D. Heinrich - The Tainted Sword

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The creature screamed and leaped aside. Clawing the icy branches, it rose to its full height, towering over the aging warrior. Flinn gritted his teeth and took a swing at the beast. It dodged the blade, lunging for Flinn’s open side. He battered it back, the sword’s edge biting into the bone claws. The beast drew back and they circled each other, warily gauging the other’s strength. Blood dripped from the creature’s knobby back, forming rivulets in the snow. It hissed once, and its eight-fanged jaw confirmed the warrior’s suspicions. The creature was an abelaat, a fiend from the blackest planes of creation. Abelaats were powerful servants, and Flinn wondered if more such beasts roamed the wood-or if the creature’s master was nearby. The warrior’s skin crawled.

The abelaat crouched, its bony claws clicking against its palms. Flinn readied himself, sure the creature would attack.

The creature sprang toward him, slashing out with its claws. Flinn leaped to the side, countering with a backhand arc of his sword. But the abelaat pulled back, its attack merely a feint. Turning, it sprinted off into the murky woods. Flinn took a single step after it, wondering why it had chosen to run. Then he heard the girl moan. He watched a moment longer, making sure the creature had truly fled, then dropped to his knee beside Johauna.

“Jo? Jo?” He gazed at the bloodied flesh of the girl’s left shoulder.

Sluggishly Jo opened her eyes and looked up at him, a tiny smile on her lips. “My Da’s coming home,” she whispered, then her eyes rolled up in their sockets and her eyelids flickered shut.

Flinn studied the wound apprehensively. The flow of blood hadn’t stopped. He thought to staunch it, but hesitated. “Abelaats are poisonous,” he muttered to himself, sighing deeply. Cautiously, the warrior lifted the girl and headed for the cabin. He had medications there that might help her. In the meantime, letting the wound bleed could drain away much of the poison.

“Hang on, Jo,” he murmured. “Hang on.”

Chapter III

Flinn kicked open the door, his breath ragged. He had carried Johauna’s body through the icy woods, struggling to hold onto the girl during her sudden convulsions. But she was in the cabin now, and here they would be safe. Flinn gently placed the girl on the bed’s furs. She lay still and lifeless; her spasms of pain had stopped nearly fifty paces ago. At the time he’d been relieved because she was easier to carry, but now her stillness scared him. Jo’s skin, once the color of clear honey, was flushed crimson. She was sweating and fevered to the touch.

Flinn pulled off her shift and threw it on the fire, hoping the stench of the creature would be consumed with the fabric. He drew his softest fur over her. Then he turned to the mawed shoulder. The girl had lost a considerable amount of blood-more than he thought she would. Clearly some of the abelaat’s poison remained in her body. The fever was proof of that.

Carefully, Flinn cleaned the wound. A circle of eight fang marks ringed Jo’s shoulder, each still pulsing blood, albeit slowly. Flinn washed out what debris he could find, grimacing at the strange chunks of rusty crystal he removed. As he withdrew the last chunk from the eighth hole, he stopped to look at the granular substance more closely. The creature’s poisonous saliva must have solidified in Jo’s wounds, he thought. He put the chunks in a bowl, set them aside, and searched the flesh one last time for anything he may have missed.

The girl had turned deathly pale, but her sweating had stopped. Her shallow breathing filled the cabin with its irregular rhythm. For a moment, Flinn stroked the damp tendrils of hair on her brow. He knew he couldn’t take her to Bywater for a cleric’s ministrations-she wouldn’t survive a day’s ride.

He went to his cupboard and sifted through the few herbs he had. He pulled out a dried bouquet of yellow flowers. “Feverfew,” he murmured, gazing at the petals, “But her fever is down.” He set the bouquet beside a batch of bloodwort, which could have stanched the blood flow, but Jo’s punctures had stopped bleeding. The other herbs were useful in times of tainted water or spoiled food, bee sting, or nettle itch. None would help the girl now.

Shutting the cabinet door, Flinn spied movement outside the cabin. “The abelaat,” Flinn whispered. He drew his sword and, in one swift leap, positioned himself before the door. He yanked the door nearly off its wood-and-leather hinges, his sword arcing through the air at the same time. The wildboy stood in the doorway. Flinn grunted and twisted the whirling blade away from the ducking boy. The sword’s tip whistled past the wildboy’s ear and struck the doorjamb, biting deep.

The wildboy huddled on the step, paralyzed with fear. He looked up as Flinn yanked on his sword, struggling to free it from the wood. Seeing that he was safe, the boy turned his attention to the crudely made willow basket he held. His furtive hands darted in and out of the basket, arranging its contents. Then, standing, the boy gestured for the warrior to take it. Flinn stopped yanking on the sword and turned a dumbfounded gaze on the boy. He took the basket, slowly examining its contents.

“I saw the fight with the abelaat and brought these herbs to heal the pretty one. Use all but the narrow-leaved ones in a poultice,” the child’s voice was barely more than a whisper. Flinn looked sharply at the boy, surprised that he could speak at all, let alone in complete sentences. The boy continued, “Use the narrow-leaved ones in a tea. You may have to force her to drink it.” Before Flinn could speak, either in thanks or protest, the wildboy disappeared into the gloom surrounding the cabin.

Flinn shook his head, struggling to believe the incident even occurred. He stared, befuddled, at the basket in his hands and then back at the girl lying in the bed. He kicked at the side of his blade and knocked it loose from the wood, taking a sizable chunk from the doorjamb. This time he barred the door after closing it.

The warrior set two pots over the fire and added a few more pieces of wood. Sitting at the hearth, he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He glanced once at the girl, who now lay strangely motionless, as if paralyzed. Listening closely, he heard Jo’s quick, irregular breath, and he thanked the Immortal Thor.

Flinn turned to watch the flames lick at the bottoms of the black iron pots, unaware that his lips had pulled into a grimace. The girl would likely die here in his cabin tonight, for he didn’t have the knowledge to heal her himself. “She is so young,” he murmured, shaking his head sadly. And the death of this innocent girl would be another stain on his honor as a former knight. It was he who had sent her off into the forest, he who had come too late to save her life, he whose lack of healing knowledge left her to die. But something else bothered him. The aging warrior rubbed his chin with one hand, then gazed past his fingers and thought about the girl. Her persistent questions about knighthood, her childlike trust in Flinn the Mighty-both had reminded him of what being a knight had meant to him. Her quest for knighthood reminded him of his own need to be a good and honorable man.

She couldn’t die now, he thought, not when she has awakened these feelings in me.

Flinn sighed and began crumbling the herbs into their appropriate pots, adding grain to the poultice pot to thicken it. He hesitated a moment, the crumpled leaves sticking to his hand. “What if this is poison?” he asked himself. Glancing at the lifeless Jo, he realized she would die if not treated, and any chance was better than none. Brushing off his hand, he leaned back and let the potions brew for a few minutes. Then he stirred the paste once more and removed the tea from the heat.

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