Laurence ran. He had never run so hard in his life, but then his life had never really been in danger before. The beast had given him a small head start but was hot on his tail the entire time. It enjoyed the chase and hoped that the young boy would lead it to even more tasty flesh.

Garral came close to cutting the boy several times, but in every instance he managed to duck, dodge or turn at just the right time to avoid injury. It seemed like the chase was coming to a close when Laurence was faced with a wall of brush, far too thick for him to push through and too tall for him to jump over. He looked behind and saw that the orik was gaining and would be upon him in a fraction of a second, so as the beast swung its claws at his head he ducked, grabbed the beast by the calves and propelled himself back through the creature’s legs the way he came.

Garral screamed in rage as it was thwarted. The orik turned around as Laurence rolled into a sprint and sped away. It went on all fours and began chasing once again. This child was giving the hunter far more trouble than it was expecting, and it hated him for it. Soon the energy it expended would not be worth the meat on his bones, but it could not stop the hunt. Its pride was now at stake.

Laurence had a plan. He knew the beast was about as powerful as him, so its bones and hide must be very tough. He wanted the beast’s body to make armour, but he had to be in the right situation to get it. The little wolf was still slowly dying, so Laurence intended to finish things in that hollow. Either he would die, or the orik would.

The creature chased, no longer caring about subtlety or the enjoyment of the hunt. It felt like it was being played with and that meant the boy had to die. Garral channelled its mana into its limbs as it ran, quickly outdoing its old speed and busting through foliage in the way. Its speed caused so much friction that the tips of the orik’s hair caught fire and the beast began to look more like a meteorite than an animal. The trees caught fire and smouldered as it went past, but were quickly put out again by the increasingly heavy rain. A thick trail of smoke followed the two saints in their wake, chasing off most of the lesser creatures in the area.

Laurence closed in on the hollow where his wolf patient lay, and the beast closed in on him. One hundred meters, eighty meters, fifty meters, as they reached ten meters distance from each other Laurence reached the inside of the tree. Everything clicked into place as Laurence attained the situation he wanted. He cancelled as much forward momentum as he could and spun to face Garral as it entered the tree. Without stopping for a moment he yelled "Jormungand!” and his spirit weapon was summoned into his hands. He thrust forwards towards Garral’s face and let his hands slip down to the base of his hammer. Garral was trapped, it could not halt its movement and could not dodge because it was stuck in the doorway. It screamed as it saw the blade at the top of that odd hammer head towards its eye and pierce through into its brain.

The spear dissipated and the corpse’s momentum slowed, but not before smashing into the young boy and sending him flying. There was a crack and Laurence let out a scream of pain as his arm bent backwards and broke. He struggled up and looked at his thoroughly broken left arm. The bone was still inside the flesh but the arm was bending the wrong way at the elbow and had broken clean in two in the forearm, Laurence could also feel something wrong with his wrist. It would be tough to do anything with it but he had to save the wolf before he could worry about his own injury. He honestly felt lucky he had not been hurt more.

He grabbed a pestle and mortar from his bag and trapped it between his legs. Not having the use of one hand meant it would be harder to stabilise things, but not impossible. Pulling out the silkweed he had found he put most of it in the bowl and began chewing on some too. Silkweed was useful for two reasons, first it boosted the healing factor of any herbal remedy it was part of, and second it had a numbing agent in it that worked incredibly as a painkiller. He chewed and swallowed the juicy pulp he had created and he began to be able to focus on something other than his arm. Laurence thanked his father for drilling all the information about healing into his head, it was probably going to save his life. He quickly made a blade of mana and cut off the ruined cloth smock he had been wearing since he left home and emptied his bag onto it.

Surveying his choices he sighed. He really had not brought as much with him as he would have liked. All that was in front of him was twenty feet of rope, two books, two large glad vials filled with tannin, five empty glass vials, a pestle and mortar, a block of limestone, a box full of water, ten fish bone needles, a ball of silk string, a medicinal filter strainer, some wood and a knife. It would just have to do.

Laurence ground up the silkweed and added a small amount of water to turn it into a thin paste, then filled each vial to the halfway point. He quickly washed out the bowl and began pulping the roses. Once they were a paste he filled the bowl with water and brought out his inner flame to bring the bowl to a boil. When the water was happily boiling he began stirring it with a bar of mana until the fluid was completely blue and smooth. Finally he slowly poured the blue fluid into each vial, through the filter. Once all five bottles were filled with the mixture Laurence mixed them until each tube was full of a thick blue goop. Laurence's father had called this fluid «Malmas Tincture», and had said it was one of the «Genesis Mixtures» which form the basis of all healing potions.

He poured the fluid over each one of the numerous wounds on the young wolf and began sewing up each large or deep wound. The small wounds would be healed by just the malmas tincture but the larger ones needed more help. Thanks to the tincture the areas around the injuries were numbed and so the wolf cub struggled a lot less than it would have. Each wound was sewed up with less skill and took longer than Laurence would like, but it was the best he could do at the moment. Once he had finished sewing up the wolf he washed its fur and turned to his own wound.

He pulled his arm near and winced as two of the bones grated against each other. Unfortunately he would have to cause himself a lot of pain to set the bone properly. He took off his leather boots and stuck one in his mouth, even with a painkiller in his system this was going to hurt and Laurence did not want to bite off his own tongue.

Laurence split one block of wood into two thin planks that were about the same length as his arm with a mana blade. He then bit down hard and let out a whimper as he moved all the bones back in place. His eyes watered and made it hard to see but he quickly managed to get everything back where it should be. Finally the arm was ready to be set, so Laurence placed the splints, tore up his smock and wrapped it round his arm like a bandage. He could only barely hold it in place with the fingers of his broken arm, and by this point it was excruciatingly painful.

Laurence stood up and walked over to the side of the tree. Despite it having a comfortable hole in its base the tree itself was still thriving, so Laurence made an incision into the bark with a mana blade and made an impromptu binding agent to seal up his arm. With the last of his cloth the young boy made himself a sling to keep his arm steady.

Laurence finally spat out his shoe and began chewing more of the silkweed. He had done almost everything he could, but he had one more touch for when the sap dried. Until then he needed sleep, but wanted to finish his work first. He grabbed the speed up box and filled it with a bottle of tannin and water, mixing with a paddle made of mana. Once it was prepared the boy stuck in the hide that he intended to turn into leather and left it.

With the other hide Laurence made sure it was truly clean, then scraped off all the remaining flesh and hair. When it was pristine he used the needles, rope and two thick branches to stretch the hide and allow it to dry. The last thing Laurence did before he collapsed was examine his mana reservoir. Through day to day use of mana formed objects and feeding it into his broken arm to heal quicker it had only emptied the reservoir by a quarter. This astounded Laurence but he could not think much more about it, so he curled up next to the wolf and fell asleep.