Before the fire could be kindled, the bleeding had to be stanched and the extent of the trauma cataloged with surveying care.
Qiao Ming returned to the glow-stone berth carrying a clay pot basin of clean well water, a roll of boiled linen strips, and his small copper-handled surgeon’s knife. The water had been drawn from the freshwater spring that trickled from the ceiling of Entry hall 004. Pure, cold water drops that filtered through three miles of dense limestone, devoid of sea salt, sulfur, or living parasites. In his leather apron pocket, he carried a wooden box filled with fine-grained river sand to dry his hands, and a horn pot of animal fat salve.
He pulled back the coarse wool blanket from her left side, exposing the soaked indigo fabric of her sleeve.
The fabric was soaked with clotted gore, the dark silk stiffened into an unbending crust that stuck fast to the sliced open muscle beneath. The wound stretched from below the elbow to the fleshy base of her thumb. A jagged, tearing cut made not by a polished steel blade, but by the jagged edge of snapped iron plating or shattered void-armor. Black grit, greasy soot, and tiny flecks of rainbow-bright bronze paint were embedded deep in the torn flesh, weeping a watery, pink serum.
