“Nonsense,” Deglan said, approaching the pallet. “She has known you her whole life. No need to be afraid now. Someone should simply tell her that all fomori are so gruesomely hideous. In fact, you are one of the comelier ones.”

Faabar attempted a chuckle, but managed only a weak grunt. “It is the leg. Uglier than me. Children should not have to see such things.”

Deglan sighed and looked into Faabar’s face. “You sent her away.” Faabar’s eyes were cloudy and feverish, but they did not look away. “How am I going to get you up on your feet if you keep mollycoddling the help?”

He pulled the linen roll from his satchel and tore off a long strip with his teeth. He soaked the strip with a pour from the water skin and placed it on Faabar’s brow. An almost useless gesture in the grand scope of healing, but Deglan learned long ago that mending bodies had a great deal to do with the mind. A wet cloth is comforting and calming; a pleasant distraction from the true, more stressful methods of healing still to come.

The fever was causing Faabar’s horns to soften and split. He would need a salve of yarrow root and lard, but that could wait. Deglan took his gibne from the satchel and placed the wide end on Faabar’s chest, cupping his hands tightly around it to create a strong seal. He bent his head and inserted the narrow end of the instrument in his own ear. Faabar’s heart pumped strongly.

“Well, let’s take a look at the cause of the dear child’s distress then.” Deglan said as he removed the gibne. He fixed Faabar with an exasperated stare. “We would not want to upset her any further now would we?”

Deglan moved down the pallet to Faabar’s right leg. The wrapping plaster of wood anemone had yellowed considerably since Deglan last changed it, causing his frown to deepen. Faabar’s eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling as they always did when Deglan tended him. Women will most always look at what is wrong, men rarely, and warriors never. He broke the plaster free from the leg with practiced squeezes of his fingers. Deglan let the used plaster drop to the floor.

“Damn.” he muttered and bent to retrieve it, using the motion to get a good sniff of the wound. The sour odor of long damp flesh drifted up from the wrinkled edges of the wide, ragged wound in Faabar’s thigh. No reek of rot. Not yet.