The March on Brenton Part 2

The March on Brenton, Part 2
Summary: Following the initial attack on Brenton, the aftermath is not pretty.
Date: 04/11/1329
Related: This follows right after http://gameofkings.wikidot.com/the-assault-on-fort-brenton into the next day.
Players:
Samwell Gauvain Claire 

TP Room 2
The environs surrounding Fort Brenton - mountainous and woody.
Nov 03, 1329

A man at arms wearing a Tarris Surcoat, and mark identifying him as the Master at Arms walks up to Lady Claire. He is splattered in blood, but none of it appears to be his own other than a few scraps and nicks. He bows to teh woman and puts fist to heart in a salute. "My Lady Sollinger. Ser Terris and his Squire are both wounded. Squire Ashedown is grievous, and Ser Tarris tried to ride to get you himself, but the stubborn fool couldn't mount his horse. We finally got him to lay down and one of the men is trying to remove his armor." He straightens and clears his throat, "I know there must be more, but we took some wounds ourself at the Front Gate. I would ask if you could come and help out, especially with My Lord and his daughter."

The Blue Guards made sure that no harm came to Prince Samwell and only a slight limp speaks of royal injury as he tries to help out as good as he can (which isn't all that). "I will come with you.", he says quickly when he hears the man at arms, "Can they walk? Do we have stretchers at our disposal?", he asks, looking around. If necessary he'd chuck some wounded men off their stretchers to fetch Gauvain and Bethany.

The Man at Arms starts as he hears the Prince, and he drops to a knee. He's just a peasant Master at Arms from a low born house! He says quickly, "Your Highness, Squire Ashedown is unconscious, and my lord will not leave his daughter's side. We had to brow beat him to let us try to get his armor off. He's bleed'n pretty bad, and I bet he's lost a good amount of blood. We got the Squire's armor off, and Ser Tarris is holding a compress to her wound." He shakes his head. "Tis a nasty set of wounds on the both of em my Prince."

To say that Claire has had her hands full would be an understatement. Already dealing with some of the wounded that were able to make it to the camp, she hears enough of the conversation to nod while putting together some of the items that will undoubtedly be needed. "Of course," she says, still making arrangements for what can and should be done here. "I'll have Janelle bring the bandages." More than the ones that she carries herself, in addition to the bag hastily made for the other items that she's been selecting quickly enough.

Samwell is just a muddy bloody young man at the moment. He frowns at the report and looks at Claire. "Let us go immediately, Lady Claire! We'll bring stretchers for both of them…" He starts buzzing around to find two rough makeshift stretchers, barely more than some wood and canvas hastily put together.

The man at arms, who introduces himself as Giles Ramsy, Master at Arms for House Tarris, leads the pair to the front gate. The charred remains of the shattered gate, an abandoned ram, and the evidence of a battle are here. Bodies, blood, and the moans of wounded. In the corner, near the Easter wall, kneels Gauvain. Holding some cloth to the side of a young woman with her eyes closed. He sways, barely able to stay upright, his face pale and haggard.

Samwell follows Ramsy towards the front gate of the fortress - which he hadn't seen yet as he had been fighting on the other side. "Heavens, you made good work of things.", he mutters under his breath, then hurries forward to Gauvain and Bethany. "Sir Gauvain!", he calls out softly, "Sir Gauvain, you must sit. How is she? I brought Lady Claire with me…"

The Knight shakes his head, not in a negative answer to Samwell, but to clear it. He looks over his shoulder, and blinks, "Your Highness." He says softly. "She fought a Knight. She wasn't ready." He looks back to Bethany and bows his head, no tears, but the voice slightly broken. "She's hurt, not by my hand, but I might as well have been the one to wield the blade."

Samwell places a hand on Gauvain's shoulder. "No one is ready for their first battle.", he suggests softly, "But we've all been there. Don't worry, she'll be fine… she's in the best of hands." He kneels beside the other knight to get a better idea of Bethany's wounds as they wait for Claire to be ready to help. "What about you, Sir Gauvain? Your man told us you were wounded in battle, too."

Gauvain blinks and looks to his shoulder. Then winces as he see's the hunk of wood there. "Just an arrow, and the knave hit me with a half hearted slash on the same side." He shrugs his unwounded right shoulder. "I'll be fine. So long as she lives."

Bethany looks in much worse shape. Her armor had been removed, but the breastplate was rent on the right, just below the rib cage, to match where Gauvain was holding the cloth compress. Her shoulder was swollen on the left as was her wrist, indicating some possible broken bones. Her head has a nasty bruise on the left temple where she likely struck a wall. The knight bows his head and says, "I failed her Samwell." No titles, just a man speaking to another. "She was mine to protect, to train, she wasn't ready. This is on me."

Already arriving at the immediate area of the fighting, Claire doesn't shrink back from the sight of blood and destruction. Rather, the woman's features are set into a grim press of lips, thinking of what must be done and in what particular order. While there may be no doubt as to who is first, she gently places a hand onto Gauvain's shoulder before taking a look at Bethany's immediate injuries. "Sir Gauvain.. perhaps, you would be able to speak with the Prince for a few moments…" While she begins the immediate task of tending to the young girl's injuries, beckoning one of the other men to assist with the pressure already applied.

"Come -" Samwell squeezes Gauvain's shoulder briefly, then steps back so that Claire has more room to work on Bethany. "Can we transport her?", he asks Claire, nodding towards the guy who's holding the stretcher ready. Then he looks at Gauvain again, trying to force a little comforting smile. "Bethany had never forgiven you if you had forced her to stay behind in camp."

With the Lady Sollinger taking over, Gauvain leans back, and sits, and nearly falls over. His breath leaves in a huff and he steadies himself with one hand on the ground as his head tilts forward, eyes drooping. "Please…." He says softly. "Please save her." he doesn't take his eyes off the girl and he sways from the blood loss, but the relief that the healer is there. He smiles weakly, "Of course. But she'd be okay if I had…"

The men move to assist Claire. One man taking over his Lord's pressure duties, while two others lay the stretcher down next to the girl. If she indicates, they move Bethany there with little trouble. Ramsy leans over to Samwell, "My Prince. We've been trying to get him to let us remove his armor, but he hasn’t moved from that spot, and we couldn't do it while he was holding that compress…"

"Quickly once I am assured that she will be stable enough," Claire remarks, removing the already applied cloth with a ginger hand before replacing clean cloth in its place. "And you.." Meaning Gauvain behind her. "If you will, Your Highness, see that he doesn't fall off of his horse before I can work on him." Because she can tell that both are injured, but he just won't be comfortable until seeing to his daughter first. But the clipped tone of her voice may betray exactly how much she's drifting from formalities to mere action. Directing both men once assured that her hands will hold the place securely, she nods to both men so that they can move her to the stretcher.

"Focus on the girl.", Samwell instructs Claire, a little worriedly, then turns to Gauvain. "Your man is right, Sir Gauvain. You must take the armor off, so we can bind your wounds. It won't help Bethany to recover and find her father has bled to death in the meantime. Come -" He begins to tug at a leather strap that keeps the breastplate and backplate together, apparently not taking a no for an answer.

Gauvain winces. And moves his right hand to undo a strap. He says casually, the left trying to move but not moving more than an inch or two, "My left arm won't move." He looks at it, and follow it up to the shoulder. He raises an eyebrow, "When… When did I get an arrow wound?" He doesn't stop with undoing straps, he is just clearly confused, and lost.

The men move Bethany gingerly to the stretcher. She doesn't make a sound, but continues to breath, if shallowly. Enough to sustain her life, no more, no less. The men look to Claire and one asks, "Should we strap her down m'lady?"

Carefully." Claire saw that problem once looking over the girl's injuries without the armor impediment. "I cannot tell what exactly happened, but try to focus on her legs. Her arm.." She's dubious. If it's the upper arm, she'll be able to manage a brace. Shoulder. Ribs. She'll see the latter more once she's able to remove the cloth further around the injuries but the signs are there. Discoloration. Swelling. "We have to be gentle," she says, moving one hand along the length of the woman's arm along the underside to see where there is a break. Her other hand remains pressed firmly to the side where the injury lies. "I need to get this stitched first," she remarks, voice firm as she sees the blood peek through the fresh bandages before binding them carefully with a gesture to the men assisting.

"Sit still.", Samwell instructs Gauvain once the injuries become more obvious. He helps to remove the breastplate and heavy shoulder protection to see the torn material of the clothes underneath where the arrow had gone right through. "Unlucky, but not too terrible.", he comments and takes a clean cloth from one of the men. "Let me bind it, so you won't lose more blood.", the prince suggests, "Lady Claire will look after it in a minute. And here -" His free hand removes a wine skin from his belt, which he offer to the knight. "This will bring some colour back into your face."

Grunting slightly, Gauvaina ccepts the wineskin and sips slightly, wincing at the burn on the raw throat, and the pain from hsi wounds. Once the Breastplate is off, the second injury can be seen, a ragged gash from a big blade along the upper left ribs. Not nearly so bad as Bethany's but present all the same and leaking its own blood. The man winces once again and says quietly, "Thank you."

Bethany's shoulder isn't broken, Claire can tell from her gentle probings, just dislocated, badly, and likely painfully. The wrist however, the wrist is clearly broken in two, may three spots. Not a total separation of bone, but cracked. The upper arm shares the same fate. Sewing is easy, and luckily for the girl, no organs are spilling out or appear to Claire to be injured from the gash. Though it is evident that if she had not been wearing her armor the strike might have cut her in half.

e Sam has had some basic first aid training that every soldier in the field must know and it's enough to make a basic bandage for Gauvain to stop the gash from leaking so much blood. "We shouldn't have lost brave men for this.", he mutters, looking thoughtfully at the fortress, "Is this pile of stones really worth it?"

"Wasn't … for… the Fortress." Gauvain says blearily. "For.. Smallfolk. Rikton, and the other villages." He looks to Samwell, and places a weak hand on his Prince's shoulder. "We're knights, and lords, and a Prince. We swore… We swore to defend them. Keep them safe. Daylan broke … he broke that vow. We had … duty to save them." His head tilts forward. Everything just weighing down on him. His daughter. His blood loss, the battle itself. His eyes droop again. "These men, in our company, did their duty. I… only wish…. I had led them better, so that none of them died…. so that wicked…" He falls to his side, unable to support himself. "Only wicked… Perished…" Then he's out. The wine skin slipped from his hands, the lack of blood and exhaustion having taken it's tole on the big knight.

Sewing with a quick hand, the needlework isn't as thin as Claire would have liked but it's enough. To prevent the girl from bleeding out entirely before she can attend to the arm. It's between the moments that Gauvain and Samwell are talking that she moves to carefully splint the hand, fingers gently moving the bones back into some measure of alignment for further assessment. It's the arm that proves the greatest and last measure of a challenge. Reaching higher above the seemingly bruise of the upper arm's crack, she directs the men carefully to set the shoulder. It won't be a process in which knocking out the girl is possible. For all that she's seemingly unconscious already, there's bound to be pain. A lot of it.

Samwell waits until Bethany is in a state to be taken back to the camp, then he and Gauvain accompany Claire and the girl and the guys who are in charge of carrying the stretcher to the camp.

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