CHAPTER ONE

He dipped his hands into the water, cupped it and raised it to his face, then pushed his hands down past both cheeks and over his neck. The wetness turned momentarily cold in the night air, then succumbed to the warmth and ceased to be a comfort. No better than sweat, really.

"Shuun-sha!" Came the cry, and he turned to face the speaker with grim certainty. "Shuun-sha, I have more for the load-bearers. Smaller than the last load, but still a few dozen men."

Banntak sighed, and scratched a hand through his scruffy beard. He looked around the Bloodhall - crowded already with biers and the echoing taunts of pain - and he wondered for a moment what to do. Then he put his hands on his hips and turned his eyes toward the reddened marble stone beneath his feet. It only ever took a moment's fervent prayer, a firm thought, and a reminder of the vows he'd taken to focus himself on action.

He raised one fist. "Zilannirak!"

"Here, shuun-sha," came the voice, tired, irritated and near at hand.

"How are your wrists?"

"Much as the rest of me."

"Will they bear more work?"

"Do they have a choice?"

"Nai," Banntak said, with a hopeless shrug. "Nai, not really," he repeated, mostly to himself, then raised his eyes and looked for the apprentices. They were mostly going about menial tasks, the more hectic it became the less they could be given chance to practice their God's art. "All right, apprentices and lower shuun, heed me now." Every face turned his way, even those he wasn't speaking to. "We have new wounded coming in. I need a third of you to serve as load-bearers, I need the rest to clear this floor of every single man or woman that will survive the moving. Zilannirak, I need you to organize this for them, tell them where to move the people to."

Zilannirak looked up from the side of a man with a split face, one they'd strongly considered giving over to Deruu until the elder healer had roughly said he'd deal with it. "If I may, shuun-sha, I might be better served on the floor, putting my skills to use as opposed to moving the furniture," he said, and stroked a hand over the steel grey expanse of silken hair that fell from his chin to his chest. "Besides, this one looks eager to shuffle into Spathi's grip, and I still think I can save him if you give me the time."

Banntak sighed. That didn't leave him many options. Unless... "Inacha! Is Inacha on the floor?"

"Where else?" She asked, and he was almost surprised to see her sit up. Almost surprised. He was legitimately surprised when he realized she wasn't wearing her goggles.

"Inacha, what are you doing?"

"Just picking up a few things," she said, then felt around and found them. They were bulky, made of leather and glass, designed to keep out the light that would blind her if it reached her eyes. She slipped the goggles back on over her head and settled them in place. "Right, where am I? Nai! What am I doing?"

He wasn't going to ask, no matter how much the answer demanded he do so. "Do you think you can direct the apprentices?"

"Oh, ji," Inacha said, and bobbed her head. "Are we expecting a lot of wounded?"

"Soon. Get to work," Banntak said, then paused, and decided to backtrack just in case. "Make sure the apprentices clear out all the wounded that can be moved. Leave the ones who might die. We need at least two dozen spaces."

Inacha nodded, then rolled back over her shoulders and extended her arms into an effortless, graceful yet ridiculous handstand, and dropped back to her feet. Her robes, which had fallen up around her hips and revealed her usual lack of proper dress, fell back down a few moments later. He'd admonish her later.

Banntak turned to the one who'd begun this mad dash toward results. "Pray to Inoc, brother, that these are the last. I don't think we can take any more today."

"They ought to be. Fighting's burning down and they're killing the wounded at the moment. Any who aren't with me now aren't coming, save by the dark road," he said, then disappeared.

Banntak curled his lip and held in a curse, then sat by the water bowl and waited. There was no peace in the brief stillness, only the back and forth of moans and words of weak comfort. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, brushed more water over his face, then whispered a brief prayer to Inoc. But even in the darkness behind his eyes there was the scuffle of feet and Inacha's voice, Zilannirak's efficient movement nearby and Derru not so far away. They'd undoubtedly be in need of her shortly.

"Inoc's grace, we've got incoming already!"

His eyes opened, and he rose to his feet. He saw the apprentices moving swiftly toward the doors at the end of the Bloodhall, one or two rubbing thoughtlessly at the stains on their robes. It had been a day of red ruin so far, just one of many that offered more to come. A familiar melancholy raised tumult in Banntak's heart, but he drove it back with the shield of his faith.

"Watch your children, Inoc. We'll make you proud," he said, and prepared himself.

He was there as the first wounded were born in, and they added new voices to the misery. His hands brushed the biers, his eyes saw the wounds and quickly plotted out the resources they'd need to keep them away from Spathi's grasping claws. He dared to glance back and see if there was room, but he needn't have worried. Inacha was easily distracted at times, but she never failed when it mattered most.

"Zilannirak!"

"I'm well aware, boy," he replied, and with swift efficiency concluded the work he had done on the injured soldier.

"Gods above, where did you find these men?" Banntak said as he took stock of the wounds. Some were missing limbs, one had been run through, more than one looked thrashed half to death.

"Mostly near friendly lines," Lannik said, coming forward from his place in the shade of the Temple's inner passage. "These were the last we were able to pull out before they sent in the sweepers, we missed them mostly because they looked dead in the first place."

Banntak nodded grimly. "Zilannirak, can you deal with this one? He's been run through with a blade."

The elder priest nodded, once only. His sharp eyes - one grey, one green - focused on the bier in question, then he clicked his fingers at the two apprentices and drew them toward him.

Derru appeared, and to Banntak it seemed she came from nowhere. "Where am I needed?"

"Everywhere, and my bed in particular," Banntak replied. "Right now, you must call upon the rune and deal with the limbless. That one's going to bleed to death soon, and he's got no chance at all," Banntak said, indicating a young man - a boy, really - whose skull was visible. "You can save them, though. Be careful, my love, don't overstrain yourself."

Derru nodded, and brushed back a loose strand of dark hair. The rest was tied back in a long ponytail, rendered straggly by sweat and the rune's demands. "You four, come over here. Bring them."

Banntak called out to the other shuun and set them on the new arrivals, while Inacha hurried the apprentices to move the wounded. Soon the fresh arrivals occupyied the places of the old, and Banntak's hands were bloodied anew in the bodies of fresh unfortunates. The ceremonial wine was brought to wash the wounds, along with the salvemaster's painslayer concoctions. Apprentices offered tools in response to terse commands, and Banntak's world devolved into the press of time and the demands of the dying.

The slow growth of gold light and Derru's cries of exertion but his teeth on edge, but he focused not on the sounds at his back or side, and prayed only that his dearest pushed herself no harder than she had to. Thanks to the power she wielded, entrusted by Inoc Himself upon her, those two men would have new limbs and a chance to live healthy lives. Some of those not so grievously injured would not be so lucky. They would have to put up with the paltry efforts of Banntak and the others.

"Bandages, we need more bandages," Banntak said, after a glance at the cart one of the apprentices was wheeling about. He sent them for more. Silk always, nothing less. They would use lesser materials when the best ran out. Bitterly, he thought that those injured first were lucky.

One man moaned, and Banntak swiftly realized he'd broken many bones, the legacy of an attempt to dehorse and slay a Knight. It was one of those rare times that the apprentices could learn some of the tricks of the trade, as he showed a lucky girl how best to wrap and sooth the injury, the right times to apply the painslayers and the signs which said the worst of the injury was past. But from this one he moved to a screamer, a man who bore a dozen slashes that irked, and one that agonized. That one had been delivered with the effortless skill of the Knights. There were none better fitted to a maimer's role.

Banntak first applied a little salve, just to quiet the man's voice. It disturbed the other patients and distressed the apprentices, and it raised the heart to a pound. Death. Spathi's billowing, swallowing cloak; Those screams brought only dread thoughts to the fore. Sweat began to form as he worked, the prime slash, so precise it could have been made with Zilannirak's scalpel, had cut the man from navel to collar. His intestines had remained inside, but only because of the basic work of Lannik's men.

He's going to die. He's going to die, and it'll be my fault.

His voice was taut as he asked for tools and hands. He had the apprentices deal with the bandaging, focused his attention purely on cleaning the wounds and stitching those that could be stitched. But that cut! It was wide, a sword's blow undeniably, and it had either been delivered by a true bear of a man or from horseback. It had severed parts within, and the man was going to bleed to death no matter what they did. Unless.

"Give him the full painslayer drought," Banntak said, and he felt suddenly drawn and tense. "And you, bring me a flame. One of the fire pokers, and make sure it glows."

The patient's moans disappeared, along with his awareness. All the better for it. Banntak made to pinch the blood flow, to slow it for a time. Anything to delay the billow of that blackest cloak, to silence the echoing steps on that dark road Spathi walked. He prayed to Inoc for the strength to save another life, suddenly lost in the desire to save this one man, a life raised from the depths of anonymity to crucial importance. He talked to the apprentices in a distant voice, explained to them what he was doing and what they would have to do later. The amount of blood lost was copious, it stained his once white robes anew.

"The flame, shuun-sha," the girl said, and offered the poker. It was long, dark and ominous in the main, but the tip and several inches in glowed with the spirit of the hearth fires. Banntak shivered to look at it, the air seemed to fizzle around it.

"Stop admiring and use it, Banntak!" It was Zilannirak, offering a familiar hiss as he shuffled to the next victim.

No pause after that. He seized the poker, than gently applied it to the wound. The sound was hideous, the smell far worse. The flesh blackened and blood dried in moments. With slow care, he sealed the slash and stopped the blood under the skin. The patient had a chance, now. But not much better than that.

Banntak rose, sighed, and cast his eyes about the chamber. He felt like a farmer again, only now he tended a field that bled and screamed at the touch, and it seemed the soil had little green to offer. He moved on. There was at least another hour's work to be done.