Under the Highlander's Spell(64)

By her fourth trip bringing injured villagers to the safe spot, she had a group of helping hands, all women. One woman began helping her rescue the injured, while two others stood guard with swords, and one with a bow, in case of attack.

Only two of the injuries were serious, though Zia didn’t believe they were life threatening. However, she had seen a badly injured warrior who would certainly die if not given immediate attention.

Neddie, the woman helping her rescue the injured, joined her to help the fallen warrior. They waited on the edge of the woods, the warrior not far from them, blood oozing from his chest, his moans audible even above the noise of battle.

“As soon as an opening occurs, we go,” Zia ordered.

Neddie nodded, set to move.

Within minutes a lull in the battle and an opening on the field enabled the two women to rush out. They had pulled the warrior to the edge of the woods when a marauder appeared on horseback, grabbed a fistful of Zia’s hair and tried to drag her along the ground. But with her hair short, and with her ripping at his hand as he tried to keep his grip, he finally let go.

She scrambled to her feet and ran for cover, but he descended on her with surprising speed. Realizing she wouldn’t make it to the woods, she stopped and reached down to her boot for the dirk. She turned in time to see Artair descend on the man. With one blow of his sword, he knocked the marauder from his horse. The man was dead when hit the ground.

“Do as you were told!” Artair screamed.

Zia looked at him wide-eyed, and threw the dirk. It flew past a startled Artair and settled in the chest of another marauder, who’d come up behind him and had been about to end his life. She froze for only a moment, to see if she’d killed the man.

“Go! Now!” Artair screamed at her.

She obeyed instantly, joining Neddie, who had gotten the wounded warrior into the woods. Between the two of them, they moved him to safety. Then Zia went to work on him as Neddie continued to prowl the edge of the battlefield, looking to rescue villagers and warriors as best she could on her own.

When the battle ended, the warriors chased off those who had been wounded but were able to walk.

Within minutes Artair and Cavan descended on Zia.

She abruptly raised her hand at them. “You can berate me later. Right now this man needs me or he will die.”

“There are other wounded warriors,” Cavan said.

“Any who need immediate attention?” Zia asked while continuing to work on the man.

Artair answered. “James.”

With a swift turn of her head, her worried glance fell on him. “How bad?”

“His arm looks near severed,” Artair answered.

Neddie had returned as soon as she discovered that her husband and son survived without any injures and offered her help.

She turned to Neddie. “Can your husband and son help get this man into a cottage where he can rest?”

Neddie nodded, and Zia gave her instructions, telling her what needed to be done for the injured man she’d been working on.

As Neddie moved off with him, Zia cleaned her hands in a bucket of water that had been filled and refilled throughout the battle by the young children. She grabbed her healing basket, which was seriously depleted, and followed Artair and Cavan. She was concerned about several other wounded men, but their situation didn’t sound nearly as dire as what she’d been told about James.

She hoped that Artair’s description of the wound was exaggerated, but seeing it, she quickly knew that it hadn’t been. She didn’t know if she could be able to save his arm, or more important, save James.

James appeared to have the same thought. “I’m done, I’m done!” he yelled to the men around him. “Kill me now and get it over!”

Zia dropped down beside him on the ground. “How dare you survive a battle only to surrender to a wound.”

“I’ve lost my arm.”

“Not yet you haven’t,” she said, and looked to Artair. “Find me a clean enough place to work on him.”

It didn’t take long to have James settled on a sturdy table in a cottage. Neddie arrived to let her know that the warrior she had worked on now slept comfortably and was grateful to her, and she offered further help if needed.

Zia gratefully accepted her offer.

She could see those who had looked at the wound didn’t believe she could save James’s arm, but no one said as much. They let her go about her work without interruption.

She took several chances she normally wouldn’t, but her grandmother had often told her that if it looked like there was no chance at all, to take all the chances you could.

She gave James a concoction that healers rarely used, since it wasn’t safe. It would either make him sleep deeply for hours or kill him. But she had little choice. With the work she had to do on his arm, he could never have tolerated the pain, and she needed him very still; the potion guaranteed both, and alleviated his misery over losing his arm, which she knew could still happen.