Elfborn: The Quest

Lazrus

"So, what do we have here, sergeant?" Master Henri, the camp's field surgeon, said as he stepped into the small antechamber attached to what was laughingly called the hospital tent. That was because it was merely a shell over top of a handful of tables where amputations and examinations were carried out. No supplies or tools, liniments or bandages, nothing. Just space and tables. It bore no resemblance to the well-equipped field hospitals he was used to working in, in Germanse during Frederik's many wars of consolidation.

But, as Henri scanned the space yet one more time and sighed, it was what the lords financing this particular questor camp wanted here and now. So that's what he got.

The enlisted man looked up from the unmoving, cold body that lay on the rough wooden examination table Henri had the camp's carpenter put together when he arrived a couple of weeks ago. Around him were the three men that helped bring the body up from the beach.

"Master Henri, sir." The sergeant tugged at his forelock in salute as the dapper surgeon wrapped a stained apron around his lean body, tying it in the front as he approached with a thoughtful expression on his long face.

"A dead body that washed up on the beach some time ago, sir. Sir Larent bade us bring the body to you for a determination of death."

Henri nodded as he stepped past the bluff faced soldier, his eyes narrowed as he ran them along the length of the body that lay in front of him. A quick look was all it took to determine that the man's clothes were in poor repair, possibly due to neglect. But the body itself seemed to be relatively intact and, at first glance, was lean and muscular. Whoever he was, he himself hadn't been in disrepair, despite the markings that bespoke of the chains that had bound him when he was found on the beach. They had been removed in preparation for his examination.

The face itself was relatively composed, speaking of the man's state of mind as he died. Whatever killed him, it didn't seem to have bothered him as it did so, no lasting anger or agony twisting the muscles of the face into a last mask. Of course, that could also be due to the body's long exposure to cold salt water. Henri sniffed thoughtfully and was about to reach out to pull the shirt aside to take a better look at the man's chest when he noticed the sergeant and his men still standing close by, nearly looking over his shoulder in interest.

"Is there something I can help you with, sergeant?" he asked frostily and the non-com quickly tugged his forelock again.

"Sorry, Master Henri. We were just curious as to how the man met his end."

"No doubt," Henri flatly noted. "As we all are. However, I'm not running some sort of carnival in here. Take your curiosity outside!"

"Sir." The soldier turned and quickly waved his men out. As the soldiers pushed their way out through the slit door that led to the outside, Henri returned to the body with a sniff.

"Hooligans," he grumbled and reached out to draw the dead man's shirt back. And immediately whistled in astonishment.

"Now that is something I haven't seen before," he husked softly, quickly stepped to a nearby table to grab a notebook, scribbling furiously on its hand pressed pages with a chunk of charcoal that he kept for that purpose.

It was a burn. But unlike any burn that Henri had seen before, and he had seen quite a few. Hot oil burns, fire burns, burns from overheated metal ... the list went on. But none of those things produced a deep cratered burn like this one, looking as if it had burned through the flesh right into the man's body cavity.

Staring at the burn, the surgeon let his mind consider the handful of possibilities that immediately leapt to mind, of things that may have caused such a wound. And only two things made sense: hyksos fire from the ancient lands of the Hyksos, and dragon rockets from the far eastern lands of Cathay. And, as far as he knew, how to make hyksos fire was lost before the rise of the Romisian Empire.