Vella stepped beyond the wheel as the first root-hound dragged its dripping bulk onto the road.
Three volunteers lay beside the wounded headman, and a mother hunched under the canvas with her feverish infant against her. Roots coiled around the hound's forelegs, drinking power from the ditch and twisting toward every open wound in the wagon.
A volunteer on the nearest stretcher shoved himself upright as the roots swung toward the axle.
"Throw the bloody dressings out!" he bellowed, stabbing a finger at the headman's bandaged calf, "they smell it, and they'll take the cart if we keep the blood in here!"
"Leave it covered," Vella ordered, her left palm hovering above the bandage without lifting its edge.
"Cloth won't pull them off, they're chasing living mana, and if you open that wound you hand them another mouth to feed."
The headman clamped his hand on the rail as she braced his leg against its support.
