Chapter 7

As they crossed the threshold from one world to another, the pain that made Kristabell's head feel like it was collapsing in on itself was unbearable and she screamed. The forest around her swam for a second or two before she blacked out. When she came to, she was lying on the forest floor under the branches of a giant cedar. She could see the horse standing nearby. Incongruously, she thought to herself, I wonder if Rowan has a name for that horse? Which in turn lead to the thought, Where is Rowan? She turned her head and tried to sit up. He was lying right beside her and she knew immediately that something was very wrong. He was grey and his breathing was shallow. “Rowan!” she half shrieked, half gasped.

His eyes opened a little and he smiled at her. “Not . . . feeling so well,” he managed breathlessly.

“What's wrong? Tell me!” she asked, desperate to know what to do.

“The weapon that the elf tried to kill you with . . . its projectile ricocheted.” He stopped to breath. “It's lodged in my shoulder.”

Kristabell looked at Rowan's shoulder. It was messy and bloody, but he wasn't bleeding hard. She looked around the clearing wondering where the hell Leif could be and hoping that he had gone for help. Rowan started to speak again. “Elves enchant their weapons so that, if a piece is lodged inside you, it kills you if it isn't removed. They do it to arrow heads . . . spear points . . . I guess that they do it to the weapons of the other world to.”

Kristabell could see Rowan trying to focus on her face. “Have to get the thing . . .” he took a shuddering breath, “out of my shoulder soon.”

Kristabell choked out a sob of panic then launched herself into action. She ran to the horse and began searching the saddle bags for anything of use. She found a small box filled with packages of herbs and some clean cloth. There was a small bottle as well. She unstoppered it and sniffed then took a small swig. Some kind of hard liquor, vodka she thought, strong enough to kill bacteria. She caught up the small cook pot and snatched two of the daggers that were sheathed in the saddle and ran back to Rowan.

He said the bullet itself would kill him, she told herself, so just get that out and decide what else to do after. She opened the liquor bottle and poured it into the pot dowsing the daggers as she did and leaving them in to soak. She dipped a corner of the cloth and began wiping Rowan's shoulder. It was a mess and not because of the bleeding but because he had tried to get the bullet out himself. There was a bloody knife lying beside him and there was blood on his hands. She took the daggers out of the liquor then tipped some onto the wound hoping to get it a little cleaner. She wiped it again, then very gently probed the wound with one of the daggers. Rowan wasn't a big guy, not for what he was, and more lean than bulky, but his shoulder muscles were still well developed, dense, and corded, and it wasn't deep but it was difficult to find exactly where the bullet had lodged. Then she remembered that the bullet hadn't hit him directly and changed her angle so the blade reached down into his deltoid. She felt metal scratch metal. Kristabell took a deep shaky breath and, willing her hands still, she reached for the other dagger. She moved the first dagger along the surface of the bullet until she felt the knife slip past it then carefully, aware that she was cutting him more as she went, she slid the other dagger tip in. She found the bullet and using both daggers, she gradually levered and wiggled it out. She lost her grip at one point but managed to find the bullet again and draw it out. She could see it. She plucked it out with her fingers and it burned where it touched her skin. “Rowan . . .? Rowan . . .?” The whole time she had been digging around in his shoulder he had barely moved. She took the leftover liquor in the pot and poured it over the wound. He twitched slightly. She felt his brow. It was cold. She took off her cloak and draped it over him then checked the wound. It was bleeding more heavily now but still not enough to be alarming. Tanya had fallen once, at work, and landed on a plant pot which had shattered and pierced an artery. Kristabell knew what arterial bleeding looked like. “Rowan!” She tried to get him to respond to her but all she got was a flutter of eyelashes. She felt his pulse and it felt slow to her but she was no doctor, she didn't know. Rowan still felt so cold that she thought maybe she should try to light a fire. The sky was dusky. She must have been unconscious for a long time. She scrambled around the surrounding forest looking for firewood and kindling that was dry. Not an easy task in a temperate rain forest during the wet season. As she went she grabbed bits of lichen from the trees and several willow branches. She sat down and tried to set the smallest and driest of the kindling burning but she wasn't used to a flint and all of her sparks died away. “I can travel to different worlds but I can't start a bloody FIRE!” she shouted, and suddenly the kindling burst into a tiny bundle of flames. She carefully added larger and larger pieces of wood to the flames until she had a fire. There was a little creek running nearby from which she filled the pot with water. She brought it back to the fire above which, with a little experimenting, she managed to suspend the pot. Kristabell examined the box of herbs. She smelled them all trying to find the ones she could use. She recognized yarrow, its smell was unmistakable. She put a small handful in the pot along with some rose hips. She added the usnea (the lichen) she'd collected, to the pot then set about peeling the willow branches and adding the bark to the water. Usnea to fight infection, willow for fever and to fight pain, yarrow to stop bleeding and rose hips for the vitamins and bioflavonoids. It was all she could do. Once the water came to a boil she set it aside and let it steep then turned to check on Rowan. His breathing was so shallow and he was still cold. In the twilight she could see that the wound was oozing an acrid smelling black foam. Kristabell took the little pot and poured some of the liquid into the wound rinsing away the black foam. She'd seen a spoon in the saddle bag so she retrieved it and gently spooned some of the liquid from the pot into his mouth. He swallowed so she gave him more. It took a while but she managed to get about a half a cup into him. She poured a little more over the wound. “Rowan . . . Rowan.” She would say his name, checking to see if he was responsive but if he could hear her he was too far gone to respond. Leif was still nowhere to be seen.

Kristabell was shaking with fear and worry and despite the fact that she had kept her head all this time she had never really managed to stop crying, and now that she had run out of things to do the panic was setting in. That was when she saw the unicorn. It was watching her from about three metres away, glowing softly in the shelter of another giant cedar. Kristabell sucked in a breath and sat transfixed. The unicorn nodded its head towards her as if beckoning her forward. She rose and tread softly towards the unicorn. Kristabell had no way of knowing as she approached the impossibly beautiful creature, that a nimbus of multicoloured light danced and flickered around her, rising, almost like flames or aurora, from her person. And so focused was she on the lavender silver radiance of the unicorn, that she didn't realize that it was as drawn to her as she was to it. She didn't know how you were supposed to greet a unicorn so when she was only a metre away she dropped into a deep curtsy and bowed her head. When she stood the unicorn had closed the space between them and it began to gently nuzzle her face with its velvety nose. Kristabell placed her hands on the sides of the unicorn's face and revelled in the warm velvet. It was exactly as she had always imagined it would be. Her tears came unbidden as she stroked the unicorn’s neck and touched its silky silvery white mane. “I need help,” she cried into the unicorn’s warm cheek. “I don't know what else to do and I'm lost.” She stepped back leaving her hand on the unicorn’s cheek. The unicorn nodded to her.

Kristabell thought that she must be crazy for asking but she asked anyway, “Can you go to my father?” She swore that the unicorn lowered its head again in assent. “Will you take something to him? A message of sorts?”

Again a nod.

Kristabell ran back to Rowan and, gently shifting his head, she untied the cord that held back his hair. She checked on him as she did. Still cold. Still breathing, but barely. She returned to the unicorn and took the heartsease ring from her finger. “Can I tie this to your mane?”

The unicorn lowered its horn to her.

“You want me to tie it to your horn?”

A nod.

She slipped the ring onto the cord and looped it three times around the unicorn’s horn feeling almost sacrilegious as she did, then she tied the ring with three knots thinking all the while, Three times lucky. The unicorn gave her cheek a quick nuzzle then galloped off into the forest and disappeared. Kristabell hurried back to Rowan's side. He was shaking and she had no idea if this was good or bad but she herself was freezing in the growing darkness. She put more wood on the fire then began removing the rest of Rowan's armour so that her body heat would actually make it to him, then she pressed the remainder of the clean cloth to his wound covered both of them with her cloak and his, pressed herself against his side and held on as tightly as she could.

She tried to think good thoughts. She desperately wanted him to be well. There was a terrified ache around her heart and she didn't want to go on without him. She loved him too much to lose him like this. She let out a frustrated cry of rage at the unfairness of it then tried to hold him even more tightly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Somewhere very deep inside, so deep that she suspected that it might be beyond herself in some nebulous unfathomable way, she could feel the energy, the life of the forest. She concentrated on it until she could feel it flowing into her and she let it back out again, in hope and fear and love, and for a moment the world was incandescent and then, not unexpectedly, she blacked out.