TWELVE

  "Oh, I'll pay you, bastard," Vidar said, carrying Rend over to a table where they, together, lifted him into place. As soon as they placed him on the table, Rend fell into unconsciousness.

  While the veterinarian inspected the leg, Vidar regarded the man. "What's your name, anyway?"

  "My name?" the veterinarian asked, not looking up from the damaged limb.

  "The thing other people call you?"

  "Lasse."

  "Lasse?"

  "That's right."

  "Strange name," Vidar said.

  Lasse looked up with a glare. "It's what my friends call me. My name is Lars. Now, do you want me to look at your friend or not? Be quiet."

  With the veterinarian returning to his examination, poking and prodding the leg and foot, Vidar shifted his weight from foot to foot while trying to calm himself down. Even after the grueling task of carrying Rend out of the underground systems, energy surged through him, and his breathing wouldn't go back down. Doing his utmost not to ask questions, he instead went through his pockets, fidgeting with this and that.

  After a thorough examination, Lasse spoke. "It's no good."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Remember what I told you about your hand?" Lasse asked, glancing at the now healed palm. "That has healed nicely, by the by."

  "I remember," Vidar said. "What about it?"

  "The first thing I told you is that we should take it off."

  "Good thing we didn't."

  "In hindsight, sure," Lasse agreed. "But my reasoning was sound. A dead or dying limb will bring the whole body with it unless it's treated and your luck is kissed by the fallen angels. You must've done something more than just using my poultice for your hand to turn out so well."

  Vidar held up his hand and looked at the burned-in styrka rune, shaking his head. "Not really. A physician looked it over, but the things they put on weren't any different from yours."

  Lasse shrugged. "Good healing flesh, then. Anyway, we should chop off your friend's leg."

  "What?"

  "Somewhere around here, to be safe," the veterinarian said, hovering his hand right below the knee.

  Vidar placed a hand on Rend's shoulder, sighing. "Is there no other way? What of that poultice?"

  "This isn't the same as what you suffered from. Crushing internal injury is not something medicine can restore. From what I can gather, looking at his skin and blemishes, the flow of blood is restricted. Without blood, the flesh is dying."

  "You know a lot," Vidar said, impressed.

  "In my business, you pick up this and that along the way. So what'll it be? Should I go get the saw?"

  Vidar paled and let out a strained cough. "Saw? Always with the amputations! Hold on a moment, Rend should get his say."

  It worked the last time, so Vidar slapped Rend hard across the face again, and the dragon rider stirred.

  “Hey there!” Vidar shouted near his face.

  “Warm,” Rend muttered.

  “How do you feel about taking off your leg?”

  Vidar shook his shoulders, and Rend blinked, eyes focusing and turning to look around. “Where am I?”

  “We're at a physician's residence,” Vidar said, eyeing the veterinarian. “His expert opinion is that your leg has to come off. It's too far gone, and if you don't?—”

  “No!” Rend shouted, surprising force behind the response.

  The reaction didn’t surprise Vidar. He’d had a similar one himself not long ago. Looking at his palm now, almost fully healed, you wouldn't have believed it.

  “The leg goes, or you die,” Lasse said.

  Rend struggled, trying to sit up, wheezing. “I die."

  “Do you understand what you are saying?” Vidar asked, pushing Rend back down with ease.

  Rend's gaze fixed on him with such intensity that Vidar took a step back. “Ride dragon. Two leg! Broken. No seat! Nothing!”

  “He's delusional from the fever,” Lasse chuckled.

  A nervous laugh escaped Vidar's throat, and he nodded. "Yeah. Delusional! You heard him, though. No body parts off today."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Less blood on the floor for me to clean up," Lasse said, shrugging like he didn't care either way. “You should take him outside and dump him in the snow. He doesn't have much longer.”

  “No,” Vidar shook his head. “I'll take him back to my house at least.”

  “Whatever you wish. Just leave me alone.”

  “I'll need some help. Can one of your cows pull that cart I saw by the barn last time I was here?”

  “Of course they can't! An ox and a cow are not the same,” Lasse grumbled.

  Vidar thought for a moment and nodded. “Then you'll have to help me pull.”

  The veterinarian was about to protest, but Vidar held up a finger. “Do this last thing, and I promise you will never have to see me ever again.”

  “That's fair,” Lasse grunted.

  Even with the cart and two of them pushing and pulling, it was difficult going through the snow. By the time they reached the house, Vidar sweated, panting hard.

  "This is as far as I go," Lasse said.

  Vidar glared at him. "You're not going to help carry him inside?"

  "That wasn't part of the deal."

  "Bastard," Vidar said, pulling Rend off the cart.

  "Don't return," Lasse said, grabbing the cart and starting the journey back.

  Vidar struggled to bring Rend inside, then locked the door and steeled himself. He’d have to get Rend up the stairs. Then, soft thuds sounded above, and a moment later, Alvarn and Erik appeared in the shop's front.

  “Who is he?” Alvarn asked, triggering a kenaz rune to give them some light.

  Vidar looked down at the unconscious Rend, grabbed his hand, lifted it, and waved to his friends. “This here is Rend, the dragon rider. Dragon rider, this is Alvarn and Erik. I'll introduce you once you wake up. If you wake up,” he added.

  “He's sick?” Erik asked.

  “Something like that,” Vidar confirmed. “Help me get him up to a bed.”

  The three of them cooperated to get Rend up the narrow stairs and into Vidar's bed, which bore obvious signs of someone just having slept in it. Vidar eyed Erik, who looked away without saying a word.

  “No luck on the sofa?” Vidar asked.

  “Not yet,” Erik grumbled. “There are hundreds of women and children coming in through the gate, and they're not letting anyone out.”

  “Why?”

  “There has been an increase in bandit activity, kidnappings, and the like. And the village just beyond the east wall has had its first monster attack in years.”

  Vidar paled. “Monsters?”

  “Yeah,” Erik replied. “They don’t come out of the deep forest much.”

  "I thought they never went near cities and villages," Vidar said.

  Erik just shrugged. "Things change. It messed with my plan of gathering wood out near the forest. Won't work now, will it?"

  “Guess it’s the floor for you, then,” Vidar said.

  “And you, but maybe not for long,” Erik said. “This Rend fellow looks more than halfway dead. Shouldn’t you take him to a physician?”

  “I did,” Vidar said. “We just came from a medical professional. It's the leg. Too far gone, but Rend here refused amputation."

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have asked,” Alvarn mused.

  “All men deserve the final say regarding their limbs. What’s done is done,” Vidar argued. “I just hope he wakes up so I can ask him some questions.”

  “If he does, see if he knows any more runes,” Alvarn said. “Perhaps he comes from somewhere beyond the mountain ranges of Finnerland. Who knows what sort of knowledge the tribes over there have?”

  "I'll make a note of it."

  Alvarn yawned. "Well, I'm going back to sleep. Opening the shop tomorrow."

  Vidar sat on a narrow stool squeezed in between the bed and the wall. A kenaz rune, set almost as low as they could go, glowed on the wall. Pursing his lips, Vidar reached over and made it emit a little more light. That way, he saw Rend lying there on the bed. The stark, bluish-white light from the rune only made the paleness of approaching death worse. Sweating and shuddering both at once, the dragon rider did not look like he had long. What it looked like was a young man holding on to life by a thread, not ready to let go. Of course, he wasn't ready at that age. Was anyone, ever?

  Flat on his back and with his chest exposed now that Vidar's coat no longer covered him, the beating of his heart could be seen with the naked eye, thumping and making his thin chest move up and down, up and down. Leaning in, Vidar observed. The heart inside him pumped blood around the body. Vidar knew that much. Maybe, just maybe, it moved something else around as well.

  The dragon essence in the circular area around his own heart fit. It being there made perfect sense. In short, it was right. This was the way it was supposed to be. So, if the heart pumped blood and the area around it was full of essence, wouldn't it make sense that the blood helped with moving that around the body as well? There was a difference, of course. Blood and the heart were physical things, but essence was not. Neither was the circle that now contained dragon's essence. What state of being essence belonged to, he didn't have the first clue, but once, when he'd used far too much essence, that, then wizened, circular area squeezed its heart. The not physical affected the physical.

  Rejuvenating meant the physical part of his body touching the rune lost sensation and numbed, not unlike if you froze your fingers in the cold, something Vidar was most familiar with. Again, the not physical was affecting the physical. The essence and the blood were connected. Belonged together. Blood carried essence around in his body. It was so simple.

  Again, he looked at the palm of his hand. Healed far better and quicker than it had any right to, as did his many injuries and scrapes from the last few days and weeks. Vidar glanced at Rend again. It could work. A gamble, but it could work.

  Vidar reached out and placed his hand on top of Rend's chest, just above the half-dead young man's heart. He closed his eyes and willed dragon's essence to rise from his heartwell and into the styrka rune in his palm. The name came to him unbidden. Heartwell. It felt right. Fitting for the well of powerful dragon’s essence surrounding his heart.

  Vidar felt the dragon's essence flow through his body, carried on the rivers of blood within to reach his hand. With another effort of will, he used the styrka rune to transfer dragon's essence from himself and into Rend.

  Connected as they were, Vidar felt the essence dart to Rend's heartwell, like when rejuvenating a rune, the circle representing the heartwell appeared before his mind's eye, and he saw it fill with the multi-colored, brilliant dragon's essence.

  Breaking out in a sweat, Vidar took deep breaths, struggling to keep his focus. Transferring essence from himself to another person proved far more taxing than adding it to a rune, and by the time Rend's much smaller heartwell looked to be about half-full, Vidar couldn't hold on any longer.

  Withdrawing his hand, he sat back and coughed, looking inward to, for the first time, see the dragon's essence within himself diminished. Two-thirds remained. Perhaps he shouldn’t have given so much. From now on, he’d need to be more conservative with how he used it. Still, Vidar rushed to grab the covers and pull them off Rend's leg. It looked the same.

  "Dammit," he muttered. "Didn't it work?"

  The dragon's essence helped heal Vidar's hand. He was feeling sure about that. So, why not Rend's leg? Then again, it'd been a faster healing process, not instantaneous. If Vidar wasn't mistaken, some color had returned to Rend's face, and perhaps his breathing was a little easier. He'd have to give it time. Giving dragon's essence to the dragon rider didn't appear to have harmed him. That was something.

  Grumbling to himself, he left his room to find space on the floor to sleep upon. Erik, the bastard, snored.