The Wadjet Eye by Jill Rubalcaba

his wet hands away from his mud-caked clothing.
    "If you prepare them, I'll stitch them," the doctor said. "Clean the wounds. Remove any arrow tips, broken shafts. Stop the flow of blood with pressure."

    Damon began at the nearest cot. He had cut away the man's leather breastplate with a knife and was wrestling with the shaft of an arrow when Artemas came in, followed by two other men, each cradling a wounded soldier. Blood covered Artemas's chest. He gently laid the unconscious man on the floor with the other wounded soldiers.
    "Are you all right?" Damon asked him.
    "I'm all right. There are at least twenty others out there. Not far. I've got to go." His face was pale, but he stood without wavering and quickly left.
    Damon watched the curtain fall back in place behind Artemas. A groan brought him back to the present. He deftly pulled the arrow free and with the heel of his hand applied pressure to the wound.
    The doctor and Damon worked steadily. Damon now could tell those wounds that needed attention immediately from those that could wait. He had seen everyone in the tent and knew in what order he should prepare them for the surgeon. He did his best to make them comfortable, moving quickly from patient to patient. The unconscious moaned. There were so many that it sounded like the chants of the priests at the temple of Karnak.

    Artemas had brought in seventeen men. Seventeen men he had saved that would have otherwise died. He hadn't fainted. By now he was so covered in blood, Damon wouldn't have recognized him if he had to search him out in the field. Damon looked down and realized he, too, was covered in blood. He'd forgotten his sore muscles.
    "Here, tie this tight." The doctor held out the ends of a leather strip wound around a soldier's thigh. Damon tied the leather tight enough to cut into the flesh. The doctor found a saw in the pile of tools beneath the table. "We can't save the leg. We'll have to cut it off. You hold him."
    Damon stepped in to hold the man just as Artemas came through the doorway again holding one end of a stretcher. "Look who I found!"
    Damon looked at the man lying on the stretcher, then up at Artemas in confusion. Damon had never seen this man before. From his uniform he was obviously an officer. But this couldn't be Caesar. Who else would Artemas be so excited about finding? Then Damon looked into the face of the man carrying the other end of the stretcher. He was smiling. How strange to see a smile amid this blood and gore. It seemed hideously out of place. With his chin Damon motioned where they should put the wounded man, but Artemas didn't move. Annoyed, Damon said, "Can't you see we're about to amputate—" Then he looked at the smiling man again. It couldn't be. But it was. It was his father.

TWENTY-TWO
    His father put down his end of the stretcher and held out his arms. "Son!"

    Son!
That single word hit Damon in the gut as if he had been punched. He felt a fury let loose that made him nearly go blind with its intensity. Son? Who did he think he was, calling Damon son? Where was he when Damon had needed him? Where was he when his mother lay dying? When she was in pain? Where was he then? And why had Damon been forced to travel across the sea—barely surviving—to get to this bloody battlefield just so he could tell this—this
father
that his own wife was dead?
    "How are things at home? Artemas hasn't told me anything. Leaving it for you, I suspect. How is your mother?"
    "Dead."
    With satisfaction, Damon watched Litigus's face. He watched the smile freeze. Then the look of confusion. Then he saw the man, who so wanted to call himself Damon's father, crumple under the weight of that one word.

    Litigus looked at his own arms—still outstretched—as if he wasn't sure what they were and why they were reaching or how to make them do anything else.
    "She's dead, Litigus."
    Litigus looked again at Damon as if Damon were speaking a language he didn't understand. And then