Page 199 of Alchemised

Burnout was common for defence alchemists, who frequently strained the limits of their range and abilities. It also happened to healers. Once it started happening a lot—

She forced herself to focus.

There was blood everywhere, but two of the necrothralls were still coming towards her.

She fumbled for her knife, lost in the bottom of her satchel, barely managing to grasp it in time.

She aimed for the nearest necrothrall’s throat. Straight through to the spinal cord. With her resonance burned out, she couldn’t transmute the blade, but she twisted it and jerked left. The head toppled off with a grotesque squelch, body following as fiery, white-hot pain exploded up her leg.

When she’d lunged towards one, the other necrothrall had tried to stab at her with a metal spike.

It had missed her torso and gone through her calf.

Helena nearly collapsed, slashing clumsily. She barely managed to sever enough fingers that it couldn’t jerk the spike back out.

Her brain clamoured to pull out the spike, as her calf muscles tore around it, but she knew she’d bleed out if she did. The rough metal shifted, and she bit through the sleeve of her shirt to keep from screaming.

The necrothrall was still coming. Most of the fingers on one hand were gone, but it could still bludgeon her, and she knew the most dangerous part of necrothralls was often their teeth.

She gripped the knife tighter, forced to wait until it reached for her. As soon as it was in range, she grabbed its outstretched hand, her absent resonance like a hole inside her. Teeth swung towards her face, and she shoved her knife straight through the V of the jaw.

Something slammed into the side of her head, sending her stumbling.

The arm was wrenched free of her grasp. Broken fingernails clawed at her skin.

There was thick old blood in her eyes.

She lurched forward. Her left leg failed, but it gave her enough momentum to drive the knife through the top of the skull. Purple blood spurted across her face as the necrothrall collapsed.

Helena stood dazed and gasping for breath, scrubbing at her face. The blood was all she could smell.

She tried to make out where she was using the towers of the city to orient herself. The bridge was on the far side from her, but the tenement was nearby.

She’d hide there first, and then make a plan. She leaned against the wall, trying to keep from putting weight on her left leg. Even dragging it was agony.

She reached the tenement building and crawled up the steps, but it was only as she reached the landing that she remembered that door had a resonance lock. She couldn’t get inside.

She crawled over and pressed her hand against it anyway, as if her resonance were a well and there were some final drops she could plumb, even though she knew burnout often took days to come back from.

She sat back, cursing herself for being so accustomed to the routine to be this careless. Her head was swimming, although she didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or blood loss.

She found the cleanest spot in the corridor and forced herself to look at her leg. Blood had coated her calf and foot, leaving an obvious trail. Fortunately, necrothralls weren’t generally aware enough to notice anything that didn’t move.

Her vision blurred, the pain seeming to crush her ability to think down into a funnel.

No artery, she didn’t think. She debated pulling out the spike, but she didn’t have enough supplies to pack a wound that large.

If she could reach the checkpoint, they’d get her to Headquarters, but no one was going to come looking for her on the Outpost.

She fumbled through her satchel.

The priority was stabilising the spike, and applying pressure to reduce the bleeding. Then she’d plan.

She chewed on an abandoned sprig of yarrow as she wrapped bandages around her leg.

Blood was already seeping through before she’d finished, and her mind had gone sluggish.

She tried harder to focus, head lolling as she struggled to stay alert.