Thyrri was busy in the infirmary, but fortunately not as busy as in her pessimistic expectations. Yes, there had been injuries, but most of them were just small cuts and bruises. She was just finishing examining one of the Exodus warriors, who had one huge bruise across his chest. Thyrri’s fingers were carefully touching man’s ribs, gently pressing here and there, while the man’s eyes were tight shut and he gritted his teeth.
“Well, it seems that at least three of them are broken, but on the bright side, they all seem to be in the right place and none of them pierced your lungs or any other organs. How did this even happen to you?” She only had time to watch the beginning of the tournament, before the first contestants with light wounds started coming in. Of course, there was the official doctor, Abhay, designated for the arena, but Thyrri didn’t trust that guy. All too often, some of the wounded disappeared without a trace, or suddenly died from massive loss of blood while their injuries weren’t life-threatening.
One of the young girls that served as assistant brought her a wide and long bandage.
“All right, sit up and hold your arms up a bit,” she directed the warrior and started wrapping his chest tightly.
“It was that woman, she caught me off guard,” the man mumbled, biting his lip.
“Just take short breaths, it will hurt less. What woman?” As far as Thyrri knew, there was only one woman in the tournament, Eve’s bodyguard Laurel.
The warrior confirmed her suspicion. “That bloody redhead. She fights like a beast.”
Thyrri finished the bandage and forced the man to lay back down, ordering one of the assistants to bring him some water and a light snack. She didn’t even have time to look out of the tiny window to see if Laurel is still up and all right. Eve would be devastated should something happen to her. Another Exodus warrior was brought in on a stretcher, squirming and holding his knee.
‘Wow, they are really getting beaten up, what a shame for our majestic kingdom,’ she thought before rushing towards the man, wiping her hands into a large leather apron she was wearing over her dress.
Quick glance on the new patient revealed that his knee was dislocated. When Thyrri tried to push man’s hands away from the wounded knee, he just squealed and shook his head in horror, desperately trying to push himself away from her.
“Hey! Get it together! It’s bad enough that you lost in the tournament and now you are going to disgrace your country by acting like a baby?” she hissed at him, trying to get his attention. She didn’t like being mean to a suffering person, but sometimes there was just no other way to get to them through the pain.
The man sobbed, but his hands let go of the knee, grabbing the sides of the stretcher. “I… apologize, m-my lady. But the… Earthicans… they fight like w-wild animals. And the Luthrans… even worse.” He shut his eyes and bit his lip so hard that a small stream of blood appeared running down his cheek.
“Well, they’ve had to fight much harder for their survival than we did,” Thyrri whispered, more to herself than to the warrior.
“Open your mouth and bite on this,” she pushed a thick piece of leather between his teeth and started to examine the knee. It was already badly swollen, and the sinews contracted, she had to act fast to put it back into the right position.
“You two, hold him, and you, grab his ankle,” she summoned one of the men who brought the stretcher in.
“When I tell you to, you will pull quickly with all the strength you have, and twist it a bit in this direction, understand?” Thyrri moved to the patient’s knee and laid her hands on its sides, ready to press on it to make sure everything slides to the right place.
“All right, one, two, three!” Luckily her new assistant had been strong enough and the joint returned to its original shape with a creepy clack. The man squealed into his gag, his body arching up and then passed out from the pain. Thyrri sighed with relief, everything appeared to be all right.
She glanced at Abhay, who was just tending to a man with a broken arm, a member of the Primfira delegation by the looks of him. She slid down to one of the chairs in the room, not even interested in the tournament anymore, just wanting to close her eyes for a moment. But a moment was all she was granted, as mere seconds later one of the maids ran into the infirmary, yelling about someone needing a doctor. Thyrri quickly jumped to her feet, her weariness forgotten for now.
The man was unconscious on the ground, which wasn’t a surprise given by the pool of blood around him. He had some bruises and smaller cuts from falling down, but the blood came from a small wound in his abdomen.
“Fuckin hell...” Thyrri couldn’t help herself but to be furious.
“Get him on the table, now! Dulled weapons? Just for fun? When the fuck will they learn that this is not a damn game?” she gritted her teeth as the assistants transported the man.
“Get him out of the armor,” she commanded and checked the man’s pulse, which was weak, but regular. One of the girls skillfully cut the strings holding pieces of the armor together and removed the breastplate. The small cut would have looked almost innocent had it not been for the dark blood pouring from it in small waves, slower and slower, as his pulse was slowing down. Thyrri quickly cleaned the wound the best she could and grabbed a scalpel, attempting to widen it a bit so she could check the situation inside. If the blade had pierced on the man’s organs, like his liver, or even penetrated his intestines, there was very little she could do. With this volume of blood lost, the body couldn’t recover from such trauma. But so far it seemed that only one of the veins had been disrupted. She gritted her teeth. It was too small to stitch up and too big to close on its own.
“He is going to die anyway,” Abhay stood next to her, frowning at the patient. “And he is a Luthran scum,” he pointed to the sign on the breastplate. “Not worth wasting your time on, my lady,” he added, bowing his head down to hide an ironic smile.
Thyrri ignored him, concentrated on the task at hand. She put some thin metallic bars into fire burning in a small fireplace, normally used to boil water. While their tips slowly turned red, she did her best to clean the wound from all the dirt and dust from the arena and most of the blood. When the bars were ready, she used them to cauterize both ends of severed vein, sealing them shut and finally stopping the blood from pouring out. She did her best to stich the wound. It was going to leave a scar, a small price for being alive if you asked her.
When she made sure the patient is taken care of, moved to one of the separate rooms, she could finally let her anger take over. A sturdy clay mug on the table was just what she needed, grabbing it so tight her ankles turned white and smashing it against Abhay’s head, for a moment not caring whether it would hurt or even kill him.
“How DARE YOU call yourself a doctor, you worthless parasite?!” she yelled, throwing the rest of the mug away and grabbing a scalpel. Abhay stared at her, petrified, water mixed with a bit of his own blood dripping from the top of his head. As she moved closer to him, he took a step back, his back pressed against the wall.
“I am warning you,” she hissed, her face just inches away from his, the scalpel resting on his neck.
“If that man dies or he happens to disappear mysteriously, I will personally make sure that you follow him right away, do you understand?”Abhay tried to nod vigorously, making the scalpel pierce his skin and forcing a single drop of blood out. “Y-yes, my lady. I would never…” he stuttered, but she interrupted him.
“Save me your pathetic excuses. And remember,” she stepped away from him,
“right now you could provide the royal family with much more blood than he could. And you know there is never enough of it. Hey, you,” she turned to one of the assistants, a young petite girl, who stared at Thyrri with horror. The healer realized that she was still holding the scalpel and was covered in blood. She forced her fingers to let go of the sharp object.
“You will go and find the Mother or Father of Luthra, preferably both. You can hardly miss them. Tell them one of their men had been injured and it would be in his best interest should they come and check up on him. Will you remember that?” The girl just nodded and darted out of the room. Thyrri threw one last angry look at Abhay and walked away.
She quickly moved through nearly empty service hallways of the arena to the spa area. There was a large pool of warm water, meant for the gladiators and other warriors to wash off sweat and dirt after the fights. The room was empty for now, but Thyrri probably wouldn’t notice if there was a crowd staring at her. She quickly took her clothes off, tearing through the precious fabric, her fingers shaking as she put her hair up before entering the water. She washed the blood off at one of the drains, her whole body shaking as she watched the pink water disappearing.
‘What the hell was that?’ she could hardly think. This was nothing like her normal self, getting so furious, wanting to hurt or even kill someone.
It was only the sound of tears dropping into the water that made her realize she was crying.
‘I can never get away from this. No matter what I do or where I go, I will still be a part of this barbaric kingdom, where some people’s lives are only worth the blood running through their veins.’ But what could she do? She was not a fighter, not even a brave person and she realized now. She was a simple coward, closing her eyes from this whole business for years, looking the other way as if it didn’t concern her. Her eyes shut tight, she enjoyed the quiet sound of water splashing against the walls, having no idea what to do now.
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Heckno12
