Bernard sagged and dropped to one knee.
Amara rushed to his side. "Bernard!"
"It's nothing, I'm fine," Bernard slurred, still breathing heavily. "Gaius?"
"He's alive," Amara said. "Let me see your head."
"Looks worse than it is," Bernard said. "Scalp wounds bleed a lot. Flesh wound."
"I know that," Amara said, "but you've got a lump the size of an egg to go with the cut. Concussions are not flesh wounds."
Bernard reached up and caught her hand. He met her eyes, and said in a quiet, firm tone, "See to the First Lord, Countess."
She stiffened with anger. "Bernard."
"I have a duty to my lord. So do you."
"I also have a duty to my husband," she whispered back.
Bernard released her hand, and growled, "See to Gaius." His tone became gentler, and very tired. "You know I'm right."
She put a hand to her face for a moment, took a deep breath, then touched his head gently. Then she turned and went back to the First Lord.
Gaius lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He opened them as Amara approached, and said, "I haven't done that in a while."
"Sire?"
"Hunted garim. Not since I was about seventeen." He exhaled heavily. "It was considerably less strenuous back then."
His voice was tight with pain, the way it had been at the beginning of their journey. "You're hurt."
"It's my leg," he said quietly. "The good one." He nodded at the still-twitching garim. "I'm afraid this fellow managed to trap it between his hide and a stone. I'm fairly sure it's broken."
Amara bent to examine the First Lord's leg. It was swollen, and his foot rested at an utterly inappropriate angle to the rest of the leg. It had been a twisting break, not a clean snap of the bone. Amara knew that they could be very ugly. "I can't see any bone poking out," she said quietly. "You aren't bleeding. How bad is it?"
"It's only pain," Gaius said, but his voice trembled as he did. "I see that Bernard gave rather a good accounting of himself."
Amara would need to set the leg as soon as possible. They would have to splint it as well. "He killed three of them."
"For killing men, metalcrafters stand supreme," Gaius murmured. "But beasts don't fight like men. Primal. Savage. For them, nothing replaces raw strength. And I think one really couldn't fault my choice in companions on this particular journey." He shook his head and blinked his eyes several times. "I'm babbling. Please excuse me. The mind tends to wander a bit when one is my age-or in excruciating pain."
"We'll do what we can, sire," Amara said.
"The pain won't kill me. Bernard is bleeding. See to him. I believe I'll faint now, if it isn't too inconven..."
The First Lord fell silent, and Amara bent to him for a panicked instant. He continued breathing steadily, though, and his pulse was strong. She bit her lip in sympathy, and was just as glad that he had lost consciousness. His injury had to be pure torment.
She took off her cloak, damp as it was, rolled it up, and used it to support his broken leg. Then she rose and went back to Bernard. He had taken off his pack and was fumbling through it rather dazedly. Amara took it from his hands and removed the box of bandages, ointments, and healing salves he carried in it. She cleaned his wound as best she could, but it kept bleeding, as such injuries tended to.
"This will need stitches to close properly," she said quietly. "That means we'll need boiling water. A fire."
"Dangerous," Bernard mumbled. "Too easy to spot."
"We've little choice," she replied. "He's unconscious. His leg is broken.
We have to warm him up, then set the leg. Can you have Brutus make a shelter for us?"
He looked at her dully for a moment, and then back at Gaius. "Dangerous."
She put her hands on either side of his face. "Bernard, you've been hit in the head. You're having trouble speaking clearly, much less thinking clearly. I need you to trust me. This is necessary."
He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes. Then he nodded. He opened his eyes again and peered blearily around them, through the rain. Then he nodded at a hillock, and muttered under his breath. "Garim had a den there. Brutus is widening it. Shoring it up. Drag wood in first thing. Let it start to dry. Then we'll move Gaius in."
"Very well," Amara said. She covered his wound with a pad of folded cloth and wound a bandage around his head to hold it closed as best it could until she could see to the injury more thoroughly. "Bernard. It's his good leg that's broken."
Bernard frowned for a moment, then said, "Crows. He won't be able to walk."
"No," Amara said.
"That's bad," he said.
"Yes."
"But there is good news," he said.
She frowned at him.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled. "Smell that?"
Amara frowned and sniffed at the air. There was an overripe smell to it, a vegetable reek.
"Only one thing smells like that," Bernard said. "Swamps. We made it. Once we get in there, don't have to worry about our back trail."
"No," Amara murmured. "Only disease. Injury. Lack of food. And more of those garim."
Bernard grunted. "Well," he mused, "we never did get that honeymoon."
Amara blinked at him for a moment, then burst out in a laugh that surprised her with its depth and strength.
He gave her a weary grin, and for a moment his eyes shone with warmth. "That's better. Love it when you smile." Then he took a deep breath and pushed himself slowly to his feet. He touched the bandages and hissed in discomfort.
"Don't do that," Amara said absently. She rose, wincing at a flare of pain in her back. She had almost forgotten the blow from the garim's tail and the tumble afterward. Her muscles and bones, however, had not. "He can't walk," she said quietly. "What are we going to do?"
"We'll handle it, Countess. One thing at a time."
She touched her face, and then the bandages. "I love you very much, you know."
He lifted her fingers from his head and kissed them gently, eyes sparkling. "Who could blame you?"
Amara laughed again.
Chapter 29
"Again!" Araris snapped, driving a series of high, whirling slashes at Tavi's head. The singulare was not restraining the force of his blows, and it took every ounce of Tavi's concentration and skill to survive them. He found the rhythm of the attack, found the tiny half beat of vulnerability between one of Araris's strikes and the next, and countered low, his body dipping to one side and out of the line of the attack, one hand resting flat on the ground to support his suddenly altered balance, his blade darting in a swift thrust for the large artery in the singulare s midsection.