“Waters of Jordan,” Gabriel said, and collapsed onto his backside, wincing as the scarring on his ribs joined the new welts in a chorus of argument. “Waters of Jordan, the size of that thing.” Then the last seconds before the attack came to him, and he twisted, trying to see the rest of their camp. “Flatfoot?”
Isobel paled, and shifted on her knees, both of them seeing the mule down on its hocks and struggling to get up, its own hide striped with claw marks and blood. “Oh!”
“He took it down, not me,” Gabriel was saying even as he crawled toward the mule. Steady was already there, muzzle down against the mule’s neck as though to give comfort, Uvnee whickering her own concern but unable to move closer, unwilling to step over the cat’s corpse. “Flatfoot became Flying Foot.” He reached the mule and spoke softly to it, running a hand over the heaving flanks. “Get the mare before she bolts,” he snapped. Isobel started, then jumped up, stepping cautiously over the corpse, draping a cloth over the mare’s eyes to lead her to where Steady waited. Gabriel turned back to the mule, looking him over again before doing anything.
“Will he be all right?” Isobel crouched to the side, her gaze switching between him and the mule, her face ashen, her eyes too wide and wild.
“If we can get him up, I think so.” Gabriel tried to infuse certainty into his voice, knowing he failed when she flinched. “Need to see how deep those claw marks are. They’re not too bad, I don’t think.” He ran his hand gently over one, and the mule shuddered, but new blood didn’t gush from it.
“Just scoring,” Gabriel said. “No worse than mine. We’re a matched set now, you little idiot.” He coaxed him up gently, hands under thick-furred belly. “Come on, up, there you go, old man. Iz, water and the coneflower salve now!”
She scrambled to her feet again, racing to dig the items out of their packs. She came back with the salve and a canteen, and a pale blue cloth clutched in her hand.
“Good. Clean the wounds,” he told her, taking the packet of salve from her other hand.
“But your—”
“Iz. Now.”
He waited to watch her uncork the canteen and splash a little water over Flatfoot’s side, using the old shirt to wipe away the blood. He’d been right; the claw marks were ugly but shallow, and the bleeding had mostly stopped already. There were deeper wounds by his tail where the beast had tried to bite down that looked ugly but weren’t bleeding. She cleaned those out too, keeping up a steady stream of nonsense words while she worked, her left hand stroking the mule’s flank as she worked, reminding him that it was her touching him there, not another predator.
The mule shuddered under her touch, its eyes rolling nervously, but it allowed her to work. Gabriel added a little of the water to the salve and let it soften, then stepped away to check on the horses, running quick hands over their sides, murmuring nonsense into their ears. He didn’t have time to picket them, but when the salve had reached the proper consistency, he dabbed a pinch of it on their muzzles, near the soft skin of flaring nostrils. The bitter smell would not mask the dead cat, not entirely, but it should be enough to distract and calm them.
“Just a bit,” he told them, letting them lip at his palms, hoping for a treat. “Just a bit longer, can you do that, hmmm?”
Steady leaned against him, Uvnee looking over the gelding’s neck, and he decided the risk of them bolting was likely over, assuming nothing else crashed down at them. Returning to Isobel’s side, he checked the job she’d done, then nudged her aside, showing her how to apply the rest of the salve over the wounds, the pale blue paste drying quickly on the skin.
“It will keep flies out, too, while they scab over,” he told her, then frowned at her hands. “Is that my shirt?”
“Hush, it’s the one you tore last week and never got around to repairing. Now sit down and take off your jacket and let me see.”
Gabriel eased himself out of her grasp. “After we get—”
“Now”—and Gabriel found himself sitting on the ground and letting her check his bandages. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be bleeding again, the remaining scabs white and firm, the scarring pale red and fading.
“You’ll live,” she said, relief making her voice crack.
The mule had wandered a few steps closer to the horses, the three of them calm, although they kept a distance between themselves and the corpse, pressing against the outer ring of trees as far from the rock as they could get.
“It must have had its den there,” Gabriel said, following her gaze to the rock. “That’s what we smelled when we came into the clearing.”
Isobel had recovered the loose feather, twining it back into her braid, smoothing the strands down with nervous hands. “I led us right to it.”