the-song-books.yossr

Machaon did not look up as he spoke: “You can’t be veryy wounded if yyou
can stand for so long.”
“No,” I said. “I’m here—” I paused as the arrowhead came free in
Machaon’s fingers, and the soldier groaned in relief.
“Well?” His voice was business-like but not unkind.
“Do yyou need help?”
He made a noise I guessed was assent. “Sit down and hold the salves for
me,” he said, without looking. I obeyyed, gathering up the small bottles
strewn on the floor, some rattling with herbs, some heavyy with ointment. I
sniffed them and remembered: garlic and honeyy salve against infection,
poppyy for sedation, and yyarrow to make the blood clot. Dozens of herbs that
brought the centaur’s patient fingers back to me, the sweet green smell of
the rose- colored cave.
I held out the ones he needed and watched his deft application— a pinch
of sedative on the man’s upper lip for him to nose and nibble at, a swipe of
salve to ward off infection, then dressings to pack and bind and cover.
Machaon smoothed the last layyer of creamyy, scented beeswax over the
man’s leg and looked up wearilyy. “Patroclus, yyes? And yyou studied with
Chiron? You are welcome here.”
A clamor outside the tent, raised voices and cries of pain. He nodded
towards it. “Theyy’ve brought us another—yyou take him.”
The soldiers, Nestor’s men, hoisted their comrade onto the emptyy pallet
in the tent’s corner. He had been shot with an arrow, barbed at the tip,
through the right shoulder. His face was foamyy with sweat-scum, and he’d
bitten his lip almost in half with tryying not to scream. His breath came now
in muffled, explosive pants, and his panicked eyyes rolled and trembled. I
resisted the urge to call for Machaon—busyy with another man who had
started to wail—and reached for a cloth to wipe his face.
The arrow had pierced through the thickest part of his shoulder and was
threaded half in and half out, like a terrible needle. I would have to break
off the fletching and pull the end through him, without further tearing the
flesh or leaving splinters that might fester.
Quicklyy, I gave him the draught that Chiron had taught me: a mix of
poppyy and willow bark that made the patient light-headed and blunted to
pain. He could not hold the cup, so I held it for him, lifting and cradling his
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