The rain had stopped, but the air inside the tent had not grown any lighter.
Drops still fell one by one from the soaked canvas. The straw spread over the floor had already drunk in mud and blood, collapsing into a damp mess. Each time someone pushed in a stretcher, the clammy smell and the tang of iron mingled again.
Ruan Hesse took a needle from the distilled liquor and examined its tip. After being used all through the night, it had grown faintly dull. Even so, he could not afford to throw it away. If they ran short of needles, even wounds that only needed stitching would have to wait in line.
“Next.”
An orderly pushed in a stretcher. It was an archer with a torn shoulder. The flesh had split open, but fortunately it was not deep.
Ruan pressed around the edges of the wound, had him raise his arm, checked the sensation at the tips of his fingers, then spoke briefly.
“It can be stitched. The arm will be saved. But don’t use it today.”
The archer’s face loosened with relief. Seeing that expression, Sera murmured softly.
“Here, those words sound like a blessing.”
Ruan pretended not to hear and pulled the thread. His stitching was quick, his knots precise. Each time another suture was finished, the line waiting behind the stretcher moved forward little by little.
Suddenly, a shout erupted outside the tent.
“Why is the evacuation in this state!”
The rough tread of leather boots drew closer. The one who flung back the entrance flap was a noble knight wearing a gleaming breastplate. Water dripped from the hem of his rain-soaked cloak. Two guards followed behind him.
The knight swept his gaze around the tent once, then grimaced.
“Is this a military infirmary or a slaughterhouse? My men are bleeding outside, and you can’t even send a stretcher around on time?”
Sera’s expression went cold. Bern did not even lift his head. Ruan calmly covered the archer’s newly tied wound with cloth and said,
“There are many people lined up outside. They come in order.”
The knight seemed to dislike that answer even more and strode toward him.
“Order. You dare speak to me of order? My knight order is holding the front line. Thanks to us, you people can keep breathing in here.”
Only then did Ruan raise his head. But his gaze was not directed at the knight’s face; it went to the area below his shoulder.
Blood splattered on the hem of his cloak had dried black. It was not his own. There were also droplets mixed in that had not yet dried.
“Are you injured?”
The knight fell silent for a moment. His eyes flared as if he had been insulted.
“What did you say?”
“If it isn’t your blood, then someone who came with you is badly injured.”
Only then did Sera look toward the entrance. Of the two guards standing behind the knight, one was particularly pale.
And at that very moment, an urgent cry burst out from outside the tent.
“Move aside. Open the way!”
A stretcher was shoved inside almost as if it had been thrown.
A young adjutant lay on it. The center of his abdomen was deeply torn, and his entrails were forcing their way out through the gap in his armor. Blood had already run down beneath the stretcher. Each breath he took made a boiling sound.
The face of the knight who had been shouting just moments ago turned deathly white.
“Matias.”
He dropped to his knees beside the stretcher. His trembling hands seized the adjutant’s shoulders.
“Hey, open your eyes. Open your eyes.”
The adjutant’s eyes were open, but unfocused. Ruan immediately moved beside the stretcher. The smell rose first. Wet earth, rusted iron, and the hot scent of blood from an opened belly.
He could be saved.
Barely, but still.
“Sera. Three clean cloths. Distilled liquor. Thick thread. Military Surgeon Bern, please press here for a moment.”
Bern came to his side and pressed down over the wound. Ruan checked the adjutant’s pupils, felt his pulse, and said curtly,
“Do not lose consciousness. It will hurt from here on.”
The adjutant’s throat trembled. He could not even groan properly.
At that moment, the knight grabbed Ruan by the collar.
“Save him.”
Ruan looked down at his hand. The back of it was shaking. It was a hand that, until moments ago, had gripped a sword hilt. Now it had become a hand that could do nothing but hold on.
“Move aside.”
“Save him no matter what. No matter what.”
“If I’m going to do that, you need to move.”
His voice was short and cold.
The knight froze for a moment. Then he truly let go. Instead of stepping away, however, he could not take his eyes off the stretcher.
Ruan immediately opened the wound wider. It was deep. Mud and fragments of armor were tangled inside. He gritted his teeth and poured in the distilled liquor. The adjutant’s body arched like a bow. The knight sucked in a breath.
“If you move, you die.”
At that single sentence, the adjutant forced his trembling body to hold still.
Ruan inserted forceps and began removing the foreign matter first. A small shard of metal, a torn piece of leather, even something black clumped like a lump of mud. His fingertips were quick, but he did not rush.
If he grasped the wrong thing, he would tear the inside further. Right now, precision came before speed.
The inside of the tent fell quiet.
No, it was not completely quiet. The groans of the other patients continued. There were still footsteps treading over the straw. But he could tell that everyone was holding their breath and looking toward this stretcher.
Because the noble knight who had just called the military infirmary a slaughterhouse was standing there without saying a word.
Ruan pressed the ruptured area and spoke very low.
“Thread.”
Sera placed it in his hand.
“Needle.”
“Here.”
The needle pierced flesh. One stitch. Two stitches. Three stitches.
Cold sweat gathered on the adjutant’s forehead. He bit his lip until blood finally showed. Even so, he made no sound. The knight standing beside the stretcher watched in his place, his face crumbling.
Without raising his head, Ruan asked,
“What did this man eat before today’s battle?”
The knight’s answer came a beat late.
“…Black bread and thin soup.”
“Good. His stomach isn’t empty.”
That meant there was still a chance to save him. At that brief sentence, the knight exhaled as if clinging to it.
When the suturing was about halfway done, the bleeding burst out again.
Sera swallowed a short curse. Strength went into Bern’s arms. Ruan reached deep inside and searched for the ruptured spot. In the warm, slippery interior, the sensation of catching hold of something pulsing was vivid against his palm.
“More light.”
Someone brought a lamp close. The wavering flame lit the inside of the wound.
Only then did Ruan glance once at the knight.
“If you shout from this point on, I will have you sent outside.”
The knight pressed his mouth shut. His face had fallen apart, but he nodded.
Good.
Now all he had to do was not interfere.
Ruan tied off the ruptured vessel, stitched again, and pressed down on the remaining bleeding points. His sense of time blurred. Even the sound of rainwater dripping grew distant. Only the single body beneath his hands remained. If he stopped here, the man would die. So he did not stop.
At last, the blood subsided.
The adjutant’s breathing was still rough, but it no longer wavered as if it would break off at any moment. Ruan tied the final knot and slowly withdrew his hands.
“He’s past the immediate danger.”
As soon as those words ended, the knight sank down where he was. Clutching the edge of the stretcher, he could not lift his head for a long while. His armored shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
“Is he… alive?”
“Not yet. We’ll watch for fever. We have to be careful of infection as well. If he makes it through tonight, things will be a little better after that.”
The knight looked up at Ruan. It was not the face that had cursed them as lowly things moments ago. It was the face of someone with nowhere to place his trust, clinging to the last remaining piece of wood.
“I beg you.”
Ruan answered shortly.
“I already am.”
Beside him, Sera nearly laughed under her breath, then held it in. Bern wiped his bloodstained hands on a cloth and said in a low voice,
“Bring in the next stretcher.”
Time inside the tent began moving again.
The knight was about to step aside when he suddenly bowed deeply at the waist. The movement was so abrupt that Sera’s eyes widened for a moment.
A nobleman bearing the crest of a knight order was bowing his head to the youngest military surgeon over the soaked floor.
“Earlier, I…”
He could not finish the sentence. He looked like a man with the word apology caught in his throat.
Ruan was already undoing the bandages of the next patient.
“Just don’t block the way.”
That was all.
The knight withdrew a few steps with a dazed expression. The man who had called this tent a slaughterhouse moments ago was now the first to make room for the stretchers.
The soldiers waiting outside saw it.
A noble knight.
To the youngest military surgeon.
Bowing his head.
Inside the tent, the smell of blood still lingered. The wet canvas was clammy, the needles were insufficient, and another stretcher was coming in. Nothing had changed.
And yet the look in people’s eyes had changed slightly.
They were no longer eyes that began with resentment.
They were the eyes one turned to last when there was nothing else that could be done.
As Sera pulled over a new stretcher, she murmured softly,
“Once today’s work is over, strange rumors will start spreading again.”
Ruan answered while looking into the patient’s wound.
“Rumors don’t stitch wounds.”
“That’s true.”
Sera changed out the bloodstained cloth. The corners of her mouth were still raised a little.
The next patient was a supply soldier whose collarbone was jutting out. Ruan felt along the bone and said briefly,
“Clench your teeth. I’m setting it now.”
The supply soldier nodded with frightened eyes. When Ruan put strength into his hands, the bone was pushed back into place. A short scream burst out, followed by rough breaths.
A soldier holding the stretcher murmured blankly,
“They say he’s the one who just saved that knight commander’s adjutant.”
“He’s the youngest military surgeon, apparently.”
“With hands like that…”
His words trailed off, but his expression did not fade. It was a face in which fear and relief were mixed together.
The knight still had not left the tent and stood among the soldiers carrying stretchers. He removed his own cloak and threw it over the wet cloth spread on the floor.
It meant they should not slip in the muddy water. No one had told him to do it.
Seeing that, Sera clicked her tongue softly.
“When a person is desperate, dignity is the first thing to come off.”
Ruan did not reply. He was already securing the supply soldier’s shoulder with a bandage. His hands were quick, and his eyes were quiet. One by one, the soldiers who saw those eyes closed their mouths.
Trust that was difficult to explain usually spread in that way.
Outside the tent, between the sounds of dripping rainwater, someone murmured very quietly.
“That youngest one… I can’t even resent him.”
Ruan pretended not to hear.
No, perhaps he truly did not hear.
Because his hands were already opening the flesh of the next patient.