The King's Crest

Chapter 9

"From now on, one of us needs to stay awake on guard duty at night when we sleep," Jeremiah moaned. He rubbed his ankle and moaned a bit more. I looked over as he pulled off his boot and looked at his injury. The wolf bite was deep and large. There was still a lot of blood coming out of it even as we looked at it.

"Rem" I gasped "luckily I have the white willow bark." I prayed a short prayer of thank you, because I knew that I wouldn't have normally bought this had God not been putting it on my heart. I walked over to him and took a better look as snow started to fall on me. Instinctively I went to my already tattered cloak and ripped off the end. I cleaned up his wound a little bit so it would be at least a little easier to apply the white willow bark. "Kenneth, take the white willow bark out of my bag, my water, and something to crush the bark in," I ordered. I sat at Rem's side trying to stay strong for his sake and mine. In my mind not quick enough, Kenneth brought over the supplies.

Normally you are supposed to brew it more as a tea and wait for it to cool before putting it on the affected area, but I had no time. I tried to crush up the bark and water until it was almost a paste and used that instead. He was growing faint from his blood loss. I lathered a generous amount on before ripping more of my cloak off to wrap his wound. He flinched as I pulled it tighter. I knew right now it was painful, but without the pressure it would just bleed more and give more chances of infection. As it was, the risks were high.

"Kat," Jeremiah moaned "if you don't stop ripping your cloak to help me, you're going to have nothing left of your cloak."

"It's currently making a great shawl, thanks for your concern," I said with a slight laugh relieved at the face that he was at least alive, but secretly trying to blink back tears. In reality though, I was getting pretty cold the more I ripped apart my cloak. Not to mention, I looked like I had just, well, been attacked by a pack of wolves. "Kenneth, Rem, get some sleep. I will take first watch. It won't be an extensive time, but enough for you to have more rest. Besides, this way I can make sure Rem's leg is fine." Neither one of them refused my offer.

They drifted off quicker than I thought humanly possible. The night grew colder and colder and I was enviously looking at Rem's warm cloak. I shivered thinking about it. I heard in the distance the sound of another wolf and the rushing of a river somewhere, apparently too big or fast to be able to freeze like everything else. I then heard Rem AND Kenneth snore, and the sound of something so close to me made me jump.

It was almost relaxing being up alone. It was calm and quiet and all I heard was the breathing of other people, of my friends. It also gave me time to think. It just occurred to me that even after only a couple days, Kenneth seemed so close to us. My thoughts drifted here and there as the night progressed into morning.

After watching the sunset and the day began. I made a small fire that would be barely visible even if people were following us. I wouldn't have but I froze all night and just wanted some warmth before continuing on our journey. I had nothing to put over the fire to warm up the meat or food we had, but I figured we would be okay.

I took out the ham and some apples for breakfast. I had a clean knife in my sack that I was able to use to slice up the apples. This way I only had to use two instead of three. Breakfast was ready and it was starting to warm up for the day (or at least warm for the winter). I took one last deep breath of the quiet morning air before walking over to Kenneth. I lightly shook him to wake him up. He instinctively drew his sword and swung in my direction. I luckily have trained enough to have enough reflexes to avoid having my head chopped off. He moaned as he apologized. Then he noticed the food laid out and dove towards his breakfast shoving it in his face. I glared at him and he slowed down his eating rate.