Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Malkuth lived in poverty. There were no exceptions. There were no glistening cities, no paradisiacal oases to serve as refuge from the storm. The Territe overlords, whoever or whatever they were, made sure of that. Only they were privy to such luxuries. At least, that's what the stories said. As far as Laban knew, no one had ever been close enough to the borders of Terraam to actually know what it looked like. But they imagined that it was beautiful. Beautiful and horrible at the same time.

What little these people had—weapons, equipment, tools— had been scavenged out of the sand, relics of a war years past. The clans were rarely able to stay in one spot long enough to build anything permanent. Something as glamorous as a hospital was unheard of. So, Laban found himself and his wounds being tended to beneath the roof of a threadbare old tent.

The whole thing smelled rancid. It may have been the unpleasant mix of chemicals and medicines that permeated the air and bit at his nostrils, but there was something else about the tent that just smelled sick. There were a few other patients there, sprawled out on the ground or on the few cots the clan could spare, others just had blankets between them and the stony floor.

None of these "nurses", Laban was sure, had received any sort of training. All they knew was what had been gleaned off the instructions from scavenged first-aid kits or bottles of antibiotics.

Apparently, it was time for another round. One nurse, who looked like he would make a better soldier than a physician, fidgeted with the bloody bandages around Laban's stump wrist while another handed him a vial of foul-smelling liquid. He wished he could have a swig of water to help wash it down, but unfortunately, that was almost as rare a commodity as the medicines he was taking.

If the medicines were working, Laban couldn't tell. It certainly didn't stop any swelling, that was for sure. His forearm looked like the head of a bloated squid. He only dared look when the bandages were on, though. He didn't want to see the scar that Ithtar had left him.

It was a strange thing, looking down at your wrist and not seeing a hand. It took some getting used to. He was still getting used to it, even after six days in this foul tent. He kept finding himself reaching for something, but then his fingers would fail to wrap themselves around it— fingers which weren't actually there, but seemed like they should be.

One of the nurses stabbed a needle into the end of his wrist. He recoiled in pain. Pain. That was... good. At least feeling had begun to return to his limb. That meant it was healing, right? The nurse squeezed some thick, bluish serum from the syringe into his stump. A calming sort of sensation began to wash over him. After a few minutes, the swelling had gone down noticeably.

Another nurse shone a bright light in his eyes, moving it back and forth.

"Well, I expect that your concussion is recovering fairly well," the nurse said. "But it may be a while before the symptoms are completely gone. I can tell your head took some pretty nasty hits back in that cave. I've seen worse, but it's best to get as much rest as you can."

The nurses packed all their things and moved on to the next patient.

"Well, I certainly don't envy you, brother," said another of the patients, sitting on a cot beside him, looking quite uncomfortable. He was shirtless, revealing a network of pustulous boils and irritating-looking burns all across his back and arms. He gingerly rubbed a sticky yellow ointment over them. His hair was long and matted, almost dreadlocked, and a rough beard covered his face.

"Although, I suppose you could say the same thing about my own predicament," the man continued. His voice came out in a smooth, foreign-sounding accent.