First Patients

First Day of Healing

The knock came just after dawn, soft but insistent. Eli had been awake anyway, staring at the ceiling and running through mental inventories of what he had versus what he might need. First day nerves felt ridiculous at his age, but there they were, making his stomach tight and his mind race through every possible complication.

He opened the door to find a middle-aged woman with flour dusted across her apron and worry creasing the corners of her eyes.

"Healer Eli? I'm sorry to come so early, but my husband—he cut himself yesterday working in the fields, and it's not looking good."

"How not good?"

"Red lines running up his arm. Hot to the touch. He says it's nothing, but..." She wrung her hands, leaving white fingerprints on her dark skirts. "I've seen enough infected wounds to know when to worry."

Blood poisoning. The kind of thing that could kill a man if left too long, but straightforward to treat if caught early. "Let me get my things."

The walk to their cottage took ten minutes through the village's winding paths. Lyralei—she'd introduced herself along the way—kept up a nervous stream of chatter about how her husband never listened, how he'd tried to clean the wound himself with water from the well, how she'd wanted to come yesterday but he'd forbidden it.

"Men," she said, shaking her head. "Rather die than admit they need help."

Their home sat at the village's edge, with a kitchen garden that showed careful tending and chickens pecking around the front step. Inside, the main room held the warm smell of baking bread and the sharper scent of infection.

Tom sat at the kitchen table, his left arm cradled against his chest. Even from across the room, Eli could see the angry red streaks running from a gash on his forearm toward his elbow. The man's face held that gray pallor that came with fighting off poison, and sweat beaded along his hairline despite the morning's coolness.

"Told her not to bother you," Tom muttered. "It's just a scratch."

"Scratches don't usually come with red lines," Eli said, setting his bag on the table. "May I take a look?"

Tom extended his arm reluctantly. The wound itself was maybe three inches long, probably from a scythe or sickle blade, and whoever had tried to clean it had done more harm than good. The edges were inflamed and weeping, and the smell made Eli's nose wrinkle.

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Yesterday morning. Was cutting back some overgrowth near the creek."

Nearly twenty-four hours. Long enough for the infection to take hold, but not so long that it couldn't be stopped. Eli opened his bag and began laying out supplies—clean cloths, a small sharp knife, several vials of medicine.

"This is going to hurt," he warned. "The wound needs to be opened and cleaned properly."

"I can take it."

"I'm sure you can. Lyralei, could you boil some water? And bring me the strongest liquor you have in the house."

While Lyralei busied herself with preparations, Eli examined the wound more carefully. The infection was spreading but hadn't reached the lymph nodes yet. Good. He could work with this.

"What do you grow?" he asked, partly to distract Tom and partly because he was curious. The man's hands showed the calluses of someone who worked soil for a living, but they were clean and well-cared for. Not the hands of someone careless with tools.

"Barley, mostly. Some vegetables for the table. Nothing fancy, but it keeps us fed."

"Accident happen often in your line of work?"

"More than I'd like. Usually I'm more careful, but I was trying to finish before the rain came in." Tom winced as Eli probed the wound's edges. "Rushed the job and paid for it."

Lyralei returned with a pot of steaming water and a clay jug that sloshed with something that smelled like it could strip paint. Eli poured some of the liquor over his hands and tools, then looked at Tom seriously.

"I need to cut away some of the infected tissue and clean this thoroughly. It's going to be unpleasant, but if we don't do it now, you could lose the arm. Or worse."

Tom's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Do what you need to do."

The next few minutes tested everyone's resolve. Tom gripped the table edge until his knuckles went white, Lyralei held his other hand and murmured encouragement, and Eli worked with the kind of focused precision that had kept soldiers alive on battlefields. Cut away the dead tissue, flush the wound with boiled water and alcohol, apply a poultice made from herbs that would fight infection from the inside out.

When it was done, Tom slumped back in his chair, breathing hard but with better color in his face.

"That should do it," Eli said, bandaging the cleaned wound. "Keep it dry for the next day, then start washing it twice daily with boiled water. Change the bandage every time you clean it. I'll leave you enough supplies for a week."

"What do we owe you?" Lyralei asked.

The question caught Eli off guard. In Verath, people either paid him ridiculous amounts or expected free treatment because of his reputation. Here, he had no idea what constituted fair payment for a farmer's family.

"What would you normally pay a healer for this kind of work?"

"Thorne usually took a silver piece for something like this," Tom said. "When he was... when he was still working properly."

A silver piece. Barely enough to buy a decent meal in the city, but probably significant money for a family living off barley crops and kitchen gardens. Eli thought about the bag of gold coins sitting in his room at Morrow's house, more money than these people would see in years.

"Half a silver," he said. "And I want to check on it in three days to make sure the infection's clearing."

They seemed surprised by the reduced fee, but Tom counted out the coins without argument. As Eli packed his supplies, Lyralei pressed a small loaf of bread into his hands.

"Fresh from this morning's baking. It's not much, but..."

"It's perfect. Thank you."

He was halfway back to the village center when he encountered his next patient. Beth, the woman who'd helped clean the workshop, was sitting on a stone wall beside the path, massaging her hands and wincing.

"Morning, Healer," she said. "Heard you were already making your rounds."

"Word travels fast."

"Small village. Tom's probably told half the place by now that you saved his arm." She flexed her fingers and grimaced. "Speaking of which, I don't suppose you know anything about joints that don't want to work right anymore?"

Eli set down his bag and looked at her hands. The knuckles were swollen, the fingers slightly crooked in a way that spoke of years of inflammation. Arthritis, probably from decades of work that involved gripping and twisting motions.

"How long have they been bothering you?"

"Few years now. Gets worse in damp weather, better when it's warm and dry. Thorne gave me something for the pain once, but it made my stomach hurt worse than my hands did."

"May I?" At her nod, Eli took her hands and examined them gently. The joints were hot and tender, but the deformity wasn't severe yet. "What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm the village seamstress. Well, one of them. Handle most of the mending and alterations."

That explained the precise, repetitive stress that had worn down her joints. "The pain is worst when you're working?"

"Worst in the mornings when I first wake up. Takes a while to get them moving properly. Then they ache all day, but I can push through that."

Eli nodded, thinking through his options. The medicines he'd brought from the city included several things that could help with inflammation, but the real solution would be changing how she worked. That was a more complicated conversation.

"I can give you something for the inflammation that shouldn't upset your stomach," he said. "But we should also talk about ways to reduce the stress on your hands while you work."

"Can't very well stop sewing. It's how I make my living."

"I'm not suggesting you stop. But there might be ways to modify your tools, change your grip, take breaks that help prevent the worst of the damage."

Beth looked skeptical but interested. "You know about that kind of thing?"

"I've treated a lot of people whose work was wearing their bodies down. Soldiers, craftsmen, laborers. The principle's usually the same—find ways to do what you need to do without making the problem worse."

They spent the next twenty minutes discussing hand exercises, grip modifications, and the importance of warming up stiff joints before starting detailed work. Eli gave her a small vial of willow bark extract mixed with other herbs that would reduce inflammation without the stomach problems she'd experienced before.

"Take this twice a day with food, and come see me in a week. We'll see how you're responding and adjust if needed."

"What do I owe you?"

Another pricing decision. This was ongoing care rather than emergency treatment, more advice and prevention than dramatic intervention. "Two copper pieces for the medicine. The advice comes free."

Beth paid and headed back toward the village center, moving her hands experimentally as she walked. Eli watched her go, noting the way she held her shoulders and the slight favor she gave her right side. More problems to address eventually, but one thing at a time.

The morning continued in similar fashion. A child with a persistent cough that turned out to be nothing more serious than lingering effects from a cold, treated with honey and steam inhalations. An older man with a rash on his legs that spoke of poor circulation, given exercises and advice about elevation. A woman worried about her monthly cycles becoming irregular, reassured that this was normal for her age and given herbs to ease the transition.

Each case was straightforward in its own way, but collectively they painted a picture of a community that had been making do without proper medical care for too long. Small problems that should have been caught early, preventive care that could have avoided bigger issues, basic health education that could improve everyone's quality of life.

By midday, word had spread enough that people were seeking him out rather than the other way around. A steady stream of visitors to the workshop that was slowly becoming a proper clinic. Nothing dramatic or life-threatening, just the ordinary catalog of human frailty and the body's tendency to break down in predictable ways.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself," Kira observed during a brief lull. She'd stopped by to check on how the space was working for actual medical practice.

Eli considered the question while organizing his supplies. Was he enjoying himself? The work was routine compared to the battlefield medicine he'd practiced during the war, or even the complex cases he'd handled in Verath. But there was something satisfying about the straightforward nature of it all.

"It's honest work," he said finally. "People have problems, I help solve them, they pay me fairly and go on with their lives. No politics, no expectations beyond competence."

"No hero worship?"

"Not so far. Tom called me 'Healer Eli' and that was it. No one's asked about the war or the Demon Lord or whether I'm really immortal."

"Give it time. People are still getting used to having you here."

Maybe, but for now he was just the village healer. Someone who knew how to clean wounds and mix medicines and explain why joints hurt more when it rained. It was a smaller role than he'd played in years, but it fit better than anything had in a long time.

The afternoon brought a few more patients, including a pregnant woman who wanted reassurance that everything was progressing normally and a farmer with a persistent backache that turned out to be caused by lifting heavy sacks wrong. Routine cases, but each one taught him something about the village's rhythms and needs.

As the sun began to set, Eli found himself alone in the workshop for the first time since morning. The space smelled of herbs and clean linens now instead of old leather and neglect. His supplies were organized on shelves that hadn't been there three days ago. The examination table someone had built from local wood was rough but sturdy.

It looked like a place where healing happened. More importantly, it felt like one.

He was updating his notes on the day's patients when footsteps approached from the direction of the main road. Not the casual pace of someone from the village, but something more urgent. Someone walking with purpose toward a specific destination.

The footsteps stopped outside the workshop, and Eli looked up to find a young woman silhouetted in the doorway. She was breathing hard and her clothes were dusty with travel.

"Are you the healer?" she asked.

"I am."

"Thank the gods. I've been walking since before dawn. My name is Anna, and I need your help. There's been an accident."