Lying in a corner there was a man whose face had been chewed down to the bone on his forehead and cheeks – I could see into his mouth. And in another corner – something so terrible I quickly blotted it from memory.
I saw Wrenn – lying by the wall, on a stretcher bed extending towards the middle of the room. Three lancers in plate were holding him down, one on his either shoulder and one on his leg. His other leg was nothing but a bleeding stump, bitten off below the knee. He was kicking it in the air and drops of blood were spattering on the soldiers. He was yelling, his mouth a black oval, his cheeks stretched and eyes slitted. Where his shin should be, I saw the white ends of neatly severed bone.
They had stripped him down to his padded gambeson but he still had armour on his uninjured leg. He was covered in many smaller excruciating wounds, bleeding heavily through tears in the jacket. Most of them were deep punctures, where larvae’s fangs had slid in like curved smooth thorns, but they were nothing compared to what had happened to his leg.
Rayne was resuscitating a man with a crunchy broken jaw and a mushy nose. She left him to her assistant and dashed over, leaving sticky footprints.
She gave Wrenn an injection into the crook of his arm, pressed a cotton pad on the place, withdrew the needle. She quickly dropped some clear liquid on a white tile, and mixed it with a drop of blood pricked from one of the three soldiers who looked most like him. The mixture did not go grainy but stayed smooth, so she patted the windowsill for the lad to sit up there, and she rigged up a waxed cotton tube that would transfer blood down from his arm into Wrenn’s.
Wrenn was yelling all the time. ‘No! Put me back on the field! Leave me there! I want to be left! Bitch!’
She grasped his hand and he tried to fend her off, but he calmed a little as the scolopendium took effect. ‘Leave me! I can’t be Eszai any more! Let me die!’
‘Let him die unbeaten,’ I said.
Wrenn glanced in the direction of my voice, with unfocused eyes, and smeared blood across his cheek with the back of his hand.
Rayne was furious, ‘Ge’ ou’ of t’ way, Jant!’
‘He can’t be the Swordsman now. He’ll die anyway. Let him die without the indignity of being beaten by a Challenger.’
‘There’s more t’ life than tha’!’
‘I’ve never had pain like this before!’ The fear was stronger than the agony in his voice. ‘And … and … Oh, god, I’m so bloody cold.’
He turned his head and spoke to empty space: ‘Skua? You can’t be. You died … I lost Sanguin. I left it out there …’ He stared, glazed-eyed, and then passed out.
Rayne pointed to a tourniquet on his thigh, and looked at the soldier on the window ledge. ‘Did you pu’ tha’ on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You did t’ righ’ thing.’
Wrenn’s stump was bone surrounded by meaty pulp. The end of the artery dangled, swaying loosely and dribbling blood. Rayne pinched the end and expertly wound turns of silk thread around it – four, five, six times. She tied the thread and then smeared on an ointment of turpentine and phenol, with tansy extract. Then she bound a poultice loosely around it. The poultice, a pad of spongy elder pith wrapped in linen, had been steam-cleaned then infused with a lot of rose honey.
She stepped back and surveyed her work. ‘I can feel him pulling on t’ Circle. This could’ve killed any other Eszai bu’ Wrenn. He’s such a figh’er. Wha’ are you doing here? Have you brough’ a message?’
‘No. I’m passing through. Do you have anything to tell Frost or San?’
She shook her head. She was untying the tourniquet from Wrenn’s thigh. ‘You’re no’ encouraging, Jant. Saying “leave him”! How dare you!’
‘But how can he swordfight now?’ I protested. ‘Even if he survives, he’ll lose his place in the Circle to the first Challenger who comes along.’
‘I’ve deal’ with maimed Eszai hundreds of times. I know I’m righ’.’
‘I’d hate to be forced back to obscurity,’ I said. ‘Wrenn is the same. Do you expect him to win duels on a wooden leg?’
Rayne said, ‘Stranger things have happened.’
I huffed. ‘A Swordsman with one leg? How likely is that?’
Rayne said, ‘Look. There are all kinds of freakish abilities in t’ Circle. We even have a man who can fly. Tha’s pret’y damn weird.’
I took her point. She continued, ‘He migh’ go on for a year or even more before get’ing bea’en. He may well have t’ come t’ terms wi’ being mortal again. Bu’ a’ least he’ll have more life. He can change his outlook. He can change from being t’ Swordsman t’ someone else. I am giving him time t’ think. Once he thinks abou’ i’, he’ll thank me for no’ let’ing him die. They always do. As long as they can continue t’ live wi’ digni’y, and have the chance t’ die peacefully in bed surrounded by grandchildren, i’s bet’er than dying on the field. Isn’ i’? Dying in shi’ and confusion means nothing. You gain nothing. He’ll prefer living and growing old t’ dying in bat’le. If he wan’s to die in bat’le he can do i’ later. He needs time t’ clear his mind. No ex-Eszai has ever told me any differen’.’
‘He’s gashed here as well.’ I pointed to a deep, narrow cut above the knee of his severed leg. The black tip of a broken Insect mandible stuck out.
‘T’ poleyne plate mus’ have come off his knee. Tell Sleat those clips don’ work. A shard is still in there. I’m going t’ take i’ ou’. T‘ soldiers tried t’ pull i’ ou’ and i’ broke.’
Insect mandible shards are much worse than their leg spines. I know many people living with Insect spines embedded in their bodies. If Rayne can’t extract them without causing further damage, she leaves them in. But jaws are highly septic, considering what Insects eat, and broken pieces will rankle in wounds and cause fatal septicaemia. I helped Rayne as she began to operate to extract the shard.
She eased the blood-hardened cloth away from his skin. Then she took a scalpel from the steamed-clean tray and made a cross-shaped
incision at the point where the mandible had gone in, widening the cut. She squirted spirits of wine into the wound with a syringe, and grasped the end of the triangular shard with forceps. It had one very sharp edge, and to prevent it cutting Wrenn’s flesh when she drew it out, she took a little hollow steel cylinder like a straw with an open slot along its length. She slid the tube onto the shard’s sharp edge. Then she drew it out firmly and smoothly along its path of entry. In time with his heartbeat, blood welled up, overran the camp bed and pattered on the floor. Rayne rinsed out the wound and put a dressing on it.
Then she detached the tube from the arm of the soldier who was giving Wrenn his blood. He looked very pale and weak by this stage. She nodded to him. ‘You can go. Take a sip of juice, over there … Then go and ea’ mea’ and drink a lo’ of water, and have a res’.’
The dazed soldier wandered off. Rayne crooked her thumb at Wrenn. ‘Even if their blood is incompa’ible you can risk i’ once, but a second time would be fatal.’
She felt his pulse with a couple of twiggy fingers on his neck. ‘No’ a’ home.’
‘When will he wake up?’
‘Could be any time. Migh’ not. But if I know Wrenn, he’ll wake as soon as he can. Tha’ one never gives up.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘And i’ makes a difference from having t’ cure him of VD.’ She smiled without any trace of humour. Invisible flies were buzzing around my head. I hunched my shoulders and an avid pain ran between my wings; I stretched them against the stiffness.
Rayne wiped her hands on a cloth. ‘I have Tornado in here as well, you know.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He lost an eye.’ She pointed across the room to where Tornado was sitting on another stretcher bed, with his head in his hands. Bandages covered his eye. He was stripped to the waist – you could reconstruct the battles of eight centuries from the scars on his body.
‘What! By a larva?’ If they could wound even Tornado, the Vermiform was right; we were finished.
‘No. In the crush someone’s spear went into his eye. Don’ talk t’ him. He’s very pissed off about i’ – he’s embarrassed, too.’
‘I told him not to advance.’
‘If you remind him of tha’, he’ll punch you. Fescue’s jus’ lef’ here, dead. And Vir Ghallain has been mauled. From wha’ I’ve seen, they’ve los’ him too.’
‘I’ll speak to his Select.’
Rayne beckoned a doctor. ‘Watch over Serein and remove his armour.’ Then she turned to her next patient. She wouldn’t be diverted until all that could be done had been done.
I set off towards the water pumps where containers were stacked. I filled as many as I could carry and slung them around my body on two crossed leather straps. As I left, the last of Tanager’s lancers raced in. They didn’t seem to be bringing many survivors – some injured men rode pillion, but others were little more than chewed parcels, slung over saddlebows.
I flew bottles of water, packets of food and enough coffee to keep Frost going out to the dam for the next two hours. I even managed a couple of spades for which Frost was even more grateful than the coffee. Each time, the spoil heap by the portcullis had grown. By the fifth or sixth time I climbed through the window of the winch tower, it had completely blocked the portcullis and was slumping through to the walkway. Inside, a chain of men were passing buckets along and the one at the end threw the dirt onto the mound.
I sat on the ledge and hooked the supplies on a winch that Frost had rigged up. One of the soldiers lowered them, hand-over-hand, while I climbed down the wall.
Soldiers stood around the machinery, leaning on it to eat the latest packet of bread. They had all kept their helmets on for protection underground, and they were filthy; their faces black with dirt and glossy with sweat. They were surprisingly cheerful, though; I took their measure as I approached Frost.
She was sitting on a pile of burlap sacks, intent on her writing. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she had dimples in her cheeks. Tears ran down both sides of her nose.
She had a climbing rope wrapped around her waist, through a metal loop and coiled on the floor. She had obviously found it easier to abseil down the shaft, and the soldiers looked as if they would be happy to belay her anywhere.
I touched her shoulder and she jumped. ‘Jant? Wait, I’m finishing this letter. For the … will of god … and the … pro-tect-ion of the Circle,’ she pronounced as she wrote, and signed it. ‘Arch-it-ect for the Sovereign … Emperor San … and Chief Eng-in-eer of River-works Com-pa-ny.’ She blew on the paper, then folded it and dripped candle wax along the fold.
I said, ‘I brought more bread. It’s all I can carry.’
She nodded, and bellowed down the maintenance shaft, ‘Change of shift! Come up, the kettle’s boiled!’
She tittered hysterically, hyperventilated a few breaths, and checked herself. Her teeth were edge-on-edge, her forehead furrowed.
I offered her a muddy loaf. She wiped the tears away with her brigandine cuff and shook her head contemptuously. ‘No! No more time off!’ She sat down on the sacks. ‘Will you take the note to San?’
‘Yes. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. There’s no problem. I don’t know why you think there’s a problem, because there isn’t.’ I could hear the steel in her voice. She was showing both her personalities at once. Her extreme stress had laid them bare in front of me and it was like talking to two different people. I didn’t know whether to speak to the tearful, emotional woman or the single-minded engineer; whether to give her a comforting hug or a quadratic equation.
She took her bandanna off – her hair flowed loose, matted with mud. She blew her nose on the bandanna and stuffed it in her pocket. ‘Right! Comet, we have broken through into the downstream passageway. We’ve made a big hole in the maintenance chamber floor that the water will drain through. Now we are digging on the other side of the gate where the tunnel’s full of water. If we can keep up this rate, I expect to make a breakthrough sometime in the early hours of the morning … and the lake will start to drain …’ She turned to the men preparing to take the place of the even grimier diggers climbing out of the shaft. ‘Do ye hear that? The faster you shovel, boys, the more lives you will save! People out there are being savaged! Your fellow fyrdsmen are dying in whole battalions! Insect spawn are crawling all over the town and more of the …
horrible things
… are coming out of the lake every minute. Accept victory, and we will win. We will do what we set out to do!’
The men cheered.
She gave them a smile, then drew me aside to the spoil heap. Her eyes were bloodshot and brimming. ‘My last p-project. Riverworks’s final contract will be successful. The Emperor must then c-complete our plan and advance the t-troops over the lakebed …’ She caught a breath. ‘… And kill all the larvae we leave stranded in the mire. You must give him this –’ She handed me the letter.
‘Of course.’
She looked at me levelly, she seemed to have swung round to a calm phase. ‘Describe to the Sapper exactly what I am doing. Tell him the Glean Road will be passable but the Lowespass Road will not. The waters will take two days to subside. Will you tell him that?’
‘Of course.’
‘I never – ah – oh, Jant, I never built the basin for a hydraulic jump this huge … It’s …’
‘
Are
you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. You must also send a semaphore to Summerday … Tell them to evacuate.’