The Unbroken Circle

Chapter 9

Lucky's POV

We rode for what I could only imagine were several hours before they stopped to rest the horses. That’s when Markus took me down from the horse and did what he hadn’t had the time to do so far...

Interrogate me.

“So,” he said in a strict and firm voice, as if I were a child, he was about to scold me. “Mind telling us the truth? Who are you?”

“Lucky,” I answered between clenched teeth. If I opened my mouth any more than necessary, I was afraid I was going to bite off his head. The anger boiled in my blood. Even if he had brought me along, I soon figured out why.

He wasn’t grateful!

He needed me to be with him in case I sounded the alarm - nothing else.

“Eye, you need to be, to pull off what you just did,” the old one said while helping to tend to the continuous bleeding of the wounded one.

“No, my name is Lucky!” I said and turned to Markus with a glare I was hoping would put him six feet under. “I’m from the middle of nowhere, and your boss has promised to help me get back home. Hence my little performance back there.”

He looked surprised by the way I addressed him. He was probably used to people showing him respect and using his title, but since the way he acted back at the camp, I refused to address him in any other way than an asshole!

“I hate to admit it, M’Lord,” said the young one and looked down at his master. “But without her, we’d be dead.”

Markus didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to the wounded one, continuing the conversation in his other language...

Garlic, I think it was?

Or Gaelic?

I finally figured out that the wounded one was Giles. The older one was Irve, and the younger one was Pippin. Which made me smile since ‘pippin’ meant ‘small one’, where I was from. And there was nothing small about the very long redhead, that - while skinny and scrawny - was easily the same height as the bulky man I'd been sharing a horse with.

“Come on!” Markus announced and turned to the horses again, getting ready to mount. “We’re leaving.”

“And I’m coming too?” I asked with a scowl, and met his frowning gaze. “What?” I snapped, not hiding the fact that I was mad. “You think I didn’t notice the look you gave me back at the fort? You were going to leave me behind if you hadn’t been afraid that I’d sound the alarm. So why should I trust you?”

Markus stopped and turned towards me. His eyes were like fire. Like the rest of us, he was exhausted, and his patience was short. But I had met the wrath of the gods before, and this time, I thought to myself, this time I would fight back.

“You want to live?”

The question hit me like a fist in the guts. That was exactly the same question I’d asked him back at the prison. We had no reason to trust each other. So far, we hadn’t killed each other when there was an opportunity to do so, and I was just as dependent on him and his set of skills as he was on mine. And as the truth sank in, I had to admit defeat in this round.

He jumped back up on the horse and reached down. I took his hand and got up in front of him. Damn it, I thought annoyed, but it couldn’t be helped. And soon we were thundering across the land like angry gods, making the earth tremble.

“M’Lord!”

Markus immediately looked up and stopped the horses. M’Lord? Oh, yeah, Markus was their lord. Kinda forgot! Although it didn’t really surprise me. His posture was completely different from that of his men, but… There was something! Something I couldn’t put my finger on. The way he talked to his men. His casual yet firm way of giving orders. Like he didn’t put himself above them, although he took full responsibility for them.

We had been riding all day, with only a few short stops to rest the horses and to drink. But this time it was more serious than just making sure we didn’t kill the animals. I’d noticed that the one they called Giles was getting worse by every passing hour, but he never complained. It was Pippin sounding the alarm that the man in his arm was dangerously weak.

Markus quickly jumped down from his horse and rushed to his side. A quick examination concluded what I had been thinking: he needed rest and the wound properly taken care of.

“Help me get him down,” he said, and Irve got down to help him

“I’m sorry, M’Lord,” he groaned in pain, as they put him down.

“Don’t be,” he answered in a firm voice, but it was clear that he was worried about a possible pursuit. “We’ll rest for a moment.”

They helped Giles down from the horse, and immediately, the nurse in me kicked in again. His face was pale, and drops of sweat were like pearls on his forehead. He needed medicine and to get that bullet out of his body.

And rest…

I jumped down and went to his side. The men watched me with surprise as I walked over and took a look at the wound. It needed to be cleaned.

“Any one of you have any alcohol?” I asked and looked up at Irve. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the pale yellow in his face and the dark spots on his forehead and neck were caused by a lifetime of exposure to alcohol. And as I already guessed, he did have a flask hidden away that he handed me with some hesitation.

“What are you doing?” Markus asked while I returned to Giles. The wound was right under his right arm; some ribs were exposed, but luckily, no arteries had burst. I could see the bullet under his skin, which had slowly turned green by exposure to the lead in the blasted thing. Not necessarily dangerous, but long-term exposure would be fatal.

I had to remove it.

But how?

The bullet had launched itself dangerously close to his liver, but since he was still alive, I guessed that it was stuck between the ribs or fragments of broken ribs, which so far had protected its host. If he was going to live, I needed to remove the bullet, clean the wound, and make sure it didn’t become infected.

“Trying to keep him alive,” I answered, and tried to figure out what I had available. Alcohol, my pocketknife, and my dress, if I needed new bandages. The only thing missing was medicine…

I took a quick look around and luckily noticed some sticklewort close by. I could use their leaves to accelerate the healing process or at least keep him alive long enough to get it properly treated.

“I need to cut out the bullet,” I explained while I got the leaves. Suddenly, the men looked at me with a completely different look in their eyes. I amused myself with the thought that they didn’t expect an ass-kicking, lying nun to know anything about medicine.

I cut some threads of my dress while I once again estimated the situation. My particular skill set did allow me to block his nerves, and the procedure would be pain-free. Especially taking into consideration that the lighting of the setting sun could be treacherous. But if I did that, I had to paralyze him from the neck down, and that was too dangerous. I had no choice but to do it the old-fashioned way. But somehow I doubt that he would want it any other way anyway.

“If you have a happy place, I suggest you go to it,” I said, and turned to him again. “This will hurt.”

Without asking, Markus gave Giles a stick to bite onto, while he and Pippin held him still.

“You’ve done this before?”, Markus asked, and I think I detected some worry in his voice. I nodded as I concentrated on the bullet.

He screamed in agony.

I worked as fast as I could. It was hard, however. The blood, a man in pain, and the fact that I only had a pocketknife to work with didn’t make it any easier. But a silent prayer later, I managed to get the bullet out. With a sigh of relief, I washed the wound with alcohol and applied the mashed sticklewort leaves, before bandaging it with my Ocean Fresh dress.

“You need to get a doctor to look at that,” I said when I was finished, as he could finally take a deep, pain-free breath. "It won’t cure you, but it will keep you alive for the next couple of days. And hopefully a little more comfortable.”

“That actually helped,” he sighed, surprised and smiling at me. “Thanks.”

I didn’t answer but smiled back. That’s when I noticed my hands. They were covered in blood, and so were the old bandages. I needed to wash them, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a river wasn’t far from here.