Chapter 4: Dark and Stormy

The first snowfall heralded a great change — winter arrived with a bang. Up to the time of the first snow, we had only had rain twice in five weeks, and otherwise the sun had shone every day, though it had been cold. After the snow, the weather settled down to what Ferret called the winter pattern. Every few days, we would have a storm, which would last about a day, and drop some snow on us. Then it would fine up for a couple of days, and the sun would shine. From the day it first snowed, there was snow on the ground the whole time through to the end of winter. We were lucky, in our snug little valley, we continued to get regular sun, and it never got as cold as it did in some parts of the mountains.

My mood changed when the snow came. Although I still got up early, if the weather was good enough, to do the morning exercises with the squad, I was no longer filled with excitement for the new day. I wasn't sure why my mood changed. Not much had changed, but I had. I wasn't sad or down, but I was no longer on the incredible high I had been on up to that time.

Our mission got much harder when the snow came. The captain was already very concerned about this. In the beginning, there had been a small trickle of thugs making their way across the mountains in small groups, usually about four in each group. They had no field craft, and they hadn't expected to encounter any trouble in the mountains. Each time, the patrol that had found them had been able to ambush them with complete surprise, and we had not even had any injuries at all, until that big group of them had come through. They had also been taken by surprise, but since then, there had been nothing. While the men were happy, the captain was concerned that they had realised that we had closed the mountains.

The snow made quite a bit of difference to our tactics. Mainly, it made it easy to track men in the snow. But this cut both ways. While it was easier for us to track them, it made it impossible for us to hide our tracks, and less likely that we'd catch them by surprise. The snow made the captain's falcon even more important. It slept in the log hut, and spent each day high in the sky over the mountains searching for humans.

Each night, the squad sat around the fire in our log hut discussing tactics. The captain wanted to make as much as possible out of our better knowledge of the land. They knew the paths through the mountains, they had found their own paths, ones no one else would find, and they mapped out new patrols, secret ways they could use to catch anyone by surprise. There were caches of arrows all through the mountains.

All the squad practised with their bows every day, it was their preferred weapon. "Let them die at a distance" was one of the captain's mantras. The squad usually carried four weapons with them when they were on patrol: their long bow; a battleaxe, a hunting knife; and a stave. A few carried swords with them.

Scar had taken me under his wing, and he was teaching me to use a knife. He was teaching me close in knife work, very personal fighting. I argued that I wouldn't fight like that, but Scar told me that with my beauty, my utter desirability, I needed to know how to fight dirty, as a last resort for personal defence. I hit him for that, but he just laughed. So he taught me unarmed combat, how to use someone's strength against them, and how to finish someone off with a knife. I found that my inner sight gave the ability to predict what my opponent was going to do, and I learnt to defend myself well.

My inner sight was growing every day, though it made me tired to use it. If I wanted, I could feel everything that lived in the valley. More animals had moved into the valley as the weather got colder on the mountains, and some mornings one of the squad would go out hunting, in the direction I sent him. They usually came back with a kill for our evening meal.

Early one afternoon, I was laying in Whistle's arms when I felt something wrong. Someone in great pain was coming into the valley, and it was Drowsy. My heart dropped; as I had feared, one of the squad was seriously hurt.

I was waiting, ready, at the camp entrance when Nimble and Crunch carried Drowsy in on a litter. He was only barely conscious, and his clothes were soaked in blood down his right side. I got them to put him down just outside the log cabin, next to a small fire I had lit as I prepared.

As I cut his clothes off him, I asked Nimble what had happened. They had run into some thugs, and for the first time the thugs had been expecting trouble. They hadn't been fully caught by surprise, and one of them had managed to get an arrow away. It had hit Drowsy in this stomach a few inches from his right side. The arrow hadn't gone right through, and when Nimble had tried to pull it out, the head had broken off and got stuck inside.

Great. Nimble was covered in blood, so it must have been spurting out. I didn't like the look of this at all. It would've been nice if Nimble had left the arrow in — he was called Nimble because he wasn't, but the idea of running back here with Drowsy on a litter with an arrow poking out of him didn't sound very good either. Nimble had bandaged the wound by wrapping a dirty cloth tightly around his body, and blood was still running slowly out of the bandage, which was soaked. Drowsy was going into shock from the loss of blood.

I was very afraid that Drowsy would die from this wound. He had lots of blood loss, the arrow head — which was probably quite dirty — still inside him, and a stomach wound would mean it would be a while before he could eat, and any food or shit already inside him would get mixed up with his blood inside him. I thought how he had lain in my arms and told me about his little girls, waiting at home for him, how they loved him so much. I swore to myself that I would do anything to save him.

My first decision was whether to try and stop the bleeding right away, or whether I should try and get the arrow head out. I carefully lifted Nimble's bandage with a grimace, it was terribly dirty. The blood was no longer spurting out, but he was still bleeding briskly. I decided to try quickly for the arrow head. Before I could do that, I would have to sedate him. He was only barely conscious, but conscious enough to be a problem. I retrieved some hash and some wildberry leaves from my pouch. If the men had known I had hash... But what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Mixed with wildberry leaves, it had more potency as a sedative, I could put Drowsy's mind somewhere else. I put the leaves in a sleeping pipe, and put it to his mouth, making him breathe through it. While I was waiting for it to take effect, I prepared to look for the arrow head.

The real problem was how deep it was, and how much more damage I would do before I even decided whether I could get it. I asked Nimble, who was sitting watching, what angle the arrow had hit him. He showed me, it was heading towards his side a bit. I asked him how far in it broke off, and he showed me. I was a bit sceptical, actually, if it really was that far in, it would've come out the back. I rolled him over a bit to look, and there was nothing in his back. He only murmured a little when I moved him, so the hash had taken affect.

I asked Nimble and Whistle to hold him down, so that he wouldn't move, and then I lifted the bandage again. This time I removed it, I would replace it with a clean one of my own when I finished. I decided to explore with my finger first. Not a pleasant way to do it, but I would learn the most. He jumped as I pushed my finger into the hole, and blood started coming out quickly again, with his heartbeat, which I could feel quite clearly around my finger. I wanted to be very gentle, but I didn't seem to get my finger in very far. I had thought that the arrow would leave a hole I would be able to follow, but it didn't seem to be the case. The old healer had taught me this once when we tried to save a farmer who had been gored by the handle of a plough. Obviously, that was bigger and did more damage. Maybe there was some hope. I placed a bandage on his wound and held it done while I thought about it. Was it really worth getting the arrow head out? It depended on how big it was, how dirty it was, exactly where it was, and I didn't have any way to find those things out. Or did I?

I turned my inner sight to my hand, let my attention flow from my hand to his wound and from there further inside him. All of a sudden all the answers I needed were there. I could see the arrow head sitting very far inside, actually close his back. His insides felt all wrong, but there was little I could do for that right now. I would have to try this on one of the other men later to see if I could compare what I saw. But one thing that stood out clearly was the feeling around the arrow head. I could feel the burning feel of the arrow head, it was killing him as I watched. I had no doubt now, I had to remove the arrow head. I looked behind it, there was just a pad of muscle then skin, so I had a clear decision, I would cut in from behind and remove it.

Drowsy was far gone now. I rolled him over, and wedged a pad under him to hold the bandage in place while I got the arrow head. I cleaned his back and my healers knife with the water I had boiled over the fire while I had been waiting for him to arrive. I could feel the arrow head under his back while I was cleaning it, which gave me hope. I decided to go for a single longer cut. I grabbed some charcoal and marked the cut I was going make on his back, and held the knife over it, practising the angle and depth of the cut I was going make in my head. I noticed that Nimble and Whistle were staring at me in confusion, they didn't understand what I was doing. I explained it to them, and explained how they would need to help me.

I was ready. I cut into Drowsy following the line that I had drawn, a single cut, about an inch deep. I pulled the cut apart, and blood starting flowing. But I could see the arrow head clearly so I levered it straight out with the knife and then pushed the cut shut. It had been open for only a few moments. I closed my eyes and shuddered. It was a good thing I hadn't really thought about what I was doing before I did it.

Now I just had to clean everything up. The first thing I did was wash my hands. I suspected that there was something poisonous on the arrow, and it wouldn't do it spread it around inside Drowsy. I had been lucky enough to be given something very special by the old healer in the city, a fine curved needle with some silk. I had never heard of such a thing but she had been sure that I would need it. I had practised using it once when Digger had brought an animal in that was still alive. It seemed as though the sun was going down by the time I finished cleaning and stitching Drowsy's wounds, three in his front, which finally stopped the bleeding, and twelve stitches in his back. I could see that I hadn't lined his back up quite right, so I figured that he'd have a good scar and get a twinge when he stretched, but if he lived long to find out, I'd be very happy.

I stood up to start organising a place for Drowsy to lie, inside near the fire. It was only as I stood up that realised how tired I was, and I nearly passed out. Whistle caught me.

"Hey, take a break, girl, you've not stopped to rest since he got here."

I leaned on him. I was hot and tired, sweaty, even though it was now starting to get quite cold outside.

"Take him inside and get him warm and comfortable near the fire."

That night I rested by the fire, sitting next to Drowsy. The squad fell over themselves to do anything they could for me; Digger had fixed me a warm bath, and then Scar sat behind me and massaged my shoulders after we ate. I felt that I was treated differently by the men. Oh yes, they adored me, their lover. But now, it seemed as though the respected me, their healer; as finally, they were really willing to trust me with their lives. I understood that I had to earn that, and now, they were amazed at the way I had got the arrow head out, and put stitches in. Only a few of them had even heard of stitches.

As I was going to sleep that night, Drowsy started to wake up. He had been out from the hash for much longer than I expected. Perhaps it had mixed with the arrow's poison in his system. All through that night, he kept waking me up with his groans.

The next day I watched Drowsy as much as I could. I had no other duties. The soldiers on their rest day had told me that I should focus on Drowsy, and gone out on patrol. This was the start of a new sense of mission amongst the men. I had already been impressed by the way that the captain had bound them into a team, but from this point it started to become quite scary the way they focused on their mission.

Drowsy was at death's door for a couple of days. I spent much of the next day and night searching inside him with my inner sight. I had worked on several of the other men so I started to get a feel for what I should see inside him. The arrow had wrecked his guts inside, and I tried to pour my energy into him, to see if it would help — I had said I would do anything I could think of. It made me tired, and though I still don't know whether it worked or not, I'm happy I did it. Drowsy run a high temperature and a fever, and bleed from his rectum, ugly clots of blood, but by the third day, I could feel that the heat where the arrow had gone was decreasing and his fever was starting to turn. It was more than a week before he was eating, walking and defecating properly. But after that, when he came to me, I would often look at him as I lay in his arms, and it would make me glad, knowing that I had saved his life, against all my fears, and that he was back at work, for the people and the land.

Healing Drowsy had an unexpected consequence. Gong, Sock and few others took it upon themselves to "reward" me for my successful healing of Drowsy by having a competition to see who could make me come the loudest or longest. It had been a regular feature of discussion, to that point, how noisy I was. I had gotten used to it, it didn't even embarrass me anymore. I didn't know about the competition at first, I just knew that all of a sudden a few of them started to take a more serious interest in what pleased me. Some had all along, particularly Scar, though he didn't join into the contest — I had something different and more special with him. Sock, by the way, I think he got his name from the fact that he claimed to have used a sock to cover for the fact that he was huge. Initially it took me a while to teach him how to control himself so as not to hurt me. I liked to think that I was saving some women considerable pain later. By this time we'd worked it out and he was able to hold me at the point of pleasure for quite some time.

So after a couple of weeks of some amazing earth shattering sessions, one night as we ate, Gong and Nimble stood up holding an amazing wooden phallus, about two feet in size. I still have no idea where they got it from. With much ceremony, they awarded it to Sock. It was engraved with the words "Longest and Loudest." I suppose I should have been embarrassed, but instead I simply took all my clothing off, crawled over to Sock and up into his lap, and kissed him my own big thank you. I spent quite some time, naked, curled up in his lap with his arms around me. I could see that the other's were jealous, and I realised that I had started something new. I hadn't, to that point, been naked and provocative like this in front of them all, even though they had all seen me naked individually or wearing some provocative clothes.

It was about this time that I started to get concerned about the work load that the squad was under. They were all working so hard, but it was starting to show in their bodies. They were a little bit stiffer, a little bit more sore each week. I spoke to the captain about it, but he said that they could keep going for the moment. They had encountered several more groups of thugs coming passing through, and had been able to destroy them with no injuries to the squad. They were getting pretty good at ambushes now, and the thugs had no fieldcraft to make them dangerous, no matter how good they were at weapons. They had to keep the level up, so that none slipped through. Actually, I was most concerned about the captain. Since Drowsy had been injured, he'd led all the ambushes personally. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and I could see the strain that he was under.

Clonk continued to have problems. He was one of only two in the squad who was struggling with the mission, the workload, the captain. The captain had told me that Clonk had a history of drunkenness and poor discipline, and that he was doing very well, good enough for the captain. One night I awake from a deep sleep. I listened to the noise of the squad snoring, and the wind moaning gently outside. What had woken me? Suddenly I realised. Someone had snuck into my room, and was opening my healer's bag. Clonk. He should've known better than to try and steal from me. I crept as quietly as I could into my room — I didn't need any light for that now, and watched him searching carefully through my herbs by the light of a small lamp. No doubt he was looking for my hash. But he wasn't going to find it there. Once I'd used it in front of the soldiers it had seemed like a good idea to hide it somewhere else. Eventually he leaned forward to smell something that would leave him with rather a serious headache, so I coughed. He spun round and looked at me.

"Do you often look through healer's bags?" I whispered. I felt the guilt and desperation run through him. "You were looking for the hash weren't you?" I asked. He nodded. "Well, you won't find it. Why now? I thought you were coping OK?." I placed my hand on his arm and saw and felt his anger and his tears. "Whistle caught me sneaking wine last week, and if he catches me again, he'll tell the captain, but I have to have something." I didn't know what to do. I'd done what I could for Clonk, made him that brew most days, sucked him extra times as a bribe for being sober, what else could I do? Time for a threat of my own, I guess. I told him that if I caught him searching through my stuff again, I'd tell the captain, after I had let him smell the herbs he had been about to smell. I followed him out in the lamp light. As we walked past he captain, I thought I saw him look up at Clonk. But when I looked again, he was asleep. And it was useless using my inner sight on the captain; though I could feel his presence, anything else about him was closed to me.

The other squad member having problems with the mission and the captain was Tin Man. And those problems were about to blow up in my face. Tin Man had never got on very well with me. Most of the squad did, but Tin Man was the exception. From the very beginning, he'd been confusing and difficult for me to handle. He wanted me naked; he hated me seeing him naked, though as far as I could see he had nothing to hide. He hated me touching him, but he got an erection when I did. He allowed me to massage him, but he kept his pants on, even though it made it difficult for me to give him a good massage, and uncomfortable for him with an erection. I never saw him come, though sometimes I felt that he desperately wanted me to make him come, but every time I got that feeling, he would withdraw and insult me. I had never seen anything like it; it felt very personal. Initially I had been so happy that I just ignored it, but I had really begun to fear Tin Man's sessions. He was closed to me, I couldn't understand him, and I disliked him intensely.