Brother to the Wolf

Brother to the Wolf Chapter 16

        Worth looked down from the steep bank.  Red tinged the water where his brother floundered.

            Worth leaped down into the stream. Icy mountain snow melt chilled up to his thighs as he got his arms around the struggling Gareth— “Easy, you’re safe, I’ve got you.”—and dragged him to the bank. Will helped him get Gareth up to dry rocks.

            Gareth shivered convulsively, from cold or from pain.    Water dripped from his hair.  He clung to Worth’s arm for support, maybe for protection and he was looking at Worth as though he were some kind of damned hero.

            “Where are you hurt?”  Worth asked.

            Gareth stared at him dumbly, teeth chattering.  That tributary to Brightling Stream ran straight down from the snow-capped mountains, too cold for comfortable bathing.  Gareth was soaked, and even in summer the forest was cool.  

            “There was blood in the water.  Where are you hurt?”

            “My b-back.  I think, just my back.”

Of course Gareth’s wounds had reopened.   He’d fallen on his torn back. He must be in agony. It could have been even worse.  If he had hit his head, if Worth had not gotten there in time . . .

            “Damn you, Gareth, couldn’t you stay out of trouble for half a day? You had to provoke the one man here who hates you more than I do?”

            Beside him, Will drew a sharp breath at Worth’s harshness. Worth already regretted the words.  Regretted them even more when the honest gratitude that had shone in his brother’s eyes disappeared beneath the cold, shielded stare of the Vainqueur knight.  Gareth let go of his arm and pulled away.  He straightened up, trying to look like the knight he has been even though he still shook. 

            Worth softened his tone.  “Let’s get you to camp.  We’ll get you dry, and Temmon will want a look at your back.”

            Gareth nodded, to show he had heard, but his gaze fell somewhere off in the trees, over Worth’s left shoulder.

            Worth stood and reached down to help his half-brother stand.

            Gareth pulled away.  “I don’t need your help.”

            So much for integrating the knight into the band.  Whatever had happened between Alf and Gareth, Worth had just made things a hundred times worse with one thoughtless remark.  Sorry, he should say, and did not.  Too hard to apologize with all the death and pain that lay between them, and too hard to apologize to a Vainqueur knight in front of his Seax followers.

            He stood back as Gareth struggled slowly, painfully to his feet.  Gareth took a hesitant step forward. His knees buckled.  Worth rushed forward to catch him, but Will got there first.

            Worth came up on Gareth’s other side to support him, but Gareth stopped him with a glare.

            “Don’t touch me.”

            Worth opened his mouth to argue. Will caught his eye, and shook his head.

            Worth waited until they had gone a little way down the trail before starting in on Alf.  “Stag’s name, but I hope you have a good explanation for attacking an injured and unarmed man under a promise of sanctuary.”

            “He was bothering my cousin.”  Alf held himself stiff as a dog-wolf facing down its rival.

            “Was not, either,” Meg jumped in.