Book One – Chapter 18

“Serve the guests. You got that?” Bubs repeated.

That could not be right. Into the kitchen — alone? Handle food — alone?

Yu fumbled. “What?” His word of the day. Again.

“Are you deaf now?” Bubs snapped.

Yu’s beak opened —

“Take. The food. To the common room. Bring back. The empty bowls.” And with that, Bubs stepped into the surgery and let the door fall shut behind him.

Yu’s beak closed shut with it.

And then he realised that he had pushed himself into a corner, literally, with the borman and the shaman between him and the only exit. He lifted his gaze up the borman, who was far too much bulk and height, and far too much next to him.

The borman still stared back. His eyes stayed fixed on Yu for a long beat, then they rose higher, peering through the little glass window set in the upper part of the doors. Yu, shorter, could only listen: Bubs giving Deltington orders to clean himself up. The splash of water. The uncorking of bottles. The human in pain. The room beyond shifted and moved, until the krynn emerged.

The borman shifted aside with reluctance, as the smaller beastkin stepped back into the sick bay.

“You stay not?” he asked.

“No,” the krynn’s eyes slid from Yu to the shaman and back. “They do it together.” Then, to the borman: “We should go to the common room. Fetch our things to our rooms.”

But the borman did not move. He lingered at the threshold, breath grinding in and out. His paws lifted and lowered, then flexed against the handles. Then he seized them, opening both doors all the way, and stepped into the frame.

“Get out,” Bubs said. He did not raise his voice, but now, there was anger in it.

Yu could not see much past the borman, but what he did see was lit clear and sharp. Four orbs now flooded the surgery with white light. Bubs crouched low over the human’s leg, pincers and fingers working in tandem to prise away the splint. One of the long iron plates already lay discarded, gleaming dark beside a heap of blood-soaked wrappings. The second was halfway free. With it gone, the wound bled openly. Despite that, the human’s body no longer thrashed as before. She only twisted faintly against the straps, her cries frayed to thin, single threads.