Sound muffled as we entered the forest, regaining my balance I ran beside Alida as she let go of my arm. I wanted to stop running, but feared that I would be left behind, and pressed myself, breathing heavily.

Alida nearly tumbled to the ground after a long while of running, managing to end up halfway seated instead. I stopped, turning around to reach out and pull her back up. My vision swam as I stopped and I stumbled to a seat a few steps to her left. I had lost the bow at some point in the run, the hip quiver was empty as well, all likely dropped or scattered somewhere along the path.

I tried to breathe deeply and slowly, occasionally panting as my need for air overcame me. When I was able see properly again I turned to Alida, who was still trying to clear her head. Now much calmer, a cut on her left arm jumped out at me, as did the blood leaking from it.

She ran with a wound bleeding out almost as long as I did. I thought with surprise.

[It’s still bleeding, further loss of blood is not advisable, as is the lack of sterilization.]

It was several inches long on the upper arm, pulling apart lightly, Alida was clutching at it with obvious discomfort, trying to pull the sides together. A dull throb from my side brought attention to a wound of my own, a glance revealed that I had a cut along the rib area, a small two inch cut. I cautiously brought my finger to poke it, gritting my teeth and discovering that it was about half a centimetre in depth.

A variety of small scratches was on our arms due to thorns and sticks along the path, the leather guard on our left forearm prevented scratches there, which was a small relief. Alida exhaled loudly, having decided to check her own wound. She turned to me and cracked a small smile. “I guess they didn’t chase us into the forest.”

I hoped not, if they had chosen to make a concentrated effort to hunt us down we were going to have a very bad time. I was reminded of a roleplay when some friends of mine chose to burn down a forest to kill something that had fled into it. I smiled wryly, that at least was highly unlikely.

Alida continued, “Have a spare cloth I can use? It’s really bleeding hard.”

I frowned, it was a pretty bad wound, just slapping on a cloth was most definitely going to lead to infection. I shook my head, “No, but we’re going to have to do more than just stopping the bleeding.”

I closed my eyes to think. Sanitation? Alcohol, full waterskin thanks to rarely drinking it. Stiches or bandaging? Wound that long, I’m pulling it together before it tears itself up further. Carve needle from either wood or thorns, see if there are any fibres I can use. Cursing the fact that my repair kit had been left in camp, I began fumbling around in the dark for sharp thorns.

I thanked Ivges for providing me with a fine wood carving knife, I hadn’t had to sharpen it as often as I’d thought. The thorn easily came free, long enough and thick enough for my purposes. Alida had begun gathering dry sticks, a bandage tied around her arm as a tourniquet for now. I stuck the thorn through a layer of my padded armour and begun looking for plants I could use for fibre.

We had settled on a low dip in the terrain, enough that our flame wouldn’t be easily seen, in case the Eioihens were tenacious enough to still be hunting for us. As the flame began to blossom, I knelt beside it and pulled out the thorn and carving knife.

It was once explained to me that at least when it came to carving wood, there was never a knife that was too sharp. The layers of hardened lignin were sloughed off little by little as I worked, flaking to the floor. The needle needed a curve to it, to make it easier when I tried to stitch the wound closed. My side throbbed uncomfortably, at least it wasn’t bleeding, there was no way I was going to be able to apply a tourniquet there.

I smoothed out the needle, removing whatever kinks and splinters I could, spiking myself in the hand would be hilarious, but a real pain to deal with. By this point the fibres had been softened in warm water from my other waterskin, and easily removed.

I asked Alida to clean the wound with some of the alcohol, it wasn’t very potent alcohol, but it would have to do. I quickly threaded a length of fibre through the needle’s eye. Alida had finished, laying the arm across a rock that I knelt beside. I took a small breath, and pushed the needle slowly through her skin. Alida tensed, giving a sharp exhale.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a doctor, not a particularly shocking thing to learn about from a child I suppose. I used to look up medical terms and procedures, which lead to me images that I’m sure my parents wouldn’t have approved of me seeing. It wasn’t hard to recall after my time sharing with Raque. I think this one was called a horizontal bed stitch?

My needle came out one side of the wound, and I carefully guided it just between skin and muscle, coming up a short distance away from the wound itself, I guided the needle along the wound and penetrated again, pulling a line parallel to the one I had already made from wound to wound. After coming up I tightened and tied the line, leaving a small bit of padding from my cut armour between the line and the skin.

So I continued, stopping every time Alida looked liable to jump up and scream. It took far longer than I expected, and when I finished I was surprised to see that the sun had risen. I grimaced when I realized I hadn’t sterilized the padding, and attempted to compensate by wetting them with alcohol. Alida gave a small muffled curse as the alcohol seeped in.

And now for myself. I thought with no small amount of hesitation.

[That won’t be necessary, the nanobots have sterilized the wound and are sealing it.] Page chirped.

I blinked in surprise, then smiled ruefully. They’d brought me back from injuries enough to cripple any human being, why on earth am I surprised?

Alida was too engrossed in her wound to notice my expressions. She surveyed my handiwork, running her fingers lightly across the stitches and the padding. She turned to me, “You taught this to Elder Raque, didn’t you?” I raised an eyebrow at that, and asked what she meant.

“Elder Raque never used anything like this until you appeared from nowhere.” She said, pulling her eyebrows together. “Many days before that there was a small flash of light during the night. I snuck over to see Raque pulling a charred person shaped lump into his cabin.”

Her eyes ask a question that I can’t bring myself to answer, for reasons I don’t know. Rustling leaves and broken twigs take our attention, I turn to see Loran, trudging towards us. He sits down heavily once he arrives. As I open my mouth to greet him he cuts me off, “Trevor was crushed under the hooves of cavalry.” He slumped into a seat on the ground.

The atmosphere immediately grew solemn and heavy, yet somehow the first thought I have is simple: I’m lucky it wasn’t me. I will the thought away, feeling… ashamed? No, disappointed. I bit the bullet and cut the silence before it settled itself over us. “Seen any other of our troops out there?” I gestured in a semi-circle with my left hand.

“No, I saw light so I just wandered over.” He said listlessly, not even bothering to look in my direction. He idly felt at his leg, suddenly jolting back into a less passive state upon finding an open wound. He looked at it in surprise, just realizing his wound. I noted several other small wounds across his arm and a shallow cut on his chest.

It took quite a bit of coaxing before he would allow me to stitch up his wounds, who knew Loran could be so worried about pain, Alida held his hand as I worked. The wounds on his arm were superficial, so I let them lie, instead stitching the cut across his chest and the cut on his leg.

“Are we done now?” Loran asked, voice slightly shaky.

I smiled at him, bemused and amused in equal measure. “Yes, we are, your pain tolerance is rather weak.”

He scowled slightly, “Come on! It hurt like a wasp sting.” Actually, sans the poison, I think the needle was almost as thick as one, so the analogy is a lot more accurate than he thinks.

Alida smirks a little as well, teasing him about needing to hold her hand. She fixed me with a stern expression, indicating that she hadn’t forgotten about her inquiry. Just my luck.

I asked Loran how the battle looked before he ran. “Battle? Rechav, we were slaughtered. My unit scattered after we were hit from three sides, whoever didn’t run was cut down or felled by arrows. If there’s even an army left it’s liable to be a tenth of its original size.” He looked at me flatly. “We’re pretty screwed.”

“What in the name of the six winds hit us though?” Alida mused. “I’ve never even heard of a commander capable of those tactics.” She posed a good question, night warfare was difficult due to communication, discipline and generally being unable to tell whose side one was on. That the commander had managed to both overcome these and still pull off those complex manoeuvres was one heck of a feat.

No one had any information on that, perhaps it was a recent thing, or maybe just above our paygrade. We did a whole lot of speculation for an hour or two, before deciding we’d best start figuring out how to survive and find whatever remained of the army.

Snaring animals was simple enough, all of us had done it at some point during our march, cleaning and roasting the animal was also a simple task. We figure to retrace our steps, we had all mostly been running in a single direction after all. When we felt lost we looked for carrion circling overhead, a reminder of our ignominious defeat.

The rest of the army had apparently also thought the same as we did, setting up camp upwind of the battlefield. Even now people were trickling in from all corners. Some physicians were waiting over the other side, the methods in use in this age meant they really qualified more as crude sawbones.

I passed on medical treatment, as did Alida and Loran, as we trudged our way to where all the other troops gathered I slipped over to the lord’s tents. It’s amazing how much people will ignore you if you move confidently and surely. Expletives loudly came from the tent, it seemed a surgeon was treating the man’s wounds. “Any knowledge on who it was that ambushed us? We’re supposed to protect the people, not slaughter them with incompetence!” The lord, I presumed.

“None, other companies are also reporting the same, we’re waiting on House Yeraim to report, they have thus far been the only ones to have met them and fought evenly.” A female voice.

“I see, we’ll have to push hard, we’re too close to victory to let them take us out. All men tire at some point.” The lord replied, more subdued. A rustling from inside told me that people were about to leave, and I swiftly snuck away.