Chapter Twenty B-The Short Hard Way
Vilkas and Laure both felt the terror in Farkas' mind as he plummeted down, and they both screamed wordlessly in rage and fear. Their shield-brother needed them as never before, and they were stuck up here fighting bloody Falmer when they should be with him. Desperate to get to him, they redoubled their efforts. Laure savagely cut down the Falmer shaman in front of her, trying to force her way past. A loud clatter and crash cut off Farkas' cries as he smashed into the ground below. Vilkas and Laure continued to scream and cut their way wildly through the remaining Falmer as they worked their way down to their shield-brother. "Farkas! Answer me! Please?" she yelled, voice cracking.
Laure, frustrated in her effort to battle past the Falmer, was fighting back the rage and anguish that threatened to set her inner wolf free. She snarled and Shouted in fury, "Zun haal!" and smashed her way through the now weaponless creatures with her shield and sword, followed closely by Vilkas. Finally breaking free of the last pair, Laure and her mate clamored down and jumped off the ramp, rushing to Farkas.
The big man was motionless, still tangled with the corpse of the chaurus, half buried in the snow. Biting back further cries, Laure dropped to her knees, pulled off her gauntlets, and praying silently, Sweet Auri' El, have mercy, felt for a heartbeat. Fluttering erratically under her fingertips was his pulse. Vilkas joined her, eyes clouded with fear for his twin, his hands shaking.
"He's alive; help me get this bug off him!" she cried, tugging at the heavy chaurus in a near panic. Farkas moaned quietly when they jostled him and his eyes fluttered open. Gods, please save him!
He glanced around in confusion, "Get me outta this thing, please?" he asked weakly, gaze meandering from her face to his brother's. His hand slowly crept up to the side of his head and felt about, coming back wet with bright blood.
"Trying, lover. Don't move." Laurelin chewed her lip as she eased a piece free.
"Don't think I could anyway," he slumped back in a daze.
Vilkas stilled and gave his brother a piercing stare. "What do you mean?"
"Think I broke something, doesn't feel right."
Shea'a arrived just then, black eyes shining with misery and concern, bleeding still, robes torn. "Don't move him any more; there could be serious injuries internally," she cautioned, moving in to assist.
"Laure, Vil, I want outta this bug, it stinks," Farkas appealed. "Please?"
"Working on it, don't worry, and be still," Vilkas said as he resumed cutting apart the armored insect.
"Just . . .hurry?" his plaintive tone was enough to wrench at their hearts, and they had to refrain from frantically ripping the bug apart to free him. Somehow, the three of them managed to extract the injured man from the stinking remains and lever him to the relatively clear flagstones at the base of the ramp. His pained cries echoed dismally when they lowered him again. It seemed to take forever, but must have only been a few moments.
Laure and Vilkas carefully stripped Farkas of his armor, cutting straps, setting each piece aside, while Shea'a examined his head wound minutely, her hands already glowing as she prepared to use her most powerful healing spells. She finished quickly, then moved down his muscular torso, gently probing and exploring, healing as she went. She paused a moment later, eyes closed, and took a deep breath.
"What is it? How bad?" queried Vilkas in a low voice.
"It feels like he has sustained severe internal injuries. Several of his ribs are badly broken, and I think they have punctured his lung and other organs perhaps. I don't know if I can . . ."
Laure felt tears spring to her eyes and roll down her cheeks. "Do what you can, and I'll help any way I am able." She was already digging in her pack for the healing potions she carried, tossing aside handfuls of gems and jewelry like they were so much rubbish. And they were; if they couldn't save Farkas, there was no point in material wealth.
"Dragonborn-Laurelin . . . listen to me. This is beyond my ability to heal. I can probably slow the bleeding and heal the breaks, but I can't heal that which truly threatens him. I think his back may be broken."
Vilkas slumped forward into Laure's arms, breathing rapidly, trying to beat back the shocked tears that were brimming over. She was wrong. Farkas couldn't be—in Laure's mind he was nigh invincible, and the thought of him being a cripple was untenable. "Fix him, whatever it takes," she said when she met Farkas' frightened gaze.
Shea'a nodded and let the golden glow in her hands pour forward and flow into Farkas, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. The warmth spilled over and encompassed the Nord. Long minutes passed, Vilkas and Laure clasped in each others arms as the Arch-Mage worked. Her face was shining with sweat, shoulders trembling as she drained her body of every last bit of arcane energy she possessed before she let her fingers slip from his forehead. She immediately opened her satchel and pulled out several large magicka potions, drank them back one after the other, then turned her attention back to her patient. For the better part of an hour, Shea'a worked over him, kept going when he lost consciousness, even calling on her innate ability to regenerate magicka at an accelerated rate in an effort to heal him.
While she worked, Laure and Vilkas took turns comforting each other, reassuring the other that it would be okay, somehow. Neither wanted to admit the very real possibility that he might not ever again venture out with them, singing a bawdy song while he ruthlessly cut down foes.
With a groan, Shea'a finally sat back and pushed loose hair behind her long, pointed ears. "I've done all I can do, but I fear the direst of his injuries are beyond my skill to heal." She looked at her bloodied hands and twisted them into knots in her lap. Finally she met Laure and Vilkas' eyes and murmured, "I'm sorry, but I cannot heal his broken back."
"What do you mean?" Laure asked, feeling her world starting to crumble away around her, not comprehending what the Arch-Mage was saying. She fell back into Vilkas' arms and buried her face to stifle the coming sobs. This wasn't real; it was a terrible nightmare. Farkas was a warrior, and without his legs, she knew he would sink into despair and die a vastly unhappy man. Her tears were for him, imagining his tragic loss. So much of his life denied him, and all because he was helping her.
"I-it is my belief that he won't be able to walk again, unless the gods themselves intervene. I'm so sorry."
Vilkas stared at his brother, who was breathing shallowly but not coughing up blood anymore. "Why can't you fix his back? What's wrong, why didn't your magic work? Aren't you the all-powerful Arch-Mage?" he asked in a hollow voice. Poor Shea'a didn't-couldn't-know that some of the venom in his words was really meant for himself. All his life, he had looked after his younger twin. I'm supposed to protect him, my little brother. It was the first job Kodlak ever gave me. Look after your brother and protect him from the evils of this world, and where the fuck was I? Chasing glory, not watching my brother's—my twin's!—back. I failed at that most basic, important charge. By Ysgramor, I'm so sorry I wasn't there, Farkas!
"The spine is a vastly complicated piece of the anatomy," said Shea'a, uncertain how to proceed. She had never been in a situation such as this, experienced though she was. "I am an experienced healer and can mend many things, but I cannot heal what the body can't repair itself, given time. The injury he sustained is more than what his body can regenerate on its own, or even with arcane healing.
Vilkas' silver eyes flitted over his still brother, fighting back his despair, mind racing for a solution while Laure shook in his arms. "What if there were a way for him to boost his healing rate and regeneration?"
"I know of nothing that would do this, unless perhaps the Dragonborn has a special Shout . . ."
"Almost all my Words of Power are offensive. None will heal," Laure sniffed.
"I wasn't thinking about her Thu'um. But she has an ability; we three share it." His meaning finally penetrated the swirling thoughts and grief clouding Laure's mind.
"Vilkas, I don't think that's a good idea; what if he tried and it just made him worse?"
"Worse than being a cripple for the rest of his life?" Vilkas flared. "Worse than an eternity in the Hunting Grounds? He has to try!" They stared at each other, sharing ideas quicker than thought, rapidly debating then racing through possible solutions together.
Laure soon nodded, pulled herself out of his arms and leaned over Farkas, softly kissing his forehead. She straightened up and began shedding her armor quickly, stacking it next to Farkas'. She ignored the range of looks Shea'a gave her, until she was completely nude.
"If a word of this gets out, I will have to kill you," she said simply to the golden-skinned mer. Laure unleashed the beast always lurking within and quickly morphed into her werewolf form. At this point, any dulling of the pain and circling thoughts was a welcome diversion. She needed to act, not wallow in despair. She stared the Arch-Mage down for a moment after and then leaped up the ramp, claws gouging the stone as she bounded and jumped straight up, making her way through the tangled maze of pipes and ramps.
If Shea'a had any quick reply, it was gone as soon as it started to form. The flabbergasted Altmer edged back away from the twin brothers, unsure of her safety at this point remembering how Vilkas had said they all three shared the blood. Furtively, she scrubbed the drying blood off her hands with snow. Vilkas, however, paid her no mind; instead he seemed to be watching his brother carefully, with one ear cocked upward. The sound of her claws screaming across the metal pipes bounced back to them every so often.
"May I ask what you two are planning?" Shea'a finally asked.
"You'll see when we get to it," was his short reply. He wasn't trying to be rude, but all the attention he had just now was devoted entirely to his brother. Nothing in the world was as important to him as providing an anchor for his twin, to be there if he should wake and need anything. In his mind replayed countless times throughout their lives, he and his brother nearly always together. He wasn't ready to face a world where Farkas wasn't his equal and partner.
Soon an unbelievably loud roar and the fainter sound of tearing metal came, followed by a series of rattling crashes. For several long moments Shea'a sat back, waiting to see what would happen next, her mind racing in mad circles. Shortly, Laurelin dropped back down with a thump and a crash, white-furred haunches absorbing the massive shock from dropping from so high. Above her head, she held one of the torture racks, leather straps dangling.
She set the rack down next to Farkas and looked to Vilkas, who nodded his approval. With utmost care, Laure knelt by her best friend and lover and took him in her powerful arms, lifting him just enough to slide him onto the rack. Vilkas quickly bound him with the straps.
Meanwhile Laure had pawed through her knapsack until she withdrew a small, linen-wrapped bundle. Vilkas took it from her and unwrapped it, revealing a small potion bottle with a heavy wax seal over the cork stopper. As soon as he had it open, he poured a few drops into a swallow of mead and swished the mead a few seconds.
"I'm not sure what you think you're going to accomplish. Do you hope that as a werewolf he will be able to regenerate? I've never read nor heard of an instance where such results were pro-"
"Will you be silent, you infernal woman?" Vilkas bellowed, rounding on Shea'a, his face twisted with rage and fear. "At least I'm trying to do something!" She just didn't understand that he needed to do something, anything that would give his brother a chance to walk again, to be whole. This is all my fault. I wasn't even looking in the right direction while he was teetering—I have to do something to help him, before Hircine-
"Something that will perhaps hasten his demise even more," Shea'a argued. "Are you sure you don't wish to have him transported to the college where we might use the abilities of the other mages? Or to one of the temples." Genuine concern kept her talking at a time when she should have heeded the wishes of the wounded man's distraught twin.
"You've seen what we are! Are you really that soft in the head? We would be revealed to the whole world, hunted to the death. We can't allow that, for so many reasons." He glanced over to his mate, still in her bestial form as she prepared to restrain Farkas if necessary. "And I know for a fact he won't want to live as a cripple. Better that he die in battle than waste away as half a man."
"Given your, ah, unique circumstances, there is a small chance he will recover in time."
"Will he be able to hold his water? Sire children? Swing a blade in battle? Or will he need one of us to wipe his arse? How many years of watching the world go by until he could walk again, if ever? What kind of life is that for a man to lead?" Vilkas was slowly advancing on the taller mer, disdainful smirk twisting his handsome features as he fired off his unanswerable questions one after the other.
"There is no way of knowing," she said sadly.
"Then shut up and stay out of our way for now, unless you fancy becoming one of us." He gestured to Laurelin, who hunkered down by Farkas.
From that point, Shea'a watched quietly at a safe distance, thoughts hidden behind an inscrutable facade.
Vilkas got down on his knees by his brother's head and gently shook Farkas awake. The big man looked up at his brother in confusion when he came around. "Huh? Why am I tied to this thing?" His head spun and he felt disoriented. His thoughts took him back to that seemingly timeless, endless fall, over and over. The carefully controlled looks on the faces around him filled him with a roiling dread.
"Farkas, listen carefully. Your back is broken; do you understand what that means?"
"Means I can't feel my feet, or anything else below my belly. Vilkas, please, I don't want to be a cripple!" He stared up at his older brother, eyes wide and glimmering with frightened tears. What if they left him here, defenseless? What if they couldn't love him anymore? What if . . .
His brother's low, determined voice brought him back from the brink of that waiting pit of despair."You won't be if we have anything to say about it. We need to try something; are you willing to try?"
Farkas nodded, his fingers clutched tight around the leather cuffs. It wasn't as though he had much choice. He either went along with whatever they had planned, or he might as well be dead.
"Okay, we think that if you do a partial change into your beast form, it will be enough to prompt your body to heal your injury. Laurelin is going to help hold you if you start to go too far, but we need you to try to not change all the way; we're not sure if the stress might aggravate the damage, making it permanent. I have a potion that should be able to keep you still, if you don't think you can manage. Can you manage?"
Farkas swallowed with difficulty and nodded, looking from his brother to the surprisingly tender visage of Laure in her beast shape. Meeting her chilly gaze, he lowered his defenses a tiny bit, felt the familiar itching in his skin and bones, all the way to his waist, where all sensation simply ceased. The surge of blood quickened the slow tempo of his heart, racing even where he had no feeling.
Vision blurred, Farkas tried to keep a lid on the fury the beast felt at being confined, trapped within a broken body, restrained by feeble wood and leather. The desire to be whole and running free flooded his whole being, tingling up and down his spine. Bones shifted minutely as he tried to control the transformation. Chest heaving with strain, Farkas gnashed his teeth and tried not to snap at the gentle caresses Laurelin feathered over his brow and cheeks.
Sweat poured in streams down his forehead and flanks while he fought a seemingly impossible inner struggle. Laure and Vilkas watched hopefully as his already impressive muscles swelled, his heavy jaw lengthened incrementally. Sadly his lower half remained limp, toes touching but not moving in the slightest. Please, let this work, I can't live without my legs. I won't live like that, dependent on my family for everything. All I have left is this one chance. Farkas focused his energies and will into holding the beast just at arms length, not letting it take control of his body. All he needed now was the accelerated healing his blood gave him.
The tingling and itching seemed to gather around his back, almost an uncomfortable burning. He wasn't sure what it meant, but he hoped it meant his body was trying to repair itself. He tried to breathe deeply, and willed the healing energy to focus on his back, into the crushed bones of his spine. It was unbelievably difficult, as his wolf raged to be set completely free so he could tear away the restraints and gallop away from this terrible place, once and for all. His back burned and blood seemed to boil in his veins. Heal it, and we'll go out for great bloody hunt he told himself, a thought echoed by Laure and Vilkas.
Laure shifted back to her natural form, and in their minds, she and Vilkas urged him on, offering up every bit of support they could, praising his efforts while praying with all their hearts this crazy idea would work. When his spirit began to flag, they let their own beasts rush into his mind and tease him with pleasant thoughts of running free to sniff the wind. When it raged too hot and threatened to completely burst his control, they sent calming, soothing thoughts.
At first, it seemed as though he was making little progress, but slowly, warm tingling began to suffuse his lower back, and as he struggled with his beast, the hot blood racing through his body seeped lower and lower, bringing tiny pulses of sensation. Laure and Vilkas felt it and nearly screamed together with joy, urging him to try to direct his energies to his back, to envision it knitting the damaged bundle of nerves back together.
Laure and Vilkas called up their own healing magics in hopes of augmenting the regeneration. The warm light surrounded the struggling man and soothed the rest of his pains and aches; eased the pins and needles that seemed to prickle just under the skin of his feet and calves as feeling slowly returned.
Finally, Farkas coerced his wolf to draw back, and slumped against the hard planks of the torture rack once more. Exhausted, his eyes rolled back and he blacked out.
Laure dried his damp face and kissed his temple while listening to his heartbeat, steadier now, stronger. She dared to let herself hope the healing was successful, releasing a breath she was sure she'd been holding since he had fallen.
His silver eyes flew open a moment later, wide and fearful, then he blinked slowly, "I can feel them all again," he said with wonder. He wiggled his toes to demonstrate their returned function and shifted his legs a little.
"Carefully now," admonished Vilkas. "Wouldn't want to rush and re-injure yourself, brother."
"Trust me, I know. I'm not running any races for a while. Right now I just want to sleep. Can I do that?" Even though he was absolutely drained, he still lifted his head up, staring at his toes, curling and uncurling. It was a glorious sight to all.
Shea'a finally gathered her wits, completely astounded by what had just happened as she was, and edged forward. "May I do a brief examination before, and then we might move you to a more comfortable sleeping arrangement?" When all three of them nodded, Shea'a stepped forward and knelt at Farkas' side.
While she checked his pulse and eyes, Laure re-dressed, finally realizing how cold it really was as the heat of the blood and excitement wore off. Shaking from cold and adrenaline, she listened to the calm, professional questions the Arch-Mage was asking as she examined Farkas. Standing barefoot, trousers on, shirt in hand, she found herself misting up as she examined the broad smears of his blood on her clothing.
Shaking violently, she finally gave a small sob of relief and fell to her knees, thanking the gods, shirt pressed to her eyes as tears of gratitude welled up and spilled over. Vilkas was at her side immediately, arms folding about her. She clung to him and quietly trembled, face buried in his neck.
"That was so close," she finally managed.
"Aye, too close," was all he could manage around the huge lump in his throat. Together they watched as Shea'a finished her examination. It took a little while, giving Laure time to get fully re-dressed, and Vilkas plenty of opportunity to stew in guilt.
"Well, I can say now I am hopeful your brother will make a full recovery. Shall we move him to a better location for resting? I believe I can use a spell to lift the frame he is on and save us all the difficulty associated with moving him manually."
"I think if we backtrack a little, one of those antechambers up above can be cleared and used, and it has a moderate defensive position," Vilkas said.
Shea'a dug a few items from her hip purse and donned them. "This should work; lets see . . ." The magic glowing in her hands caused the frame Farkas was still on to tremble, then slowly rise. A look of concentration on her face, she carefully began the arduous task of keeping the planks level as they climbed. Vilkas helped steer the makeshift stretcher when needed.
Farkas felt Laurelin's slim fingers slide into his and squeeze, knowing he was nervous and felt terribly vulnerable just then.
"Don't drop me," he implored, a teasing half smile on his face.