"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." – Stephen King

Raven's Peak, Ardam 40

I survey the battlefield. It is bloody. Seeing this makes it hard to understand why men sing and brag about their deeds from battle. This carnage is revolting. Things shouldn't be like this. People should not be dying in these circumstances.

It stinks. The flies have already descended on the corpses.

I make my way between the corpses. It is hopeless. I'm not seeing any survivors at this point in the field. Those who were injured and mobile enough to stay standing retreated to the back. Those here never had a chance. If they were still alive when they hit the ground, they didn't remain so after being trampled by those fighting over them.

My dress' hem is soaked and caked with blood and mud.

Somewhere in the back, a body cart squeaks. The smell of burning flesh hits me as the wind ruffles my hair. I gag.

An unwanted memory surfaces.

I've mostly succeeded in suppressing it – mostly.

The reason my father allowed me to study healing: to help me to attempt reconciliation with myself.

The smoke on the battlefield mixes with the fog.

I barely think about it – barely. There are some triggers of which lightning and burning flesh are the most potent ones. Luckily I don't smell burning flesh too often – only its aftermath in the tent of the injured.

But today the stench is everywhere.

Our enemy does not even go to the trouble of removing their own dead. We burn the bodies in two piles: ours and theirs. There is no space to bury our men.

Elan also forbids any bodies to be carried into the city from the battlefield. He dreads disease.

All our soldiers have been given a piece of flat stone with their name engraved on it. The body gatherers only collect these name tags that the soldiers carry around their neck by means of a leather string.

My father instated the system. The family of every soldier gets an exact copy. They can claim for some compensation after the war – when the king announces it. But money can't replace your husband or your son.

I kick an arm out of my way – an arm!

That day was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies and no clouds blotching its face. It was almost high-summer - much like today.

Suddenly it is all too much. I flee from the battlefield and my inner monsters, my heart hammering in my ears.

By the time I re-enter the city walls, my breath has normalized and I have regained my composure.

My heart is still thumping against my chest.

I walk away from the main throng of people moving between the city and the battlefield.

I finally stop walking when the crowd has thinned.

I close my eyes.

I feel the sunlight on my skin.

I listen to the sound of the city.

That is in the past, Aebbé, I chide myself.

It happened sixteen years ago.

Finally, having calmed myself, I go to the hospital – taking the solitary walk up the stairs.

This time I count them, but my brain gets stuck at the hundred-and-sixty-seventh step – still way below halfway up.

I am immediately overwhelmed and sucked into the activity when I arrive at the top.

Hours or days later Elan forces me to take a break - the first break since I entered the beehive of activity aimed at saving and salvaging.

"Twit, it is now noon of the second day after the battle," he says.

I look at him, barely registering his words.

My muscles ache and my eyes burn. It feels as if someone poked them with their fingers covered in sand. I don't know when I started to feel tired, but I kept going.

"Go to the roof and get some fresh air. I'll send a nurse up with some horrible tea since you haven't yet given me mine."

I manage to give him a lopsided smile before following his advice.

I can see the whole of Raven's Peak from where I am standing. The Hospital is on the plateau of the highest mountain.

I try to keep myself awake by revisiting the facts of the war.

The war started about a year ago with an attack on Raven's Peak by our country's neighbouring enemy country - Darkeland.

I don't know why they chose to start their attack by trying to defeat Raven's peak. Sure, it has an excellent tactical position, but it is also the ultimate fortress. It was built between four enormous mountains with walls that are twenty metres thick between them.

That is not the correct description of the walls.

Let me try again: the walls are twenty metres broad with a thickness of four metres on both sides. The wall is hollow in between. The soldiers' rooms and the city's storage halls are in this space.

The height of the walls varies.

It is impenetrable. It has always been impenetrable. Other cities have been attacked and conquered, but no-one has ever dared to move against Raven's Peak.

After the initial attack, my uncle Lord Fre'duric, the lord of Raven's Peak, must have sent messengers to my brothers who rallied everyone they could to defend Raven's Peak.

When enough forces arrived, they pushed the enemy away from the walls and away from Raven's Peak, but the Darkelanders did not retreat.

They kept advancing, so every few days a new battle was fought to push them away from the wall that faced and keep them from circling Raven's Peak to the rest of Ardamland.

The nurse hands me a porcelain saucer and cup with tea.

I thank her and take a sip.

Elan told me her name sometime during the past day, but I was busy with something.

I must ask him again.

Too late I realize that I could've asked her.

She handed me a few cups during the last more than thirty hours, but I just gulped them down when moving between patients.

My attention is drawn by the tower on the mountain opposite me.

There is a structure with a tower on every mountain.

I am standing at the top of this mountain's tower.

I know that if I turn around and walk to the other side I would be able to see the black sea of our enemies.

I made the mistake of turning around yesterday – no, the day before that – and was confronted by the sea of despair attacking us.

The Sea of Despair.

It has a poetic ring to it.

They should write a poem about it - how Raven's Peak was almost sunk by the Sea of Despair rolling in from Darkeland, but how everyone stood together and drew each other out of it.

If we do.

I haven't been to any war meetings, but the past few days have revealed that our chances of doing that are slim.

I'm pulled back to the present by the heat.

It is a hot day, but the heat of summer hasn't come yet. Raven's Peak doesn't ever get snow. Summer will be at its most glorious in about a month's time.

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

Time to resume my duties.

I walk across the surface of the tower to the steps and follow them down into a room filled with supplies for treating wounds.

Elan is very strict about cleanliness. He tells us every day that unclean wounds, unclean hands and unclean practices lead to rotting wounds and dead soldiers.

Before my time in Inwir City, I thought his militarism about it excessive.

Now I appreciate what he is doing.

The room is stocked from floor to ceiling with linen cloth and strips of all sizes. The material was cooked and then dried in a very clean room. We use a lot of material every day. When we have used the material, it is sent down the mountain to be washed and dried and then sent up again.

I follow the very narrow stairs a floor down.

I place my half-full teacup on a protruding corner. The nurse will know where to get it.

I walk to the pump and pump water until the bucket is full. I carry the bucket and place it on a wooden table. I grab a brush and a crumb of soap. I scrub my hands and nails until I can imagine a layer of skin coming loose. I withdraw my hands and walk to the pump. With one foot I pump while I rinse my hands.

There is a drain on the floor by the tap. I don't know where the water goes.

I follow the stairs another two floors down until I am on the ground floor.

"My lady Aebbé, soldier John of Suko passed away."

I try to recall the soldier's face and wounds. I am unsuccessful.

Marilla sees the frown on my face.

"The soldier with the eye injury," she continues.

I nod.

The soldier would have passed anyway. There wasn't anything I could do for him. I asked the Marilla to make him comfortable and keep him company and inform me when he has passed.

"I will need your help with the next soldier."

"Yes, my lady."

"Marilla, within the hospital walls I am just Aebbé – no titles or forms of address. Please?"

She smiles: "I will try, but you are the first noblewoman ever to speak to me."

I walk to soldier I would've started treating before my forced (albeit necessary) break.

His western coneflower skin almost appears pale; he must have lost a lot of blood.

He has broad shoulders, but even the biggest men I treat appear even smaller when they are shrunken in pain. When I treat them, they seem to grow.

"Good day, soldier. I am Aebbé. I am going to clean your wound and repair the damage. I am sorry that I am only helping you now."

groans an unintelligible reply. His steel-eyes are sharp, like a sword, and intelligent. Under normal circumstances, I doubt that anything would escape those intelligent eyes.

"Can we please give this brave soldier a drink for the pain?"

"Yes, Aebbé."

Marilla rushes to the soldier's side and offers him a sip from a bottle of very strong alcohol that hangs on a belt from her side. I can smell it from where I am standing at his feet.

I walk to his side and unwrap the wound. The wound was wrapped with a linen bandage to minimize the chance of it becoming dirty and infected, but it did not help too much. I can see that the edges of the wound are darker and turning black.

It is a horrible wound. The soldier's arm has a horrible gash just above the elbow. The bleeding has stopped, but clots hug the side of the wound.

I have learned that the patients I see fall in two categories: those of common birth with injuries minor enough that they retained their mobility and retreated from the battlefield by themselves; and those of noble blood that were rescued from the battlefield by their men. The nobility has more life-threatening injuries. The commoners with the serious injuries die on the battlefield because they have no-one to carry them from the battlefield.

Even though he has a less serious injury, I suspect he is a nobleman: his armour betrays him.

"Marilla, the first thing you do when you see any wound, is clean it with alcohol. You don't need Elan or my permission to do so."

She pales. "This is not my patient, my lady."

I comfort her with a smile: "I know it is not. I am giving you advice on how to keep our brave soldiers alive."

The colour returns to her face as she says: "Yes, Aebbé."

I will probably have to amputate the arm.

"Marilla, please take the soldier's pulse and then ask him to squeeze your fingers."

She takes the hand of the soldier. She is feeling for the pulse in the wrong place, but I will leave her until she realizes her mistake.

Her face scrunches up in an adorable frown. I wish that I looked that cute when I frown, then my society might excuse me, but I just look like a thunderstorm.

"He doesn't have any pulse."

"Are you sure you did it correctly?"

She looks to me and back to the soldier's hand: "I am not really sure how to do it. One of the other nurses told me how to do it, but she did not show me."

I walk to the soldier's side.

"The first thing you must make sure is that the arm and heart are on the same level."

I gently take the soldier's arm from her and lower it down next to him on the bed.

I turn his hand so his palm faces upward.

"There are two places you can feel for the pulse. Normally you only need to feel for this one," I place two fingers on the spot, "and you always feel with two fingers, because you follow the course of that the blood flows. Do you see that my fingers are placed at the place where the thumb and its muscle end?"

"Yes."

"But the blood that goes there comes from here.'" I trace the blood's course on the soldier's arm. "And you see that the wound interrupts this blood flow so you won't be able to feel the pulse. Do you understand, Marilla?"

"Yes, and the second place?"

I place my fingers on the spot: "Here, just below the pinkie and its muscle, but this is its course." I trace the course.

"It comes from the same place as the other one, do you see that?"

"Yes."

"You were correct that there is no pulse, even if you felt for it in the wrong place."

I give her a smile. She returns it shyly.

"What will you do now?"

I go down into a squat.

I reach over and take the soldier's other hand.

"Soldier, can you hear me?"

"Yes," he groans.

''You know that your arm is hurt badly?"

"Yes."

His enormous hand is black from death.

I must amputate.

It will be very challenging to saw through the enormous bulk of muscle.

"Marilla, do you see that this brave soldier's hand is going black? It is dying. When a part of the body stops receiving blood, it will start to die in a few minutes. Soldier, what is your name?"

"Dareios."

"How old are you?"

"I am twenty."

"Dareios, we have to amputate your arm. I am really sorry, but it is the only way I can help you."

He nods.

I can see tears welling up in his eyes.

"I need two leather belts, a saw, scalpels and bandages please."

Marilla nods and disappears.

I lift the soldier's head up and give him poppy milk. It will help to numb the pain. He won't be completely unconscious, but he will be tripping so far from Raven's Peak, that he won't even notice me hacking his arm off.

Marilla brings everything I need.

I tie the belt around his arm - just above the wound.

I cut the skin first.

Marilla winces.

"Marilla, you have to be strong for Dareios's sake. It is the worst day of his life. He will look to you and seek strength from you. Can you be strong?"

She nods slowly.

"Yes, I can."

"Good."

I cut the skin into a flap that I can use to cover the stump that will remain.

The rest of the amputation process is very quick.

"Soldier Dareios, this nurse will take care of you."

I doubt he can even hear me.

"Marilla, you did excellently."

My compliment causes her to beam into a smile.

"Now, please watch this soldier and comfort him when he wakes up."

Marilla has potential. She learns quickly.

I think I will take her under my wing and teach her.

But not today. I am too tired.

After that Elan chases me away: "Go Twit. You will kill more than the battle did if you stay awake much longer."

I stifle a yawn.

"I am proud of you Twit, even if you are doing sloppy work."

I smile.