Page 79 of Stalk the Sky

At Level 3, he halted in the stairwell for a moment, nearly staggering back a step at the sight, the smell. So many wounded.

When he could finally force his shaking legs to move, he approached the nearest troll nurse. She was giving one of the wounded men a sip of water and glanced up at his approach. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Lt. Saranthyr Rothilion. He was brought in earlier today.” Fieran tried to force a smile. “I’m the second-in-command of his squadron.”

“He’s resting in there.” The troll nurse pointed toward the other side of sick bay, across the way from most of the bustle. “Don’t disturb anyone and don’t stay long.”

“I understand.” Fieran nodded to her before he picked his way to the ward that must have been turned into a recovery room for the worst of the wounded.

Inside the ward, rows of cots lined the room, some with curtains drawn around them for privacy, some with the curtains pulled back. A few nurses moved among the wounded, but this room was far quieter than outside.

Fieran paused to ask another nurse, who pointed him toward one of the beds at the far end of the room. Fieran walked down the aisle between the beds.

Lt. Rothilion lay under a sheet, still and pale as his long blond hair straggled across the pillow. A far cry from the normally stuffy and put together elf noble.

At Fieran’s approach, Lt. Rothilion’s eyes flickered open, and he blinked several times as if he was trying to wake up…or he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Fieran sank onto the chair next to the cot. “How are you feeling, Rothilion?”

Lt. Rothilion gave a huff that was more frustrated groan than laugh. “About what you would expect.”

That was a bit of an unnecessary question, but Fieran didn’t know what else to say or ask. It wasn’t like he and the elf lieutenant had been close before he’d been wounded.

“I’ve never been shot, so I wouldn’t know what to expect.” Flippant probably wasn’t the best route to go, but Fieran wasn’t going to manage consoling very well.

“Of course not.” Lt. Rothilion’s voice held a trace of that old bitterness. “Not with your magic.”

There wasn’t a good answer to that. Fieran did have a rather big advantage when going into battle. He could incinerate bullets.

Lt. Rothilion’s eyes dropped closed on a weary sigh, and for a moment he seemed to drift back to sleep. Then he murmured, without opening his eyes, “And my pilots? How many were lost?”

“Six.” Fieran hesitated, hoping Lt. Rothilion wouldn’t ask.

“And Flight B?”

Fieran couldn’t lie. “Two.”

Lt. Rothilion grimaced as he turned his face away. “It is my fault. I saw how hard you trained your men. I noticed how effective pairing off your men was. Yet I was so convinced of the superiority of elves that I thought it would be admitting weakness to implement those same measures for my own pilots. And that arrogance got my pilots killed.”

“My pilots had the advantage of my magic.” Fieran wasn’t sure why he was reassuring Lt. Rothilion. Any other time and he would have relished having Lt. Rothilion basically tell him that he was right.

But Rothilion wouldn’t have said any of this if he hadn’t been dosed up on healing magic and out of it from blood loss.

“Perhaps. But you were not at the side of all your pilots during the entire battle. They held their own, and they did it well.” Lt. Rothilion heaved another sigh, seeming smaller and more sunken on the cot. “It is my fault that my pilots did not fare as well.”

It was also the elven pilots’ first battle while Fieran’s flyboys had faced battle before. Not against other aeroplanes, but they had been shot at before.

But Rothilion was in no shape mentally or physically to hear any more reassurances.

“Don’t dwell on it now.” Fieran squeezed Rothilion’s shoulder and pushed to his feet. “I will leave you to your rest.”

Rothilion didn’t respond. Fieran would have thought he’d fallen back asleep, but the elf lieutenant was too tense to be sleeping.

Fieran slipped out of sick bay once again. He halted at the base of the stairs, gathering his strength to drag himself back up the twenty flights of stairs back to his room. He might just curl up in the landing and fall asleep here.

A noise echoed up the stairs from the landing below, followed by what he thought was a familiar voice.

But surely not. They couldn’t have gotten here this fast, could they?

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