Part 9 (1/2)
She was infinitely pleased with herself right up to the very moment she pa.s.sed out.
Ender and Lasher both made a misstep as all of the weight of their burden was flung suddenly forward. Only their grip on her arms over their necks kept her from taking a full header onto the forest floor.
”s.h.i.+t!” Lasher exclaimed, dropping to a knee when Ender did in order to ease her gently into the ferns and leaf litter. Bronse was rus.h.i.+ng up with a loud crush of underbrush as Lasher rolled her onto her side. She was deathly pale, and her hair was soaked in sweat. Lasher repeated his curse, realizing that she had lied to him, that he should have forced a stop and checked her more thoroughly.
”Las.h.!.+” Bronse commanded.
”Out cold, sir. From the pain. The fever is back too. And before you yell at me, she kept telling me she was fine.”
”Do you have another shot for the fever?”
”No. I'm going to narc her and break a chill pack. It should keep her fever down. Jeez, she's a mess.” Lasher lifted the back of the s.h.i.+rt to show the soaked and b.l.o.o.d.y bandages.
”How far?” Bronse demanded, turning to Kith.
”Not far now. Four miles max.”
”We could take turns piggybacking her,” Ender suggested.
”Not Bronse. He cracked some ribs,” Lasher said, giving a smug sideways look to his commander.
”Me and you then. It's only a few miles.”
”And you're already exhausted from the last twenty-four,” Lasher dismissed him. ”Maybe we ought to camp here.”
”Not a good idea,” Kith warned. ”The Fromegs are in rut. See the marks on the trees? That's from rubbing their horn against the bark to mark territory. Fromegs are mighty territorial and awful big.”
”Then we fas.h.i.+on a litter. Jus, Lash, Ender-strip your outer s.h.i.+rts. Kid, find me two man-sized limbs fallen from trees. Strong, no dry rot. Justice, gather up some of this bracken.”
With quick efficiency, Bronse had fas.h.i.+oned, and cus.h.i.+oned, a litter for Ravenna. They carefully laid her onto it after Lasher stuck the narc patch on her. Bronse switched off with Ender, and Kith replaced Lasher. They were back on their way in no time.
Bronse was leading the litter right behind Lasher, who was on point. They hadn't gone but half a mile when a crash in the brush brought everyone's attention swinging left. Out of the dense, dark vegetation sprang a lightning-fast body. A giant wall of fur, it crashed through the ranks of the humanoids and struck a random target.
Bronse was plucked out of line so fast that the litter didn't even drop on its end before he and the beast hit the forest floor ten feet away. They rolled. Or the beast rolled with Bronse caught between its four ma.s.sive paws. The pounce ended with Bronse slamming hard onto his back and the snarling forest creature pinning him by his hips with its hind legs and paws, and his shoulders by the front paws. The animal was some sort of cat; Lasher had never seen anything so enormous in his life. The paws alone were twice the size of those on a Turba tiger.
”What the f.u.c.k is that?” Ender was screaming as they all drew laser weapons on it.
”It's a Hutha lion!” yelled Kith.
Lasher didn't care what it was. He was already firing on it.
The first stun didn't even seem to phase it. Lasher heard Bronse shout out as he flipped over to a kill setting. The laser whined loud and sharp through the air and struck hard enough to send the cat rolling to the left. It sprang up instantly, though, wounded and seriously p.i.s.sed off. It roared, an ear-shattering sound that sent chills down their spines. The next shot came in a trio as Justice and Ender fired with Lasher. The smell of roasting flesh surrounded them as they aborted the cat's second pounce on Bronse. The animal hit the dirt mid-stride, mid-roar, kicking up leaf debris and bracken as it slid to a halt with its muzzle in the soil. It released a horrible shudder, its breath rattling loudly out of its enormous body.
Jus and Ender both rushed up to the beast, their weapons still fully trained on it. Lasher went in the other direction, heading for Bronse now that the threat was neutralized. Lasher dreaded what he was going to see, and he was right to feel that way. Bronse lay sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath, and Lasher could smell fresh blood. The animal's claws had torn through his vest and the Skintex s.h.i.+rt over his shoulders, exposing large, deep furrows in his skin. Looking farther down, Lasher saw that Bronse's pants across his thighs were in similar shape, only the wounds were deeper, having borne the brunt of the weight of the attacking animal.
”Great Being,” Lasher whispered, his voice failing him as he dropped his rifle and flung himself down to his commander's side. ”Bronse!” Bronse turned dark blue-violet eyes on Lasher, his expression stark and horrifying. Bronse was struggling for every breath and could not speak, but he reached out with strength to grab Lasher's forearm. ”Bronse, relax. I think one of the ribs you cracked earlier may have hit a lung.” Lasher tried to rea.s.sure his friend that he knew what was wrong, though fixing the problem was not going to be so easy. He whipped out the first-aid kit as the others finally arrived to kneel beside them.
”What can I do?” Justice demanded.
”Give me something to stop the bleeding,” Ender commanded Lasher as he pressed a hand to the free-flowing blood on Bronse's right thigh.
”Justice, get up and maintain a guard,” Lasher barked. ”For all we know, there's more of these things. Cats can hunt in prides. Ender, forget the blood. He needs to breathe before we worry about that. Close ranks and bring the kid and his sister close over.”
”Got it.”
Lasher looked down into a desperate periwinkle gaze. Bronse's skin was turning dusky and tinged with blue around his lips. ”Easy does it, my friend. I'm going to take excellent care of you.” Lasher pulled out a breathing a.s.sist disc and ripped it out of its sterile packing. He reached to tear open Bronse's s.h.i.+rt-the task made easy by the rending left by the beast-and exposed his chest. Then he placed the disc along the breastbone, beneath the heart and between both lungs. The device blinked to life almost instantly, and Lasher watched carefully for the readout and diagnostic.
Sure enough, with a petulant beep, the disc warned that Bronse had punctured his left lung, and the technology would now be inserting tubules into the healthy lung so it could enrich the oxygen intake enough on the functioning side in order to sustain the patient until advanced medical services were reached. Bronse did not feel the invasion because the tubes were smaller than needles, but the difference in his coloring and the urgency of his breathing was immediate. The commander was breathing far easier by the time Ravenna was set down beside him.
”Okay, now let's stop the bleeding. The worst is the legs.”
Ender and Lasher worked quickly and with little need for instruction as they prepared the commander for stasis until they could reach help. Bronse hardly made a sound outside of the odd groan of pain. Lasher gave him blood fortifiers and, without even bothering to ask, a mediumdose narc patch. It didn't put him out, but in a few minutes there was clearly no focus to his light eyes.
”All right, I'm open to suggestions,” Lasher bit out as he continued to tend their newest patient. He tore into a pressure bandage with his teeth, shucking off the packaging.
”We can't remote the s.h.i.+p this deep in,” Jus said. ”It's too dense here. Nowhere to land.”
”I can get help.”
They looked at Kith as a trio, giving him a chill at the synchronized effect. ”I'm light and fast and I know where I'm going. I can fetch Ophelia and one or two of the others to help us bring them back to the temple.”
Lasher didn't know what a sixteen-year-old healer could possibly do that he couldn't, but Kith had been itching to get his sister to Ophelia from the get-go, so it was more than worth thinking about. If it was good enough for Ravenna, it would have to be good enough for the commander.
”That doubles the travel,” Ender said. ”There and back.”
”And halves the time,” Kith retorted. ”Trust me, it'll be easier to travel to the temple after Ophelia tends to them and the others come to help.”
”I don't see any other choices. Can this little sister of yours run as fast as you do? Can she travel this kind of terrain?” Lasher asked.
”In her sleep. We were born here, remember? You have to trust me. The longer we argue-”
”Right. Jus, go with him.”
”Hey ...,” Kith protested.
”You're no help dead. Justice is light and fast, too, but a crack shot besides.”
”Fine.” Clearly Kith was not fine with it, but he was anxious to get home now that it seemed imminently in his future. ”Let's go.”
They went cras.h.i.+ng off at a run through the underbrush, making Lasher wince visibly. ”Well, I think all of Ebbany can hear them coming.”
”No doubt. How's he doing?” Ender asked, nodding to their leader.
”Breathing easier, stoned to the gills, bleeding like a stuck pig on that left thigh. Improvement on the right. The shoulder wounds are shallower, but I think one joint is dislocated, and there's a good chance that the bruising you see there is a broken clavicle.”
Ender released a low whistle and shook his head.
”That thing had to weigh at least nine hundred pounds. More, I'm sure. No wonder it kicked the s.h.i.+t out of him.”
”Envision if we'd been five seconds slower on the draw.”