Disciple, Part III by L. Blankenship

Author:L. Blankenship [Blankenship, L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, fantasy romance
Publisher: L. Blankenship
Published: 2013-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Three of the armsmen that the ambulance had brought in during the sortie had died in the wagon bed. It was no longer my concern, but Ter Holly told me while emptying her spleen about Krepkin, the next morning. That was not so unusual — the drivers and the orderlies wanted to save all they could, and would choose the worst off when loading the ambulance. Some would arrive dead or too far gone to save with anything short of an elect’s strongest charms. We simply could not mend every gravely wounded man in the city, even when we had Parselev’s wisdom in addition to the Pool.

And while the ambulance made its way to the hospital and back, some other wounded man waited bleeding, or was killed, or had to be left behind when the battle lines shifted. In the sortie especially, any wounded who couldn’t walk or be put in the ambulance had to be left to the mercy of the enemy.

We buried what bodies we had on the second day after the sortie. They were bundled in plain woolen shrouds, each with a sack of gifts from their brothers in arms, and sent to the Shepherd’s Hearth with ale and song. Then the shovels came out to see to the rest of the work.

For the lost dead, the send-off came on Saint-day. The saints’ high table before the icons was covered in funeral sacks, each with a name carefully inked along the side. Too many. None of the knights who’d fallen in Kiefan’s sortie could be brought home to bury. Arcea had stripped the bodies and dumped them in the Spanne for the guardsmen to see as crows and vultures did their work.

And at the top of the pile of sacks, my teacher’s.

The Grand Chapel was full for the communal funeral feast, but the sight of so many funeral sacks left me too heart-sick to eat. I excused myself from Anders when the abbot finished his homily. I didn’t much want to return to the cottage, but it was the only place for me to go.

From boredom, I began going through Parselev’s papers. Krepkin laid claim to all that was related to the Order’s physicians, and sorting that from the more personal and the more general would take days yet. The documents went back decades.

I was deep in it when a knock on the front door below caught my ear. “Kate?” Anders called up. “A patient to see you.”

“Krepkin dismissed me,” I said, half my mind on the letter in my hands.

“But not the castle,” Captain Rostislav called back.

That was true enough. I put the mess aside and came downstairs. Anders had invited the captain and another Prince’s Guard — introduced as Sir Garrick Fechter — in to sit at the table. Heima was still at the funeral feast, so I offered them tea.

“You aren’t castle staff, Captain,” I said as I moved the warm kettle closer to the fire. “You should be seen in the hospital.”

“The prince’s

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