Called to Battle: Volume Two

by Steve Diamond, Matt Forbeck, Chris A. Jackson

  Anders bit down on the roll.

  “Private Murdock, come over here and straddle Anders, kneeling, and put your full weight on his arms. You’ve only got one good arm, so I won’t ask you to hand me tools, or pull on anything at all. You just need to stay up there and keep him still. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Murdock said, climbing atop Anders.

  Anders groaned under Murdock’s weight and shuddered, but his arm remained still. Carlisle began laying tools in neat rows atop the trunk. With saw and scalpel laid ready alongside clips and hooks, Carlisle began threading three needles with fine antiseptic-soaked thread, one each for the radial, the ulnar, and the interosseous arteries. If the cut were closer to the hand, he’d have needed four or even five sutures, but this close to the elbow he only required three.

  He reviewed his preparations, taking his time so the alcohol could work on Anders. Then he tied a tourniquet just above Anders’ elbow.

  He picked up his scalpel and began.

  Carlisle drew the blade deeply across and around the forearm, one long stroke that blossomed red, a steady flow as tissues drained, without any spurting. The tourniquet was doing its job. He gripped the meat of the arm above the cut and slid it further up, exposing the two bones of the forearm.

  Anders screamed into the bandage, his whole body tensing up. Murdock gasped but stayed atop the patient. Carlisle paid only enough attention to this to be sure nothing was going to move.

  He grabbed the saw and laid it against both bones. With three vigorous strokes, push-pull-push, he was through them. The infected hand and forearm were now completely severed.

  YOU DEMONSTRATE ACCEPTABLE SKILL.

  “Aaaaugh! Lieutenant, they’re back!” Murdock shouted.

  “Focus!” Carlisle shouted, as much at himself as at Murdock. He pushed the severed limb aside and grabbed the hooks and clamps.

  Anders gagged, spat, and let loose a full-throated scream.

  YOUR SUBJECT’S PAIN RESPONSE IS COMPLICATING THE PROCEDURE. UNACCEPTABLE RISK.

  “Murdock, get that roll back into his mouth now!”

  Carlisle went to work with the hooks, unwilling to spare even a second to talk to the cephalyx he could see out of the corner of his eye, hovering there at the bars, muscled drudges on either side.

  Focus. He hooked the three main arteries and drew each of them clear of the surrounding flesh. Three hooks, then three clamps, and then he had his first needle ready. He speared the radial artery, the fattest of the three, spun a knot around it, and speared it again. He tied that off.

  Hands slick and warm with blood, he snatched up the second needle and repeated the suture on the ulnar artery. Both large arteries swelled up a bit at their ends, but the sutures held.

  The third artery was a spur from the second, branching off from up in the elbow. It was smaller, hidden between the two bones. Much trickier work. Everything was now red and glistening—the wound, the two stumps of bone, his own hands, the floorboard—but the clamps were still visible, so Carlisle had the landmark he needed to find the small vessel. He speared and sutured it.

  MINOR INTERVENTION INDICATED.

  Anders stopped screaming—just stopped. Carlisle looked over at his face. The soldier was asleep and appeared completely relaxed. Murdock rolled off him and slumped to the floor, also fast asleep.

  ADRENAL RESPONSE IS MUTED. YOU WILL PROCEED WITH SPECIMEN MODIFICATION.

  “Shut up and get out of my head.”

  MUTED RESPONSE REDUCES VESSEL PRESSURE, REDUCES RISK OF RUPTURE AT YOUR CRUDE CLOSURE POINTS.

  Carlisle took a deep breath and looked back down at his work. Crude? There was never time to make it pretty. Antiseptic next. He rinsed his hands in the basin, then began daubing and drizzling the wound with the acid-soaked bandages. The tissue continued to seep blood, but only slowly. Once he was satisfied that site was clean, he rinsed his hands again, clearing away the burning sensation from the antiseptic. He then threaded a longer hooked needle with heavier thread and began pulling the wound closed.

  This was certainly much easier to do while the patient slept.

  THIS FINAL CLOSURE MAY HAMPER FURTHER IMPROVEMENT.

  “Improvement? You think he’d be better off slowly bleeding to death?”

  SPECIMEN 6 FAILS RECOGNITION OF POTENTIAL, DESPITE RUDIMENTARY COMPREHENSION OF ANATOMICAL FRAILTY. INTERVENTION INDICATED.

  “Intervention? What—”

  Images of mechanikal limbs flashed through his mind, limbs far more complex than any he’d worked with before, a wealth of mechanika so far beyond his reach he ached inside.

  “I am not a surgeon to the high nobility. I don’t have a million-crown rack of mechanikal prosthetics to select from here! Maybe if Anders’ parents are well-to-do they’ll get him something nicer than the usual elbow-pulley claw, but my work stops when he’s safe from infection.”

  “Who are you talking t—” Longstead was awake.

  The cephalyx’s eyes flared brighter.

  Longstead grunted, then clutched his locket and in a firm, clear voice said, “No.”

  SPECIMEN 5 DEMONSTRATES FORTIFICATION OF WILL. EXCEPTIONAL LEVELS. EVALUATING.

  Carlisle kept stitching, pulling the skin of Anders’ forearm taut and closed against the weeping meat. He hoped silently that Longstead wasn’t stupid enough to draw his tiny pistol while their captor was outside the locked cell.

  The cephalyx spun away from the bars and flew down the hall. It was the first time Carlisle had seen the creature look even remotely agitated. Then the voice was back in his head, talking directly to him, commanding, irresistible . . .

  SPECIMEN 5 PEER-DESIGNATED “LONGSTEAD” PRESENTS UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO SPECIMENS 2, 3, AND 6. YOU WILL CONFISCATE THE WEAPON.

  Carlisle looked up. Longstead held only his locket and had made no move toward the holdout in his boot. How had the cephalyx known about . . .

  “Stay out!” Longstead shouted. “My body is my own, my mind is my own, and my soul belongs to the Lawgiver!”

  Carlisle rocked back as if slapped. The Lawgiver was one name for Menoth, the unforgiving, zealotry-inspiring, heretic-burning masked god. The god for whom the Menites marched to war, killing Cygnarans of all faiths with blades and bullets, but most especially with fire. So much fire. Carlisle remembered the heat on his face, the screams of the children.

  Then Carlisle remembered Longstead’s own screams when he splashed precious antiseptic into the fresh wound and stitched. He’d stitched up a secret Menite.

  A Menite, right here in this cell, wearing Cygnaran colors. Treachery.

  He tied Anders’ stump shut, stood, and strode over to Longstead.

  “Menite,” he spat.

  Longstead answered the accusation with lowered eyes and unintelligible mumbling, but Carlisle knew it was a Menite prayer. He reached down and ripped the locket from Longstead’s hands. The private tried to grab it back, but Carlisle stepped away.

  “What’s hidden here?” he asked, opening the locket. It held only the weathered mirror and the words Be Always True. True to what? True to the faith of flames? Certainly not true to king and country. No Menite could ever be that. He turned the locket upside down, but no hidden message appeared in the script. He turned it over again and stared at the mirror. He could only see his eyes because of the . . . of course.

  The ruined lower portion of the mirror allowed the locket bearer to imagine himself wearing a holy mask in imitation of his cruel god.

  “Sir, I am loyal to Cygnar. I swore an oath to Leto and the Cygnus upon entering the service, and I did so with full heart. I don’t set people on fire. I’m afraid of the Protectorate. But I do worship the god who created humanity. And Leto’s own laws, the laws I took a bullet protecting, they—”

  “They mean nothing to Menites, who reject the protections Cygnar offers them.” Carlisle held the locket up and stabbed at the mirror with this finger. “You bat aside our open arms, hide your true faith inside this, pretending to wear a m
ask while you pray for all Morrowans to burn!” The tiny ellipse of stiff paper, Be Always True, fluttered down from the locket. Behind it, etched and scored in hundreds of tiny strokes in the brass, was a Menofix, the symbol of faith for monsters who burned children in their beds.

  “A mask and a Menofix,” he growled. He threw the locket to the floorboard, then ground his boot heel upon it. The brass gouged into the wood, and the hinge broke.

  “Lieutenant, please,” Longstead said. “That creature, that black monster with the red eyes. It has your minds!” He waved at Anders and Murdock, still peacefully asleep. “I heard you talking to it. Heard it while you were cutting. It put the others out, but Menoth protects me! He can protect us all, if we’ll—”

  Carlisle slapped Longstead to shut him up, harder than he meant to. The little traitor grunted in pain, and his head banged back against the stone wall.

  “Don’t you dare preach your flame and hatred at me, Menite,” he said. Carlisle felt full of flame and hatred himself, but you fought fire with fire.

  Longstead doubled over and began to weep.

  Carlisle drew his small scalpel from his kit, cut away the laces of Longstead’s boots, and ripped both of them from the Menite’s feet. The Fiscani matchbox fell free from its leather sleeve in the right boot. Carlisle picked it up, pointed it at Longstead, and considered putting a single bullet into his head. Immediate court-martial was neither unwarranted nor without precedent. Technically, he had no proof the boy was an actual spy, but he was a Menite. Wasn’t that proof enough?

  “Doc, what are you doing?” Murdock was awake.

  “Longstead’s a Menite,” Carlisle said. “Hiding it, clever and secret. Just like this pistol. A spy’s weapon if ever there was one.”

  SPECIMEN DAMAGE IS UNACCEPTABLE. YOU WILL THROW THE PISTOL THROUGH THE BARS.

  “He’s what?”

  Longstead groaned through a bloody lip. “A Menite. But not Protectorate. I’m just a Cygnaran who says different prayers than you do. Please, Murdock, you’ve got to help me.”

  YOU WILL THROW THE PISTOL THROUGH THE BARS.

  “Sir, where did you get that gun? We can use that! We—”

  Carlisle threw the pistol through the bars. It skittered across the boards of the main shaft and came to rest against the far wall.

  “Morrow take us, sir!” Murdock shouted. “What did you do that for?”

  “Come and get this one,” Carlisle called out, pointing down at Longstead. “I’ve banged up his head and don’t trust myself to doctor him up gently.”

  “Doc!” Murdock yelled. “Doc, what are you doing?”

  The cephalyx came into view, four drudges alongside it, and opened the door of the cell. Longstead wept, mouthing more prayers through his split lips. Murdock fell silent, his mouth agape, eyes also filling with tears.

  Carlisle stepped away from Longstead, out of the path of the pair of drudges marching in to claim the Menite. He looked back to where the pistol lay in the shaft. Two more drudges and the cephalyx stood between him and the Fiscani.

  YOU WILL FORGET THE PISTOL.

  Longstead struggled weakly against the drudges, mumbling and sobbing the whole time. He thrashed against them as they carried him from the cell, screamed as the door clanged shut. The cephalyx reached out with a long metal arm and touched his forehead. Longstead went limp. The cephalyx and the drudges then swept down the main passage and out of sight.

  The pistol was gone as well. When had they collected it?

  Carlisle stared through the bars at the empty shaft, furious at Longstead for his treachery. But had it been treachery? The boy could have shot any of them, could have run off if he’d been a spy. He was just a boy.

  No, not just a boy. He was a killer; they were all killers. All except Carlisle, sworn to heal, but his work was “crude” and “unacceptable.” How could it be any better here in this cell? And with this headache. And this anger. It was not his fault.

  Not his fault at all. That Menite wretch had blundered around and made Carlisle think of the pistol, had put the thought right there in his mind for the cephalyx to find and dig out of his pounding head. Not just treachery, then. Treason. And now the pistol was gone, and all hope of escape with it.

  Maybe ransom and freedom awaited them after this cephalyx surgeon patched them up. Improved them. Carlisle frowned at that, then snarled at the thought of the Menite getting out of here before him, going free with no one on the outside any wiser to the ruin his zealotry had—

  “Traitor!” Murdock shouted, and pain shot through Carlisle’s lower back. He tried to turn from the bars, but Murdock had pinned them there. More pain, like a knife, and Carlisle realized Murdock was stabbing him, stabbing him with the long scalpel he’d used on Anders’ arm.

  He pushed away from the bars, turning. Murdock had cut his sling away and held the long scalpel in his right hand, dripping Carlisle’s and Anders’ blood.

  Anders was also standing, pale as a ghost and reeling drunk, but in his hand—his only hand—he held Carlisle’s bone saw.

  Carlisle staggered into the corner, clear of both men, and drew the scalpel from the kit at his belt. He waved it before him and Murdock stepped back, wary, but with eyes full of rage and tears. Carlisle knew he was likely gravely wounded, but adrenaline and fear held the pain at bay.

  “Stay back, boys. You’re not well, either of you.”

  “You sold us out! Sold us to that metal monster and its thralls! You chopped up Anders, you smashed Longstead in the mouth, you gave them our gun! You . . . you fed Tingey to them too, didn’t you, while we slept? You traitor!”

  “You stupid trench-head, you call me a traitor? After sticking my own knife in my back? I pulled a Khadoran bullet out of you, you ungrateful, worthless—”

  Murdock lunged. Carlisle feinted right, toward Anders, then stumbled left along the bars. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his coat, and a ribbon of hot pain lanced up that arm. He bobbed into the middle of the room, right arm now dripping blood. Murdock was quick with that scalpel. A trencher with a blade in close quarters was butchery on tap, and now Carlisle’s keg had been tapped three times.

  His head pounded, and the wounds in his back stung. His breath was clear, which meant Murdock’s stabbing blows had missed the lungs. The scalpel in the trencher’s hand was sharper than a stropped razor, so Carlisle’s wounds weren’t going to be ragged, but they must be as deep as the Abyss.

  He stepped around the trunk in the middle of the cell, putting it between him and Murdock but leaving Anders just one leap away. At the foot of the trunk sat the open jar of antiseptic, still half full. Could Murdock see it from this angle?

  Carlisle crouched, a stance he hoped looked dangerous, scalpel hand high, empty hand low, just above the jar.

  “You’re all tough words and deep cuts when we’re tied to a table,” Murdock said, his stance casual but his eyes full of murder. “But you fight like a drunken greenhorn.”

  “And you fight like a buck private with a hole in his chest.”

  “You wanna count holes, sir?” Murdock wheezed. “You’re up by two, and I’m about to make it ten.” The trencher lunged again, clearing two steps in the time it took Carlisle to snatch up the bottle, clearing the third just in time to catch a stream of coal-tar antiseptic in the face.

  Murdock screamed and stumbled as the acrid fluid splashed into his nose and eyes. Carlisle stepped to the trencher’s left, away from that wicked blade. He turned as Murdock passed, then charged the boy’s back. He shifted his grip on the scalpel to hold it like no surgeon would, in a fist with the butt of the haft locked tight under his thumb. A grip for taking everything. He swung overhand, stabbing down on Murdock’s neck.

  Murdock arched his back, and Carlisle slammed into him, taking him to the floor. Blood gushed from the trencher’s neck. Carlisle knelt atop him and raised his hand for another stab, carefully aimed. He’d pith this lousy—

  Anders piled into him, and Carlisle lost the scalpel, heard i
t ringing off the stone wall. Anders swung the saw at his head, but, weak and drunk, struck the floorboard instead.

  Carlisle slapped Anders’ stump, and the drunken amputee rocked back howling in pain and dropped the saw right on Carlisle’s chest. He grabbed it and swung it up at Anders’ face.

  It caught the howling man at the top of his neck, just behind his ear, and ripped raggedly across his throat. Blood sprayed from the wound as Anders screamed through the hole in his windpipe.

  “Thamar-loving traitor!” said Murdock, climbing back to his feet. Carlisle scrambled out from under Anders, clutching the saw in one hand and taking care not to lose track of Murdock’s staggering advance.

  “What did they give you? What’s left to trade?” Murdock said. Blood pumped freely from the wound in his neck. “Whatever it was, they can take it out of your sorry, sodden guts after I string you up with them.”

  “The cephalyx saved Firmack,” Carlisle said.

  “Cephalyx? Is that what your new friends are called?” Murdock was growing paler with each passing second, his eyes starting to glaze.

  “You’d better lie down, boy. You’re losing blood.”

  “I’ll lie you down, filth-eater. I’ll lie you right down in a hole!” Murdock lunged weakly—and fell on his face.

  Carlisle looked over at Anders, who was already unconscious and would be dead in less than a minute. Murdock had gone still, too. There was a chance Murdock might live, but only if he got surgery in about the next three minutes.

  Carlisle was in no condition to operate. His vision swam, and he sat heavily, sending sharp pains deep into his belly. The stabs to his back had pierced organ walls. If they’d cut the renal artery he might be dead in a few minutes himself. If his intestines had been pierced, this wound would go septic within hours. And even if the artery and intestines remained unscathed, that blade had another surgery still clinging to it. The deep infection might not set in for a day or two, but it was coming. Murdock had three minutes, but Carlisle would die in agony within a week. He lay back and tried to control his breathing.