Chapter 42: Accidents
“What happens when a demonic beast bites a human?”
Iron Axe looked at Roland with the expression of a man who had been asked whether fire was hot. “They die, Your Highness.”
“They don’t—” Roland searched for a way to phrase it that didn’t require explaining the concept of a zombie apocalypse. “They don’t change?”
“They die.”
“And the meat? Can it be eaten?”
Carter made a sound suggesting he had not expected this question today. Iron Axe, without inflection: “I tried it once. Fed the scraps to my dogs. Dead by morning.”
Roland exhaled. An entire forest’s worth of infected animals converging on the walls every winter, and not one of them was harvestable — some fundamental design flaw in this world’s architecture that was going to irritate him for some time. He filed a note to find other solutions to the food problem, and went to check on the hospital.
The field hospital occupied a recently vacated noble’s residence near the southern wall — commandeered politely, which was to say Roland had asked once and not asked again when the answer was slow. The previous owner had taken everything worth taking back to Longsong. What remained was a large, bare, well-built building that suited Roland’s purposes considerably better than it would have suited anyone who wanted a home.
The entire ground floor was now a single ward: ten beds, clean mattresses, hearths at each end. No physicians. Just Nana, who was twelve years old and could close a muscle tear faster than any needle. Sir Pine and Brian managed the ground floor; two guards at the door.
The first patient was not a soldier.
Nils could hear his own breathing — too fast, too high — and the crunch of his boots on the frozen path, and Titus’ weight shifting wrong in his arms, and nothing else.
Move. Move. Move.
He’d been operating the steam engine for a week without incident, long enough to feel comfortable. Long enough to stop being careful.
The machine had arrived in pieces a fortnight ago — strange castings hauled up the slope by the knights and assembled over several days into something with a boiler, a firebox, and a rope-and-winch that could pull a full ore basket up from depth faster than six men combined. His Royal Highness’ invention, the senior knight had called it. The steam engine.
Nils had learned two rules: green lever first to start, red first to stop. When venting steam, call a warning and keep men clear.
He’d called no warning because he’d looked up and seen no one.
He hadn’t seen Titus. The machine was large and loud, and it hid things.
The steam caught Titus full in the face — a flat, scalding rush of white — and Nils had stood there for one terrible moment watching him fall and roll and make sounds that no person should make. By the time the other miners forced Titus’ hands away from his face, the skin beneath had gone the color and texture of something left too long near a flame. Deep red turning white at the center. The eyes had clouded over, the pupils gone pale as old wax.
Everyone agreed it was unsurvivable.
Three years Titus had looked after him — since Nils was too small for the heavy work and could have been cut loose without a thought. Instead, Titus had arranged lighter assignments and made sure Nils was paid the same as the others and never once mentioned it.
The senior knight had said: if anyone is injured, bring them to the medical center near the walls.
Nils knew it wouldn’t matter. A burn this wide, this deep — the fever would take Titus by nightfall and the coma soon after. Nothing here could stop that.
He ran anyway.
The frost had made the slope treacherous and he nearly went down twice, Titus’ weight unbalancing him, Titus who had gone quiet now where before he had screamed, and quiet was worse. Behind him, boots on frozen ground — some of the others following.
He ran because stopping meant accepting it, and he was not ready to accept it.
Chapter 42 Accidents
“What happens when a demonic beast bites a human?” Roland asked. “Will
they become the same like the demonic beast?”
Roland hoped it wouldn’t turn into a medieval version of Resident Evil.
After all, with their current level of technology they had no way to extract the
virus and produce the required antigens.
“Of course not,” Iron Axe gave Roland a kind ‘How can you ask such a
question?’ look, “They would turn into a corpse.”
“What about their meat, can we eat it?”
Carter exclaimed loudly, “Your Highness! How can you think about eating the
meat of demonic beasts, they are contaminated with the Breath of Hell, ah!!”
Roland looked at Iron Axe, who nodded and said, “Your chief knight is right,
I have cut off meat from some demonic beasts to feed to my dogs. The result
was that my dogs died shortly after eating the meat.”
“That happened? That’s really a shame.” Roland sighed, during this time, the
food sources were scarce. If they were able to eat the demonic beasts the
winter months would turn into months of simple harvest. Think about it, the
whole forest of animals would turn mad and run in the direction of Border
Town, so the militia would even be able to save hunting gear!
After he walked along the whole wall, he decided to pay a visit to Nana.
Roland had requisitioned the residence of a noble who recently left Border
Town and used it as a field hospital. Of course, he claimed it as a school for
foreign medicine. But just in case, it was near the city walls and was one of
the best guarded places in Border Town.
When the former owner of the residence returned to Longsong Stronghold he
had taken all his property with him, and the other inhabitants of Border Town
were always ready to give up their homes. So, the housing was quite large,
but they couldn’t have many murals, carpets, porcelain vases, or other kinds
of decorations. If it wasn’t fairly clean, it would just look like a house that
was vacant for a long time.
Roland turned the first floor into one big room. Only the stairs to the upper
floor and a small hallway were left. Then, he put ten beds into the room. With
this, his hospital was finished. It was quite a simple shape, there were no
nurses and no doctors, even the ten beds were unlikely to be used at all –
after Nana’s treatment the patients weren’t required to lay in the beds, her
treatment immediately bore fruits.
During the day, Nana would normally stay on the second floor of the hospital
and Anna would come by when she herself had nothing to do. Sir Pine and
Brian were responsible for the first floor, and two guards were stationed at
the entrance.
However, Roland did not expect that the first patient of the field hospital
would be a worker from the Northern Slope Mine instead of a soldier from
the militia which defended the walls.
Nils felt his hands trembling.
When he heard the hoarse scream of iron again, he tried to pick up his pace
once more, but even with his fastest speed he couldn’t fly.
This was all because of his negligence, he thought. Damn, how could he
forget the repetitive warnings of his senior knight?
If he had known earlier, he wouldn’t have grasped his chance to work with
the big guy!
Since the big guy was installed at the mine gate during the night, the miners’
work became a lot easier.
Originally, the most tiring part of the job was to drag the ore out of the mine
when the mining basket was filled with stones. Generally, two people would
push from the back and the rest would pull from the front. After years of
usage, the originally uneven tunnel ground became flat due to the transporting
of the baskets. The pad at the bottom of the iron ore basket also required
frequent replacement.
A week ago, the chief knight commanded that the senior knight and his men to
transport a lot of strange-shaped parts made out of metal up to the mine, and
then in the next few days they assembled them into a furnace. Nils had
absolutely not foreseen that this furnace could move by itself when fueled
with fire. It could not only move, but it also had extraordinary strength.
The senior knight had said that it was His Royal Highness’ invention and was
seemingly called the steam engine.
First, a basket had to be fastened with a rope to the steam engine, then a fire
had to be lit before the big machine would begin to hum. Then, the winch
began to turn and the basket was quickly hauled towards the mine entrance.
Incredible!
The senior knight had selected a person responsible for the steam engine
after several test runs . When Nils was selected, he was very pleased with
himself, since he had waited a long time for such a good opportunity. After
all, he just had to stand in front of the machine! He would no longer have to
dig out stones or minerals, and he would never ever need to push a basket.
That last mine collapse still left him spooked.
The words the senior knight told him were still in his head.
He said it wasn’t a difficult task.The big guy would do all the work, all he
had to do was to pull the green lever first and then the red lever second. The
senior knight also said that the green lever was linked to the intake valve,
while an exhaust valve was linked with the red lever so that the steam would
pass through the pipe into the cylinder. After the basket was pulled to the
mine entrance, he would have to do the reverse if he wanted to stop the
machine. First, he had to lift the red lever and then the green lever. With, this
the steam would be discharged from the side of the boiler. After each cycle,
the oven needed be supplemented with water until it was full – although he
didn’t understand what a valve and a cylinder were, Nils still promised to do
everything step by step.
However, the senior knight stressed two points that were most important.
First, the order could not be wrong. To start the engine, the green lever was
first before the red lever. To stop, the green had to be closed after the red. If
he made a mistake, it could lead to the destruction of the machine. The
second point was that when he was discharging the steam he had to
constantly remind the miners to step back until the red lever was completely
lifted.
The first point Nils had engraved into his head, even with closed eyes he
wouldn’t make a mistake. But with the second point he had some problems.
Today, he was shutting down the machine as usual. He noticed that other
miners were no longer around. He felt that he would be a fool if he shouted a
warning when no one was around, so he was totally absorbed in pulling the
red lever. The red lever was a bit hard to pull, and out of exhaustion he had
to bare his teeth during the pull.
He hadn’t expected Titus to appear in front of the stove when he pulled the
lever – Nils hadn’t seen him due to the steam engine’s big size and because
of the loud noise it created, he hadn’t even heard the footsteps. The white
steam which was exhausted from the boiler directly rushed into Titus’ face!
Nils was stunned out of fright, he only saw Titus suddenly falling to the
ground and rolling around, holding his face and screaming his life out – Titus
screams were so heartbreaking for Nils that they directly attacked the core of
his being.
Soon, other miners gathered around, opening Titus’ hands by force to take a
look at his wounds, only to see that his face only vaguely reminded them of a
human face. Blood was oozing from his cooked and raw face and his eyes
were turned into white pearls. All the people present were sure that Titus
couldn’t be saved.
Nils’ soul slowly came back to his body. Titus had always taken care of him,
due to his young age, and the work Nils was assigned was less than that of
the other people, but the wages Nils got were never less than that of the
others. And now, this accident only happened due to his negligence.
Between his grief and anxiety, Nils suddenly remembered what the senior
knight also said. If one of the miners were accidently injured, he should be
brought to the safe area near the walls. There was a newly opened medical
center therere.
Although Nils knew that such a serious injury was an incurable wound and
that the size of the injury was too big, even if herbal medicine could help a
little, it couldn’t stop the deterioration of Titus’ health. Then, Titus would get
high fever and would soon fall into a coma. But nonetheless Nils still took
Titus into his arms, regardless of the confused looks he got from the nearby
people, bit his teeth together, and ran.
If he did nothing and Titus died, Nils was afraid that he could never forgive
himself for the rest of his life.