Page 58 of Shadows of Winter

That surprised her. Didn’t he need to report to his captain?

“You’ve got wounds?” The doctor waved toward Vlerion’s torn tunic as he collected towels, water, bandages, and a suture kit.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Your clothes wrestled with a windmill by themselves?”

“Something like that.”

“You going to loiter around and watch?”

Vlerion opened his mouth to answer, but a thump against a window made him pause and look. Crenoch stood out there, his large nostrils steaming the glass.

“I guess we both are,” Vlerion said.

“Nothing like an audience when you’re mending wounds.” The doctor opened a pouch and pulled out a pill made from something green, pulverized, and plastered together. Too large to swallow without chewing, it reminded Kaylina of the taybarri protein pellets. He offered it to her with relish, as if it were a delightful treat. “For the pain.” Next, he pulled scissors out of a drawer in a table beside the cot. “I’ll have to cut away your trouser leg.”

“It was going to be hard to mend anyway,” Kaylina murmured, settling her head on the thin pillow and looking at the beam-and-board ceiling.

She made herself chew the awful-tasting pill and swallow it while avoiding looking down. She would prefer not to watch the doctor suturing the bite wounds nor see how deep they were.

“The north is rough on clothing.” The doctor glanced at Vlerion’s rips but didn’t comment further on windmills.

The door soon opened, with Captain Targon walking in, trailed by Jankarr.

“Some subordinates come to my office to report in when they arrive,” Targon told Vlerion after glancing at Kaylina.

“They sound obsequious,” Vlerion said.

“Proper and obedient, as rangers are supposed to be to their superiors.”

Vlerion grunted.

As the doctor cut off Kaylina’s trousers, leaving her bloody leg visible to all, Targon gave her—gave it—a longer look. Then he regarded Vlerion as if considering him and his seat beside her cot anew.

“How responsible are you for that?” he asked so quietly Kaylina almost didn’t hear.

The doctor, now intent on washing the deep punctures, didn’t glance at them.

“Responsible,” Vlerion answered before looking at his captain and considering him.

Targon’s expression had grown very serious, very grave.

“Not that kind of responsible,” Vlerion said, as if that was clarification.

“Ah,” Targon said.

Kaylina was missing something.

“She was in one of the pools in the catacombs,” Vlerion said, “and a fur shark got her.”

“How were you responsible for that?”

“She wouldn’t have been down there if not for me.”

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