Kael was carried into the carriage and carefully placed in a lying position onto the seating bench. Kathrin was shocked when she saw the gaping wound at his abdomen. Melissa told the mercenaries to leave the rest to her and sent them away.
"Help me take off his armor and chainmail. I'll lift him up and you pull off one piece after the other." Melissa told Kathrin what to do lifted Kael's upper-body. Kathrin started to take off the leather armor first. "Be careful."
The leather armor slowly came off and they continued with the chainmail, which turned out to be a lot trickier. A few of the chains dug into his flesh and they had to carefully pull them out without aggravating the wound any further. Kathrin almost threw up on multiple occasions during the process but managed to hold it back. The chainmail was slowly removed and they started to clean the wound with towels.
"We need to disinfect the wound with something. Johann, could you bring me some of the liquor Kael was drinking the whole time?" Melissa asked and Johann quickly went off to search for some liquor. He returned only moments later and they started to disinfect the wound. After they cleaned the wound they began to close the wound by pressing the torn skin together and Johann began to stitch it up with a thread and a needle.
After they stitched it up successfully they put some blankets over him and left him to rest on the bench. When the situation around the caravan was stabilized and all injured mercenaries got field treatment the caravan continued their journey. They decided to continue to Glada and although they were pretty sure that the populace was already dead, they wanted to try their luck and look whether could still find some proviant they could use.
Kathrin threw up when they entered the town and saw the scene. There were lying corpses everywhere. It was a gruesome sight. A rotten stench spread throughout the area and the streets were painted red.
"Judging by the condition of these corpses this massacre didn't happen long ago. I expect it was only between one or two weeks ago." The mercenary leader checked the corpses and spoke up. "Spread out and search the warehouses of the shops. There should be medicine and other living necessities we can still use. We will need all the supplies we can get before we enter the mountain ranges. Look through the clothing shops for pelts and other warm clothing."
Kathrin, Melissa, and Johann walked through town and looked around for supplies. When Johann saw the sign of an armory she thought of something and spoke up, "Kael's armor got torn up during the last battle. We should check out the armory and see whether there's some armor that would fit him."
Melissa gave her consent with a nod and they entered the armory. They looked through the armors in the front but didn't find anything that would fit. Kael's fighting style mainly consisted of his movability so he used a sleeveless armor that wouldn't hinder his movement too much. They entered the storage room on the second floor and looked through the chests. Kathrin opened her third chest and her eyes lightened up when she saw the content. "This should fit."
She quickly called over Johann and her mother and they checked it up. They took out the armor and laid it down on the floor. The armor looked rather strange and it would be more precise to actually call it a robe. It was yellow with red embroideries around the chest. The sleeves were long and wide, with brown border ornaments. The arm protectors were not much more than a white band-aid that you wrapped around the lower arms. Underneath the robe, there was a dark blue tight shirt, paired with wide dark blue pants.
The outfit was finished by a simple pair of sandal boots with pale blue socks beneath. Nobody would think that this was an armor on the first glance. The reason it caught Kathrin's attention was the description of the top of the chest. 'Titansilk armor. Every piece of this set was weaved of titansilk, a special type of silk only produced by the larvae of titan butterflies. Price 200 gold pieces.' This race of butterflies was known for their wings that were as hard as titanium and their larvae produced a silk that was just as hard as well. The price of 200 gold was quite hefty and not even Melissa would be able to afford this set under general circumstances. A single gold piece equaled a hundred silver coins, so one could say that this armor amounted to two hundred times of the pay Kael would receive for this escort mission. An armor of this level would generally be the shop's absolute masterpiece and they would only take it out for extremely highly regarded customers. Because of the special circumstances of this case they luckily stumbled upon this set of armor per chance and got it for free.
Kathrin and Melissa nodded satisfied and put the set into a different box in order to hide it's real worth. They brought the armor back to the caravan and put it into the luggage of their carriage.
Then they continued their search through the village and gathered some more supplies and a few medicines. The day continued and it slowly turned dark. The mercenaries and the merchants grouped up at the caravan again and decided to travel a bit away from the town to set up a camp and rest. They didn't want to sleep with the rotten stench filling their noses.
Deep in the night they reached a clearing and set up a camp. They lightened up a big campfire to ward of animals and quickly went sleeping in order to recover from the eventful day.