His Conquering Sword: 3 (The Novels of the Jaran) by Elliott Kate

Author:Elliott, Kate [Elliott, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781480435421
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

DAVID COULD NOT BEAR to go anywhere near the siege, now that he’d done his work so well. He could not bring himself to observe the fruits of his labors, since it had cost him nothing, and others—jaran soldiers, khaja civilians—so much. He condemned himself as a coward and a hypocrite. As penance, he worked triage in the hospital with Marco and Gwyn Jones. The wounded came in in a steady stream. Three times David almost fainted from the sight of blood and gaping flesh. After the third time, a numbness settled over him and he could follow Marco about, helping him hold down the screaming wounded, refilling the three leather flasks he carried—one with water, one with alcohol, and one with a jaran concoction, a blend of herbs in tea that dulled pain. At the water jars, he met Diana Brooke-Holt. Blood spattered her tunic, and she gave him a pained smile, filled her flasks, and went back out to the ranks of wounded.

Now and again David lugged some poor soul into the surgery where Cara and the best of the jaran healers worked. Jo Singh had set up several huge copper pots of water to boil, to sterilize instruments. After depositing his unconscious patient on a table, David took a break from the wounded for a while and cleaned the crude instruments and boiled them and lifted them out to dry with a set of metal tongs.

He was standing there, sweating from the steam and the heat of the coals, when Gwyn Jones and a jaran woman brought in a stretcher. A blond man lay on it, looking more dead than alive.

Cara glanced up. Her eyes widened. “Vasil! Here, Gwyn, I’m done here. Bring him to me.”

The transfer was made. “He’s badly wounded,” said Gwyn. “Do you think he’ll make it?”

“You know him?” Cara’s tone was sharp.

A ghostly smile passed over Gwyn’s lips. “Not in that way, if that’s what you mean. He comes to watch the acting. He has—what should I call it?—charisma, I suppose. And he’s a handsome man.” He paused, wiping his hands down his stained trousers. David could see the jaran man’s face where he lay, unconscious, on his back on the table: a huge gash had ripped one cheek open, and his forehead was bloody and torn. His other wounds looked worse. “Or he was, at any rate. Will he live?”

“I don’t know.” She turned to examine him, and her two young jaran assistants huddled around her, aiding her, observing her.

David steeled himself and went back outside. In truth, the noise bothered him more than the blood. Some of them moaned, a reedy, grating sound. Some of them screamed as if they meant to rub their throats raw. Others lay there in stoic silence, suffering their agonies without a word. A few whispered, begging for water. Under a huge canopy lay those Marco deemed would not survive or were too badly wounded to benefit from the crude surgery available. Jaran attendants moved among them, relatives, perhaps, providing succor.

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