Chapter 17: The Short and Long Night

Lacuna may have been in deep distress over Sitis, but Aureum was barely given time to think.

The large beast looked down at the ground to where the other wolf lay, dead. It looked back at the two women and growled.

“Lacuna—

She was going to try and give directions for a plan, but as soon as she spoke, the wolf shot a vine from its back. She dodged it easily enough, only to face the wolf’s lunge head-on.

What? I’m gonna die?

Here?

Now?

To a stupid mongrel?!

Aureum flung another needle, because why not. She didn’t have enough space to correct her throw. It barely missed the right eye that loomed larger by the second.

Aureum noticed a strange crisp sound, like stepping on snow, as well as rapidly approaching steps.

But Sitis wouldn’t make it in time. She didn’t even have time to notice Lacuna trying and failing to shoot another lightning bolt.

She fell to her back as the beast pinned her.

“AHHHHHH!”

She screamed from the pain in her shoulder, half convinced that she was already dead.

The moment somebody landed on its back, she felt the change of weight on her shoulder.

“Urgh!”

She opened her eyes to the terrifying head that somehow hadn’t bitten her neck. Behind it, two swords shined as they were lifted. They came down. She felt the beast shudder.

It gave one ragged hot breath in her face as she saw the dim moonlight shine off of the dripping saliva next to its teeth, and died.

Whoever was on top kicked off the carcass of the thing, ensuring it fell to its side, instead of landing the full weight onto Aureum.

She sat there, shaking for a few moments. She felt herself get pulled away from the body but didn’t turn to look at them.

Somebody was speaking. Aureum lifted her hands, but could only lift her left. The right wouldn’t move.

A face moved in front of her, and that snapped her out of it.

It was hideous. Even in the dim lighting given by the moon.

All sorts of ugly green and hardened patches pocked it. The owner turned away as he spoke.

“We should probably relocate her shoulder before she snaps back to attention.”

“Who?” She said.

“Ah, too late. Oh well. I’m Mendax.”

He placed a firm hand on her shoulder and reefed it back into place. Aureum let out another scream.

“Is she going to be all right?”

That was Lacuna, who was to Aureum’s right.

“Well, she’s not dead and nothing’s broken. That alone’s a miracle.”

The man shook his head.

“Should probably look to working together better next time, just sayin’.”

Is it over?

Aureum looked at the wolves. It certainly looked over.

“I need to go to Sitis,” Lacuna said. “Could I trouble you to stay with her until I come back?”

He looked up at the lady and gave a grin. Aureum understood Lacuna’s necessity, so held back her concerns. Sitis could be dying in a ditch somewhere.

Evidently, the person who had approached was this stranger, not Sitis. So his condition was unknown. The fact that he hadn't come racing after them was not encouraging.

“Sure,” Mendax said.

Sure, let's spend time alone with the strange man. Great.

Lacuna nodded and gave haste to her priority.

At least the pain saved Aureum from any deep conversation. With every heartbeat, she felt a throb of pain. She grimaced.

“Ah yah, the next step is to give you a sling.”

He gestured to her pack.

“I pack pretty light,” he said, with a smile that was mostly teeth, “Can I look here for something to use? I won’t rip anything.”

Aureum did a mental tally of what she had in the bag. Other than the money, everything of real value was on her.

“Only the main part of it,” Aureum winced as she spoke. A lot of things were hurting. “No opening any side pockets. I don’t have anything medicinal.”

He nodded. She watched him as he opened the bag. He looked sleazy, and his long ratty ponytail wasn’t doing him any favors.

“Just need a shirt or a dress. Something to tie it up. Preferably clean, o’ course.”

He whistled as he opened the mess that was her luggage, but he followed her directions. He pulled out the last dress she’d originally worn when she left home and closed the bag in its original unorganized mess.

Coming closer to her again, he held the dress between two hands like a strip.

“I should ask if you’re feeling pain anywhere else?”

As he spoke he worked the dress around the shoulder and arm that hadn’t been reefed on, touching as little of her as possible.

“My entire left side hurts,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have a lot of very colorful bruises at the very least. Anything specific? Don’t try to move too much.”

Aureum shook her head. She had a burning ache from the vine that had grazed her shoulder, but it didn’t feel bad enough that she was about to show off her back to a strange man while she was alone on the side of the road.

He pulled the dress tight and tied it. Which certainly wasn’t good for it, but both Aureum and the dress were beyond caring. The makeshift sling for her arm was complete.

“Tell somebody if you do start to feel anything.”

After that, he sat back quietly. At first, Aureum watched him intently, but he fiddled with some grass as he looked down the road. As time wore on, she let her eyes close.

She could still use the wind to give her a general sense of where he moved, after all.

“We could use some help!”

Aureum’s eyes snapped open a moment before Lacuna yelled, and she saw Mendax staring down at her with no expression.

They both turned to look towards Lacuna. A bloodied and bruised Sitis leaned on her. Mendax stood up.

“You stay still,” he said, as Aureum tried to get up. He went to go help.

“Why’d you move him?” He distantly asked Lacuna.

“He insisted he could walk—

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Sitis pushed off of Lacuna and stood.

“I’m fine,” Sitis said.

Aureum saw the momentary stare-off between the shorter stranger as Sitis towered over him.

She couldn’t tell what the conclusion was, but Mendax stepped aside and gestured for Sitis to go ahead.

“Well, Mr. Fine why don’t you sit down next to our other fine friend.”

Sitis complied and sat down near Aureum with a groan.

He looked worse up close.

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

Sitis grunted in response.

While Aureum and Sitis watched, Mendax and Lacuna went through the few medical supplies Lacuna had on hand.

Obviously, Lacuna was the one who volunteered to help Sitis.

Both Mendax and Lacuna wanted to disinfect the many wounds they could and couldn’t see. Which meant taking off Sitis’ shirt.

Any inherent sexuality to the sight was evaporated by the large gashes on his chest. Even the pearl over his heart was covered in blood.

In the dark Aureum hadn’t seen the stains on his shirt. Blood’s color covered him. Lacuna let out a suffocated wheeze.

“OK, I need you, Lacuna to lie him down and put pressure on it," Mendax said.

“I’m fine—

“Stop talking. Sitis? Sitis, right? Stop talking. Lacuna, do you happen to have any needles with you?”

“I have needles,” Aureum offered. “But you need thread too?”

“Yes? Do you not have thread?” Mendax said.

Aureum looked down and shook her head.

“Who has needles but no thread?” He put his hand to his head.

“I have thread,” Lacuna said. “Not a lot…”

“Let me put pressure on him while you search your bag. Do you know how to start a fire?”

“Yes, what’s it for?”

“Cleaning the needles and thread. We should boil water. Of course, most water sorcerers could probably boil water easily for us, eh? Nobody here is a water pearl? Of course not.”

Mendax, whose head had turned as he checked the reactions of all present looked back down at Sitis’ wound.

“Can I do anything to help?” Aureum said. “I’m feeling better now.”

“You can sit back down.”

Aureum sat.

“Lucky, lucky,” Mendax said. “That just means you managed to avoid the death blow since nobody gets that lucky twice.

Oh, stop looking at me morosely and get that fire going. Once we stop the bleeding he’ll be fine.”

As Mendax focused, he quieted down, and the night wore on.

It was far from over.

Aureum kept her ears open as she used the wind to check their surroundings. At least she could give a warning if anything else came.

Eventually, Sitis was bandaged up. One thin strip of actual bandages with the small roll of bandages Lacuna had while the rest of them were a ripped dress Aureum had offered.

There was an empty peace inside Aureum. Like after a hurricane.

If Sitis hadn’t had the ability to reinforce his skin, he would have died multiple times.

The important thing was that Sitis would be fine. As long as Lacuna could manage to keep him from sitting up.

It didn’t help that everyone was cramped into Lacuna’s tent. Two of them couldn’t set up their tent, and Mendax’s sleeping situation was unknown. So Lacuna offered hers to everyone.

Even in the close quarters, no one mentioned setting up the other tents on hand. In the same way, no one suggested dealing with the wolf carcasses.

Being alive was enough work for tonight.

Despite their deep-seated exhaustion, no one felt calm enough to sleep.

Well, perhaps Mendax did. For as little as they knew him, he had a similar wide grin throughout most of the night. His apparent calm had kept everything else from falling apart.

Sitis needed answers to his questions though, and Mendax was the only one who might have answers.

“Do you know what happened?” Sitis asked him.

“I don’t need to tell you that wolves attacked, do I? Are you feeling disorientated?”

“This is a populated road. I’ve heard the beasts would avoid it.”

“Oh, yes common wolves would avoid it,” Mendax said. “But these ones came because the roads are populated.”

“Explain.”

“As you saw yourself, these beasts are of the wood element. The mutated vines add weight to their bodies. They move slower. They look weird.

This usually gets them kicked out of their packs. It’s the younger wolves that survive this mutation, after all. Not the elders.

It occurs when they eat the deer that eats the bark of some ancient forest, and after a diet of only those deer, they become as you saw.

As loners, they need to go after easier prey. That doesn’t always make them man-eaters, but it does tip the scales.”

Mendax was getting just as much sleep as everyone else that night.

“They wanted to eat us?” Lacuna said.

“What else would they want with you? They’re beasts,” Mendax replied.

“But these two aren’t loners,” Aureum said. “They came in a pair. And the vines on their back didn’t weigh them down.”

Mendax shrugged.

“Yes, the two figured out how to use the burden they’d been saddled with. It happens.

Considering they went after people, I think they must have found each other along the way. The man-eater habit they must have forgotten to drop. But that’s all just guesswork.

I only know what was told to me the few times I was roped into hunting beasts.”

“And who are you?” Sitis said.

“Mendax.”

“…I see.”

“It’s more of a title than a name,” Mendax said.

He smiled this time as well, but while the other times were grins, this one showed no teeth.

Not that the lack of teeth made his face any less jarring.

“I’m from Nix, sort of a freelancer there.”

“So you’re here on business?”

Aureum didn’t understand how Sitis continued to interrogate Mendax with his wounds. One of her shoulders ached, while the other one itched with a different type of pain.

Now that nobody is bleeding out, I need to get some help in case the vine really gouged me.

And since Sitis and Mendax were helpfully occupied that just left Lacuna.

“Could you help me for a second?” Aureum touched Lacuna's shoulder as she stepped out.

They went outside in the fresh air, and soon Lacuna was looking at Aureum’s other shoulder.

“Does it look bad?”

“No. Well, it doesn’t look good but I wasn’t pausing about that. It seems, surprisingly good after everything I’ve seen today.”

“So it won’t scar?”

“I don’t know about that… But it won’t need stitches. It looks like it already started to scab.”

“Hey, we’ll take that.”

Lacuna worked on disinfecting the graze as Aureum sat in a daze.

“Thanks Lacuna,” Aureum said.

“Anytime.”

“For my life too, not just for this.”

“No, I think you should be thanking Mendax for that.”

“I guess so, but I don’t think he’d gotten the chance if we had to run from both at the same time.”

They both paused at Aureum’s words, as the cold consideration of death sunk in.

If anything had been just a hair to the left or to the right...

Aureum's shoulder could have been broken, or her throat could have been torn out.

“Thank you as well, Aureum,” Lacuna said. “You saved my life too, you know.”

“Yeah, a lot of that went around didn’t it?”

“You can just accept my thanks, Aureum!”

Lacuna’s tone was teasing.

“Well, thank you, thank you for saying thanks!”

So Aureum played along.

“You’re supposed to say ‘you’re welcome’!”

After Lacuna was done, she covered Aureum’s shoulder again and sat beside her.

“I just wish I’d stood my ground sooner, then maybe Sitis wouldn’t be in such rough shape.”

“Yeah, maybe that would have gone better. Or maybe facing both at one time would mean you would never get the chance to strike?”

“So it worked out for the best?”

“It. It could have gone better. I’ll admit that.”

Lacuna’s hands shook on her lap. Aureum reached down to grab them with her good hand. They sat there shivering, shocked, and grateful to be alive.

And very, very tired.