Every muscle of Shira's body was tense. She could see enemy soldiers, arranged in tight formations. Swords gleamed in the sun, and officers and calvarymen looked regal on their tall steeds.

Will our guns be enough? Shira tightened her grip on her pack. Will our soldiers be enough? The enemy's army is larger than ours...

A flash of lightning threw enemy soldiers in every direction, and men and horses fell as a tremor shook the earth. A charge of riflemen burst from the forest onto the confused enemy. The first rally of gunfire took out a few of its targets, and another thunderclap scared horses and shook the enemy formations. Swords met rifle barrels and, as Shira looked for Kyle's black head, swords and bullets cut flesh and poured out blood. Shira and the other medics ran.

The first man Shira touched was already dead, the blood no longer even spilling from his chest. The second gasped, spitting pink, and Shira left him for a third, whose bleeding head was not hurt beyond aid. Shira threw her pack down and grabbed soft cloth pads from inside.

As Shira worked, she caught sight of Anne deftly running from casualty to casualty, helping all she could reach and helping a few off the field toward the waiting stretcher-bearers at the battlefield's edge. The battle swung away from where Anne and Shira worked, and then toward them. Anne did not shy from the approaching soldiers. Shira helped a soldier with a wounded leg off the field and then ran to where Anne was, falling those who had just fallen at the edge of the battle. A stumbling soldier put out his hand for her help and then collapsed. Shira's heart leaped at his black hair, but when she caught his arms and lay him down, and put her hands over the wound on his chest to staunch the flow of blood, she saw clearly that she held someone other than Kyle.

Then a man with a tall crimson plume on his helmet rose above the press as his white horse reared. The horse's eyes were white-rimmed, its red mouth open in a fearsome whinny. The general had his right hand twined into the horse's mane, and with his left he swung a heavy metal blade. The sword cleaved through the insane chaos.

Shira was knocked back. Her whole body was electric with a feeling more intense than anything she had ever felt. Her buzzing brain took a moment to realize that the feeling and then as clouds of pain flashed across her vision and her whole body screamed electric, Shira sank to her knees with her left hand pressing down on her other arm. She squeezed her eyes shut hard, but tears were squeezed out and streaking down her dusty face, and she gritted her teeth through the pain.

Don't cry out. Don't cry out! Shira tried to hold onto her training, to stay silent. Sweat broke out onto her skin. She felt all of the blood leave her face as she fought pain she had never imagined. Hot blood squirted between the fingers of her left hand. I can't fight. I have to leave the battle. I have to get away from the enemy. Shira opened her eyes and stood, and her vision turned black for a moment while her head spun. I'm bleeding too quickly. I have to stop it. Have to get away from the battle. If someone strikes me now, I can't fight back. I have to watch out for horses and soldiers and I have to make sure that I don't step on any of the wounded. Because it would be horrible for them, and I might trip and fall. Almost as bad as if they were dead. Almost-

Shira heard Anne's voice call her name. A soldier grappling with another reached back and struck the back of Shira's head with a flat blade of metal.

I dive head first into the water.

Cool, calm water. Dark water.

No pain.

Silence.

No breath. A moment with no need to breathe, or scream or cry.

Sinking deeply.