The adrenaline of the battle faded, replaced by the grim reality of the cleanup.
The peasants, who had stood like statues on the wall, were now retching in the snow as they dragged the bandit corpses into a pile for burning. The smell of death, released from the frozen bodies as they were moved, was heavy in the air.
Ronan didn't retch. He was calculating the salvage value.
• Scrap Iron: 300 lbs (Rusted mail/weapons).
• Leather: 40 sets (Boiled, repairable).
• Boots: 60 pairs (Valuable in winter).
"Strip them," Ronan ordered Varrick. "Boil the leather. Melt the iron. Waste nothing."
A commotion near the gate drew his attention. A group of villagers was huddled around a cart. A woman was wailing.
Ronan walked over, pushing through the crowd.
Lying in the cart was Pate—the skinny lad who had been the first to learn the Arbalest. He wasn't dead, but he was pale, sweating profusely, and shivering violently.
"What happened?" Ronan asked.
"He... he fell, my Lord," a weeping girl said. "During the loading. He dropped a crate of bolts on his leg two days ago. He didn't say anything. He wanted to fight."
Ronan looked at the leg. The trousers were soaked in dark, foul-smelling fluid.
Old Hareth, the village elder who doubled as the healer, was holding a rusty saw. "The rot has taken it, Lord Ronan. It smells of the grave. We must take the leg at the knee, or the black blood will reach his heart."
Pate looked at the saw, his eyes wide with terror. "Please... no. I can't work with one leg. I can't..."
Wynafryd Manderly had followed Ronan. She looked at the swollen, purple limb and covered her mouth. "The elder is right, My Lord. Gangrene. If you don't cut it, he dies by sunset."
Ronan ignored them. He activated [The Architect's Eye].
The world shifted. The skin of Pate's leg became translucent layers of geometry.
He saw the bone—intact. He saw the muscle—inflamed, angry red.
But he didn't see the "black rot" of irreversible gangrene yet. He saw a foreign object.
A splinter of dirty wood, deep in the calf muscle, festering. A pocket of infection was pulsing around it, sending tendrils of toxicity (red lines in his vision) shooting up toward the femoral artery.
"Put down the saw," Ronan commanded.
"My Lord," Hareth argued. "The humors are unbalanced. The rot—"
"I said put it down!" Ronan's voice cracked like a whip.
He turned to Varrick. "Get me the 'Aqua Vitae' from the cellar. The clear spirit from the potato mash. And bring me my sewing kit. And boiling water. A lot of it."
"You mean to drink with him before he dies?" Wynafryd asked softly.
"I mean to wash him," Ronan said, rolling up his sleeves. "Carry him to the solar. The light is better."
The solar was warm, thanks to the underfloor heating. They laid Pate on the heavy oak table.
Ronan washed his hands. He scrubbed them with rough soap until they were raw. Then he poured the high-proof potato spirit—basically moonshine—over his hands.
"This will hurt, Pate," Ronan said, looking down at the boy. "Bite on this leather."
Ronan poured the alcohol directly into the wound.
Pate screamed. It was a primal, jagged sound that made Wynafryd flinch. The alcohol hissed as it hit the infection.
"Hold him!" Ronan barked at the guards.
Ronan picked up a small, thin knife. He had boiled it for twenty minutes.
Using [The Architect's Eye], Ronan didn't have to dig blindly. He could see exactly where the splinter lay.
He made a single, precise incision. He bypassed the major nerves. He avoided the artery.
He inserted a pair of long-nosed pliers (also boiled).
Squesssh.
He pulled. A three-inch shard of rot-blackened wood slid out of the leg. It was followed by a rush of pus and bad blood.
"The poison is out," Ronan murmured.
He flushed the wound again with alcohol. Pate had passed out from the pain, which made working easier.
Ronan took a needle threaded with boiled silk. He began to stitch. Not the clumsy, wide loops of a village healer, but tight, neat, interrupted sutures that closed the flesh perfectly.
"Bandage it," Ronan said, stepping back and wiping the blood from his hands. "Change the dressing twice a day. Boil the bandages every time. If you touch it with dirty hands, I will cut your hands off."
Old Hareth stared at the leg. It was clean. The swelling was already visibly less angry now that the pressure was released. "You... you didn't take the leg. You just... cut the evil out."
"It wasn't evil," Ronan said, drying his hands. "It was dirt."
[Skill Check: Medicine]
[Result: Success]
[Reputation Gained: The Healer]
Ronan walked to the window, feeling the exhaustion hit him. Using the Eye drained his stamina.
Wynafryd approached him. She looked at the boy breathing steadily on the table, then at Ronan.
"You are a strange man, Ronan Blackwood," she said. "You build walls of stone in a night. You kill thirty men without blinking. And then you spend an hour sewing up a peasant's leg."
"Pate is a Level 2 Crossbowman," Ronan said, his voice flat. "It takes three weeks to train a replacement. Saving him is mathematically efficient."
Wynafryd studied his face. She reached out and touched his arm—a breach of protocol, but a deliberate one.
"You can say it's math," she said softly. "But I saw your face when you pulled that splinter out. You weren't thinking about crossbows."
She withdrew her hand.
"My father will sign the treaty," she said. "I will send the raven tonight. You will have your sand, Lord Ronan. And your ships."
Ronan looked at her. The alliance was sealed. Not with gold, but with blood and competence.
"Good," Ronan said. "Because the Red Hands were just the beginning. We need to get ready for the real war."
"What war?" she asked.
Ronan looked North, toward the Wall. Then South, toward King's Landing.
"The war against everyone," he said.
Status Update:
• Population: 1 Saved (Pate).
• Alliance: House Manderly Secured.
• Tech: Basic Sterile Surgery / Alcohol Disinfectant.