Yuliko and Minty were shown to the healer’s hut. Minty evaluated the woman, Enyanna, and determined that her vaginal lining had been torn and would require stitching. But the baby’s head was not coming any farther after crowning. The woman was likely to face more tearing before the birth was over. And if the baby did not come soon, then the mother would bleed out. The Meadow Dweller healer had done all he could do for Enyanna, but she was not responding to their treatments, so now the healer was preparing to cut open the mother to save the baby.

However, Minty had another idea. From her toadskin bag she pulled out a pouch containing the Goro’s ghostgrass she had collected in the lava yard. “This may ease her labor. I will need to brew a tea with other herbs for her to drink,” she told Jogen, who then translated for the Meadow Dweller healer.

The healer, named Hoda, sniffed the ghostgrass curiously. He shrugged with an expression that said they might as well try. Minty and Hoda seemed to understand each other well enough through hand signals, and worked together to get the tea ready.

Jogen’s interpreter skills were no longer needed, and Yuliko was mostly in the way. so they returned to the other Ibexes who had been seated in a ring outside the king’s hut. Their hands had been unbound and they were given cool water to drink and over-sized sunflower seeds to eat. It seemed that the Meadow Dwellers consider them more guests than intruders now.

“Gold seeds good,” Jogen said, pointing to the yellow-gold color of the sunflower seeds. “Green seeds make sick.” He showed them an unripened green seed.

King Leandrus and Faydayo had returned from their duel on the flower tops. The king sat in his stool, redressed in his browned ivy cape and wearing his wilted sunflower crown. Faydayo was given a seat on the floor beside Leandrus, who patted him on the shoulder endearingly. Faydayo had several bruises and a black eye from the stalk club, but the king had a couple bruises too.

Jogen said something in sunflower speak to the king, who nodded. Yuliko updated her companions on Minty’s healer activities.

“We shall know if the ghostgrass tea is working an hour or so after she drinks it,” Yuliko said.

“I wonder if they’ll let us live if this doesn’t work,” Pykor said.

“Well, we would already be allowed to leave if Faydayo had won the fight,” Krissa said.

He shot her a hurt glare. “My apologies. Maybe next time you’d like to go fight over a cliff edge?”

“If I didn’t know I could win a duel, then I would not challenge one,” Krissa said.

“Are you being real? I invoked combat to save you from a beheading,” Faydayo said in disbelief.

“The spirits would not have allowed that,” Krissa replied.

“Minty will heal the woman and we will all be free to go,” Yuliko chimed in, trying to diffuse the tension.

King Leandrus spoke, and Jogen translated, “Where Glass People going?”

“We travel north in search of a worthy tribute,” Faydayo said.

“Oh, north be bad way,” Jogen said. “Much trouble north.”

“What sort of trouble?”

Jogen explained the best he could in broken Black Glass speech that many migrants have been coming southward from the far north. Most especially flatheads. The Meadow Dwellers have been patrolling their lands more frequently because the flatheads keep pushing into their territory. Unfortunately, they could hardly communicate with the other thinking species and learned little about what was driving them away from their homeland. All they could get out of the flatheads was ‘fire serpent.’

The Ibexes all shared looks, remembering the flatheads that told them of a ‘great fire.’

That wasn’t all, the flatheads and other migrants were easy enough to chase off their lands, but their neighbors to the north have been threatened by the Wolves. “Wolves no easy to fight,” Jogen said. He explained that they were bands of raiders who transform into wolves. They attack camps and villages, stealing the livestock and tools and women, and slaughtering the men. The Wolves always flee off into the woods to return again later.

“That’s why the great wolf pack isn’t afraid of men,” Minty said. “The wolves are shape-shifters!”

Jogen told them they would have no good choices once they crossed the mountain pass. They could either trek down into the valley beyond, but that is where many of the migrating flatheads have settled. “Stay away from flatheads,” Jogen said. “Flatheads be wild animals. Hurt animals.”

But their only other option would be to continue through the pass into the mountains, which the Meadow Dwellers called the Carverstone Mountain Range. The Wolves came from the northwest and had spread into Carverstone. Jogen said there was a village with a tribe called the Stargazers nestled in the mountain range that would shelter them, but they would have to cross lands where the Wolves prowled for a long way unprotected.

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King Leandrus wrapped his arm around Faydayo and mussed with his hair, speaking in his sunflower tongue. Jogen interpreted, “King say he offer guard to edge of meadow. No flatheads or Wolves hurt friends.”

Apparently in the short time between the flower duel and Minty’s healing services King Leandrus had decided they were all now friends. Yuliko was happy with that. Friends was much better than being executed. But she would remember how easily the king’s attitude could change. That did not bode well for them if Enyanna did not survive.

They again heard her wailing pains down the gorge. A short time later, a runner came and said something to Jogen. He then looked to Yuliko. “Minty want you.” Yuliko stood up and lowered her head to Faydayo, asking permission to go. He nodded and Yuliko followed the runner back to the healer’s hut.

Enyanna was soaked in sweat and crying. Hoda sat between Enyanna’s spread open legs, peeking under the blanket draped across her waistline. Minty stood nearby holding a bundle of bloody cloths.

“Minty, what’s happening?” Yuliko asked.

“The Goro’s ghostgrass worked. She’s pushing again, but bleeding bad,” Minty explained. “I’m going to stitch her up right after the baby and placenta are out. I’ll need you to assist me.”

“Why not Hoda?” Yuliko asked.

“Because I have to operate quickly and you speak my language,” Minty told her.

“Okay. What should I do?” she asked.

“Hold Enyanna’s hand until the baby is out,” Minty said.

Yuliko sat next to the poor distressed woman. “Acku na nuna banap,” Enyanna muttered miserably. She took her hand and the woman turned, noticing Yuliko for the first time. She smiled a cheerfully as she could muster. The woman squeezed her hand so tight it hurt. “Acku! Acku!” she cried at her next contraction.

Minty placed clean linens below her waist. Hoda nodded to her, signaling it was time for the baby to come. Hoda spoke to Enyanna, presumably telling her to push. “Uda,” he said. Enyanna strained with every muscle of her body, screaming, gripping Yuliko’s hand all the harder. She pushed and screamed until she could push no more, and the baby was still not coming. Enyanna babbled something to herself and rolled back futily. But Hado wouldn’t let her stop, “Uda. Uda,” he told her.

“Uda,” Yuliko joined in.

Wincing in pain, Enyanna shook her head. One more time she pushed her birthing muscles with a mighty holler. A few more screams later and out slid a newborn boy, stained red. Hado wrapped the baby in linen and cut the umbilical cord with a knife.

Immediately after, Hado and Minty switched places. The new mother’s bed was messy with blood and fecal matter and after birth. Minty cleaned the area, best she could and laid down fresh cloth. “Honey,” she said, and Yuliko handed her a small pot with a wooden spatula. Minty applied the honey over the perineal tear to sterilize the wound. “Needle,” Minty asked for next. Yuliko handed her a bone needle pre-threaded with fiber cordage. With expert skill she began stitching the tear. It didn’t take long, but Minty didn’t look pleased when she finished.

Enyanna was still bleeding, but not from the tear, she was bleeding on the inside. She pulled away the blanket and saw that Enyanna’s pelvis was bruising dark red. Minty told her assistant to find the nanaya root in her medicine back and chew a small palmful into a mushy gnash. It should help with the blood clotting. Yuliko did so, the root tasted grassy and bitter.

As Yuliko chewed, she realized she didn’t hear any crying. Nearby Hado had cleaned the baby and laid him down on a mat. He nudged the baby gently in his ribs, trying to urge the baby to stir. Enyanna weakly reached an arm out for him. “Nika jubee,” she kept saying.

“We must focus on her,” Minty said when she saw Yuliko staring at the baby. “Stick the root in between her gums.

Yuliko spit the nanaya gnash into her hand, then knelt beside the desperate woman, blocking her view of the baby. “I’m sorry,” Yuliko said. “You must hold this in your cheeks.” Then Yuliko mimed placing the gnash in her cheek pocket. With a limp hand the woman took the gnash and stuck it in her gums. Then the woman waved her hand for Yuliko to let her see the baby. “Nika jubee,” she said again.

Minty had been feeling and lightly prodding over the woman’s pelvis trying to identify where the internal bleeding was coming from. She found a spot underneath Enyanna’s naval. “Yuliko, I need you to apply pressure, like this, on this spot. I need to brew another tea for her. You mustn’t lay off the pressure until I say so.”

Yuliko nodded. She was very much impressed with her friend’s healer talents. Not only did Minty have a thorough knowledge of the man kin body and medicinal plants, but she took on a new confidence and authoritative demeanor in a healer’s setting.

Yuliko applied pressure as instructed. The mother reached out for her quiet baby, her voice getting fainter as she spoke. Her arm eventually drooped down. The baby’s silence was deafening.

What would happen if both the mother and baby died? The sunflower people had practically already given up on Enyanna and had intended on cutting the baby out of her. Now if the baby died they might blame Minty for delaying the procedure.

Next, Hado held the baby to his shoulder with his backside out and he swatted at the baby boy’s behind. No reaction. He spanked the baby harder. Another time. Then another. Yet no cry sounded out. Finally, Hado dangled the baby upside down by his feet, and swatted its backside with as much force as he dared on the fragile thing.

At last, a tiny cough emanated out the newborn’s mouth. Followed by a sweet little gasp of breath. Then a ruefull cry of awakening into the world.

The baby boy’s wailing was the most beautiful thing Yuliko had ever heard. She saw the mother smile, and with renewed energy her arms raised out again for her child. After the boy had been swaddled up, Hado knelt next to Enyanna. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Approximately a yanni later, Minty returned with a freshly brewed concoction, which the new mother was able to drink before falling asleep from exhaustion. Minty said the tea was meant to reinvigorate Enyanna’s own body’s healing powers, but they could only wait and see if it stops the bleeding.

Yuliko still applied pressure to the bruised area. As she held her hand over the woman, and listened to the music of the crying boy, she was certain she could feel healing power at work.