He rasped, "One," and some worry faded from her face. Then it turned to brief, lovely amusement as he added, "Why are you clean?"
"I told you I jump well. Are you okay?"
Laurie shook his head 'no' and said, "Yes," before coughing mud out of his throat.
Briana clapped him on the shoulder. "Good. Can you concentrate on what I tell you to do?"
This time he nodded, though he was still wheezing, and Briana made an unhappy face before glancing around. "Shift a couple of times," she ordered him. "Clear that crap out. Nobody's looking this way right now, and we've got a lot of work to do. I saw Jon get swept away, give me a minute and I'll get him. I'm going to need you and him and any other shifter around here who can scent and dig well to help me get to survivors, okay?"
Laurie nodded again, thickly, and shifted a few times, until the aches had faded and he could breathe more clearly. "Damien?"
"Snow leopard, so he bounced free like I did, and is looking for survivors. He can dig better than I can, at least, but if you and Jon can help?—"
Laurie nodded once more, finally straightening and starting to feel better. "Yeah. Yeah, get Jon? He's okay? He's?—"
"I saw him," she repeated. "I'll get him. I'm faster over the mud than almost anybody, okay? I'll get him and if he needs digging out I'll yell. He's not far away."
As she spoke Laurie heard an outraged roar, and then his brother's grizzly form, a huge dark blonde beast now entirely caked in mud, surged out of the landslide and staggered a few steps, shaking his heavy head. Laurie nearly collapsed with relief, and Briana gave him a wet-eyed smile. It was still raining, Laurie realized. It felt like it should have stopped. It felt like the whole world should have stopped. Hoarse, overwhelmed, but clear-minded, Laurie said, "I'll get him. You start looking for people. We'll come to help dig out. There are…"
He closed his eyes a moment, swaying as he tried to think. "There are some wolves on site, and a couple more big cats. They're all lighter than us bears, so they can help search. I'll get them."
"Better senses of smell than me, too," Briana said, relieved. "Okay. Go get Jon straightened out, and we'll do our best to save everybody." She shifted as she turned away, and bounded lightly across the disaster site, bizarrely clean white and confident against the broken earth.
Jon had shifted to human by the time Laurie got to him, and only after that did he start to look around to see if anybody had noticed their shifting. Nobody seemed to have, but there was a lot going on: crying and shouting and digging and helping.
The fairground covered several acres, and the mudslide had taken out a swath through the middle of them, reaching more than halfway across them. Laurie was abruptly, exhaustedly grateful that the fairgrounds were on the lowest, least-steep part of the slope: if they'd been even a hundred yards farther up the mountain, he was pretty certain the entire thing would have been wiped out, and everybody there along with it. Once he was sure Jon was okay, he said, "Briana and Damien are searchingthe debris already. We need to find the rest of us and get up there to scent and dig for survivors."
Jon stared at him a few seconds, pretty clearly working his way through that before he gave a rough nod. "Okay. You follow Briana in case she needs a digger. I'll try to find the rest of us." As he spoke, a wolf clawed halfway out of the mud and muck, then collapsed on the torn earth, its sides heaving.
Laurie said, "I'll go," even as Jon looked torn, and they split up, with Laurie clambering over thrown stones and timber sticking out of the ground as he approached the wolf.
Its back leg was badly broken. Laurie grimaced, crouching, and spoke quietly. "I can try to straighten that some if you want, before you shift. I don't know if it'll snap back into place or stay broken, otherwise."
The wolf, who he couldn't identify in this form, bared its teeth, then, with a snarl, nodded. Laurie moved to its hip, studying the break briefly. Breaks, plural: there was no bone sticking out, but both the lower and upper legs pointed directions they weren't meant to go. Laurie, more honestly than reassuringly, said, "This is going to suck. Try not to bite me."
The wolf bared its teeth again, then pressed its head hard into the muck as Laurie, remembering the first aid classes he'd taken and grateful that a shifter could heal even a badly-set injury, moved the lower leg back into place first. The poor wolf literally screamed, and tears filled Laurie's eyes as he did his best with the more complex upper break. The animal actually passed out with that one, which helped them both, and when it woke up moments later Laurie rasped, "No one's paying attention. You can shift a few times."
The wolf immediately did, proving herself to be a woman named Carol Guess, whose stained glass crafting skills were in demand not just at the Faire, but all over the mountain region. She said, "Thanks," through clenched teeth, and then made ashort, unhappy gesture at her leg. "The thigh bone. Can you try to straighten it again. The shin is good, I can feel…but…"
Laurie breathed a curse and then offered her an unhappy smile. "I don't suppose you can pre-emptively pass out?"
Carol managed a tight laugh and gnashed her flat human teeth, pretending to be a threat. "I wish. I won't bite you this time either, though." She didn't, either, although the sound she made was absolutely horrible. When her leg was straighter, she shifted again, and by the third shift she was pretty well healed, if also pale and exhausted. She still said, "What can I do to help?" and Laurie reiterated Briana's plan.
"But you're been hurt," he began, and Carol shook her head stubbornly.
"I can scent out people who might be buried, and there isn't much time." She shifted to her wolf form again and limped away, nose to the wrecked earth, and when Laurie looked up, he realized there were a dozen other shifters also searching the landslide area. A different wolf was digging frantically already, and he ran that way, skidding in and shifting to his grizzly form without even checking to see if anybody was looking.
His huge bear paws, guided by a human mind, cleared mud and debris much faster than the wolf who had been digging could. Within a few seconds Laurie had dug deeply enough to see an arm, and the angle of a broken board pressing against someone's back. He knew that in avalanches people could sometimes create a little pocket of breathing space for themselves within the snow. He hoped to God the same was true in a mudslide.
The buried person moved a little bit, and Laurie let out a relieved cry that was, of course, a bone-piercing yelp from his bear's throat. He dug deeper, trying to loosen the muck without endangering the person with his tremendous claws. At his side, the wolf shifted to human and began digging with their less-strong, but safer, hands. A moment later the broken board moved as the weight of earth changed, and Laurie leaned against it, holding it in place while the other shifter finished digging the trapped person out.
It was a young woman, nearly drowned in debris. She fell forward as soon as she was pulled free, hacking and coughing gunk out of her chest and mouth, then looked up with watering eyes to rasp a thanks to her rescuers.
Except, of course, one of those rescuers was Laurie in his bear form. The poor woman screamed and simply fainted, which Laurie thought was fair enough. The wolf shifter—he finally got a good look at her, and recognized a woman named Jill Corddry—gave him a quick, 'what can we do?' kind of shrug. "I'll get her to the edge of the mudslide. Hopefully paramedics are already on the way."
Laurie nodded his massive bear head, and went to help dig other victims out.
Chapter 11
