“No, no, of course not!” Pressen’s reply was conciliatory, anxious. The poor beast was too weak to reach farther than her rider who had, even in her pain-wracked daze, tried to communicate! Fuming at Diona’s ineptitude, Moreta snatched down the nearest glowbasket to examine Tamianth’s wing. Two days without any lubrication and the wing fragments might not reconstruct. The glowlight glistened ominously on a stain on the floor, under Tamianth’s injured side. With a muffled cry of despair, Moreta dropped to one knee, dipped her fingers in the moisture, sniffing it.
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“Pressen! Bring me your kitredwort and oil! This dragon’s bleeding to death!”
“What?”
Pressen stumbled toward her and she held the basket high, at Tamianth’s side. Grimly she recalled the instructions she had given Pressen, unused to dragon injuries: Keep the side wound covered with numbweed. Why hadn’t she checked it? How could she have assumed, given the chaotic conditions at High Reaches, the inexperienced healers, and the tired riders, that the wound had been properly attended? Instead she had blithely flitted off, smugly pleased with her wing repair.
“The fault is mine, Pressen. I ought to have seen to the side as well. What has happened is that Threadscore ruptured veins along the side and shoulders. Numbweed covered the ooze. Ichor isn’t reaching the wing. We’ll need to repair the veins. The surgery is much the same sort you’d do on a human. Color is the main difference.”
“Surgery is not my speciality, Lady, but,” he added, seeing her
desperate expression, “I have assisted and can do so now.” “I’ll need surgical clamps, oil, redwort, threaded needle …” Pressen was pouring oil and redwort into bowls. “I have all the
instruments we’d need. Barly’s effects were handed over to me when
I arrived.”
Dreading what she might find, Moreta examined the injured wing. Some ichor beaded the joints but far less than was required. Tamianth would have to be very lucky; stupidity had already worked against the poor beast. Possibly, with application of Kilanath’s ichor at crucial points, the damage could still be reversed. Liberal and frequent dressings of numbweed had, at least, kept the fragments moist. Once Tamianth’s veins had been mended and water brought the poor thirsty beast …
Moreta scrubbed her hands in the redwort, hissing at the sting in half-healed scratches. Then she oiled her hands thoroughly while Pressen made the same preparation.
“First we must clean the numbweed away from the wound. I’d say the stoppage is here … and here, and perhaps, even down hear near the hearts.” She lightly indicated the areas, then with oil-soaked pads, she and Pressen cleaned away the numbweed. Tamianth shuddered. “With all this numbweed, she can’t feel any pain. Here! See
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where the ichor is oozing …” Her father had always talked as he worked on injured runners. Much of what she had heard from her earliest years she had been able to apply to dragons. She oughtn’t to think of her father at a time like this, but his habit would help her teach Pressen. Someone in the Weyr had to know. “Ah, here’s the first one. Just below your left hand, Pressen, should be another. Yes, and a third, a major vein leading to the hearts, and the belly vein.” Moreta reached for the fine needle and the treated thread Pressen had made ready.
“Yes, the colors are different!” Pressen saw the greenish flesh and the darker green ichor that was dragon blood, the curious shining fiber that was dragon muscle. He was absorbed. “Has she had any supply to the wing at all?” His nimble fingers were suturing the first severed vein.
“Not really enough.”
“Thirsty! Thirsty. Water, please, water!” Falga raved.
“Can’t that idiotic woman do anything? There’s a lake full of
water out there!”
There was suddenly a great amount of noise, the hollow sound of metal banging against another object, the sleepy complaints of young voices. The smell of desperately desired water roused the dragon
from her stupor.
Hidden from sight behind the droop of the wing, Moreta could not see what was happening but she heard the bong of the kettle being dropped and the plash of buckets of water being poured. She heard the greedy slurping of Tamianth as the dragon sucked water down a