Called to Battle: Volume Two

by Steve Diamond, Matt Forbeck, Chris A. Jackson

  Soon the wound would begin to stink, and the whole hand was going to have to come off. That was another thing Carlisle didn’t have: tools for a safe amputation. He could probably make do with a scalpel and an entrenching tool, but that would be ugly. He wasn’t up to giving that any more thought tonight, and he certainly couldn’t break that news to Anders yet.

  “Keep it below your heart, Anders. And don’t touch it.”

  “Yes sir,” the boy whispered. “What’s going to happen to us, sir?”

  “We’ve been captured, not killed. That’s always a good sign. If I had to guess, some greedy Khadoran kapitan figures you handsome lads for nobles and hopes to ransom us back, or maybe exchange prisoners.” He smiled as he said this, because nothing sells a lie like a smile. He only wished he could believe the line himself.

  “I hope they hurry up, then,” Tingey mumbled. “The water tastes funny, and we’ve only got eight tins of food left.”

  “Of course they will,” Carlisle said, stepping to the center of the room. “Now, you all look exhausted, so as your doctor, I prescribe rest. What’s the watch schedule?”

  “Sir?” Murdock said. “We’re in a cage.”

  “We’re in a cage in enemy territory, Private Murdock. Somebody stands watch at all times. I just woke up, so I’ll take this first shift while the rest of you sleep.”

  “Those lanterns don’t ever go out, sir.”

  “Pull something over your eyes, then. You’re all wounded, and you’re still in my care, and you need as much rest as you can get. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Yes sir,” said Murdock. The others echoed him.

  The soldiers bedded down on their cloaks and pulled kerchiefs up over their eyes. Discipline was back.

  Carlisle propped himself up against the bars. He needed to stay standing or he risked passing out again.

  From here he could see a bit farther down the main shaft, which ran off to the left and to the right. A thick line of ribbed hose on the floor snaked out of sight in both directions, and more of the glowing tubes illuminated the passage. He heard faint mechanical sounds in the distance.

  His headache worsened, throbbing over the point where he’d been struck. A buzzing had replaced the ringing in his ears; it seemed to come from deep inside his head. He shut his eyes tight against the pain and the noise, but that didn’t help.

  SPECIMEN 6 PERFORMS PEER ANALYSIS. EVALUATING.

  It was a voice he’d never heard before. He opened his eyes, and the vision of the crow with the silver spider stood larger than life before him on the other side of the bars. He gasped, staggered backward, and dropped straight to his backside. The buzzing got louder, and then the voice returned, also louder.

  YOUR URGENT FIRST IS FINISHED.

  He wasn’t hearing the voice. It was coming from inside his head, like his own thoughts, but these weren’t his own, and they were empty of any emotion. The voice swept his headache away, and the buzzing dropped to a distant itch.

  Carlisle stared at the figure before him, which stood between two helmeted, heavily muscled men, their feet wrapped in what looked like bandages. It wasn’t a crow, not at all. It looked almost like a tall man in black leather, with a mask and hood that seemed to elongate his head. The glowing red eyes were there, but they sat in front, where a man’s eyes should be. They looked more like goggles with lights behind them.

  The long black coat could have been a surgical gown but for its finery. It was trimmed with brass piping and brass buttons, all polished to a shine that was answered by the glint of the thing on its back. Four silvery metal limbs, each articulated with three or four joints, reached up and around the black-cloaked creature. They gleamed under the yellow-orange light and reflected just a bit of the glow from its eyes. Each one ended in a different tool, but the blades, hooks, and pincers all looked surgical.

  Carlisle drew in a breath to raise the alarm but couldn’t find his voice.

  YOUR SPECIMEN ANALYSIS IS COMPLETE. SELECT.

  The order rang clearly in his mind, but he struggled to find the full meaning. Specimen? The creature wanted him to choose someone for . . . surgery? Could that mean Firmack had been operated on? And saved?

  “How . . . how is Firmack?” he whispered. The creature’s red gaze flared briefly, and images of Corporal Firmack sprang to Carlisle’s mind, the lad’s tousled dark hair and crooked nose, the frown that only rarely gave way to a grin, the plaster cast Carlisle had encased his left leg in, and his complaints that it hid his best tattoo, a bright yellow Cygnus.

  SPECIMEN 1, PEER-DESIGNATED “FIRMACK,” IS PAST URGENCY. IMPROVEMENT PROCEEDS. YOU WILL SELECT THE NEXT.

  “Are you offering medical care to my men?” Carlisle asked, feeling a little bolder, but still whispering.

  SPECIMEN 6 EXERTING PEER DOMINANCE CONSISTENT WITH PRIOR ANALYSES. EVALUATING.

  Again, images sprang to his mind, this time of the soldiers in his care, the injuries they had suffered, and the treatment Carlisle could provide if given access to the right tools. Tingey’s several shrapnel wounds needed regular cleaning, and Carlisle worried there was still some metal embedded in the boy. Murdock wore a sling to keep from tearing open the stitches in his upper chest but was healing. Longstead needed rest, antiseptic on his wound, and observation, and Anders . . . well, even with antiseptic Anders was going to lose his hand. Images of the many amputations Carlisle had been called upon to perform sprang to mind, and he shut his eyes tight.

  POSSIBLE PRESENCE OF TORSO-EMBEDDED CONTAMINANTS DICTATES PRIORITY. YOUR INACTIVITY IS DETRIMENTAL. DRUDGES COLLECTING SPECIMEN 4, PEER-DESIGNATED “TINGEY.”

  Carlisle opened his eyes. The creature had unlocked the cage, and one of the men—no, “drudges”—strode past it into the cell, while the other blocked the door. Their helmets completely covered their heads and necks, and heavy ribbed hoses ran from the masks to ports on their belts. The belts looked too tight, almost as if the flesh were starting to grow up and over the edges. The one in the cell had a pair of oversized mechanical hands, but the one at the door had a massive drill for a right hand and a shining rotary saw in place of its left.

  SPECIMEN 6 PERFORMING RUDIMENTARY DRUDGE ANALYSIS. EVALUATING.

  That voice in his head—sometimes it talked to him with paralyzing insistence, and sometimes it just talked about him. Carlisle looked past the saw blade to the tall black-clad creature and noticed for the first time that its feet were not touching the floor. Its black coat brushed against the floorboards, but there were no feet hiding behind it, or within it, or anywhere.

  It was floating.

  The drudge marched over to where Tingey lay and roughly scooped the private up in his metal hands, then marched back out of the cell as if the 180-pound trencher were no burden at all.

  Lieutenant Carlisle pressed himself back against the wall, unable to speak. What were these things, and—

  WE ARE CEPHALYX.

  The door clanged shut, and the cephalyx, along with its drudges, left.

  The noise woke the others. Longstead and Anders only groaned, but Murdock sat up with a shout.

  “The door!”

  Carlisle said nothing. He had been on watch, and he let this thing take one of his patients. He didn’t resist. He didn’t even raise an alarm. Even now he was huddled against the wall, useless.

  “Lieutenant Carlisle, sir! What happened?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.” That was at least a half-truth. He’d just allowed their captors to drag one of them from the cell while he watched.

  He couldn’t destroy their trust in him. Morale and discipline.

  Morale. And. Discipline.

  “My head is pounding,” he said. “I must have passed out trying to stand at the bars.”

  “I’m sorry sir,” Murdock said, crawling over to him. “Can I get anything for you?”

  “Tingey?” came Longstead’s voice. “Where’s Tingey?”

  Murdock pushed to his feet and looked around, wide-eyed. “They’ve taken him.
Oh, sweet Morrow no! Sir, did you see who took him?”

  Carlisle shook his head and tried to swallow his own terror and guilt.

  “And why? Interrogation? He doesn’t know anything! What if Greylords have him now?”

  Anders began to weep softly. Longstead mumbled something under his breath, a prayer perhaps, and clasped his locket.

  “Buck up, men,” Carlisle said, feigning confidence. “If they wanted us dead we’d already be dead. They . . . well, I believe they’re giving him medical help, and that’s a good thing. I’ve only got my field kit. I can only do so much.”

  Murdock and Anders went quiet. Longstead kept praying for a bit, then looked up. No one said anything for a long moment.

  Murdock spoke first.

  “You’re probably right, sir. But you’re also right about how you can only do so much. You took a rifle butt to the head, sir. I’ll stand watch while you sleep.”

  “Private, I don’t think—”

  “Sir, with all due respect, you fell asleep on watch. That means you need the rest more than I do.”

  Carlisle nodded and moved away from the bars, all the way to the back of the cell, and spread his cloak out on the boards. He shivered as he lay down, and then he realized that his head really did hurt, and he shouldn’t be sleeping. Murdock wasn’t a doctor. Sleep was contraindicated for concussed patients. Still, he felt his heavy eyelids close—and that long black coat and those silver arms were waiting. Those staring red orbs. He shivered again and tried to open his eyes, but he just couldn’t, and besides, if he died from a swollen brain in his sleep, he wouldn’t have to tell the boys he’d lied to them.

  “Lieutenant?” Murdock’s voice sounded terrible, like he was crying and drowning at the same time. “Oh, sweet Morrow, Doc, you gotta wake up.”

  Carlisle opened his eyes. Murdock was crouching over him, eyes wide and bloodshot.

  “I’m awake, Private. What is it?”

  Murdock pointed to the bars. Two trunks and several satchels lay stacked against the bars, on the inside of the cell. Carlisle recognized them immediately, and his heart leapt.

  “My equipment!”

  “Doc, they got in,” Murdock said. “I couldn’t . . . I don’t even know what they . . .” His voice trailed off into a groan.

  “It’s okay, son. Look, whoever they were, they brought me practically the whole field hospital. They obviously don’t mean us any harm.”

  “Not Khadorans,” Murdock said. “All in black, with glowing red eyes. And metal arms, extra ones, like giant bug legs, bolted right into its back. It looked at me, and then there were hornets in my head and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. It opened the cell, and then the bare-chested things, with helmets, and hoses, and mechanical hands, they carried in your stuff.”

  Carlisle took a closer look at the stack of gear. Neither trunk had been damaged, and none of the satchels had fallen open.

  “They were careful with it, Murdock.” Morale. “They’re concerned for our well-being, for our health.”

  Murdock shook his head. “You didn’t see them, sir. You didn’t feel that thing in your head.”

  “Private, do you have another explanation for why they’d leave us with all the tools of a field hospital?”

  Murdock shook his head again, his eyes shut tight.

  “Collect yourself, soldier! Anders and Longstead both have wounds that need cleaning, and I may require an assistant who has his wits about him.”

  SPECIMEN 6 PERFORMING INVENTORY. EVALUATING.

  Wits about him, indeed. That voice was floating, like the cloaked figure it belonged to, floating in the very back of Carlisle’s pounding head. Evaluating?

  Carlisle swept the satchels full of bandages aside and opened the first trunk. Sure enough, the drudges had carried it without dropping it. Stacked inside were tray upon tray of bottles, each labeled and filled with a different alchemical agent useful for surgery or medicine. None were broken. Carlisle shifted the trays around and removed one of his three bottles of coal-tar antiseptic, a weak acid that didn’t eat bandages, only burned the skin a little, and kept putrescence at bay. Soon he had his jar of dumbwort, a pickled herb that worked better than whiskey to deaden pain and brace the patient for surgery. There were also four jars labeled “POISON,” which contained strong but horrible-tasting uiske, whiskey only an Ordsman could love, camouflaged to prevent theft.

  He closed the first trunk and lowered it to the floor. His head pounded with the effort.

  The contents of the second trunk were much less likely to be damaged, though there were some glass and ceramic beakers wrapped in cloth down in one corner. Those wouldn’t be useful since he didn’t have the reagents to brew anything in here, but the rolls of thread and gauze would be critical. He unstopped the antiseptic and dropped in a roll of fine thread, a roll of heavy thread, and a roll of gauze to soak.

  He reached once more into the trunk, lifted out a battered, stained wooden box, and sighed. These scuffs and stains were not from rough handling of the trunk. They were the result of years of use during hurried amputations in the field. Carlisle had long ago considered cleaning and polishing the case, but the scarred and discolored wood served as a reminder of what had been lost.

  Not lost. Taken. He was reminded of what he had taken from others.

  He opened the box. His bone saw lay in a dark velvet rack alongside a dozen clamps, five long-handled hooks, and a thick-gripped scalpel with a longer blade than any other he owned. He let out a heavy sigh, closed the box, and set it atop the trunk, bracing himself. With a pair of trained assistants in an operating theater, he could perform an amputation in less than a minute, from the first cut to the final sutures. In his field hospital with a corpsman beside him, it would take twice as long. In this cell, with a rattled, wounded trencher who was good for nothing but pinning the patient to the floor? It might take a full five minutes.

  He opened the first trunk and removed two tin shot cups. He poured whiskey into each, then approached Murdock.

  “Drink up, Private. This should steady your nerves.”

  Murdock took the cup and sniffed it suspiciously, then quaffed it. “Thank you, sir. That’s good stuff.”

  “You don’t get out enough,” Carlisle said with a smile.

  He looked down at the second cup in his hand. He thought he’d been pouring this shot for a patient, but his own nerves needed a bit of steadying. All this propping up of morale was taking its toll. He tossed it back, then collected Murdock’s cup and dropped them both into the trunk.

  He patted Longstead on the shoulder, but the boy only moaned softly in his sleep. He pulled the lad’s coat from atop him and saw the locket hinged open in his relaxed hand. Carlisle teased it from Longstead’s grip and took a closer look. One side held a tiny mirror, the silvering ragged and corroded on the lower two-thirds. The other side was white, with the words Be Always True written in a stylized Caspian script. Good advice, that. Morale and discipline summed up in three words. He closed the locket and tucked it back into Longstead’s hand. Then he turned his attention to the boy’s wound.

  The sutures had held, and the small application of antiseptic had helped. The swelling was lower, there was less pus at the edges, and it had lost much of its yellow stain. No bleeding, either. Carlisle would not need to open this wound back up for scraping and flushing.

  He checked Anders. As soon as he crouched next to the soldier, he smelled putrescence wafting from the bandages on his hand. The gangrene had set in. Carlisle pulled the bandages back and winced in sympathy. The rot had reached the surface, blackening the edges of the wound, and Anders’ fingers were already starting to go green. Angry traces of red radiated up from the heel of the ruined hand halfway to the elbow as the infection fought its way up toward his heart.

  Carlisle pulled a grease pencil from his kit and made a mark an inch above the furthest-reaching trail. Then he pulled the tool trunk into the middle of the room and set the wooden box atop it.

>   SPECIMEN 6 PREPARING FOR PEER MODIFICATION. EVALUATING.

  Carlisle shut his eyes tight against the voice.

  Was he really going through with his? Here, in this filthy cell?

  Did he have a choice?

  “Private Murdock, I need your help now. You and I will be operating on Private Anders.”

  “Oh, no, sir. I’m not qualified to do that.”

  “Qualified? Are you qualified to drive a bayonet into a red-coated belly? Or put a bullet in a Khadoran heart? If you can kill, you can certainly help me save a life. Fill my washbasin at the bib there, and then roll a bandage around one of the leather straps in that satchel there, so he has something to bite down on.”

  Carlisle poured a double shot of whiskey and then shook Anders awake.

  “Unnnghh oh gods that hurts.”

  “I know, boy. Drink this, down the hatch.”

  Anders opened his eyes. “Whiskey? Where’d we get whiskey?”

  “Our captors brought me my supplies. And none too soon. Your hand is going to have to come off, son.”

  Anders gaped. Carlisle held the cup closer to the boy’s face. Anders took it and tossed it back, eyes shut tight against escaping tears.

  “And again.” Carlisle had another cup ready. “This isn’t drinking with chums. This is a race to get drunk.”

  “Exactly like drinking with chums, then,” Anders said. He drank the second shot, then accepted and downed a third.

  Carlisle helped Anders into the middle of the room and laid him down alongside the trunk, then gently pulled the lad’s left arm away from his side to fully extend it. He fished a bit of dumbwort from its solution and crushed it against the arm, tracing a full circuit around where he planned to cut.

  “Tingles a little, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. How much is this going to hurt, Doc?”

  Carlisle sighed. “I won’t lie to you, Private. This will probably hurt more than catching that axe, but it’s going to hurt a lot less than dying from gangrene. Or than taking that axe to the head. So this path we’re on is the best one. And you’ll keep your elbow, so there’s that.” He took the bandaged strap from Murdock and held it in front of Anders’ mouth. “Open wide, and bite down on this.”