|
Reading Samples |
|
Chapter One At daybreak, there was a knock on Eve Langdon’s door; an attendant entered the room. “My lady, an urgent letter just arrived for Lord Marlo.” Eve took the letter from the attendant. The seal was unbroken and bore the Marlo family crest. “Please have him meet me in the Great Hall,” she said. Aaron Marlo entered the Hall, the doors closing behind him with a loud thud. Eve left the group of men standing by the fire and walked to the middle of the room, handing him the letter. He examined it briefly and broke the seal, read it once, and then read it again. His expression was chiselled with pain; his hands trembled. “How and when did this arrive?” Aaron asked. “An old man brought it to the Labeil Grotto two days ago,” Eve responded. “He has urgent information he’ll only share with you. He’s being brought here now through the Dark Way; he asked the letter be sent ahead.” He handed it back to Eve; she walked to the fire to read it; Aaron followed.
Dear brother,
By the time you get this I’ll be dead. Ten days ago Timora was attacked without warning. I don’t know the face of this betrayal, but it’s been swift and thorough. I’d made the evening rounds and found nothing amiss, no discord anywhere in the city. But upon returning to my home, I found the entire household murdered in their beds; similar scenes were discovered throughout the city. Each night that followed, the killings continued; the enemy is silent and deadly in their craft; fear and panic were rampant. By the fourth day, what was left of the council voted to give up the city and flee east to the open country; we hoped the assassins would not pursue us. But every night, we are hounded by these devils. Every messenger I’ve sent to get word to you has been found among the dead—no one has escaped. I hold no hope for rescue, but my man Jamson has a plan for reaching you. If he succeeds, please avenge my wife and children.
In haste, Jacob
Eve motioned the letter toward her advisors, and Aaron nodded. They took the letter and pressed together by the fire to read it. “Who’s responsible?” Eve asked. “I don’t know yet,” Aaron said. “These are strange times; every allegiance will be sorely tested. The East is rising; this is just the beginning.”
Chapter Eleven Aaron gathered Eve into his arms, lifting her carefully, and began moving toward the exit. She cried out sharply with every step he took. “Please—put me down,” she gasped. Her breathing was short and labored. In response, he lay her down on one of the stone benches and shouted for help. But they were alone now, and no one responded. “Pull it out—I can’t stand it,” she panted, sweat pouring off her pale face and neck. Aaron looked at the knife protruding from Eve’s chest, taking a moment to evaluate her request. The blade was diamond shaped and sharp on two opposing edges, perhaps nine inches long, designed for easy penetration and to create a mortal, bleeding wound. It had penetrated almost to the hilt. “Eve, I can’t pull it out without killing you. You’ll bleed to death.” “I don’t care. Please pull it out.” Eve was growing weaker by the moment and would soon lose consciousness. Aaron walked across the floor and picked up the headdress he had thrown into the air earlier, unwinding it as he walked back to where she lay. Positioning himself directly above her, he placed his left hand beside the wound and took a solid grip on the knife with his right hand, pulling it from her chest with a single upward tug. Eve cried out and arched her back upward as he pulled, then collapsed with relief. A fine spray of blood from the gurgling chest wound filled the air and spattered Aaron’s face and hair each time Eve exhaled, making a sucking sound when she drew in breath. The knife had punctured her right lung. Aaron quickly gathered the blood-soaked cloth surrounding the hole and stuffed it into the wound to stop the blowing, then, tying a large knot in the long length of cloth from the headdress, he positioned it over the wound as a compress and bound it tightly against her chest, wrapping the remainder of the cloth round her torso to hold the knot in place. Aaron picked Eve up again, cradling her gently in his arms. The infirmary and the garrison’s surgeons were just a short distance from the amphitheater. Eve’s last whispered words before she lost consciousness were, “I’m not going to die yet—you have some explaining to do.” The surgery was already in turmoil with the wounded being brought in from the carnage on Sanglant Field—Helron’s cannons would thunder on intermittently for hours. Surgeons went about the grim task of triage, deciding who could be saved or would simply be left to die. Amputations were being done quickly, wherever the patient lay, trying to save as many lives as possible. The floors were awash with blood. Orderlies were spreading sawdust and sand on the floors, taking it up again with brooms and shovels, trying in vain to keep up with the steady flow. The place smelled like an abattoir, a rusty odor in the air, more tasted on the tongue than smelled through the nose. The sulfur powder being poured liberally on wounds also filled the air with its own pungent aroma. A long line of hand carts were queued at the side entrance; as they were stabilized, the wounded were being loaded, then disappearing into the mountain, probably on their way to the Citadel. Other carts were being loaded with the dead and taken into the quarries, the bodies stacked like cords of wood in the boxlike cuts where the large stone blocks to build the garrison had been hewn centuries earlier—a makeshift morgue. Aaron made his way through the infirmary and into the surgery looking for a place to put Eve down. Every gurney, bed, and operating table was already occupied with the dead or dying. Finally, one of the surgeons recognized the pair and handed over what he was doing to someone else, coming to them as quickly as he could. “My Lord, what happened to our Lady? May I examine her?” he said. “Yes, but not here. She has a blowing chest wound. Her right lung is punctured and she’s lost a lot of blood.” Aaron thought for a moment. “I’ll take her to her son’s bedchamber, next to the war room. Gather what you need and meet me there—quickly please!” Aaron turned and left the infirmary, crossing the quadrangle, an open square surrounded by administration buildings. On the other side, he ascended the wide stone steps two at a time, holding Eve tightly in his arms. The war room was bustling with activity, but everything stopped momentarily as he made the circuit of the room and entered Alex’s bedchamber. “Bring more light,” Aaron said, as he disappeared through the doorway. Aaron placed Eve gently on the bed and drew the covers up over her. Half a dozen lamps were brought into the room, and then Aaron politely asked everyone to take their leave. He closed the door and filled a bowl with water. He had already cleansed the blood from Eve’s face and hair by the time the surgeon arrived. It was not the young one Aaron first spoke with, but the chief surgeon, a friend who campaigned with Aaron in battle over the years, and treated most of his injuries. The surgeon was an old man now; his name was Arness. They embraced as old comrades. “I didn’t know you were still practicing your craft,” said Aaron. “I thought you were growing olives on the warm shores by the Inland Sea.” “I was, I was,” Arness replied with a sad smile. “But these are desperate times. I came to the muster with everyone else; we each must do our part. Besides, my wife of almost sixty years died last April. Life hasn’t been the same without her.” “I’m sorry for your loss, Arness, but I’m glad you’re here.” Aaron placed both his hands on the old man’s stooped shoulders. What he saw in the surgeon’s face was tired resignation—something only death could lift. The surgeon turned toward the bed. “Now, let’s see what we have here.” Arness pulled a chair up close to Eve, placing a lamp on the bedside table next to her. He pulled back the covers and carefully unwrapped the temporary dressing Aaron had placed over the wound, but left the packing in place in order not to restart the bleeding. Arness stopped for a moment and went to the basin to wash his hands, pouring the fluid from one of the stoppered bottles in his bag into the bowl, rinsing his hands in it repeatedly. He let them dry in the air, then returned to the bed and lightly explored the edges of the wound with his finger tips. Next he explored the rest of Eve’s abdomen and chest, looking for clues as to the full extent of the damage done by the knife. Satisfied, he listened to her heart and lungs, then with Aaron’s help, rolled her up on her side to explore her back. There was bruising just beneath one of the ribs, directly opposite the wound on the chest. The knife had gone almost all the way through her body. With those two points of reference, the surgeon could surmise the path the blade had taken, and which organs and arteries it may have hit or missed. While she was turned up on her side, he also listened to her heart and lungs again, palpating the chest or back as he went. Eve’s breathing was shallow and labored—her flesh pale. “I think the collapsed lung is the worst of it,” he finally said. “I’ll wait a few hours for the wound to close a little more, and then I’ll try to re-inflate the lung. She’s been through a lot, given what happened at the Jade City.” Aaron gave the old man a quizzical look. “What happened at the Jade City?” he asked. The surgeon shrugged, “You’ll have to ask her yourself—or your daughter. They arrived together, just yesterday.” Eve’s final words before she lost consciousness suddenly came home to Aaron, “You have some explaining to do…” she had said. He took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. Aaron had long dreaded that conversation, but its time had finally come. They placed Eve on her back again and the surgeon carefully removed the cloth packing Aaron had stuffed into the wound to stop the blowing. There was still some oozing, but it did not bleed freely as the surgeon feared it might. Arness cleansed the wound and the surrounding area with fresh gauze and a brown fluid from one of the stoppered bottles, and then sutured the wound shut. He tore open a small paper sachet full of yellow powder and sprinkled the entire area liberally with sulfur. Placing a clean compress dressing back over the wound, he bound it tightly around Eve’s torso with several wraps of fresh bandage. “She’s out of danger for now, and I suspect you have other things you need to do,” Arness said, nodding toward the confusion in the war room. “I’m needed back in the surgery, but will have someone stay with her. It’ll be sometime this evening before I attempt to re-inflate the lung. If you want to attend, you’ll find me either here or in the surgery.” “Thanks for saving her life,” Aaron said. “Aaron, it wasn’t me who saved Eve’s life. Removing the blade and applying the compress were what saved her. The way the blade was positioned, if you’d moved her any distance you’d have killed her.”
|
|
House of Marlo |
