He ran through the night, through the cold and the biting rain, water in his eyes, under and through his clothes, until he felt like an old piece of sailcloth, dangling in a storm. At some point in the night, he had run the barrow into a particularly deep patch of mud and the handle had jabbed him in the gut, near knocking the wind out of him. In his younger years as a soldier, he was able to run all day, swing a heavy war axe like it was a hatchet. Gods, but he was getting old.
He wished he had grabbed something more to cover Mouse with, even just a coat. The poor dog had lain in the bottom of the barrow, shivering and whimpering for hours, until he eventually fell into a fitful sleep. Auric hadn't been thinking straight, he supposed. The lack of booze hadn't helped, nor the lack of food.
Thankfully, the rain had eased, sometime in the early morning hours, and the sun had spilled over the road to Brunholm, shining through a clear, blue sky. Most of the wet had evaporated off him by the time he jogged into town, navigating the barrow through the brown puddles at the gate.
'Doctor,' Auric shouted, slowly clawing his breath back. 'Is anyone a doctor?' A few people in the street turned to see what the commotion was, but no one did anything to help.
Auric scooped Mouse out of the barrow. Still breathing. Mouse was still breathing, but his body flopped about, loose as a sack of flour. Auric stroked his muzzle, hoping he would wake, lick his hand. He had always been a nervous dog, annoyingly so, at times, but Auric would give anything to have Mouse turn those concerned eyes on him now.
'Doctor,' Auric tried again. 'He needs a surgeon. Somebody help him.'
A handful of people had stopped in the street. They looked to one another, perhaps waiting for some guidance.
Auric stepped up to an older man with a crook in his back and a sack of vegetables on his shoulder. The man blinked hard as Auric approached. 'Sir, is there a surgeon in town? Is there someone I could show him to? He's lost a lot of blood.'
The man's mouth opened, then slowly closed again. He looked at Mouse, drew in his brows. 'I'm sorry,' he said and hitched up his sack. 'I can't help you.' And he walked on.
Auric scowled at the man, ran to the next person, a woman in ragged clothes holding the hand of a young girl. 'Can you help him? Do you know where he could get help?'
The woman pulled her child closer. She shook her head slowly, took a step back. 'I…'
'Maybe Jayna could help him.'
The voice had come from behind him. Auric whipped around, leaving the woman and the girl. A boy, just shy of his teens, with dirty, black hair looked towards him and Mouse. He stood in the street, his bare feet covered in mud.
'What did you say?' Auric said, approaching the boy.
'Jayna, my sister. Maybe she could help him. She's been learning stitching from my aunty. She might be able to close him up. That's what people do with bad wounds, ain't it?' The boy reached out, stroked Mouse gently, gave a sad smile.
'Are there no surgeons in town? A doctor at least?'
The boy shook his head. 'You new around here? Most doctors got called to Whitehall. Conscripted my da' said. Emperor Vallendred needs 'em for his armies overseas. There was a surgeon here a few years ago, but he died, and we haven't got a new one yet.'
'Fuck,' Auric shouted, drawing more glances from people on the street.
The boy frowned up at him.
'I'm sorry,' Auric said. 'I—'
'Don't bother me. Nothin' I ain't heard before.'
Auric looked about. A few faces had appeared at windows to see what the commotion was, but most simply ignored him. 'Why doesn't he just put it down?' he heard someone mutter from inside a building.
'Your sister,' he said, turning back to the boy, 'is she any good with needle and thread?'
'She made all my clothes, and they ain't half bad.'
Indeed, the boy's clothes were nothing fancy, but they seemed sturdy enough, and the stitching lines were neat.
Auric sighed, gave Mouse's head another stroke. 'Take me to your sister. Quickly, mind.'
'She's at home. Follow me.'
The boy took off up the street and Auric followed, abandoning his barrow, Mouse still a lead weight in his arms. If someone wanted the barrow, they could have it. He could always replace it, but he could never replace Mouse.
They turned down dirty streets and mud-splattered alleys. Brunholm was a tangle of crooked roads, skinny walkways and overhanging roofs, all thrown together and on top of one another like bones from a soothsayers bag. A handful of old men, smoke wafting from the tips of their pipes, turned their heads as Auric and the boy passed. A woman selling fruit yelled at them not to run in the street.
The boy must have known the town well. He darted about, twisting and turning without warning, until a couple minutes later when he skidded to a stop in front of a tenement flat. Auric's chest burned. Sweat ran down the back of his neck. It had taken all he had left to keep up with the lad.
The boy went up to the door and jerked it open. 'Jayna,' he shouted, his head half through the doorway, 'you've gotta come quick and help someone.'
The smells and sounds of cooking leaked out of the flat. There was a clatter from inside as someone threw something down.
'Don't be comin' in here with your dirty feet again, Flynn. I'm sick of cleaning up after you.'
'I'm not comin' in, I'm callin' you out. You gotta come help someone.'
'Enough of your mischief, Flynn.'
Footsteps came stamping up to the door. Flynn stepped aside, and a young woman appeared, an apron tied about her waist, her blond hair in a tight bun. When she saw Auric, her face went blank.
'Who are you?' She reached out to her brother, pulled him closer to her. That was the second time in ten minutes someone had done that in front of Auric.
'My name's Auric. I live in the woods a few miles outside town.'
Jayna poked her head out of the doorway and looked up and down the street. 'What's that?' she said, pointing at Mouse.
'It's what I've been saying,' Flynn cut in. 'This man's dog is hurt. I thought you might sew him back up, on account of you learning from aunty Helena.'
Jayna flicked Flynn's ear, her face scrunching up in anger.
'Oww,' the boy said, rubbing at his ear.
'I've told you time and again not to go talking to strangers.'
'I didn't. He was calling out in the street for a doctor.'
'And you answered him, didn't you? Besides, I'm no doctor. I've barely sown anything but sackcloth and linen.'
Auric stepped forward, showed her Mouse's wounds. She recoiled back into the doorway, her hand still on her younger brother.
'Please, Auric said. 'Mouse never hurt anyone. If you could do anything, anything at all, I'll find a way to repay you. He'll die if you don't help.'
Jayna's eyes darted up and down the street once more. Her face pulled tight in a look of resignation. 'Bring him in, then, but I can't promise you anything.'
'Thank you,' Auric said, stepping up to the stoop.
They moved inside the flat—little more than a single room with wooden floors and an open fireplace, crackling gently against one wall.
'I've seen wounds sewn up before,' Auric said. 'On people, anyway, but never done it myself. Don't think I'd have steady enough hands for it, these days.' Auric thought how long it had been since he'd had a drink. 'We'll need hot water, rags, and something to bandage with, if you've got it.'
Jayna nodded. 'You can put him down on the floor. Flynn, get the kettle on.'
Auric lay Mouse down in the centre of the room. He was still breathing, but slower than before. He wheezed with each breath, bloody spit frothing around his lips and teeth. 'Just hang on, boy. We found some help. We found you some help.'
Flynn and Jayna rushed about the flat. Flynn poured water into a kettle, set it hanging over the fire. Jayna grabbed a cloth, threw it over her shoulder, then pulled down a tin from a high shelf. The tin rattled like it was full of coins. All the while, Auric stroked Mouse's head, scratched behind his ears.
The young woman came over to Mouse, knelt down, set the tin beside him and examined the claw marks across his side. 'What did this?'
'We were attacked by a bear.'
'A bear?' she said, looking up, frowning. 'I've never heard of bears coming this far south before.'
'First time I've seen one, myself.'
'Hmm.' She looked back at mouse, lay gentle hands on him.
'We'll have to clean the dry blood away first,' Auric said. 'So we can see what we're dealing with. That water's probably hot enough, son. Bring it over, and a bowl too.'
Flynn brought the items over, his tongue clamped between his lips in concentration. He set them down and Auric poured water into the bowl, took the cloth from Jayna and started cleaning the wounds. The skin around the gashes had turned a deep purple. Blood didn't pour from the cuts, but it seeped up steadily.
Jayna opened the tin, took out a thick, curved needle. 'I guess a stronger thread will be better.' She pulled at the end of a black thread, licked it and deftly passed it through the eye of the needle.
'What do you want me to do?' Flynn asked.
'Not get in the way,' Jayna said.
Auric set the cloth into the now-bloody water, wiped his hands on his clothes, and reached down to Mouse. 'I'll hold him together. You just do your best stitching.'
Jayna took a deep breath, sucked air through her teeth. 'I'll do what I can.'
The first stitch was the hardest. Jayna worked the needle tentatively, pressed it against Mouse's skin like he would jump up and bark at her any moment. Auric's fingers kept slipping, and it was quite the effort to keep the wound closed. Jayna flinched as the needle pierced the edge of the wound, but once she saw the thread pull tight, and the wound start to pull closed, she relaxed a little.
'It's working,' she said. 'It's actually working.'
'I knew you could do it,' Flynn said, patting his sister on the back. 'Skin is just the body's natural clothes, anyway.'
It took over an hour with all three of them crouched on the hard floor. Auric's fingers cramped with the effort of pulling Mouse's torn skin together. He ground his teeth in concentration, had to trade places with Flynn and give his hands a rest.
Halfway through, Mouse's legs started jerking, twitching like he did sometimes in his sleep, and Auric bent down to whisper in his ear and stroke his head. Still, Jayna had to wait a few minutes for the dog to become still again.
When the last stitch was done, Auric washed the wounds once more. The skin was still puffy, and that awful purple colour, but what was once an ugly tear was now a neat line, dotted with little loops of black thread. Most importantly, it was holding the blood in.
Jayna snipped the end of the thread, tied it in a knot, took a few deep breaths. They wrapped Mouse's middle with strips of cloth, torn from an old sack. They quickly dirtied with pus and other fluids, but they were better than nothing.
'Not bad for your first time,' Auric said. 'Thank you.'
'Can't exactly say I was glad to help, but you're welcome.' Jayna put the rest of her tools back in the tin, pressed the lid on tight. 'Phew, I think my nerves'll take a month to recover,' she said, standing and stretching out her back with a groan.
Flynn looked confused. 'That's it? But he's not better yet. What do we do next?'
'We wait,' Auric said with a sigh. 'We wait and see if he wakes up.'
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