Faerie Lord

Forty

Henry came to again feeling worried, without being able to remember exactly why. It was morning now. The fire was a small pile of glowing embers and the air had a dawn chill, but the sun was already dominating a cloudless sky with the promise of another brutal day to come.

He was still lying underneath his boulder and somebody had covered him with a very light, leathery membrane, like the wing of a giant bat. Lorquin. It was the boy Lorquin who’d saved him. He struggled to sit up.

Lorquin was squatting just a few yards away from him, watching him intently with large, round eyes. Henry blinked. The boy wasn’t black at all, but blue skin, hair, eyes – just like the creature Henry had seen in his dream. Except it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a creature. That must have been Lorquin too. He wasn’t quite naked either: he carried a small pouch on one hip, tied round his waist with a leather thong.

‘Are you all right?’ Lorquin asked, ‘I didn’t think you would survive the night.’

Henry placed his back against the boulder, ‘I’m fine,’ he said automatically, then caught himself and added, ‘I’m okay. Bit shaky, weak. But I’m okay, I think. Who brought me here?’

‘I did,’ Lorquin said.

In daylight, the boy seemed smaller and skinnier than ever. ‘How?’ Henry asked.

‘Carried you,’ said Lorquin. He had a wary look about him. His eyes kept flicking away from Henry to check his environment.

Okaaay, Henry thought. Maybe the kid was boasting, maybe he was stronger than he looked. Didn’t really matter. At least Henry was here – wherever here was – and not dead.

‘How is your leg?’ Lorquin asked.

The memory flooded back at once. I have to amputate your leg tomorrow. Or had he just dreamed that? Cautiously he said, ‘It’s sore.’

‘And numb?’

‘Yes. Numb,’ Henry confirmed.

‘Vaettir got you?’ When Henry didn’t answer straightaway, Lorquin added, ‘Looked like a vaettir bite.’

‘Don’t know,’ Henry said. ‘Got it from a thing in a tomb.’

‘Pale and thin and fast? Nasty teeth?’

‘That’s it.’

Lorquin nodded. ‘Vaettir all right. They’re not exactly poisonous, but when they bite you, the wound mostly won’t heal. It gets infected and stays infected and ‘ventually kills you. Better have another look. Take your trousers down.’

Henry hesitated, then realised modesty hardly came into it when you were dealing with a boy who ran around naked. He unfastened his belt as Lorquin rose to his feet and trotted over with a curiously loping gait. As Henry carefully pushed the trousers downwards, he realised he might be in bigger trouble than he thought. The leg looked horrible. The swelling had extended well above the knee and into his thigh. The whole thing was hideously discoloured.

Lorquin bent over it and sniffed. ‘Wound smells bad,’ he said conversationally. ‘Think I was right.’

After a moment Henry said, ‘About what?’ He had a nasty feeling he knew the answer.

Lorquin straightened up. ‘Bad enough if it stays in the leg. If the infection travels into the rest of you, it shuts down your innards. When it shuts down your heart, that kills you. Of course by then you don’t really care.’ He looked at Henry. ‘If it spreads. Only sure cure is to take the leg off.’

‘I’m not having my leg off,’ Henry said.

‘You don’t have to do it yourself,’ Lorquin said, ‘I can do it for you – I have a very sharp knife. I have a saw thing for the bone.’

‘I’m not having my leg off!’ Henry said again.

‘I work really fast.’

‘What age are you?’ Henry asked.

Lorquin blinked at him. ‘Ten. ‘Leven. I dunno. What’s that got to do with anything?’

Henry wasn’t sure, except that it was hard to take a little kid seriously. And Lorquin was a really weird little kid. Henry wanted to ask him why he was blue, whether that was his natural colour or some sort of dye. Henry wanted to ask him what he was doing out in the desert all on his own without his mum and dad. Henry wanted to ask him if he really had carried Henry, how he knew about vaettirs, why he wasn’t wearing any clothes, how…

Lorquin was the most self-assured youngster Henry had ever seen – far more confident than Henry had been at age ten or eleven. And the way he stood there, all blue and naked in the sand: he looked like he belonged in the desert. Which he probably did. He must do. Anybody who could wander about naked in the desert without dying had to live here. And if he lived here, he had to know things. Actually it was obvious he did know things. He knew about vaettirs and lighting fires when there was nothing to burn and finding bat stuff to cover people who got cold. Maybe he knew about bite wounds as well.

Henry’s leg twinged with such sudden violence that he gasped.

‘You okay?’ Lorquin asked at once.

When his heartbeat settled down a bit, Henry said, ‘You say cutting off the leg is the only sure cure. Is there any other cure that isn’t so sure?’

Lorquin looked thoughtful, ‘I once saw a clever man lance the infection. That works sometimes. Only when the wound isn’t as far gone as yours, though.’

‘Let’s try it,’ Henry said.

Lorquin produced a piece of knapped flint from his pouch. It looked for all the world like a prehistoric arrowhead from a museum exhibit and it took Henry a moment to realise this was his knife. He swallowed. ‘What happens?’

‘You cut at the heart of the wound and it lets the badness out. Sometimes you have to squeeze the leg.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Henry said quickly. He licked his lips. ‘Heat the knife in the fire.’ Heating the knife would sterilise it.

Lorquin stared at him as if he’d gone mad. ‘Fire will crack the knife,’ he said.

It probably would. What the hell, Henry thought, he had so many malevolent bacteria in his leg already, a few more wouldn’t make any difference. ‘Give it here,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘Don’t put my knife in the fire.’

‘No, I won’t,’ Henry promised. He took the flint and noticed with a flicker of relief the knapped edge really was razor sharp. ‘How do you know the heart of the wound? Where the teeth marks are?’

Lorquin shook his head. ‘Look for a place where the swelling has gone green with a black dot in the middle of it.’ He pointed. ‘There – see?’

The skin around the area was stretched taut and hurt like hell when he pressed it with his finger. ‘This it?’

‘Yes. Cut deep.’

Henry licked his lips again. He took a firm grip on the flint. The kid was probably right. It was like lancing a boil. It hurt a bit at the time; then the pus oozed out and all the pain and swelling were relieved. Well, maybe it hurt a lot at the time. Didn’t matter. It had to be worth it. He stared at the stretched skin and thought about the pain when he’d poked it with his finger. Poked it gently. With a blunt finger. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to cut it with a stone knife.

‘And wide.’

‘Pardon?’ Henry said.

‘Cut deep and wide. All the badness must come out.’

‘You do it,’ Henry said and handed back the knife.

Lorquin slashed once across the taut skin, passing directly over the black spot in the middle. Then he cut again swiftly at right angles. A splattering of blood and pus stained his blue skin. More blood and a greenish ooze flowed copiously down Henry’s leg. Lorquin dropped the knife, reached across and squeezed the leg firmly with both hands. ‘Ahhhh!’ Henry screamed. The pain was indescribable. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. Then he thought he was going to die. Then it ebbed.

Lorquin leaned forward to look. ‘Might not have to lose your leg, after all,’ he said.