Day 78, 06:00 AM
“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
When I wake up, the fever is gone. I was so hungry last night, I ate half an ox for dinner, while Master Thunderwax, the old physician, begged me to stop. Well, I only ate about ten pounds of meat, but the doc really pleaded with me to stop. I didn’t listen, though. My body’s abnormal, and I could feel the demand for sustenance.
I tried to will Initial Emergency Treatment to activate, to see how to better treat myself, but the skill did not work. I guess receiving professional medical care voided the emergency part, thus making me ineligible for the skill.
The more I learn about it, the more I dislike BSD’s pettiness and all the technicalities involved.
“I need to check your wound.” I nod my permission, and the withered old man treating my injuries starts unwrapping my left.
Once the bandage is gone, he washes off the thick layer of green ooze. The liquid he’s using makes my eyes water and looks like it should be illegal or chiefly used for making molotov cocktails.
The green ointment dissolves and pours into a white basin, revealing my arm, so well sculpted, it would make the former governor Weissenegger proud. Unfortunately, there’s such a huge chunk of flesh missing, it feels like I’m looking at an exhibit in a butcher’s shop.
I move my thumb, and even though I feel nothing, the damn thing wiggles, along with the flesh of my exposed wound. Manny gags, and the doc freezes, staring at my arm first, then shifting his gaze towards me.
“Don’t do that again until your arm is fully healed.”
I don’t think I’m going to listen to his advice, but then blood starts oozing from the wound.
“You opened it again,” he grumbles. “I’ll make this quick.”
He opens a jar of yellowish salve, applies a thick layer of it straight onto my arm, then starts wrapping me like a mummy.
“Why did it turn green?” Manny’s voice shakes.
“Infection, and his body extracting the nutrients it needs to heal. Green is good. Red is worrisome, black means we must amputate immediately.”
Amputate? I blink in disbelief, and Manny nods, her face grave.
What the hell!
“General, it is better to lose a limb, than to lose your life.” The doc must have noticed my shocked expression. His explanation is something I’m well aware of, yet coming to terms with permanently losing an arm is a mental blow. Which is odd, considering I’ve died multiple times, and have hazy memories of being dismembered.
“When is Arangel coming? Are we riding out to meet him?”
“I will lead the troops,” Vatten says, striding into the room, his cape billowing behind him.
He gazes at me for a long moment and nods. “Phill has not misjudged you. You seem to be a competent warrior, and freakishly strong. I thought you needed a pair of horses to tear a man in half, yet you did it on your own.”
The doc’s face turns green like the gel he removed, and he shifts his gaze away from me.
“I will lead the soldiers.”
The words barely leave my mouth when three people shout in unison, “Absolutely not!”
“I am in charge of military affairs. What I say goes.”
“Boy,” Vatten glares at me, “you are in no shape for a twenty-mile march. You cannot fight at the front line, and you have no clue about tactics. Reading Warfare and discussions on the book is no different from having no experience.”
I have led Rome to glory multiple times on Very Hard, but bragging about my gaming experience with an actual general, who forged an actual country, seems stupid enough that not even Blunt speaks the words.
“Besides, marching with a mangled, bandaged arm will lower the army morale.”
“Nonsense. If I’m willing to march with them with a mangled arm, that means one of several things. It’s an easy fight, one I can win one-armed. Or it’s important enough for me to march with them—”
“You are sitting this one out,” Manny says, brooking no argument.
The doc looks from me to Vatten to Manny, and I half expect him to make a whipping sound, but all he graces us with is complete confusion.
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“I know you can march, and even fight with your arm like that,” Manny explains, “but, there is little need to torture you with such a minor skirmish. Lord Vatten will play the role perfectly, using the traitors as the vanguard, forcing them out of any future collaboration with the king’s agents.”
But the goatee! I wish to grumble, but I really can’t. Vatten has delivered. Multiple times. I was weak and unconscious, and he didn’t use the chance to get rid of me, or Manny, or usurp the power to further his own cause. We can probably trust him until he plunges a dagger into our exposed kidneys or ties us up and throws us on the train tracks.
Besides, there’s another reason I shouldn’t march with the troops and leave Eaglegord. The assassin. He’s bound to target Manny again, and I must remain by her side.
“I am going as well,” Manny says, and my jaw hits the floor.
“No way. We stick together. That’s the only way I know you’re safe.”
Bickering fills the room for a good ten minutes, with even the doc throwing his opinions, dire warnings, and finally curses my pigheadedness. The final result surprises me.
“We are going together, and we will be in the back lines,” I agree to Vatten’s last concession, and the timid doc’s face is purple with anger.
“I cannot march with the army, and someone needs to dress your wounds every four to six hours!”
“I will do that,” Manny says. “Please prepare enough supplies for a week, just in case.”
“And who is going to amputate his arm when gangrene spreads because of his recklessness?” The doc’s on the verge of shouting, barely civil as he addresses Manny and Vatten, pretending I’m not in the room.
“We will not let it come to that,” Manny assures him, but the old man is fuming.
“Fine. I warned you. But did you listen to me? When you get back, you will come running to me to check his arm again, but it will be too late. Too late I tell you,” doc Thunderwax mutters, ramming his tools into his bag, venting his anger by slamming them in with little mercy and practically no power behind his withered punches.
Manny and Vatten pretend they didn’t hear him. The doc is a well-respected citizen and a member of the council which ruled the city while we were on our week long excursion.
The door slams shut, following a ‘good day’, which sounded more like, ‘fuck you and the horse you rode in on’.
“When do we leave?” I ask.
“Less than two hours. Do you want a horse or a carriage?”
I shake my head at Vatten’s offer. We’re planning a forest ambush, what the hell are we supposed to do with a carriage?
“I’ll walk.”
I stand before they manage a word of protest. I expected a dizzy spell, maybe even fainting dead away, but I’m surprisingly fine for a man who lost a good chunk of major blood vessels and a puddle’s worth of blood.
“I can walk,” I confirm, and Vatten nods, his face weird.
“Were you worried about me?” I ask, stunning the man.
He nods again after two seconds of hesitation. “A part of me did not want you dead, even though your death would have resolved most of our diplomatic problems.”
Manny shots him a frown, but I appreciate the honesty.
“You’re not half bad yourself, considering you’re a geezer with one leg in the grave.”
Now I get the frown, and Vatten scowls, but there’s a bit of a smirk there too. Manny also sees it and rolls her eyes, no doubt thinking, ‘Men’.
Two hours later, we walk into the practice yard. My left hangs limp, Batsy held in my right, like a walking staff.
The soldiers look at me with grim eyes.
“Blackstaff! Blackstaff,” they chant, and I can feel their respect, pride, and fear.
Manny told me the entire city knows what happened yesterday, what I did, and what I survived.
“Let’s go!” I shout. They cheer an ‘Oorah’, and we’re off into the streets.
The townsfolk chant ‘Blackstaff’ with reverence until we leave the city gates, and come face to face with the mercenary army.
This is insane. They have more men than we do. If these wolves betray us and side with Arangel, we’re done for.
The mercs stare at me, some with fear, some with burning eyes, all ready for battle, their air incomparably more murderous than the bearing of the army of fresh recruits we are leading.
“What are you staring at,” I bellow. “Move out!”
And they do. I don’t like it one bit. The situation is a crazy gamble, one in which everything I know about warfare from my gaming days is warning me I will get stabbed in the back and wind up fighting in an impossible scenario.
***
Ripening 18th, early morning
“Have you heard what happened yesterday?” Mister Balon asked the newcomer baker in a hushed voice.
“No? What happened?” The baker had a thick accent. It was obvious he was from a different county, maybe even a refugee from a foreign kingdom.
“One of the mercenary commanders tried to assassinate our Noble Lady, but General Blackstaff stepped in front of her. He was grievously wounded, poisoned by some black rot, but he captured the traitor and ripped him in half with his bare hands.”
“Black rot? Ripped in half? Bare hands?” The baker’s face went white as he repeated the words like he was double checking he got their meaning correctly.
“Yes, ripped in half with his bare hands.” Mister Balon gestured like tearing paper, and the baker went even paler.
“Did he survive?”
“Of course he didn’t! How can you survive being ripped in half?” Mister Balon frowned, then realized what the foreigner was asking about. “General Blackstaff is still alive. Lord Vatten then led an allied army and exterminated the mercenary company which plotted treason. My wife’s second cousin watched the fighting from the city walls, said they spared none of them. They didn’t even give them a chance to become mill slaves, just executed them where they stood. Good riddance if you ask me.”
The baker nodded, his jaw slack. He had opened his shop three days ago and barely left it since.
“My bread,” Mister Balon said, and the baker nodded absentmindedly. He picked a crispy, golden-brown loaf and handed it to his customer.
“See you tomorrow,” Mister Balon left the plow on the counter and left.
Ibrahim, the fearsome assassin and abbot of the Grim brotherhood turned baker, stared at the door in silence for several moments, his back slick with cold sweat.
Finally, he drew a deep breath.
“Black rot?” he muttered. “He survived Black Death? I ain’t getting close to that monster ever again no matter what they pay me.”