A faint smell of herbs boiled through the night had seeped into the tent.
Ruan Hesse opened the small wooden box before the sun had fully risen.
A little of the silverleaf herb Melli had sent yesterday still remained.
It did not take long to separate the dry leaves from those whose tips had gone soft.
Even so, his hands moved with a strangely careful touch.
Sera looked over while changing the water bucket.
“The herbs come before the patients?”
“They need to be dried before they spoil.”
“Looks like you’re planning to set up an apothecary in the middle of a battlefield.”
Ruan did not answer.
Only while the dry leaves brushed his fingertips did the smell inside the tent change a little.
Amid the scent of blood and wet cloth, the smell of grass drying in his hometown backyard mingled very faintly.
A roof that did not leak.
A door that did not creak.
A small clinic with only two herb boxes by the window.
Even as those things came to mind, Ruan soon stilled his hands.
Because it had grown noisy outside the tent.
A sentry lifted the entrance flap and peered inside.
“Doctor. That archer who returned from the left hill is here.”
“Ramon?”
“Yes. He’s not alone.”
Sera immediately frowned.
“I already smell trouble.”
When Ruan stepped outside, Ramon was standing there.
His left arm was slung around his neck with a bandage, and blood was showing through it again.
His face was pale, but his eyes were strangely alive.
The moment Ruan saw him, irritation welled up first.
“Why did you draw a bow?”
“I came to report first.”
“Is that really the first thing you should be saying right now?”
Ramon smiled awkwardly.
Ruan liked that smile even less.
“The scouting party on the left hill was hit. The enemy scout leader came in through a detour, and I fired the last arrow.”
“So two stitches in your sutures came apart.”
“If I hadn’t, three more would have died.”
“So you decided to throw away one of your arms?”
A brief silence fell.
The words were not wrong.
And so Ramon could not refute them easily.
Ruan seized his arm at once and dragged him inside.
“Come in. I’ll stitch it again.”
“I made it back alive thanks to you.”
“Thank me after I reattach your arm.”
Ramon laughed awkwardly.
But three soldiers in front of the tent had already seen the scene.
The archer unit’s marksman who, only a few days ago, had been lying on a stretcher.
That marksman had returned to the battlefield, pierced the enemy scout leader, and walked back again.
And the first person he sought out was not a commander or the knight order, but the youngest military physician.
One of the soldiers outside the entrance had already turned and run off.
Once they entered, Orte picked up the record board.
“Name.”
“Ramon. Third row, archer unit.”
“Arm wound reopened after return from reconnaissance engagement on the left hill.”
While Orte wrote that down, Ruan opened the sutured area again.
The wound had split wider than expected.
This was not from having used the arm a little.
It was the wound of a man who had drawn a bowstring to the very end.
Threading the needle, Ruan said in a low voice,
“If you go out again, you truly won’t be able to hold a bow.”
“I understand.”
Ruan did not believe that answer.
People like this said they understood and then used it again until they died.
After a few stitches had gone in, someone near the entrance muttered under his breath.
“Wasn’t that man half dead a few days ago?”
“I know. Once that youngest one gets his hands on you, don’t you really get back up?”
Sera immediately glared toward the entrance.
But it was already too late.
The sort of people who pretended not to hear were always the ones who held on to such words the longest.
Ruan did not stop his hands.
Orte’s pen tip paused only for a moment, then moved again.
Karen, leaning beside the door, watched outside with eyes that seemed to gauge just how far those words would spread.
When the stitching was done, Ramon tried to get down from the stretcher.
Before one knee could even touch the ground, Sera pressed down on his shoulder.
She spoke as if dumbfounded.
“What are you doing now? You can’t even use your arm.”
“I thought I should bow at least once.”
Ruan’s face immediately hardened.
“Stop.”
“If it weren’t for you, Doctor, I would have been finished last time.”
“So you drew a bow again with an arm that hadn’t even healed?”
“Even so, those three survived.”
“That is wrong from the start.”
Ramon lifted his head.
Even the soldiers standing in front of the tent held their breath with him.
Ruan did not raise his voice.
If anything, it was lower and colder.
“The fact that you returned alive was not because of my hands alone. You endured the fever, withstood the pain, Sera changed the water, Brother Orte kept your name on record, and you held on until the end.”
“……”
“But outside, they erase everything in between. They say you stood again because I touched you once.”
The smile slowly disappeared from Ramon’s face.
“Because of words like that, people start hiding their wounds and enduring them. People who should call for a stretcher walk here on their own feet. And then it’s too late.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“But that is how it spreads.”
Just then, a young infantryman hesitantly looked in from the entrance.
He was soaked with blood below the waist, though he had roughly pressed a cloth over it.
His face was pale, and his steps were unsteady.
Sera noticed first.
“You. When were you injured?”
“Just now.”
“Why are you standing in that state? Lie down, quickly.”
“I’m fine. They said I only had to make it here.”
For a very brief moment, the inside of the tent went silent.
Ruan immediately went to him.
When he removed the cloth, the area below the man’s side was deeply split open.
It was not a wound that would kill him right away.
But it was certainly a wound that should have had him lying down immediately.
“Who said that?”
The infantryman watched their faces, then answered in a small voice.
“They were saying that if I could just get to the tent with the youngest doctor, I’d make it.”
At those words, Ramon went rigid.
Ruan swallowed a short breath.
His anger was directed less at Ramon than at the world outside the tent that had made those words.
But his hands moved before his anger did.
“Sera. Clean cloth. Brother Orte, take down his name first.”
“My name is Daren.”
“Speak less. You’ll bleed more.”
Daren clenched his teeth and lay on the stretcher.
Even so, his face looked strangely relieved.
“I made it here, didn’t I?”
“This is not a place where it’s all right to arrive late.”
“Everyone said……”
“Does everyone bleed in your place?”
Only then did Daren shut his mouth.
Ruan pressed the wound and calculated inwardly.
It was close, but not too late.
Daren still could not let go of the bloodstained cloth in his hand.
Until the suturing was finished, Ramon could not say a word.
Orte wrote down the name, affiliation, and time of injury on the record board.
On the last line, he added a short note.
Delayed evacuation.
Sera changed the wet cloth without looking once in Ramon’s direction.
Only after covering Daren’s wound did Ruan take his hands away.
Fortunately, they could get him through for now.
He turned to Ramon one last time.
“Do you understand now?”
Only after a long while did Ramon answer quietly.
“Yes.”
“You may say that you made it back alive. But don’t say that if someone walks here, they’ll live.”
“……”
“This tent is not a place that makes heroes. It is a place that barely keeps people from dying.”
Ramon slowly lowered his head.
It was deeper than when he had tried to bow a moment ago.
“I’ll correct it.”
From that afternoon on, Ramon lingered near the entrance.
He caught each passing soldier and told them that if they were injured, they should not endure it, but call for a stretcher first.
Sera clicked her tongue as she watched him.
“Now he’s finally starting to understand human speech.”
Karen looked toward the door and said briefly,
“At least it isn’t too late.”
Ruan did not reply.
Daren’s pulse was still weak, but it had not stopped.
When he moistened the young infantryman’s dry lips with water, Daren murmured very faintly with his eyes closed.
“Next time, I’ll call for a stretcher first.”
“It would be best if there were no next time.”
Sera gave a small laugh beside him.
It was a short laugh.
But with that laugh, today became just a little less terrible.
As the sun began to sink, Ruan closed the herb box again.
In the morning, it had briefly smelled like home, but now only the scent of blood remained heavier on his hands.
Even so, the hand that shut the box trembled less than it had in the morning.
That day, Ramon repeated the same words more than twenty times.
If you are injured, don’t endure it. Call for a stretcher first.
Outside the tent, the words rolled on in yet another shape.
That the youngest military physician had saved Ramon and set him on his feet again.
That the youngest one had stood Ramon up when he tried to bow and scolded him.
Some called it a humble rebuke, while others spoke of it like a maxim warning them not to use their lives carelessly.
Ruan did not want to hear any of it.
Karen stood by the doorway with the face of someone who had heard it all.
Only when Ruan dipped his hands into the water bucket did she say quietly,
“You’re not trying to set people back on their feet. You’re trying to keep them lying down.”
“That is what a military physician is supposed to do.”
“Not everyone will think so.”
Ruan did not answer.
Because she was right.
Covering a wound did not mean it was over.
The bleeding had stopped, but the fever had yet to come.
The fact that it had not come did not mean he was safe.
Once the night passed, the body would belatedly demand its price.
Ruan placed a wet cloth on Daren’s forehead and checked the position of the water bucket again.
Sera silently took out more boiled cloth.
Orte left a small mark at the edge of the record board.
It meant this was a name that needed watching.
From inside the tent, Daren groaned again.
Ruan turned at once.
His thoughts always ended that way.
In the end, there was still only one thing he could do today.
Change the water, cover the wounds, and make people lie down before it was too late.