Page 145 of Fires of the Forsaken
“Aye.” he turned to the rest of the group. “You heard her. Whatever cloth you can spare.”
And they took that to heart. I got pieces of shirts, bitsof blankets, some strips of saddle pads, and…
“Is thisunderwear?”I chucked a pair of dingy, cream-colored pants to the ground. Why? Because there were goddamskid markslining the seat! “Whothe fuckhanded me dirty underwear?”
No one answered. But everyone sniggered. Including Braxton, who got red-faced and very,veryfocused on pulling burrs out of his horse’s mane.
“Har, har, har…asshole,” I mumbled.
But I totally laughed. Even Cheriour, pale and sweaty and breathing like a winded rhino, cracked a tiny smile.
Sometimes a shitty joke was the perfect balm for a shitty day.
I took the clothes (minus the poopy underwear) into the stream and scrubbed them within an inch of their lives. But when I pulled the old, bloody bandages away from Cheriour’s wounds…
Well, clean bandages wouldn’t make much of a difference at this point.
Yellow liquid oozed from the gaping laceration under his ribcage. A few other cuts were red. Swollen. Angry.
“How far are we from Niall?” I asked, trying (and failing) to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“A day,” Braxton said.
“Three days, at the rate we’re traveling,” Cheriour countered.
“We need to pick up the pace.” I blew out a shaky breath. “Right, well, I hate depriving people of a good drink, but does anyone have alcohol on them? Ale? Whiskey? Something? Donotpiss in a bottle and try to pass it off as liquor.”
Braxton’s shoulders deflated. Like he’d been thinking of doing just that. “Aye,” he laughed, “we have alcohol.” He whipped a leather flask out of his shirt pocket.
Six other people stepped forward and handed me their flasks. I uncorked all of them, taking big sniffs of each one. Some smelled like flat beer. A couple were vinegary—probably wine that had gone a little sour. But Braxton had the worst offender.
“What the frick?” I sputtered. It was the same gasoline drink Belanna had given me a few weeks ago. “Dude, you and your sister have got someawfultaste in drinks.”
“Or, alternatively, we have good taste. And ye just can’t handle yer liquor.” Braxton winked.
“Get me some shots of something that’snotgasoline, and you’ll see how well I can hold my alcohol.” I winced as I took another whiff. “Okay, since this is the strongest, it’ll be the antiseptic. Cheriour, you hold this,” I slapped one of the vinegar-scented concoctions into Cheriour’s hand, “and take a shot. Or three.”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” Cheriour said.
“You shitting me?”
“It addles the mind.”
“That’s kinda the point. Especially right now. This is gonna hurt like an S.O.B., so taking a few shots might help dull the pain.”
He weakly pushed the flask back into my hand. “I won’t need it.”
“Seriously?Fine.Be all macho and suffer the consequences. No skin off my back. But I’m leaving it here, ‘kay? BecauseImight need it.”
And oh boy, did I need it when I was done.
Pouring alcohol into his smaller cuts? That was somewhat okay. Cheriour kept his eyes closed and only grunted once or twice. But the gaping wound had ashit-tonof debris inside, and dumping alcohol wasn’t enough. I needed to get my fingers in there to clean it out.
There was a lot of yelling then. A whole lot of cursing too (mostly from me). Cheriour took the easy route and blacked out. Meanwhile, I had to finish draining pus-soaked leaves out of the wound (yum, right?). And, by that point, my fingers were jumping all over the place. Braxton had to take over while I stepped to the side, putting my hands on my knees, willing the forest to stop spinning. So yeah, I needed that vinegary wine. Every last drop of it.
Which meant I was almost relaxed (aka, tipsy as fuck) when Braxton led Cheriour’s horse over to me.
“Ye think yer Púca—” he started.
