The field dressing station had been set up inside the arched stone pavilion of the lower gatehouse, sheltered from the cutting alpine wind by thick dry-laid granite walls. A cast-iron fire bowl glowed in the center of the flat stone slab floor, burning chunks of clean birch cordwood that smelled of sweet pitch and dry paper instead of the rancid coal briquettes of the lower wards.
The riggers lowered the litter onto two heavy oak saw-horses. Brant Sallow knelt right away at Len’s left side, his knees cracking on the cold stone, a pair of heavy, blunt-nosed bronze shears already in his right hand.
The surgeon didn’t waste time with gentle preliminaries. He smelled of boiled vinegar, carbolic soap, and sweat-soaked wool. The sharp, antiseptic odor of a man who had spent forty-eight hours amputating crushed limbs in the quarry sick room.
“Hold the wrist, Bram,” Sallow commanded without looking up. “Firm grip above the styloid process. Don’t let the forearm bone rotate when the linen gives.”
Bram Ash stepped up to the head of the litter. His sound left hand closed around Len’s forearm just above the wrist. His calloused fingers were cold. But they held the joint with the unmoving, steady pressure of a blacksmith’s vice.
