Danielle and Heather sat in silence again until the fish was ready, and Heather broke it up and sprinkled it with salmonberries. “Time?” she asked Danielle.

  “Ten-oh-eight,” Danielle said.

  “Cassy will be free to wake up any minute, then. Sadie? Akari? Are you two awake?” she asked a little louder.

  “Yeah, but if I move, it better be in the direction of the latrine,” Akari replied from inside the tent.

  “I can go with you,” Danielle said. “I think Heather’s got breakfast ready for after that.”

  “All right. Help me up again?” Akari asked. “I’m pretty sure I could do it on my own, but it’d hurt more that way.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be right there.” Danielle went in and helped Akari up, and shadowed her on the way to the latrine. She scanned the forest around them while Akari used it.

  “Nothing viney looking, I hope?” Akari said.

  “Nothing thorny looking nearby, at least,” Danielle replied.

  Heather and Sadie were apparently just waiting to see them coming back before they stepped away from the fire, and passed them going the opposite direction. Cassy turned out to be awake when they got back, yawning and rubbing her eyes while she waited for everyone else. She had more water on the fire in distiller pots, and helped everyone wash up with the water she’d purified earlier. Then Heather dished out her fish-and-berries breakfast.

  “This is not at all breakfast-y,” Sadie complained.

  “If we find a wild breakfast cereal plant, I’ll be sure to pick some for you,” Heather assured her snarkily.

  “It’s got lots of good protein to heal with; that’s what you were worried about yesterday, right?” Cassy asked Sadie.

  “Oh. Good point. Um, thanks, Heather,” Sadie said.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied.

  “OK, so the pain meds are supposed to last until about 12:30,” Danielle said once everyone was finished with breakfast. “I figure we’re going to be slow, but let’s get ready to go, and see if we can make some progress before they wear off and we have to sit down for a rest while the new set kicks in.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Sadie said. “We’re not going to get much done this afternoon no matter where we are.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t you rather have a shower and a bed to rest on, than spend more time out here with the hot sun beating down on your bandages?” Danielle asked.

  “OK, I’m feeling motivated,” Akari said with a groan.

  “I’ll wash the dishes so you three don’t have to get untreated water or dirt in your bandages,” Cassy said.

  “I’ll get the tents taken down and put away,” Heather volunteered.

  “What do you want me to do?” Akari asked.

  “Considering how cut up you are?” Heather asked. “Nothing until it’s time to go.”

  Akari frowned.

  “Maybe Akari and Sadie could get their weather gear folded and put away,” Danielle said. “They might need to work together to do it without moving either Sadie’s shoulder or Akari’s left arm too much, but they can probably manage if they do it partner style.”

  “That works,” Akari said

  “I’ll get mine and Cassy’s,” Danielle added.

  “If you say so,” Heather agreed, and started bringing the bedding (such as it was) out of the tents and setting it in piles.

  Danielle found it more awkward to fold the poncho and cape than she had expected. Her left arm was definitely swollen as well as sore. Her hands we both fine, though, so she managed to get her own bags fully packed up again, and fold Cassy’s poncho and cape. Akari and Sadie both found that their range of motion was limited (“painfully limited,” Danielle thought, but she didn’t tell that joke out loud). It took them longer to get their two sets of weather gear folded, even working together, than it took Danielle to handle the two sets she had taken on and pack her bags. By then, Cassy was back with the clean dishes (clean enough to carry in their bags, anyway). She helped get everything in its proper bag – with proper defined as “give as much of the heavy stuff as possible to Danielle.”

  Danielle took both of the volume-enhanced leather satchels this time, because they could hold more and were heavier. She also wore Heather’s leather satchel in its slightly awkward backpack configuration. She took a tent clipped under each side-carried satchel, and two foraging bags clipped to the rings of the back satchel. Her backpack went to Akari, who put her own satchels inside. It didn’t quite zip all the way up like that, but it worked well enough.

  Sadie wasn’t allowed to carry anything, because one of the stitched wounds was on her shoulder where any bag they had would pull at it in some way. She stubbornly claimed the other two bags of foraged plants, and Cassy promptly gave her both bags of miner’s lettuce – the one from the patch Danielle had found, and the one from the patch Heather had found. (Heather and Sadie’s other foraging find had been acorns; that bag was heavier in spite of being less full.)

  That left six satchels and two backpacks unclaimed, including four of the five canvas “school” satchels, which didn’t have rings to carry tents or convert their straps for backpack-mode. Cassy and Heather elected to put the other two tents on the remaining two leather satchels and wear them in backpack mode, wore the canvas satchels on each side, and put the backpacks on backwards so they were actually in front.

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  “You look ridiculous,” Sadie told them. “Thanks, though.”

  Akari made sure the fire was well out, and they started for home. Sadie took the lead, and Danielle fell in beside her, carefully matching her pace. It was slow; with her speed enhancements, it felt downright glacial to Danielle. Her years in the dorm with Sadie had taught her to read the girl’s face for cues to pain or stress, though, because aside from the pacing Sadie had a strong tendency to hide any discomfort she was feeling.

  It didn’t take long for Danielle to realize that Sadie was in significant pain. Worse, as they went along, she started limping – favoring the healed ankle. Danielle didn’t want to stop and look until it was time to take more Fever-Ace, but a ball of dread was taking over the pit of her stomach; the most likely reason she could think of for the way Sadie was limping was if something had gone wrong with the healing. Infection seemed likely, and that was a problem; their group didn’t have anything for infection. Of course, once they made it back to camp, Lucas might be able to help with Weaken Disease – if he was correct about infections counting as diseases.

  It took a full hour to get to the Old Bridge, and by then it was clear that Sadie’s side was bothering her too. It was also nearly time for more pain relievers, so Danielle was about to call a halt when Sadie surprised her by actually speaking up.

  “Guys, I need to stop for a while,” she said. “My ankle’s killing me. Danielle, can I maybe have you look at it with that Skill, and say whether we need to call for higher-level help?”

  “Yeah, it’s almost time for more pills anyway,” Danielle said. “Let me have a look.”

  Everyone found someplace to sit except Sadie, who merely set down her bags. Danielle knelt and activated her diagnostic Skill, then rolled up the leg of Sadie’s jeans, and let out a hiss of sympathetic pain. The site of the wound was swollen and a line of angry red traced out where the cut had been. “I don’t even need the Skill to know that’s infected,” she said with some dismay. “Let me see your side?”

  Sadie carefully lifted her shirts (both the denim shirt and the T-shirt) and Danielle shook her head. “This one too,” she said.

  “It’s time to call the Rangers, then,” Cassy said firmly, and pulled out her radio.

  “We should have called them yesterday, shouldn’t we,” Danielle said, sitting back from Sadie. A wave of exhaustion rolled over her; she’d tried so hard – they’d all tried so hard to handle it!

  “Maybe,” Cassy said. “I don’t know. If you hadn’t known what to do, then for sure we would’ve; but your plan was good, and it kind of worked.”

  “Kind of, I guess, but now we’re calling them anyway, and all the materials and time and pain we spent on trying to do it ourselves are wasted,” Danielle said.

  “I’m sorry,” Heather said, on the verge of tears.

  “Why? It’s not – oh,” Danielle paused, remembering that Heather had forgotten to use the alcohol on the two fully healed wounds. She looked at Akari’s neck. “I wasn’t blaming you,” she said, “it’s not just the ankle, it’s the stitched wound too.”

  “It, um. Might be more than one of the stitched wounds,” Akari said. “I mean, it’s not like I have experience in what vine-monster thorn slashes are supposed to feel like while healing, but yeah, I think the Rangers should look at some of mine, too. My neck seems OK though!”

  “That’s something!” Danielle said with a weak smile.

  “This is Sent Cassy Stellana calling Layer 1 Ranger Emergency Response,” Cassy said into the radio. “My party tried to do first aid on some battle damage yesterday, and we’re seeing signs of infection today. Is anyone available to assist us? (Over.)”

  Everyone waited while Cassy counted under her breath; she was on 23 when the radio crackled to life. “Layer 1 Ranger Base responding to Sent Stellana; does you Healer have anything for infection?”

  “Neither our Healer nor our Medic nor the other Healer we know have anything for infection after the wound is closed,” Cassy reported. “One of the infection sites is fully healed over, other sites known and suspected are stitched.”

  “Ranger base requests repeat: you have stitched wounds? As in, sutured?”

  “I’m not familiar with that last word,” Cassy said, “but the Medic said since the Healer didn’t have enough mana to heal all the wounds that needed it, we should stitch them instead, so she could heal them as her mana generation allowed. We remembered to disinfect the cuts with alcohol, and we boiled the needle, but it doesn’t seem to have worked on all the cuts. Uh, the disinfecting, I mean. (Um, over.)”

  “Sent Stellana, I’ve got a Healer gearing up for you. Can you describe what you were fighting?”

  “It was a mobile vine-monster with four thorny vines and a central spiral over a sort of bulb-like core,” Cassy said. “The thorns – “

  “You fought a thorn thrasher?!” the Ranger on the radio exclaimed. Then he apparently put his hand over the mic and they heard him more faintly, apparently yelling to someone in the base, “No, both of you go – she says they tangled with a thorn thrasher and then tried to give each other stitches! What? No, she described it!” He took his hand off the mic and asked them in more normal tones, “The Healers ask, how many stitched injuries?”

  “Eight,” Cassy said.

  Danielle leaned in to add, “This is Medic Falconer. It was two fully healed injuries, of which one is infected; eight that we stitched using my lore Skills in combination with Healer Orellana’s Align Body Skill; two more than I would’ve stitched if I thought I could do a decent job without Align Body to help me, but my Healer was dry, so we made do with bandages and tape; and a couple dozen more that were shallow enough to just bandage.”

  “Did you count your own?” Cassy asked.

  “They’re in the just bandage category,” Danielle said.

  “Make that three more that would’ve been stitched if we could manage it, then,” Cassy said. “The Medic couldn’t do the one on her own shoulder.” Danielle frowned at her but didn’t try to argue over the radio.

  “Ranger Base 1 acknowledges, hold one,” the Ranger said, and the channel went silent. Danielle ended up staring at her watch as the silence stretched. It took more than one minute; just from the point where she started watching, it took three. Finally, a new voice came on the channel. “Ranger Layer 1 Healers to Sent Stellana, please confirm your location? (Over.)”

  “Sent Stellana to layer 1 Healer; we’re at the old bridge,” Cassy said.

  “What? What are you doing there?” the voice asked. Danielle thought it was Ranger Michael.

  “We camped overnight, and this is as far as we got on our way home before we adm- mm, realized, that this was definitely infection and not just partially-healed-wound pain,” Cassy said.

  “Wow. OK. Verify, right at the bridge, not just near it? On the road?” the Ranger asked.

  “Sent Stellana verifies we are on the road,” Cassy said. “I mean, technically on the shoulder, but only because broken up ancient pavement is uncomfortable to sit on. If you can see the bridge you can see us.”

  “All right, I’m on my way,” the Ranger said. “If I need assistance, it’s available, but my partner is coming from further away, so we’ll be arriving separately. Please confirm: no one is currently bleeding?”

  “No bleeding, confirmed,” Cassy said. “We all managed to walk for an hour, too. Everyone’s alert and functional at the moment. Maybe feverish, though,” she added, glancing at Danielle. “They had Fever-Ace early this morning, but I guess it’s wearing off.”

  Danielle looked at Akari and Sadie and her Skill agreed that they showed signs of possible fever. Of course, it was pretty hot out, and they’d been engaged in exercise, so it wasn’t (as her Skill put it) “definitive.”

  “All right, I’ll see you in about 15 minutes,” the Ranger said. “Please keep your radio on, just in case. Layer 1 Healers clear.”

  “Acknowledged, Sent Stellana Clear,” Cassy said.

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