Katharine Kerr - The Fire Dragon

‘Oh thank the gods! My lady, I thought you were dying.’

‘Here.’ Elyssa’s voice came from some near distance. ‘Give her some water.’

Clodda put an arm around Lilli’s shoulders and helped her sit up enough to lean against the wall, then held the wooden cup while Lilli drank. Elyssa knelt down beside the maidservant.

‘What is it?’ Elyssa said. ‘Did you fall? Are you in pain?’

‘Should we get old Grodyr to attend you?’ Clodda said.

Lilli shook her head and took the cup, then gulped more water. The two women sat back on their heels and waited till she finished.

‘I had a vision.’ Lilli could hear her voice croak, all hoarse. ‘Branoic’s been wounded. Badly.’

They stared at her for a long silent moment. She braced herself against meaningless reassurances, but none came.

‘Oh gods, how horrible!’ Elyssa said. ‘I’ll pray for him, then.’

‘And so will I,’ Clodda said. ‘There’s not much else we can do.’

‘That’s true,’ Lilli whispered. ‘I wish it weren’t, but it is.’

The chirurgeons back in camp heard the battle begin, a distant shouting on the wind. For some while they paced back and forth beside their readied wagons, but soon enough the wounded began to arrive. Some men could still ride, others came in the company of friends who left them to rush back to the slaughter. With them came news: the Boar forces had received the shock of their life to see Maryn waiting for them. The other part of the enemy army, that under the command of Braemys’s allies, had broken fast – its men had been bandits, mostly, was the judgment of those men who could talk well enough to consider the matter.

The sun was still fairly high in the sky when the tide of wounded began to swell. This time the slightly wounded men brought in the badly wounded, and most of those died while the chirurgeons were trying to help them. Yet their presence meant that some troops had the leisure to help their comrades, that the battle was turning Maryn’s way. Distantly on the wind came the sound of silver horns, screeching for a retreat. Nevyn prayed that it was the Boars pulling back. A man with a bloody scrape down one arm confirmed Nevyn’s guess while he waited his turn.

‘The Boars are running like a lot of scared pigs,’ the rider said. ‘I’m no captain, my lord, but I think me they were only planning on making one try on the prince and then retreating if they couldn’t kill him straightaway.’

‘What?’ Nevyn turned briefly away from the patient lying on the wagon bed. ‘They were making straight for the prince?’

‘They were, my lord, but the silver daggers, they were right around him.’

For a moment Nevyn felt fear like a cold stone in his stomach. If the prince were slain? Yet he had only a little while to wait before he learned that Maryn was safe. He had just finished binding his informant’s arm when he heard someone yelling his name. He turned and saw the prince himself, his mail hood pushed back, his pale hair plastered to his skull with sweat, running towards him.

‘It’s Branoic! He’s bleeding too badly for us to bring him all the way in.’

Nevyn grabbed his readied sack of supplies and raced after Maryn as he led the way back. By then the tide of wounded had turned to a flood. Men brought them in fast, dumped them near the wagons, then rushed back to their horses to return to the field. Together Nevyn and Maryn picked their way across the camp, strewn with the dead and dying, horses and men both. In the middle of the worst of it they found Caudyr and a little clot of silver daggers clustered around someone who lay on ground turned muddy with blood. At the prince’s order, the men parted to let Nevyn through. He saw Branoic with Caudyr kneeling beside him, pressing a wad of bandages to Branoic’s face. Red oozed through the pale linen. Branoic struggled to sit up.

‘Lie still!’ Caudyr snarled.

Maryn fell to his knees behind Branoic’s head and shoved him back down by the shoulders. Caudyr gasped out a thanks.

‘Where is it?’ Nevyn knelt beside his fellow chirurgeon.

‘Cut his mouth in two,’ Caudyr said. ‘A lucky stroke just under the nasal of his helmet. It’s deep, and it won’t staunch.’

Caudyr lifted the wad quickly and pressed it back even quicker, but Nevyn had seen what he needed to. The blow had split both lips, shattered teeth, then bitten deep on either cheek, almost to the ear on the left side of his face. No doubt the skull lay cracked under that part of the wound as well. Branoic’s eyes sought him out, and in them Nevyn read a desperate resignation. He knows he’s going to die, Nevyn thought. Aloud he said,

‘Let’s get it stitched up. We daren’t move him till we do.’

Prince Maryn rose, glancing around him. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, you piss-proud lot of slackers! Get out there and find the rest of our wounded!’

The men rushed off at his order, but the prince himself lingered, staring down at his rival. Nevyn had no time to wonder if Maryn were glad or sorry to see Branoic at the gates of the Otherlands, and in a moment, the prince turned and walked away. Nevyn rummaged in his sack and found a long needle, threaded and ready.

‘Nevyn, your aid!’ Caudyr yelped.

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