Book One – Chapter 18

“Deltington,” Bubs called out. “Help strap her down.”

“Sure,” the ulbatan moved at once. The borman lurched forward as well, but Deltington turned on him in the same instant. Pressure built — sudden, suffocating. Without a word, the borman was held at the threshold, watching from the doorway while Deltington stepped in for Bubs. As the human writhed in pain, he stripped her coat away and began securing her with two separate leather straps from underneath the bedframe. He bent low, fastening them across her chest and hip.

Only now did Yu notice that the human was not lying on the bed’s mattress, but on a thin sheet spread over a flat frame that was placed atop the mattress. As Yu spotted how this frame was secured to the bed, hinged at the corners, he finally recognised it as a stretcher. Metal handles jutted along its frame, each with more of the leather straps attached. They lay tucked in beneath, prepared between the frame and the mattress underneath.

Deltington and Bubs drew them out one by one, looping them over the girl’s limbs, cinching each in place. Not so tight as to crush, just enough to hold, to let her writhe and strain without breaking free. It was practiced hands doing practiced work.

“Why is she like this?” Yu asked. “I thought you gave her potions?” The moment the words left his beak, he realised he had betrayed himself. “I mean, she did, right? She must have. Gotten the potions, I mean. I see them all there, at her bedside.”

The shaman replied far too composed for the scene before them. “We applied potent medicine to her legs, to draw out the frost. It sits deep, and has done great harm. One can only imagine the discomfort this poor child must endure.” Her tone carried no strain and no urgency, as if there was not a crying, dying human right there between them.

“Her body must remain responsive,” she went on. “For what is to come, she must not lose all strength. The pain is dulled, be assured. It is her body, not her mind, that reacts. We hope in due time, she will not remember any of this suffering.”