Death

by Rosie Scott

  Comercio's eastern wall held for now, but as the bodies in the twister were spit out by its angry winds, gore splattered its gray stone. As the twister slowly moved north, I stood as close as I could to it without being picked up and forced air magic into the skies.

  Seriin a wava a multipla.

  I funneled as much energy as I could quickly into the heavens, begging for the spell to work. The exterior winds of the tornado were the first to calm, carelessly dropping the rest of the bodies and icicles they held hostage to the ground. The twister's anger lessened until the tip of its funnel retracted into the sky, convinced by my pleas. Because the tornado hadn't used up all the power it'd been given, the storm clouds stayed hovering above us and rumbled with excess energy. I doubted nature would have the chance to storm to voice its protests since the mages everywhere on the battlefield would happily utilize the power.

  Rek was in a pile of broken, bloody mush on the field ahead. One of my icicles was melting with body heat after shooting through his gut, and a string of his upper intestine hung out of the wound in a loop. The organ was torn and leaking reddish-tinted globs of undigested food. One of the god's legs was broken, the tibia backwards from the femur by mercy of twisted flesh and causing the toes of his foot to face the ground even though he sat up. Debris also cut and bruised Rek, but he was still alive, breathing hard with a need for oxygen after the tornado's winds had stolen his breath.

  As I approached the other god, he asked, “You help?”

  I was left utterly perplexed by how I could. If Rek were anyone else, he would be beyond repair. I lowered myself to a squat beside him and asked, “How can I?”

  “You can twist leg so it's straight again,” Rek suggested, not the least bothered by pain or concern. “I can regenerate it on my own.”

  I nodded and did as he'd asked, lining up the bone so it was even at the break. I summoned two stones with earth magic to use as a temporary splint to hold the bone in place. I then reached toward his intestine, but Rek shook his head.

  “My body suck it back to where it goes,” Rek told me. “It's happened before.” He motioned to the body of a Chairel soldier nearby. “Can you drag here? I need to eat.”

  I used alleviate on the corpse before dragging it over to him. As Rek undressed the corpse for quick access to its flesh, he pointed to the skies as if to reference the tornado and said, “This is why I don't care for magic. It makes things inconvenient.”

  I laughed abruptly, comparing his mere irritation to the gory sight of him. Rek's face relaxed a bit, pleased to humor me but seemingly confused how he did so.

  “I am serious,” Rek told me, lifting the arm of the corpse beside him and separating the radial bone from the elbow.

  “Oh, I know you are,” I replied with affirmation as I stood up from aiding him. “Fighting alongside you has been enlightening in more ways than one, Rek.”

  Orcs flooded into the area, out of enemies to fight and seeking the guidance of Rek and me. The Chairel Army was still massive, but my strategy of blocking off a few regiments of mages and archers to take them out had worked. The rest of our enemies were in the south where the giants and ogres were visible above the masses causing chaos as Cyrus and the Sentinels gave them magic support. Chairel cavalry attempted to flank the Vhiri, and the echoes of war horns sent back and forth in the distance proved to me that Cyrus and his Sentinels were all too aware of this and trying to readjust to combat it. Between the calls of the horns, I could have sworn I even heard Altan's laughter like the fallen Sentinel was still with us.

  I ordered the orcs to stay with Rek until he recovered, and I told the god to lead his army to combat the Chairel infantry in the south when he was able. I led my Seran Renegades to support Cyrus next, but given the pounding of the charging cavalry that vibrated through the earth even at this distance, we were too far to be any use to them yet.

  Then, I once again was tricked into believing that I heard Altan's laughter. But it was higher pitched, and the noise resounded through the air from many directions. I turned to ask Azazel, “Am I crazy, or is that laughter?”

  Azazel shook his head and pointed to the south. “You're not crazy. Keep looking.”

  The whoops and chatters of excitable laughter rose in volume and strength, and then the ground's trembling worsened. Only when Maggie lifted me up so I could see past the crowds of soldiers and to the southern plains of Chairel did I realize the source.

  Thousands of spotted hyenas raced to intercept the Chairel cavalry, giant paws churning up poofs of dirt in their wake. The animals eyed the horses hungrily, and some of them lifted their snouts to the sky in mid-run to chuckle in bursts. The Naharan Army was a welcome sea of gold, black, and red armor and dark flesh, and at the forefront of the charge was their king.

  A grin sprouted on my face as the presence of the hyenas forced the enemy cavalry to re-evaluate. The aid I'd sent to the Naharans nearly a decade ago had prevented T'ahal's takeover, and now they were determined to repay the favor.

  I pumped a fist in the air happily and yelled with elation, “Hasani!”

  Seventeen

  Hyenas pounced the Chairel cavalry, ripping into horse and man alike with thousands of pounds of jaw pressure. Lances thrust through enemy soldiers before they could make any hit in retaliation. The skies darkened as a volley of bolts arced from a southern unit of Naharan arbalests into the exterior regiments of enemy mages and archers, where they fell by the dozen. Some arbalests were Alderi, proving that Calder's reinforcements from years ago had gained new skills. Black tendrils were plentiful in the southern plains as soldiers in every position of the Naharan Army requested the support of the dead.

  I'd last seen Hasani in early-419, when he'd been a thirty-four-year-old prince who was torn between doing what was best for his country and respecting the decisions of his father. Now, Hasani was a forty-five-year-old king who appeared born for the role of leading his men, and he enjoyed every second. He wore the same armor he had all those years ago. It shone metallic gold in the morning sun, and the shield that guarded his tanned left arm was solid black with gold and red trim. His hyena was as black as his shield, and its sides expanded and fell with heaving breaths of excitement as it abided by its master's orders to be still. Hasani sat up straight, light blue eyes focused, his silver-streaked black hair shining just as much in the light as his armor. In his right hand, he held a single javelin.

  With a quick throw forward using a tanned, muscular arm, the javelin whistled through the air, arcing past a horse's head and through the heart of its rider. The man flew backward off his horse with a spray of blood. Hasani diverted his attention to a nearby giant screaming in agony. The giant's metal armor had been imbued with fire by an enemy mage, and smoke rose from her burning flesh. The giant refused to drop and roll since doing so would kill nearby allies.

  Hasani raised one hand, and rains fell from the heavens. The giant's armor sizzled and smoked as the water put out its flames, and a few Chairel soldiers who had their weapons imbued with the element soon found themselves out of luck. Hasani raced his hyena through the rains and into the fray beside his men, grabbing his hooked ax and meeting foes in battle as his hyena ripped at their flesh.

  Maggie put me back down on the ground, and we all headed south together. Comercio's eastern stone wall stood tall to our right, and as we passed by straggler archers who guarded it, Azazel quickly dispatched of them with his superior skill. Zephyr hadn't yet called for Holter to help infiltrate the city, but for now, there were no free armies near the southern or eastern gate with which to aid her if she needed it.

  The Chairel Army gathered like a horde to guard the southern city entrance. Multiple armies of mages and archers supported their infantry with long-ranged attacks here, but they were relatively safe from everyone other than Hasani's arbalests who were firing upon them from the south. Therefore, I headed there, looking to work my way through their ranks from the outside to pin their remaining armies down to a central loca
tion that my allies and I could surround. As we neared the area, Cerin released necromantic tendrils into their ranks, calling their attention to our arrival and raising the victims of the arbalests to cause panic amid their army.

  One mage wasted no time in hurrying to face us. She held a ball of fire in her left hand, so I summoned water. But then her blue eyes noted the water magic and she summoned the same, immediately thrusting a tidal wave toward the Renegades.

  The water magic dispelled from my hand as the wave forced me back until its pressure broke through my shields. My vision of the world twirled between flashes of rushing water and waving blades of grass. I heard Holter's oozlum cry, and in the seconds afterward, the water stopped flowing as the scout interrupted the dual caster's spell. I scrambled for a hold on the ground, pulling myself to a stand just to see Holter's talons digging into the mage's shoulders as he tried to carry her away. She shot ice shards at him in retaliation. The first shard melted and dissipated into the absorb magic shield I'd given Holter earlier, but then the protection flickered out. The mage released a razor-sharp icicle straight up beneath Holter's feathered tail. An agonized cry shattered through the air as the scout was impaled between the legs, and the resulting blood splashed over the mage beneath him. Holter tumbled out of the sky, landing in a heap of bloodied feathers, his body shuddering with weakening breaths. The mage grimaced as she struggled to tug the oozlum-kin's talons out of her shoulders.

  “You bitch!” Nyx sputtered, pulling herself out of the water still sinking into the ground from the spell that had disabled us. Her boots slipped over the grass as she ran back to where we were pushed from. A throwing star was in her left hand, and a dagger was in the right.

  “Nyx!” I screamed it in fear. Nyx was without shields and rushing willingly toward the enemy army. I ran to catch up with her, desperate to protect her while rage blinded her from reasoning.

  Shik! Shik! Nyx jerked back from the hit of an outsider's arrow meant for her heart, but she threw the star anyway. The small throwing weapon sunk deep into the dual caster's throat, and blood spurted out of the wound. But the star missed the jugular, so the mage still held two ice shards.

  The second arrow meant for Nyx missed her entirely, but it hit me while I pursued her and buried so deep in my left thigh that I could feel the steel of the arrowhead scraping against my femur. But I gritted my teeth against the pain and thrust two shields toward Nyx's back to protect her from ice, one to absorb its magic and the other to block the physical hit. The mage noticed the sudden protections and turned toward Holter, who was still quiet and losing strength on the ground, vulnerable to slaughter.

  I dodged right to shield Holter, and Nyx lunged forward. Just as one of my shields surrounded the oozlum-kin, Nyx tackled the enemy mage with pure rage, landing on top of the woman with her dagger already in her heart. The mage fought back defensively with both hands, but her wound quickly weakened her. Nyx grabbed the second dagger from her belt and lifted it, bringing both blades down into flesh again and again while screaming curses.

  Azazel commanded our men forward. Maggie and our soldiers hurried ahead under his leadership, meeting the mages and archers head-on while leaving Nyx and me in the field. Cerin's black boots entered my view of the grasses surrounding Holter as he looked on with concern. Life and alteration magic shields protected him, so I felt safe knowing that he and Azazel had given them to each other and Maggie as well. As I looked over Holter's serious injury, Nyx continued stabbing the dual caster's body in a fury.

  The arrow jerked out of my thigh as I crouched beside Holter, and Cerin healed the wound as I studied the one that had me more concerned. Holter breathed shallowly, and his beady eyes portrayed intense pain without having the ability to voice it. I'd already dulled his senses and calmed him before examining the injury. Holter was still conscious, and he was humble to the point of being easily embarrassed. I knew calming him was the only way to save him from the humiliation of such an injury.

  “How is it?” Cerin's voice was low, concerned.

  “Bad,” I murmured between Nyx's screams of fury. “It impaled through his rectum and into his internal organs.”

  Cerin wavered a bit beside me at the awful news, as horrified as I was. He swallowed so hard I could hear it, and then he managed, “Can you heal it?”

  A wave of dizziness flooded through my head, but I said, “Yes.”

  In reality, I hadn't been so uncertain and terrified in a while. Such an injury was invasive and complicated to cure, and making matters worse, Holter was in his bird form. The anatomy of creatures wasn't as familiar to me. To calm myself, I tried to remember healing the Vhiri roc-kin during our invasion of Monte years ago. I had healed the beastman then, and he had also been impaled. But Holter's injury was much worse.

  I cleared my head as best as I could and summoned a ball of fire, holding the element close to the ice shard sticking out of his body to remove it. The only other method I had of doing so was using a heat wave of air magic, but that would injure him further with its powerful movement. Once the ice shard melted down enough, it slipped out of the wound amongst a rush of blood, and Cerin funneled energy to Holter to keep him hanging on to life.

  I sought Holter's internal injuries with life magic, hoping that the guide of the energy would help me differentiate between organ mush that was broken and flesh that was not. To a non-healer, the differences were almost impossible to tell. As different as bird anatomy was to that of a humanoid, the systems often worked similarly. I studied the wound between refreshing the spells meant to dull Holter's pain and calm him, and only when I felt I understood the injury did I try to heal it.

  Though the ice shard had shot far into Holter's body cavity, the anatomy of an oozlum meant that the injury was less severe than if he'd had such an injury in his elven form. A bird's digestive tract was less layered through the torso than I'd expected, so the shard had only torn through two segments of his intestine. The wound would very well kill him if it wasn't treated immediately, but doing so was easier than mending the same wound on a man.

  Nyx paced back and forth at my side as I went about healing the organs one piece at a time. There was no telling how long she'd taken out her anger on the nearby corpse, for it was little more than mush. She sniffled as she felt like crying but withheld from letting it all out. Nyx knew little to nothing about healing and anatomy, so she didn't understand how serious the injury was and that terrified her. But she didn't ask. She respected my need for concentration, and I was grateful.

  Cerin petted the feathers along Holter's neck to calm him as I worked my way out of the wound, healing it a bit at a time while searching for injuries throughout the process to ensure I missed nothing. Holter had long ago closed his eyes, but his breaths were regulating. I used water magic to help flush the wound of the digestive contents that leaked from the broken intestine, and then I finished healing the final organ and its surrounding flesh.

  I gave Holter as much energy as I could spare once he was mended. “You're healed,” I informed him, reaching out to pet the feathers on his neck.

  Nyx overheard me and rushed over, grabbing me in a bear hug. The cracking of bone echoed through the air as Holter transformed. It alarmed me that the scout was wasting his energy to revert back, but there was nothing I could do to stop the spell, so I simply held Nyx as she whispered words of thanks in my ear.

  “I didn't think there was anything you could do,” Nyx rambled.

  “I wasn't so certain, myself,” I admitted. When we parted, I quickly mended Nyx's injury from the arrow as well.

  Holter sat nude in the middle of bloody grasses and piles of black feathers moments later, and Nyx gave him a long hug. “You can't be doing that,” she scolded him lightly. “I about had a heart attack thinking I'd lost you. What would I do without my lil' sidekick?”

  Holter huffed by her ear. “You just like having me around because I give you drugs.”

  “Yeah, well, they're good drugs, and you're also go
od in the sack,” Nyx retorted just before they parted.

  Holter sobered as he looked up at me. He didn't look fatigued since Cerin and I had given him an abundance of energy, but his eyes were downcast and he struggled with words. I finally embraced him, knowing he'd be more likely to speak if he didn't have to meet my gaze.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” he murmured at my ear. “And I'm sorry.”

  “No reason to be, Holter.”

  “Nobody should have to see that. Deal with that.” Holter squeezed me closer, prolonging having to face me.

  “Healers do,” I told him. “I've seen hundreds of people at their worst, Holter. It no longer fazes me. Underneath our clothes, we are all more alike than we'd ever want to admit.”

  “It's still embarrassing,” Holter murmured, as if he were admitting a secret.

  I chuckled softly. “I know it is for you. It's just another day on the job for me.”

  Holter finally released his grip of me, and we separated. He still avoided my eyes, so I stood to leave him be. “I have to get back to battle, Holter. Are you feeling okay?”

  “...yeah. I have some dull pain in my gut, but I'll be fine,” Holter replied. “I'll transform and come with you guys in a minute.”

  “Transform?” I questioned. “You just changed back.”

  “I had to thank you properly for saving my life,” he replied, as if the reasons for his actions were obvious.

  I sighed heavily, finding his humility more adorable than ever. I turned to Nyx and said, “Your efforts of corrupting him aren't working.”

  Nyx shrugged and smiled. “I'll double them, then.”

  Cerin and I turned toward the south to catch up with Azazel and the others. My heart beat rapidly like it always did when a friend had a brush with death, but as we neared the back of our army, it kept up its pace to meet with a new challenger. Azazel had found Gwen, and he directed our army to attack hers from the east as she guarded the southern gate of Comercio. Farther south, Hasani's unit of arbalests aided ours by shooting volleys of shimmering silver bolts into Gwen's frontlines.