Leontus: Lord Solar, page 5
No one tried to stop her as she stepped into the shadows near the cave mouth and left the claustrophobic darkness behind for the canyon, where whispers of light still shone through the tangle of stone above. Cold air buffeted her, stinging her bare arms and shoulders as the mountain wind sprayed droplets of icy water across the cave mouth. It felt good. It reminded her that she still lived, despite every experience of the last few hours that should have seen her dead along with all the rest. She inhaled cool breaths, so different from the dense humidity of her home world, and drew on old habits in an attempt to clear her mind.
First she cleaned her knife in the river, noting the new nicks on the blade’s edge as she scrubbed dried xenos blood from the blue-grey steel. Next, she took inventory of her medical supplies, which had been badly dented since the landings; she made a note to see what the Attilans had stashed in their saddlebags to replenish her stock of bandages and counterseptic powder.
‘It was you who killed the big one,’ a voice said from ahead, heavily accented with throaty Attilan consonants and an extended sibilance that was unique to the speaker. A Rough Rider knelt in the lee of the cave wall, all but hidden in shadow as river water speckled his coat.
‘Heard the others talking on the ride,’ the man said. ‘You killed the xenos general, or whatever passes for a general amongst the orks.’
‘They call them bosses,’ Arnetz said, her attempt at stillness slipping away like water through cupped hands. ‘And he wasn’t the warboss.’
‘Oh yeah? How do you know that?’
‘Because I’ve seen a warboss before, and it was twice the size of that beast we put down,’ Arnetz said. ‘Do you have any wounds that need tending?’
‘Nothing that won’t heal in time, but thank you. I would not want you to waste what supplies you have left on the likes of me.’
‘I wouldn’t call it a waste if it keeps you in the fight.’
‘I think that our fight is done, Catachan.’
‘If you’ve got breath left and a working trigger finger, you’re still useful to the God-Emperor.’
‘Quite so.’ The Attilan chuckled and stepped out of the shadows clinging to the cave’s walls, revealing himself to be much older than the other riders. His upper lip was twisted around a deep scar that bisected his long moustaches and revealed the lho-yellowed teeth beneath.
‘I am Rugen,’ he said.
‘Arnetz,’ she replied, and shook Rugen’s offered hand.
They both turned as the Lord Solar called for her from back within the cave.
‘I think you are needed,’ Rugen said, releasing her hand.
With one last breath of the open air, Arnetz left the Rough Rider to his watch and moved back into the cave.
‘What did you find?’
Arnetz kept her head down as she worked to clean and close a long cut across the Attilan youth’s ribs, pinching the sides of the wound together as she waited for a chem adhesive to take hold. Her patient had returned from the rear of the cave shortly after Arnetz had taken a moment outside, and he was relaying his findings to the Lord Solar as she worked.
‘There is nothing up there, my lord,’ the Attilan said through gritted teeth, turning his head away from the odour of chems and melting flesh. ‘We found three passages. Two were dead ends, and the third is impassable because of the river.’
‘Would it be possible to get in from the other side?’
‘No, my lord. The water has filled the chasm, and no man I know could hold his breath to swim it.’
‘Very good. At least we only need to watch the one doorway,’ Leontus said with a smile, which the young Attilan returned. ‘Get some water and rest, Csaba. You have next watch after Rugen.’
The rider beamed with pride at the Lord Solar’s casual use of his name, and made the sign of the aquila as he was dismissed.
Arnetz washed the blood from her hands with water from her canteen, but there was no way for her to scrub everything clear. The risk of infection was high with all battlefield triage, but gangrene tomorrow was preferable to a corpse today, as the old saying went.
‘You know their names,’ she said eventually, when it became clear that Leontus wouldn’t leave without a reply.
‘I do. I have spoken to each of them,’ Leontus said, his dark eyes roving over the Attilans as they washed the sweat from their horses with helmets full of water, or tended to wounds too minor for Arnetz’s time. ‘The only person I haven’t spoken to yet is you.’
She fought down the cold twist in the pit of her stomach. An audience with the Lord Solar would have been unthinkable only a few days before; for Leontus to simply be in the presence of all Astra Militarum forces in the Segmentum Solar was a fool’s ambition. She’d known hardened veterans still tell the stories of how they’d caught a glimpse of him on parade, or once breathed the same air as the greatest living exemplar of the Imperial Guard. There was already talk of his being sainted one day – to be spoken of in the same breath as Macharius – but she considered such concerns to be well above her pay grade.
‘I need to see to Sergeant Raust before the light fails, my lord.’
Arnetz gathered what remained of her medicae supplies and made towards where the Krieg man still sat, his chest rising and falling in shallow pulses beneath his respirator pouch.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ the Lord Solar said from her side. Raust made to stand at the Lord Solar’s approach, but he put a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder and told him to be still. She was aware that he had followed her to Raust; his armour gave off a soft glow in the gloom, shining like a beacon that made him all but impossible to ignore.
‘It looks like a straightforward amputation. I’ll get you cleaned up, and you’ll be back to fighting fit in no time at all,’ Arnetz said, dropping into a squat beside Raust’s mangled arm. Under her lumen’s cold light, the wound looked as black as the stone on which he lay, the ragged edges crusted with dried gore and scraps of dead skin, whilst the centre still seeped dark arterial blood despite the tourniquet. She felt the Lord Solar’s eyes on her as she examined the savaged limb, the weight of his attention unwelcome as she thought about how best to dress and disinfect the injury.
It was a lie, of course, but one that came easy to medicae-trained troopers across the galaxy; she had to reassure her patient, even if the best she could offer him was a less painful transition from this life to the next.
‘You should conserve your supplies, Corporal Arnetz,’ Raust said, his voice muted by more than just his respirator. ‘To waste any of our limited resources on me is–’
‘My decision,’ the Lord Solar cut in, though his harsh tone was softened by the warm smile creasing his features. ‘To give up on one-sixth of my forces on a whim would be incredibly short-sighted, don’t you think?’
‘I must protest–’
‘Corporal Arnetz?’ the Lord Solar prompted. She stood and moved out of earshot of Raust, followed by Leontus.
‘The wound is treatable, but I’m a medicae, not a miracle worker,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I can patch him up, but the risk of infection is high. He needs a chirurgical team with a fully stocked and sterilised theatre, and we have neither.’
‘What do you have?’ the Lord Solar asked. He unclasped the Radiant Helm and slipped it off, his short-cropped dark hair slicked to his head by sweat.
‘Some sachets of counterseptic, a couple of scalpels, tweezers, bandages, a surgical stapler for larger wounds, and a needle and thread for when that runs out,’ she said, rummaging through the bloodstained interior of her medicae bag. ‘A couple of syrettes of anaesthetic that’ll take the edge off the pain, and a laspistol for when the pain is too much.’
‘We’ll leave the laspistol for a last resort,’ the Lord Solar said with a grim smile, pulling off his gloves and placing them into his helm. ‘Would it help to have a second pair of hands to assist you?’
‘Of course, my lord,’ Arnetz answered, and was more than a little surprised when the Lord Solar simply nodded instead of calling over one of the Attilans. ‘Are you medicae trained?’
‘Something like that.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘I’m at your disposal, medicae.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Arnetz said, the cold twist in her stomach returning at the thought of directing the Lord Solar. ‘We’ll get started as soon as you’ve cleansed your hands – there are some sterile gloves in my bag that you can use.’
She returned to Raust’s side as the Lord Solar made for the riverside, and took the opportunity to take another look at the Krieg’s arm. She studied the wound intensely, visualising how it could be repaired and what flesh would need to be cut away, and noted the strange, musty smell that had settled around Raust. Beneath the coppery sharpness of his blood, he smelled of dust and stale air, like a room that had been locked for years and only recently rediscovered.
Arnetz was slipping on one of her few pairs of thin rubber gloves when the Lord Solar returned, and she passed him a spare pair to put on as she set out her supplies within easy reach.
‘Once you’ve got those on, get a syrette of pain blocker ready and bring the light closer, my lord. I need to see.’
Arnetz worked methodically on Raust’s arm. The Lord Solar looked on, assisting her as she directed but remaining otherwise silent as she cut away the scraps of dead flesh clinging to the ragged wound.
Raust displayed all the stoic fortitude that she expected of a Krieg trooper. The only sign of discomfort he betrayed was a tension in his uninjured limbs – an admirable level of stoicism, but not one that he could maintain for long. She asked the Lord Solar to administer the first dose of pain blockers after a short while, and Raust slipped into unconsciousness not long after that.
That left her free to focus on her work, rather than being reminded of the pain she was inflicting. The Lord Solar soon faded from her attentions too; he was just another assistant helping her to save the life of a comrade, though Rugen and Nomak’s not-so-subtle attempts to watch the improvised surgery threatened her concentration more than once.
‘Good thinking with the tourniquet,’ the Lord Solar said as she cut away at the torn muscles around Raust’s shattered forearm. ‘You likely saved his life with that.’
‘Thank you. They work in the short term, as the oxygen-starved tissues below the tourniquet will eventually start to die. We’re trained to loosen them every thirty minutes to preserve the flesh, when we can,’ Arnetz said. She knew that her words were defensive, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to remain quiet.
‘That’s good,’ the Lord Solar said. ‘It’s very rare that I watch a medicae at work, but it’s good to see that your training was so comprehensive. We should always look for ways to improve survival rates.’
‘More chirurgeons on the front lines, maybe?’
The Lord Solar let out a snort of laughter. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps a change in tactical doctrine is in order – I’ve known many generals who ignored their attrition rates in pursuit of arbitrary objectives. I’ve inherited more than one such disaster.’
Arnetz raised an eyebrow at that, her eyes flicking away from the clamped vein between her fingers to the Lord Solar’s features. His dark eyes met hers with cold intensity. Her cheeks burned with sudden heat, as if she were a child caught doing something she shouldn’t be.
She swallowed. ‘Such words would see someone of my rank shot for insubordination.’
‘A good thing that I am not your rank, corporal,’ the Lord Solar said in a low voice, any threat in his words disarmed by a thin smile. ‘But one would be excused a dark thought after the events of today.’
‘My lord, I–’
‘Ill intentions fester, like wounds that are left untreated, and will leach poison into the blood and the mind,’ the Lord Solar said, nodding to the vein clamped between Arnetz’s bloodied fingertips. She returned her attention to it, pulling a suture tight in a practised flicker of movement, then eased back a flap of muscle to expose what remained of Raust’s forearm bones.
‘I need to blunt these, or they’ll cause more damage. Hand me a scalpel, my lord.’
The Lord Solar did as he was bid, and held aside the bloody flesh so Arnetz could work unimpeded. The silence hung heavy between them for a few minutes, broken only by the sound of the scalpel scraping against the rough bone as Arnetz waited for the Lord Solar to continue.
‘I would understand any anger you felt towards me,’ he said at last. ‘After all, I led our forces into a resounding defeat today, and doubtless–’
‘My lord, I am a soldier of Catachan,’ Arnetz said, a chilled exhilaration playing across her skin as she interrupted the Lord Solar. ‘I am given orders and I obey them. You are our commanding officer, and I will follow your orders, just as everyone else here will.’
‘Thank you, Arnetz,’ the Lord Solar said. ‘But I fear at least a measure of your trust is misplaced.’
‘How so, my lord?’
‘Because I understand enough Attilan to know what they are saying,’ he said, nodding over to where Nomak and Rugen were speaking with Belgutei. ‘They want him to ask me to reconsider staying here. They think we’ll have a better chance of survival if we make for the plains to the north.’
‘Is that not a wise plan?’ Arnetz asked as the Lord Solar adjusted his grip on Raust’s arm, giving her better access to a spur of sharp bone. She would have struggled to do this alone, she realised, and the Lord Solar had proven himself to be a very capable assistant.
‘We could survive on the plains for a time, but we would achieve nothing,’ he said as she ran a blood-slicked finger over the newly blunted bone with an approving nod.
‘The next part will be a little more difficult. Take a moment to rest your grip if you need to – I know it can be hard on your hands if you’re not used to it,’ Arnetz said, reaching for a threaded needle as the Lord Solar gave her a strange smile. ‘So tell me, what will we achieve by staying here?’
‘Victory,’ he replied, as if it was obvious.
Arnetz opened a sachet of counterseptic powder, spread it liberally across the red, healthy flesh of Raust’s cleaned wound, and began the long process of stitching it closed. She processed the Lord Solar’s words as she worked, and only looked up when the last stitch was pulled taut, tied, and the thread cut with one last slice of the scalpel.
She could see the strength of the Lord Solar’s conviction written across his features, but she could also see the weight of responsibility in the way he held himself, and the unimaginable fatigue behind his eyes.
Despite all she had seen over the last day, the fact they were so few and the orks so numerous, for a fleeting moment she found herself believing him.
‘You can count on me, my lord,’ Arnetz said.
‘Thank you, corporal.’ The Lord Solar nodded. ‘That was good work and an honour to assist. If you ever decide to leave the front lines behind, I think that you’d be an asset to the chirurgical corps.’
Arnetz just laughed in response to that, the sudden levity fuelled by relief as much as the idea that she might live long enough to take up such a prestigious role. With a last check of Raust’s vital signs, she pushed herself to her feet with a click of seized joints.
‘I might take up that offer if we survive, but for now I think we deserve a drink.’
The cold water of the river stung Arnetz’s skin as she washed Raust’s blood from her hands and forearms, the gloves and soiled equipment piled up at her feet as she scrubbed. They were not so rich in resources that anything could be simply discarded, so she resolved to clean them in preparation for further use.
‘Thank you for your help, my lord,’ she said as the Lord Solar joined her at the riverside. ‘You’d make a capable medicae’s assistant with a little more training.’
‘I’ll be sure to add that to my list of accolades,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s one of the subjects we were taught in the scholam, topped up with some further study over the years. I’ve read about similar procedures in a number of treatises, some dating back as far as the second millennium.’
‘You read about it in a book?’ Arnetz asked in disbelief.
‘Of course,’ he said, and pulled the gloves from his hands. Arnetz let out a low whistle.
They were both augmetic: bare gun-grey metal facsimiles of skeletal hands, finely wrought but clearly crafted for utility rather than vanity. There was none of the gold chasing or filigree she’d seen on soft-worlder generals, nor the painted decorative plating of the Imperial nobility; they were the hands of a warrior, built to withstand the rigors of combat rather than the fine crystal neck of a courtier’s wine flute.
‘I’ll admit that my research into this subject was driven by personal interest,’ he said, slipping his white leather gloves back over his hands. With them on, it became impossible to see the telltale signs of augmentation; he became the vision of the Lord Solar once more, a paragon of human endeavour.
‘Very fine work,’ Arnetz said with an approving nod. ‘I’ve seen similar amongst some of our officers, but I must admit that I expected something more decorative.’
‘I needed hands that worked, not ones that looked good in picts,’ the Lord Solar said with a laugh and plunged his head into the icy river, coming up a moment later in a spray of cold water.
She couldn’t help but notice that he had chosen a point on the bank close to where the Attilans still spoke animatedly in hushed tones, their eyes flickering towards her and the Lord Solar as he wiped the water from his eyes. He made a show of cupping his hands to drink from the river, his eyes unfocused as he listened to the Rough Riders.
