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He was afraid to look down at his ankle his foot was already warmly wet, and
it hurt like a sonofabitch.
Leaning heavily on the staff, Ian hobbled down into the cavern, following the
sounds of sobbing past the first turn, past the wooden stalls where the mare
and the pony stood, munching on hay and looking bored, past a final turn to
where the dwarf was busily engaged in trying to squeeze himself into the
juncture between cave wall and floor, and where Silvertop stood snorting, one
large, liquid eye watching Ian with unconcealed irritation.
Silvertop was a huge horse, easily the size of a Percheron or a Clydesdale,
although built along more slender lines still, his legs seemed thicker and
his untrimmed hooves larger than they should have been.
Save for the white blaze across its forehead and its long, ragged mane, he was
black like the raven, but there the similarity ended:
Silvertop's black was not glossy or oily or shiny, it was the black of night,
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the black of coal, the black of hell.
Silvertop snorted heavily, whipping straw and dust and dried manure up and
into the air hard enough that Ian had to momentarily cover his eyes with his
forearm to protect them. One massive hoof pawed at the stone, striking sparks
that set the straw smoldering
although the blacksmith's hammer and iron shoes had never touched Silvertop.
It was unlikely that Silvertop was very angry he had not bitten off Ian's
head, after all.
That was always a good sign.
It was something the horse was physically capable of those thick teeth could
bite through a small tree; Ian had seen it do just that.
"I am sorry," Ian said, to both of them. "I would say that I meant no offense,
no harm, but that would not be true, Valin I meant to strike out, to wound, to
hurt your feelings, simply because I am hurt and confused. I was wrong, and
I'm sorry."
It was important that both of them believe him, at least it was important to
him. Ian had thought he had earned the Aesir horse's respect, although its
affection was beyond him and Ian was, still, grateful to Valin for having
brought, the warning, and he did respect his courage.
It was important...
Harbard's ring pulsed against his finger, painfully hard once, twice, three
times.
Valin straightened, wiping with the back of his hand against the puzzled
expression that had his face all wrinkled. Silvertop stopped glaring and
snorting, clopped over to a stone bin filled with some grain that Ian didn't
recognize, and began to chomp at it, idly.
Ian's ankle had been hurting all along, but he had forced himself to try to
ignore it. Now, grunting in pain, Ian sagged back against a wooden bin, and
then eased himself down to the cold stone floor. He bent forward and pulled up
the hem of his trousers.
He hadn't cut himself as deeply as he had feared, but it was deep enough, and
the red flow of blood had already soaked his sock and sneaker.
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Hidden Ways 3.htm
The sock wasn't that big a deal, but the sneaker couldn't be replaced, not
here. Maybe it would wash out. Or maybe it would rot and make the sneaker
unusable.
Valin, ever-faithful Valin, was immediately at his side, the first aid kit
from one of the rucksacks in his thick hands. "Please, Honored One," he said,
"friend of the friend of the Father, himself the father of Vestri, Father to
the Folk please instruct this clumsy one as to what to use of this to ease
your pain."
There was a selection of syringes in the kit, filled and labeled, their tips
covered with some sort of green high-tech plastic that was supposed to keep
them sterile until it was removed.
Fuck. The last thing he wanted to do now was ask Freya for help healing
himself, but shit... it hurt, and knocking himself out with
Demerol and Vistaril, while tempting, just wouldn't do, not now.
He shuffled through the syringes what was atropine, anyway? until he found one
labeled "Lidocaine use to numb injured region for stitching of minor wounds.
Sterilize everything!!! RLSMD" and pulled the gunk off the tip of the needle,
then sprayed a little of the clear liquid into his open wound before sticking
it several times into the flesh around the wound it stung hard enough to draw
tears from his eyes, but you can't wet a river until he couldn't push the
plunger in any further.
He wasn't sure how long it was supposed to take until the lidocaine kicked in,
but by Murphy's Law, if he tried to use Harbard's ring to persuade himself
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that it didn't hurt, it would either not work on himself, as usual, or it
would start working about by the time he concentrated
The ring pulsed, hard, once.
His ankle went numb.
It was like somebody had thrown a switch on the pain.
What the fuck?
Carefully, gingerly, he touched a fingertip to the wound. He could feel it,
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