Samofthepen
patreon
Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 201
🕑 Added 2025-03-01 15:24:31 +0000 UTCWhat we got out of the prisoners of war was not much. According to Dad, most of the information we got could have been obtained from the spies we had in the Valorhelm Dominion. The only thing interesting was the involvement of a third party.
That being the Zagraf Theocracy, but we could not prove any of that. The recovered glowing swords, which were not glowing anymore, were all unmarked, well-made, ordinary swords. They were not even made of any mana-conductive metals.
As for the warrior I killed on the roof, we suspected that he belonged to the theocracy, but after thoroughly searching his corpse, we could find nothing tying him back to the Zagraf Theocracy, which meant another dead end.
But that was a problem for later. Our problem now was that we were blind to beyond what we could see from our walls, and we were still recovering from last night's attack. What we needed right now was to get word of the attack to the rear lines so that we could get some serious backup.
In an effort to do that, Dad was rounding up some men, led by one of these knights, to ride hard to the rear and get the word out. In the meantime, on the count of the main healer being dead, Dad put me to work.
When I entered the infirmary, apothecaries and other infirmary staff were running around, changing bandages and tending to the wounded. This amazed me because it had been a few hours since I went to sleep, and I spent a couple of hours scanning the POW, and they were still this busy.
I closed my eyes and checked on my mana levels. I was somewhat low, but if I played my cards right, I could clear some patients out of the infirmary.
I caught an infirmary staff walking in with fresh bandages and said, “I am the new healer. Bring me to the most critical patients.”
The man looked at me like I was the second coming of Christ and quickly led me to the back of the infirmary. When I reached there, all of the critically injured mainly consisted of those with head and chest wounds.
My first patient was a deathly pail and had an arrow sticking out of his chest. When I scanned him with a spell, I found that the tip of the arrow had just nicked a hole in one of the main arteries connected to his heart, and the arrowhead plugging the hole was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out a lot faster than he already was.
Seeing that the man was going to die at any moment, I decided that the quick and dirty method was the way to go. I washed my hands and called over one of the apothecaries to assist me. But first, I had to confirm something. “Are the arrows barbed?”
“No, My Lord, they are all bodkin tipped.” he replied.
“Good, here's the plan: you pull the arrow out as straight as possible, and I will stick my finger in to heal the puncture.” I said, but the only look I got from the man was one of incredulity.
“My Lord, are you sure that is wise? The arrow is at his heart. I do not think poking it is advisable.” he protested.
I just shook my head. “Correction, near the heart, not at the heart. It is one of the main arteries that got hit. So are you ready? This man does not have long.”
The man just sighed, nodded, and hovered his hands over the arrow, ready to pull it out.
I cast and concentrated a healing spell on my index finger, and on my signal, the apothecary pulled out the arrow with steady hands. When the arrow tip left the wound, I drove my finger with the healing spell into the open wound and moved my finger to the now-gushing artery under the guidance of the Scan spell I was channeling with my other hand.
My finger plugged the hole, and the healing spell started taking effect on the local area my finger was touching. As the hole started healing around my fingertip, I slowly pulled my finger back until the wound closed from inside the artery. By the time my finger left the artery, the hole had closed up, and the outer layers of the artery had healed.
I pulled my finger out of the hole and said, “All done.” as I washed my hands in a basin.
“My Lord, what of the hole in his chest?” the apothecary asked.
“I was already low on mana before I got here, so I need to conserve mana to treat the others. The life-threatening wound has already been healed. Apply some salves to prevent infection and sew close the wound. If the alchemist has a blood-producing potion, give it to him. Now, bring me to the next patient.” I said as I dried off my hands.
Patient after patient, I scanned and healed them to the point that their lives were not in danger. Every other non-life-threatening wound they had would be left to be treated by more mundane means.
The only patients that I was not confident in treating were those with wounds to their heads. Fortunately, most of them were just minor concussions and brain bleeding. Those I could handle by using a healing spell to reduce the swelling or cutting using a scalpel covered in aura to cut a small hole in their skull to drain the blood and relieve pressure. The real problems were those who suffered injuries similar to those of the enemy knight in the dungeon.
They had parts of their brain destroyed with skull fragments embedded inside but were somehow still alive, and I was not confident to go rooting around to pluck out skull fragments in case I worsened their condition.
The best I could do was pluck out what fragments I could see, heal them up, and hope they do not become vegetables in the future.
After twenty or so patients, I was totally tapped out of mana. All this while, I was barely keeping up with the mana I naturally generated, but now, even with my conditioned mana pathways, I was feeling the stress of mana abuse. So I told the infirmary staff to come and get me in four hours.
I then dragged my ass to the mess hall to stuff my face and went to crash on my bed to rest up.
What felt like five minutes later, I was shaken awake, “My Lord. It is time.”
“... five more minutes…” I muttered out as I turned in my bed away from whoever was shaking me.
“But, My Lord, you told us to wake you up four hours later. It is time.” the voice said.
I opened an eye that was facing out the window and noticed that it was late in the afternoon, yet I felt like I had barely slept. Mana abuse is a bitch.
I dragged my ass out of bed and made my way to the infirmary to carry on with the healing.
***
Three days later, the group of riders Dad sent out to send a message came back. We had all expected them to be ambushed, but the only injuries they got were big bites and scratches from riding too close to tree branches.
It turns out that when the enemy retreated, so did the ambush teams. Now, all we had to do was hold out while waiting for reinforcements to come and relieve us and our sister forts. When they came, we could go home.
I just hope news of me getting stabbed through the chest does not get back to Mum. Otherwise, I can kiss my chances of going anywhere without her making a fuss goodbye.
