I can’t do it all. I have to stop before I spend myself broke. Patch and tie, and let it heal the rest of the way itself—even real medicine makers do it that way. Get out, old patroller, while you still can. He’d thought nothing could be harder than matching his ground with Hod’s, until he came to unmatch it again. He sensed Hod’s chest rise, and deliberately broke the rhythm of his breath with the boy’s. Let go, old patroller. Get out of here before you hurt your fool self. Let go.

He blinked his eyes open on firelight and lantern light, and knew himself sinfully lucky not to be groundlocked. I overdid it, oh, I sure did. Dag drew a long, long breath, and awareness of his own body returned to him at last.

Unfortunately.

Except that Fawn had three blankets wrapped around his shoulders before the second shuddering shiver shook him, and a basin thrust in his lap before his stomach heaved, and a cup of hot water held steadily to lips like cold clay. He took several grateful gulps, only spilling a little in his ague-like shakes. The hot liquid met his ascending dinner and forced it back down, and his stomach didn’t try again. “Guh,” said Dag.

“Don’t try to talk,” said Fawn, and explained over her shoulder to someone, “This happened the last time. He goes all cold and sick for a while, but then he comes out of it.” Her worried eyes added to him, I hope.

Dag found his voice at last, and mumbled, “Fawn, Whit, find two strong slats and some ties of some kind, cloth strips or whatever. Make Hod splints down each side of his leg like a bonesetter’s. Tie above and below the knee, firm but not tight. Keep it straight and still. It’s still going to be swollen up, and it has a lot of mending yet to do on its own. Blankets, something, get him warm, keep him warm. He can’t walk on it yet.”

“He’s going to walk?” said someone, in a voice caught between awe and disbelief.

“Not tonight, he’s not. And he’d better be carried to the wagon in the morning. He can use my stick later on, I guess.” But not tomorrow, because Dag was going to need it himself…He leaned toward the blurred, flickering orange light, and added plaintively, “More heat?”

Logs dropped onto the flames, which spewed sparks and danced higher, so some delinquent god had heard his prayer, apparently. It was about ten minutes before he stopped shivering.

“Should you lie down?” asked Fawn anxiously, kneeling beside him. “Eat a bite more?”

Dag shook his head. “Not yet. Not done. There’s something else wrong. I felt it, when I was in there.”

Her brows drew in, but she said nothing as Dag leaned forward and pulled the blanket a little down from Hod’s belly. The boy’s eyes widened, and he made a slight whimpering noise, but kept his hands clenched to his sides. Dag let his stump circle above the taut skin, just…there.

“Did Copper kick him in the belly, too?” asked Fawn. “I don’t see any mark…”

Dag gave another brief headshake. “No. Older trouble. The boy’s carrying a nasty monster of a tapeworm, inside him there.”

Fawn recoiled, making an appalled face. “Eew!”

Dag had dealt with mosquitoes, bedbugs, and lice, but the closest thing to an internal parasite he’d routed routinely was chiggers. All could be repelled with mere persuasion, or an even simpler bounce. They were nothing like this. “It’s got quite a grip in there.” He eyed Hod. “You, boy, have you been having crampy bellyaches?”

Hod nodded fearfully, then looked around as if afraid to have admitted anything. Tanner and Mape had wandered near and stood watching and listening.

“Yeah?” said Dag. “And bleeding? You bleed when you crap, sometimes?”

Another reluctant nod.

“Ever tell anyone?”

Hod shook his head more vigorously.

“Why not?”

A long silence. “Dunno.”

“Scared?” Dag asked more gently.

Reluctant pause. Nod. And a whisper, “Who’d I tell, anyways?”

Dag’s brows twitched up. “Hungry all the time even with plenty of food to eat, weak and tired, bleeding…y’know, it doesn’t take a Lakewalker medicine maker to diagnose a tapeworm. It just takes someone noticin’.”

“Not shiftless,” said Fawn. “Starving.”

Tanner looked a bit sick, and Mape, curiously, looked even sicker.

Dag’s arm circled again. “From the signs, I’d guess he’s been feeding this pet for a year or more. How long have you been feeling poorly, Hod?”

Hod shrugged. “I always feel poorly, but usually it’s my nose. Belly’s been aching off and on since this time last year, I guess.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dag.

“Can you get rid of it?” asked Fawn. “Oh, please! It’s so horrid!”

“Maybe. Give me a minute to think.”

Ground-ripping the vile thing was right out. It was much larger than any mosquito, and besides just the idea of taking in tapeworm-ground was revolting, even if his own ground would convert it eventually. Dag essayed a trifle of persuasion, to no effect; the worm was not normally mobile. Besides, you wouldn’t just want it out; you’d want it safely dead, to keep it from spreading.

So if smoothing and reinforcing disrupted ground caused flesh to heal, disrupting ground might…? The blighted thing was large compared to its constricted intestinal world, but in absolute terms, small. Just a tiny ground disruption. Squeeze it, roll it, twist it—turn it inside out—there. He felt the head of the creature pop, and a spurt of blood from its anchorage as it tore away. He pinched off the little vessels in Hod’s gut, aiding the wound to clot. Then recaptured the thin worm-body and went right down the line to destroy each segment. In a weird way, it felt a bit like spinning thread. With his ground-hand, inside someone else’s body…I don’t think I want to think about what I’m doing, here. But the worm was dying, and he managed to keep its roiling, writhing ground from sticking to his own.

Hod made a wary noise, and his hands twitched; Fawn caught one, to keep it at his side, and gave him a big happy reassuring smile. Whit bit his lip, possibly on a bark of laughter, but Hod offered a confused half-smile to Fawn in return, as who could help doing so? And made no further move to fight off Dag.

“Done,” Dag whispered at last, and sat up, folding his left arm inside his right. His exhausted ground projection petered out, as if his ghost hand were evaporating into mist, into nothing. Absent gods, I feel sick. His groundsense range seemed down to ten paces, or maybe ten inches. But at least he hadn’t groundlocked himself to the blighted worm. Count your blessings. One…

Next time, he would hold out for a medicine shop and some simple dose of vermifuge, a course of treatment he suspected even a Lakewalker medicine maker would prefer. Dag had a vague notion that senior makers saved their costly groundsetting skills for serious dangers, like tumors. More than ever, he regretted turning down Hoharie’s offer of real maker’s training; then he’d know what to do, instead of having to blunder around by guess. But Hoharie’d had no use for his farmer bride. Blood over the dam.

Tanner and Whit settled Hod for the night. Dag dragged his bedroll around to the other side of the fire, away from the sight of his unappetizing patient. Victim. Whatever. He would’ve liked to retreat farther than that, but hated to give up the heat. Hod, exhausted by the shock and limp from the passing of his pain, dropped to sleep fairly soon. Dag, equally exhausted, did not.

While Fawn, Tanner, and Whit went off to see to the horses, Mape came and squatted on his haunches beside Dag’s bedroll. After a while, he said, “I never guessed he was sick. Just thought he was lazy.”

“I didn’t catch on either, at first.” Dag had been led down a false trail by Tanner’s talk, yes, but he’d only to open his groundsense to learn better.

“I beat him, couple o’ times, when I caught him sleeping on the job,” Mape added. His voice was low, flat, expressionless. Suited for things confided in the dark, where no one could see. “I’m just sayin’. Thankee, Lakewalker.”