Thela of Palan -3- First Aid (Patreon)

The two strangers watched with interest as Jacob pulled out his first aid kit again and began tending his wounds. He’d tried speaking to them, first in English then in his bad Spanish and they had replied in some language he hadn’t recognized. It sounded vaguely like Italian with a Swedish lilt.

He shook his head. The dogs had torn the wound in his left calf open much more widely and blood flowed freely when he uncovered it. He sucked air between his teeth, cleaned the gash, packed some gauze to stop the bleeding and wound his leg with tape. He needed a doctor who could put stitches in that one.

A puncture in his right forearm was the worst of the other wounds, that one needed more stitches and a cleaning he couldn’t really do with a field kit. “Doctor?” he said to the two men. “Is there a doctor anywhere? A nurse? A veterinary?”

They glanced at each other and muttered more of their musical gibberish but did not seem to comprehend. Jacob mimed sewing the wound in his leg closed and the older man seemed to get that. He made a gesture like and unlike a nod, pushing his face forward and lifting his chin.

Jacob smiled and the two savages smiled back at him. “Oh, well,” he said. He cleaned and covered the other marks of his fight with the dogs and gathered Henry to him. The men stared at the bike but did not make to touch it.

The younger one collected his javelins and cut the ears and tail off the carcass of the dog he had killed. The older one inspected the items and seemed to signal approval of some sort. Did a nod and a smile mean the same thing to them as it did to him, Jacob wondered.

He couldn’t help but think of them as savages, considering their dress and weapons, and the cutting of trophies had a ritual feel to it. But they weren’t stupid, when they saw that he had prepared himself for travel, they gestured toward a distant gap in the hills and set off that direction, indicating that he should follow.

He waited till they had got ten or twelve yards away and paused looking back at him before he mounted the bicycle and let it roll towards them. Their astonishment was comical but he didn’t laugh, even when they dodged off the trail to let him pass. “Just showing you what Henry and I can do,” he said, stopping the bike and dismounting.

It would be better to walk than ride he decided, just the effort of getting on and off the machine had exhausted him. Another fall would likely open his wounds and this was no country for even a mountain bike.

Through gestures, he communicated that they should proceed and he would follow.

* * *

The strange man didn’t seemed to realize that he had been captured, a thought which made Striker hide a smile. He considered his captive, a prize the tribe might allow him to keep. Tall and lean, the stranger showed some muscle and a willingness to fight, even though he did not seem to have a proper weapon.

The contraption he pushed beside him was not a weapon; it was some sort of cart, Striker decided. It had two wheels that touched the ground and two more that didn’t. He didn’t understand how it worked but carts were a town thing not a camp thing. They weren’t much use away from roads and this thing was no exception.

Still it fascinated him, how it was made, the colors, the parts that were obviously metal but like no metal he had ever seen. Some of them shone like polished silver but silver would not retain a shine if used in such a way. Nor was silver or tin, the only other shiny white metal he knew of, strong enough to be used to build something like that. Only bronze had that kind of strength. Or iron, if anyone could get hold of that much iron.

* * *

The younger man seemed to be called something like Agwaym and the older man was Otaitye. Jacob’s name amused them, though they pronounced it Jaycovel. “You guys can’t say B? What are you, Spanish?” Jacob asked. They did seem to lack the b sound in their language and all words ended in a vowel, or one of a handful of sounds like l,m,n,r, s or th.

“Bike,” Jacob said, pointing to his machine.

“Vaikel?” asked Otaitye.

At least it sounded like a question to Jacob. “Close enough,” he muttered, pausing to wipe sweat off his face and check his legs to see if he were bleeding again.

The two men waited patiently and with evidence of concern. They smiled encouragingly when Jacob started walking again. He pointed to the bike. “Bike,” he said.

“Vaikel,” they agreed.

He pointed to himself then at each of them and back to himself. “Man,” he said. He gestured to include all of them, “Men,” he said, then looked inquiringly at first the older man then the boy.

Otaitye got it immediately. He pointed at himself, “Eemal,” he said. Then he waved to include all three of them, “Eemail,” he said.

“Oh, great,” muttered Jacob. “They make plurals by altering the vowel, like German.” He didn’t stop to think that the example he had used in English, man/men, did the same thing.

Agwaym repeated the older man’s performance. “Eemal,” he said, pointing at himself. For some reason this made Otaitye smile. “Eemal,” he said pointing at his partner and again as he pointed at Jacob. Then he waved and said, “Eemail.”

Jacob did as the boy had done and his two rescuers seemed pleased. Then Agwaym confused things by saying, “Eemail-wir,” with an emphatic nod.

“O-kay,” Jacob said. “Eemail-wir. Are we not men? We are Devo.” He chuckled.

The other two grinned, perhaps for as private a reason as Jacob’s quiet laugh.

They went through a few more rounds of learning, then Otaitye tested Jacob on what he had learned, pointing first at himself and saying, “Eemailen Otaitye.” Then standing straight without pointing and saying, “Eema Otaitye.” Next he pointed at the boy, “Eemaileth Agwaym.” Then without pointing but just looking at the boy he said, “Eemay Agwaym.”

Jacob mentally struggled with translating this. “This man is Otaitye. I am Otaitye. That man is Agwaym. He is Agwaym.”

Otaitye pointed at Jacob. “Eemaileth Jaycovel. Eemo-ja?”

“Jacob,” said Jacob. “Eemo-ja Jacob.”

That caused the other two to laugh. Otaitye shook his head. He stood straight and said, “Eema Otaitye,” then looked at the boy.

“Eema Agwaym,” that one said, standing as tall as he could.

Jacob nodded. He straightened, “Eema Jacob.”

They all smiled. Jacob looked at the man, “Eemo-ja?” he asked.

“Eema Otaitye,” said Otaitye. He looked directly at Jacob. “Eemo Jaycovel.”

“Eema Jacob,” said Jacob. “Eemo Otaitye,” he said to the man then looking at the boy he said, “Eemo Agwaym.” They both nodded and smiled at him.

They continued trying to work out a vocabulary between them if not quite a useful pidgin. Bike became Vaikel to the two locals but Henry they could say and seemed impressed that the machine had its own name.

Agwaym showed his axe to Jacob and indicated that it was a Pagwel but that it’s name was Atazay. Jacob was fascinated that the blade of the weapon seemed to be made of jade. For an hour or more on their trek, the two men taught Jacob the nouns for various items. After a few minutes, Otaitye would quiz Jacob about the words he had already learned.

They had just progressed to teaching him a few verbs when Jacob stumbled and went down under the bike.

* * *