Vella checked the spearman's fever, then slid his cup away from the cot's wobbling edge.
Forty-two patients filled the regional ward while the central aisle stayed clear for carrying crews hauling stretchers through the doorway. Outside the entrance, Tam leaned against the barricade post, his alarm horn dangling beside his freshly sprained and wrapped wrist.
Siege horns bled faintly through the shuttered upper windows above the crowded cots.
"Leg up until tomorrow," she said, shoving the support beneath his knee, "and if you jump off another battlement, I'll find something nastier than a pillow."
"You saved three fingers the surgeon wanted gone," he wheezed, curling them inside the dressing.
"I can survive a pillow."
She tested each finger before tucking the hand beneath his blanket, nudging the cup toward his good side.
Across the aisle, an infant fussed until Vella eased a folded cloth beneath its sleeping mother's elbow.
