The return column could hardly pick up speed, even with the tent lights before their eyes.
The mire had grown deeper, and the stretchers heavier.
Each time the evacuation squad’s boots sank, a wet sucking sound dragged on.
Ruan stayed beside the front stretcher, watching the handle sway.
The lips of the soldier on the stretcher were already turning cold and blue.
With wet hands, Ruan pressed down around the wound again.
The bleeding was still holding.
Just a little farther.
The tent lights were already visible through the trees.
It was then.
The reeds on the right thrashed once, violently.
Karen’s head snapped around.
“Stop.”
Before the word had even ended, a shadow kicked off the edge of the swamp and sprang out.
It was a surviving enemy soldier, clad in armor torn like rags.
Blood had dried over half his face, and he held a short blade in his hand.
The enemy soldier did not charge at the outermost member of the evacuation squad, but straight toward Ruan, who stood farther inside.
There was no time to think about why he had aimed there.
Everything was too close.
What struck Ruan’s ears was not the sound of Karen drawing her sword, but the sound of the soldier on the stretcher drawing in a breath and letting it go.
Ruan instinctively twisted toward the stretcher.
The blade point the enemy thrust forward might veer toward the soldier on the stretcher instead of himself.
He grabbed the soldier by the shoulder and shoved him inward.
At the same time, he threw his own body over him.
The blade point scraped past the stretcher handle.
The wet wood rang sharply.
Ruan’s breath caught in his throat.
“Behind you!”
Karen’s voice flew in like a blade.
She immediately drove in, but the distance was one step too far.
The surviving enemy soldier was already right beside the stretcher.
His eyes were cloudy, and foul spit leaked from his mouth.
It was not the face of a man thinking of returning alive, but of one determined to stab even one more person before he died.
Ruan’s hand went to his waist.
The short sheathed knife he had used on the evacuation line was caught beneath the hem of his soaked clothes.
It was the knife he used to cut bandages, sever thread, and tear leather.
He gripped it.
The wet hilt was slippery in his palm.
The enemy lunged again.
This time, he was too close; there was not nearly enough room to dodge.
Ruan raised the knife.
He managed to raise it.
But the blade point trembled in midair, unable to aim for the neck or chest.
The moment he tried to thrust it toward a person, his hand froze.
The fingers inside his glove would not straighten, as if they had turned to ice.
He could open wounds.
He could cut away rotten flesh.
And yet, before a living throat, the blade point would not go any farther.
The enemy soldier spat a curse and pressed in harder.
Ruan retreated, still gripping the knife.
His boot caught on a leg of the stretcher.
His body twisted.
The stance in which he stood covering the soldier wavered violently.
At that moment, Karen drove in from the side.
There was a short, heavy sound.
The back of Karen’s sword struck the enemy soldier’s wrist head-on.
The short blade fell into the mire.
The next instant, the tip of her sword slanted beneath the man’s throat.
Blood washed by the rain spread black.
The surviving enemy soldier flailed once more, then collapsed into the mud beside the stretcher.
Two evacuation soldiers belatedly rushed in and pinned down the enemy’s arms.
Karen took another half step in front of Ruan without even catching her breath.
Her shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
Relief that she had barely made it in time and fury that a moment later would have meant the end rose in her all at once.
Droplets fell steadily from the ends of her rain-soaked hair.
At each falling bead, the blood on the blade mingled with the water and spread black.
Karen did not look at the fallen enemy again.
What was more dangerous before her eyes now was Ruan, who still had not let go of the knife.
Ruan was still gripping it.
The blade point faced downward, but his fingers would not easily loosen.
Those brief few seconds remained lodged in his body.
A man had charged right at him, and in the end, he had been unable to stab.
“Put the knife down.”
Karen spoke in a low voice.
That voice was even more frightening.
Ruan lifted his head.
Karen’s eyes were not on the enemy, but on the knife in his hand.
Only then did Ruan open his fingers.
The wet knife hilt dropped onto the mire with a dull thud.
The blade point scraped against a stone on the ground with a dry sound.
That sound seemed strangely loud.
One of the evacuation soldiers swallowed a rough breath.
No one could immediately continue speaking.
The rain filled those few seconds in their place.
A groan burst from the stretcher behind them.
It seemed the wound they had just tied had reopened when the body was moved.
Ruan sank down as if collapsing to his knees.
“Gauze.”
His voice cracked.
Even so, his hands were already pressing the wound.
The soldier looked at Ruan with terror-stricken eyes.
It was the face of one who had also seen the body that had just stood over him trembling.
And yet the soldier leaned even harder toward Ruan instead.
“I’m... all right.”
It was impossible to tell who was reassuring whom.
Ruan did not answer.
He looked first at the edge of the wound.
The blade had not grazed him.
The stretcher had tilted, and the stitched area had torn open slightly.
He wiped away the blood with wet hands and pressed down again.
Beneath his fingers, the parted flesh trembled faintly.
That trembling kept overlapping with the trembling of the blade point that had stopped in his own hand just moments ago.
Ruan clenched his teeth and lowered his gaze further.
Instead of a knife pointed at a person, he tried to see only the open wound.
The blood had not yet burst out badly.
If they had been just a little later, the sutures would have come completely undone.
Ruan pressed the gauze deep in and threaded a new stitch.
The thread slipped briefly between his fingers.
He tightened it again with the strength of his wrist.
Even if he could not bring himself to stab a person, he could tie a reopened wound shut again.
“Lamp.”
An evacuation soldier brought the light closer with trembling hands.
Ruan tied the knot again.
His fingers shook more violently than before, but they did not lose the way.
Karen stood beside him, watching the darkness.
Blood dripping from the tip of her sword was washed by the rain and ran down to her ankles.
“The stretchers first.”
Ruan spoke through clenched teeth.
“Don’t look at me. Grab the stretchers first.”
At those words, the evacuation squad moved again.
Two soldiers gripped the handles and lowered their stances.
But every one of them glanced at Ruan as they passed.
They were eyes that had seen both how he could not raise the knife just now, and how he had still been the first to cover the stretcher.
Karen shook her sword, casting off the blood.
Then she looked back at Ruan for a very brief moment.
She said nothing.
Her face looked as if something would burst if she spoke now.
Instead, she narrowed the distance between Ruan and the stretcher even more.
It was the movement of someone making sure that, if an enemy sprang out again, her sword would meet it from the front.
One of the evacuation soldiers picked up Ruan’s knife from the mire, then paused.
The soldier’s eyes darted, unsure whether to return it to Ruan or put it at his own waist.
Only when Karen silently held out her hand did the knife pass to her.
Karen did not return that knife to Ruan’s hand.
She hung it on the opposite side of her own waist.
Ruan did not ask for it back either.
It was obvious that if he held it again, he would stop in the same way, and Karen had realized that too.
The return column began moving again.
A circle tighter than before formed around them.
Within it, Ruan helped carry one side of the stretcher handle.
The feel of wet wood remained damp in his grip.
The feel of the knife hilt he had let slip moments ago still remained in his palm as well.
When the two sensations mingled, his stomach turned even more.
With every step he took, the scene from a moment before rewound in short flashes.
He had managed to raise the knife.
There had been nothing after that.
Only the sound of Karen’s sword-back striking the wrist and the sound of the enemy soldier collapsing remained.
Karen spoke while looking ahead.
“Next time, stay behind me.”
It was a brief statement.
But Karen’s jawline did not loosen until the end.
Only relief that she had barely made it in time and fury that a moment later would have meant the end remained.
Karen’s face was one that had already accepted that.
And so the thought of guarding him more closely only hardened within her.
She looked at Ruan more often than she looked at the darkness ahead.
It was the gaze of someone who knew in her body that danger no longer came only from outside.
Ruan drew in a long breath once, only for it to break immediately into a cough.
The smell of rain and blood mingled and scraped the back of his throat.
When the soldier on the front stretcher suddenly shuddered, he instinctively let go of the handle and looked first toward the wound.
Karen immediately filled the empty place.
The movement was so natural that Ruan’s mouth grew even heavier.
His breathing grew harsher, and his fingers went cold.
Even so, only the hand reaching toward the stretcher did not stop.
“The stretcher first, not me.”
Karen’s jaw tightened.
She did not respond.
Instead, she pushed aside the soldier holding the front stretcher handle and changed places with him.
She stood in the position closer to Ruan herself.
Now the only blade at Ruan’s side was Karen’s.
The tent lights drew near again.
Someone behind them muttered in a small voice.
“That man was the first to block it just now, too.”
Another soldier answered through a wet breath.
“That’s why we live.”
Ruan clenched his teeth.
Even though that was not it, it flowed that way again.
The one thing he had failed to do vanished, leaving only the scene of him throwing himself forward.
The wet sheath swayed at Karen’s waist, and Ruan’s hand clung to the stretcher handle.
He wanted to set that discrepancy right, but if he opened his mouth now, it would sound like a frightened excuse.
That silence was more suffocating than breath.
When only a couple of steps remained to the entrance, Karen looked back one last time.
There was no hesitation in her eyes.
It was the face of someone who had already decided what blade she would have to bear in his stead.
Ruan lowered his head and gripped the stretcher handle harder.
His knuckles turned white.
Beneath the tent light, the wet scabbard swung heavily beside Karen’s thigh.