The Reindeer People by Megan Lindholm

if this wound didn't stop bleeding, he would soon he carrying a corpse. Lasse had no flesh to spare, and his face was now near white as the snow he lay in. The arrow had pierced the heavy leather of Lasse's tunic, opened a deep gash in his arm, and ripped out the other side of the sleeve. The wound was a gaping, ragged thing. Heckram thought he caught a gleam of white bone deep inside it and felt dizzy.
    Someone dropped into the snow on the opposite side of Lasse. The stranger was dressed in an oddly cut coat and leggings, hood pulled forward as if against a snowstorm. A bow was slung on his back. Sudden fury rose in Heckram, and when the bowman reached for Lasse, he pushed him roughly back. 'Did you come down to see what meat you had taken?' he demanded angrily. The man was even slighter than he looked, for Heckram's push sent him sprawling in the snow. He sat up, spitting snow, his hood fallen back to his shoulders. The small man yelled something angrily at Heckram and in that instant was revealed as a woman, not a man at all. She tore her bow from her back and flung it down into the snow, followed by a stiff hare on a string. Lifting the skirt of her tunic, her hands worked at something at her waist. Heckram could only stare at her. Was she going to disrobe here in the snow? Why?
    Then she was dragging out a pouch of soft leather and opening it. Taking out a roll of very fine, thin bird skin, she shook it in his face. She knelt again in the snow on the other side of Lasse's body. Her black eyes flashed at him as if challenging him to push her away again. He didn't. But he kept his grip on Lasse, holding the youth close, trying to put his own warmth into the boy's body.
    Her skill was apparent as she eased the torn fabric back from the gaping wound. She was talking fast, in what sounded like a strange parody of his own language. She said words he could almost understand, then shook her head angrily at him. In sudden silence, she firmly gripped Lasse's arm above the wound, nodded violently at her own hands, then released Lasse's arm and grabbed one of Heckram's hands. She set it where hers had been and told him something commandingly. He stared at her in puzzlement, then gripped the boy's arm as she had. She nodded her violent agreement, and turned aside from Lasse to scoop up a double handful of clean snow.
    The boy jerked slightly as she applied it directly to the wound. Heckram kept his grip. The snow reddened in her hands, but the bleeding slowed. She bent her head over his arm, studying the wound, then applied more snow. This second treatment seemed to satisfy her, for after examining the wound a second time, she spoke softly in reassurance.
    'It's not that bad?' he asked and she seemed to understand, for she nodded, but again patted his hand and told him, 'Grip!' The word was strangely accented, but he understood. She rummaged again in the leather bag and brought out a container made of a deer's hollow leg bone. She pulled a wooden stopper from it and shook a grayish-brown powder into her hand. 'Willow bark.' She spoke very slowly and clearly. She trickled a pinch from her fingers into the open wound. The bleeding almost stopped. Gently pinching the wound closed, she wrapped the soft skin bandage over the wound. He watched the practiced way she slipped a finger under the binding to be sure it wasn't too tight. Lasse began to stir, and she spoke to him as she worked. The boy's eyes were huge in a face gone sallow.
    'Who is she? What happened? How bad is my arm?' The rising urgency in Lasse's voice reached the woman, who knotted the bandage gently and patted his shoulder. She motioned to Heckram to loosen his grip. Lasse hissed in pain as he removed his hands. The woman spoke again, more slowly this time, and Heckram understood enough to tell Lasse, 'You're to rest and not try to move your arm for a while. And eat or drink something.'
    'Of course,' Lasse agreed calmly. 'Before or after I pass out again?'
    'I don't blame