14

Mortal Peril

When Belle screamed his name, Rumple jerked to the side and managed to avoid the Jacyra's jaws, which would have closed upon his throat. Instead the red furred beast missed, its jaws clicking on empty air.

Rumple lashed back with a fireball, but the beast's innate resistance to magic, hence why it ate magicians, absorbed most of the blow and it was knocked back only a little, and ended up attacking Rumple's leg and savaging it.

Rumple howled as the razor sharp teeth, dripping with a clear venom, sliced through his leg, tearing muscle and bone. He nearly blacked out from the pain.

All of this happened in the space it took Belle to breathe twice.

When she realized that she was the only one who might be able to save Rumple, she gathered her courage and found a small round stone by her feet, ripped out her long hair ribbon, improvising a sling, and whipped it around her head, screaming a war cry.

Not many people knew it, but Belle could throw a stone with the best of them. Or a dart, having always had a sharp eye. She could also shoot a bow, and cursed herself for not bringing a weapon along. Then again, she had never expected to need one on an innocent picnic.

The stone flew from her hand, and struck the roraring Jacyra right in its wicked yellow eye.

The red beast threw up its head, screeching in agony, its mouth gaping wide for an instant.

Despite the crippling pain, Rumple knew an opportunity when he saw it, and for once Gaston's cruelty stood him in good stead, as it enabled him to ignore the agony and seize the moment.

The master sorcerer clenched his hands together in a fist and thrust it down the monster's throat.

Then he summoned all of his considerable magical might and blasted the Jacyra with a triple force mage bolt. His blast of fire turned icy white and then a vibrant purple and because it was aimed at the beast's insides, its magic resistance could not protect against it, since its skin was the thing resistant to magic, and its organs and innards were vulnerable.

The fire roared through the monster, lifting it up into the air and roasting it in its own skin from the inside out. It shrieked a death cry before disintegrating into tiny bits of ash that were swiftly blown away by the wind.

Then Rumple lowered his hands and passed out.

Belle reached him a few moments later, her gorge rising as she saw what the monster had done to his leg, mangling it and she saw through the bloody mess a shard of bone sticking up. She almost threw up right there. But she knew she couldn't afford to indulge herself then.

She knelt and found Rumple's pulse in his neck—it was thready and she knew she need to halt the bleeding as quickly as she could. She ripped lengths of her petticoat and tied them just above the wound in his leg. He had other wounds in his chest and on his arm, but neither was as bad as the leg.

She brushed aside his hair and kissed him gently. "I'll be back, Rumple! I'm going to get help. But you—you just keep breathing, you hear me? Don't you dare give up on me! Don't you dare!"

Then she got to her feet and sprinted back to where Regina had been watching the children, the wind brushing the tears away from her eyes.

Regina had Henry take Bae and Aileen up to his room to occupy them while she used her magic to conjure a floating stretcher and put Rumple on it and brought him into her house. She used her magic mirror to call for help from the nearest Healer, but the closest one was away delivering a baby and might not return in time.

Desperate, she put Rumple on her large workroom table and said, "Belle, you'll need to fix those straps there onto his legs and wrists."

"Why?" Belle cried.

"Because the Jacyra's venom is going to cause him to have a high fever and convulsions and we don't want him thrashing around and injuring himself further." She replied. "I have to try and make up an antidote as soon as possible, because unless I do, he'll die of the poison before he will of blood loss and shock from his leg being chewed up."

Belle did what she had to, turning pale as snow.

Regina waved a hand and a basin materialized. "Puke in that if you have to, then fill it with water and use those cloths on that shelf to wash the blood from his leg. You'll also need to loosen the tourniquet, because otherwise he could lose the leg if you leave it on too long." She began looking through her spellbooks rapidly, which were on a bookshelf on the east wall.

"I'll be all right," Belle swallowed sharply. She went to fill the basin with water from the pitcher Regina had sitting, and as she did so, she looked at his leg, which resembled nothing so much as a slab of meat wolves had worried, and then she lost the battle with her stomach and threw up.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, ashamed, and wiped her mouth and then rinsed the basin and poured fresh water in. "I'm not . . .usually so . . .squeamish."

"He your first battle victim?" Regina queried as she scanned her texts.

"Umm . .. yes . . ."

"Takes us all that way at first. Especially when it's someone you care about. The first time Henry fell and cut open his chin on a rock and needed me to heal it, I took one look at it and him bawling and I threw up all over."

"How . . .how do you know so much about healing?" Belle asked, making herself return to Rumple's side and wash the leg.

Regina jerked her chin at Rumple. "He and his lady mother taught me. Rhiannon was a wise woman healer as well as First lady of Prytainia. Rumple could heal before he could walk, or so it's said. He inherited that from her. But both of them knew conventional methods of healing as well as magical ones. Because sometimes you can't heal things with magic."

She put her finger in a grimoire and said, "Found it! But this will take a bit to brew. Oh, make sure you put a cloth in his mouth too, if he has a seizure, he could bite his tongue."

Belle did as she had ordered, and also loosened the tourniquet. Blood welled up from the gaping wound in his leg, but once she retied it, it halted.

Regina used her magic to chop and dice certain ingredients while she boiled a cauldron of water, adding each ingredient at the proper time and stirring and steeping. She prayed she recalled all of Rhiannon's instructions on brewing.

Rumple began to moan and thrash about, sweat beading his brow as the fever from the venom swept through him. His face became red as fever flushed it, and he began to tremble violently.

Belle almost dropped the basin. "Regina!"

Regina looked up. "He's having a small seizure. This is what happens with Jacyra venom. It's anathema to us."

Belle stared as Rumple twitched like a marionette whose master was pulling all his strings, and his back arched slightly. "What can we do?" She felt sick watching the man she loved so ill, battling for his life.

"Nothing. Just wait it out," Regina sighed.

A few moments later he stopped and relaxed.

Belle approached his head. "He's calm now," she began to bathe his forehead and neck with some more cool water.

"That was a mild one," the sorceress remarked as she stirred the potion again. "This has to steep for ten more minutes before I can administer the first draught."

Belle continued to bathe him, then asked diffidently, "Do . . do you think you can save him, Regina?"

Regina looked pensive. "I have to, Belle! He's my oldest friend, we grew up together, he and I. If he wasn't like a brother to me . . . and I didn't love Daniel like I did, we probably would have married. As it was, he was like my closest friend, I used to tell him everything . . .even things I wouldn't tell my maids." She smiled sadly. "When Dan and I quarreled, Rumple was the one I confided in and cried on his shoulder, instead of my mother. When he met Aurelia, I was the one he confided in that he loved her, and gave him courting advice. And when she died, I held him while he cried and summoned storms to ravage the land in his grief."

Her hands tightened on the stirrer. "In Galatia we were neighbors again, dwellers in the cruicible, and we lived in the hell our captors imposed. But we also never gave up hope that someday we would win back what they stole. And that was in part because of him. He started the revolution, with his unfailing hope of the future, and when I wanted to die, collared and hurting, having lost my whole family, he came and hugged me and said, "Don't stop fighting, Regina. Your people need you, I need you, and Henry needs you." He gave me something to live for again. And from then on nothing those bastards did to us could make me stop dreaming of the day when we were free again."

"He's an amazing man," Belle said, sponging his face.

"Yes. And while there is magic left within me, I shall fight for him." She looked at Belle speculatively. "Having you here will make him fight too . . .since he loves you and wants to marry you. It's always good when you have something to fight for. When he was collared, he fought for us and for his children. Now . . . he fights for you. And love is the greatest magic of all."

She went to decant the potion.

As she did so, Rumple had another seizure.

Belle bit her lip as he flailed against his bonds. This one lasted a bit longer.

Regina approached, carrying a small syringe.

"What's that?" Belle queried.

"Injection. It's faster to administer this way." She went and gave him the antidote in his arm.

As soon as she had done so, the hectic flush disappeared from his features.

"There! That's better!"

"That works fast."

"Magic, dear. But now we need to see to the leg. And that might prove a little more difficult." Regina said.

"Can you heal it with magic?" Belle asked.

She sighed. "I could . . if it were an ordinary injury. But with a Jacyra inflicted one . . .it won't respond to magical means . . .or not a lot of them."

She shook her head gravely. "But I'll do what I can . . .then we'll see if that Healer can come and help with the rest."

She had Belle undo the tourniquet and she halted the bleeding with a spell. Then she used another solution to disinfect the wounds.

Then she laid her hand on Rumple's forehead and put him into a deeper sleep.

"I don't know if I can help him any more," said Regina. "Wounds like this aren't . . .I don't sew well . . .and if I can't use my magic . . ."

She examined the wound and even to her half-trained eye it looked bad.

"Dammit, I hope he doesn't lose the leg."

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes. The bloody beast almost ripped his leg off," Regina growled.

"He . . .he was so brave . . .when it came at him . . .he shoved me behind him . . ." her eyes grew misty. "He killed it by burning it to death . . while shoving his hands halfway down its throat . . ."

"That's how you kill one . . . or you shoot it with poisoned dreamshade arrows," Regina said softly. "Jacyra's immune to magic on the outside, but not inside. But this . . .it shouldn't even have been here, except once the Galatians took over . . .all the evil magical creatures we'd kept at bay returned . . .like vultures to pick over carrion . . ."

She moved over to the silver mirror in a corner of her lab, prepared to contact the Healer again, when there was a flash and elderly woman with her hair in a bun looking like she'd do better sipping iced tea in a rocking chair on her porch like someone's granny appeared in the room.

"Healer Lucas at your service. Let me see the First Mage," she said briefly. "What happened?" she rummaged in a black bag.

"He was attacked by a Jacyra," Regina said softly.

"Bloody hellspawn!" the Healer swore, and said, "I'll do what I can."

Fifteen minutes later she straightened and said, "I've mended it as much as I can, but his bones in his ankle were badly broken and muscles torn. I've sewed and set them but I have no way of knowing if he'll ever walk right on that leg again. I'll leave you some potions for the pain, fever, and for infection, and I'll come by tomorrow and check on him. If he wakes let him drink a lot of water and he's not to put weight on that leg for a few months. Make sure he eats also, some of my potions shouldn't be taken on an empty stomach."

"Then you think he's going to make it?" asked Belle.

"I . . . can't say. He could get an infection, he's lost a lot of blood, so he'll need plenty of rest and food with protein, beef broth, stew, that kind of thing. But he's young and strong. If anyone can make it, it's him." Healer Lucas stroked his head. She looked at Belle. "He'll need a lot of care if he's going to recover."

"I know. I'll do whatever I have to," Belle vowed.

"Then let's move him back to his home," Regina said. "He'll recover better there."

She levitated the still comatose Rumple onto the stretcher after giving him the last dose of the antitoxin.

Then she went and floated Rumple through her mirror back to his bedroom in the manor. Together she and Belle made him comfortable in his huge bed, propping his injured leg up on pillows, and stoking up the fire and setting a pitcher of cold water beside him along with a glass. They put the potions on a tray on a small table and covered him with his softest blankets.

Then Regina went to inform his staff about their gravely wounded master and Belle told Maurice what had happened.

Regina had the cook start making a restorative chicken broth infused with herbs and Belle returned with her to her manor to pick up Aileen and Bae and tell them about their father.

"Will Papa be okay?" Bae asked, his small face drawn into a frown.

"I . . hope so," Belle said, unwilling to lie to him.

"Papa sick?" Aileen asked, her cherub face concerned.

"Yes, your papa is sick. He . . .got hurt fighting off a bad monster called a Jacyra," Belle told her.

"Jacyras are bad!" gasped Bae. "They're the mage killers!"

"Where's the bad monster?" Aileen asked, looking like she was going to cry.

"It's dead, honey. Your papa killed it."

She looked relieved.

"That's how he got hurt, isn't it?" Bae asked knowingly.

"Yes, it is. But if we take care of him, he'll get better."

"Can we see him?" asked Rumple's son.

"Yes, but just for a minute, he's asleep." Belle said.

"Papa! Wake up!" shrilled Aileen and bolted up the stairs.

"Aileen!" Bae snapped. "Papa's sick, don't wake him up! We're playin' the quiet game!"

"We is?" she turned and looked back at him.

"Yeah. Shhh!" he put a finger to his lips.

"Shh!' she imitated him, then she turned and climbed the stairs again, running down the corridor to Rumple's bedroom.

Before anyone could stop her, the intrepid toddler had climbed up on the bed and kissed her papa on the cheek, laying her head on his shoulder and saying, "All better now, Papa? All better?"

As if he had somehow heard her, Rumple gave a lopsided grin and muttered, "Yes, dearie."

Aileen smiled. Then she sat up as Bae and Belle entered and said, "I give Papa a kiss. He's all better now!"

"Aww, Aileen!" Bae chuckled. Then he went and took Rumple's hand and said, "You're gonna get better, Papa. You just have to!"

Then he kissed him as well, on the opposite cheek. "Love you forever."

Again, his papa murmured, "Love . . .you . . ."

Bae's eyes widened. "He said he loved me! Belle, does that mean he's waking up?"

Belle came and checked, but Rumple was still deeply asleep. "I think he heard you in his dreams, Bae."

Bae and Aileen sat next to Rumple for several minutes, hoping he would open his eyes, but the injured sorcerer continued sleeping.

It nearly broke Belle's heart to see the two children sitting there gazing at Rumple so trustingly, and she didn't have the heart to send them away. So she sat in the chair nearby, watching, and then asked one of the maids to fetch her book from her room.

Finally Aileen grew tired and went to take a nap in her room, and after a bit Bae followed her.

Once she was alone with Rumple, Belle began to read aloud to Rumple, it was the tale of a woodcutter's daughter who meets one of the Fair Folk in the woods and they strike up a friendship, and she had been meaning to finish it before the winter gala, but hadn't managed it. As she read, her voice stuttered and faltered until at last she halted, gazing upon the figure lying stricken in the bed, and fear strangled her voice and brought tears to her eyes, which fell upon the page and obscured the words.

Then she whispered, "Gods of Light, please please don't take him from me," and she prayed to every god she knew to let him live, for without him she feared her heart would be broken forever, never to be mended.