Ch 5: CAUTERIZATION

Everyone in Drummondville was dead.

The sheer number of bodies was unfathomable, but Marten could hardly give them the attention or respect they deserved when he was busy panicking about the potential infection in his blood. The knight wasted no time in starting a fire, dousing the village’s largest barn in oil before setting it alight with something from his pack that caused the fire to immediately burn hotter than any normal barn-fire should. As the rain drizzled down outside, Marten stared into the flames, bracing himself for the coming surgery.

“Sure you don’t just want me to kill you now, and save you the trouble?” the knight asked, holding his sword casually.

“I’m sure,” Marten said firmly. His chance of survival might be slim, but it was still a chance, and he wasn’t throwing that away.

The knight shrugged. “Whatever you say. Just tell me what to cut and where to burn, and, like I said, I’m more than happy to do it.”

Forcing his feet to move, Marten drew his trusty scalpel from his satchel. He disinfected the blade in the fire before hesitantly handing it over to the knight. “I’ve already flushed the wound with soap and water as best I can. Whatever infection remains must be cut away as much as possible, and only cauterized when there is no more damaged flesh to remove. You must be thorough, do you understand?”

The knight hummed, sitting Marten down on the barn floor close to the fire to take advantage of its light before kneeling behind him with a clank of armor.

“You’re going to lift your visor so you can see what you’re doing,” Marten said nervously, craning his neck to look back, “aren’t you?”

It was the knight’s turn to hesitate. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, and only after Marten obeyed did he hear the sound of the knight’s helm being removed and set aside.

“Don’t open them again until I say so.”

Swallowing, Marten agreed. It wasn’t as if he could see what the knight was doing to his neck either way.

“Great! Now, just sit back, relax, and let me hack this curse out of you.”

The knight set the scalpel to the back of Marten’s neck, at the edge of the bite. The metal felt cold, despite the barn’s heat.

“Wait,” Marten blurted, at the last possible second. “What’s your name?”

The knight paused just long enough for Marten to wonder whether he was about to offer a false one. “Fionnobhar,” he finally said, after too long. “Sir Fionnobhar the Black.”

The name was vaguely familiar in the way most knights’ names were vaguely familiar. Marten never paid much attention to any of them; he wouldn't know if the knight was lying. Still, it was some hollow comfort to have a name for the man who might be about to kill him.

“Marten,” Marten said, with one hand over his chest, before bowing his head to expose his neck. “Let's get this done.”

The pain was incredible. Marten had no confidence in the knight’s surgical abilities, of which he suspected there were none, but he couldn’t very well perform the surgery himself, and he was very likely dead—worse than dead—without it. Even if Fionnobhar had no idea what he was doing outside of Marten's instructions, he could hardly lead Marten to a worse outcome than death. He was far from the ideal surgical partner, but at least Marten could be certain his tools were clean, and Fionnobhar moved without hesitation, unafraid of cutting into his patient.

Every few seconds, the sound of something wet spattered against the barn floor by Marten’s side. The first time he heard it, his eyes flashed open, unable to resist taking a look. A blood-slick scrap of his own skin looked back at him, laying limp in the dirt and hay dust. Marten slammed his eyes shut again and kept them that way.

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It would have been easier to bear if Marten could have watched the knight at work, but if he could do that, he could have performed the surgery himself. With his eyes shut, the minutes dragged and the pain built until it was a struggle to keep his breathing steady.

But, soon enough, Fionnobhar announced that he was done.

“If I cut away any more, I might as well either skin you, or slit your spinal cord,” he explained. “This is as much as I can get off.”

“You’re sure?” Blood loss caught up to Marten as soon as he spoke, and he swayed where he sat.

Fionnobhar caught him, holding him firmly by both shoulders from behind. “I’m super sure. I'm no doctor, but I have a lot of experience slicing people up, and you’re at your limit.”

“Let me flush it again,” Marten said, fighting his own body for control. “Then, cauterization.”

“Sounds fun,” Fionnobhar said cheerfully, donning his helm again and getting to his feet. “You clean up, and I’ll fire up the next blade.”

The knight chattered away as Marten cleaned the wound with water from the pump at one end of the barn, but Marten hardly caught one word in three. His full attention was on standing upright and not giving into the dizzying exhaustion threatening to tip him over. Fionnobhar didn't seem to mind, or even notice, perfectly capable of carrying on the conversation one-sided, whatever it was. When Marten was done, he dragged himself back to the fire’s edge, avoiding the bloody mess of discarded flesh on the floor.

“Ready?” Fionnobhar asked brightly. The knife Marten had given him was significantly larger than the scalpel this time, and its blade glowed white from the fire’s heat.

“Be thorough,” Marten ordered through gritted teeth. Fionnobhar took up his place behind him, once again removed his helm, and, without preamble, set the flat of the blade lengthways across the bite.

Marten immediately blacked out from the searing pain.

xXx

He woke to blazing heat and the stench of burning skin and hair.

“Hi.” The knight had dragged a barrel over to sit a foot away from Marten, leaning forward intently with his elbows resting on his knees, his sword held between them. His helm was on, the visor down again, shadowing his eyes completely. “How are you feeling?”

Marten was drenched in sweat and wracked with shivers, laying on his side in the doorway, just inside the barn, with the raging fire at his back. Outside, dusk was falling. Stiffly, he pushed himself to a seated position, at which point his brain finally caught up with his body, and one hand flew to his neck. A thick bandage met his fingers, thankfully stopping him for making contact with the raw burn.

Fionnobhar tapped the point of his sword against the ground. “Hey, doc. I kind of need you to answer me.”

Shakily, Marten looked at him. “Did you get all of it?” he croaked.

“Pretty sure, but you’re running a wicked fever. So, tell me. Any violent impulses rattling around in there? Any hunger for human flesh?”

Like hearing the words triggered his other senses, Marten gagged, pressing the filthy cuff of one sleeve over his nose and mouth. “Gods above, no,” he managed, retching. Turning, he got his first look at the fire.

“You were out for a while,” said the knight, still watching him keenly. “Figured I might as well get things tidied up while I waited to see whether I have to cut your head off.”

However long Marten had been unconscious, Fionnobhar had time to gather up every corpse in the village, all three thousand of them, and heap them in the barn to watch them burn. Although those on top and around the edges were still recognizable, the ones thrown in first must have already been charred black.

Marten very easily could have been one of them.

He still could, he supposed.

“No other survivors?”

“Not a one.”

“What was it?” He hated how helpless he sounded. Even more, he hated how helpless he felt, and not just because of the blood loss and physical trauma.

“Bloodghasts,” said Fionnobhar. “One of them must have wandered into the village, or a traveller ran into one somewhere else and brought the curse back in his blood. It's nasty stuff. These poor fucks never stood a chance.”

“Bloodghasts,” Marten repeated.

“I’ve seen it before,” Fionnobhar said helpfully. “It usually goes like this. Somebody catches the curse, and rips the rest of his family to shreds. It never spreads too far at once. The bloodghasts don't usually leave enough survivors to spread the curse around after the first one turns. It's a grisly hell of a bloodbath, but there are usually only a handful of actual ghasts to exterminate, in the end. This place had a few more than average, but still.” He shrugged. “Out of your population of three thousand and some, only about seventy were up and ghasting by the time I got here. The curse can’t animate a body that’s been completely shredded, and tearing people into unrecognizable bits is what ghasts like most. So.”

Marten stared at the fire. Three thousand lives he’d failed to save. “I don't know anything about bloodghasts,” he said numbly. “I’m a man of science. What am I supposed to do with this?”

Fionnobhar glanced at the fire in turn. “Get some rest?” he suggested. “You’ve been through the wringer.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I’m staying with you, for now,” Fionnobhar said. “There's still a chance that when your fever breaks, you’ll wake up as one of them.”