Cave Geeks II, Chapter 13
This week's notes: No music this week. Just didn't seem like there was any particular mood piece for this chapter. In other news, living the teacher's life means that my schedule fills right up in September, and my writing time heads for the basement. This does not make us happy, but it does make us money.
I will continue to be able to post weekly chapters for now, as you are just getting to chapter 13 while I am writing chapter 19, but that gap is going to disappear fast. We are certainly past the halfway point, but Ch 19 is nothing like close to the end. Gawd what an epic -hope y'all are enjoying.
-TD
Title: Clan of the Cave Geeks Book II: The Warrior of Honor
Author: Taylor Dancinghands -taylor@willendorphians.com
Characters/Pairings: Zelenka/McKay, Beckett/Lorne, Teyla/Ronon, and eventually Sheppard/Weir
Category: slash, h/c, AU
Warnings: Sloppy Paleolithic history, anachronistic technological leaps and funnied up names.
Rating: NC-17, explicit M/M and eventually M/F sex depictions
Summary: So what does a bonafide genius do in an era of stone knives and bear skins?
Spoilers/Season: none
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, never will, not claiming to. Just wanna play with 'em a little. Can't I, can't I, huh?
Beta:Many thanks to my most worthy betareader
smingus for her encouragement and feedback. We loves our betareaders we does.
Chapter 13
The new day dawned fair and clear, just as Li'bet had thought it would, heralded with the symphony of birdsong that had woken her. Drawing a long breath of the morning air, Li'bet scented how the night's storm had cleaned it, washing away the stench of blood and fear and fire that had hung over the village at the close of the previous day. The storm had been a gift, she thought, without question.
Such beneficent gifts aside, however, Li'bet knew that there were still clouds hanging over this day. Loren and his party of hunters would or would not return today, bringing tidings fair or ill, and there were the raider bodies to be disposed of, and their own dead to be laid to rest. It would be a day of reckoning, as the fishermen, herders, bakers and others in the village would come to realize that this trusted companion, coworker or partner would never again be there to lend the support or unique skills that others had come to depend upon. Today was the day they would really begin to notice just who and what they had lost, and the pain that many had not noted yesterday would be coming home today.
Li'bet fortified herself with a good breakfast, therefore, and dressed herself in some of her finer garb, out of respect for those lost, and to remind others of her leadership, as was sometimes necessary. Most days Li'bet was perfectly happy to be Li'bet the weaver, rather than Headwoman Li'bet, occupying herself in her day's labors no differently than anyone else. Other days, however, she knew that Lakeside needed it's leader, and today would, without doubt, be one of those days.
She began by facing what lay practically at her doorstep, solemnly greeting the families keeping vigil over the fallen, and even as she stepped out onto the green she saw another family arrive, grieving and bearing the body of Nevin, one of the hunters, who'd been struck in the belly with an arrow and had died during the night. She came and shared her sorrow with his woman and brother and his two daughters, then did likewise with the other families gathered there. A party of laborers had gone out a little earlier and begun digging graves up on the hillside north of the village where they laid their dead, and these fallen would be laid there at sunset this evening.
She found Caresn standing at the perimeter when she finished her condolences with the families of the dead. The healer looked tired and defeated. He'd come, having only just heard about Nevin, and although Li'bet knew he'd told the hunter's family that there was little to be done, the healer still felt bad to hear that he had finally succumbed. Li'bet drew him away from the unhappy scene and offered him a warm hug, which he accepted gratefully.
She listened attentively as he shared with her how Rodne and R'dek had come to quarrel last night, and how the storm, and R'dek's evil dream had, it seemed, brought them back together again. They were both still sleeping, he told her, but he himself had been up since dawn, uneasy with worry over Loren and the more seriously wounded from yesterday. Nevin's fate he had just learned, and another -a fisherman named Arvid, looked to join him within a day or two, but another for whom he'd feared the worst looked more hopeful this morning. Li'bet encouraged him to look on this success rather than the other failures, and he gave her a sad but grateful smile.
"I know you've the right of it," he said, "but I'll not be able to think on anything but Loren and the hunters until they've returned, and all I can seem to do is worry."
Li'bet laid a hand on the healer's shoulder, knowing better than to offer assurances about the future. She worried too, but she knew how it was between their healer and lead hunter, and knew nothing short of seeing Loren and his company appear on the south road would bring Caresn comfort... and that gave her an idea.
"Have you seen Yinte this morning?" she asked Caresn.
Caresn told her that he thought he'd seen the lad over in the grove of snow-bark trees, taking down the shelter they'd erected there for the wounded, and so they walked there together. Li'bet spotted him immediately when they came to the place and called him over.
"Do I recall," she asked him, "that you are a fair tree climber?" Yinte enthusiastically confirmed her recollection.
"There's a big acorn tree on the south way into town, a short walk distant," she told him. "Do you know the one I mean?"
"Sure!" he said. "I've even climbed it before."
"Why am I not surprised?" she commented to herself. "So, what I'd like you to do is to find yourself a perch, as high as you can in that acorn tree, and keep an eye on the south way. As soon as you see Loren and the hunters returning, come down as fast as you can to let us know, especially if it looks like they need any kind of help. Think you can do that?"
"You bet!" he cried, then, apparently realizing that he'd been a fairly important task, he recalled his decorum. "I mean, yes I can, Headwoman. I'll do just as you've asked."
"I know you will," she said, sending him off with a pat on the back. "And I'll let your parents know."
She watched him go, pausing to share the news of his new job with a friend as he went, so Li'bet knew he would likely have company in his vigil. It wasn't a bad idea.
"That's a right sharp notion, Li'bet," Caresn said to her as he too watched Yinte race off.
She answered him with a nod. "And not only for today," she said, considering. "I think it may be wise to keep a look-out there more often, maybe every day. It's not just friends and peaceful travelers we may be seeing coming down that road."
Caresn sadly nodded agreement. "Aye," he said, glancing anxiously to the south. "I suppose a lot of things like that'll have to change now."
Li'bet thought that possibly truer words had never been spoken.
***
Li'bet spent the rest of that morning visiting every corner of her village, touching base with each family in it, making note of who needed help and who had help to give. Hallen, who volunteered to oversee the rebuilding of the dock, surprised Li'bet by insisting that before he begin that project, he would help her replace the warp set on the acorn tree behind her hut, pointing out that he was the only person in Lakeside tall enough to do the job well. Li'bet chuckled at the truth of this and accepted, reflecting that even if the times had changed, perhaps the hearts of her people need not, and that was an encouraging thought indeed.
They were more than three quarters finished with the task, and the sun not quite at its zenith, when they heard shouting from the south side of town. They both dropped everything, leaving the remaining warps and weights to fall on the ground in a tangle, and raced to the south entrance, hoping for good news and fearing for the worst.
Yinte was there, supported by a couple of his young friends, and gulped for breath as he gave his news. "I seen 'em," he said between pants. "All six, I counted three times."
A ripple of profound relief passed through the gathered crowd, including Caresn, who looked like he was going to collapse for a moment. Rodne and R'dek were there too, though both of them looked as though they had just barely woken up. Hallen clapped Li'bet on the back and then moved though the crowd to greet his son, gathering him into a proud embrace.
"They might need help, Headwoman," Yinte continued when he had extracted himself from his father's arms. "It seemed like they were moving pretty slow, though they were all walking, and it looked like maybe two of them was helping another, but I couldn't see who it was. Sorry."
"You've no need to apologize, Yinte," Li'bet said, stepping forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. "You've done just as I asked and you've done it excellently. All of Lakeside is most grateful for the news you've bought today." Yinte beamed with pride and then quickly turned to accept the more comfortable accolades of his peers. Li'bet turned to the other attendant adults.
"I think we need not send half the village out to greet them," she suggested, "but certainly Caresn and perhaps three or four others with strong arms and backs to help our warriors home." Hallen volunteered, of course, and Meera's brother, Kerm, who frequently helped Hallen on his fishing boat, and Kadam, a tall, strong woman and excellent trapper who, Li'bet imagined, would have made a fine hunter had their taboos not forbidden it. Her cousin, Dirneer, was among those returning now.
Li'bet made herself wait. She felt it important to stand as an example for doing the more difficult thing, and right now, staying and waiting was harder, when she herself wanted to run and see who was hurt and hear what had happened as soon as possible. Instead, she stood with the women, with Ml'lar's sister and Sitakahus' woman -carrying his unborn child, and with Marakm's aunt and mother, and did not speculate or wonder. Rodne and R'dek came to stand beside her as well as they watched their greeting party head down the road.
"How are you doing this morning?" she asked them both, seeing shadowed eyes and tired looking, slumped shoulders. She also saw that they both had a tight grip on one another's hands. "Caresn said that you both had something less than a restful night?"
"Yeah," Rodne confirmed without meeting her eyes, "but... I think we got things... straightened out now, I hope." She saw R'dek squeeze Rodne's hand and some of the anxiety in Rodne's gaze dissipated. She nodded her understanding.
"It was," R'dek confirmed as well, "and I have come to see that my behavior yesterday, after the battle..." R'dek looked away then, his expression ashamed. "It was not... appropriate, and it was probably not very helpful, either... and I am sorry for it."
"R'dek," Li'bet answered him, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You placed yourself at great risk yesterday, and endured much, for all our sakes. If that left you in an... unsettled... state of mind, I think you can hardly be blamed."
"You are most understanding," R'dek said, grateful, though his shame was still evident in his voice. "I fear it will be some time before I can be so understanding with myself." Now it was Rodne squeezing R'dek's hand and Li'bet saw him pass his lover a shy smile.
Looking out at the waiting crowd now, Li'bet saw that Yinte had helped one of his smaller friends up onto his shoulders, giving the lad a perspective not quite so good as the one he'd have had up in the acorn tree, but still higher than most of the crowd. "I can see them!" he called now, and the crowd hushed to hear his news.
"I still can't see who's hurt," he said, "'cause they're keeping him in the middle, but it's not Sitakhus..." Chana, his woman, gave a cry of gratitude, thanking the Gods in a tearful voice.
"...And it's not Ml'lar, nor Marak'm..."
That narrowed it down, Li'bet thought worriedly, and beside her, she felt Rodne and R'dek grow tenser and more worried.
"It's... Gods' Eyes, I think it's Loren..."
Around her, the crowd reacted with dismay, and she saw Rodne's eyes close in pain and sorrow. R'dek's face was a mask of guilt. Li'bet wanted for there to be something she could say that would soften the blow, but there was nothing. She was as helpless as all of them and could only wait to learn more.
"I don't think it can be so serious though," the boy on Yinte's shoulders continued. "'Cause he's walking and everything, though it looks like your dad and the healer are helping him a lot... and he seems to be limping pretty bad."
That, Li'bet though, pursing her lips, might not be too serious at all, or it might be very bad. Rodne and R'dek stood very close to one another, exchanging worried glances and likely thinking the very same thing. Please, Li'bet prayed silently, let it not be too bad. Let their finest hunter and Caresn's love be able to be made whole and healthy again, please.
Li'bet did not deny the existence of the Gods, as Rodne did, but she did not pretend to know what motivated them, or why they seemed to answer some prayers and not others. She knew she ought to be grateful to them for sparing her village, and knew that she could not have realistically asked for no one to be harmed or slain, but still, she came to wonder later, when she had learned the nature of Loren's wound, surely... surely it had not been necessary, in this one case, to have beeen so cruel.
***
"I know I'm never going to be able to hunt again, Caresn," Loren said miserably as he lay on the bed in Caresn's hut. "You don't have to tell me that this is a bit beyond anything that Turtur can deal with."
Caresn pursed his lips and said nothing, still carefully cleaning the dried blood and dirt from his lover's wound, but he knew that Loren had the truth of it. There was no denying it.
Loren had been struck by an arrow at the back of his left foot, just above the heel, where a cord-like bit of flesh ran from the heel to the calf, severing that cord. Hunters like Loren, Caresn knew, sometimes intentionally aimed for this spot on some of their faster moving quarry, in order to slow them, but Loren had always considered it a cruel tactic and insisted that game so wounded be slaughtered quickly. Treating his lover's wound, Caresn knew a dark fear that Loren now wished that same mercy for himself.
"I'll no deny it's bad," Caresn said, "and that you're likely right about hunting, as you've been used to, but love, you must know that we'll still have need of you, always. You'll find a new place in the village, and you'll be using your skills in a different way, but your place here, love," and Caresn lifted Loren's hand to place over his own heart, "that'll never change. Never. You must know that."
"I won't live on charity," Loren said through gritted teeth. "I... I can't."
"Why would ye?" Caresn assured him. "Do ye think that hunting is the only thing you can do? It was what you were best at, aye, but you'll be best at something else now. I've no doubt of it."
"Doesn't matter what else I do," Loren said, voice subdued in misery. "I'll be pitied. I know it and you know it." He pulled his hand away from Caresn's to lay over his eyes and Caresn heard him give a little choked sound as though he were trying not to cry. "I can't live like that, Caresn, I can't..."
Caresn felt his own throat grow tight as fear and grief clouded his thoughts. "Love, love..." he plead, pulling Loren's hands away from his face to hold between his own. "You know when a man holds a longing for death in his heart, death will find him, and there's naught anyone can do to prevent it. Please love..." Caresn's voice broke now, and he felt the tears spill over onto his cheeks.
"Don't leave me, love, not like this," he wept. "I couldn't... I couldn't bear it."
Loren's face was contorted as though he were in terrible pain, his eyes screwed shut, trying to hold back the tears, but Carson saw them seeping past the tightly closed lids in spite of this and heard his love give a heartbreakingly pained little sob.
"You were right, Caresn, you were right," he choked miserably. "We should never have gone. It was a cursed venture, and if we'd listened to you... If I'd listened to you..."
"Oh love," Caresn lifted the weeping hunter to hold him in his arms, rocking him gently and murmuring soft comforts in his own broken voice. "Ye didn't know, ye couldn't, and I didn't know either. Not really. If I'd had a vision I'd have said, but I didn't... it wasn't. It was just a lover's worries, just my own fretful heart at the end of a terrible day... No one could have known. No one..."
Helpless to do otherwise, Loren gave himself over to weeping, wrapping his arms around the healer and letting his tears fall on his shoulder. "Oh Gods, Caresn," he cried, "what'll I do? I don't know what to do..."
"Just live, my own heart," Caresn murmured, stroking a hand over Loren's hair. "Just live for today and let tomorrow sort itself. Do ye thing you can do that, love? For me, if no for yourself?"
Loren nodded against Caresn's shoulder and sniffled loudly.
"Thank you love," Caresn said, pouring his heart into his words. "Now I need to lay you down again to finish binding your wound, so you'll be able to keep that promise. Is that alright?" Loren nodded again, and Caresn gently settled him on the bed, placing a tender kiss on his forehead.
Caresn set to work with skillful efficiently then, dressing the wound with a poultice of mustard and healing herbs bound with honey, then wrapping the foot and ankle with a complex binding to hold the joint immobile. It was the best he could do, but as he worked Caresn could not help seeing the awful severed cord of flesh in his lover's foot, and thinking on what it meant. It meant that Loren would surely never walk freely again, nor run nor climb, and he feared terribly that if Loren, a man of such physicality and action, dwelt on these losses too deeply, then not even Caresn's love would be enough to entice him into wanting to live now.
***
But hey, what happened?
I will continue to be able to post weekly chapters for now, as you are just getting to chapter 13 while I am writing chapter 19, but that gap is going to disappear fast. We are certainly past the halfway point, but Ch 19 is nothing like close to the end. Gawd what an epic -hope y'all are enjoying.
-TD
Title: Clan of the Cave Geeks Book II: The Warrior of Honor
Author: Taylor Dancinghands -taylor@willendorphians.com
Characters/Pairings: Zelenka/McKay, Beckett/Lorne, Teyla/Ronon, and eventually Sheppard/Weir
Category: slash, h/c, AU
Warnings: Sloppy Paleolithic history, anachronistic technological leaps and funnied up names.
Rating: NC-17, explicit M/M and eventually M/F sex depictions
Summary: So what does a bonafide genius do in an era of stone knives and bear skins?
Spoilers/Season: none
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, never will, not claiming to. Just wanna play with 'em a little. Can't I, can't I, huh?
Beta:Many thanks to my most worthy betareader
smingus for her encouragement and feedback. We loves our betareaders we does.Chapter 13
The new day dawned fair and clear, just as Li'bet had thought it would, heralded with the symphony of birdsong that had woken her. Drawing a long breath of the morning air, Li'bet scented how the night's storm had cleaned it, washing away the stench of blood and fear and fire that had hung over the village at the close of the previous day. The storm had been a gift, she thought, without question.
Such beneficent gifts aside, however, Li'bet knew that there were still clouds hanging over this day. Loren and his party of hunters would or would not return today, bringing tidings fair or ill, and there were the raider bodies to be disposed of, and their own dead to be laid to rest. It would be a day of reckoning, as the fishermen, herders, bakers and others in the village would come to realize that this trusted companion, coworker or partner would never again be there to lend the support or unique skills that others had come to depend upon. Today was the day they would really begin to notice just who and what they had lost, and the pain that many had not noted yesterday would be coming home today.
Li'bet fortified herself with a good breakfast, therefore, and dressed herself in some of her finer garb, out of respect for those lost, and to remind others of her leadership, as was sometimes necessary. Most days Li'bet was perfectly happy to be Li'bet the weaver, rather than Headwoman Li'bet, occupying herself in her day's labors no differently than anyone else. Other days, however, she knew that Lakeside needed it's leader, and today would, without doubt, be one of those days.
She began by facing what lay practically at her doorstep, solemnly greeting the families keeping vigil over the fallen, and even as she stepped out onto the green she saw another family arrive, grieving and bearing the body of Nevin, one of the hunters, who'd been struck in the belly with an arrow and had died during the night. She came and shared her sorrow with his woman and brother and his two daughters, then did likewise with the other families gathered there. A party of laborers had gone out a little earlier and begun digging graves up on the hillside north of the village where they laid their dead, and these fallen would be laid there at sunset this evening.
She found Caresn standing at the perimeter when she finished her condolences with the families of the dead. The healer looked tired and defeated. He'd come, having only just heard about Nevin, and although Li'bet knew he'd told the hunter's family that there was little to be done, the healer still felt bad to hear that he had finally succumbed. Li'bet drew him away from the unhappy scene and offered him a warm hug, which he accepted gratefully.
She listened attentively as he shared with her how Rodne and R'dek had come to quarrel last night, and how the storm, and R'dek's evil dream had, it seemed, brought them back together again. They were both still sleeping, he told her, but he himself had been up since dawn, uneasy with worry over Loren and the more seriously wounded from yesterday. Nevin's fate he had just learned, and another -a fisherman named Arvid, looked to join him within a day or two, but another for whom he'd feared the worst looked more hopeful this morning. Li'bet encouraged him to look on this success rather than the other failures, and he gave her a sad but grateful smile.
"I know you've the right of it," he said, "but I'll not be able to think on anything but Loren and the hunters until they've returned, and all I can seem to do is worry."
Li'bet laid a hand on the healer's shoulder, knowing better than to offer assurances about the future. She worried too, but she knew how it was between their healer and lead hunter, and knew nothing short of seeing Loren and his company appear on the south road would bring Caresn comfort... and that gave her an idea.
"Have you seen Yinte this morning?" she asked Caresn.
Caresn told her that he thought he'd seen the lad over in the grove of snow-bark trees, taking down the shelter they'd erected there for the wounded, and so they walked there together. Li'bet spotted him immediately when they came to the place and called him over.
"Do I recall," she asked him, "that you are a fair tree climber?" Yinte enthusiastically confirmed her recollection.
"There's a big acorn tree on the south way into town, a short walk distant," she told him. "Do you know the one I mean?"
"Sure!" he said. "I've even climbed it before."
"Why am I not surprised?" she commented to herself. "So, what I'd like you to do is to find yourself a perch, as high as you can in that acorn tree, and keep an eye on the south way. As soon as you see Loren and the hunters returning, come down as fast as you can to let us know, especially if it looks like they need any kind of help. Think you can do that?"
"You bet!" he cried, then, apparently realizing that he'd been a fairly important task, he recalled his decorum. "I mean, yes I can, Headwoman. I'll do just as you've asked."
"I know you will," she said, sending him off with a pat on the back. "And I'll let your parents know."
She watched him go, pausing to share the news of his new job with a friend as he went, so Li'bet knew he would likely have company in his vigil. It wasn't a bad idea.
"That's a right sharp notion, Li'bet," Caresn said to her as he too watched Yinte race off.
She answered him with a nod. "And not only for today," she said, considering. "I think it may be wise to keep a look-out there more often, maybe every day. It's not just friends and peaceful travelers we may be seeing coming down that road."
Caresn sadly nodded agreement. "Aye," he said, glancing anxiously to the south. "I suppose a lot of things like that'll have to change now."
Li'bet thought that possibly truer words had never been spoken.
***
Li'bet spent the rest of that morning visiting every corner of her village, touching base with each family in it, making note of who needed help and who had help to give. Hallen, who volunteered to oversee the rebuilding of the dock, surprised Li'bet by insisting that before he begin that project, he would help her replace the warp set on the acorn tree behind her hut, pointing out that he was the only person in Lakeside tall enough to do the job well. Li'bet chuckled at the truth of this and accepted, reflecting that even if the times had changed, perhaps the hearts of her people need not, and that was an encouraging thought indeed.
They were more than three quarters finished with the task, and the sun not quite at its zenith, when they heard shouting from the south side of town. They both dropped everything, leaving the remaining warps and weights to fall on the ground in a tangle, and raced to the south entrance, hoping for good news and fearing for the worst.
Yinte was there, supported by a couple of his young friends, and gulped for breath as he gave his news. "I seen 'em," he said between pants. "All six, I counted three times."
A ripple of profound relief passed through the gathered crowd, including Caresn, who looked like he was going to collapse for a moment. Rodne and R'dek were there too, though both of them looked as though they had just barely woken up. Hallen clapped Li'bet on the back and then moved though the crowd to greet his son, gathering him into a proud embrace.
"They might need help, Headwoman," Yinte continued when he had extracted himself from his father's arms. "It seemed like they were moving pretty slow, though they were all walking, and it looked like maybe two of them was helping another, but I couldn't see who it was. Sorry."
"You've no need to apologize, Yinte," Li'bet said, stepping forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. "You've done just as I asked and you've done it excellently. All of Lakeside is most grateful for the news you've bought today." Yinte beamed with pride and then quickly turned to accept the more comfortable accolades of his peers. Li'bet turned to the other attendant adults.
"I think we need not send half the village out to greet them," she suggested, "but certainly Caresn and perhaps three or four others with strong arms and backs to help our warriors home." Hallen volunteered, of course, and Meera's brother, Kerm, who frequently helped Hallen on his fishing boat, and Kadam, a tall, strong woman and excellent trapper who, Li'bet imagined, would have made a fine hunter had their taboos not forbidden it. Her cousin, Dirneer, was among those returning now.
Li'bet made herself wait. She felt it important to stand as an example for doing the more difficult thing, and right now, staying and waiting was harder, when she herself wanted to run and see who was hurt and hear what had happened as soon as possible. Instead, she stood with the women, with Ml'lar's sister and Sitakahus' woman -carrying his unborn child, and with Marakm's aunt and mother, and did not speculate or wonder. Rodne and R'dek came to stand beside her as well as they watched their greeting party head down the road.
"How are you doing this morning?" she asked them both, seeing shadowed eyes and tired looking, slumped shoulders. She also saw that they both had a tight grip on one another's hands. "Caresn said that you both had something less than a restful night?"
"Yeah," Rodne confirmed without meeting her eyes, "but... I think we got things... straightened out now, I hope." She saw R'dek squeeze Rodne's hand and some of the anxiety in Rodne's gaze dissipated. She nodded her understanding.
"It was," R'dek confirmed as well, "and I have come to see that my behavior yesterday, after the battle..." R'dek looked away then, his expression ashamed. "It was not... appropriate, and it was probably not very helpful, either... and I am sorry for it."
"R'dek," Li'bet answered him, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You placed yourself at great risk yesterday, and endured much, for all our sakes. If that left you in an... unsettled... state of mind, I think you can hardly be blamed."
"You are most understanding," R'dek said, grateful, though his shame was still evident in his voice. "I fear it will be some time before I can be so understanding with myself." Now it was Rodne squeezing R'dek's hand and Li'bet saw him pass his lover a shy smile.
Looking out at the waiting crowd now, Li'bet saw that Yinte had helped one of his smaller friends up onto his shoulders, giving the lad a perspective not quite so good as the one he'd have had up in the acorn tree, but still higher than most of the crowd. "I can see them!" he called now, and the crowd hushed to hear his news.
"I still can't see who's hurt," he said, "'cause they're keeping him in the middle, but it's not Sitakhus..." Chana, his woman, gave a cry of gratitude, thanking the Gods in a tearful voice.
"...And it's not Ml'lar, nor Marak'm..."
That narrowed it down, Li'bet thought worriedly, and beside her, she felt Rodne and R'dek grow tenser and more worried.
"It's... Gods' Eyes, I think it's Loren..."
Around her, the crowd reacted with dismay, and she saw Rodne's eyes close in pain and sorrow. R'dek's face was a mask of guilt. Li'bet wanted for there to be something she could say that would soften the blow, but there was nothing. She was as helpless as all of them and could only wait to learn more.
"I don't think it can be so serious though," the boy on Yinte's shoulders continued. "'Cause he's walking and everything, though it looks like your dad and the healer are helping him a lot... and he seems to be limping pretty bad."
That, Li'bet though, pursing her lips, might not be too serious at all, or it might be very bad. Rodne and R'dek stood very close to one another, exchanging worried glances and likely thinking the very same thing. Please, Li'bet prayed silently, let it not be too bad. Let their finest hunter and Caresn's love be able to be made whole and healthy again, please.
Li'bet did not deny the existence of the Gods, as Rodne did, but she did not pretend to know what motivated them, or why they seemed to answer some prayers and not others. She knew she ought to be grateful to them for sparing her village, and knew that she could not have realistically asked for no one to be harmed or slain, but still, she came to wonder later, when she had learned the nature of Loren's wound, surely... surely it had not been necessary, in this one case, to have beeen so cruel.
***
"I know I'm never going to be able to hunt again, Caresn," Loren said miserably as he lay on the bed in Caresn's hut. "You don't have to tell me that this is a bit beyond anything that Turtur can deal with."
Caresn pursed his lips and said nothing, still carefully cleaning the dried blood and dirt from his lover's wound, but he knew that Loren had the truth of it. There was no denying it.
Loren had been struck by an arrow at the back of his left foot, just above the heel, where a cord-like bit of flesh ran from the heel to the calf, severing that cord. Hunters like Loren, Caresn knew, sometimes intentionally aimed for this spot on some of their faster moving quarry, in order to slow them, but Loren had always considered it a cruel tactic and insisted that game so wounded be slaughtered quickly. Treating his lover's wound, Caresn knew a dark fear that Loren now wished that same mercy for himself.
"I'll no deny it's bad," Caresn said, "and that you're likely right about hunting, as you've been used to, but love, you must know that we'll still have need of you, always. You'll find a new place in the village, and you'll be using your skills in a different way, but your place here, love," and Caresn lifted Loren's hand to place over his own heart, "that'll never change. Never. You must know that."
"I won't live on charity," Loren said through gritted teeth. "I... I can't."
"Why would ye?" Caresn assured him. "Do ye think that hunting is the only thing you can do? It was what you were best at, aye, but you'll be best at something else now. I've no doubt of it."
"Doesn't matter what else I do," Loren said, voice subdued in misery. "I'll be pitied. I know it and you know it." He pulled his hand away from Caresn's to lay over his eyes and Caresn heard him give a little choked sound as though he were trying not to cry. "I can't live like that, Caresn, I can't..."
Caresn felt his own throat grow tight as fear and grief clouded his thoughts. "Love, love..." he plead, pulling Loren's hands away from his face to hold between his own. "You know when a man holds a longing for death in his heart, death will find him, and there's naught anyone can do to prevent it. Please love..." Caresn's voice broke now, and he felt the tears spill over onto his cheeks.
"Don't leave me, love, not like this," he wept. "I couldn't... I couldn't bear it."
Loren's face was contorted as though he were in terrible pain, his eyes screwed shut, trying to hold back the tears, but Carson saw them seeping past the tightly closed lids in spite of this and heard his love give a heartbreakingly pained little sob.
"You were right, Caresn, you were right," he choked miserably. "We should never have gone. It was a cursed venture, and if we'd listened to you... If I'd listened to you..."
"Oh love," Caresn lifted the weeping hunter to hold him in his arms, rocking him gently and murmuring soft comforts in his own broken voice. "Ye didn't know, ye couldn't, and I didn't know either. Not really. If I'd had a vision I'd have said, but I didn't... it wasn't. It was just a lover's worries, just my own fretful heart at the end of a terrible day... No one could have known. No one..."
Helpless to do otherwise, Loren gave himself over to weeping, wrapping his arms around the healer and letting his tears fall on his shoulder. "Oh Gods, Caresn," he cried, "what'll I do? I don't know what to do..."
"Just live, my own heart," Caresn murmured, stroking a hand over Loren's hair. "Just live for today and let tomorrow sort itself. Do ye thing you can do that, love? For me, if no for yourself?"
Loren nodded against Caresn's shoulder and sniffled loudly.
"Thank you love," Caresn said, pouring his heart into his words. "Now I need to lay you down again to finish binding your wound, so you'll be able to keep that promise. Is that alright?" Loren nodded again, and Caresn gently settled him on the bed, placing a tender kiss on his forehead.
Caresn set to work with skillful efficiently then, dressing the wound with a poultice of mustard and healing herbs bound with honey, then wrapping the foot and ankle with a complex binding to hold the joint immobile. It was the best he could do, but as he worked Caresn could not help seeing the awful severed cord of flesh in his lover's foot, and thinking on what it meant. It meant that Loren would surely never walk freely again, nor run nor climb, and he feared terribly that if Loren, a man of such physicality and action, dwelt on these losses too deeply, then not even Caresn's love would be enough to entice him into wanting to live now.
***
But hey, what happened?