Chương 296: Chapter 91: Care Before Debt

I woke to a broad brown face framed by iron-grey braids and little Copper clips shaped like leaves. One of her hands held my shoulder against the bed. The other held a wooden spoon of dark liquid close enough that the steam reached my nose.

"Do not bite me," she said. I tried to answer. My ribs stopped the breath before it became words, and pain arrived from too many places to sort: left side, right wrist, shoulder, thigh, back, jaw, and the reopened tear beneath my ribs. The Tuskers returned after the pain. Harness plates in sunlight. Hooves above me. The Copper hammer leaving my hand. Seighard crouched in the mud while the yard tipped away.

"Stay down," the woman said.

"Breathe through the nose. Slowly. You have two cracked ribs, one badly bruised shoulder, a strained wrist, and enough soft-tissue damage to make sitting an ambition rather than a movement."

"Where?"

"Eisenfeld mine hospital. Third recovery room. You are under my hands, which makes you temporarily wiser than your habits." She brought the spoon closer.

"Open." I swallowed because refusing required more breath than I owned. The medicine was hot, bitter, and thick with ground bark. It settled in my stomach, loosened the tightness under my ribs, and made the next breath reach deeper before pain stopped it.

"Again," she said. The second spoonful tasted worse because I knew what was coming. She watched my throat until I swallowed, then set the cup on the tray beside the bed.

"Heilwig Kranz. Senior healer on this ward. Heilwig, Healer Kranz, or ma'am if injury has improved your manners."

"Cael."

"I know. The human who stood in front of a Tusker herd with a training hammer, then made Minewarden Falkenrath say almost three favourable things before losing consciousness. You have been discussed."

"That sounds expensive." Her mouth moved slightly.

"Worried about coin before blood. Good. Your head is still attached to the life that trained it." The room returned as the medicine settled. The bed was a stone frame fitted with a narrow mattress and clean linen. Copper warming plates rested beneath my left side, their heat held low enough to ease the muscle without swelling it further. A pulley strap hung above the bed for lifting injured miners without twisting them.

Chalk marks crossed the binding around my ribs and shoulder, each one showing where Heilwig had checked swelling, breath movement, and colour. A tray beside the wall held cut cloth, splint rods, salve pots, needle thread, and stained water. A bent Copper tag lay near the edge. Mine grit remained inside its stamped grooves. I looked at it too long. Heilwig moved it behind a salve jar.

"Later."

"Tusker harness?"

"It was inside your coat when they brought you in. So were three splinters, animal hair, half a canary, and enough yard mud to start a small road."

"I kept it?"

"You closed one hand around it while unconscious. That is not the same as choosing wisely." She checked the binding at my wrist.

"Do you always collect whatever nearly kills you?"

"Not always."

"We will call that progress when the sample improves." She tested each finger, then the wrist, stopping when the joint caught. The movement hurt, but the bones held their line.

"No break," she said.

"The shoulder is compressed and bruised. The side tear reopened without entering the lung. Two ribs cracked. One more may be hairline, but you are breathing too badly to confirm it without causing the same damage twice." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"How long?"

"Until you are cleared."

"That is not a length."

"It is the only one you are qualified to understand today." The Heartwood Bird rested beneath the chest binding, pressed close enough that I could feel the carved wing against my skin. It warmed when Heilwig's fingers reached the edge of the cloth. She stopped. The room's nearest ward charm gave a faint dry click against the wall.

"Does it do that often?" she asked.

"Warm?"

"Argue with equipment that existed before you entered the room."

"Sometimes."

"Unhelpful measurement." She loosened the binding by one finger around the carving without exposing it.

"The trinket stays where it is unless your breathing changes. If it heats the skin, pulls the ward line, or begins doing anything you describe with the word 'usually', you tell me."

"It is mine."

"So is the blood under the bandage. Ownership does not make either exempt from treatment." I lay still while she checked the warmth beneath the cloth. The Heartwood Bird cooled after several breaths. Heilwig marked the time on the bedside slate and did not ask what it had answered below the Copper landing. The door opened while she cleaned dried blood from my shoulder. Seighard Falkenrath entered without her shield.

Her braid had been retied after the stampede, but dried blood remained at one cuff where washing had missed the seam. Heilwig kept working.

"Minewarden."

"Healer."

"If you question him before he keeps broth down, I will remove you from the ward in front of your own guards." Seighard looked at the cup.

"Has he kept the medicine down?"

"Barely."

"Then I will admire the result briefly." She came to the bedside and looked over the sling, rib binding, wrist wrap, and chalked swelling. Her attention was the same as it had been in the yard: direct, patient, and unwilling to improve what she saw for politeness.

"Most humans under a Tusker line become yard work," she said.

"You became hospital work."

"That was not the plan."

"Good. A plan like that would end Strath's sponsorship."

"Everyone sensible already questions it," Heilwig said. Seighard placed a slate token beside the bed.

"Your hospital liability is deferred under town-defence service. Care first, debt after assessment. Nothing is forgiven, and no one has granted you a purse without a bottom."

"Current Coin?" Heilwig closed her eyes for one breath. Seighard did not.

"Two copper and fifty-seven iron pieces. Unchanged until the incident ledger closes." The clean linen felt more expensive after she said it. Copper plates, medicine, binding cloth, healer time, and a room built to hold miners together all had prices, even when no one asked for coin before using them.

"The others?" I asked.

"Talia Kirra reopened the rib wound she had already been ordered not to test," Heilwig said.

"She is mobile, furious, and barred from stairs until I decide whether fury has improved circulation. Halden Strath has bruising along one forearm and a cut at the temple. Mörk Kessler has no new injury worth recording. Kord Wessel's shoulder was struck by the licence barrier, but the joint held."

"The yard workers?" Seighard answered.

"Injured are being treated. The upper road remained closed until the bodies were counted and the harnesses removed. No Tusker reached the market line." I let the breath out slowly. The pain beneath the left binding sharpened before settling again.

"You advanced Eisenhammer," Seighard said.

"Copper mid."

"Under the jaw of the largest plated Tusker?"

"I think so."

"You redirected the charge instead of opposing it. That is valid hammer work." She took a piece of chalk from Heilwig's tray and added the ability rank to the hospital slate.

"It does not clear you to use a hammer. The notice records what your ability understood. Your wrist records what your body did not."

"Will Eisenfeld enter it against my licence?"

"Kord already has. Recorded ability, suspended practice. Do not confuse documentation with permission."

"The Tuskers?" I asked.

"Forty-three killed in the lower yard. Seven reached the outer slope and were stopped before the road. Harness wear, Copper fittings, tool loops, tether breaks, and pen scars confirm they were kept below."

"Kóboldar animals?"

"Handled by someone using related fittings. The incident room will decide whether that means Kóboldar, a successor population, or something that inherited their pens."

"They were fleeing."

"Yes."

"From what?" Seighard's eyes remained on me.

"That question belongs to people who can currently stand without dripping medicine on themselves." Heilwig lifted the spoon.

"Which excludes you." I swallowed another measure while Seighard waited. When the coughing stopped, she took the slate token and turned it so I could see the restrictions cut across its face.

"You are barred from mine work, cart work, survey work, charm deployment, ranked-tool practice, and anything you might later defend as necessary improvisation. The Copper yard hammer is reclaimed. The Falkenrath hammer remains unavailable."

"For how long?"

"Until Heilwig clears you for ordinary work, then until I clear you for the mine."

"That sounds longer than one restriction."

"It is. You have demonstrated range." At the doorway, Seighard paused.

"The herd did not reach the market road. Remember that before you decide the injuries purchased nothing." Then she left. Heilwig adjusted the warming plate and pulled the blanket higher beneath my injured shoulder. I expected a lecture about rest. Instead, she checked my breathing count, wrote it beside the earlier mark, and returned the spoon to the broth cup.

"Sleep," she said.

"The debt can remain awake without you." The medicine pulled at the room. As my eyes closed, the bent Copper tag remained half-visible behind the salve jar, black mine grit caught inside its stamped line.