Chapter 37
Amaris
Amaris latched on to Pricilla, dragging her from the shaking tower and into the safety of the library, or at least where she’d thought they’d be safe.
Amaris gaped in horror at what had befallen the library.
Bookcases had tipped over, spilling their contents and scattering pages across the floor.
Silent tears spilled from Pricilla’s eyes, but Amaris squeezed her hand and pulled her along.
Gone were the swirling emotions building within her.
Her only focus was on how to survive the night.
She held tight to Pricilla’s hand. They needed a safe space to hide from the enemy soldiers and the swaying shelves threatening to topple over.
A shriek froze them in place, and Amaris’s heart leapt from her chest. Lying crushed beneath a pile of rubble was what had once been a person.
Blood pooled around the stone. Only a single leg was exposed.
Another blast rung through the air, and Pricilla threw herself into her, but Amaris couldn’t take her eyes from the pool swelling with each of her passing breaths. She had to do something.
“I’m going to help the wounded.”
“But—”
“Find anyone who’s willing to bring my supplies from the tower to the kitchen.”
The first thing in a mass casualty situation was to begin tagging the wounded and creating a triage. The sheer size of the kitchen would accommodate her needs, along with having access to fireplaces and water, but the real necessity of the kitchen was its proximity to the bay.
“Amaris, mystiques don’t go into battle.”
She took a sharp breath. “This one does.”
Pulling from Pricilla’s grasp, she took off with a force of pure determination toward the kitchen.
The manor had been ripped into complete confusion and chaos.
All around her, soldiers spilled through the halls with their swords raised and piercing gleams in their eyes.
But Amaris could only focus on the beating of her heart and the possible number of bodies piling up beyond the manor walls.
Amaris squeezed through the crowds of people, cold sweat beading down her back. Another blast shook the walls, extinguishing several torches.
“If you can’t fight, head to the library for safety!” she shouted, confidently.
A few people nearby watched in horror as she charged against the swarm toward the battle. Others heeded her warning and bolted for the library.
She didn’t know what she expected to find or how she’d even begin setting up a triage for a disaster of this magnitude, but she was going to try her damnedest to save as many people as she could.
Fuck the duke and Bennet. No one deserved to die because of them.
She’d fight to stay and help, even if she paid for it later.
Once in the kitchen, she leaned into her knees, choking back the taste of iron. The doors leading to the gardens were barricaded with tables, chairs, anything to keep out the enemy, and the wounded soldiers.
Amaris immediately began pulling at chairs, but a sharp voice halted her movements.
“Get away from the barricade!”
She spun on her heels to face Alan with his sword clutched in his hand, ready to pounce. Screams broke out on the other side of the doors. The hairs along her arms spiked.
“Someone could be injured,” she snapped back, stepping closer and forcing Alan back.
Pounding came from the barricade and a muffled scream.
As Amaris ran to begin dragging tables away, another explosion blasted against the manor wall.
Dust fell from the ceiling, and the chandelier rattled, sending candles to the ground to extinguish and further wrap them in the darkness of the dimly lit kitchen.
Even more screams came from the other side, and fists beat against the door.
“I’m moving these tables with or without you.”
Alan didn’t latch his arm around her or drag her back as she threw chairs out of the way and shoved tables to the side.
“I was instructed that, under no circumstance, should this barricade to be moved!”
“Someone’s hurt and could be dying.”
Alan took several agonizing heartbeats, as his hand tightened around his sword. His eyes swept over Amaris and shifted to the continuous shouts of the soldiers on the other side, growing with their anxiety to make it inside.
People needed Amaris’s help, and all she had to do was move the stupid barricade.
She threw her back into a table and grunted as she slid it across the floor.
As she leapt toward the barricade to grab another, Alan gripped the other side of the table and dragged it away.
She balked but pressed forward. Her time to stop and think was over. She could only act.
Soon, a path was formed, and Amaris removed the wooden plank holding the doors closed. They busted open, and Gerard barreled into the room with a man slung over his shoulder.
“Where’s Ms. Borstad?” he shouted, setting the man on the nearest table
Ms. Borstad? Amaris questioned why he would be calling for her when a useful paramedic was standing right in front of him.
At the sound of her name, Ms. Borstad came running, but at the sight of the blood, she stopped, and her eyes widened. “What can I do?” She peeled her attention from Gerard and swung her gaze to Amaris.
Gerard leaned over the wounded man, pressing his hand against the blood seeping from a gash in his leg. “This man needs attention.”
Ms. Borstad’s eyes lingered on Amaris as she stood with her hands balled into fists at her sides. The audacity. Gerard shot Amaris a disdainful glare before he sneered and pounded his fist on the table. The man’s near-lifeless body shook upon the impact.
Amaris stood with her spine erect and her heart beating against the cavity within her chest. Adrenaline coursed through her body, her mind tunneling. “Ms. Borstad, I need as much cloth as you can muster, and I need the tools and herbs brought down from my tower. Pricilla should—”
“I’m here,” Pricilla announced with a large basket in hand.
Amaris ran and threw her arms around her. “Thank you,” she said. “Now get back to the library.”
Onika stood behind her, her golden-brown eyes shrinking as she took in the scene. “We’re not leaving,” Onika said, swallowing and shaking her head. “We’re here to help. All of us.”
Amaris caught movement behind them, and dozens filed into the kitchen with baskets and trunks full of herbs, cloth, and tools.
I have a team.
“What we need is a real mystique, not you,” Gerard spewed.
He was cruel, but Amaris had dealt with much worse in her career. She’d been spat at, puked on, and shit on. Gerard’s bullshit was nothing compared to what she’d seen or dealt with in the field.
“You listen to me.” She stuck out her finger and shoved it into his chest. “I am the mystique. This man needs medical attention, and I can give it to him.” She leaned closer, narrowing her eyes as she ground her teeth against his ugly sneer. “Now get out of my fucking way.”
Amaris felt alive, fighting the nervous energy skittering through her at her defiance. Gerard didn’t budge, but he eyed the others around her, willing to risk their lives to stand on the edge of the line.
“This man die if pale girl don’t help,” Ms. Borstad said with such authority and intimidation that it startled Amaris.
She was glad she was on her good side. “You may not see what pale girl did for Theodoric when you sliced back open, but he did.” She pointed a crooked finger at Alan. “She will save him.”
Gerard stood tall and puffed his chest out. His glare shifted to Alan. Amaris waited for Alan to agree with his father and drag her to the dungeons.
“She’s more than capable,” Alan said.
Amaris was stunned. Had the gods of the realm finally answered her prayers?
“If anything happens to him…” Before Gerard finished his threat, he charged through the door.
“Get in line,” Amaris shouted, bolting to her patient lying on the table.
His complexion was a gravely pale color, and he couldn’t speak past a moan. She grabbed her knife and cut open the tear in his pants. He had a large laceration to his right lower leg, with heavy bleeding, but Amaris sighed with relief to see no spurting blood. It’s not arterial.
She grabbed a handful of cloth and exerted pressure on the wound. A scruffy-looking man with the reek of fish hefted the man’s leg up while she bound a strip of cloth around it to keep constant pressure and control the bleeding.
Amaris faced her helpers, braiding her hair back tightly, readying herself for what was to come.
“I know some of you might be scared.” She for sure was and would be lying to herself if she considered the knot in her stomach only indigestion.
Instead of casting her fear aside, she embraced it.
The surge of adrenaline wrapped itself around her heart, and she used it to channel her words and movements.
“We’re all they’ve got. We must move swiftly and quickly. ”
She pointed to several of the men and women with baskets.
“Keep the fires going and begin boiling water. Alan, gather as much alcohol as you can.” She’d need some form of an anesthetic to aid in the pain.
She doubted she had enough cudweed. “Pricilla and Onika, start organizing the herbs and make baskets for everyone. Place a bottle of alcohol in each, bandage squares, linen, and several belts.”
They both nodded and began following Amaris’s instructions.
The remainder started righting tables and took over attending to their first patient.
Amaris closed her eyes to breathe. She’d never been a part of a mass casualty situation.
They’d done table discussions at work to prepare for the insurmountable odds that would be stacked against them.
But she’d never hung a tag over someone’s neck and left them for another paramedic to continue their care.
Before the chaos had even begun, Amaris knew she never wanted to experience it again.
She watched as a makeshift triage formed. Ms. Borstad tended to the fire, and she sent someone to grab every bit of cloth they could find. Alan returned with more than enough bottles of liquor, but Amaris sent him again to procure belts, in case she needed to fashion tourniquets.
Esaias barged through the door carrying someone in his arms.
“Put him here.” Amaris gestured to the next free table space. The young soldier was unconscious but breathing. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Esaias began, panting as he leaned against the table. Blood dripped from his face and splashed a single dot on the table. His shirt was soaked with it.
“Esaias, where are you injured?” She scanned him head to toe, looking for the source of the bleeding.
He almost laughed. “It’s not mine.”
“Is—”
“He’s fine, but you shouldn’t worry about him. It seems you have enough to deal with.” He gathered himself in one large breath and charged back out into the night.
Amaris returned her attention to the young soldier and took a breath to compose herself, repeating what every paramedic knew by heart. The smoother I move, the quicker I’ll be.
She attempted to rouse the soldier and rubbed her knuckles against his sternum, but he didn’t move. A large goose egg poked through the scraggly locks of his hair, but he had no other signs of trauma. His pupils were equal and reacted to the candlelight, and a strong pulse beat in his wrist.
“Peter,” Alan cried, racing over to their new patient. His hands shook as he took the soldier’s face between them, brushing back the sweaty strands of his hair.
“He’ll be alright,” Amaris whispered, landing a gentle hand against Alan’s arm. “He’s only knocked out.”
Alan collapsed beside him, but Amaris didn’t have time to deal with anything other than physical wounds.
She turned to the door in anticipation of her next patient, but there was no one.
She should’ve felt relieved, but the knot within her stomach tightened.
Returning to her first patient, she assessed the bandage.
His eyes fluttered open, and she obliged him with a glass of kusu for the pain and his anxious nerves.
The pallor of his skin worried her, but Magoria seemed given to quick healing.
Maybe he’d be back on his feet in a matter of days.
Without a wound to wrap, bleeding to control, or a patient’s hand to hold, her nerves took over.
She grabbed the mystique journal Pricilla had graciously brought down and rifled through the contents.
She’d briefly read about an herb with coagulation properties and its ability to deal with blood loss.
Fade chicory. Ground leaves into a powder substance. Coagulation properties to staunch heavy bleeding.
She raced for the table of herbs and found numerous jars already ground into powder. “Pricilla, make sure a jar of this goes into the baskets.”
“Already on it,” Pricilla called back, offering a wink as she filled a basket.
Another explosion shook the building, sending Amaris into a crouched ball. A few others followed suit, but Alan paid no heed to the quaking, as if he had no doubt the structure would hold. Amaris had her doubts as the chandelier swayed above their heads, threatening to rain more candles on them.
The garden doors remained open, but not a single soul stood on the threshold.
There had to be more injured. Too many screams filled the empty void.
Amaris grabbed a satchel and filled it with squares of cloth, belts, and a dozen rolls of linen.
She rechecked the security of her knife, taking a deep breath as her fingers ran across the ribbed hilt.
No one paid her any attention until she was at the doors.
“Amaris, no!” Pricilla shouted after her.
Amaris wrapped her hands around the strap of her satchel and took off through the doors. She drowned out the cries behind her, knowing they wouldn’t dare chase after her, not with what she was running into.