Chapter 23:
Take off the Sleeves
After an hour of waiting for the ones who set the trap, we break from our ambush positions behind the ridge. It’s dark, and I’m freezing again. Marcellus has sunk to the ground. His free hand grips his injured shoulder, the arrow still embedded inside. Blood stains his sleeve red, and his axe now lies in the dirt. He’s usually far too proud a warrior to leave his weapon discarded when the enemy could be nearby. He’s not well.
Keeping his sword drawn, Trevus kneels beside Marcellus and inspects the arrow in his shoulder. “We must tread west, away from hostility,” Trevus says. “Then we shall light a fire and deliver aid.”
Marcellus lets out a pained sigh. “I am able.”
Trevus raises Marcellus up to his feet by his uninjured arm.
“Salts,” Marcellus grunts. Any adjustment to his swollen joint is painful.
Trevus rests Marcellus’s good arm over his shoulder and wraps his hand around him for support. “Try restrain your curses for a short time,” he says. “We may cross within earshot of them.”
I collect the saddlebag that Trevus had to abandon and follow a few steps behind the two of them. The fear of being picked off keeps me close.
Marcellus isn’t well, and I dread the thought of his condition worsening. My stomach roils at the possibility of digging a grave.
Who did this to him? I want to ask Trevus, but I abstain over the chance of our enemies overhearing my voice. Could it be the men who attacked us at the trade post – the Versillian army wearing Cerillis emerald stripes?
After walking for a while, we find a clearing with a ditch. Trevus sets Marcellus down on the ground, laying him flat.
He collects dry wood and lights a fire in the ditch. Any flames that rise high enough to flare our position in the dark are quickly smothered with sand. Our little stream of smoke should be indistinguishable from the forest fire’s plume. Trevus places a pot over the flames and pours the last of his waterskin inside.
My attention is on Marcellus. He’s in pain. I kneel beside him, and his eyes follow me with suspicion. This isn’t the usual look I receive. Perhaps playing the role of the less physically capable one makes him uneasy.
I raise his head up and tuck in a rolled sleeping pouch as a pillow, but it doesn’t ease the discomfort on his face.
My eyes run up and down his body, lingering on the arrow still in his shoulder – the source of his great pain. There’s nothing else I can do, but I stay beside him so that he’s not alone.
Trevus sterilizes rags in the boiling water, then joins me with Marcellus.
“Stop wasting time,” Marcellus says. “Yank it out already.”
“No,” Trevus says. “I shall cut it short and wrap your wound, but the arrow’s head shall remain.”
“The pain is nothing,” Marcellus says.
“’Tis the subsequent bleeding that is of concern. A physician must sew your wound closed.”
“The arrowhead shall take my life before I reach a physician.”
Trevus averts his gaze for a moment. The reality that Marcellus may die weighs heavy on him. I gather they fought side by side for years. “I shall not be the one to take your life,” he says.
“I can sew,” I say. They both look at me. “I’m not a physician, but I can sew.” I don’t want to see anyone else die.
Trevus inspects my sewing on the tear on his shirt. “You do the same on skin?” he asks.
“It won’t be as fine, and there’ll be far fewer stitches.” I turn to Marcellus. “If you trust my hands on you, I’ll do it.”
Marcellus remains still, his face frozen. He’s not like Trevus. He’s always found my connection frightening after witnessing it on Becky. It’s silly. If I wanted him to die, the arrowhead wouldn’t need my help.
Marcellus comes to the same conclusion, and he slowly nods his head.
I raise both my hands. “Take these off,” I say.
Trevus loosens the knots by my elbow and slides the sleeves off. I wiggle my fingers, pleased that they’re free of the damp covering.
“A wooden splinter is sufficient for clothes but not people,” I say. “I need a steel needle.”
Trevus unties his sword sheath and picks at it with Marcellus’s carving knife. He fashions a piece of metal wire into a thin needle with an eye on the end. After boiling the needle and a thread from his shirt, he hands them to me. “Will that suffice?”
“Yes.” I nod.
Trevus returns to Marcellus with the sterilized knife in hand. He tears away Marcellus’s shirt around the shoulder and puts a roll of it between Marcellus’s teeth.
“Ready?” he asks.
Marcellus quickly nods. He wants the arrow out.
Trevus looks to me. “After I have removed the arrowhead, you must seal the wound with haste. An injury of this nature will end a man’s life in minutes.”
“I’m ready,” I say.
Trevus pins Marcellus’s arm under his knee, and he lines the knife up with the arrow. The blade slides into his flesh, cutting the wound wider. Marcellus yells for a moment before silencing himself. He’s still aware that the ones after us may be nearby.
With the tip of the blade now in his shoulder, Trevus begins sliding both the arrow and the blade back together. Marcellus grunts and bites his free hand to try keep silent. Instead of one quick yank, Trevus is moving with precision to prevent the arrowhead from breaking off inside. I prepare myself to take over.
As soon as the arrowhead is out, Trevus makes space for me. I take the best spot beside Marcellus’s shoulder. Blood is flowing freely now, and the hole is wide enough to fit my thumb.
“Press the wound together,” I say. Trevus follows my instruction, holding the shoulder so that the skin on either side of the wound touches. Marcellus hisses and groans from the pain.
I bring my eyes close to the injury. Sewing living skin is uncomfortable, but I put the feeling aside and focus. When pressed together, the cut is almost the length of my pinky. I can fit four stitches.
I bring the needle up near the edge of the cut, gently touch the point to his skin, and press it through. Marcellus takes in a sharp breath, but he’s much quieter than before. I consider that my reassurance that I’m not causing unnecessary pain.
I thread the needle through the other side, making a second stitch and a third. His blood coats my fingers. After pulling the third stitch tight, I poke the fourth one through and tie the ends together.
I sit up straight. “Done.”
Trevus releases his grip on the shoulder, and my threading holds the skin closed. It worked.
I reach back and hand him the pot with the soaking bandages. Trevus wraps Marcellus’s shoulder, making sure to apply pressure. Soon his arm is protected with a tight makeshift bandage.
Both Trevus and I watch the bandage in silence. If it bleeds through, it means we failed to seal the wound.
The minutes pass. Besides the red smudges from Trevus’s fingers, the bandage doesn’t bleed.
“It appears that you shall live many more days,” Trevus says.
Marcellus lets out a sigh and closes his eyes.
Trevus unrolls the sleeping pouch, and with my help, Marcellus is soon tucked away inside it.
Trevus and I both wash the dried blood off our hands with the pot water. After using our waterskins to boil bandages and dampen both of their shirts, we don’t have much left.
I dig through our bag and find another sleeping pouch, but that leaves us with a total of just two. After losing one bag to the Merk and a second to Giddius, this is the only one we have left. With only a handful of fruit and half a waterskin, our provisions look rather thin.
I never took much note of our supplies before. Trevus took care of it. He made sure I had food, water, a place to sleep and a saddle to ride. This whole journey was his venture, and I was an unwilling participant. As we have traveled, the situation has deteriorated, and I find myself concerned over our limited food, water and warm places to sleep.
“Take it.” Trevus gestures to the sleeping pouch. “I have no use for it this evening.” He snuffs out the fire with his boot. This’ll be our first time sleeping without heat.
Though my clothes smell of smoke, they have dried. I pull the sleeping pouch over my body and lean against a tree. Trevus sits with his back to a rock. He twirls the bloodied arrow between his fingers. With the threat of the men who set the fire looming, Trevus is keeping watch, and with Marcellus recovering from his injury, there isn’t any need for a watch log.
“Was it your old army?” I whisper, my voice soft to not disturb Marcellus.
Trevus’s gaze finds me, but he doesn’t answer.
“The ones who set the fire,” I clarify.
“Regent Evecius’s men march for Nepolis,” Trevus says. “Crossing the Merk shall keep us well clear of their route. One does not pursue fugitives with a thousand men. Our encounter at the trade settlement was nothing more than opportunistic.”
“What about wild men?” I ask.
“Bandits could not organize themselves out of a pigsty.” Trevus twirls the arrow. “A flame sweep is a military tactic.”
I hesitate before asking my next question. With that arrow in his hand, and what had happened just this morning, I can’t help but wonder. “And Giddius?” I ask.
Trevus snaps the arrow. “While Giddius may no longer wish to serve under my command, he is no less of a Versillian warrior.” Trevus abandons any effort to keep his voice quiet. “He sacrificed his position in the regiment to join this campaign and restore the true Versillian throne.”
I avert my gaze. Trevus was not pleased to lose him.
A piece of the arrow is tossed beside me. “There is proof of his innocence,” Trevus says. His voice is low again.
I pick up the half arrow. All that’s left is a thin rod tipped with feathers.
“You recall the appearance of Giddius’s quiver?” Trevus says.
I run the thin feathers through my fingers. “These are white. Giddius’s were black.”
“Men cannot afford swan-feather fletching without a lord’s funding. We tread through Lord Reger’s domain, and he is resolute in guarding it.” He tosses the arrowhead into the bushes.
If it wasn’t for the different arrow, could he so easily have cleared Giddius of guilt?
Trevus watches Marcellus’s chest shift with each breath.
The moment Marcellus was hit by the arrow keeps replaying in my mind. I still hear his shout of pain, and the look of fright when he turned back to face us. He was the one struck, but it just as easily could have been any of us. In all the times that we’ve been in danger before, Trevus and his men have brought us through unscathed. But this time was different.
“What if Lord Reger’s men find us again?” I ask. I may not be so fortunate, perhaps even less fortunate than Marcellus.
“I shall shield you from harm, as I have so far,” Trevus says.
I nod, but even with his promise, he still expects that I’ll enter Nepolis.
“Lord Reger will have me soon,” I say. “You mentioned that he’s all too eager to execute people.”
“Follow my plan, and I shall be at your side well before such a threat comes to pass. You shall not be left abandoned.”
I rest my chin on my knees.
Follow his plan
. That’s the problem. I can’t break my vow.
Trevus watches Marcellus, still deep in sleep.
“He’s looking better?” I say.
“Yes,” Trevus says. “Healing begins with rest. He was in peril not long ago.”
“I could tell.”
“You practiced as a nurse?” Trevus asks.
I shake my head. We were just lucky that some tailoring skills overlap with nursing.
“He agreed to let me touch him with my bare hands,” I say.
Trevus smiles. “That he did.”
Packing up my sleeping pouch is much easier with my hands free of the sleeves.
Marcellus begins to stir awake. The birds’ morning chirps are hard to ignore when their nests are nestled into the branches overhead.
Trevus kneels and takes Marcellus’s hand in his. “I shall tell the king your name upon reaching Nepolis, and he shall know that his life is owed to you.”
“I shall tell him myself,” Marcellus says.
“No. You must rest a full day, then head southwest to Troas. ‘Tis only a few hours from where we stand.”
“I have the strength to march to Nepolis.”
“The reputation of an esteemed warrior cannot be enjoyed if you are buried beneath the earth. Losing a friend is too high a cost for this venture. Jade and I shall travel alone.”
Marcellus sighs and rests his head back down. “I shall hold you to your word.”
“’Tis been an honor to have you at my side.” Trevus says. “You have my greatest appreciation.”
Marcellus smiles. Trevus picks up our one remaining saddlebag, but the majority of our supplies remain unpacked.
I sit beside Marcellus and rest my hand on his chest. “Keep safe,” I say.
Marcellus chuckles. “Worry not, Jade. I no longer tread your challenging path.”
I meet Trevus beside the thick lerramore bush. We both give one last nod to Marcellus before stepping through the vegetation.
Author’s Note:
Trevus and Jade are now alone together, and Jade’s hands are out in the open. Will they grow closer, or will Jade leverage the situation to her advantage?
I really like him 😂 should fight people in a square more often…
@rileysing sorry reread the needle part you are right. sorry english is not my first languague i misunderstood ^^
Sorry, this scene is hard for me to follow. As militia, they should know first aid as to put a hot blade on the wound. This can cause infection so the needle is a better solution. just weird that this is not discussed. Making a needle from a knife? not an expert but making it from bone seems more probable. sorry if my comment is too detailed. Keep up the writing, love the story!
X2
Agreed
Finally!
At least she tried 🥺
You will be!
If she creates anymore drama I’m going to be annoyed lol
Enjoying the story all the same though
Yes!
Yeah but I don’t really want him to die though either, he’s not really in good enough shape to continue with them
It’s certainly interesting though, there are high stakes and so it’s a good read
And you didn’t even offer to use your gift to make it easier… either to manage blood flow or to ease his mind or pain relief
he would have likely said no but you could have still offered, you know that your gift doesn’t only kill cause you used it on that dog back at the castle
Yeah, very…
Yup… she made that choice
Yeah it’s going to be hard to know what she’s doing…
Also really she should be using her gift to slow his heart rate and control his blood pressure to limit how much he bleeds
Yeah this is an interesting point in the story
Yes it has to stay or he might bleed to death!
Saying salts is a curse? How come?
Salts? that’s an interesting way to express pain/frustration…
this is the one time youre not supposed to pull out
@summerlyne_ Oh, I knew that, but just that sewing skin is a lot more difficult, and is not for the faint of heart is all
it’s quite similar to sewing, which she did for years stuck in a tower.
It would bleed so much😳
Awwww
Bestie….
Tis a bad idea, even if I worry of my boys health
This is quickly becoming a fools errand. Trevus wishing them to be a team of a scared and traumatised girl still regaining semblance of humanity and childishness, and a man only desiring to know how to find his mother.
Big steps!
he angy lol
You’re the one who got Giddius to leave, he could have been more help girly
Many more years hopefully
How does she know this stuff lol
Be difficult to traverse the blood, especially with no official training
The healthy friendship blossoms!
It’s gutsy, fearing others deaths and having to have someone’s blood literally on your hands
Never yank out an arrow soldier. to remove one safely, it needs to be pushed all the way through the body forwards, not backwards
I doubt you’d be digging it. this wouldn’t be a worry if Giddius was still around offering aid….
You better be!
My boy…