Chapter 30: Wounds and Disease

The hounds were barking at the struggling calf, surrounded, afraid, when it tried to flee the hounds would bite it's legs to hold it down in place. The horses of the hunters arriving at a gallop, following the barking sounds. Seeing the scene cold sweat start running down their backs.

The servants look at Perceus, looking for orders.

- Hold the hounds! We will try another time!

But the desparate sounds of the terrified calf had spread wide across the forest. The cow moose, the calf's mother, appears from the bushes, charging at one of the hunter who was riding a horse.

The moose was 2 meters tall, each antler 1 meter wide, the rider falls down, his horse smashing him to the ground. The cow continues to attack the other riders, trying to scare the horses.

*swoosh*

One of the squires close to Perceus shoots an arrow at the mother, trying to kill it, but only menaging to get her attention. She charges in his direction and, by proxy, Perceus direction. His horse gets up in his back hinds, throwing Perceus off it's back.

The cow moose, seeing Perceus struggling on the ground trying to get up, charges at him, trampling him under her hooves, stepping in his belly making him vomit, kicking his ribs breaking them. The moose stops for a moment, trying to see Perceus reaction, wondering if he was still a threat.

*Ugh*

Trying to quickly get away from her Perceus tries to get up. A great mistake. Knowing he was still alive the mother first makes Perceus fly by throwing him into the air with her horns, when he landed she kicked and trampled over his body.

*swoosh* *whoosh*

The other hunters, menaging to control their frightened horses, shoot arrows at the mother of that terrified calf. Some of the servants, those who were on the ground as their mounts had fled, picked up their spears. The squires tried to protect their liege who seemed to be almost at death's door at this point.

With all this happening the hounds had long abandoned the calf and entered the fight with their trainers. The calf fled at the first oportunity.

- Come, get Perceus on my horse! We got to get him out of here!

Shouted Peracles to one of the servants, trying to save the bloody mess that was now Perceus. Doing so Peracles bolted his horse back to Baduk.

The moose situation was now turning in favor of the hunters, they got that mother who was desparatly trying to save her child, surrounded. The dogs harrasing her, tiring her out. They would throw javelins and lauch arrows at her.

Weakened to the point of exhaustion, her ankles bleeding from the dog bites, she could hardly stand, one of the javalins had damaged one of her antlers and various arrows were stuck on her bleeding fur.

*stab* *stab* *stab*

One of the hunters picked his spear adn approached the cow, a stab in the chest, a stab in the cheek, a stab deep in the throat. He took a few steps back, spear still in hand in case he were to be attacked in retaliation.

2 minutes passed, the moose was already in her knees, not able to stand anymore, it would seem that one of the dog's bites had cutted her tendons. 3 more minutes and the beast had died, she died of blood loss, in tremendous pain as in her final moments she faded in and out of conscience.

Her calf will problably die alone the the forest without a mother to defend it and give it milk.

A bolting horse passed throgh the woods and into the fields of Baduk, a bleeding person laying in his lap.

-HELP! HELP!

The rider shouts, entering the village proper. The village folk gather around curiously, wondering what was happening.

-Bring His Lorship! Bring a doctor!

Begged Peracles, who had dismounted his tired steed, carrying Perceus in his arms.

- What is happening?

- I wonder...

- Let's go ask, I guess.

Four children, a boy with blond hair wondered what the commotion was all about. A girl with short chestnut colored hair reponded in agreement. A boy, his hair a dark red with slightly darker stripes decided to go see what had happened himself. The fourth child, platinum blond hair, almost white, decided to stay out as she heard the cries for help.

Alex approached the crowd, making his way to it's center. As he set his eyes on what was there he saw. A person, his hair was bloody and muddy but it's natural color was a reddish brown, his gambeson was tattered and bloody, the heraldry was fading from his clothes, one of his legs and hands looked almost unusable and various wounds, both deep and shallow. Alex knew that most likely there were a lot of internal wounds that would be even more difficult to heal.

At first glance Alex didn't even recognize the person who was in such state. But as he heard the painful voice that was coming from him he connected the dots.

- Shit!

Alex ran to the space in the middle, trying to help with anything, even if everybody knew he couldn't.

- Let me pass! Where is he?! Where is my son?!

Achilles pushed his way into the middle of the circle, seeing the situation he hesitated in surprise for a moment.

- Bring him to his room! Prepare cloths, water and herbs! Call the druids and healers! NOW!

Achilles ordered to anyone who could do so. He brought his son to his house, the servants hurryed to start first aid, or at least what is conscidered first aid at this time. Perceus clothes were taken out, wet cloths were used to clean the mud and blood from his body, various sticks and leaves had stuck to the muddy wounds.

In a hurry doctors, healers and druids entered the room, they quickly payed homage to Achilles and started to work.

There were three healers, but healing magic wasn't fast enough, since, although faster than if it were to heal naturaly it would still take hours to days to heal some if his wounds. As such the healers focused on the bigger, deeper wounds.

There were 5 docters, each with 3 assistants, they began to make paste with various herbs, weeds and spices, some used a bit of honey others put on the ashes of ritual fires and one animal blood in their mixtures and concoctions. Some of those made sense, others... I don't need to say that putting animal blood and ashes in a wound won't really, do I? They put these pastes in the bandages that are wrapped around the wounds.

There were two druids, religious mystics, their job was normaly to divine the stars and be a spiritual guide to the faithful, as such they burned sweet incenses, in hope of attracting good fortune and to ease the pain of the wounded. They chanted mantras and prayers, wishing health and life for the one before them. To be honest for someone outside of this worlds religious pratices it would sound a bit creepy.

The servants of the household work just as hard, replacing the dirty water with clean one, preparing cloths and bandages, bringing various of the ingredients needed for the doctors, preparing good food for the recovering that aren't too heavy but still filing.

Carol was in charge of making Perceus confortable in his bed, things like adjust the pillow to the right position, light the fireplace so he won't get cold and so on. As she was adjusting Perceus position, she spread his legs, to help the doctors and healers to see any wounds or any place needing treatment. And what she found most definitely needed treatment.

In his groin area was completely obliterated, the moose had in fact kicked and smashed his testicles. It wasn't like a wound, it was more like his testicles were almost not attached to his body at all. His penis was little better, being so deformed that even with healing magic he may still have difficulty peeing.

But all that wasn't even the only problem, you see, in beastmen sucession law an heir must be whole of body to inherit from his father. That means that Perceus most certainly, even if he were to survive, not be in the line of inheritance of Baduk. In a way, Achilles got what he wanted, to not split his realm, he just most problably didn't want that to be the cost.

At this point Helena made so Artemis and Alex were in another room, all of them extremely worried. Alex was specially worried, he knew how flawled medieval medicine was, after all who in the modern world would drink alcohol to cure a headache or use leeches and cut someone's wrists to "let the bad blood out of the body" to cure a disease? This made Alex extemely paranoid, not only for what will happen to his brother but also to what would happen to him were he to fall ill.

- Cows... I need cows...

Alex muttered under his breath, hardly audiable to his mother and sister.

Why cow, you may ask? Simple, The Red Plague, the disease that killed most humans in history, one of the biggest reason why on Alex's old world children usually didn't even live to 10 years old until the mid 1900's. Smallpox, mortality rate: 14%, that meant that almost 1 out of 5 people would die if caught, Alex remembered the story about the first vaccine, conviniently the smallpox vaccine. A country doctor heard from a milk lady that those who caught cowpox didn't get smallpox, thinking it was but a folktale he decided to test it out. He gave cowpox to children and then gave them smallpox, the children didn't even get the simptoms of smallpox. Cowpox was mostly harmless to humans, you would get a few lesions in your hands and fingers but that would cure with time.

Alex was no doctor but he would rather be wrong about the simptoms of a non-lethal diseasze than to be affected by a very much lethal disease. But as of right now he could only hope for his brother.