‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled Tyrconnel and Eggebracht. Menno looked at them strangely.

‘To your companies,’ he repeated. ‘May the Great Sun enlighten your glory.’

Milo Vanderbeck, halfling, field surgeon, known as Rusty, greedily breathed into his nostrils the heady blend of the smells of iodine, ammonia, alcohol, ether and magical elixirs hanging beneath the tent roof. He wanted to enjoy that aroma to the full now, while it was still healthy, pure, virginally uncontaminated and clinically sterile. He knew it wouldn’t stay like that for long.

He glanced at the operating table–also virginally white–and at the surgical instruments, at the dozens of tools which inspired respect and confidence by the cool and menacing dignity of their cold steel, the pristine cleanliness of the metal sheen, the order and aesthetics of their arrangement.

His staff–three women–busied themselves around the instruments. Rusty spat and made a correction in his thoughts. One woman and two girls. He spat again. One old, though beautiful and young-looking, grandmother. And two children.

A sorceress and healer, called Marti Sodergren. And the volunteers. Shani, a student from Oxenfurt. Iola, a priestess from the Temple of Melitele in Ellander.

I know Marti Sodergren, thought Rusty, I’ve already worked with that beauty more than once. A bit of a nymphomaniac, she’s also prone to hysteria, but that’s nothing, as long as her magic works. Anaesthetic, disinfectant and blood-staunching spells.

Iola. A priestess, or rather a novice. A girl with looks as plain and dull as linen, with long, strong peasant hands. The temple had prevented those hands from becoming tainted by the ugly mark of heavy and dirty slogging on the soil. But it hadn’t managed to disguise their descent.

No, thought Rusty, I’m not afraid for her, by and large. Those peasant woman’s hands are sure hands, trustworthy hands. Besides, girls from temples seldom disappoint, they don’t cave in at moments of despair, but seek comfort in religion, in their mystical faith. Interestingly, it helps.

He glanced at red-haired Shani, nimbly threading curved needles with catgut.

Shani. A child from reeking city backstreets, who made it to the Academy of Oxenfurt thanks to her own thirst for knowledge and the unimaginable sacrifices of her parents in paying her fees. A schoolgirl. A jester. A cheerful scamp. What does she know? How to thread needles? Put on tourniquets? Hold retractors? Ha, the question is: when will the little red-haired student faint, drop the retractors and tumble nose-first into the open belly of a patient being operated on?

People aren’t very hardy, he thought. I asked to be given an elf woman. Or somebody from my own race. But no. There’s no trust.

Not towards me either, as a matter of fact.

I’m a halfling. An unhuman.

A stranger.

‘Shani!’

‘Yes, Mr Vanderbeck?’

‘Rusty. I mean, to you it’s “Mr Rusty”. What’s this, Shani? And what’s it for?’