Tomas

Tomas was a guard at Koschmark, eastern corridor, second post from the stairwell. He had been at the fortress long enough for his stubbornness to be established among the household. He treated his own wounds, badly, and resented the suggestion that this was insufficient. He nearly lost his leg to an infected shin he had wrapped in a strip of his own shirt and not changed for four days. When Yara cleaned it, packed it with yarrow, and told him to find her if the redness spread, he said he would have handled it. He walked back to his post without thanking her. Days later, the cloth she had given him was tied across his face. He pulled it down when she passed. He said it works, the way a man admits a debt. He pulled it back up. He never mentioned the shin again. It scarred over cleanly beneath the trouser leg.

No detailed physical description. Defined by what his body carried: wounds he would not admit to, bandages he wrapped himself, the cloth he eventually wore.

Stubborn. Stoic. Direct on the rare occasions he spoke. The soldier who wrapped his own wounds in his own shirt and did not change the bandage for four days. The kind of man who looks at a healer the way she has just suggested he wear a dress to his post, and then takes the cloth she offers him because she is right and putting it in his pocket is its own form of yes. Beneath the resistance there was a quiet decency. He admitted that the cloth worked. He told Zlata that the healer had steady hands. He never told the healer himself. His respect was expressed through action and the absence of speech, and Yara learned to read both. He was the opposite of Luka in everything except where it mattered.

Posted to the eastern corridor of Koschmark. Held the right edge of the line at the northern pass, guarding the gap where the fallen pine met the rock face. The bad shoulder Yara had bound that morning was the wound that killed him.