[I don't like posting only the first part of this, but don't have the time to finish it right now (I need to get to work ... oh, about an hour ago,) and I suspect that if I stopped without posting this bit, I'd never get around to write the rest.]
"Finding anything, girls?" Professor Kastner asked, walking over to the edge of a trench where two archeology students were carefully scraping away earth to unearth what, around the time of the battle of Crecy, had been a wood-laid floor.
"I'm starting to find some sore knees," one of the students replied with a grimace and shifted her kneeling pads in an attempt to spread the ache evenly on both knees, "and we've found more pieces of burnt shingles than I've ever wanted to see in my whole life."
Kastner grinned back and climbed into the trench to get a better look at the girls' work. "Welcome to the daily grind of archaeology and the hundred-hundred-one rule: Hundred pounds of dirt for every pound of artifact, hundred pounds of artifact for every ounce of treasure. Just remember that what we don't find can tell us a lot too."
"In that case we must have learnt tons from this trench, right Catherine?" the student with the sore knees said, and to her bemusement realised that the other student hadn't looked up when the Professor had arrived, but was still busy with trowel and brush. "Don't tell me you've just found something?"
"Umm, I'm not sure," Catherine replied without looking up, "I think maybe it's an arrowhead or something."
"Oh?" the Professor asked and with a smile to the less lucky student crouched down besides Catherine to have a look at the find. "Well, it's certainly an arrowhead, but not a kind I would have expected to find at this site. Remarkably well preserved too."
Kastner straightened up and called out to a tall man working at the cataloguing table. "Robert, can you come have a look at something?"
"Ow!" Catherine suddenly jerked back with a vitreous oath and put her thumb in her mouth. "I cut myself on it." she explained sheepishly, sucking at a long cut on the side of her finger.
"You didn't you bleed on the find?" Kastner asked at once, horrified at the thought of blood's corrosive abilities, but quickly relented. "You didn't cut yourself badly, did you?"
"Umm, no, I don't think so. It just bleeds a lot." Catherine mumbled sheepishly against her thumb and scooted backwards away from the mostly revealed arrowhead to prevent any more blood getting on it.
"So what have you got for me, Lucien?" The tall man that Professor Kastner had called over had appeared and looked curiously down into the trench.
"Two splendid specimens of students from Paragon University, and what looks like a swallowtail. Girls, meet Doctor Eversley." Kastner introduced the tall man as the two students grudgingly climbed out of the trench to give the two professionals room.
"So you two are from Paragon?" Eversley asked with a small chuckle, "Well, I'll spare you the obligatory 'where's your cape' joke, as I'm sure you've heard it so many times ... Is something the matter?"
Catherine had suddenly stopped up and clutched a fist to her chest, her face drawn in pain. She let out a tightly clenched whimper and raised her head to look imploringly up at the professor who was standing towering at the top of the trench. She stumbled backwards and collapsed heavily against the side of the trench, bringing down a bucketful of earth and rock as she slid down to an awkward, half-lying position, her upper back propped up against the wall of earth.
She gasped sharply in pain, and her legs twitched sharply. She clawed desperately at the dirt with her left hand, still clutching her white-knuckled right tightly fist to her chest. She heard someone call out her name, and then the two professors was kneeling over her, worried and confused.
She heard them talk, clearly but distant through the thundering in her ears, asking her what was wrong, calling for a stretcher and for the first aid kit. Why did they just stand there, waiting? Why didn't they grab the arrow and help her pull it out?
Catherine let out a small, frightened whimper. She could feel the head of it digging deeper inside her, towards her heart, struggling against her grip with cold-willed tenacity. She tightened her fist around the ghostly arrow further, her fingers clenched so hard it hurt. She saw people moving around her and felt herself be lifted onto a stretcher, but she had no attention to spare on the outside world. All her willpower was locked in the struggle against the arrow and her world had narrowed to the death-grip of her aching fingers around the insubstantial shaft and the feeling of the arrowhead grating against a rib-bone. It was a stalemate, for now.
[I don't like posting only the first part of this, but don't have the time to finish it right now (I need to get to work ... oh, about an hour ago,) and I suspect that if I stopped without posting this bit, I'd never get around to write the rest.]
"Finding anything, girls?" Professor Kastner asked, walking over to the edge of a trench where two archeology students were carefully scraping away earth to unearth what, around the time of the battle of Crecy, had been a wood-laid floor.
"I'm starting to find some sore knees," one of the students replied with a grimace and shifted her kneeling pads in an attempt to spread the ache evenly on both knees, "and we've found more pieces of burnt shingles than I've ever wanted to see in my whole life."
Kastner grinned back and climbed into the trench to get a better look at the girls' work. "Welcome to the daily grind of archaeology and the hundred-hundred-one rule: Hundred pounds of dirt for every pound of artifact, hundred pounds of artifact for every ounce of treasure. Just remember that what we don't find can tell us a lot too."
"In that case we must have learnt tons from this trench, right Catherine?" the student with the sore knees said, and to her bemusement realised that the other student hadn't looked up when the Professor had arrived, but was still busy with trowel and brush. "Don't tell me you've just found something?"
"Umm, I'm not sure," Catherine replied without looking up, "I think maybe it's an arrowhead or something."
"Oh?" the Professor asked and with a smile to the less lucky student crouched down besides Catherine to have a look at the find. "Well, it's certainly an arrowhead, but not a kind I would have expected to find at this site. Remarkably well preserved too."
Kastner straightened up and called out to a tall man working at the cataloguing table. "Robert, can you come have a look at something?"
"Ow!" Catherine suddenly jerked back with a vitreous oath and put her thumb in her mouth. "I cut myself on it." she explained sheepishly, sucking at a long cut on the side of her finger.
"You didn't you bleed on the find?" Kastner asked at once, horrified at the thought of blood's corrosive abilities, but quickly relented. "You didn't cut yourself badly, did you?"
"Umm, no, I don't think so. It just bleeds a lot." Catherine mumbled sheepishly against her thumb and scooted backwards away from the mostly revealed arrowhead to prevent any more blood getting on it.
"So what have you got for me, Lucien?" The tall man that Professor Kastner had called over had appeared and looked curiously down into the trench.
"Two splendid specimens of students from Paragon University, and what looks like a swallowtail. Girls, meet Doctor Eversley." Kastner introduced the tall man as the two students grudgingly climbed out of the trench to give the two professionals room.
"So you two are from Paragon?" Eversley asked with a small chuckle, "Well, I'll spare you the obligatory 'where's your cape' joke, as I'm sure you've heard it so many times ... Is something the matter?"
Catherine had suddenly stopped up and clutched a fist to her chest, her face drawn in pain. She let out a tightly clenched whimper and raised her head to look imploringly up at the professor who was standing towering at the top of the trench. She stumbled backwards and collapsed heavily against the side of the trench, bringing down a bucketful of earth and rock as she slid down to an awkward, half-lying position, her upper back propped up against the wall of earth.
She gasped sharply in pain, and her legs twitched sharply. She clawed desperately at the dirt with her left hand, still clutching her white-knuckled right tightly fist to her chest. She heard someone call out her name, and then the two professors was kneeling over her, worried and confused.
She heard them talk, clearly but distant through the thundering in her ears, asking her what was wrong, calling for a stretcher and for the first aid kit. Why did they just stand there, waiting? Why didn't they grab the arrow and help her pull it out?
Catherine let out a small, frightened whimper. She could feel the head of it digging deeper inside her, towards her heart, struggling against her grip with cold-willed tenacity. She tightened her fist around the ghostly arrow further, her fingers clenched so hard it hurt. She saw people moving around her and felt herself be lifted onto a stretcher, but she had no attention to spare on the outside world. All her willpower was locked in the struggle against the arrow and her world had narrowed to the death-grip of her aching fingers around the insubstantial shaft and the feeling of the arrowhead grating against a rib-bone. It was a stalemate, for now.