NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 14: Angel’s Blood heals Mortal Wounds. Let’s Do Some Good Deeds.
Turning around, she trudges out of the armory. Even three kilograms on each limb is starting to feel heavy after a couple of steps. But she pushes herself through, making her way towards the wounded’s tent.
It’s heart wrenching here. There aren’t enough metal beds, so most soldiers are lined up on tarps on the ground. Each of them, with varying degrees of injuries. Missing limbs, others, chunks of flesh, a dozen more with their intestines spilling out. Faces disfigured, eyeballs, popping out of sockets. Parts of swords, metal fragments and arrows stuck in their bodies. Grunting in pain with a low zombie like growl, otherwise unconscious. And only more are being brought in. The medics from the nearby campaign still haven’t arrived yet. They’re severely short staffed here. The handful of civilian volunteers and soldiers who are trained in emergency care are overworked trying to clean and bandage wounds. The majority of the injured are just left untended to bleed out.
She’ll need to be quick. Pulling out a dagger, she furls her sleeves up to her shoulder. She approaches the one with the nastiest looking wound she spots first. A young man, too drenched in red for her to decipher the color of his hair. His legs got completely hacked off. Leaving the bones protruding out in jagged shards. Bits of flesh, clinging on and turning dark.
She bites her lips hard, braces for the pain before she impales the dagger into her wrist. Twists. Forcing her blood to drizzle out like rain. But the moment she does, someone spots her, and she yells,
“Hey! What are you doing! That’s unhygienic.” It's a volunteer nurse, rapidly wiping her hands on her apron and approaches her. Looking to drag her away but she refuses to budge. Instead, she stands her ground and clenches her fist. Forces more blood out, until the nurse is desperately calling for backup,
“Help! There’s a crazy lady here contaminating the injured.” and another soldier rushes to their side. He gets here just in time to witness the broken bones round out. The flesh tangling in place. She can’t regrow his legs, but she can seam wounds. Leaving behind two fleshy stumps. The bedded soldier hasn’t opened his eyes yet. Looks like the pain will still linger on for a while before he fully regains consciousness.
Beside her, the two observers went completely speechless. Rendered still and silent for a few seconds until the nurse mutters,
“What in the world...” and Lumeria instantly requests,
“Please guide me to the ones that are in the most crucial state first. Get the others to prioritize removing the foreign objects stuck in them. I can heal them with my blood.” She shows the nurse her wrist, keeping the dagger stuck in it so the cut doesn’t close. Dripping into a puddle onto the soil.
It takes them a few more moments to fully register what’s going on, but instead of trying to clarify their confusion, they immediately abide. The soldier leaves to command the medics to forget the bandages and instead focus on extraction, whereas the nurse hastily escorts her to the next bedside.
This patient has an arm dangling off, squirming in so much pain he can’t even open his eyes. She recognizes him, it’s the brunette soldier that told her how get into the castle.
“Piece it back. It doesn’t matter if the bones won’t fit seamlessly.” she drenches him too once the procedures are done. Looks like she can restore limbs if they’re still intact. He’s able to twitch his fingers now.
She’s quickly escorted to the next patient before brunette wakes up. Intestines spilling out, this soldier isn’t even conscious anymore. One foot in death’s door. That’s not good. Even as the nurse shoves his internals back, his stomach is completely missing. It was ripped out of him; the acids were devouring the surrounding organs. He isn’t getting any better,
“Let’s try transplants. Take it from someone that’s already dead.”
“But the blood type may not match. His body will reject it.”
“We must try. He’s dying otherwise.” the nurse hastily scampers off. She comes back not even a minute after with a grotesque lump in her hands. Plopping it in, she tries again. It looks like it’s working. His digestive track is connecting. But... No. It’s too late. He had already stopped breathing. His heart isn’t beating. No. No. Fuck! The nurse drags her to the next. After a few more trials, she figures out the limits of her ability.
One. She can heal open wounds. Two, she can bypass immuno-complications surrounding transplants. Three. She can’t fix what isn’t there. And finally, she can’t resurrect a person if they’re already dead even if she fully repairs their bodies. If she had known healing would be so useful, she would’ve developed this power much further. It’s too late to regret now. She’ll have to try her best with what she has.
She loses count of how long she’s been there, how much she bled, and how many patients she went through, when she starts feeling dizzy again. The sun is setting at this point. She isn’t anemic as she used to be, but straining herself like this eventually wears her out. Her arm has turned purple. The noises are getting blurry. Though it’s the low blood sugar that’s causing her vision to white-out. She’s seeing doubles when she finally patches the wounds of the soldier before her. This one’s scary. A head injury. She isn’t certain if she’s able to bring him back from a comatose state, she’ll find out later. The moment she tries to take another step, her knees buckle, she’s going to collapse. But she’s caught beneath the armpit before she does. Bumping her back against someone’s chest. Ah. These rock-hard pecs feel familiar. She flicks her head up, making eye contact,
“Soril?” but all she sees is a fuzz of silver and blue, “when did you get her-” and she couldn’t finish the sentence before he shoves something against her lips. It’s salty and greasy,
“Eat. You’re going to faint again.” a turkey leg. The nausea catching up to her prevents her from taking huge bites. So, she nibbles a few mouths full, downs a flask of water that the nurse hurried offers her and waits until her head to stop spinning before she finds her energy to turn around and inquire,
“How did you know I was here?”
“Look around.” he gestures with a flick of his head. She’s surrounded by soldiers. Some of them, she recognizes to be the previous patients that she’s healed has gotten up to assist. Others are lifting the dead bodies away, salvaging whatever organs they can retrieve into ice boxes before piling the corpses in another mass grave that was dug near the city gates. The medics from the nearby campaign have at long last arrived with more first-aid supplies and disinfectants. Another group off to a side is setting up a temporary outdoors kitchen. Cooking stew over a large cauldron to distribute to the weary fighters. They’re wearing hopeful looks on their faces. Making sporadic glances towards her before smiling and waving. Others, giving her a slight nod of gratitude.
She spots the brunette soldier she’s previously bribed in the midst. He’s around a campfire, rotating his fully repaired arm and bragging to his entourage that he’s helped her the night before the attack and she warned him that it was coming. Only except, she had a massive scar on her face. Consciously omitting the fact that he did not take her seriously at all back then. His blond friend is beside him, supporting his tall claims. Still, it brings a smile to her face to see they’re both still alive.
She turns her attention back to Soril when he starts,
“I’ve been hearing rumors of a beautiful red-haired Witch Doctor that’s performing miracles three streets away.” he shrugs,
“Your earnesty attracts people to gather. It’s hard to miss.” oh. She scratches her cheek, giggles nervously,
“I’m an Angel though.” Why did that make her so flustered? It’s the first time he genuinely complimented her. She’s suddenly called out again,
“Hey! Scar face lady! Back me up here. Tell them we met before!” it’s brunette, beckoning her over with hasty waves. His blond friend is preparing drinks and a bowl of stew, before they realize Soril’s with her and they immediately went stiff,
“Shit! It’s Lord Blaine.” and hastily chucks a quick bow. He promptly dismisses their formalities,
“At ease.” despite so, the brunette still looks a little tense when he attempts to invite her,
“Join us for dinner. You’ve been working for hours.”
“I can’t, I still have work-” but the nurse interrupts her,
“Don’t worry about it. Most of the severely injured that you can assist with are already out of the critical zone. We can handle the rest from here.” Huh. Why did she sound so nervous all of the sudden? Hurriedly scurrying away afterwards whilst making scattered peeks towards Soril. Does she have a crush on him or something? Actually, no, she looks more like she’s intimidated by his presence. Is he that scary?
Turning her attention back, she instead suggests,
“Are you done with Wascald? We can leave for Ryden. The faster we get things done, the better.” but he’s not addressing her face. He’s pulling the dagger out of her wrist. Exchanging it for the turkey leg. Nudging her on the back,
“Take a break. Your complexation looks awful. It’s getting late. There may still be Estelis soldiers in the vicinity. And Ryden’s already enemy territory. If we leave now, you won’t have the energy to run. We can go at dawn tomorrow.”
“Sorry. I disrupted our plans, didn’t I?”
“I need a break then.” He just lied. He just blatantly lied. But what's this fuzziness she’s suddenly experiencing? She doesn’t resist any more,
“Okay.” she softly agrees. It’s been a long time since someone’s told her a white lie out of concern. Had it always felt this warm, to be cared for? She decides to accept the Brunette’s hospitality, approaching them before she turns around and realizes,
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“They won’t be able to relax if I’m there.” So that’s how it is.
“That’s because you’re always threatening and ordering people around with a sulky face all the time.” She smiles, tugging on his hand to drag him forward,
“Come prove them wrong.”
“And show them what?”
“That you’re a big softie on the inside, and you can be kinda cute sometimes.” she giggles straightening her glance. Brazenly approaching the group of uneased soldiers that now appear as though she’s bringing them a lion from a den with a huge gleeful grin on her face. And she does not see the bright red flush staining his cheeks.