The Tale of Five Heirs

Chapter Thirty-one, in which an entitled prince greatly irritates Tamara

Someone howled. Then—

BANG.

The top of the house exploded, shooting bricks in every direction.

Tamara stepped away and burnt a few flying bricks out of the air with her sword before they could hit her. There were a few of Rosanna's foot soldiers brawling with an Everwinter warrior in front of a lace shop.

Tamara craned her neck to look down the street. She knew that Nikolai held the merchant's district. There, down the street, Tamara could see a barricade made of fine mahogany furniture and barrels of caviar.

Must be the front. She took off running.

Tamara jumped up on a dining room table and vaulted over a desk to land on the other side of the barricade. Her knees were slightly bent, and her blazing sword was raised.

"Hey!" said a young man in pantalons, getting up from where he had been sitting on a chaise lounge. He could barely lift his sword. "You can't—"

Tamara was already a block away.

There were crowds of merchants roaming around, dressed in their best and carrying pearl-encrusted swords. Tamara would have thought them ridiculous if she had bothered to think of them at all.

A woman in a silk ballgown ran at Tamara with a wooden board raised over her head. "Get outta my way," snarled Tamara, and slapped the woman's shoulder with the flat of her sword.

The merchants were chaotic and easy to avoid. Half of them didn't recognize Tamara as an enemy anyway. The Aranthian soldiers from Fort Bruster were also working for Nikolai, as well as some mercenaries.

Tamara tried to stay out of their sight. It would be annoying if she had to fight them.

Tamara spotted a company of soldiers from Fort Bruster walking away from the front lines. Two were carrying a stretcher between them.

They must be heading back to Nikolai's camp to take the wounded woman to the field hospital, Tamara thought. She followed them.

The hospital was a merchant's mansion. Nurses and the walking wounded swarmed about. Tamara was still wearing her (muddy, bloody) footman's uniform from Fort Yaron. She crept around to the back of the hospital and stole a Fort Bruster uniform off of a corpse.

"Hey, you!"

Tamara shoved her sword in the dead woman's scabbard and kept walking.

"Hey—" someone grabbed Tamara's arm.

Tamara jerked her arm away, and spun around. She shoved the person to the ground.

A man in a nurse's uniform looked up at her from the dirt. "I guess you aren't too badly wounded, then," he said.

"Ah, no," said Tamara, glancing down at her torn and bloodstained pant leg. She pretended to limp as she took a few steps backwards.

"Good," said the man. "I need your help. Come inside." He walked toward one of the side doors of the house. It led to the ballroom.

Tamara followed him.

Inside were rows and rows of wounded soldiers. The lucky ones got to lie on cots.

"See these ones here?" said the nurse, pointing to a line of soldiers leaning up against the wall. "The ones in this corner should only have flesh wounds. Here," he pressed a bottle of brandy into Tamara's hand. "Disinfect the cuts, find some bandages, wrap them up. I'll be in surgery." He hurried off towards a door that led further into the house.

Tamara heard screaming. The air smelled metallic. She made her way over to the soldiers leaning against the wall.

The nurse came to check on Tamara later. He had bags under his eyes and blood on his uniform. "You did a pretty good job, ma'am," he said. "I'm impressed. Have you done anything like this before?"