Page 207 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
Once things were secured there, I left to return to the command tent. Perhaps with our recently acquired contingent, we could stem the flow of men needing the storms-blasted healers to begin with.
And keep the bloodshed from reaching the estate I had left defenseless today.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
After hours of ordering the repositioning of some of our troops, reinforcing others, and delegating supplies to the battle lines that needed it most, I trudged my way back to my tent.
It was late, the tiny sliver of moonlight hiding behind snow clouds.
Iiro’s forces weren’t as familiar with Bear territory or the snow squalls that could appear out of nowhere. I was counting on those things working in our favor to stay his hand until morning.
Then, at dawn, we would maneuver the battle lines into the forest.
The dense trees and hilly terrain offered more cover for my soldiers. It would also give us the high ground, which might just be enough to decimate the Elk and Obsidian troops if the weather held.
I poured over a map of the area, planning our line of defense for another hour until Pavel came with the latest updates from our captains on the front lines.
A headache was beginning to form in the center of my forehead as I added their casualties to the master list I was keeping before signing off on their various requests.
Aistov’s men needed more weapons. Kuzmin’s needed food. Three others needed more soldiers. And finally, Doyevsky’s few remaining men needed to return to camp since their battalion had been almost completely wiped out.
The ones left were likely too injured to make it back on their own. I debated their odds of survival in general, weighing it against which able-bodied men I might be able to spare to escort them.
The answer was murky, at best. And if the reports could be believed, I would more than likely be sacrificing the lives of the soldiers I sent after them.
I contemplated that reality against the morale of my soldiers when I picked up another piece of parchment. The master healer’s writing was a scribbled mess of blotted ink that had become all too familiar.
He wrote to report our latest casualties, a number that was startlingly low for the number of bodies that had been carted in over the past few days. My mouth tugged upward as I read my wife’s name and the reluctant praise that followed.
Before I could finish the report, Rowan emerged through the tent door.
Her fair skin was sallow, blue circles lining the bottom of her eyes as she met mine. Judging by her blood-stained gown and what I had already seen in the healer’s tent, I could only imagine the day she’d had.
“We need to get you an apron, Lemmikki,” I said, offering her a half-hearted smirk.
She let out a humorless laugh, heading for the cleaning station set up in the corner of our tent. She hadn’t complained once about not having a warm bath at the end of each day,or about the discomfort of sleeping on furs on the cold, hard ground instead of our luxurious bed.
Instead, she silently stepped out of her ruined gown before using the icy water to scrub someone else’s blood—several someones’ if I had to guess—from her skin.
“What you did today…” I began, and she slowly turned around, her expression guarded. “The healers say you reduced the casualties by more than half.”
The corners of her lips tilted up, satisfaction breaking through her exhaustion.
“Some of the men were dying from ridiculous, preventable things,” she said with a shake of her head. “There just weren’t enough hands, and I knew there were no able-bodied young men to be spared, so it was the next logical choice. The only option, really.”
She wasn’t wrong, yet it was an option that hadn’t occurred to anyone else, myself included. Truth be told, even if I had considered it, I would have assumed that the villagers would be far too resistant to bother.
“How did you convince the women to come?” It was something I had been wondering all day.
She might have used me as leverage to order them, but they had looked more resolute than resigned. Still, something had made them buck several centuries of traditions and risk the scorn of the men around them.
Rowan picked up one of the dry towels, wiping the freezing water from her skin.
“Oh, I just told them we had the finest knitting needles in all of Socair, and a big strong husband at the end, to boot, and they gleefully came skipping after me.”
Her tone dripped with sarcasm, her offense on behalf of the women apparent. Which I supposed was fair, all things considered. Perhaps it hadn’t taken as much as I would havethought, convincing the women to step into a new role when their brothers and husbands and sons were on the battlefront.
A chuckle rumbled through me at her sardonic smirk and I pulled her down onto our makeshift bed, warming her freezing body with mine. In spite of everything, at least she was here, still willing to make jokes in the middle of all the death that surrounded us, just as she had done at the Summit when it was her own life on the line.