Chapter 5 Part 9

Pain.

Avery had drifted in and out of consciousness for four days now. His body was in very bad shape. Hurled through the air at high speeds he had acted in desperation and without thinking. He had incanted a quick spell commonly used when falling from great heights. The spell was supposed to allow the caster to flutter down easily, but instead like a feather in the wind, the spell had only made things worse. With the benefit of hindsight, Avery cursed himself. Intellect is no substitute for experience. No experienced mage should ever make a mistake like that.

When he finally hit the side of a mountain peak, and fallen to the foot of the slope, he had sustained three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a leg fractured in four places and a broken back. Avery considered himself lucky.

Over the last four days, he had concentrated on healing the critical injuries and regaining enough strength to try to move. By sunset on the fourth day, he had mended his back and lung by his own healing magic. The crushed leg was still broken, but the bones were set, and the ribs sent jolts of pain through him with every twitch. But pain or no pain, he could not wait much longer. He had lain broken for days and he was beginning to feel the effects of dehydration and starvation. He absolutely had to get some sustenance.

With agonizing slowness, he pulled himself along with his hands down towards the tree line. It took hours, and it was well into the night when he finally came across a stream of melt water where he eagerly quenched his thirst.

It was not until he had fulfilled his thirst that he noticed that he was not alone. The lack of sounds of nature alerted his woodland senses and slowly he began to scan the surrounding brush with his elven night vision.

About fifteen meters to his left a warm blooded animal lay. At first Avery thought it was crouched for an attack, but the faint odor of blood and infection drifted across his olfactory senses leading Avery to the conclusion that a wounded and perhaps dying animal was facing him.

Slowly the ranger crawled away from the stream. He watched his visitor for any signs of panic but the animal made no move except to watch Avery. He sensed that the creature had resolved to die. Such was the way of the wild.

Without making any sudden moves, Avery inched his way over to within a few meters of the creature. At first Avery thought it was a large lion or a small horse. As he drew close he saw that its form was definitely canine, but extremely large.

Ranger and animal, both wounded badly sat in mutual silence as the first moon crept up through a mountain pass. With the added light Avery resolved that the animal was some sort of lupine creature. A wolf by general standards, but the size and weight of the beast defied any comparison to those animals.

Avery opened a belt pouch and took out some smoked snake meat. Some of it he nibbled at himself, and a larger piece he tossed near the other's head. The overgrown wolf sniffed at the meat suspiciously for a moment then munched it greedily.

Avery moved a little closer and tossed another piece. Again the gift was suspect, but not quite as long as the last time. Again it was eaten, and again Avery moved a little closer.
After about an hour, Avery was within reach of the wild animal, and also within its reach of him should it choose to attack.

Close now Avery scanned the creature for signs of injury. He didn't have to look long. A horrible open wound, probably from a spear, ran down the animal's right flank and bone showed from a break in the right hind leg.

Avery checked his rations. He had only a day's surplus left before he had to start trapping again. Well, he thought to himself, in a few days he should be strong enough to hunt. The thought also occurred to him that this animal could provide enough immediate meat to last him a while. He dismissed that thought. A day of hunger was not reason enough to kill an animal when he could heal. Instead he took a good chunk of smoked rabbit and sprinkled it with a particular herb from his shoulder bag. The gift of food was accepted graciously by the wolf and it was soon put to sleep by the drugged meat.

Avery gave the drug plenty of time to work before he made his move. Taking out his hunting knife, he cut away the infected flesh, and rubbed a healing salve onto the wound. Then he set the broken leg, and strapped some wooden stakes to the leg to keep it straight. Finally he invoked a small healing spell to accelerate the healing processes.
When he finished, he crawled about five meters away and tended to his own hurts.