OoOoO
Lhara could not see the battlefield, but she could hear it. Every scream, every ring of steel on bronze, every desperate howl; it was almost more than she could bear.
She had watched the first moments when the armies of the king and the sea folk met, crashing together like two argali rams locking horns at full charge. Vinie and Xolani had led the assault down toward Utunma, or so Lhara was told at such a distance. All fought on foot, and quickly the two forces blurred together into a seething mass of red and gold, light and dark, Factionists and Loyalists. Even if Lhara had been able to make out any further details of the battle, she wouldn't have wanted to.
The wounded poured into her hastily thrown-together infirmary, set a short ways back through the trees. It was all Lhara could do to keep on top of the chaos. She was not alone though, and that was just about the only thing keeping her from losing her mind.
Kiiss, the skirt of her dress tucked up out of the way around her hips, met the injured as they either stumbled or were dragged away from the fighting. Some she brought for aid immediately, where they were laid out in the backs of wagons for Lhara to tend to. Others who could stand to wait were sat down around the edge of the tiny clearing with fistfuls of moss to press to wherever was bleeding. The stench of blood was everywhere. It didn't take long before Lhara's borrowed pants, shirt and vest were flecked with it.
Oesu was also there, and whatever strangeness Lhara felt about ordering one of Moaan's regents to and fro evaporated fairly quickly as the wounded piled up before them. Oesu steadied fractures, fetched water from the spring and tore strips of linen for bandages. Anything that Lhara asked of her she did with quick efficiency. That still however left the hardest work to Lhara.
Tending Trosk's wounded with Magda paled in comparison to the destruction being churned out by this battle. It made Lhara realize very quickly that what had happened at Trosk was really more of a skirmish than true warfare. Within fifteen minutes she had already stitched so many gashes, some of them terribly deep and dangerous, that there was simply no time for tidy sewing. Her needle flew as fast as Lhara dared to go without risking carelessness, reuniting torn muscle, flesh and skin as Magda had shown her.
Broken bones were much harder to contend with, and took valuable time. Using a knife, Kiiss cut lengths of long, rope-like plants from the surrounding trees, which she called vines. These Lhara found stretchy yet durable enough to bind splints around limbs once they had been set. Lhara hoped against reason that she was doing more good than harm for these people, but she just didn't know. Her meager experience was being put to the test in most dramatic fashion, and more often than not she, Kiiss and Oesu had to piece the sea folk back together with little more than compassion and ingenuity.
When a young man was carried into the clearing weeping in anguish with his left leg nearly severed beneath the knee, Lhara's heart sank. He couldn't have been older than Tarun or Jath. If Tarun were out there right now, in a similar state or worse...
There was no time for worries like that right now though. Leaving Oesu to finish binding a re-located shoulder, Lhara found no available carts for the latest arrival.
"Help me lay this out!" She shouted to several of the least badly hurt, set leaning against trees nearby. Together they rushed to unfurl a canvas cloth from the back of one of the wagons on the jungle floor. "Kiiss, I need the dowel!"
"Here!" Kiiss was quick to produce a short rod of wood. The second the man's dangling leg was stretched out before him on the canvas Lhara pounced. Looping one of his companion's colorful cloth belts above the knee, she stuffed the dowel through and twisted it tight. She had seen a similar thing done with her Uncle Torl's badly broken leg. The man yowled, bucking against the restraining arms of his friends as the belt cinched. Right away though, the bleeding lessened.
Lhara didn't know what to do. Should she try to save the leg? If she did, what if rot set into the limb and poisoned the poor man? How ought she to know if it was even worth trying?
"Is he going to die?"
The tearful question came from one of the man's friends. The two, struggling to hold their injured comrade down between them, looked nearly as stricken. All three were covered in blood and dirt and sweat.
"I don't th-"
That was when Lhara noticed, past all the grime and gore from the leg wound, that that was not the only place where her charge was hurt. There was also a tremendous amount of blood on the upper thigh of his opposite leg. Moving quickly Lhara reached up and tore open the inseam of his pant.
Whatever had sliced through the man's left leg, it must have slashed across the top of his right on an arc. The wound Lhara found there was short, small, and very, very deep. His skin was cool and clammy to the touch. Between the left leg and now the right, Lhara knew then, with a dread and unexplainable certainty, that she could have started working ten minutes ago and this man would still be beyond help.
Trying not to cry, because her crying would be of no comfort to these men, Lhara hung her head. That seemed to be answer enough. The wounded southerner's struggles had grown weak, his cries diminished to groans.
"Lhara! There are more coming!" Oesu called out. With only three of them to tend all the wounded, and Kiiss and Oesu without any real knowledge of healing, Lhara could not be spared to linger at anyone's side. Inexplicably though Lhara did not want to leave this young man in particular, even with his friends close at hand. No one this badly injured had lasted long enough to reach her before.
"Go..." The dying man spoke, barely louder than a croak.
His friends protested. "No! Stay! Tell us what we can do, what if we-"
"I don't need...a healer...anymore," he said, clutching each of his friends' hands. His big brown eyes were unfocused, sad yet calm when he blinked up at the leafy green canopy overhead. "I just wish...I had...a shaman."
"Lhara!" Now Kiiss was calling too.
Lhara knew precious little to nothing about the shamans of the sea folk. She knew the Wise Women and High Elders' blessing for the dead though, and that was all she could offer. She had no woad with which to trace the lines either, but she had a skin of spring water which she hoped might suffice for one of the sea folk. Stretching up onto her shins, Lhara dipped two fingers into the water skin and held them above the man's face. She saw the remains of the Factionists' mark; the dark smudge of ash, smeared and half-invisible on his sweaty brow. When no protest came Lhara spoke the ritual words.
"Where there has been laughter, there is now silence. Where there has been sun, there is now starlight. Where there has been the breath of life, there is now the kiss of death," As Lhara spoke she lightly traced the water down the middle of his lips and chin. Realizing that the last part about earth and stone would likely not suit the sea folk, she amended it quickly. "From the sea we came, and to the sea we all return. Go gladly into the dark..."
When Lhara had no name or other words to add, she trailed off into silence.
"From the sea, of the sea, to the sea," the two Factionists on either side intoned, bowing their heads.
It wasn't much; a brief blessing cobbled together from mountain and sea. It was enough though, if the peace that settled across the dying man's face was any proof. Lhara could stay no longer. She climbed to her feet and rushed to rejoin Oesu and Kiiss, leaving the young southerner to die in the company of friends.
What a shock she was in for when she realized who had come in with the latest group of wounded.
"Lord Xolani!" she gasped.
Oesu had already leapt straight into tending her husband. She had made a valiant attempt at stemming the bleeding with a cinch above the stump where Xolani's right arm once joined at the elbow. The regents were surrounded by members of the Moaanese guard; some clearly fresh off the battlefield and others whom had already come to Lhara for tending. Xolani for his part was rather unable to offer comment on the obvious loss of his arm, his teeth being deeply embedded in a chunk of tree root which Kiiss had given him to bite on.
"Is that his only wound?" Lhara was quick to ask, her previous patient still at the forefront of her mind.
"Yas, yas!" Oesu seemed to be barely keeping herself together. She was twisting the cloth around Xolani's upper arm so tight that Lhara had to step in and stop her before it did damage. "It was cut clean off, and his men brought him straight here."
With no hope of saving the arm in question, that made Lhara's course of action fairly easy to decide upon. She had just watched one man bleed out, and had no wish to lose another the same way.
Her eyes fell upon the first large piece of metal they could find; one of Xolani's guard's swords.
"You there, put that in the fire, right in the center where the flames are hottest. We have to get your lord out of danger."
Kiiss, ever fast on her feet, was the first to catch on. She grimaced openly before turning to warn Xolani and Oesu.
"You'd better hold on to your husband, my lady. I can just about promise that he's not going to like this one bit..."
Xolani's eyes grew wide when he saw the guard place their sword in the fire, but he did not struggle. In fact, he was containing himself remarkably well despite what Lhara could only imagine must have been awful pain. She worried though that he might break a tooth or two on that tree root before this was over. His jaw clenched so tightly that veins bulged in his neck.
It took a few minutes, precious minutes that felt like an eternity. The battle continued to rage beyond the tree line, and Lhara had to fight the urge to cover her ears. Where was Jath? She hadn't seen him since first seeking shelter in the jungle. That he hadn't been brought to her infirmary was either a good thing...or a very bad thing. Lhara dearly hoped that her shy, soft-spoken friend was alright. At least he wasn't in Xolani's place; seated before her on a barrel, already suffering and about to suffer more.
Before she took hold of the sword, Lhara wrapped her hands in leaves torn from a nearby bush. "I'll try not to burn more flesh than absolutely needed," she promised Xolani. "Are you ready?"
Xolani nodded, not to Lhara, but to Oesu. Oesu, rather than stepping away, placed herself directly behind Xolani. Wrapping one arm beneath her husband's chin and the other around his head, she braced Xolani firmly against her stomach. Their guards fell into place as well, one on each side with a powerful hold on his shoulders and upper arms.
A light-headed feeling seized Lhara, and she had to fight to keep it at bay. When this terrible, terrible day was over, she was going to curl up in the roots of a giant tree somewhere and hide away from the world for a week. Until then, she was not allowed to give in. Swallowing hard, Lhara wrapped her hands around the hilt of the sword and lifted the blade out of the fire. It was heavy, almost as heavy as Marden's fencepost hammer. Holding the blade steady took a lot of effort, effort which Lhara was hard-pressed not to show as she approached Lord Xolani.
"I'm sorry," was all the warning she gave before pressing the sizzling blade to its goal.
Although Xolani did not pass out straight away, it was beyond obvious that he would have traded all of the gold in Moaan to do so.
OoOoO
The last thing Mahir would have ever expected from this day was to find himself trapped, his back to the unsympathetic sea and the Third Company defeated. Less than a hundred men stood between him and a hoard of vengeful southerners, pressing into the docks of Utunma from all directions.
When at first the battle had joined, the odds seemed to favor the Third Company both by virtue of numbers and by discipline. The Factionists ran pell-mell down the hill from the jungle in a rabble, without apparent ranks or strategy. As a result, when they first crashed into the shields of the royal army, the heaviest losses were most certainly taken by the southerners at the start. They fought fast and hard, and fell the same way.
The longer the fighting went on though, the more an un-anticipated problem began to make itself known to Mahir and his men. Although their lesser armor, with only a bronze breastplate, helmet and greaves, and just as little or less for the Factionists seemed to make the rebels more vulnerable, in truth it gave them far better endurance for the overwhelming coastal heat. Within minutes of the battle beginning Mahir found himself stifled and gasping for breath. The discomfort he could have abided, but it didn't take long for his muscles to begin cramping and an overwhelming nausea to overtake him. His custom forged armor and full leather bodysuit were cooking him alive from the inside out. And if he was suffering in his somewhat more mobile, decorative armor, then Mahir could only imagine how poorly the soldiers of the Third in full plate mail were faring.
Very poorly, as it turned out. After that initial rebuff, the southerners continued to rally, gaining ground and momentum as the royal army lost them. Pulling off his helmet had granted Mahir some respite from the unbearable heart, but his men were flagging dramatically. When they had retaken Utunma, the poor militia set up to defend the town had crumpled within minutes. The longer this fight went on though, the easier it grew for the Factionists and the Moaanese Guard to push the Third back into Utunma.
Finally they had been forced into full retreat, pulling back as far as they could through the town. The southern army followed, always only a corner away, their spears and swords ready to catch any soldier who lingered too long or held his ground.
Captain Sabin, a dozen Knights of Amenthis and roughly as many soldiers of the Third guarded Mahir's retreat all the way to the docks. The lapping of water beneath their feet was an ominous sound. A dreadful thought occurred to Mahir. Was this how he was to die; on the edge of the world at the hands of his own subjects? The humiliation of such an end would follow him to the grave and beyond. And how would Hithon possibly manage, thrust onto a throne at all of ten years old? The kingdom wouldn't survive his death, Mahir feared, and neither would his son.
The southerners were beginning to find their way out to the docks. Although most remained on the streets, trying and succeeding at battering their way past the remaining soldiers, some of the ash heads had gotten up onto rooftops and were clambering over to drop down onto the wharf. Soon the docks would be overrun, and the remnants of the Third with them.
Sabin, his armor spattered with gore and face flushed deep red with the effort of fighting in the heat, stood at Mahir's side. As he took a step back, his boot caught on a mooring line tying one of the remaining boats to the dock. Mahir shot out a hand to steady Sabin; a fall into the water in full armor would surely mean drowning. Death might be inevitable this day, but Mahir intended to meet his at the point of a sword, not lost to the sea. Sabin seemed to come to a different kind of conclusion though.
"Your Grace, the boats! Please my lord, get in, and quickly!"
The thought of futilely fleeing only to be chased down by the undoubtedly more skillful southerners in their native watercrafts did not seem a more desirable end to Mahir. When he said as much, Sabin boldly went so far as to seize Mahir by the shoulder and push him toward the little fishing dhow.
"Go now! Enough of us still remain...we can hold them off and buy you time." Sabin turned to Mahir and bowed, back as razor straight as ever despite heat, exhaustion, and impending doom. "You must return to Amenthere Your Grace. Return, and save Goran from itself."
Faced with his captain's selfless bravery, Mahir found his resolve once more. "I will. You and the Third will be honored by Gorians forever, I swear it."
Stepping off the dock and into the little dhow felt like falling. Sabin cut through the mooring line with a single stroke, severing the king from his men and setting Mahir adrift. Even as Mahir rushed to put up the sail, he wondered if Sabin's sacrifice would not be in vain anyways. The wind was low, and he did not know the currents along this shoreline. Painfully slowly, the boat set sail with its bow listing north. Mahir stood at the stern, committed to honor his men by watching their final stand until he could see no more.
The southerners broke out onto the wharf like a wave of black beetles, either swarming their prey or forcing them off the edges of the docks into the sea. Sabin refused to be drowned. Mahir watched the Captain of the Knights of Amenthis kill one, two, almost three southerners before meeting death at the end of a spear. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he might have spotted the BlackPearl amongst the rabble on the docks. Someone definitely spotted him. A call went up, and Factionists raced for the remaining boats. Black helplessness bubbled up inside Mahir. It wouldn't take long for them to catch up to him, not long at all.
It was then, when all seemed lost for the king that a powerful wind came seemingly out of nowhere, filling his sail and his sail alone.
OoOoO
Far away, many leagues to the north in Castle Armathain, Arzai and the rest of the Magicol stood gathered around Davenir in the Tower of the Elements. Arzai held a single flame burning on the palm of her hand, into which she gazed even as she directed the Grey Obad.
"Yes, that's it!" she exclaimed. "You have his sail, Davenir. Now bear the king north to the cliffs at Syrion. He will be safe there."
Davenir sat cross-legged on the rug in the centre of the common room, his lips and knuckles white with effort. Although he had not yet learned to cast without a trance as Arzai had, he was conscious enough to hear her relay instructions. Bvhoros hovered nearby, unable to help Davenir's air magic but intent upon the situation even so. Arzai would have liked to assist too. The strain of calling the winds over such a great distance was something Davenir had only attempted a handful of times before, and always at a cost.
The relief Arzai felt at seeing the king's vessel pulling further and further away from would-be pursuers reassured her though. The Third Company and Utunma had been lost, and these were both heavy blows. She even lamented the death of Captain Sabin, who had been undeniably committed to his duty to the last. None of these things could be helped right now. There would be time for righteous anger later. Her red eyes glowing with magic, Arzai watched Mahir let out the sail, struggling to work in his armor. He looked drained, grim, and yet not defeated.
Laying a hand on Davenir's trembling shoulder, Arzai squeezed encouragingly. She would continue to work beside Davenir, watching and guiding him for as long as he was able. Together they would bring the king of Goran home. They would return for Utunma and Moaan another day, and what a day of reckoning it would be...
OoOoO