On the tenth morning after the battle, before the baggage carts were backed up to the hospice porch, Mina unknotted the heavy canvas triangle that had supported Seyun’s left arm for nine days. She rotated his left upper arm bone gently through a thirty-degree arc at waist height, checked the anterior capsule beneath his scarred left collarbone. Then she replaced the sling with a lighter figure-eight linen brace wrapped across both shoulders beneath his tunic.
“The joint capsule has tightened cleanly,” Mina told him, pinning the linen ends flat. “You can use both hands below the chest and carry twenty-pound loads at waist height when we reach Oran. No overhead spear blocks and no sudden reaches behind your back for another three weeks.”
Seyun bent his left fingers in the open air. He felt the welcome return of ordinary symmetry across his back. He walked out into the sunny courtyard to help load the carts.
Three broad-wheeled mountain wagons stood harnessed in the gravel yard, stocked by Mother Renn with wool blankets, sealed crocks of marsh-reed salve, and barley loaves for the road.
None of the twelve inward-channel practitioners climbing onto those benches looked like the untouched heroes of a sect chronicle. Survival had left real marks that needed real ongoing care. But every single one of them was leaving the mountain breathing at their own pace.
