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INDRIE

The yarrow comes loose on the third pull, roots trailing clumps of half-frozen earth. Indrie shakes it clean and lays it in his basket beside the feverfew and the bundle of dried meadowsweet he cut earlier from the stand near the stream.

The morning is cold enough to see his breath but not cold enough to numb his hands. He's grateful for that. Numb hands are slow hands, and slow hands are how mistakes happen. Indrie doesn't make mistakes with his work if he can help it. He wipes the dirt on his trousers and moves further up the slope, scanning the ground for comfrey.

He doesn't usually take breaks, but the clinic has been quiet all morning and Ingrid keeps telling him everyone needs one eventually. Yesterday had been crisis after crisis after disaster. The injuries and the complaints had been difficult even for him. Weather brings about those kinds of changes, when joints start aching and nothing he does seems to get down into the bones and help. The older population of Valen has been very needy lately and Indrie refuses to give up on principle, so he'd run himself ragged trying to make every one of them the slightest bit more comfortable.

Now he's here on the mountainside, where there's nothing but wind and wild growth and a plethora of things that know perfectly well how to heal themselves without his assistance. Indrie is appreciating the self-sufficiency of nature in a way he's probably taken for granted in the past.

He finds the comfrey growing in the shade of a boulder, broad fuzzy leaves that smell green and sharp when he tears one, and he closes his eyes for a moment. He and Ingrid found comfrey growing wild on the eastern hillside the month after he arrived. She had crouched beside it and named it for him in Rengaran, patient and thorough. He'd held the sprig to his nose and understood that this place would give him what he needed if he was willing to be patient in return. It gave him friends, and bountiful work, and the most hard headed man he's ever had the fortune to love. Indrie has patience in spades. Valen has been very, very rewarding.

He packs the comfrey into the basket and moves further up the slope, pulling his collar against the wind. He's reaching for a clump of dried nettle near the tree line when he sees the horse.

It's coming from the south at a slow pace, following the track that runs along the base of the mountain toward the southern gate. The rider is slumped forward over the animal's neck, one hand tangled in the mane and the other hanging limp at his side. The horse plods along without direction, patient under a weight it has clearly been carrying a long time and would very much like to be rid of.

Indrie watches for a count of three. Then he leaves his basket on the slope and picks his way down through the scrub and the loose rock, moving as quickly as the terrain allows without breaking an ankle. By the time he reaches the track the horse is close enough that he can see its burden clearly: a man, broad across the shoulders, wearing clothes that aren't Rengaran. Indrie doesn't know enough about the surrounding countryside to recognize the design. But the man is coming up the southern trails and he doesn't look like their people, and Indrie can put two and two together easily enough.

The man is also bleeding. Indrie can see the dark stain spreading across the front of his shirt, and the bandaging beneath it that has soaked through.

He slows his approach. He doesn't know a great deal about horses, but he can't imagine this one will appreciate a stranger hurtling down the mountainside at it. He holds out his hand when he gets close enough and speaks to it softly and lilting until it looks a little less skittish. The method for approaching frightened animals and frightened people isn't so different, and he's found you're considerably less likely to get bitten by the animal. The horse turns an ear toward him and allows him to pet its nose. He takes the reins and brushes the man's hair out of his face. His skin is clammy and pale.

The man doesn't stir. He doesn't seem to register the touch in the slightest. His breathing is shallow and fast and he's probably been losing blood for days. His pulse is rapid but present, which is at least some good news. Indrie exhales through the relief and begins leading the horse toward the southern gate. He'll have to come back for his basket later.

The journey back through the gates isn't entirely without issue. The man is heavy in the saddle and no longer capable of holding himself in it. Both the horse and its rider seem to have placed their faith entirely in Indrie to get them inside to safety. He's doing his best, but he's quite a bit smaller than both of them. He keeps one hand clutched onto the shoulder of the man's tunic to prevent him sliding off, and the other on the reins to keep the horse from veering off. He spends most of the journey walking backwards. He's aware they make quite a sight as they approach the gate.

Two of the guards jog out to meet him, and one of them immediately reaches for his sword.

"Oh, please stop," Indrie says, huffing out a breath. "Does he look like he's about to fight you?"

"Apologies, my lord," the redhead says, looking at least a little chastened. "It's just, he looks to be a warrior from the south."

"He looks to me to be injured," Indrie says, turning to face him. "I'm taking him to the clinic."

The guard exchanges a look with his partner, but he doesn't argue further. Indrie has learned slowly, over the past couple of months, that no one short of the king argues with him when it comes to matters of health. The king can argue all he likes, and probably will. Indrie is not leaving this man to die in a meadow.

He leads the horse through the gate and down the main road. A woman he treated last week for a cough calls out to ask if he needs help, and he thanks her and tells her he's fine. A child darts across his path chasing a ball and he sidesteps without looking down.

The clinic door is propped open for air and Ermin is inside where Indrie left him. He calls out before he reaches the threshold.

"Ermin, I need the table cleared."

Ermin appears in the doorway half a second later, already wiping his hands on his apron. His eyes go wide at the sight of the bleeding man slumped over the horse's neck, and wider still as he takes in the clothes and the warpaint smeared across both closed eyes.

"Is that a Wolfe warrior?" Ermin asks.

"I'm not sure," Indrie says. "Help me get him down."

Ermin doesn't move. He stands in the doorway with his hands clenched in his apron and his jaw tight, and Indrie can see the calculation happening behind his eyes. Ermin has overheard enough from the barracks to know about the unrest in the south. He's eighteen and loyal and protective, and Indrie understands every thought crossing his face.

"Ermin," Indrie says again, gently. "Help me get him down."

Ermin blows out a breath through his nose. Indrie watches him wrestle with it. Then the boy is beside him, getting his shoulder under the man's arm and bracing his weight. They pull him from the saddle together in an ungainly process that nearly puts all three of them on the ground before Ermin plants his feet and holds.

They get him through the doorway and onto the examination table. Indrie pushes his hair out of his face and catches his breath. He cuts the man's shirt away with his shears, working from the hem up to the collar in clean lines, and peels the fabric back. The bandaging underneath is field grade, strips of linen wound tight around the upper chest and over the left shoulder, soaked through with old blood and new blood layered together. The smell of copper sits thick over all of it. Indrie unwinds the bandaging carefully, keeping his fingers light. Ermin is at his side with a basin of clean water and a stack of fresh cloth without being asked.

Beneath the bandaging, the wound runs from the collarbone diagonally across the upper chest, a clean edged and deliberate blade cut. Someone has stitched it recently. The work is competent but rushed, the kind of field medicine done by a person who knew the basics and didn't have time for anything more. Several of the stitches have torn, either from the ride or from whatever came before it. The wound beneath is aggravated and weeping, and hot to the touch when Indrie presses the back of his fingers to the skin surrounding it.