Chương 46: Chapter 45 - The Infirmary

A split second later, her vision was recovered enough to see that Lord Grivalt was indeed dead, and she rushed toward Soren and Estella. Their fight had only been in progress for less than a minute, but they had been quickly overwhelmed. Back to back, they were facing down eight opponents, and they were both covered in many cuts and gashes. Kiara arrived like a thunderbolt, faster than the guards could track. She dropped two of them with her first swing, but a third had a magical shield up as well.

She kicked him as hard as she could, and his head snapped to the side like a rag doll as he flew across the room. He was a tier 1 mage, and was considerably more durable than a mortal, so he stood up a moment later and shook it off. Meanwhile, Kiara had turned on three more guards, killing them in a series of slashes and thrusts. Estella, who had been closest to where Kiara arrived, collapsed in a heap. Soren, bless his soul, was still going strong, fighting the other two guards at once.

Kiara was honestly impressed by how well he was doing, now that he wasn't so outnumbered. The regular training her guards had been doing was paying its dividends here today. The tier 1 that she had kicked unleashed a powerful burst of mana, aimed at Soren. Kiara moved to intercept, but the mana travelled faster than she could. It took Soren in the side, throwing him ten feet on impact. He skidded across the floor, groaning.

The two guards that had been fighting him rushed towards Kiara, and she dispatched one with a thrust to his heart. She blocked the axe swing from the other, and kicked him toward the guard that was about to throw another spell towards Estella. The spell hit the kicked guard instead, blasting him with sharp bits of ice. Kiara closed the distance to the mage in a single leap, aiming for his heart. He was able to dodge, but another kick sent him flying once again.

While he was still in the air, she closed the gap again. His magical barrier kept her sword from penetrating, so she grabbed his hand to disable it, then swung again, ending the fight. The room settled into a deep silence. The servants on the other side of the room had all huddled together in fear once the fighting broke out. Now, they watched her with a mixture of fear and awe. Soren was rousing himself from the floor. He looked a bit worse for wear, but was able to stand and walk on his own.

Estella, on the other hand, could not. Kiara's mind worked overtime determining what her next step should be. Estella needed to get to a healer, immediately. The closest one would be at the city infirmary in Easton. A carriage ride would be too slow, Estella would bleed out by then. Kiara hurried over to the huddled servants.

"Everyone return to your quarters for the rest of the day. I need to rush my guard to the infirmary, but I'll be back in a few hours. Don't take orders from anyone else until then. With Lord Grivalt dead, you are under my protection for the time being. If anyone questions you about it, tell them that they need permission from Baron Norshod himself to order you to do anything for the time being. That should give me enough time to figure this out and get back here."

Most of the servants kept their eyes on the floor, but the three she had interviewed all locked eyes with her and nodded. They trusted her enough to at least follow her directions at this moment. Spencer jumped into action, helping the elderly get moving toward the servant quarters. With that taken care of, Kiara rushed back to Soren.

"Get to the carriages, and get them moving toward home. I'll carry Estella myself. Once you are back in Easton, head straight to the infirmary for a healer. I'll let them know you're coming, and arrange for treatment and payment before you arrive." Soren nodded numbly, then looked at Estella's condition.

"It may be too late, milady. I'm not sure how much longer she'll last. She's losing blood fast." Kiara gulped and nodded.

"I know. There's no time to lose." She picked Estella up and draped her over her shoulders, wincing at the pain in her left arm. She had lost some blood herself, but she was pretty sure she could make it back to Easton in less than ten minutes if she ran full speed. With Estella on her shoulders though, she wasn't quite as sure, but she knew she could at least outpace the carriages. She took off in a dash, winding through the estate to the front doors.

She slowed just long enough to open the door, then burst outside, startling the guards in the lobby as well as those outside the doors. Their protests faded quickly behind her as she picked up speed again. The rush of air as she ran was so strong that she had to squint her eyes in the wind. A nice side effect of the air moving over her body was that it dried out the wound on her arm rather quickly, slowing the bleeding. Estella groaned from her shoulders, but didn't come fully alert.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Kiara estimated that perhaps ten or fifteen minutes had passed by the time Easton came into sight. She arrived at the gates moving fast, once again startling the guards standing there. It was the middle of the day, and there was a line of people waiting to enter the city. Kiara skipped the line, rushing right up to the gates.

The guards gave her a look of surprise as she flipped them a bronze coin, covering the customary five iron coins per person entrance fee. The gates were already open, and the line of people were really only waiting their turn to be vetted by the guards. Kiara didn't wait for that, rushing straight inside the city towards the infirmary. Once she got there, one of the medics took one look at Estella, then called loudly for a healer.

The infirmary was little more than a large, open room with cots for the sick and injured. The usual customers tended to come from bar fights or nighttime-robberies-turned-violent. It was pretty slow right now, being the middle of the day. Kiara picked an empty cot and gently laid Estella down as a healer mage rushed over.

"Oh my! What happened?" the mage asked as he began channelling mana into his fingertips.

"We were attacked outside the city," Kiara said, purposefully leaving out that it had been by a noble, and inside his own house. She didn't want any political red tape getting in the way of Estella's care.

"I have some carriages following behind me, with one more wounded," she added.

"They should be here soon." The healer nodded, then placed his hands on Estella's body. To the medic, he said, "Begin dressing the wounds please, Muriel." Muriel, the medic, quickly grabbed a bowl of water and some clean cloths, using them to clean Estella's wounds as best she could. After rinsing each wound, she would use another cloth to dry the area, then wrap a third cloth tightly around the wound to help slow the bleeding.

As she worked, the healer's magic worked its way through Estella's body, visibly stopping near each of the dressed wounds. Before long, The wounds were dressed, and the healer moved his hands away, wiping his brow with his arm. He nodded in satisfaction.

"Well done, Muriel. Very well done." He was an older gentleman, and had a kind, grandfatherly demeanor about him. He turned to Kiara.

"We've stopped the bleeding and dressed the wounds, now it's up to her own body to heal itself. A more powerful healer might be able to do more, but you likely won't find one any closer than Portish. For now, I'd recommend we let her rest and recover some of her energy before trying to move her. You mentioned you had another wounded person on the way?" Kiara nodded. As if by fate, there was a commotion at the door just then as Captain Soren came in, limping heavily.

Blood had drenched his shirt, and he held his hand over the area, trying to slow the bleeding. The fact that he could still walk on his own meant he wasn't in too much danger.

"That's him!" Kiara said to the healer, who hurried towards the door. Soren collapsed into the first available cot, and was treated in a similar fashion as Estella had been. While the healer worked on Soren, Kiara went to the clerk at the door to settle payment. Once the healer was finished, she moved back to where Soren was laying.

"You okay?" she asked with a grimace on her face. He chuckled, then clenched his side in pain where his wound was.

"Ha! Ow… ah, yeah I'm fine." He pointed at her arm.

"What about you?" Kiara looked where he was pointing in confusion.

"What about me?" She saw the blood on the arm of her shirt, then remembered she had been stabbed. Her adrenaline had staved off the pain for the time being, but it began throbbing again now.

"Ah," she said, "I think I'm ok. Just a scratch, really." Soren shook his head.

"Not with that much blood it isn't. It doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore though, so you're probably fine. I would tell you to wash the cut so it doesn't get infected, but with how fast you got here, I'm wondering if you're even susceptible to infection at your level." Kiara shook her head in disbelief. First Dustin, and now Soren. Everyone seemed to think she was a powerful mage for some reason. Then again, her speed had outpaced Lord Grivalt's by some margin, and he was a tier 2 mage.

She turned to Muriel, who was looking at her arm wound and fidgeting. She clearly wanted to dress the wound.

"Alright, go ahead," she said, and Muriel rushed forward. It stung a bit as Muriel wiped the wound clean, but she did feel better for some reason after it had been dressed up properly. Less like she would accidentally bleed to death without realizing it.

"Thanks," she said, flashing Muriel a smile. Muriel blushed and bowed.

"My pleasure, my lady." The healer approached, asking if he could tend to the dressed wound to help stop the bleeding, but Kiara declined. She doubted the healing magic would work on her anyway. She turned to Soren.

"Can you walk?" She motioned with her head to where Estella was laying.

"We should get you to a cot near her, for when she wakes up. It will be nice for her to see a friendly face."

"You'll be leaving then?" Soren asked. Kiara nodded.

"I need to fill Dustin in on what happened, then get back there as soon as possible." She avoided saying where exactly 'there' was, not wanting to alarm any of the infirmary workers. Soren gave her a weak thumbs up.

"We'll be okay here, milady." He shakily stood to move towards Estella's cot. Muriel rushed in to support him while he walked over. Kiara left, running toward her estate as fast as she could go.