Before dawn had even fully broken, chaos erupted outside the tent.
It was not one stretcher, but four.
The sound of wet wheels scraping through mud struck in succession, and the evacuation soldiers’ breathing was ragged enough to snap.
Before Sera could even shove the water pail aside, the stench of blood came rushing deep inside.
The moment Ruan Hese saw the first stretcher, his brows hardened.
The abdomen.
And it was a wound where the spearhead had twisted in sideways.
More than the blood spreading on the surface, the inside was torn and mangled far worse.
One evacuation soldier gasped out,
“It’s Commander Roen.
The eastern barricade line gave way once, and he held it to the end.”
Another evacuation soldier continued, his face nearly in tears.
“When it collapsed, he stayed behind alone and sent the rest of us back.
That’s how we got out.”
Bereun immediately moved beside the stretcher.
The old veteran pulled back the cloth, swept his eyes over the wound once, then withdrew his hand without hesitation.
“Too late.”
Two short words.
For an instant, every breath inside the tent stopped with them.
Sera froze as well.
Oreute lifted only his gaze with the record board open, and Karen took one step in from the entrance before stopping where she stood.
Ruan turned his eyes to the other stretchers.
A spearman with his left shoulder deeply torn.
An archer with an arrowhead lodged in his thigh.
A supply soldier whose side beneath the ribs had caved in.
All three were urgent.
Even so, all three were still within reach.
Bereun spoke low and firm.
“We take the spearman first.
The archer will hold if we pull only the arrowhead and stop the bleeding.
I’ll see to the supply soldier.
Ruan, leave the commander.”
He was right.
Ruan had known it at first glance.
Too much had spilled inside the abdomen.
If he put his hands in now, more blood would be lost than stopped.
But the man on the stretcher opened his eyes.
Roen drew one deep breath, then barely managed to meet his gaze.
His face was already pale as a dead man’s, but his eyes had not clouded.
They were the eyes of a man who had endured to the very end.
“Surgeon.”
His voice was hoarse.
Even so, the call itself was clear.
“See to the kids behind me first.
Those three need to live and stand again.”
Sera immediately answered those words.
“You heard him, right?
This side first.”
Roen moved the corner of his mouth ever so slightly.
It was hard to tell whether he had smiled or clenched his teeth.
“Leave those bastards’ names behind.
They’re not men who backed down out of fear.”
Oreute’s pen tip pressed into the paper.
“I’m listening.”
The moment he heard that sound, something in Ruan shook even deeper.
It was not the voice of someone clinging to him, begging to be saved.
It was telling him to look after the people behind him first.
Bereun’s voice fell again.
“Ruan.”
This time, he only called his name.
Even so, the meaning was clear.
“Your head already knows.
Where your hands need to go.”
Ruan exhaled long and tried to step toward the other stretchers.
Then Roen’s hand caught the end of his wet sleeve.
There was almost no strength in it.
And yet, strangely, it weighed heavily.
“Let me ask one thing.”
Roen’s breath split.
“Is it not too late yet?”
The answer caught in Ruan’s throat.
Sera shouted in a raised voice,
“This one’s bleeding again!”
Bereun was already pressing hard below the supply soldier’s ribs.
Holding two places at once by himself, his shoulders had gone rigid as stone.
The spearman, the archer, and the supply soldier were all calling for hands now.
In the end, Ruan knelt beside Roen.
“I’m looking at the wound.
Speak less.”
Bereun clenched his teeth.
“You mad bastard.
Don’t do this again.”
It was a curse, but he did not stand in his way.
Ruan pretended not to hear.
He had known even before putting his hand in.
Realistic treatment alone would not hold him.
Even so, his hand would not pull away.
As he felt along the torn places, hot blood soaked his palm.
There were too many severed points.
The pulse trembled shallowly and fast.
His mind was already screaming at him to look at the second stretcher, but neither his feet nor his hands would leave this place.
Roen asked briefly through clenched teeth,
“Those three?”
Without looking away, Ruan answered,
“I’ll save them.”
When those words ended, he took off his glove.
Sera drew in a breath.
Oreute’s pen tip paused for a moment.
Karen’s hand stiffened faintly over her scabbard.
Only Bereun swallowed a curse, very low.
“Damn it.”
Ruan laid his bare hand over the wound.
The first thing that came was a sensation neither cold nor hot.
After that, as always, the pain of something being torn away from within surged up.
His temples went numb and white, and from deep inside his ears spread an echo like the sound of water far away.
Beneath his fingertips, he could clearly feel time on his side being sucked away.
This time, it took.
The breath that had been scattering gathered together very, very slowly.
The collapsing pulse quivered as if it would break, then barely continued in a single thread.
He had not completely saved him.
It was only enough to forcefully prop up a body that had barely managed to hang on again at the edge of a cliff.
Bereun moved at that exact moment.
“Now.
Sera, keep pressure on the spearman.
Oreute, the friar, step back.
Ruan, don’t take your hand off.”
Instead of cursing, the old veteran pushed forward with his hands.
He stitched the torn inside and pressed down on the leaking places.
Ruan endured as he was, holding only the pulse.
If he removed his hand now, it felt as though it would snap again.
Roen’s eyes wavered dimly.
“So it’s real.”
For a man who had barely returned on a single thread, his words were calm.
Ruan could not answer.
Even the breath to answer felt too precious.
From the other stretchers, Sera’s voice sounded without pause.
“The spearman’s holding.
The archer’s still enduring too.
The supply soldier’s bleeding has decreased.”
Those words grew faint, as if heard from far away.
Ruan’s vision kept narrowing.
At first, he thought the dawn light coming through the gaps in the tent was spreading.
But the ends of the hair falling before his eyes were unusually white.
A long while later, Bereun spoke roughly.
“It’s done.
Take your hand off now.”
Ruan could not take it away immediately.
He needed time to confirm whether it had truly held.
The pulse was still weak, but it was clearly connected.
Roen’s chest, too, was recovering at least a little of its rhythm.
The moment he removed his hand, the floor twisted first.
His knees buckled.
If Sera had not caught his arm from the side, he would have fallen face-first into the bloody floor.
His stomach lurched as if turning inside out, and half the feeling in his fingertips had vanished.
Sera clenched her teeth.
“This again.
You’re really going to drive someone insane.”
Karen had come close before he knew it.
Without a word, she supported Ruan’s shoulder.
Her sword was still at her waist, but her gaze was fixed wholly on Ruan.
As Bereun tightened the last knot, he said,
“He’s not stable.
But it’s true he’s passed it.”
The two evacuation soldiers collapsed where they stood the moment they heard those words.
One of them roughly rubbed his face with a wet hand.
“The commander’s going to live…”
Bereun corrected him coldly.
“He was made to live.
If he collapses again from now on, he collapses in your hands.
Don’t let his fever rise.
Don’t shake the stretcher.
Don’t turn his body over.”
Even so, another light was already spreading over the soldiers’ faces.
The fact that the commander who had been just about to go out had begun breathing again.
And the fact that they had seen it with their own eyes.
Those two things were enough.
Oreute lifted the record board again.
“Name, Roen Hasta.
Commander of the eastern barricade line.
Leaving under observation.”
Sera was brushing Ruan’s bangs back when her hand stopped.
“Look at this.”
Karen’s gaze moved first.
It was not only near his temple.
As if one side of his fringe had faded entirely, the white strands among his black hair had become far more distinct.
Ruan felt their gazes but could not lift his head.
Right now, more than his hair, it was more urgent that feeling return to his fingertips.
Roen looked this way with clouded eyes.
He seemed about to say something, but only moved his lips once, and no words came.
Instead, he lowered his head very slowly.
Seeing that short movement, the two evacuation soldiers also bent at the waist.
Ruan looked at them and spoke with a weary face.
“Don’t.”
His voice did not come out properly.
Even so, the meaning was conveyed.
The soldiers stopped.
Only their movements stopped.
Their eyes had already hardened more firmly.
Outside the tent, the sound of another stretcher’s wheels was drawing close.
Ruan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
His stomach was still churning, and his fingertips were trembling.
Even so, he had to go to the next stretcher.
As he forced himself up, Karen said quietly,
“Lie down now.”
Ruan steadied his breathing and shook his head.
“Those three aren’t finished yet either.”
Sera could not even laugh.
Bereun openly scowled.
Even so, no one could make him lie down again.
Because just now, the commander who had been all but dead had survived, and there was no way the soldiers who had seen it would keep silent.
The air inside the tent was still full of the smell of blood, but outside, it seemed another scent was already spreading.
By the time the sun began to tilt, three of Roen’s subordinates stood one after another before the tent entrance.
One had a bandage wrapped around his arm, and another was covered in blood, his helmet still on his head.
All three stopped only at the threshold, unable to come inside.
“The commander has opened his eyes.”
“The barricade line has been tied back together too.”
“He said that when he returns, the first thing he’ll do is offer his thanks.”
Ruan did not lift his head even after hearing those words.
He simply covered the wound of the patient on the stretcher and cut them off briefly.
“Feed him medicine instead of thanks.
If his fever rises, he’ll collapse again.”
The three men’s faces hardened further.
They looked relieved even as they were being scolded.
Seeing those expressions, Sera clicked her tongue softly.
Beside her, Oreute wrote down one more name.
Roen Hasta.
Survived.
Possibility of return to the eastern barricade line.
In the darkness beyond the door, two soldiers who heard those words looked at each other once.
One only moved his lips, and the other took off his cap and held it.
No one spoke loudly, but the words circled quietly in and out of the tent again and again.
Rumors of this kind spread faster than blades.
Ruan did not see that final line.
He only lowered his head toward the next stretcher.
His fingertips still trembled faintly, and a dull pain kept throbbing at his temple.
Never knowing, in the end, what his hands had just created,
as always, he remained bound only to the next person before him, who might yet fail to survive.