Aun came rushing into the infirmary just a moment later, breathless and wild-eyed. She slammed the door closed and leaned back against it. Panic had made her shake.
Mhera, too, felt the fear. Fear had become a constant companion to her, but this was different. It was vital, visceral. Death could come to either of them in the next breath. Who knew what would happen?
"They came all at once, I think," said Aun. "From the east ... from where the river cuts through the Duskwood. But they came upon us so suddenly. Where were our rangers?"
Mhera knew this was not a question Aun expected her to answer. If the alarm had not sounded at once, perhaps the rangers had been killed before they could raise it. Knowing how it had played out would not change what would happen now.
In the silence that fell, she heard a shout outside. Then another. She turned her face toward the window and saw, for an instant, running figures wearing pale tabards over metal armor that glinted in the last of the sunlight. The sight of them did not trouble Mhera with the confused emotions she had expected. There was only terror.
Aun beckoned to Mhera. "Come, we must stay out of sight. There are no curtains to cover the windows."
Together, the two women sat on the floor below the windows along the wall facing the main road. They could hear the shouting from outside grow more intense and then, too near, Mhera heard the first clang of metal on metal.
"We'll be here for when there are wounded," Aun said.
Mhera wondered if it comforted her to have a purpose.
...
The first of the wounded was a man Mhera had never seen before, and he was dead before he crossed their threshold. The ones who carried him had no time to spare; they spilled his body onto a cot and ran back out of the infirmary, one of them with hands already full of crackling red light.
Aun smoothed the man's hair back from his forehead and felt his neck with her other hand. But the ugly sword-wound in his chest surely told her all she needed to know.
"They shouldn't have brought him," she whispered. "We'll need the bed."
A sound at the door made both women turn, but it was no wounded Hanpean coming in on the arm of a fellow rebel. This was a Starborn soldier, his pale tabard already spattered with blood. Mhera stumbled several steps back. He was her uncle's man, but the sight of him with a bloody sword in his hand only frightened her. He looked wildly around the place, grasping his sword as if preparing to swing it before he even saw a living soul.
His face a grimace, he moved toward Aun. His heavy boot steps thundered on the floor. Mhera screamed without thinking: "No!"
Aun slid to the side, falling against one of the small tables set between the cots. She was fumbling for something underneath her skirt.
Mhera reached for the first thing she could grasp: a broom. Aun was no fighter. She was an innocent, and Mhera's only thought was to defend her.
Mhera darted toward the soldier and swung at him with all her strength so that the lower shaft of the broom cracked against the back of his head. He spun with a snarl, swinging his sword before he properly saw her face. Mhera threw herself to the floor, narrowly avoiding the slicing blade. Then she rolled onto her back and scrambled away from him, braced for another blow.
"You!" he cried. "You're the lady! Goddess above, my lady, forgive me." He tightened his grip on his sword, turning back toward Aun with a snarl. "I'll free you, lady—"
Mhera was not certain how it happened. He was lunging toward Aun one moment, and the next, he was slumping down to the floor making an wretched choking sound. She was certain there was blood, that much was plain to see, but she could not understand how it had come to be there, dripping down Aun's wrists. There was a dagger held tightly in both of the healer's hands. A red stain spread across the sky-blue tabard the soldier wore from a wound in his neck.
She was dimly aware of another presence, of heavy footfalls in the room. She turned her head and saw Matei standing there, his eyes on the soldier who lay dead. But he was gone again a moment later, and she heard his voice raised in a cry as the door swung closed: "Do not let them pass! Guard the door!"
Aun looked at Mhera with wide, shattered-glass eyes. She was shaking, and Mhera's first instinct was not to run from her, the Arcborn who had just killed a Starborn soldier. It was to comfort her.
She scrambled to her feet and moved to Aun, reaching to take the dagger from her hands. It was slippery with blood, and she nearly dropped it. "You're alright," she said. "You're alright."
"H-he—h-he—" Aun stammered, her breath coming in gasps.
Mhera set the bloody dagger on the table. She looked down at her shaking hands and saw that her fingertips were red. She wiped them on the skirt of her gray dress and took Aun's arm. "We have to hide," she said. "Remember?"
But there was no hiding. The door swung open again, and this time it was a bewildered rebel woman, alone. She had a bloody wound on her head. And then there was another, and another; the wounded trickled in, some of them on their own, some of them carried.
At first, Mhera did not know what to do, acutely aware that she was on the wrong side of this battle. But Aun could not move quickly enough to help them, and standing and watching was worst of all. In those hellish moments, they were all just wounded people. Did it matter that the blood running from them carried the current of magic?
So she did what she could, fetching water, clean cloths, herbs, bandages. She let her body move without her mind, without her heart.
She had to survive this. Let her consider the truth of it all on another day. Tonight, she had simply to stay alive and hold onto her sanity as, through it all, she felt Matei drawing on her. He pulled on her energy as he fought where she could not see him, and she wondered if he knew he was doing it.
...
Those who could went back out to fight, even if they staggered with the pain and exhaustion. Others would never fight again. Between themselves, Mhera and Aun dragged the bodies of the first dead Arcborn man and Aun's Starborn assailant away. They put them against the wall, out of the way, and covered each of them with a sheet. Another body joined them before long. Mhera wondered how many on either side lay dead outside, cut down where they fought.
It was impossible to count how many crossed the threshold; they did not have enough beds, that was all they knew for certain. There was no way to know how much time passed. They struggled to keep up with the work and could focus on nothing else.
The door opened again sometime deep into that night of chaos and horror. Aun and Mhera did not even turn from their work. The healer was busy binding a woman's arm, and Mhera was stripping bloody sheets from one of the cots.
"Let him die!" barked an angry, familiar voice. "Let the Starborn bastard die!"
"Shut up, Uachi! Shut up!" This was Matei's voice, raised in a raw scream. "Get back! Go back out!"
Mhera turned and saw Matei supporting a stumbling Starborn soldier. The man had blonde, curling hair that fell to curtain his down-turned face beneath a helmet bordered in gold. His right arm had been cruelly abbreviated just above the elbow, leaving a ragged stump of flesh and glowing metal. There was a smoking slash mark across his chest; through it, she could see blackened flesh. Something had sliced right through the maille he wore.
For an instant, she saw Uachi's forbidding scowl before the ranger rushed back out of the infirmary.
Matei's face was white with strain. "Mhera, help me. Please."
She left the sheets behind and ran to Matei, but she did not know how to help him with his burden. There was no arm to hold on the other side of the Starborn soldier. She ducked under the wretched stump and wrapped her own arms around the soldier's waist, helping to support him as they moved him across the room. She could feel heat through the fabric of her dress from the remnants of his arm. The burning hot metal singed her clothes and kissed her skin, and she hissed, shrugging to shake away the touch of his arm.
"I'm sorry, Mhera—I'm sorry—" Matei said.
Mhera didn't understand why he would apologize to her. He had nearly apologized for taking her, but he had never seemed the least bit sorry about his hatred of the empire, of his fight against them. She could not spare time nor energy to sort through what he was saying or to understand why he was dragging his enemy in to be helped.
Together, they spilled the Starborn man half onto a cot. He drew a wheezing breath that rattled in his chest, and the cry of pain he gave as gravity stretched him out was unearthly. Matei picked up his legs and pulled him to the center of the cot. Mhera reached up to lift the man's head so she could center it on the thin pillow, then gently pulled the helmet off. And as she did so, his blonde curls fell back from his face, and she realized who it was.
"Kaori," she breathed.
"I'm sorry, Mhera," Matei said. "He came from behind."
Mhera turned to look blankly at Matei, holding the helmet in her hands. "It's Kaori."
What was her cousin doing here? Kaori was no swordsman, no archer—he was no fighter—
"What do we have?" Aun asked. She was wiping her hands on her apron as she came to the other side of the cot.
Matei said, "I did not know he was here. Mhera ..."
As Mhera grappled with the knowledge that Kaori had joined the foray, Aun began to assess the prince. She did not seem to stop to check which side of the war he was on. She examined both of the wounds, shaking her head. The magic that had sliced through cloth and maille alike had left fragments of both in the wounds. Under her hands, Kaori stirred, groaning with pain, and bits of metal fragments glinted in the ugly slash across his torso.
Mhera looked down at the twisted remnants of the prince's arm, the smoking wound to his side. "Go away," she said to Matei.
"Mhera—"
"I hate you," Mhera said. "I was wrong. There was a right choice, and I did not make it."
She had become one of these people. She had tried to lessen the violence that would come, but she had traded one slaughter for another. She had not realized it, seeing fallen men she did not know, but she knew now what she had done. These men had families; their loved ones would feel as she now felt when their wounded soldiers never came home.
"Mhera, we need to get him undressed," Aun said. "We need to clean these wounds as best we can."
"I wish he had cut you down!" Mhera cried, and she meant it. She turned to look up at Matei, the face of the rebellion, and she threw Kaori's helmet at him. It bounced harmlessly off Matei's shoulder and clattered to the floorboards. He barely flinched. The subtle ring of gold crowning the helmet winked in the firelight. "You should be lying here in his place, or out there! Death on the battle field—that's what you wanted, isn't it? Well, that is your due!"
Watching him register her words, Mhera almost thought they affected him; she almost thought he felt pain, that he could care what he had done.
"Mhera, help me," said Aun.
There was another disturbance at doorway then. Uachi stepped in. "Their force is shattered. They retreat," he said between gasps for breath.
Matei did not turn from Mhera to look at the ranger. He was pale; he looked sick.
"Matei." Uachi slammed the door, hard; Mhera and Aun both startled at the sound.
Matei turned toward the ranger. "What is it?"
"Damn your eyes, man—didn't you hear me?" Uachi heaved a breath. He sounded as if he were in pain. "The Corpsemaker's force has turned back! The dregs of it, anyway. They go back through the Duskwood. We will follow them and pick them off from the trees—"
"No." Matei's tone was suddenly forbidding. "No. Let them go."
Uachi stared at him. He pulled back his cowl and staggered a step toward the wall, reaching out to brace himself with a hand. As he turned, Mhera noticed there was an arrow protruding from the ranger's right shoulder. Another had pierced his calf. That one was broken off; he held half of it in one gloved hand. "What are you saying? What's wrong with you!"
"We defended our city. That was our purpose. If they retreat, we have our victory. Let them go."
"Back to the Holy City? They will come again in force!"
Matei turned away. "Perhaps. But not tonight. Tonight, we have our victory. Leave them."
Uachi was about to argue more, but Aun's clear voice cut him off. "This is my domain. Whatever the council decides when it comes to battles and war, let it be decided outside of these walls." The healer pointed to a chair. "Uachi, sit down. Now. We need to see to those wounds. Matei, you should go. I will do what I can for this ... prince, but it will be miracle enough to get him through this without you standing about getting in our way. Go away."
"Don't let him die," Matei said. He glanced from Kaori's face to Mhera's. At last, he seemed to gather his composure. "He will be ... useful to us."
Mhera wondered if she could have the strength to drive a dagger into Matei's heart, knowing it would be her own end, too.