Mike the White's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

They reached the tavern near dawn. Nia met them at the door with a lamp. The two cubs were handed off to their pack, and the crying stopped for good. Mike climbed the stairs to a bed. He did not climb down for two days. His shoulder had torn open in the fight at the gate, and the burned skin split wide. Fresh blood soaked the cloth. Nia unwrapped it and went quiet. The queen's court still waited to the far north. Mike could not ride a mile like this, let alone the distance. "Sit," Nia said. "You ride nowhere." Mike gripped the bedframe. "I have to reach the court. I bled for those cubs. That is my gift." "You'll bleed to death in the saddle first," she said. She pressed a wad of moss to the wound. "This won't hold with an iron again. The skin's too thin now." Dara stood in the doorway. She had watched the wound reopen twice. "Stitches," she said. Flat. "Iron burns it worse. Needle and thread. Sela sews the tavern linens." Sela came up with her sewing kit. She had crawled a foul drain for these people twice, and her hands did not shake now. She threaded a bone needle by the lamp. "Hold him," she told Luna. Luna sat on Mike's good arm and put her weight there. "Don't move," she said. "It's worse if you move." Mike stared at the ceiling beam. Sela pushed the needle through. He hissed but held. She pulled the split skin shut, stitch by stitch, and knotted each one tight. Blood welled, then slowed, then stopped. Nia packed the seam with moss and bound it flat. "Three days," Nia said. "The stitches set, or they tear like the burn did. Ride before that and you finish the job the boar started." Mike lay still. Three days. He counted the ride north in his head. The court would move on. He had bled for the cubs and might still arrive too late to lay that sacrifice at the queen's feet. But the wound held. On the third morning he stood without the cloth soaking through. He pressed the seam. It ached but did not split. He walked the length of the tavern floor, past the long tables and the cold hearth, and turned back. The skin stayed shut. "It holds," he said. Dara watched from the stairs. "For now," she said. Mike pulled his leather over the bandage and reached for his axe. He could ride now. But three days had passed, and word had traveled. A rider had come through at dusk with news for Nia's pack. The scarred leader had tracked the cubs' trail south. The northern pack was moving. They knew the man who took their young slept in this tavern, and they were coming to it.