The mob erupted with cries and shouts-not taunts this time, but terror and pain.
Ethan looked for Diver once more, but could hardly see for the tumult that surrounded him. The crowd, which only moments before had pressed in on the soldiers in front of the Customs House, now dispersed, running in every direction. A few fearless souls continued to harass the soldiers, pressing toward them again, even as the men reloaded their weapons and raised them once more.
Dodging those who fled, Ethan pushed toward the middle of the frozen street. He had only taken a few steps, though, when he slowed and then halted again, his head spinning. A man-actually he looked to be little more than a boy-lay near the edge of the street, a torrent of blood from his chest darkening the ice. Ethan started toward this figure, but then spotted another nearby. This second man bled profusely from wounds to his hip and side.
Men had gathered next to both of the wounded, but they did not appear to know what to do for them. Several of those running from the scene were shouting for surgeons, so perhaps help would arrive soon. In the meantime, however, Ethan noticed more people moving past with bloody wounds. One man had been shot in the arm. He trudged alone past where Ethan stood, clutching his injury, blood running through his fingers. Another man was supported by two friends, having been struck in the thigh.
Ethan forced himself into motion. He had to find Diver. He had taken only a few steps when he halted again, the blood draining from his cheeks. A short distance from the man bleeding from his hip and thigh lay a third man, facedown.
“No,” Ethan said, the word coming out as might a grunt after a blow to the gut. This man was long of limb with dark, unruly hair.
Ethan ran toward him, his feet slipping on the ice so that he sprawled to the ground beside the figure. He faltered for an instant, then lifted the man to examine his face.
His relief was tempered by his horror. It was not Diver. This lad was several years younger than Ethan’s friend. He, too, had been struck in the chest as well as in the shoulder. In the pale moonlight, the snow and ice beneath him appeared black and slick with his blood.
Ethan laid him down again and stood, scanning the street for Diver, and eyeing the soldiers as well. He was far closer to them now, and directly in their line of sight. They had their muskets held ready, and Ethan knew that if they fired again, he would be fortunate to survive.
“Diver!” he called.
“Ethan.”
The reply came from ahead of him and slightly to his right. His friend’s voice sounded weak, strained. Ethan’s heart began to labor. Not Diver, too.
“Where are you?”
A prone figure stirred, raised a hand before letting it drop again. Ethan ran to him.
Diver lay on his side, breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed shut. Blood pooled in the crusted snow beneath him.
“Diver…”
“It hurts, Ethan. It hurts more than anything.”
The wound was on his arm. Seeing this, Ethan let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. His relief was short-lived, however. Diver was bleeding profusely; his teeth chattered and his entire body seemed to be quaking.
Ethan helped him lie down on his back. Diver gritted his teeth and let out a low, quavering moan.
For the second time in less than an hour, Ethan laid his hands on someone he loved and whispered a healing spell. “Remedium ex cruore evocatum.”
He kept his hands over the wound for several seconds, but nothing seemed to happen. Blood continued to pulse from the ravaged arm at an alarming rate, running over his fingers and soaking his breeches.
“Damn,” he said through clenched teeth.
“What?” Diver asked.
Ethan didn’t answer. Pulling his hands away, he bent to inspect Diver’s injury more closely, and nearly vomited in response to what he saw. The arm was a mess. The musket ball appeared to have splintered the bone, so that shards of it were embedded in the surrounding muscle. And he could tell as well that the ball had severed the artery. That was why it bled so.
“Ethan?”
The wound was beyond his talents as a healer, and his friend was bleeding out before his eyes. Ethan could let him die, or he could do the one thing he knew would save Diver’s life, though at a potential cost that sent a shudder through his body.
He hesitated for all of two seconds.
He didn’t know any better way to do what he had in mind, and so he cast a fire spell, aiming it at the artery and sourcing it in Diver’s blood. His conjuring pounded in the lane, and he smelled flesh burn as his spell cauterized the wound.
Diver screamed. When he could speak again, he said, “What … what did you do?”
“I’ve stopped the bleeding,” Ethan said, the words scraped from his throat. “But we need to get you to a surgeon.”
He pulled off his scarf and, as gently as he could, made a sling of it, to keep the arm immobile. As he did, he took a moment to survey the scene before him, and to try to get his bearings.
The tall mulatto man he had spotted ahead of Diver before the shooting began lay near the soldiers, unmoving, the blood on his chest shining in the moonlight. A second man, no more than two or three feet away from the first, had been struck in the head. Ethan thought he must have died before he hit the ground. Long had he expected that the occupation of his city would lead to bloodshed and even death, but never had he imagined a scene like this.
Tearing his gaze away from the dead men, he looked to the south, considering what options he had. Dr. Church’s house was too far from here. He wasn’t sure he could carry Diver such a distance, and he didn’t know how long his cauterization would hold. But there was another doctor to whom he could take his friend.
“Am I dying?” Diver asked, his voice faint.
“Not tonight, you’re not,” Ethan said. “You’ll be back in the Dowser sipping ales with me before you know it.”
A grimace flitted across the young man’s face and was gone; Ethan thought he was trying to smile.
“I’m cold, Ethan. I can’t feel my hands.”
“Which is why I need to get you to a surgeon, straight away.”
“All right.”
“I have to lift you, and it’s going to hurt.”
Diver gave a slight nod.
Ethan slipped his arms under his friend’s back and legs and lifted him into his arms.
Diver gasped. “Oh, God! Oh, God, Ethan, that hurts!”
“I know,” Ethan said, rasping the words as he struggled to his feet. He nearly fell, but righted himself and staggered toward the Town House. He glanced at the clock tower; it was a few minutes before ten o’clock. He wondered whether Kannice had awakened yet.
Once past the Town House, Ethan followed Queen Street to Brattle. For once, he cared not a whit about walking past Murray’s Barracks. Let one of the soldiers accost him. Let Morrison show his face. Ethan would incinerate with a thought anyone who troubled him this night.
Reaching Hanover Street, his bad leg aching, his breath coming now in great gasps, he walked past several doors until he reached a modest home on the left. Even as he approached the front door, however, he heard quick footsteps behind him. He spun, the words of a shatter spell on his lips.
But the man striding in his direction was none other than the one he had sought in coming here.
“Doctor Warren!”
The doctor hardly spared Ethan a glance, so intent was he on Diver.
“He was on King Street?” the doctor asked.
“Aye, and was struck in the arm.”
The doctor regarded him. “I was on my way to retrieve my bag. Others require my services as well. But you’re here and I’ll not turn you away. Follow me.” He pushed open his door and entered the house, gesturing sharply for Ethan to follow.
It was warm within, the air carrying the familiar bitter scent of spermaceti candles. Warren lit several with a taper, and at the same time pointed at a sofa in the middle of the sitting room.