Victory had come easily, but victory never meant an absence of tragedy. Even with heavy steel plate armor, being unseated from a galloping warhorse often resulted in brutal bone fractures from the fall or the trampling hooves of the horses behind.
Armor was not a seamless shell; joints and visors remained vulnerable. While deaths and critical injuries were relatively few, many soldiers sustained gashes and deep bruises where enemy lances had struck.
"Quick! Get the carriages over here, move it!" Poison Fang barked, his voice hoarse from the dust of the battlefield.
He had insisted on joining this campaign to experience war firsthand and, more importantly, to turn the battlefield into a classroom. Lucas had given him a clear mandate: train a corps of surgeons capable of performing external operations. Poison Fang had brought his top medical students along; here, there were plenty of subjects to practice on, as many of the enemy knights were severely wounded.
Seven or eight heavy four-wheeled carriages rumbled onto the field, coming to a halt in the center of the carnage.
"Open the medical bays!" Poison Fang leaped forward, personally unlatching the side panels of the carriages. The walls folded outward and downward on three sides, creating a semi-open, elevated field hospital. These carriages were a bespoke design for the military, capable of transforming into sterile-ready operating theaters in minutes.
"Get the wounded onto the tables!" Poison Fang snapped, pulling on a pair of sterilized sheep-gut gloves. Two nervous interns hovered at his side. These gloves were a luxury product of the Sedona City Medical Hall; they were incredibly expensive to produce, costing seven silver coins a pair.
"What are you standing there for? Get the alcohol ready for sterilization and put your masks on!"
"Yes, sir!" The interns trembled, their hands flying as they tried to organize the supplies.
"Keep the catgut sutures soaking in alcohol. Make sure the needles have been boiled in hot water. Get more boxes of hemostatic powder out, now!" Poison Fang directed with sharp precision.
"Immediately!"
"Once the wounded are positioned, start the anesthesia. Remember the dosage for the weights we discussed in class." Poison Fang picked up his scalpel, wiping it down. The blade was a marvel from the Research Department, forged from the highest-grade refined steel and costing seven gold coins.
"Understood!" The interns finally began to find their rhythm as the first patients arrived.
"Casualty coming in!" A group of soldiers hurried over with a stretcher. The man was a heavy casualty—a comrade.
"Lift him up. Put that one on the other table. This one's wound is deep; he's priority!" Poison Fang performed a quick triage. Once expanded, the carriage theater could accommodate two to three patients at once.
"Doctor... am I going to die?" The soldier gasped, his eyes wide with terror. His abdomen had been gored; the lance had pierced his armor, crumpling the steel inward. The sheer force of the impact had been immense.
"You're fine. You're just going to take a nap, and when you wake up, you'll be good as new," Poison Fang said with surprising gentleness. He then barked to the interns, "Anesthetize them both!"
"Someone help me get this plate off!" Poison Fang yelled to a nearby soldier. He didn't have the time to fumble with straps and buckles.
"Right, I've got it!" The soldier expertly unfastened the wounded man's heavy plate.
"Get out and bring the next heavy cases over," Poison Fang waved the soldier away as he inspected the wound. Drawing on his experience dissecting over a dozen executed criminals, he assessed the damage. "Lucky. It's a deep flesh wound, but the internal organs are intact."
"Alcohol! Clean the site!"
"Someone apply pressure here!"
"Suture and needle, now! Beginning the closure."
"Hemostatic powder. Bandages! Faster, move your hands!"
Poison Fang's commands rang out incessantly. "Move him out. Next one. Anesthesia..."
The other carriages were manned by doctors from the city's Medical Hall. Lucas had mobilized almost all of them; there was no training quite like a real battle to sharpen a surgeon's hands.
*
"What is the final tally?" Lucas stood under the tea shed, watching the cleanup.
"Master... fifteen dead. They were the first wave who charged with me; they were unseated by the enemy's long lances," Aiden said, his voice heavy. "Twenty-seven heavily wounded, and ninety-two with light injuries."
Among the heavy casualties, at least two-thirds would never be able to serve in the military again. They would be retired, but Lucas's pension plan ensured they would be assigned administrative or logistical jobs within the city.
"Take the fallen and cremate them. We will bring their ashes home. Issue the pensions according to the plan immediately. If they have children, the city will provide for their education until they reach adulthood," Lucas said, his face somber. He knew the cost of war, but seeing the numbers still stung.
"Yes, my lord," Aiden bowed.
"And who are those people?" Lucas pointed to a group being led over by his light cavalry.
"We found them lurking in the distance. I had the scouts round them up just in case. One of them is a Lord named Yosen," Aiden said. "The man who used to sell us horses."
"Yosen? I remember him."
"He claims they were on their way to Sedona City to attend your banquet," Aiden added with a skeptical look.
"A banquet? Keep them with the prisoners for now. We'll deal with them once we return," Lucas shook his head.
"Did any of the knights escape?"
"None. The light cavalry has the perimeter locked down. No one got past them," Aiden assured him. These scouts were seasoned veterans; they knew how to maintain a screen.
"Good. Arrange for the prisoners and the wounded to be sent back to Sedona City first. The rest of us move out tomorrow morning. I want to be at the gates of Liberty City as fast as possible," Lucas said coldly.
"Understood!" Aiden saluted and turned to execute the orders.
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