The Coastal Kingdoms of Olvion: Book Two of The Chronicles of Olvion Read Online Free PDF Page B

lower legs stuck out beyond the end of the blankets.  Mattus looked as if a thought had struck him.  He looked around the room then went to the barred window and peered outside.  The others waited patiently, but Toria could stand it no longer.
    “What do you search for, Father?”
    Mattus turned back to his family.
    “Have any of you seen a small animal, probably white?  Or perhaps a glimpse of white fur in the brush or out by the tree line?”
    The adults all frowned in confusion, but Toria bounced up and down while clapping her hands in unrestrained glee.
    “You seek the white Mountain Child!  The Legend always had her by his side.”  She ran to look out of the same window that Mattus had vacated.
    Mattus and Summ smiled at their daughter’s enthusiasm.
    Then a moan came from the cot.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Dwan
    The young warrior grimaced as the novice healer wrapped the stump of his amputated leg with boiled linen bandages.  Dwan watched the patient’s face as she supervised the ministrations of her apprentice.  The pain must have been horrible yet he made no sound and even seemed embarrassed at the small expression that he had not been able to control.
    The warrior of barely nineteen summers had been wounded in the Great War, and the healers had been trying to save his leg for two seasons.  It had nearly been severed by a sword slash from a Grey.  Dwan and her people had fought valiantly to save the limb and were successful at getting the broken bone to knit.  Alas, the nerves and blood vessels had been too damaged and the lower leg finally began to die.  It started to rot from the mid-shin area down, and the decision was made to amputate. 
    They had brought the young man all the way from Olvion to Aspell because it was the warrior’s home.  He had insisted on being treated there, and that insistence had probably been the reason he would be forever maimed.  The trip had been difficult, and the dust, insects and grime of the trek had not been helpful.  The fact that Dwan and her colleagues had kept it from going into gangrene until now was a testament to their skills.
    The novice finished and stood up, looking back at Dwan with raised brows.  Dwan smiled and nodded.  The warrior thanked the future healer then winked at her.  The younger woman blushed, gathered her instruments and left, avoiding further eye contact with him.
    Dwan took a quick second look at the bandage and then left.  The young warrior was her last patient of the day and she was tired.  She left the clinic and walked alone through the streets of Aspell avoiding the stares.  The story of her relationship with the Legend had followed her here even though that attention was exactly what she had hoped to escape. 
    Thankfully, Dwan’s prowess as a healer had also become known, and many families owed her the lives of their loved ones.  More than once she’d been in an inn being pestered by the questions of the curious.  When the intrusions into her privacy reached a certain point there seemed to always be a helpful warrior or family member of a warrior around to protect her privacy.
    Having now acquired a small living space in a building dedicated to serving healers and others who worked at the clinic, Dwan had a bit more solitude.  Tonight she really needed the seclusion that the apartment offered.  She put her medical smock on the single chair in the front room and went straight to her bath to take a shower.  The glow globe in the bathroom was dimming, so she took it from the sconce on the wall and shook it.  The glowing leaves responded to the action by increasing their brightness.  It would do for now, but she would need to replace them with fresher leaves soon.
    Standing in her miniscule shower, leaning against the slick wall, Dwan fought her emotions for a moment or two before dissolving into sobs.  She was angry at herself for crying because she was determined to get beyond this part of her life.  It seemed she was