Chapter 2: End Game Part 3
Jenkins was cursing himself fiercely as he hobbled back towards the Farmhouse. He had wrapped his kerchief around what was left of his boot to slow the bleeding, but it still seeped blood.
What the fuck had he been thinking? Just stomping his foot into a moving burrow like that?
He continued cursing and tried to move quickly while remaining calm. Bleeding out in his field was not how he had imagined himself going.
“Sam! Jack! Fred!”
He had shouted twice, towards the barn, then the house. He needed help quickly.
If one of the men could run to fetch the healer fast enough, he might not lose the foot, then his farm. He was leaving spatters and trails of blood behind him in the rows as he moved slowly towards the house.
He had some brandy in the house that would help clean it. He didn’t know precisely what had savaged his limb so fiercely, but he knew from healer Prisca that preventing infection was crucial for injuries. She had been very thorough at the last village meeting.
Most of the farmers habitually washed their hands before a meal. Rinsing off the sweat and grime accumulated throughout the workday before dinner was common. None had thought much of how testy she was about dirt getting into simple cuts and scrapes.
Jenkins was not in the mood to hear her dress him down on top of dealing with the aftermath of this. It would be hard enough to explain what happened to his farmhands.
Thinking of this, he spotted Jack at the end of the row, who saw Jenkins hobbling towards the house and rushed down the row to him.
“What happened?”
Jack asked hurriedly as he moved to support Jenkins’s injured side.
“Somethin’ got my foot. Angry bugger too,”
Jenkins replied.
“Get me to the house so I can prop this up and clean it before you send Sam or Fred into town to fetch Prisca. Gonna need to have her tend this. Ain’t just a scratch.
“You ain’t kiddin’,”
Jack looked down at the injury as he helped Jenkins towards the house. It was a nasty wound. The leather all around the ankle and sides of the boot was shredded.
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Underneath, the kerchief was soaked through with blood. Jack smirked a little and said,
”Hope you can foot the bill.”
Jenkins groaned.
“It hurts, Jack. Please don’t.”
Jack wasn’t sure if Jenkins was talking about the pun or the injury, and that was fine by him. It made it funnier that way. Jack smiled and helped Jenkins towards the house in companionable silence, with only a few grunts from Jenkins.
Carefully navigating the doorway and into the kitchen, Jack set him in one of the sturdy chairs near the table. Jack fetched the brandy Jenkins asked for out of the cupboard.
That being seen to, he headed out of the house and found Fred. He had to explain to the thick-witted, older farmhand a few times. But, eventually, Fred seemed to understand and jogged off towards the village to retrieve Healer Prisca.
Fred was a hard worker and reliable, but they needed to have things explained a few times. However, once the slower farmhand understood what was required, he would accomplish his tasks with admirable thoroughness and endurance.
Jack snagged Sam from the north field and headed back to the house. When they walked in, Jenkins was swearing up a storm at the small puddle of blood and brandy under one of the other chairs he had propped his foot onto.
“Fred’s on his way to get Prisca,”
Jack stated.
“Good,”
Jenkins grunted.
“What happened?”
Sam finally repeated after seating himself at the table.
Jenkins paused in his swearing and looked at Sam with a shame-faced expression.
”Was walking the south field and saw somethin’ burrow under the fence. I ran over, yelled, and stomped to scare it off.
Stomped the ground too close to it, and my foot sank through. Whatever it was, cut my boot up but good and left.”
Jenkins felt a little bad about lying to his farmhands about what had happened, but he couldn’t have anyone thinking he was a dumb ass. A simple misjudgment was more acceptable than a foolish mistake.
Sam blew out a breath as he looked at the torn-up boot,
“Celestial shit Jenkins, common varmint couldn’t do that to a boot…gotta be a mob, but we don’t have a dungeon in the area.”
Jenkins nodded thoughtfully,
“We’ll ask Prisca if she knows the scratches. Can’t tell much myself other than it hurts, but she’s been around this area for a while, might be she can at least narrow down what could do it.”
The three men talked quietly about different mobs they had heard about outside of dungeons as two pairs of eyes looked on from the darkness in the house’s rafters.
One set shrank slightly and bobbed at the other gemlike pair as they faded from view. The remaining Goom watched and waited quietly. She was worried this ‘Prisca’ might give a verdict that would doom them all.
Worse would be if the humans found the dibbun’s play tunnels, though that was probably a foregone conclusion.