Thayloryn Tuth's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Two miles into the woods, Thayloryn stopped the line of children and knelt by the smallest boy. Blood soaked the left leg of his trousers from hip to knee. A crossbow bolt had grazed him during the ambush at the caravan, and she had not seen it until he stumbled. She pressed her palm against the wound. The bleeding did not slow. She had bandages for cuts and a needle for shallow work, but nothing for a torn vein this deep. Dawn was four hours away. He would not last two. The valley she meant to reach with these eight children would hold seven if she kept walking. She knew one person close enough to help. The shadowroot hollow lay a half hour east, off her route and away from cover. She told the older children to wait under a fallen pine and to stay flat. She lifted the boy against her chest and ran. Branches cut her face. She did not slow. She found the oracle at the edge of his clearing, barefoot, staff in hand, watching the trees as if he had heard her coming for miles. She said the boy was bleeding out and she had nothing. Thorne Blackroot looked at the leg. "Deep vein. Not the artery. He has an hour." He turned and walked into his hut. She followed. He pulled a compact bundle of tied heel wraps from a shelf and unrolled two. "Pack the wound. Bind above it. Do not loosen the bind until morning." He handed her a small clay jar. "Chewed root. Put it in the wraps first. It closes the small vessels." She started to ask what she owed him. He shook his head once. "Not from you. From the one who brought you here." She did not understand. He did not explain. He watched her pack the wound with the paste and the soft cloth, and when the bleeding slowed under her hands, he nodded and stepped back. She carried the boy back to the fallen pine before the sky changed. His breath was thin but steady. The other seven were where she had left them. She counted them twice and lifted the boy again and started south for the ridge. She had bought the child a night. She had also taken a debt she did not set the terms of, from a man who traded in future favors, and she was already carrying one debt bigger than any single job. The valley was still two ridges away. The children still had to be hunted for a season. But the smallest one would see the valley, and that was the shape of the sanctuary she had promised herself she would build.