Chapter 4
Billy slid down Hartanna’s flank and landed flat-footed on the grass. “Thanks for the ride!” he said as he adjusted his scabbard belt.
With Pegasus now high overhead, Hartanna’s features were clear in the bright moonlight. “Please bring back a report as soon as possible. Walter is very dear to all of us.”
“Don’t worry. I will.” Billy sprinted toward the village as fast as his mail, cloak, and scabbard would allow. Since they had landed in the field near the birthing garden instead of the dragon landing area, he would enter the village from the north, nearer Abraham’s former home. Since Elam didn’t want to assume too much, he had declined the villagers’ offer to have him live there, choosing a less prestigious hut instead. It lay vacant because of the deaths of the couple who once lived there, both victims of the rampage by Goliath and the Nephilim when they entered Second Eden a month ago.
The villagers later converted Abraham’s house into a triage station for wounded soldiers. With the firewall keeping their main enemies at bay, only a few troops had need of it, those who had suffered minor injuries from skirmishes with the Vacants who had ventured too close to the villages.
When Billy arrived at the triage hut, he paused next to one of two dragons painted on either side of the door. Now warm from his run, he shed his cloak, tucked it under his arm, and pushed the door open.
Inside, Walter lay on a raised cot near the back, well away from the cold draft breezing in from the street. Ashley and Steadfast stood on either side, Ashley with her back to the door and both leaning over Walter’s body. Neither one looked up to see who had come in.
After easing the door closed, Billy walked closer. “How is he?”
“If you have an extra hand,” Ashley shouted, “get it over here now!”
He dropped his cloak and ran across the floor, dodging a row of cots as he loosened his scabbard belt and let it fall. With a hop over the last cot, he joined Ashley. She and Steadfast had both hands inside a gash in Walter’s chest.
Ashley spat out her words. “Alcohol on the table! Douse your hands and come back!”
On a table near the wall, Billy found a glass bottle, poured a splash into his palm, and washed. “Okay!” he called, leaping back. “What now?”
Keeping her fingers in place, Ashley pulled aside Walter’s skin with the heel of her hand. Blood flowed freely and dripped down Walter’s ribcage. “See what I’m holding?”
Billy peered inside. “A vein?”
“An artery. Grab it.”
Praying for a strong stomach, Billy reached in and pinched the wet artery. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” Ashley let go and dashed to the table. Blood spewed from her other hand’s release point, spraying Billy’s shirt. Two seconds later, she jumped back with a needle attached to a long strand of thin black thread. “Okay, just keep holding it until I say so.”
Billy bit his lip hard. So much blood! And the wound looked awful. But it didn’t matter. Duty called.
Ashley poked the needle into Walter’s artery and began stitching around it. Apparently the Vacant’s spear had sliced through it, and now she had to splice the loose ends together. As she worked, the delicate artery seemed to line up and seal itself effortlessly, as if the combination of her stitching and her healing touch cauterized the vessel.
Ashley looked up at Steadfast. “Doing okay over there?”
“Yes.” A bead of sweat trickled from Steadfast’s forehead down to his clean-shaven cheek. “These veins are not leaking badly. I am able to hold them until you are finished there.”
“Good. I’ll just be another minute.” Ashley blew hair out of her eyes. “I hope it works. I helped stitch up Valiant, but it was nothing like this. And every stitch seems to wear me out.”
After another minute or so, she tied the thread and cut it with a small knife. “Okay, Billy. Take a breather and wash up.” She gestured toward the door. “You’ll find a pitcher pump out back.”
Billy pulled his hands from Walter’s warm body. Out in the fresh air and free from the viselike hold, his fingers, now dripping blood, felt cold and cramped. He paused, staring at Walter’s nearly motionless body. Nausea churned. A blanket of heaviness weighed down his shoulders. What would happen? After all the dangers they had faced, would a stupid monster from another world bring Walter’s life to an end?
“Billy!”
Ashley’s sharp voice shook him out of his daydream.
“What?”
“Get washed up,” she said, her tone now calm. “I’ll need your clean hands again in just a minute.”
Billy ran to the door, pushed the latch button with his wrist, and forced the door open with his foot. With the great moon still bright, and lanterns lining the street, finding the pump in the back proved to be no problem. After scrubbing his hands and then his face, he hurried back, finding Ashley tying off another stitching job.
He showed her his hands. “What now?”
Ashley nodded toward the table again. “See the little bottle, the brown one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Put one drop of that stuff on your finger and smear it under Walter’s tongue.”
Billy stepped over to the table and pulled a cork from the tiny bottle, no bigger than an eye dropper bottle. “What is it?”
Steadfast, two fingers still in Walter’s wound, looked his way. “An elixir Angel created. It discourages blood loss.”
“Probably some kind of clotting enhancer,” Ashley said. “We have to do something more to stop the bleeding than this patch-work job I’m doing.”
Billy let a drop leak onto the tip of his index finger. Pressing Walter’s cheeks together with one hand, he pushed the medicated finger into the opening and rubbed the tip under Walter’s tongue.
Walter jerked his head and bit down lightly on Billy’s finger before settling down. Billy withdrew his finger and shook out the pain. “Done.”
“Thank you.” Ashley snipped a thread and reached for a bloodstained rag. “Steadfast will close the incision. I have to check his pressure.”
She picked up a makeshift blood pressure cuff from the supply table. As she wrapped Walter’s arm with the sleeve—a bladder, of sorts, constructed from rabbit gut—she looked at Billy. “When your father brought Walter here, we weren’t sure how badly he was hurt. He was conscious, but when his blood pressure kept dropping, we knew he must have had internal bleeding. Then he conked out, and we knew we had to go in.”
She pumped up the sleeve with a bulb, also made from some kind of animal gut. “He stayed kind of delirious. He kept trying to get up and charge back into battle, so Steadfast knocked him out with another one of Angel’s home brews.”
Releasing the air, Ashley watched a needle move across a bleached leaf painted with hand-numbered pressure readings. “I didn’t have time to look for my stethoscope, but with my sensory gifts, I can feel the pulse changes.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then unwrapped the sleeve. “Eighty-five over fifty. We might need some blood.”
Billy rolled up his sleeve. “I’m O positive.”
“Same here, but I don’t know what Walter is. Steadfast says Angel had a way of knowing who was compatible with whom, but it’s based on matching their companions somehow. Since that won’t work with Walter, we’ll stick with what we know. O is a universal donor, but if Walter’s a negative, our RH factor could be a big problem.”
Billy looked again at Steadfast, now stitching Walter’s skin closed. After Angel went up in flames with Abraham, the poor guy was called into service as a surgeon after being little more than a medical orderly. Still, he knew enough to help, and between him and his Eve, Pearl, they worked nonstop.
“So, we’ll chance the RH factor if we have to,” Billy said. “I mean, giving him our blood beats bleeding to death.”
“Right.” Her hands red, Ashley brushed her tangled hair back with her forearm. Dressed in blood-dappled white T-shirt and a pair of jeans that were obviously slept-in, she looked exhausted from head to toe. “Steadfast is really good at stitching. I think the process drains my healing power, so it’s best to let him take over on the less-critical ones.”
Billy looked past Ashley. Steadfast, a thirtysomething male, just like all the other patriarchs in the village, meticulously worked the needle and thread. A nearly transparent egg floated close to his ear, its barely visible eyes looking on and wobbling, as if nodding approval at Steadfast’s work. At the other end of the thread, Walter’s skin lifted, still bloodstained, as two flaps joined tightly together. His chest raised and lowered in time with his breaths, shallow and gurgling.
Even with his shirt off, Walter looked warm enough. Glistening with sweat, his body, more muscular and hardened than Billy had ever seen it, glowed in the light of the lantern’s dancing flame. “So, how bad was the damage?”
Ashley looked back at Walter, concern sagging her brow. “The spear sliced a gash in his lung.”
“Sliced a lung?” Billy laid a hand on his chest. “Ouch!”
She nodded. “Thank God it missed his heart, but it cut enough blood vessels to kill him. We patched him up the best we could, so we’ll just have to monitor him for more bleeding.”
He looked back at the door and lowered his voice. “Are you up for a full-blown healing?”
She matched his tone. “When Walter was passing out, I didn’t have time to get Acacia to try it. But now he might be out of danger, and you know what Elam said.”
Nodding, Billy replayed the recent event in his mind, their first discovery of the Vacants. Valiant had been patrolling alone in the woods to the north and came upon at least a dozen of them. They attacked, and Valiant fought … well … valiantly. After killing three of their party, he managed to escape, but he suffered multiple spear wounds.
He staggered back to Founder’s Village, where Ashley attempted a healing with Acacia providing the fire. It worked, at least for Valiant, but Ashley nearly cooked. Her temperature spiked to 106 and stayed above 104 for three days. Now, a full week after she was finally able to get out of bed, she still tired easily. And Acacia seemed drained as well. She didn’t feel fully recharged until yesterday. Elam gave both a stern command not to try any further healings unless someone would surely die without the attempt.
“We could ask your mother to try again,” Billy said. “Just because her healing power hasn’t worked on humans here, it doesn’t mean it’ll never work.”
Ashley touched his arm. “Billy, it’s all right. Trust me. If I thought Walter was about to die, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Should we fly him up to the hospital, then?”
“That won’t do any good. We brought the heart and lung machines down yesterday. Cliffside’s going to land the entire hospital soon. No sense in keeping it flying around up there when the worst of the bad guys are trapped behind the wall of fire.”
Billy looked again at Ashley’s hands, slender and strong. A ring decorated one of her fingers, a red gem shining from its mount. “How’d you learn so much about surgery?”
“Doc taught me. Bonnie’s father, I mean. Since we kept quite a few animals, we sometimes had to do some minor surgery. Instead of taking them to the vet, Doc showed me how. He went to medical school, but after he got his MD, he didn’t like seeing all the suffering and death, so he turned to pharmacy.”
Billy offered a sympathetic nod. Ever since Dr. Conner died heroically after their battle against Devin in the underground laboratory, he had often wondered about how great an asset Dr. Conner would have been. Now his talents seemed wasted. “I guess we could really use him.”
“You bet.” Ashley crossed her arms over her chest and huffed a sigh. She glanced at Walter before shifting back to Billy. Her brow drooped again, along with her sad eyes. “How are you doing?”
Billy picked up his sword belt and fastened it around his waist. “Okay, I guess. No wounds.”
“No, I mean—” She laid a hand on his chest. “I mean here. It’s been a month with no contact.”
“Yeah. I knew what you meant.” He clutched Excalibur’s hilt and massaged its smooth surface. “And I think you already know the answer.”
Pressing her lips together, she nodded. “When I’m tired, I can’t control this mind-reading thing very well. Sorry for butting in on your emotions.”
“No big deal.” He glanced at her hand, still pressed gently against his chest. She was obviously tired and mentally drained. “Emotions are all I have left,” he said, “and I’m kind of wearing them on my sleeve.”
“I know. Me, too.” Pulling her hand back, she looked at Walter again. Steadfast had covered his torso with a sheet and was now checking his pressure. Since he lacked Ashley’s sensory powers, he was using her makeshift stethoscope to listen for the heartbeat. “I see you found it,” she said.
Steadfast nodded, his eyes trained on the meter. “It was next to the laundry bin.”
“Sorry. I remember now. I put it there this morning.” Looking more exhausted than ever, she turned back to Billy and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know, I like the people here, and I know how important our work is, but sometimes I just want to go home. Do you know what I mean?”
“Sure. I think about that a lot.”
“How badly do you miss home? I mean, I know you must really miss Bonnie, right?”
Heat flowed into Billy’s cheeks and ears. “When you butt in, you really butt in.”
She clenched her fist and scolded herself. “Get with it, Ashley! Don’t be such a relational clutz!”
“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have said it that way. I mean, I do miss Bonnie … a lot … and I miss my mother, too. But we’ve been so busy here, the only time I think about it is when I go to bed. But that doesn’t last long. I’m so exhausted, I conk out right away.”
“I know. You and Walter have been training constantly. Either that or out on patrol.”
He pointed at her. “Look who’s talking—Miss Never Sleeps. You’re either a doctor, a mechanic, or an inventor. If you don’t rest more, you’re going to have a breakdown.”
Looking at the floor, she nodded. “I know, I know. But who else is going to do those things?”
“I can’t argue with that.” Billy glanced at Walter again. Steadfast had finished taking his pressure. He probably would have reported anything unusual. “Speaking of inventions, any news on your radio project?”
As a weak smile appeared, Ashley’s voice perked up. “My tooth transmitter still works. It’s not nearly strong enough to call home, but it’s perfect for communicating locally. And I altered Merlin’s radio frequency without a problem.”
“Any luck with that?”
She shook her head. “I can’t get anywhere with the magnets. The field they create isn’t strong enough to make a crack in the dimensional wall. Without at least a tiny opening, Larry wouldn’t be able to hear me even if I sent a megawatt signal.”
Billy painted a picture in his mind—his mother operating Larry’s console. Without communications, their only hope was to find a portal. Acacia would have to try again at Mount Elijah, the sooner the better. “If Walter seems out of the woods in the morning,” he said, “I’ll take Acacia and Listener up to the volcano and see what we can see.”
“Okay, check back here first thing. I’ll let you know how he’s doing.”
“You’re staying here? Doesn’t Steadfast have this shift?”
“He does.” She dragged a cot close to Walter’s and sat down. “I just want to be here in case he needs me.”
Billy sat next to her, adjusting his sword to make room. “I don’t need to be a mind reader to know that something’s up between you two.”
Her cheeks flushing, Ashley suppressed a smile. “That noticeable, huh?”
“Your sleeve is covered with it.”
She brushed her sleeve and let her smile break through. “Walter and I are like this, Billy.” She slid closer, hip to hip. “We’re friends, partners, fellow warriors, but not lovers. Ever since we worked together to help you and Bonnie navigate the Circles of Seven, we’ve fought together and bled together. But you know what? We trust each other so much, it’s like we’re building a foundation for something else later on.”
“You mean when Walter’s old enough.”
She nudged his side. “Who says you’re not a mind reader?”
“When would that be? Three years? Five years?”
“It’s hard to tell. This place has changed us so much, it’s like we’re maturing at double the normal speed. He already looks more like a man than a boy.”
“Yeah. I noticed. Maybe it’s something in the air here.” Billy rose to his feet. “I’d better get to bed. Gotta climb a volcano tomorrow.”
Ashley showed him her bloody hands. “I’ll get cleaned up and then sack out.”
“Want me to bring you a change of clothes?”
“No. I don’t want you to wake Emerald. She’s an early riser. I’ll be fine.”
Billy walked to the head of Walter’s cot and gazed at his friend’s ashen face. Still gurgling as he breathed through his open mouth, Walter’s eyes darted under his lids. Whatever Ashley had used to put him under didn’t slow down his mind. He was likely fighting even now, probably skewering a few more of those Vacants.
Gripping Walter’s shoulder, Billy whispered, “Get well soon, buddy. I need you at my side.”
As he turned to leave, Ashley caught his pant leg. “Will you pray for Walter?”
“Sure. When I get back to the hut, I’ll pray until I fall asleep.”
“No. I mean now.” Her brow arched up. “Please?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Taking her by both hands, he lifted her to her feet. As they faced each other, she closed her eyes and tilted her head upward. Billy traced a tear stain from the point it exited her eye, through her cheek’s contours, and down to her chin. This would be hard. Although he found praying easy and liberating, doing so out loud in a way that would comfort someone else seemed out of reach. But he had to give it a try, just pretend Ashley wasn’t there and say what was on his mind.
Compressing her hands lightly, he spoke in a low tone. “Father, you know how much we both love Walter. He’s such a good friend—brave, loyal, and always trying to make people smile. If he dies, we know he would go to a better place, but …” He paused. With his throat narrowing and his voice breaking up, this was getting even more difficult than he imagined.
Ashley’s fingers tightened around his, and she broke in, her voice just as tremulous. “But we really need him here … so if you don’t mind … please let him stay for a while, at least until …”
Her hands began to pull away, but Billy held them fast. It seemed that their physical connection helped her thoughts and feelings flow. Now the mind reader had become a mind writer. He knew exactly what she wanted to say.
“So please let him stay,” Billy continued, “at least until we can tell him how much we love him.”
As he opened his eyes, he let her hands slide away. After dabbing new tears with her shirt sleeve, she kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”
On the way to the door, he picked up his cloak and slung it over his shoulder. Then, pulling the door open, he looked back. Ashley sat once again on the cot, her eyes wide and wet. He gave her a nod, hoping she could read the brotherly love pouring from his heart. “Good night, Ashley.”
She replied in a weak voice. “Good night, Billy. I’m glad I can count on you.”
Adding a wave as he kept an eye on Ashley, Billy called out, “Good night, Steadfast. Take good care of both of them.”
Steadfast wiped his bloody hands on a rag and waved back. “I will. You can count on that.”
After once more glancing at Ashley, Billy walked out and closed the door. Something was wrong. Ashley seemed to want something, but what? Could her ability to sense emotions also transmit messages somehow, or were they both so tired that every little twitch and change in body posture seemed to communicate more than it was meant to?
Now out in the cool breeze again, Billy pushed his arms through the cloak sleeves, fastened the collar clasp, and pulled up his hood. He looked toward the birthing garden. Now that it was likely well past midnight, his father would have relieved Thigocia and settled down for his turn as the birthing garden’s watch dragon.
Billy strolled that way. Wearing a black cloak and hood, he probably looked like a ghostly shadow wandering through the midnight wind. It was a good thing the village folk slept deeply at these hours, even Cliffside, who normally guarded this field. With dragons taking over that duty, Elam put him on daytime woods patrol, a responsibility he relished. Actually marching out to possible battles definitely beat standing on the garden periphery night after night with nothing to do but whistle all-clear signals to his fellow guards.
While marching across the grassy meadow between the village and the garden, Billy caught sight of a pair of glowing dots, scarlet and pulsing—Clefspeare’s eyes shining red. Even with the beams turned off, the fiery pupils were easy to see. “Dad,” Billy called. “It’s me.”
“Yes, son,” came a deep, rumbling voice. “I know, though your scent is not quite the same.”
Billy brushed his hands together. “Probably Walter’s blood. I was deep in it for a while.”
“And how is our valiant soldier faring?”
With his snout now close, the dragon’s breath caressed Billy’s face with warmth. “Not great, but Ashley’s taking good care of him. He—”
“Mercy!” The plaintive female voice came from the field’s western border, close to the twin fir trees, Hilidan and Zera. “O virtuous dragon, I beg for mercy!”
Clefspeare’s eyebeams flashed and locked on a feminine form staggering toward them with another figure, probably male, at her side. “Who goes there?” Clefspeare growled.
Now within three or four paces, the woman dropped to her knees, her hands clasped. “O mighty dragon, I beg you not to breathe on us with your punishing flames. Another dragon, Arramos by name, has hurled his fiery wrath at my son, and he would not survive another blow.”
The man, still standing at her side, covered his face with his hands.
“Step out of the woman’s shadow,” Clefspeare ordered, “and show yourself.”
Trembling, the man took a step and stopped again. With Pegasus as bright as ever, his details sharpened. Shorter than average and dressed in a typical villager’s garb—cotton long-sleeved tunic and woolen trousers—he slowly lowered his hands from his face, revealing the telltale marks of recent burns.
Billy grimaced. With swollen cheeks, charred eyebrows and scalp, and practically no lips, this guy was a pitiful mess.
“Where did you see Arramos?” Clefspeare asked.
Rising to her full height, the woman stepped into the moon’s glow. A lovely angular face and smooth complexion made her seem too young to have an adult son. Yet, with a hood covering her hair, any possible grayness stayed hidden. She pointed toward the western border. “We saw him out there, beyond that wall.”
A growl rose from Clefspeare’s gullet. “I sensed no danger.”
“Great dragon, I know so little about your kind, so I do not know how your danger sense operates. How far does it extend? We were at least a thousand paces away, well into the prairie.”
“I see.” Clefspeare extended his neck, bringing his head close to the woman. She cringed but stayed still while he sniffed her face, then her hands. “I sense no danger from her, and her words carry the ring of truth. If Arramos has come to Second Eden and yet lurks nearby, our danger has increased a hundredfold.”
The woman clasped her hands again. “Good dragon, do you have a doctor in this village? My son requires care.”
“We have no doctor, but perhaps we can help.” Clefspeare turned to Billy. “Has either Ashley or Steadfast cared for burn victims?”
“Not that I know of, but I’m sure they can do something. They have some pain relievers and an ointment that’ll take down swelling.”
The woman grasped Billy’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Please lead us to these medicines. I have no money, but I will work for you.”
“From what village do you hail?” Clefspeare asked. “And what is your name?”
“We come from a faraway land not yet known to these people.” She swept back her hood, revealing shining hair that fell to her shoulders. “And my name is Semiramis.”