A Dark Alliance - The Endless Night - Chapter Two
Two - Succour for a Soldier
Allessia pushed open the chamber door to find Jherek stood before a flecked and misted mirror in the darkened room. He had removed his robes and leather body armour, which lay in a heap at his feet, but he moaned audibly as he struggled to peel the blood soaked shirt from his back. Inevitably, the effort was too much for him and he collapsed onto the chair beside him with a bellow of frustration, his arms half in, half out of the sleeves and the body of the garment still fastened around his waist.
“I feared the water in this place might be tainted, but the water in the well Karne found on the other side of the courtyard is clean.” Allessia announced, holding up a battered leather bucket as she crossed the room to where Jherek sat dejectedly. She placed the pail at his feet, and busied herself removing the eye-bright plate mail she wore; relieved to be rid of its cumbersome weight. Next, she lit the candles and a fire in the hearth the old fashioned way - with flint and kindling rather than by magical means, which would have smacked of ostentation, and in all likelihood would have taken her eyebrows off in a space so small - and filled the kettle hanging over it with water from the pail.
“Jherek, do you think you can stand?” Allessia asked, “I need to get a better look at that wound.”
Jherek nodded, and clinging tightly to her arms for support he slowly got to his feet. He realised that this was no time to let his pride get in the way, he needed her help; but accepting it meant accepting weakness, and admitting weakness of any kind didn’t come easily to him. Still, he knew that if he refused her she would only push at him until he gave in, and as such it was far easier to just let her get on with whatever it was she needed to do “to fulfill her duties in the eyes of Helm,” as she would pronounce grandly. He wondered if he was ever as zealous back then, back before, well... he supposed he must have been, he was certainly as idealistic.
He allowed himself a small smile when he remembered how, in the course of the enquiries he made about the group of adventurers prior to procuring their services, Huros - a Warrior Priest of the Helmite church in Baldur’s Gate - had confided in him that he thought his charge, Allessia, stood to become one of the most powerful servants of Helm the church would ever know. No doubt the priest’s comment held a certain amount of bias but who was he to argue? During the time she’d worked for him as a Harper agent and the short time they had spent travelling together, the paladin had proved herself more than capable both clerically and in combat.
When she was sure he could stand unaided, Allessia knelt before Jherek and carefully eased his arms from his shirt, before deftly cutting away the bloodied fabric with a sharp blade, leaving only a small square around the wound in his lower back. Then she took up a candle so she could better see the wound. Seeing Jherek bathed it’s soft glow, Alessia suppressed a gasp of shock; the scars she saw criss-crossed over his body were so numerous they resembled the trade routes marked upon a map of Faerûn. She was well used to scarring - she already had a nice collection all of her own - but if she had ever seen anyone so heavily scarred before Allessia couldn’t remember when, and unless Jherek was very lucky he would have another to add to the map.
Aside from the scarring, Allessia saw little to indicate Jherek was the old man Karne delighted in calling him. He seemed a little world weary; there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes that likely weren’t there five years ago; and flecks of silver - which might have been blond at one time or another - through his shortish light brown hair and neatly trimmed beard. But his chest was broad and taught and his arms were strong and sinewy, the sign of an expert bowman and melee fighter at their peak.
She lent in to take a closer look at the wound. It was bloody and inflamed, but something bright reflected in the candlelight caught her eye. Very gently she ran her fingertips over Jherek’s skin. The lightest touch made him flinch in pain; there was certainly something buried deep in his back.
“Mmmm, it’s little wonder the healing hasn’t worked. You have something lodged in your back, the tip of a crossbow bolt most likely. Some of the cloth from your shirt has been drawn into the wound too.” Allessia remarked as she got to her feet and placed the candle back on the table beside them. Even in the dim light, she could see that Jherek’s complexion had taken on a deathly pallor. She knew she needed to work quickly.
“It will take more than magic to heal you, and for a time the cure may be worse than the wound itself.” Allessia told Jherek earnestly. “The tip is too deeply embedded for me to remove it right away, even with a sharp blade I could do more harm than good, it will have to be drawn out with a poultice.”
Jherek nodded, then what little colour was left in his face drained away and he slumped forward. Allessia managed to catch him as he fell, but for all her strength his dead weight sent the two of them stumbling into the table, almost upending it.
“Easy, easy!” Allessia urged as Jherek came to. “I think it would be best if you were sitting.” Taking his arms she guided him back to the chair and sat him on it back to front so he could rest his head its ladder back, and she could easily tend to the wound.
She set to work. First, she rummaged through the cupboards in the room, searching for something that would serve as bandages and found a fine cloth sheet, which she tore into long strips. Then she soaked one of the strips in the cool water from the bucket and gently mopped away the sweat that glistened on his face and neck.
“Surely, you have been sent by the gods to me.” He murmured, his sonorous voice rumbling in his chest.
“By Helm, perhaps.” Allessia replied, smiling fondly at Jherek and pausing for a moment with her hand cupping his hollow cheek. “But it is my calling to protect the weak and innocent and heal those who do battle by my side. I would do this for anyone in the same position,” she lied. Of course, she would do what she was duty bound to, and she would do it with pride, efficiency, and without complaint, but she doubted that it would ever bring her the same strange pleasure she felt in being able to help him.
Turning away to hide her embarrassment at the thought, - she was no silly, frivolous girl - Allessia rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a variety of things including; a pair of leather gauntlets, a piece of stale bread and a small tin. Using the gauntlets to protect her hands she poured a little of the hot water from the kettle into the stone bowl on the wash stand, added a little cold water and washed her hands. Then she soaked another strip of cloth in the water and painstakingly cleaned the congealed blood from around Jherek’s wound. He winced and tensed in his seat, but he didn’t cry out. When she finished she threw the soiled rag into the fire, which hissed and cracked loudly, spewing out a great cloud of steam.
She took the bread, placed it in a small dish and added a black powder of charcoal, lobelia and slippery elm from the tin, and some hot water from the kettle. As the hot water mixed with the charcoal powder a pungent aroma filled the air. She made a thick black paste with the bread mixture and scooped it into a wrap of muslin, made from a strip torn from a net that hung over the bed.
“This will hurt. Maybe you should bite down on this?” Allessia suggested, handing Jherek the wooden spoon she used to make the bread paste. Her manner was matter of fact but she was not without compassion, and again she soaked a cloth in cold water and pressed it to his fevered brow.
Jherek cried out in agony as she placed the poultice over the wound. “Argh! What kind of dark magic is this?”
“The pain will subside, I promise you.” Allessia assured him as she bound the poultice tightly on each side of the wound with further strips of cloth, “and it isn’t magical. It is a remedy my mother taught me, to draw impurities and foreign bodies from the skin. Once I am better able to remove the bolt tip I will use a spell to accelerate the healing. But for now you should rest.” Once she finished tying off the final bandage Allessia helped Jherek to stand again, and supporting him under his arms, she helped him move to the bed, neatly made for guests who never arrived.
Allessia turned back the covers, disturbing a layer of dust which made the two of them sneeze and causing Jherek to clutch at his side.
“Try not to touch it.” She chided softly.
As she pulled his hand away and bent to check that he hadn’t disturbed the bindings she felt a jolt of electricity course through her as Jherek slid his hand up over hers and over an angry welt on her wrist.
“Mayhap you could use some healing yourself, Lady?” He asked, looking down at her with unfathomable eyes.
Allessia shrugged. “The dragon, Aizagora. I got off lightly, but wounds from dragons are stubbornly resistant to magical healing, it seems,” she replied, and dropping her eyes from his searching gaze she focused instead on unlacing the long leather boots he wore.
She removed his boots and stood them in a corner of the room, then she helped him to remove his breeches, easing them down his legs and trying her best to keep her focus on anything other than the firm thighs revealed beneath. She took hold of his calves and helped him swing his legs up onto the bed before pulling the blankets up over his chest.
“You should try lie on your side, if you can. You will be more comfortable that way.“
Jherek laid down on his side as Allessia instructed, but as she tidied away her things and headed for the door he sat up again.
“You won’t stay a while?” He asked, suddenly - uncharacteristically - unsure about being left alone in such a state.
“I should find out what’s happening downstairs. Borador and Dorn have offered to take a watch, but Dorn found several bottles of something that looked suspiciously like Firebelly whisky and the two of them had already cracked the seal on the top of the first when I came up here, so I’m not sure that there will be much watching being done.”
As if to confirm Allessia’s suspicions the sounds of raised voices and cackles of laughter floated up from the floor below, and she distinctly heard the words “drinking” and “game” in Borador’s Dwarven brogue. She rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed. “I will come back in a little while.” She assured him, pausing on her way out of the room to place a candle and cup of water on the nightstand beside the bed.
Outside in the corridor Allessia closed the latch with a click and rested her back against the door, breathing deeply. It would be a long night for Jherek. The longest night, and only time would tell if her actions were for the best, All she could do was wait, and hope, and offer up a prayer to Helm.
In the chamber beyond the door, Jherek lay on his side with his eyes wide open, watching the candle before him slowly burn away and listening to the voices that drifted up from below, gripped by an old dread. He fought the sleep that threatened to engulf him for as long as he could, but as the last of the candle spluttered and died with a wisp of smoke the weight of his eyelids became too much, and he drifted into an uneasy sleep even the hot pain in his back could not stave off.
~x~