Page 155 of Phoenix's Fire

"I prefer pink," she told me. "Soon, I will be thinking about white."

I chuckled. "White is a good choice too."

Then she tucked the end of the bandage under the wrap and eased my arm down. "Try that? Do you have movement in all your fingers?"

Obediently, I wiggled my hand. "That's good, but is it too loose?"

"Oh, it's going to swell," she warned. "Leave it alone tonight. When you wake, wash with a good lather of soap. It will hurt, but you want to lather it for five minutes, then rinse for three. Find me in the dining hall at lunch, and I will clean and rewrap it for you afterwards."

"You're a very gentle healer, Callah."

She glanced up at me again. "You're done, Mr. Warren." Then she gestured towards the door. "I'm not sure what duties are expected of you, but I am glad to see you returned."

"Tomorrow," I promised her as I slid off the bed and made my way around the chaos in here.

For the first time in my memory, there were no arrows to be removed. I saw injured arms, legs, and a man having his head bandaged. Most of us were having gashes sewn up. Apparently the Dragons had been carrying blades this time. The bigger problem was the number of empty beds.

Fifty of us had gone out. Seven had returned. That was worse than the last excursion by the hunters. Fourteen had come back that time. All combined, we'd lost nearly eighty men in under a month - from just the last two hunts! Those were not the kind of losses the Righteous could continue to take.

But as one of the least wounded, I turned my feet for the cold storage area. The carts would need to be put away. The meat would need to be laid out for butchering - but I huffed at that though. Meat. We'd managed to get one single carcass. One scaled man. It wouldn't even feed the compound for a day.

Yet what I really wanted to do was pull Callah away and tell her everything I now knew. The Wyvern could speak! Ayla really had tamed him, as well as the beasts of the world! My mother had been a Dragon - and that was the part my mind didn't want to accept.

My mother had been aDragon,but she hadn't had a tail. I had a relative up there! But would he hate me or give me a chance? And Callah's mother was the same way. What was her name? Could I learn more about her? Would we even have time?

Blowing out a breath to steady my thoughts, I opened the door and stepped into the cold storage room to find a group of men standing over the single carcass. Three of them turned at the sound of the door, their eyes landing on me.

"Is this the entire hunt, Tobias?" asked Mr. Peterson, the head of the hunters.

I nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."

"Why didn't they get any more?" Mr. Worthington snapped. "I made sure they had plenty of ammo."

"I wasn't there when they left," I explained, lifting my arm. "They had beasts. They came into the forest. We were attacked from all sides, and Sylis said they'd been told to get the carts and go."

"By who?" Mr. Peterson demanded.

"By Gideon," I said. "They..." I paused, doing my best to make sure I sounded slow-witted and dull. "The Dragons killed us all. The Wyvern killed my partner. I saw him, but the beast grabbed me and pulled me away. It was huge, and I dropped my gun when it hit me, so I had to fight it off with my hands, and it didn't want to let go."

"This isn't good," Mr. Worthington told Mr. Peterson.

Mr. White, one of the elders, was shaking his head. "We sent out fifty men."

"Seven of us made it back," I mumbled.

"Seven!" Mr. White snapped. "That's most of our veteran hunters!"

"Then maybe they were not as capable as we thought," Mr. Peterson said. "We need to call the meeting."

"First thing in the morning?" Mr. Worthington asked.

"Now!" Mr. White demanded. "We must address this now, before the rumors start. Gentlemen, send the runners to every man in the compound."

"What about the hunters in the infirmary?" I asked. "They're still being sewed up."

"Them too," Mr. White grumbled. "All of them, and tell those women to stop dawdling and sew our boys up. We need an emergency meeting!"

Forty-Eight