"Ginny-Gin, can you still do this?" Galatry asked worriedly to her sister, who was placing Ty's body between the two horses, the head on her horse and cradling the face, which was growing bluer.
"Of course I can," Ginny said quickly, tilting Ty's head back to clear the airway, then listening for breathing. "She's going to drown like this. I need to get that blood out of her lungs, and I need to get it out now. Gala, d'you have that brandy the boy gave you?"
Galatry handed it over, stripping her gloves from her hands and feeling Ty's neck skin. It was drying fast, and as she pinched it, Ty didn't move. The skin took some moments to go back to its original position. Galatry frowned in worry.
Ginny was busy pouring the brandy slowly down Ty's throat. It was slowly trickling down, which seemed to make Ginny very impatient. She then deftly pulled a knife with a very thin blade from its resting place at her hip and looked around for the boys.
"Gin! Gala!"
A boy with dark, slick hair cropped short on top of his hair and dark eyes was running over. He looked rather wiry and rather tall, and muscles worked on his legs as he ran with a wicked grin their way. Ginny hushed him over.
"K! I need some Trudy's-Bane and I need it now. These boys don't understand 'bout plants much, but you do. Can you find some here? Or something else that'll do the trick?"
The grin vanished as Kane became serious. He looked away from Ginny to Galatry immediately, not even sparing a glance for Ty. "What'd'ya got?"
"Heavy blood loss, pierced lung, slow pulse, not breathing much," Galatry recited. The boy nodded and scampered off into the woods. In about thirty seconds he was back with what seemed a purplish version of poison ivy. From their left flank they could hear Otian coming back with the sapling.
"Keyroflame," the boy said, frowning as he set to work, hopping onto Ginny's mount and checking the saddlebags. "Dangerous little plant, but should do. I'll handl' it, but Gin, can ya hold on to it? I need to handl' this oilin'. Speakin' o' which, we got oil?"
"Oh, curse this by the Goddess, he's right," Galatry muttered, then to the back bellowed, "Where's that oil?"
Otian popped out of the woods on their left, carrying the little plant. "Here's the sapling. Anything else?" he panted. He was looking at Ty with eyes of desperation, then looked up at Galatry as if begging her to tell him to do something before he went mad.
"Yeah," muttered Kane as he took a knife from his own hip and began cutting it up and stripping it. "Y'all got any rags 'round here? An' where is that bloody oil?"
Otian sped off as Kehel's red face appeared behind them. "I got one of the caravans to give up some room so you can work there. The supplies you asked for are there."
"Tell Muscle-Lad I need the water pronto!" Ginny squeaked all of a sudden. "He's not breathing!"
Galatry dug her heels into her mount and rode off to the caravan Kehel was pointing at. Ginny threw her reins to Kane, who sped them off after her while the younger girl pulled Ty's head back even further before closing her nose and breathing into her.
"Airway's blocked!" she said, rising from Ty to shout to her sister as she stopped her mount and drew out a weirdly shaped hollow cane from inside a saddlebag. They pushed Ty into the caravan, which had a dozen or so children in it.
"Gin! Drain 'im, and do it fastish!" Kane told her, chopping at the roots with a fury and throwing them into a pot with oil. Taking another pot that looked somewhat like a clean chamber pot, he tossed some dried leaves and sticks in. Striking a flint, it went up in flames obligingly. He placed the oil above it to heat, then hurried over to Ginny.
It was very lucky she and Kane were helping. Ginny's mother had been a kind of healer to their group, knowing all of diseases and their treatments. Her mother's sister, Kane's mother, had been a master of the leaves. It was in great luck that both children, trained by their parents to some degree, were present at all.
Ginny's face looked somewhat purple. Tongue between her teeth, she was lowering the thin tube down Ty's throat. Galatry was cleaning a basin to use to place whatever it was that had blocked Ty's airway. Ginny muttered something to Kane, who ran outside to come back with Terry's water gallon and many cloth rags. When Terry—and many others—tried to hurry after him, he shouted at them to return to their posts.
"Fat chance the lad'll live if y'all are a'cloudin' 'round 'im an' not checkin' for intruders!" he shouted at the two older boys, who went off to their posts at once looking mortified.
"Your oil's boiling!" Galatry told him as he ran back to the caravan, eyes following him nervously. He threw the rags at Galatry's face before returning to his oil and tossing the sapling into it. Then he took the leaves from Ginny and began to pound them as if they had done him an unearthly wrong.
"I'm in!" Ginny cried to the pair in triumph. Then she took the tube and blew into it with all her might. Her face went reddish and she removed her mouth to cough. "Something's blocking me!" she cried after a thorough hacking.
"Dried blood, it'll be," Kane told her, throwing the leaves into his concoction and taking it down from the heat. "Gala, gimme them dusties you got 'nd a rag. Gin, ya need to lower this to 'im. It'll kick like the goddamn Own in the chest, but he aint got a chance without it."
"That smells foul!" Galatry told him, handing him what he asked for.
"But it'll burn up whatever's blockin' his airway, so less' not complain, eh?" he replied. They both nodded, Galatry closing her eyes as if in prayer.
"Cover ya mouths and noses, this'll be strong!" he told them, covering his own and throwing the dust into the pot. It steamed and threw up a thick stink like so many marshes, then subsided to bubbling. Then, crossed fingers in one hand and boiling concoction in the other, he poured a trickle down Ty's tube.
Thirty seconds was all it took. The substance ran down the pipe in a millisecond, then a sizzling sound for a few seconds…
Then came a scream loud enough to make the gods tremble.
"Get it out!" both Galatry and Kane shouted at once. "Get it out get it out!"
Ginny pulled the tube free. Ty collapsed on her side, wheezing. Color was rushing back into her lips and fingertips, but she looked utterly horrified, as though she was burning inside.
"Bucket at the ready!" Ginny cried. The children in the back of the caravan scampered within the tight space, putting as much distance between themselves and the shouting youngsters. Ty rolled over, her face went in the bucket, and—
"Eww!" said a few from the back of the caravan. From Ty's mouth came a steady spurt of dark red blood, thick and somewhat less liquid than normal blood would have looked. As soon as she stopped, Galatry poured half a gallon of water down her throat. Kane was using the other half—and some herbs—to see if he could repair the blood she had divulged.
"Ty!" Terry was riding next to the caravan, eyes wide in fear. "Ty, you all right mate?"
All three ignored him, though now the other children in the caravan also looked terrified. Kehel and Otian were soon riding beside Terry, looking exactly the same, if not worse.
"He's breathing fine," Galatry came and told them minutes later, swatting the sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. "He lost a lot of blood though. Thank the gods K was here really. He's the one who found our missing ingredient, and the one who figured out how to deal with him."
"The lad'll be alright," Kane said, coming over as well. "Loads of blood lost, mind. A lot of it glued to the airway, so we 'adta burn it out. Don't panic!" he said as all three boys started toward him, ready to hit him. "No need ta sock the boy 'oo saved the yer little page 'nyway. Now, I got some stuff for 'im to get all 'is missin' blood back, but I don' think 'e'll down it willingly. An' not on 'n' empty stomach, 'cause then 'e won' keep it down. Any of y'all got the time?"