Free The Third Scroll by Dana Marton Page B

began the story, and they immediately quieted again. “And in this nothing, the Great Mother floated. To ease her loneliness, she gave birth to the planets and the stars. They floated from her body and scattered across the universe. Tired she was from her labors and slept for the first time. And when she slept, she dreamed. She dreamed of plants and animals and people, nations and races. And when she woke, she saw that all she dreamed came into being. But as time passed, all she created did not please her, for her creations lacked spirit. So like a mighty wind, she rose and swept through all there is. And all who breathed her gained spirit, until the last of her was gone into the last of her creation.”
    The boys thought that a strange tale and asked for more, but I ignored their pleading and sent them off to bed. Morning training came early.
    I spent most of the nights checking on my patients, sleeping little. I could always find something to be done. I sought to make up for the lack of my healing powers by doing everything else as well as I knew how. The days passed very much the same, and long before the last wound was closed, I picked the creek empty of ninga beetles. I wished I had some moonflower tears, but numaba trees did not grow in the colder land of the Kadar.
    I cleansed the wounds thoroughly with boiled then cooled water, made sure to open the windows every day for fresh air. I asked Talmir to cook the kind of food that strengthened the blood: kiltari liver, whuchu greens, shugone nuts baked into bread.
    In those cases where infection had already set in by the time the warrior reached home, I treated the wound with maggots. Talmir gifted me with strips of raw meat that I left in the sunniest corner of the courtyard for a few days. After a couple of winter flies found it, which did not take long, and the maggots grew to the right size, I picked them off with my fingernails and placed them in a small jar, then rinsed them, careful not to kill any.
    I placed them into the infected wounds and bandaged over them, not too tight so they could breathe. I looked at them daily and changed the bandage that soaked up the pink frothy fluids the maggots produced as they worked.
    They ate away the pus and rotting flesh until after several days I could finally remove them, easier to handle by then as they had grown fatter. The wound, good living flesh, I cleansed once again and treated with an herbal poultice that warded off further infection.
    And all through this I talked to the sick, talked day and night, about fine feasts and fine battles they would have after they recovered, the beautiful young women who waited, and the strong sons they would have with them. I talked until my stories became so familiar it was as if they had already happened.
    The spirits stayed with us, and not one man died, although I cannot claim credit. The severely injured had not survived the long trip from the battlefield. But the warriors were grateful all the same and chose to think their recovery was a result of my healing.
    They believed it with such ferocious certainty I could do nothing to disabuse them of the notion. Maybe they wanted to believe so much because the thought that someone had that kind of power, someone who could heal them again, made going into the next battle easier.
    By the time the last of the injured healed enough for me to assume my regular duties, most of the Palace Guard had returned to their High Lord’s fortress city on Lord Gilrem’s order.
    Lord Gilrem remained with four of his personal guards. But they must have brought some deadly malady with them from wherever they had come, because soon his men fell ill with a disease that attacked their innards and hemorrhaged their life force away. Kumra did not send me to them. She feared that their disease might spread, so she had them isolated in an unused hut at the end of the fields.
    Lord Gilrem fell into a dark mood, grieving his loyal men. He stayed behind when Tahar