120 CXX. The Tracking

Silence returned to the forest.

Dag picked up his hammer, put it back in its seat on his belt and with the axe in his hand, he walked towards his companions.

"You did it... Captain..." Reidar said in a low voice, still sore from shoulder and ankle injuries.

"Without your help, I would surely have died" Dag said, his face full of blood.

When Karl managed to move again, he crept towards Reidar and opened his box full of medicinal herbs.

Dag approached the torch to his two companions, to allow Karl to better see Reidar's wounds.

The bite wound on his ankle and the one on his left shoulder seemed minor injuries, but the one on his right shoulder was decidedly deeper.

It was the shoulder that for a few seconds had held up all his weight, due to which the claws of the bat had penetrated deeper.

"Bring the torch a little bit closer, Dag" Karl said, after tucking a thin black thread into a curved needle.

He put the needle closer to the flame to sterilize it.