'How's that cauter coming?' Beau called to Tip.
At the stove Tip said, 'It's just now turning red.'
'Well then, you heard the Lady: get over here and wash your hands,' snapped Beau.
Moments later, Tip, with beads of sweat on his brow, handed the yellow-glowing instrument to Beau, and Beau nodded to Loric. 'Uncover the wound.'
The Alor lifted away the bandage from her chest.
Beau looked closely and glanced across at Loric. 'If I use this, she'll never breathe with ease again.' He stood in pensive thought for a moment and finally shook his head and handed the glowing cauter back to Tip. 'We won't need this.'
Tip sighed in relief.
Beau looked at the Chakian. 'I need you to spoon a bit of that gwynthyme tea into the wound… ah, yes, a bit more, good, that's enough.
'Now give her the remainder, and when it's gone, put the leaves into the bowl. I need them as a poultice. Now where's my gut and needle?'
A short while later, Beau tied the last knot on the bandage and said, 'There, all done.' He looked up at Loric and then over to the Chakian. 'Her wound will bleed even more if she is not still, and she's lost enough as it is. We need a place where she can rest and remain quiet.'
'Thel, Sol Chakian,' murmured Loric.
The Chakian turned to Loric, her head canted. 'Da tak Chakur?'
'Ti,' replied Loric. 'Kelek at skal ea. Ea ta Loric.'
The Chakian clapped her hands and called out to two Chakia, and they fetched a litter. 'Fear not, Guardian,' she said to Loric, 'for along with other wounded females, we shall bear her to our healing chambers, where she will rest in quiet.'
'I will help,' sa«d Loric.
The Chakian shook her head, her veils swirling. 'Nay. The chambers are in our quarters.' She turned to Beau. 'Only healers are allowed.'
Beau plunged the still hot cautering rod into a basin of water to cool it, then dried it and dropped it in his satchel. Taking up the bag, he said, 'Lead the way,' and he hopped down from the chair.
Tip and Loric watched them go.
'Come,' said Loric at last. 'Let us help fetch the steeds, including our own.'
A time later, Beau emerged from the Dwarvenholt and moved into the battlefield to help with the injured. And he found Melor on the slopes, deciding who would be next: there were those who could wait, and those who could not, and those yet alive but beyond all help.
It nearly broke Beau's heart to pass these latter by.
From the field, after initial treatment, the wounded were borne into Mineholt North, males carried to one set of quarters, females unto the chambers of the Chakia and given over to their care, for Phais was not the only wounded Dara. Female Baeron, too, were taken unto the Chakia, even though some protested. Yet the Dwarves would have it no other way, for this was their Chakkaholt, and herein females lived in quarters apart.
Chieftain Gara and Coron Ruar accepted this arrangement, for as Gara said, 'When in Rhondor, one must live as a Rhondorian.'
Throughout the day and into the night, along with the other healers Beau worked feverishly. But when he collapsed into bed at last, all who could be saved had been, and all who could not were not.
Altogether, nearly three quarters of the allies had been wounded-many but minor scathings, others major blows- and of those taking the greater wounds, nearly half had died in battle and more would die in the days to come.
Ruar took a count of the battlefield dead; three and two hundred Daelsmen; twenty-two and one hundred Baeron; forty-six and two hundred Drimma; eighty-four and one hundred Dylvana.
Of the foe, some three thousand of the Foul Folk had been slain altogether, two thousand killed outright during battle, another thousand on the field after.
All the next day funerals were prepared for the dead: the Chakka to be burned on pyres with the broken weapons of their enemies at their feet, while mourners would wail and warriors would swear vengeance; the Baeron to be borne to a wooded vale and in absolute silence be laid to rest 'neath woven bowers; the Daelsmen to be interred in the earth as their feats were shouted to the world; the Dylvana to be burned while their kindred sang.
As he and Tip watched the Daelsmen cutting sod and digging the pits for the burial mounds, 'It's not right,' muttered Bekki, his hood cast over his head in the Chakka gesture of mourning.
'What's not right?' asked Tip, peering up at Bekki's red face, Tip wondering if the Dwarf were angry or if it was simply the flush from his burns. He had been treated with aloe to hasten healing, yet his face and hands were still ruddy.
'Clean stone or purifying fire is the only true way to honor the dead. Else it will be overlong ere the soul gains freedom to be reborn. This interment in earth, why, roots will catch the soul. No wonder Chakka and Daelsmen are at odds.'
Tipperton shook his head but remained silent, even as he noticed that the Daelsmen looked with disfavor upon the building of the great funeral pyre of the Dwarves, and the making of the pyre of the Elves, as well as the Baeron lading wains with their dead to take them into a forest, and muttered of the error of their ways.
So, too, did the Baeron look upon the others and shake their heads as well.
Only the Dylvana seemed to ignore the varying customs in their preparations to sing all souls to the sky.
As to the dead Foul Folk-all three thousand one hundred twenty-though the Dwarves objected, Ruar insisted they should be burned as well. At last Borl assented, for though he believed fire would honor the Grg, still he could not see any other swift way to rid his dale of these dead… and he did not want to leave them to rot upon his very door.
Tip looked over the field of slaughter and sighed. 'So many killed, Bekki. So many killed. It seems somehow unfair.'
Bekki grunted. 'War is not a pleasant game, Tipperton, not a diversion of sport. Fairness has nothing to do with it. There is only the 'rule,' if rule it is, and that is to slay as many of the foe as you can.'
'I thought the only rule was to win.'
Bekki nodded. 'That, too.'
'And if you can win without slaughter…?'
Bekki looked down at the buccan. 'Not easily done in war.'
Tip sighed. 'I think that to win a war without slaughter, the victory must come before any battle is fought.'
They watched long moments more. Finally Tip said, 'Of all who fell, only a few were those I knew.'
Bekki's eyes turned grim as flint. 'All Chakka who fell were my brothers.'
On this second day as well, Beau visited many of the wounded, including Phais in the Chakia healing chambers. When Beau, escorted by a Chakian, came into the infirmary, the Dara was fevered and thrashing about as poison coursed through her veins. Chakia attended her, some bathing her brow with cold spring water while others attempted to hold her still.
And her bandage was seeping red.
'Oh, my,' whispered Beau, 'I should have burnt the wound.'
'Shall I ready a cauter?' asked the Chakian at his side.
Beau shook his head. 'It's too late now, for the poison has spread.'
'We have tried a sleeping draught,' said another of the Chakia. 'But the fever gains the upper hand now and again.'
Beau nodded and reached into his breast pocket for the silver case. Shortly, and with the help of a Chakia, he managed to get the gwynthyme tea into the Dara. Partway through, she settled into an uneasy sleep.
'I'll be back later,' he whispered to Phais as he bandaged the wound again, a fresh poultice laid on. The Dara
