44

The first hour was the easiest. He was full of righteous anger and a desire to help his friend with his pain. The strength of those emotions distracted him, shielding him from the agony he was feeling. By the second hour, those thoughts weren’t enough, and he was left with only the pain. He was barely able to keep himself from writhing on the bed like Ollie had been doing earlier, and he was very swiftly gnawing through the rope that he’d been biting down on to keep from screaming. The third hour he just started counting, telling himself that after another ten seconds he could stop—just another ten, and he would have done enough. He would’ve already gone above and beyond what he needed to do. He didn’t stop, though—he just kept counting.

He was vaguely aware that he was missing the end of the Festival. He heard what sounded like fireworks as well as trumpets and the dull sounds of men’s voices being projected by magic over a large area. The sounds of it were helpful distractions that occasionally broke him out of his counting, but then his attention would return to the pain, and the sharpness of it felt all the worse for the break.

He would stumble over to Ollie every once in a while to heal him and mend the tears on his legs, hips, and upper arms. It helped ease the pain a bit, though what small comfort it granted was quickly lost to some new agony. By the end of the third hour, mercifully, the pain had begun to ease. At first Michael was worried he’d accidentally let go of some of it, allowing it to go back to Ollie, but he realized that wasn’t the case. It kept gradually easing throughout the fourth hour, and by the end of it Ollie was still and sleeping, the drugs that eased his pain also blessedly keeping him from waking. Michael gradually released the pain back to Ollie, making sure it wasn’t so much that it would wake him, and while it did cause his face to contort a bit, he stayed asleep and still.

Michael felt lighter after he let the pain go. He forced himself to loosen his muscles and relax his jaw, taking slow, deep breaths as he did so. He’d experienced some tremendous pain in his old life. He’d nearly lost a finger working as a line cook, he’d broken each of his legs on separate occasions, and cancer as well as its treatment had been no great joy to experience. Still, the pain that he’d taken from Ollie had been uniquely horrible. Another fresh experience in this new world.

Michael was awoken sometime later by Marta. He didn’t realize he’d dozed off.

“What time?”

“Not long until sunrise. There’s a soldier to escort you back to the barracks, and another here to watch Ollie.”

He nodded and moved over to where he’d left his breastplate.

“I’ll take care of that.”

Michael nodded tiredly. “Please do. Dugan will chew me out otherwise.”

He hesitated as he looked at Ollie’s bed.

“I’ll keep a close eye on his as well.”

He nodded gratefully, wincing a bit at the stiffness in his neck.

He saw the soldier at the door to the infirmary and followed him back to the barracks. Physically he felt fine, if a bit more sore and tired than usual, his recovery ability not able to entirely compensate for the exertions of the last week. Still, he felt a different kind of tired from enduring the pain. A mental numbness that made everything around him feel unreal. He reached the barracks and watched as the soldier unlocked it before gesturing him inside and locking it behind him. He moved quietly to his bunk and slipped off his boots, laying back in his bed without closing his eyes, just staring at the gray ceiling above him.

“Is Ollie okay?” asked Pyotr quietly from the bunk next to his.

“He’ll be okay. The worst of it is done.”

There was a pause. “You okay?”

“No, but I will be eventually.”

Pyotr nodded in the dark and turned back over to go to sleep.

Michael just stared at the ceiling until morning.

He sat up when the lights came up, his mind starting to come back to him, and changed out of his uniform before heading to the showers. He only had a few minutes for an ice-cold rinse before he came back to his footlocker and started buttoning up a fresh uniform. Fresh was relative, of course—he only had three uniforms and had been sweating and bleeding in the same ones since the growth injections had ceased. He was actually lucky—most other recruits had just two, but he had one near his own size that Dugan had “lost” for him. They were laundered once a month, but considering how much he’d been exerting himself for the Festival, they were more than a little ripe.

He got his uniform up to standard and took a moment to look into the mirror.

Titles:

Michael Mann

The Restored

Deeds:

Bridge Holder

Revenge Denier

Run Conqueror

Resilient Competitor

Blessings:

Healing Hand

Pain Transfer

One new Deed, and a new Blessing. A diviner having more than one Blessing wasn’t too rare, from what Meera had told him in the past, but usually they only awakened much later in life. Perhaps he got a head start on that. He also noticed that the Blessing said Pain Transfer rather than Taker of Pain or something else. Did that mean he could move the pain to someone other than himself? Or that he could give his own pain to someone else? When he’d used it to take on Ollie’s pain it had been instinctual, but if he’d focused, would he have been able to give it to someone else? Could he have given Crim a taste of the pain she’d caused Ollie? He’d need to experiment; figure out what he could do with it and what its limits were. It didn’t seem to tire him the same way that healing did, but there was definitely another price to pay.

He focused on his new Deed.

Resilient Competitor

When in competition Grants:

Minor Durability

It wasn’t exactly a game changer, but considering he didn’t actually win the tournament, he wasn’t going to complain. He would have to test how loose the competition aspect was. Hopefully it could be competition with himself, but if not, he was sure he could make a competition out of anything with his friends.

He gave everyone an update on Ollie as they got dressed, and they were all ready for inspection when Kline entered the barracks and started going to each soldier. Michael wound up owing thirty push-ups for the smell in his uniform, and Pyotr’s collar wasn’t buttoned to the top, so he was forced to do fifty squats. When he was done, Kline stopped at the entrance to the barracks and looked at all of them.

“In two weeks, you will all be heading to the front.” He paused, but not one moved or said anything, not wanting to be forced into more calisthenics. Kline smiled faintly, he’d been testing them. “The next week and a half will be additional conditioning and combat training, followed by three days’ rest before you’re sent out. This training will be different in only one way from what you’ve been used to.” He paused for dramatic effect. “You’ll be wearing your full kit. I’ll be escorting you to Quartermaster Dugan now to pick it up.”

As everyone was preparing to leave, Michael approached Kline. When the man noticed him, he gave a salute.

“What is it, Penitent?”

“Permission to speak privately, sir.”

He looked to one of the other soldiers with him. “Make sure everyone gets moving.” He gestured for Michael to follow him outside, and they wound up standing just a few yards from the barracks.

“Be quick.”

“Sir, I believe Crim purposefully misdosed Ollie. I also believe she mixes her shots for Penitents in order to manipulate them hormonally and harm them.”

Kline’s expression didn’t change.

“Do you have proof?”

“I’m not the only one who suspects this.”

“The others are Penitents too, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“So, a Penitent wants to accuse one of our best alchemists of attempting to kill another Penitent and of altering their doses to make them more malleable to her?” Kline paused for a few moments. “For your benefit, I’m going to pretend you didn’t bring this up. This is not a fight you should start.”

“She could’ve killed Ollie.”

“I am concerned about her handling of a mage with potential like his. I will look into it, but you should not mention this again.” He paused for a moment. “If anything is to happen to her in the meantime, know that it will be bad for everyone.” Kline looked at the moving line of recruits and gestured to them. “Dismissed.”

He gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to argue but held his tongue and let out a long breath instead. Arguing wasn’t going to accomplish anything. The odds weren’t in his favor, and he likely wouldn’t get a chance to do anything about it himself now that she had no reason to be alone with any Penitent. Still, he yearned for some form of justice.

Michael fell into line with everyone else, jogging lightly to catch up as they made their way to the supply station where Quartermaster Dugan was waiting for them. Before the first person went to his counter, Kline spoke.

“Take the armor, step out of the way, and put it on. We’ll be heading from here straight to the training yard.”

The first Penitent approached the counter, and Dugan slid a heavy sack over to him that the irregular had far more trouble taking than the stout dwarf had giving it to him. Michael watched from halfway down the line and observed as everyone got armored. The armor was very similar to that of a knight from his own world, but sleeker. The pauldrons were layered like scales to allow greater freedom of movement, and the suit seemed to bend and move more easily than what he’d seen at Renaissance Faires when he was younger. The metal also seemed thinner and lighter. He guessed either it was some composite that didn’t have an exact equivalent in his world, or it was due to magical engineering and forging techniques.

He’d seen several of the regulars and even some visiting soldiers wearing the full silver armor, so it wasn’t entirely new to him—he just had never gotten a good look at it. Still, as he watched the other Penitents suit up, it was very clear that their own armor wasn’t quite the same as the regular recruits’. He could see metal patches over certain sections of the armor, old dings that had been beaten out with a hammer, and the cut of several of the armor pieces also seemed to be older and wider than what he’d gotten used to seeing around the academy. He also noticed that every pair had the same symbol that had been branded on their necks, embedded in the chest.

“Old-timer,” said Dugan, gesturing for Michael to come closer.

“Hey, Dugan.”

He glanced at the others getting dressed. “Before any new armor is made for irregulars, or even knights without a good bloodline, we check old suits to see if they can be repurposed for them.”

He reached under the counter and hauled a heavy sack onto it, pushing it toward Michael. “Your size was a little… off,” he said with a quick wink, “so yours is mostly new, with only old pauldrons. It may limit your mobility a bit, but they’re thicker, so you’ve got a bit more protection.”

“Thanks, Dugan,” said Michael. He would miss the dwarven quartermaster. He was one of the few natives that had been openly friendly to him from the start, aside from Meera and a few of the medics.

Michael moved out of the way and opened his sack. He and the other irregulars had practiced donning and removing armor dozens of times, and that training quickly took hold. He finished and closed his helm, checking his visibility. He could see surprisingly well in it. He looked around to see Marcus wearing a much lighter breastplate with what looked like small triangle points of metal at key areas across his body. It looked very odd, but given his status as a dragoon, it made sense that his kit would be different.

Michael clenched his fists and walked around a bit, adjusting to the weight of it. It was heavy, but it was distributed well across him. He hopped, his armor clanging a bit as he did so, and landed fairly lightly on his feet. He muttered, “silencio,” channeling magicka to Muffle his movements. It took quite a bit more magicka than usual, he guessed because of the amount of iron he was wearing. He leapt up again, and there was still some noise, but it was much quieter.

He looked out at everyone else putting on their armor, many of them flexing or even throwing light punches at one another to see if they felt it. They’d arrived as cherubs, and they were going to march out as a motley crew of knights.