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Parton shoved his feet into his boots and was out the door with his laces trailing, running into the cold night air. He skidded to a halt, uncertain which way to go. Where had the howl come from?
His heart pounded in fear at the memory of that sound, of the pain in it. He needed to find Cull, needed to do something, but indecision paralysed him. If Parton picked the wrong direction to run, what use would he be then?
Another howl cut through the quiet of the forest, still laced with pain but full of anger this time. It was a sound that promised death, changing halfway through to another cry of pain.
Parton ran, pounding between the trees, terror granting him speed. He saw the shadowy figure of a cloaked man, fumbling to get a bolt loaded into a crossbow, and he saw Cull's huge form, lying on his side beneath the trees, far too still. Parton launched himself at the man, tackling him to the ground and sending the crossbow flying from his hand. Then Parton was punching, no thought to technique, just needing to take him down before he could hurt Cull again. His fists pounded into chest and face as he sat astride the man, who writhed and struggled beneath him, clawing at Parton to try and get him to stop.
"Parton!"
Parton froze. In the moment of stillness, the man reached a hand to push back the hood of his cloak, which had fallen half over his face in the fight. Even in the darkness, he knew that face, just as he knew the voice that had uttered his name. Anger vanished into astonishment.
"Lucion?"
The sight of him was so unexpected that Parton felt he had stepped into a dream. None of this made sense, but Lucion was solid and real beneath him, and all Parton could do was stare.
A soft whine from nearby drew Parton's attention back to Cull, and he hurried into motion once again. He scrambled free of Lucion and over to where Cull lay, golden eyes wet with tears. A crossbow bolt was embedded deeply in the shoulder of his right foreleg, another in his side.
"Be careful," Lucion said, as Parton reached for the wound in the shoulder. Cull gave another little whine of pain and pressed his head against Parton’s leg.
“It’s all right,” Parton said, running his other hand over Cull’s head in a gesture he hoped was comforting, smoothing the fur. “You’ll be all right.”
He didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but Cull pushed his head gently against Parton’s palm in a gesture of acknowledgement.
"You really did tame the monster of the forest," Lucion said. Parton didn't bother with a response because he had more important things to worry about than setting the facts straight with Lucion.
Parton wanted to yank the bolts out, but the wounds were already bleeding heavily and doing anything to them would likely make them worse. He needed bandages. He needed light to work by. He needed someone who knew what they were doing. None of those things were here, but he had to do something; he wasn't going to let Cull bleed to death in this forest.
"Take off your shirt," Parton said.
"What?" Lucion asked.
"I need something to stop the bleeding, and you're the one who shot him."
Lucion didn't argue. He unfastened his shirt and handed it over to Parton, who pressed the cloth around the bolt in the shoulder, which seemed to be bleeding the worse of the injuries. The other injury was still bleeding too much, making Cull's soft fur sticky with the flow, so Parton let go long enough to pull his own shirt over his head and wrapped it around the other bolt. He pressed hard against Cull's injury, earning a soft whine of pain. He gave a quiet apology but didn’t ease up on the pressure.
He couldn't sit like this all night. He needed to bring Cull back to the cabin, but how?
"Are you able to walk?" Parton asked.
Cull shifted, attempting to get his legs under him, only to fall back down to his side with another quiet noise of pain.
"Okay," Parton said. "We'll figure something out."
He and Lucion wouldn't be able to carry Cull, not even between them, but perhaps they could drag him. But taking hold of his legs and towing him along the ground would just hurt him more. They needed something to drag him on.
"Come here," Parton told Lucion. "Put pressure on the wounds to slow the bleeding."
Lucion took a hesitant step forward. "Will it bite me?"
"You shot him. If he bites you, you deserve it." But good sense poked through his anger; Parton knew he needed to reassure Lucion, otherwise he would never get Cull back to the cabin safely, so he added to Cull, "But try not to bite."
A pair of yellow eyes raised skywards to indicate how Cull felt about that instruction.
"Did your monster just roll its eyes at you?"
"Yeah, he does that a lot when he thinks I'm being particularly foolish."
Parton could correct Lucion about Cull being a monster later, for now he ran back to the cabin. He put some fresh wood on the embers of the fire so that they would catch and give more light, then he grabbed the sheet of oiled cloth that had been one of the gifts at the lightning tree. He hurried back to Cull and laid the cloth out beside him. They wouldn't be able to keep pressure on the wounds while moving, so he had to hope that the shirt bandages would be enough.
He hoped that moving Cull wasn't a terrible mistake. He remembered how Cull had tended his injuries and wished he could ask his opinion and advice. Cull wasn't shaking his head at the suggestion of being moved, which had to do as agreement that this was a reasonable course of action.
"We need to get you onto the cloth," Parton said.
Cull did his best to help them, pushing with his back legs as Parton and Lucion hauled him across. Lucion still looked like he expected Cull to bite his arm off for the attempt, but he helped without argument. After a few minutes of heaving and tugging, Cull lay in the middle of the cloth, whimpering softly. Parton stroked the soft fur of Cull's head and Cull leaned into the touch.
"I'm sorry," Parton said. "It will be all right."
He wasn't sure he believed that, but it needed to be said. Cull nodded.
"Are you ready for the next stage?" Parton asked. Cull nodded again.
"He actually understands you," Lucion said, staring on in amazement.
Parton didn't have time for this. He told Lucion to take hold of one corner of the cloth, and together they pulled, towing Cull through the forest to the cabin. Parton tried not to wince in sympathy every time they had to drag Cull over a raised tree root, making him whine and whimper again. He was grateful that this had all happened so close because he didn't think that Cull could have coped with a longer journey. He didn't think he could either. His arms were soon sore from the effort and his back aching from bending down to hold the corner. He told himself that this was nothing to what Cull was feeling and so kept going through the pain, until the cabin's open door came in sight.
The fire was burning a little brighter now, enough to shed light on the blood-soaked shirts and the dark mess of Cull's fur where the blood had clotted it into clumps. Parton lit some rushlights that they'd made from the fat of the deer Cull had killed. When that still didn't seem like enough illumination, he got out two of the genuine candles that they'd been saving and lit those. Now he could at least see what he was working with, even though the clearer light didn't make the situation seem any more hopeful.
