Four minutes remained on the interior evacuation clock, and the timber-shored clinic ramp was slick with condensation and spilled willow-bark wash.
Through the subterranean acoustic flues, Noll Vey followed the slow, grinding progress of the final stretcher teams climbing out of the deep hospital basin. Fen walked at the head of the third litter, his woolen sleeves soaked to the elbows with vinegar and ditch water. Under his left arm, pressed tight against his ribs, the young healer carried the linen-wrapped fragments of Sergeant Berr’s notched service sword and the singed, soot-blackened roster of the three hundred and sixty dead border guards.
His right hand was gripped firmly around the ash carrying-pole of the canvas stretcher.
“Keep the head elevated, Corporal,” Fen called out, his boots finding purchase on the split timber cleats that Ossa Flint had spiked into the rock floor. “Edren, hold that tea flask inside your coat. If the cork pops, we’ll have hot peppermint tea in your bandaged thigh, and I have no clean linen left to dress a scald.”
On the canvas litter, Edren clutched the pewter flask against his chest with both calloused hands. His scarred face was pale, his grey beard speckled with plaster dust from the crumbling ceiling above, but his dark eyes were bright with valley stubbornness.
