Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
After midday, more come racing into the tent carrying their injured. This time, Quin is behind them, hobbling. I’ve never been so happy to see that hobble. It feels so relieving that I, too, am unable to balance. I stagger to him. His face is tired, worn, but he’s still attempting a smile for me. I steal him to a stool outside where he can look up at the cloudless sky and not upon the fallen.
I grab his wrist and take his pulse, but he shakes his head. Not wounded. This is his leg.
He glances at passing stormblades and back to me, and my gaze meets his with shared understanding. He’s been on horseback so far, but there will be times he’ll be forced to his feet. He needs a plausible reason he can’t move easily or he might raise suspicions. Might give his true identity away.
Quickly, I bandage his lower leg under the knee, with some wood for the appearance of added support. Anyone will understand a hobble now. As I tie the last knot, Quin organises his band of fighters, giving orders, receiving the condition of his injured men. And no sooner is his horse brought to him than he hops right back on it.
I clasp his reins and whisper up at him. “You’re tired. Your magic is near drained. You need to meditate.”
He grimaces, taking his reins. “Their numbers are greater than ours.” He glances towards the healing tent. “I need my men fit enough to fight a few more hours.”
Until his brother arrives with more.
“I saw some pearl heart.”
“Commander Kjartan will escort any capable of battle in an hour.”
I rush inside and brew a soup using the last of the pearl heart; my fellow healers help me feed it to those with minor injuries. The colour soon returns to their cheeks and their pulses thicken with strength.
Commander Kjartan. The ship’s captain I’ve shared weal and woe with is again at the heart of a fight. A commander of fighting men. He enters the tent and asks if there are any willing to help their comrades at the centre of battle.
Without a moment’s hesitation, all those with minor injuries rise and file out of the tent—even the more severely injured try, but we steer them back to their mats with a shake of the head.
“You’ll drag them down like this,” I murmur. “Recover first.”
Commander Kjartan calls again into the tent. “We need a healer to join us out there. Who’s brave enough to volunteer?”
Out there is the thick of battle, the clash of metal and the spilling of blood.
Out there is blood that might become our own.
I feel their fear along with my own. I want to shrink behind my patient, but what of those that can’t be moved here? Those who so courageously march towards death on the hope they can save those behind them? And—
Out there is Quin.
I rise from my crouch. Commander Kjartan spots me and his eyes flash in recognition. “You will come,” he says with certainty.
“I will come.”
We approach the rocky pass bridging Harmoria and Portael on foot. We’re to climb with bow and arrow into the cliffs that rise sharply on either side of the narrow pass where the battle rages. Their armour is light; it allows them swift and quiet movement into rocky crevices, but this lightness also amplifies the din ahead—the clash of metal, the roar of commands, the warcries of the Wyrds, the thuds of the fallen . . .
Kjartan steers me into a nook in a wall of rock, large enough for a healer to patch a few men up, but little else, and when I peer around the edge I get an eyeful of fierce movement only a dozen yards away—
There. Quin on horseback, the last barrier of defence on the pass, slashing with his mighty sword. My heart pounds and my sweaty hands clutch the rock concealing me.
Two Wyrds uniformed in blue and seated upon black horses charge at Quin at once, and Quin masterfully steps his horse to avoid the brunt of it, turning their force to his advantage and throwing them off their steeds.
Kjartan has his bow out and fires an arrow at the Wyrd who rises and tries to stab Quin’s horse.
The killing thunk of the arrow has my stomach rioting. He’s a soldier violently forcing his way into Skeldar land, but he’s also a young man. A boy under orders.
Commander Kjartan grunts. “Beyond this pass there are tens of thousands of them. Their numbers are heavily stacked against us. I pray to all the gods that jarl’s backup arrives soon.”
Nicostratus.
A fresh wave of Wyrds charge into the pass, and I feel the weight of the men’s exhaustion as they quickly drag the wounded behind them and regroup at Quin’s orders. This must be the Wyrds’ tactic. Tire us out with wave after wave of fresh attack.