The Spirit Banner. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ the dizziness receded and he could think clearly again, he looked down at his leg. He turned away almost immediately. The sight of the dark shaft of an arrow jutting up from his thigh and his own blood staining the snow was almost too much for him to bear.

      He couldn’t ignore it, though. He was going to have to deal with it, and soon, if only to keep from bleeding to death. Steeling himself, and taking a deep breath to keep from vomiting, he looked down at his leg again.

      The arrow had hit him high on the back of the thigh and had gone all the way through his leg at an angle, exiting about an inch above the knee. He could see that the edges of the head were barbed, which meant he wasn’t going to be able to pull the arrow back in the direction it had entered. Nor could he remove it the other way; the feathered shaft would prevent it.

      He was going to have to break the shaft on one side or the other and then pull the rest of it free.

      The very thought of it made him shudder.

      Why bother? he wondered. Even if he could get the shaft out and stop the bleeding, he was only trading one method of dying for another. There was no way he could travel in his condition, and if nightfall caught him here on the plain he was sure to freeze to death. It seemed God had saved him from a quick, sure death only to fall victim to a long, lingering one.

      But Curran was not the type to go down without a fight.

      The wind was picking up and the snowfall that had dogged their march earlier that morning had started anew. Never mind the brutal cold that threatened to steal his every breath. If he didn’t do something immediately, he wasn’t going to have the strength left to try anything at all.

      He tore several strips of cloth off the shirt of a nearby corpse, folding some a few times to create makeshift compresses and laying the others out where he could reach them without difficulty. Working quickly so that he wouldn’t have time to think about it, he rolled partially on his side, exposing the feathered end of the arrow. Taking it in his left hand, he gripped his thigh tightly with his right, holding it steady. Curran took a deep breath and then snapped his left hand sharply to one side, breaking the wooden arrow in two just above the fletching.

      He screamed against the pain, but managed to remain conscious. The motion had started the wound bleeding again. With shaking hands, he stuffed several of the compresses against the open wound and then tied it off with one of the strips.

      He was breathing heavily now, the pain making it difficult to concentrate, but he pushed through it, knowing he had no choice but to finish what he had started.

      Gingerly placing his leg flat on the ground, he took hold of the tip of the arrow, wrapping his fingers around the barbed edges to give him more leverage. He gritted his teeth and pulled.

      With more than a bit of resistance, the rest of the shaft slid free.

      He tossed the broken shaft of the arrow aside, packed the wound with some snow and the rest of the compresses to stop the bleeding, then tied the whole thing off just as he had the entry point.

      When he was finished, he slumped on the ground, sweating, exhausted and in considerable pain.

      After some time—he didn’t know how long—the pain receded to a manageable level. He pushed himself back up into a sitting position and took a look at his handiwork.

      Blood had dried around the edges of the makeshift bandages, but it looked like as if the wound had stopped bleeding.

      Maybe he was going to make it, after all.

      A soft snort to his immediate right made him nearly jump out of his skin. He slowly turned his head, not wanting to jostle his injured leg but at the same time afraid of what he might see. To his vast surprise, he found the horse he’d been riding standing a few feet away, rooting through a partially opened saddlebag for something to eat.

      “Thank you, Lord,” Curran whispered.

      If he could get on the horse, he had a fighting chance at survival.

      Like the other Mongol steeds, his was a short-legged, shaggy beast that had seen its fair share of death and was unmoved by the carnage around it. Losing interest in the saddlebag at its feet, it raised its head, catching sight of Curran in the process. It trotted over and nuzzled him, looking to be fed.

      “Good boy,” the priest whispered, petting its nose with one hand while grabbing onto the straps of the saddlebags it still wore with the other.

      Using the straps for support, he hauled himself upright, using the strength of his arms and his one good leg. It took several tries, but at last he was standing on one leg, his arms wrapped around the horse’s neck to keep from falling.

      He rested in that position for a moment, praying the horse wouldn’t make any sudden moves and dump him back down on the snow. When he’d caught his breath again, he reached for the pack still hanging around the horse’s hindquarters, right where he’d loaded it earlier that morning.

      Working slowly and carefully to limit jarring his injured leg any more than necessary, he untied the drawstrings of the pack and withdrew the ceremonial robe he’d worn when appearing for his audience with the khan in Karakorum. The material was quite thick, something he constantly complained about when wearing it, but now he was silently thankful. He slipped the material over his shivering form and slumped against his horse, already exhausted and he hadn’t even tried getting himself up into the saddle.

      A sudden sound to his left drew his attention.

      He straightened up, trying to see.

      Only the dead stared back at him.

      The sound came again, a low moan, but this time he saw the fingers of a nearby form twitch in conjunction with it.

      Another survivor!

      “Hey! Hey, you! Can you hear me?” Curran called out in the Mongolian he’d picked up during his two months in Karakorum.

      The strange croaking sound that came out of his parched throat surprised him. Until that moment, he hadn’t even been aware of his tremendous thirst. He coughed, then used a handful of snow to wet down his lips and throat before trying again.

      “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

      There was no response.

      He knew he hadn’t imagined it. That meant the man was either too injured to respond or simply couldn’t understand him.

      Curran had no choice; he was going to have to go over to the injured man and take a look. He considered climbing astride the horse, but decided the effort required to get up and then back down again was probably too much for him. Instead, he got the horse moving slowly in the direction he wanted it, using the animal as a makeshift crutch for support as he hopped along on his good leg. When Curran was close enough, he pulled the horse to a stop and dropped down in the snow next to the wounded man.

      He rolled the body over and discovered that it was the man who had saved him earlier, Tamarak.

      The feathered shafts of two black arrows jutted from deep in the man’s stomach and a sword blade had taken a bite out of the left side of his head. Given the barbed tips, Curran had no way of removing them. He’d been able to remove his own only because the arrowhead had come all the way through his flesh. СКАЧАТЬ