50

Tain, a hand over the brand on his arm that matched the ones on their necks, stepped forward, grabbing Pyotr and shoving him to the side away from the struggling stag.

“The kill is mine,” he said, the pain in the Penitent’s necks fading as he stepped toward the beast with his spear. “Back away so I can finish it.”

Davi clenched his own spear and started to move toward Tain, but Pyotr grabbed his arm and shook his head. They stepped back, as did Michael, whose own teeth were still clenched from the shock of pain in his brand.

“What are you doing?” asked Jakub, stepping toward Tain.

“Getting myself a new Deed.”

“There was no reason to use the brand for that.”

“What, did you want the Deed? Was gallivanting around the village with your pet healer not enough?”

“Of course I want the Deed, but even if we should be the ones to get it, there’s no reason to use the brand to force them back. They’ve cooperated this whole time.”

“They’re Takers, so who gives a damn if they experience some pain? One of them killed my sister for divine’s sake.” He shook his head. The stag was still struggling, and Michael noticed that Ollie had stopped muttering, his concentration broken by the shock of pain from his brand. With Michael and the rest of the Penitents further away and Jakub and Tain closer, he chose not to say anything.

“I’ll tell you what, we can both keep stabbing the damned thing until it goes down. Whoever winds up getting the killing blow gets the Deed. I doubt a beast like this will go down in only one strike anyway, and it’ll be faster to work with the two of us,” said Tain with a conciliatory tone.

Jakub sighed. “That’s not the point of what I was saying, but I’ll⁠—”

The great stag jerked a bit and started to pull itself from the mud. Jakub and Tain whipped around and moved to stab again before it could completely free itself, but it swung its great antlers around quickly enough to hit them with a glancing blow, which was enough to push both of them back. Just before it could completely free itself, a shot rang out.

The stag suddenly went limp and fell forward, its body twitching, a wisp of smoke rising from a fresh hole in its skull.

Marcus stepped out from the brush on the other side of the clearing with the barrel of his gun still smoking.

“Biggest thing I’ve ever killed. Surprised it was able to get out of all that mud.”

“You idiot!” yelled Tain, reaching for the brand on his arm, but Jakub grabbed him before he could.

“It’s done. He probably saved us a lot of trouble. There’s no reason to do that.”

Tain scowled and jerked his arm away from him to brood in the corner, glaring at the rest of them as he did so.

Jon, the huntsman, moved over to the corpse of the beast and placed a hand on its hide gently running his hands over its thick fur. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened his eyes and let out a long breath.

“You all right?” asked Michael.

He nodded. “It was a beautiful creature. It may have almost killed me, but these woods will miss it.”

Michael looked down at the massive black creature and its enormous horns. He bent down next to it and placed his own hand on its fur. It was short and coarse, and he ran his fingers through it for a moment.

“I thank the Divine for letting me witness such a creature,” he whispered under his breath. He then stood and looked over the massive beast, then at the thick forest all around them.

“How, uh… How are we going to get this back to the village?” he asked.

Jon laughed lightly. “We aren’t too far from a wider portion of the trail. If we cut away some brush and build a pallet to help move it, we should be able to haul it back. We also aren’t that far from the village—we just needed to do a lot of circling around to approach the beast without it realizing we were here.”

Michael nodded. He hadn’t even realized that they’d been moving in circles; he’d been too distracted by the sights and sounds of the woods. He whispered “donde” under his breath and sensed the village markstone not nearly as far away as he thought it would be.

Ollie walked over to him and patted him twice on his armored back. “Well, aren’t we lucky that you’re the only one who brought their sword.”

Michael raised his visor and looked at him with confusion. “Why?”

“Well, Jon just said that we need to clear the brush. You’d better get to work.”

Michael was sweating so much that by the time they got back to the village, he thought the inside of his armor might begin to rust. Ollie, despite his words at the start, had wound up helping him to clear the brush with a cutting spell, but on top of that, he had to heal everyone of the damage they’d taken. Then he and Davi as the two strongest, at least of the Penitents who could be forced to do grunt work, wound up being the ones to actually drag the massive dead beast through the woods and back to the village. The others focused on removing any remaining brush that needed to be cleared or adjusting the carcass so that the horns couldn’t get jammed up.

As they arrived back in the village, Jon’s wife ran and embraced him, relief clear on her face at seeing him returned safely.

Other villagers quickly flooded the street to see the massive beast. Michael dropped the rope he’d been using to help drag it, fine with letting them take a look, and went to lean against a nearby wall, his armor clanging as he landed on the ground. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, already feeling himself starting to recover. He heard the sloshing of water and saw the boy whose leg he’d healed approaching with a bucket of water. Michael took it gratefully and drank deeply for a few moments. It was cool, likely fresh from the well. He thanked the boy and watched as he took the bucket to Davi, who drank greedily before patting the boy on the back. Michael shook his head. He was thinking of him as a kid, but he was fourteen, only a bit younger than his current body. He’d be on his own way to military training soon.

The headman appeared and approached Tain and Jakub, shaking their hands. “Thank you, knights. We can roam our forests safely again.” He looked at the corpse. “I know that you have a claim on the body, but please allow us to butcher it for you and cook the meat tonight for a feast. All of the other materials will be given to you, of course.”

Tain had a look in his eye, but Jakub stepped forward before he could speak. “We’d be grateful for it. We wouldn’t be able to catch back up with our company if we were hauling the entire beast with us anyway.”

“Wonderful. There’s a small stream up the way if you want to wash beforehand, and we’ll have a small meal brought to you while we work on the rest of this.”

They all returned to the barn to remove their armor and change out of their uniforms, then they all went up to the stream to bathe. Michael had acquired a few extra bars of soap from Dugan before he’d left, and so he took some extra time to scrub, and when he was done, he took his sweat-soaked uniform and took some time to clean it as well while the others were resting back at the barn. Jakub gave him a warning about straying too far but left him alone to do it, probably trusting him more than he should’ve, but Michael had no intention of running. At least not yet.

He lay down in his drawers while he waited for his uniform to dry. He could’ve put on his fresh one, but he was enjoying the feeling of the sun on his bare skin while he lazed on a large white rock, feeling a bit like an overgrown lizard.

He heard a sound from nearby and sat up quickly, looking around. He saw Rhea approaching with a smile.

He relaxed a bit. “You startled me.”

She took a few steps closer, weaving behind a tree as she did so. She was wearing the same outfit as earlier, but it seemed… looser. She was practically spilling out of it in places.

“Well, I’m one of the best things you could run into in these woods.”

He didn’t disagree, looking her up and down while his teenage hormones started to rage at him.

“So, as a Taker, you have the body of a young man and the… experience of one that’s much older.”

Michael laughed a little but backed away slightly, finding heat rising to his face… and other places. “You could say that.”

“Well, I think I’d like to do more than just say it. I want to know for sure,” She loosened her dress a bit more, and it fell to her feet.

Michael’s mind immediately went through all of the ways in which the situation was fucked up. It was probably dangerous for him to sleep with a woman as a Taker, especially if they were caught. He was in a body that wasn’t his, and she was doing something that would be very suspect back on his own world. His wife wouldn’t mind. Over forty years of marriage, you tend to talk about any number of hypotheticals, and what would happen if one of them died had been one of them. They hadn’t brought it up when he was actually dying, for obvious reasons, but she’d always said she wouldn’t blame him for taking lovers, and he’d said the same to her. Though they did agree that remarrying would lead to them haunting one another forever. He shouldn’t dwell on that, he shouldn’t do this, it was stupid, he… He…

“Oh, fuck it.”