and cradled it to her bare stomach while Theodon held down his legs. Helaina wasn’t sure if Aaron realized he only had one arm left, but she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.
Fee squeezed the boy’s remaining hand as hard as she could.
Wasting no more time, Helaina swiftly made an incision.
His shrieks turned wild as he writhed in his comrades’ hold. Breyer jumped in to help. Helaina was shocked it was taking all three of them to hold Aaron down in this state.
“Keep him still!” she ordered.
“His power is brute strength, girl, we’re trying,” Breyer shouted through gritted teeth.
Helaina dropped the knife and began inserting the thin tube into the cut she’d created.
Aaron’s anguished screams grew louder. She continued advancing the tube between his ribs.
The three warriors strained to keep his body down.
He writhed and bucked until his energy finally faded and slipped into unconsciousness once more.
The room went quiet again.
Then they all heard it, a deep, even breath from Aaron’s lips.
They looked down at the contraption angling off the slab of rock. Blood was indeed trickling down the tube and into the collection beaker.
“It worked.” Helaina was completely stunned.
She turned back to the captain, who regarded her, his features actually softening with relief and gratitude.
“Get Callum,” Theodon ordered Breyer. “I don’t care what you have to do. Wake him up and bring him here.”
The fiery fae beauty leaped up from the table. Before she exited, she turned back. “What do I tell him?”
Theodon looked right at Helaina as he answered.
“Tell him his brother is injured . . .”
Helaina’s eyes flared. That was how the boy had looked so familiar. Aaron was a younger version of Callum.
“Tell him he might not have much time left,” Theodon added gravely.