Page 26 of The Emerald Boa's Lover
“Yes.” I would promise her the world in that moment. Dal offers me the iodine and gauze I asked for, but I don’t take it.
She’s already gone.I saw the light in her eyes fade the moment ‘yes’ left my lips. I confirm it by checking her pulse, and I get ready to do chest compressions, when her Dal moves quickly to rip off her skirt. “What are you doing?”
“The eggs. If we don’t get them out now, they will perish.” I watch, horrified as he matter of factly hooked his fingers into her slit to force it open!
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
“We have 3 minutes.” Dal hissed at me and fought against the muscles surrounding her pouch to open her up. “After 3 minutes the eggs will go into shock and die. Your hands are smaller than mine. You heard her final request. Unless you know 100% that you can get her heart and lungs going again within 3 minutes, we need to get the eggs out. Now.”
I look at her chest again, the dagger in it, and the massive pool of dark blood surrounding her. Even if I got her heart going, I don’t think she has enough blood left in her body to pump around it. The damage to her chest from the dagger must have caused internal bleeding as well. She bled out so quickly… “You promised her.” Dal urges me into action and I ignore the tears slugging down my face. My instinct is to try and save her first, but she’s already gone. Even if I got her heart beating again and her lungs haven’t filled with blood, the chances of keeping her alive here with only a first aid box, and no blood transfusion, is bleak. If I don’t act now, I’ll lose the eggs as well. I flip the first aid box open and use alcohol wipes to clean my hands. There is so much blood, but I make a quick job of it. I rub iodine into my hands and up to my elbows. I’ve been studying this procedure for Asma, in the event she needed it, but I planned on having a live patient with pain meds and an endoscope. And a specialist gynecologist taking the lead. Now I’m about to harvest 4 eggs from a dead mother, on my own, will a royal coup taking place above my head.
“Okay.” I nod and swallow a lump in my throat. “We need to move decisively, not not too quickly.” With the time frame I have, I’m going to have to perform emergency surgery. It’s not going to be enough to just reach in like Dal seems to think. That would take time, and the eggs don’t have much of that left before they go into shock. I hate every second, but I make a long incision to extend her pouch to expose her egg chamber. Four large healthy looking eggs are visible beneath the blood and a thin membrane. I use surgical scissors to expose the eggs and got to work carefully removing each egg from the chamber. “I need a container to put them in. I need to keep them warm.”
“On it.” Dalahan leaves my side to find me something suitable. Making an incubator on the fly was going to be hard, but if the eggs got too cold they’d die. Absently I notice that the festival hall is mostly empty now. I can hear voices above me on the upper platform, but the loud scuffling of combat had ended. No more shouting or screaming. Dalahan returned with a large basket and what looked like a set of curtains bunched up into it. “Will this do?”
“In a pinch.” My hands are steady as I arrange the curtain to create a soft cushion and realise there isn’t enough fabric here to insulate the eggs as well. “I need another curtain.” Dal nods and moves in a green blur to find another one. When he returns I’ve arranged the four eggs and he helps me wrap them up tightly. Each one is the size of an ostrich egg. Creamy white with black mottling, and stained pink from blood…“I’ll need to get them into a proper incubator, but this will have to do for now.”
“We should leave then.” Dal holds my shoulder and frowns at me. “The fight is over now. First aiders have just arrived.” He nods up to the top tier. “Our side won, but there are casualties.”
“What about Hannah?” I stand, holding the basket to my chest with both my arms like a crazy person. No one is going to touch these eggs. Not until I have them in a medical grade incubator.
“She’s up there.”
“Is she hurt?”
“…I…don’t think—”
“Get me up there. Now.” I bark, securing the basket to my chest and turning around for Dal to grab my waist. “Now.” I snap at him again, and he lifts me up carefully to stand on the top tier. Immediately I see Hannah crying over the body of a Peacekeeper. An Ucfeni with glossy black scales and deeply bleeding cuts on his back.
“Move out of my way!” I shout at the Ucfeni elite guards in between me and Hannah. “What are you doing?” I chide another Ucfeni, a palace physician, before they can put theirbarehands on the injured Peacekeeper’s back. “You need to clean the wound before you stitch him up. Or are youtryingto kill him?” The physician raises his head, his mouth open in shock and his yellow eyes wide.
“How dare you question my—”
“I’m a doctor, and I know what I’m doing, so give me your medical bag so I can save his life.”
“How d—”
“Shut up before I punch you in the face.” I have just lost an innocent patient because of this bullshit, and I am not in the mood to explain myself to an imbecile. “Keep these warm.” I give the basket to Dal and he immediately obeys. He coils around it multiple times to insulate them in a cacoon of emerald scales. “What did I just say?” I challenge the flabbergast physician again as I lower to sit beside Hannah and start checking over the patient. “Move aside.”
“I am not letting an untrained human see to—”
“I’m not untrained, and you’re not infecting this man. Give me your kit. I need more Iodine.”
“I—”
Hannah raised her head, her face flushed and tears dribbling down her scowl. Her dark brown eyes were terrifying and she raised a taster to point at the palace physician.
“Give Charlie the medical bag and back the fuck off, before I arrest you for obstruction, mother fucker.”
“What she said. If you want to be useful…there is a woman down there called Gjenti.” I swallow thickly and I feel Dalahan’s tail-tip at my back. “She died from a penetrative trauma to her chest with extensive bleeding. She was gravid and—”
“Oh ancestors! How far along was she? Did you get the eggs out?!” He hissed with alarm. I employed Hannah as my assistant. She helped me cut him out of his uniform.
“Yes, we did.” I nod over my shoulder at Dal, who was being a living incubator at the moment. “Gjenti doesn’t deserve to be left down there. If you could have her respectfully collected, I would appreciate that.” Another tear slid down my cheek, and the physician’s expression softened. He nodded to me with respect, and slithered off to see to Gjenti. Good. I hate the thought of her laid out back there. I’m sure I’ll have to fill out a big report detailing what happened and what action I took, but right now I have another patient.
“Are you okay?” Hannah whispers to me, and Dal’s tail-tip still strokes my back. No, I’m not okay. This is why I hate treating people. I hate losing them. In my mind I’m already playing back everything I did and trying to think about what I could have done differently. Rather masochistically, I’m also tormenting myself by worrying that I’ll go through that all again with Asma. Minus the chest trauma, of course.
Hannah helps me remove the jacket from the man she tells me is her partner, sterilise his wounds, stitch him up, and bandage him. I can tell he means a lot to her because she won’t take her eyes off him. She is glued to his side when more emergency responders finally arrive to carry away the wounded. I promised Hannah we would catch up, and that I would personally muscle my way onto Tumva’s patient care, but first I had to see to the eggs. Dalahan obediently handed the basket back to me and I touch tested the eggs. They were warm to the touch and inside the curtain cacoon it was cosy. Still, I was eager to get them into a proper incubator.
