Brotherband 3: The Hunters Read Online Free Page B

nodded. ‘Cleaned it and re-bandaged it. That’s all I can do.’
    Ingvar’s skin had dried again. The fleeting comfort of the water was gone and he tried to move restlessly on the bed. Gently, Edvin restrained him.
    ‘Settle down, Ingvar,’ he said softly. ‘Take it easy.’
    He took a fresh towel from the basin. Once again, the relief was almost instantaneous and Ingvar quieted under the cooling touch.
    Hal studied Edvin as he tended to Ingvar. He was small in stature and, like all of the Herons, he’d been something of a social outcast as he grew up in Hallasholm. But he was studious and highly intelligent, Hal knew, and when he took on a task, he stuck to it.
    As he had that thought, he realised that Edvin was close to exhaustion, with the emotional strain of his concern for Ingvar and the physical effort of his nonstop ministering to his shipmate. He reached out and took the damp towel from Edvin’s hand.
    ‘I’ll take a turn for a while,’ he said and, when Edvin looked up to remonstrate with him, he added firmly, ‘There’s nothing here that I can’t do. You need to rest. You need a break. Go and get something to eat. The others have had dinner but I told them to save some for you.’
    Edvin looked at him suspiciously. ‘They’ve had dinner? Who cooked?’
    ‘Stig,’ Hal told him.
    Edvin pulled a face. ‘Stig cooked?’ Among his various tasks, Edvin was the official crew cook and he had misgivings about the other boys’ abilities. When they’d first set out from Hallasholm, each of them had cooked in a roster, and the efforts of most of the others had been decidedly unpalatable. Edvin had finally taken on the role of cook, declaring that he had no wish to be poisoned.
    ‘He’s improved a great deal.’ Hal grinned. ‘Either that or he was foxing in the first place and didn’t want the job. In any event, he caught some nice snapper in the bay and he made a fish stew. Lydia found some wild onions in the forest, and he rummaged through your stock of spices and flavourings.’
    Edvin continued to look doubtful, so Hal played his trump card.
    ‘Thorn had a second helping,’ he said.
    Edvin raised his eyebrows in surprise. Thorn was a notoriously picky eater.
    ‘In that case, I’d better try it.’ He rose from his kneeling position beside Ingvar, watching as Hal continued to bathe the wounded boy with cold water.
    ‘Call me if there’s any problem,’ Edvin said.
    Hal nodded. ‘I will. Tell Lydia to come and take over from me in two hours. And get some sleep yourself.’
    He wet the towel in the basin, wrung it out again and continued to bathe Ingvar. It was frightening to see how quickly the thin film of water seemed to dry on his overheated skin. Satisfied that Ingvar was in good hands, Edvin turned and left. Hal heard his soft groan of relief as he straightened up once he was outside.

    It was just before dawn. Hal became aware of the birdsong in the trees lining the beach as the birds sensed the coming sunrise and began their daily chorus. He’d resumed caring for Ingvar, taking over from Lydia sometime after midnight.
    He’d nodded off several times as he watched over the big boy. Each time, he had been roused by Ingvar’s muttering as the waves of fever ran over him. He continued the seemingly hopeless task of cooling his friend’s body with the towels. The water bucket was almost empty, he realised. He’d have to refill it.
    Ingvar seemed to improve at one stage. His calm periods lasted longer between the bouts of muttering and tossing. For a while, Hal felt a ray of hope, thinking that he might have turned the corner and begun to recover. Then he deteriorated once more, so that the water barely eased his discomfort. The fever was bad enough in itself, Hal thought. But it was also draining Ingvar’s strength. His body couldn’t relax as it fought off the floods of burning heat that raced through it. And as his strength became further and further depleted, he had fewer reserves