Tristan made a careful note of where they were going, so he could find the Uriel encampment on his own if he needed to and approximate a location for the High Commander’s benefit. The encampment sat on a hanging valley at the far side of the pass, high above the main dale and river far below. A stream cut diagonally across the flat land, flowing past the encampment and into a waterfall at the valley’s mouth.

The fort was crudely formed, surrounded by a deep outer ditch and a turf rampart topped by a palisade of heavy timber stakes, with gated entrances at the midpoint of each of its four walls. The fort itself was open to the sky, with roofed sheds and buildings of varying size strategically arranged throughout.

Adelard led Tristan, Sam and Braeden to one of the largest buildings on the right side of the fort. “This is the infirmary,” the Uriel said. “Do you mind if I check on my men?” Donnelly and the others had forged on ahead to deliver the injured Uriel into the camp surgeon’s care.

“Of course not,” Tristan said. He would have wanted to do the same if any of his men were injured. Braeden and Sam nodded their accordance.

Once inside, Tristan was shocked not only by the modernity and size of the infirmary, but the number of people inside of it. Two-thirds of the sickbeds were filled, and not just by the Uriel. The patients included the elderly, several women and children, as well as a few men who looked as though they had never so much as touched a weapon.

Tristan plucked what he assumed to be a surgical tool from a nearby table, examining the ironwork. It looked more like a torture device than an instrument of medicine.

A surly man in a white linen hat and bloodstained clothes grabbed the tool from Tristan’s hands. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. He stomped off down the aisle.

“Don’t mind the good surgeon,” Adelard said. “He’s no doubt had a busy night.”

“What is this place?” asked Sam, a bit green in the face.

“An improvised hospital for victims of demon attacks. It’s only been up and running for a month now, and we’re short on medical supplies. But we try to help as many as we can, regardless.”

“What’s wrong with the local doctors?” Tristan asked.

“Dead or gone, I’m afraid,” said Adelard. “There’s one doctor who stayed in East Pirama, but his prices are unaffordable for most.”

“And what do you charge for medical treatment?”

“We encourage our patients to pay what they can. Usually, they wind up paying close to nothing, if anything at all,” Adelard said ruefully. “But at least if they come to us, they’re safe from a second attack while they’re at their most vulnerable.”

It was a good idea, Tristan hated to admit. He wondered why the Paladins hadn’t thought to set up something similar, in Pirama or elsewhere. Although, in all fairness, most of the cities east of Pirama had their own hospitals and doctors, and would balk at the undercutting competition. Besides, resources only extended so far, and the Paladins were warriors, not healers. Surely the Uriel knew that offering any service for free was not sustainable. He questioned their motives—no one did anything anymore out of pure altruism. “What’s in it for the Uriel?” he asked, not expecting an honest answer.

“We saw a need and we filled it. It’s what we do.”

A man’s scream erupted from the back of the infirmary. “Quiet!” the surgeon barked. He inserted a wooden, screw-shaped gag into the man’s mouth. “Bite!” With his lips still wrapped around the mouth gag, the man squealed and grunted in terror, his breath coming out in wheezes.

The surgeon retrieved a wicked bow-frame saw, the high-wrought ivory handle at odds with the rusted metal teeth. The patient’s eyes went wild with fear, and he thrashed against the bed. “Hold still, damn it!” The surgeon threw himself on top of the flailing man. “Adelard, man with the sticky fingers! The rest of you lot! I need your help!” he shouted.

Adelard turned to Tristan and raised an eyebrow in an unspoken challenge. Tristan nodded resolutely, and he, Adelard and his trainees rushed to the surgeon’s side. “How can we help, Asa?” asked Adelard, pushing back the sleeves of his tunic.

“I need you to hold him down while I amputate his leg.”

Sam gulped audibly. “Amputation? His leg doesn’t look so bad to me.” The patient vigorously bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

The surgeon fixed the trainee with a frosty stare. “Are you a practitioner of medicine? No? Then keep your opinions to yourself.” He pulled out a small pair of scissors from his pocket and cut off the man’s breeches at his left knee. “The original wound site is here,” the surgeon said, pointing to a missing chunk of leg that was still weeping blood. The skin around the wound was black and filmy, and dark red lines fanned out from the swelling, patterning his limb like a spider web. “The wound is infected. It’s spread all the way to here.” The surgeon brought his scissors to the man’s kneecap and pricked the skin with their tip. A yellow, foul smelling discharge trickled down the man’s leg.

Sam made a retching noise, and Tristan ignored his own heaving stomach. “What caused the initial wound?”

“I extracted a tooth from his leg when he first came into the infirmary, so it’s safe to assume it’s a bite,” the surgeon said. “As I’ve explained to Master Evans here, demon bites are often venomous and frequently fatal. If I don’t remove all of the infected tissue, the infection will spread and eventually kill him.” The patient, Master Evans, let out a whimper.

“Braeden, weren’t you bitten?” asked Sam in a loud whisper, his eyes wide. “Maybe you should have the surgeon take a look.”

Braeden’s mouth pinched tightly. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“Later,” said the surgeon. “Adelard, grab his arms and hold them above his head. “Sticky Fingers, I want you to hold down his right leg. If he kicks me while I’m working, it could kill him. You two—” He pointed at Sam and Braeden. “Stand on opposite sides of the bed. You, I need you to put light pressure on his pelvis. You, lie across his chest.” Once he was satisfied with their positioning, he picked up the bone saw again. “Look away if you’re squeamish.”

The next hour was a harrowing one. The surgeon worked quickly and efficiently, rotating the saw against the top of the patient’s knee with the ease of practice. Master Evans bucked against Tristan’s grip on his right leg, and by the time the lower left limb was removed, Tristan was as covered in sweat as the surgeon. Disposing of the amputated limb, the surgeon then heated an iron cauter in a fireplace. He applied the white-hot end of the metal to the hemorrhaging stump, searing the wound closed. The patient shrieked as the extreme temperature of the cauter forced his blood to coagulate and his skin to blister. The sounds of his agony would be forever burned into Tristan’s memory.

After the procedure was finished, the surgeon handed him a bucket. “What’s this?” Tristan asked.

“It’s for you, if you need to be sick. Do your business and then pass it around.” When Tristan hesitated, the surgeon added, “There’s no shame in it. I’ve done it myself a time or two.” Tristan leaned over and emptied a week’s worth of food into the bucket. He stared at the half-filled bucket in surprise. He’d been too traumatized to realize he felt nauseous.

Tristan was embarrassed at his weakness for just a moment, before Sam and Adelard quickly followed suit. Only the surgeon and Braeden abstained. “I’ve seen worse,” Braeden said with a shrug.

“Thank you all for your help,” said the surgeon. “Now get out of my sight.” He returned his attentions to the patient, slathering his leg with a concoction of eggs, turpentine and the gods knew what else. Adelard and Tristan exchanged twin looks of horror and then glanced away.

“He’s prickly,” said Sam once they’d walked a short distance.

“Aye, but he’s the best surgeon in the West, short of our doctor in Luca,” Adelard said. The Uriel beckoned at a woman wearing a starched white wimple and carrying a pile of fresh linens. “Elspeth, where are Raj and Kelly?”

The woman called Elspeth adjusted the bundle of linens to her hip. “They went home to their wives while you were assisting His Royal Grumpiness. They’ll be fine, don’t you worry. Well, excepting Raj’s pinky, but there’s not much Asa could do with the missing bit at the bottom of a demon’s belly.”

“Thank you, Elspeth.” She dipped into a curtsy and then strode purposefully down the aisle, her long black skirts whisking about her ankles.

“Your men—Raj and Kelly—they don’t stay here at the encampment?” Tristan asked.

Adelard shook his head. “No, they live with their families in East Pirama. And they’re not my men, not really.”

Tristan wrinkled his forehead. “What do you mean?”

“I think it's easier if I show you. Come, follow me.” Adelard marched them out of the infirmary and towards an expansive fenced off area at the rear of the encampment.

Tristan’s mouth gaped open. Hundreds of men were practicing inside the enclosure, evidently a training yard of sorts. But it didn’t resemble the training yard of The Center. The men were painfully green and many were severely out of shape, either so skinny that Tristan could have lifted them by a single finger, or their well-fed stomachs protruded out past their weapons.

As for their weapons, well, they weren’t what Tristan associated with a formal training yard. A few pairs dueled with wooden practice swords, but the vast majority practiced against one another with peasants’ weapons—cudgels, staffs, pitchforks and the occasional hunter’s bow-and-arrow.

“Are these your latest recruits?” he asked.

Adelard snorted. “These men? Gods, no. Our standards may not be as high as yours, Paladin, but they’re pretty damn close. This training program is our newest initiative, and maybe our proudest accomplishment,” he said, leaning against the fence.

“So if they aren’t recruits, and they’re not current Uriel, who are these men?”

“The city folk of Pirama and some of the neighboring towns. You see, Paladin, what we realized when we came to this city is that the Paladins can’t defend everyone, and neither can we. The demon attacks are too frequent and their numbers too great. This is our solution.”

Tristan watched as one of the men from Pirama attempted to dodge an attack and tripped over his own feet in his effort to move out of the way. “You’re putting them up for slaughter.”

“They’re up for slaughter either way. This way they at least have a fighting chance.” Adelard pushed back from the fence, gripping onto a post. “And they’re not all so rough around the edges. Raj and Kelly are probably our finest examples of what this program could amount to.”

That revelation caught Tristan off guard. He’d seen them fight—they hadn’t the skill or finesse of the Paladins, nor of Adelard or Donnelly, but their contributions on the battlefield had been most welcome. “They’re not Uriel?”

“Just citizens of Pirama who want to fight for their home.” Adelard rested his chin against the fence post. “Can you imagine if every one of these men in here could fight like Raj and Kelly? Or even half of them? This city would be a different place.”

“We’d be out of a job,” said Sam, crossing his arms over his chest.

Adelard whirled around. “No, Sam. So long as there are demons, the people will always need a champion, someone to lead the defensive effort. What we’re offering them is self-defense. Freedom from the constant fear. To keep our knowledge and our skills to ourselves—” Adelard frowned distastefully. “That’s selfish and cruel.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” Braeden said, his face flushed. “What you’re doing here, that is.”

Tristan looked sharply at Braeden. The trainee was rarely so outspoken, and his color deepened under Tristan’s gaze. “Why did you bring us here?” Tristan asked the Uriel. “Why are you showing us this?”

A small smile touched the Uriel’s lips. “You don’t know much about us, do you, Paladin Lyons? Well, know this—we’re not fools, whatever you might think. We’re fully aware that whatever you’ve seen here today, you’ll report back to your High Commander. We not only expect it, we encourage it.”

“Why?” asked Tristan. “Why would you want me to tell your enemy commander about your exact whereabouts?”

“If you think the High Commander doesn’t already know we’re here, then more fool you. But he’s not our enemy commander, and he doesn’t have to be. Tell him what you’ve seen here, Paladin. Tell him that the Uriel and Paladins are not at counter-purposes.”

“What makes you think I believe that?”

Adelard stared at him hard. “You don’t, Paladin, not yet. But you will.”