Fen’s knees struck the wet limestone flagstones with a dull splash that sent cold lime water soaking through his trousers. His satchel swung forward, spilling rolled linen, ash splints, and two dried cakes of willow-bark wash into the puddle beside the plinth of the Old Royal Seat.
He did not look at the bandages. His hands moved on their own, reaching into the sodden mess of blue-white sparks and shattered oath-silver where Collar Anchor 3 had stood a moment before.
“Hold still, Sergeant,” Fen said, his voice carrying the flat efficiency of a border surgeon who had seen too many field amputations by candlelight. “Keep your ribs against the stone. Don’t lift your neck. Sen, bring that wool coat down two steps—”
“Fen,” a dry rasp came from the rubble.
It sounded like shale shingles sliding across each other in a cold cellar draft.
Sergeant Berr lay on his side across the bottom riser of the royal seat stair. The notched service sword he had carried for thirty winters lay in five jagged chunks in the slurry, the longest piece pinned under the shattered casing of the third anchor. His right wrist had cracked when he drove the blade home, the small metacarpal bones scattered among the brass filings. His left arm was already gone, stripped to bare chalk at the shoulder by the traitor-ward.
