The whole thing lasted only a minute or so, though it seemed much longer. It ended when Dougal, whirling aside from the slashing tusks, raised the point of the short, stout spear and drove it straight down between the beast's sloping shoulders. There was the thunk of the spear and a shrill squealing noise that made the hairs stand up along my forearms. The small, piggy eyes cast to and fro, veering wildly in search of nemesis, and the dainty hooves sank deep in mud as the boar staggered and lurched. The squealing went on, rising to an inhuman pitch as the heavy body toppled to one side, driving the protruding dagger hilt-deep in the hairy flesh. The delicate hooves spurned the ground, churning up thick clods of damp earth.
The squeal stopped abruptly. There was silence for a moment, and then a thoroughly piggish grunt, and the bulk was still.
Dougal had not waited to make sure of the kill, but had circled the twitching animal and made his way back to the injured man. He sank to his knees and put an arm behind the victim's shoulders, taking the place of the man who had been supporting him. A fine spray of blood had spattered the high cheekbones, and drying droplets matted his hair on one side.
"Now then, Geordie," he said, rough voice suddenly gentle. "Now then. I've got him, man. It's all right."
"Dougal? Is't you, man?" The wounded man turned his head in Dougal's direction, struggling to open his eyes.
I was surprised, listening as I rapidly checked the man's pulse and vital signs. Dougal the fierce, Dougal the ruthless, was speaking to the man in a low voice, repeating words of comfort, hugging the man hard against him, stroking the tumbled hair.
I sat back on my heels, and reached again toward the pile of cloths on the ground beside me. There was a deep wound, running at least eight inches from the groin down the length of the thigh, from which the blood was gushing in a steady flow. It wasn't spurting, though; the femoral artery wasn't cut, which meant there was a good chance of stopping it.
What couldn't be stopped was the ooze from the man's belly where the ripping tushes had laid open skin, muscles, mesentery, and gut alike. There were no large vessels severed there, but the intestine was punctured; I could see it plainly, through the jagged rent in the man's skin. This sort of abdominal wound was frequently fatal, even with a modern operating room, sutures, and antibiotics readily to hand. The contents of the ruptured gut, spilling out into the body cavity, simply contaminated the whole area and made infection a deadly certainty. And here, with nothing but cloves of garlic and yarrow flowers to treat it with…
My gaze met Dougal's as he also looked down at the hideous wound. His lips moved, mouthing soundlessly over the man's head the words, "Can he live?"
I shook my head mutely. He paused for a moment, holding Geordie, then reached forward and deliberately untied the emergency tourniquet I had placed around the man's thigh. He looked at me, challenging me to protest, but I made no move save a small nod. I could stanch the bleeding, and allow the man to be transported by litter back to the castle. Back to the castle, there to linger in increasing agony as the belly wound festered, until the corruption spread far enough finally to kill him, wallowing perhaps for days in long-drawn-out pain. A better death, perhaps, was what Dougal was giving him—to die cleanly under the sky, his heart's blood staining the same leaves, dyed by the blood of the beast that killed him. I crawled over the damp leaves to Geordie's head, and took half his weight on my own arm.
"It will be better soon," I said, and my voice was steady, as it always was, as it had been trained to be. "The pain will be better soon."
"Aye. It's better… now. I canna feel my leg anymore… nor my hands… Dougal… are ye there? Are ye there, man?" The numb hands were blindly flailing before the man's face. Dougal grasped them firmly between his own and leaned close, murmuring in the man's ear.
Geordie's back arched suddenly, and his heels dug deeply into the muddy ground, his body in violent protest at what his mind had begun already to accept. He gasped deeply from time to time, as a man who is bleeding to death gulps for air, hungry for the oxygen that his body is starving for.
The forest was very quiet. No birds sang in the mist, and the men who waited patiently hunkered in the shadow of the trees, were silent as the trees themselves. Dougal and I leaned close together over the struggling body, murmuring and comforting, sharing the messy, heartrending, and necessary task of helping a man to die.
The trip up the hill to the castle was silent. I walked beside the dead man, borne on a makeshift litter of pine boughs. Behind us, borne in precisely similar fashion, came the body of his foe. Dougal walked ahead, alone.