Page 25 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

IN THESE MOUNTAINS

HARLAN HALE SHACKLEY THOUGHT IT ironic that eighteen years removed from mine work, he still had blood under his nails. His past haunted him no matter where he went. Yet this time, the blood was not his own.

He rubbed his hand on his military-grade trousers. Not that it helped anything other than his mental well-being. He didn’t think he’d ever wash out the last few years of life on the front and dying men out of his uniform no matter how hard he scrubbed.

It was a testament how dire the last decade had been that, when he was about to perform a complicated surgery on a dying man, his only thought was At least it’s not my blood.

Regardless, Harlan knew all too well people didn’t survive long in the mountains unless they’d been born and raised there. For all their immense beauty, the towering shadows hid secrets better left in the dark. Harlan was one of those secrets.

He rifled through his dwindling supplies in his medic pack. Amputating a leg was not the way Harlan had figured his military career would progress. He also never thought he’d end up back in the mountains he’d left all those years ago. Such was his luck.

He’d only joined the military to please his adoptive father, though it turned out that Harlan had a gift for war. He’d been top of his class in the military academy. Too bad he’d been relegated to the medical legion. He figured Carleton had some say in that.

Lord Carleton Shackley was an honest man, not anything like his true father, the one who would’ve died before Harlan’s fourteenth summer even if the Cerls hadn’t killed him.

No, Carleton wasn’t James Hale. Carleton never hit him.

Carleton never screamed obscenities at him.

Carleton never told him how worthless he was.

Instead, he only knew his adoptive father as Carleton.

The dying man in front of him groaned as Harlan found a pot of salve. It wouldn’t do much to numb the pain in his leg, but it would do enough that the man wouldn’t flail while Harlan finished the procedure. He would need to restock soon.

He disinfected his hands and applied the salve just above the wound, rubbing it all the way around.

The man’s jerking fell away once the salve took effect. A harsh mountain wind blew through, rustling the tent flap—the promise of winter. He hoped it wasn’t some kind of omen, considering this part of the surgery might end up killing the man despite him living through the initial pistol shot.

The flap opened again, this time deliberately. A tall, reedy man entered. “The fire’s hot enough, and the cleaver is heating up. You’re good to cauterize as needed, but one day, I’ll fix up something that’ll work much better than the side of a hot cleaver.”

Harlan pulled the long bandage tight midway down the man’s thigh.

He could tourniquet limbs in his sleep at this point.

He tied off the knot with a grunt and grabbed a discarded arrow shaft pulled out of another man’s chest. They had to adapt fast out here; it’d been cleaned enough, and resources were scarce.

Lucky some Cerls still used arrows instead of the newest iteration of flashpistols.

Well, lucky was relative. Lucky that Harlan didn’t have to go out and find a sturdy stick to tourniquet a man’s leg. Not so lucky for the man who’d taken the arrow to his chest in the first place.

Harlan looked over at his medic partner. “Prepare to cauterize. If he survives the cut, we’ll need to work fast.”

He was unsure if he should even try, but if it worked, then the soldier might just pull out a close one. He refused to get his hopes up, though.

“I mean to knock that pessimism right out of you soon as our shift is done,” his partner said, his blue eyes alight.

Harlan rolled his own eyes and cleaned his saw with carbolic acid, though disease was the least of the man’s worries at the moment. “You forget, Major Fairchild, we’re in the middle of a war, though the higher-ups don’t like to call it what it is.”

“It’s times like these when your mountain accent is thickest, my friend.”

Harlan gritted his teeth. “I’m trying.”

“It’s not a bad thing.” A hand squeezed his shoulder. “No shame in being who you are.”

Except Ezekiel Fairchild knew just how much Harlan wished to hide his past. Harlan finished cleaning his instruments and gestured to his waiting patient. “Make yourself useful and strap this man down.”

Ezekiel walked to the man’s other side. “Make it quick. All three of our newest arrivals have been triaged and are stable, but I think one of them has some sort of disease in his lungs. Not bronchitis. Sounds worse. I’m thinking pneumonia; worst case of it I’ve ever heard.”

“You do your work well, Major Fairchild.”

“It helps that I upgraded my triage equipment.”

Ever the tinkerer, Ezekiel was always trying to improve life on the front. Such optimism was dangerous, but important; he kept Harlan from sinking into the darkest parts of himself.

Fetching the straps from underneath the cot, Ezekiel pulled them tight and secured the buckle at the man’s chest and another at his hips.

He then settled closer to the soldier’s right leg and disinfected his hands.

“I hate how formal you get when you work. These men would think we’re merely acquaintances instead of friends. ”

“You mean the man currently under our poor excuse for general anesthesia?” Harlan grunted. They’d been forced to use alcohol, since their opium stores had gone dry.

Ezekiel just scoffed, but he held the man steady.

Harlan positioned himself appropriately above, one hand on the table, one on the saw.

He placed the serrated blade just below the tourniquet.

He would have only minutes to sever the man’s leg before he cauterized it.

If he was off by even a few seconds, the man could bleed out.

He’d already lost too much blood. He took a deep breath and visualized the process in his mind, making sure he could foresee every potential outcome.

Though he was but a medic, he was the best the Jaydian military had.

Of course, he wouldn’t be half as effective if not for Ezekiel Fairchild and his inventions, but Harlan had no time to think upon those things.

The soldier’s life needed saving. Though he despised it, surgery was something he could do well.

He lost himself to the bloody process and hoped for a better tomorrow.

HOURS LATER, SITTING ON A rocky outcropping, Harlan’s fingernails were finally free of blood.

“That was some good work.” Ezekiel took a swig from his flask and passed it to Harlan.

He swirled the contents before imbibing.

The mountain whiskey burned his throat all the way down, but it helped rid his body of the tension of the last few hours.

While the man had survived the amputation, it was still unlikely he’d last the week.

Not Harlan’s fault. Just the way life was, he guessed. The fever had set in too fast.

He’d done what he could. The surgery had been successful. That was the only good thing there was to say.

He coughed a little to clear his throat of the alcohol’s aftermath. He passed the flask back. “Not good enough.”

Ezekiel took another sip and grimaced, ruffling the dark curls that had begun to grow back after his latest military shave.

He’d need to cut it again before returning to the capital.

“Shocks, you mountain people don’t mess around with your libations.

” He replaced the cap and tucked the flask back into his jacket pocket.

“It’s not your fault if the man dies. It’s the soldiers who brought him in.

They didn’t get him to you in time to prevent the infection from setting in. ”

Harlan didn’t look at his friend. His only friend. Only Ezekiel would be able to tell just how much this affected him. He would notice the hatred in his eyes.

The papers claimed these were just rogue bands of Cerls attacking the countryside, but it was more than that. The Cerls were looking for something, using the attacks as a front. If anyone knew the difference, it was Harlan.

He’d lived the first twelve years of his life in these mountains.

The Nardens were still in his blood, and he knew that if he ever got to kill a Cerl himself, he would do so without hesitation.

If he could only get out of this medical legion, he could make a difference.

With a full-blown war on the horizon, they would soon be too deep to do anything to stop it. But Harlan could. If they let him.

“When I’ve served my time, I’m going to leave and invent something that’ll save men like him,” Ezekiel said, his voice soft.

Red clouds painted the sky as the sun kissed the horizon. Some would say it was a sign of good luck. Harlan disagreed. “In this life, it’s better not to dream.”

Ezekiel laughed. “I did say I’d knock the pessimism out of you this evening, right?”

Harlan allowed himself a small, crooked smile. “Afraid it’s lodged so deep that even a few hits wouldn’t do anything.”

“Not to mention you’re still undefeated in the sparring ring,” Ezekiel huffed. “But regardless, I do think you could stand to lighten up.”

“And as I’ve said before, we don’t have the luxury. We’re soldiers.”

“Medics.”

“In the middle of a war.”

The sun fell below the horizon casting them into twilight. Ezekiel stood and stretched. “Don’t let the papers hear you say that. They wouldn’t want to report the truth.”

Harlan pushed himself to his feet and straightened his jacket.

Ezekiel started for the encampment, Harlan following.

The day and the swigs of whiskey caught up with him on the way.

Each footstep weighed a thousand pounds.

He needed sleep, though he knew it would evade him for hours yet.

He needed to clean his uniform and flashpistol, though the latter hardly saw any action.

“We get leave in a few weeks, I believe?” Ezekiel asked, turning a little to see Harlan.