The physician's hands were at the shoulder when Khulgen arrived.
The arrow had come out in the field on the march back, the physician having done that work with Batu seated against a horse's flank on the flat steppe with the light going orange and low.
What remained now was the wound itself, packed with material the physician had soaked in spirits, the muscle damaged deep enough that the man had said the right arm would be restricted for some time.
He was checking his work at the table while Batu held still, the left forearm wrapped from the cut Berke had landed, the document spread out in front of him that Khulgen had just put down.
The camp around them was late afternoon settling into early dark. Cold in a way it had not been at the start of the campaign. Real cold now.
The near-winter had arrived into something harder. The fires were going. The horse lines were full, the animals that had come back from the day's work standing with their heads down, done.
