The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

  “No. Not us. There’s another way.”

  “What?”

  Quallet stood up. He turned to his two officers.

  “I’ll handle matters here. Raeh, get these two an escort and a white flag. There’s a spot to the north where a [Doctor] works. Have them get—Luan—over there. If they’re quick and lucky, this [Doctor] might be able to save him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Raeh looked skeptical, but Quallet nodded.

  “It’s their best shot. If we try, he’s dead either way. You know that. There’s no way we’ll find an arrowhead, but if what I’ve heard about this ‘Last Light’ are true, the [Doctor] might be able to.”

  A [Doctor]. The word dragged Ken back into reality. He looked at Aiko, and saw the same desperation in her eyes. It was something to cling to. Ken knelt by Luan as Raeh turned and started shouting.

  “Hold on, Luan.”

  It was a stretcher they used to carry Luan, the same kind they used to haul bodies or bits of bodies. It was filthy, and Luan screamed when they put him on it, but they had no choice.

  They carried Luan on the stretcher, Ken, Aiko, and Quexa, while the Lizardman carried the white flag. They ran out of the woods, trying to run and not jostle Luan or trip all at the same time. They ran through the forest as the sun began to rise, searching desperately, praying.

  That was how Ken met the [Doctor] known as the Last Light. He arrived in a small camp as the sun rose and Luan’s blood ran from his side. It dripped from the stretcher and fell onto the wet ground, among the grass and mud. Bugs landed to feed on the red liquid, and in the valley, two armies gathered to fight once more.

  And the bodies came in, the wounded, the desperate. Ken and Aiko stood with Luan, one among many. Waiting for her, hoping she was real. The voices cried out, begged, pleaded. For salvation, relief—

  For a [Doctor].

  1.04 D

  Quallet Marshhand was shouting at a Centaur. He knew it was a stupid thing to do. Centaurs were belligerent, touchy, and the only way to get them to agree to something was to flatter them. But Quallet was fed up, and there were some times when he just needed to scream at something.

  Like now.

  The Centaur commander was clearly unhappy at being shouted at, and kept trying to snap at Quallet. His soldiers were also trying to be menacing, but Quallet knew he was in the right. He snapped at the ash-colored Centaur as his company worked in the darkness, putting the undead to rest and burning the rest of the corpses.

  “No, you listen to me. That was my company you shot at! We announced ourselves and carried both a banner and night lanterns! How could you not see—”

  “He was not standing with the lantern.”

  “He was ten feet away from it! How could you not tell they were together? They were hauling a dead Dullahan. If that didn’t tip your idiotic soldiers off—”

  “The Dullahans have disguised themselves so before.”

  The Centaur was unmoved. He glared down at Quallet, looking uncomfortable at his patrol’s attack on Quallet’s soldiers, but equally enraged.

  “The Dullahans have been attacking our camps disguised as your people. They, damn them, have done this twice now!”

  “That does not justify what your men did! You attacked my soldiers—shot one with an enchanted arrow! If he dies—”

  “If he dies, we will pay the blood price. But we will not change our methods. Not now.”

  The officer’s face had locked up into a stubborn rictus. Quallet stared at him, shaking with fury.

  “And how am I supposed to stop that from happening again?”

  “Stay within our designated areas. Identify yourselves.”

  “We did that—if you want our company to do our duty, keep your soldiers away from mine! Because I promise you, if this happens a second time I will cancel our contract and demand full pay for—”

  “Enough.”

  The Centaur cut Quallet off and the [Mercenary Captain] nearly drew his axe right there and then.

  “We must continue patrolling. I will instruct my soldiers and tomorrow negotiations will begin over reparations and perhaps change the location your company works. Until then, keep close to your lanterns.”

  He whirled and trotted away, rather than continue arguing with Quallet. His soldiers left too, wincing as Quallet let loose a set of invectives that made the battle-hardened warriors flinch. Quallet would have liked to do more than curse.

  But there was nothing he could do. Quallet stomped away to speak with Raeh and Xor. He immediately pulled back all of the company within range of the banner and made them move together at all times. Less corpses would be disposed of, but he wasn’t about to lose more soldiers than he had.

  Luan. The enchanted arrow had gone deep into his side. Quallet had seen Raeh’s eyes, seen the fear. The only way to get it out was to cut into the flesh and bone and find the arrowhead…a tiny thing somewhere in all that blood and guts. There was no way Luan would have survived if Raeh had done it. Maybe this [Doctor] could save him. But Quallet feared the young man was already dead.

  —-

  “Luan? Luan! Stay awake. Please!”

  Ken knelt by his friend’s side, speaking urgently to Luan as his eyes flickered. The black-skinned South African was shaking, sweat beading on his forehead.

  He was dying. Blood was seeping from his arrow wound, staining the clumsy bandage that Aiko had tied around his side. The one who’d tied it, Aiko, was holding Luan’s hand as he groaned and shivered. That was all she could do. Ken looked around frantically.

  “Is the [Doctor] here? My friend needs help!”

  He was speaking—shouting at—a pale warrior with a halberd. He was a Selphid. His body was that of a Lizardman, but the scales were pale, close to white. The body was dead, but something else looked down at Ken and shook his head.

  “Wait. The [Doctor] is still sleeping. She has worked without rest for over a day now. When she wakes, she will see your friend.”

  Ken opened his mouth, but the Selphid stared at him.

  “Quiet, or I will remove you. That will not help your friend.”

  Ken closed his mouth. Luan was at the head of a line of wounded soldiers. There were only a few as the fighting had barely begun. It was just past dawn. But some of the soldiers were badly wounded, bandaged, unable to be healed by potions, carried by their friends to wait for the [Doctor] like Luan.

  Some were already dead. Ken’s stomach was a knot of fear, but he made himself grip Luan’s other hand and wait.

  “Give him more healing potion, Aiko.”

  She did. Raeh had pressed the remaining bottle into her hands as he’d sent them to look for the [Doctor]. It could not heal the wound so long as the enchanted arrow was in place, but every time she carefully poured more into the wound, Luan’s color would get better and he seemed to grow in strength. But then the arrow’s magic would open the wound again, and he would scream.

  Life went in, life went out. But Ken saw that the healing potion was not putting as much in as went out of Luan over time. He was getting weaker. He needed help. And the [Doctor] was asleep.

  It felt like hours before she woke. When she did, Ken knew in an instant because the Selphid who had been standing guard over the lines of the wounded turned his head. From a small tent a form emerged, blinking in the light of the day. She turned her head and Ken saw a Human face. For some reason that reassured him. He had wondered if the [Doctor] was a Dullahan, but she looked…normal.

  Then she began to lurch down the hill and Ken wondered if he’d made a mistake. She couldn’t be who Luan was waiting for.

  When Kenjiro first saw the woman known as the Last Light, the famed [Doctor] of the battlefield up close, he thought he was looking at another zombie. Her skin was olive in color, but pale. Her hands were covered in blood, as was her clothing. Her brown hair was covered by an odd cap—a cut-down leather helmet stained with sweat.

  She looked as if she needed a [Doctor] herself. One of
her arms was practically white, as if blood flow had been constricted there. Her steps were brisk, but she stumbled twice as she approached the line of wounded. There was red in her eyes. Broken blood vessels.

  When she spoke, her voice was hoarse.

  “What happened to him?”

  Ken looked at his friends. Quexa and a Lizardman had come with them, helping carry Luan. They were sitting by Luan, and looked at Ken. So did Aiko. So Ken took a breath and tried to explain.

  “He—he was shot by an arrow. A magical—he does not heal. It is here.”

  He showed the woman the wound and the [Doctor] knelt. She appraised his side for a second and then stood. She nearly fell down again, and the Selphid guard caught her.

  “Arrow wound. Understood. Don’t move him. Stay with your friend. If he wakes, don’t let him get up. Keep him still, got it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Ken broke off. The woman was already moving past him, speaking to the soldiers second in line. She knelt by a man with a broken sword blade protruding from his stomach, nodded. Ken stared at the piece of metal—it was frosted over. Magical? The man with it in his stomach was shaking uncontrollably and moaning. But the [Doctor] did not see to him either. She moved on to the next wounded soldier, then the next.

  “Wait!”

  The [Doctor] had nearly reached the end of the line when Ken ran towards her. The Selphid barred the way. Ken stopped and pointed at Luan.

  “Will you help him?”

  “Yes. Later. I have other patients to attend to first.”

  Ken turned and saw two other Selphids with pale bodies carefully picking up the Soldier with the enchanted blade in his stomach. He gaped.

  “But we are—first!”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Not the point. I am triaging. I must decide who needs attention first. This is not a situation where the first who arrive get treated first. I will save those who need my help most, and then move on to the less critically injured.”

  She’d raised her voice so everyone waiting could hear. Ken understood her words, but couldn’t accept them.

  “But my friend—”

  “He has more time. I will see to him when I can.”

  The [Doctor] turned away. Ken took a step, but the Selphid barred his path, his face grim. Ken stared helplessly at the Lizardman’s face and the intelligence lurking behind the dead features. He saw the [Doctor] move on, and then hesitate. She turned and spoke crisply.

  “I am a [Doctor]. That means I save lives, no matter who it is I treat. I will try to save your friend—if I can. But I can’t promise anything. I will get to him as fast as I can. But you must wait.”

  And that was it. Ken went back to Luan. In less than a minute, the woman had finished her surveying the patients. She marked them—Ken could see how she pointed and the Selphid guard laid colored stones by the wounded. Green for the least wounded. Yellow for moderate wounds and red for those about to die. Black meant they were dead or…or they weren’t going to be treated.

  Luan was yellow. He was going to die, but not as soon as some. The [Doctor] strode up to a tent where the other Selphids had carried the first patient. Someone came out with a bowl of healing potion he dribbled on those with the red stones. It helped.

  Ken applied healing potion to Luan’s wound. The skin closed. Broke open. Luan screamed. He waited, staring at the tent. It felt like hours passed before the tent flaps opened and the man with the enchanted blade in his stomach was carried out—minus the blade.

  That was the first. There were five more to go. Ken watched another body go in as a group of ragged Human soldiers stared at the tent. Hours passed—Quexa told him it was minutes. The tent flaps opened, and a corpse came out.

  Ken felt his stomach drop. Another body went in as the Selphid guard laid the body down and the soldiers, the friends of the female Lizardwoman who’d taken five arrows to the chest, wept and clung to each other in grief. The tent flaps were already closing around the third wounded soldier marked with a red stone.

  A corpse came out. Another body came in. Another corpse. The fifth soldier lived, but his arm was gone. As the sixth came in, Luan started gasping and his eyes started rolling back into his head.

  “Luan!”

  Aiko was clinging to him, whispering to him in English and Japanese. But it was no good. The wound kept bleeding and the healing potion had run out. Ken stared helplessly at the stained bandages, crimson from all the blood loss and remembered some of the medical techniques he’d seen on TV. He had never been trained, but he couldn’t just sit back any longer!

  “We should—出血を止めまれ! Apply compress—”

  He reached for Luan’s side, guided by only a few memories of what to do with an open wound. Apply pressure? Where? Along the edges?

  Aiko was white-faced, hands hovering over the open wound. Ken heard a shout as he reached for Luan.

  “Don’t touch him!”

  The Selphid guard stopped Ken as Quexa and the Lizardman stood up, just as worried. The Selphid pulled Ken back, explaining as Ken protested weakly.

  “It’s an Evercut Arrow. It cannot be removed without opening him up, you see? If you shake your friend about, it will cut through his insides. Do not move him any more, and do not let him move.”

  “But he is dying.”

  “Yes.”

  The Selphid looked him in the eyes, calmly. He had seen death. He lived in a corpse. He pulled Ken back as Quexa took Aiko and hugged her.

  The Selphid’s name was Calectus. He made Ken sit, drink some water from Ken’s water flask. Ken had forgotten he had it. Calectus didn’t give Ken any false assurances, or hopes. He just told Ken to leave Luan, to not make things worse.

  “Hope that he lives long enough for Doctor Geneva to see him.”

  So Ken did. He prayed under his breath by Luan’s side as the sixth patient left the tent a corpse. Then it was Luan’s turn.

  —-

  Geneva didn’t calculate her success rate as she worked. If she did, she would have given up long ago in despair. But she couldn’t ignore the brutal arithmetic of life and death.

  Some lived, some died. Sometimes Geneva would save four, twelve people in a row. Then she’d be wondering when the next patient would come in that she couldn’t save. Or sometimes she’d fail to save five people in a row, and keep praying the next patient was treatable. Because they had to be. The next one had to be. It was a game her mind played. It tried to find logic and patterns in chaos.

  As the Selphid assistants took the sixth body outside, Geneva rested her hand against the table. She knew who was coming next. The black-skinned youth with the enchanted arrow in his side. She didn’t know if she could save him.

  “Be ready Okasha. I need you to move fast. He will have lost a lot of blood and I need to find the arrow before I can heal him with a potion.”

  “Understood.”

  Okasha moved Geneva’s right arm up, blotting at her sweaty forehead with a damp cloth. Geneva saw the flaps open, and then the young man was on the table in front of her.

  “Beginning the incision.”

  Geneva didn’t need to do any diagnosing. She knew what had hit the young man. The Roving Arrow company had begun using the Evercut arrows a few days ago and Geneva had seen too many cases of these wounds to count. The arrows lodged in the inside and kept moving, slowly digging through organs and preventing healing until the patient died.

  Swiftly, she cut with her scalpel across the young man’s chest, cutting open cloth, and then she cut again, opening up his side. She didn’t worry about infection or disease—her leveling up had granted her the invaluable Skill of [Sterile Field], an upgrade over [Sterile Equipment]. Nothing in a radius around her would be affected by unsanitary conditions, although they would if they left her presence.

  So Geneva’s scalpel was clean as it sliced into the young man’s side. He opened his mouth and cried out—he was awake. The two Selphids immediately leapt forwards and held
him down as Geneva tuned out the sounds he was making. She adjusted for his struggling and cut.

  “I can see the entry wound. Going deeper.”

  His flesh parted under the fine blade. Geneva stared into pulsating insides and saw red. The arrow had cut into the young man’s insides. The blood was concealing everything. Geneva’s eyes darted around, looking for the telltale glint of metal. Nothing.

  If she were in a hospital she’d have a suction machine to clear away the blood. Here she only had—

  “Towel.”

  Okasha moved Geneva’s right hand at her command, sponging away blood. She put the towel aside, picked up another one. It was horrible, unsanitary, and Geneva’s only option.

  “Water.”

  She had some water that she used to rinse away the last of the blood. Now Geneva could see. And she saw…

  Nothing. She could tell where the arrow had ripped through the young man’s side, into his liver. But it wasn’t in his liver anymore. He had stopped struggling, either passed out from the pain or…no, he was still alive. But she had to move quickly.

  “Where did it go? Do you see it?”

  “There.”

  A voice in Geneva’s ear, too quiet for anyone to hear but her. Geneva felt her hand move. She could see the passage of the arrowhead now, though. From the liver, something had cut…Geneva saw an opening in the stomach lining and went for it. And at last she saw it, a tiny piece of orange metal, glinting and—moving—among the red flesh.

  “Forceps.”

  They were in her hand. Geneva knew what to do now, and carefully maneuvered them towards the arrowhead as it squirmed, cutting into the stomach. She took a breath, and then gripped it tightly. Instantly, she felt tension in the forceps as she tried to lever the arrowhead out of the flesh.

  “It’s fighting me. Careful—”

  Geneva twisted, and then flicked the arrowhead out of the wound. It flew off of the surgical table and onto the ground, still buried in a bit of flesh. One of the Selphid aids ran over to capture the arrowhead, taking care not to let it touch his skin.