61

There were several strikes after that first one, followed by a brief lull as another target was identified. Their makeshift camp shifted after every strike, as did the part of the road they were striking at. The worst part of the lead-up to the attacks was the boredom. Once they’d retreated deeper into the woods, cleared a new spot for camp, and posted lookouts, there was nothing to do but wait until they scouted another group of mercs or a supply wagon coming down a nearby road. After one more strike, the plan was to head back to the nearest camp to rest and resupply. Until then, Michael was lucky enough to have some healing to do and his divining skills to practice, but the rest of them weren’t so blessed.

“Seems they can’t find us in their own woods,” said Davi, chucking his knife at a nearby tree and doing a small fist pump when he successfully managed to embed it in its bark.

“These were our woods just ten years ago,” said Crick, picking his teeth with a toothpick he’d carved himself earlier that day to get a particularly stubborn piece of whiteroot out of his teeth as he walked toward them, still shaking the dice in his hand from the game he’d just left. They hadn’t brought many supplies, but their foraging skills they’d developed in conjunction with the wealth of the forest had kept them fed well enough beyond what was rationed. “Most of the scouts with us were from here, and we still know these woods better than the fucking Tusis.”

Michael was practicing his overhead sword stroke while he listened in. He’d realized one of the biggest weaknesses of his Major Recovery was that he couldn’t easily sleep or laze the day away to pass the time. He’d instead been practicing his basic movements for hours at a time, forging new magicka channels, or practicing his divining on everyone. So far he’d been able to reveal all of his fellow Penitents’ deeper levels of their Titles and Deeds, except for Marcus, but he still struggled with doing so for any of the random soldiers he’d met. It was useful to be able to see the number of Titles and Deeds someone had at a glance, but he wanted to be able to see exactly what they granted instantly.

Marcus approached from the group he’d been playing dice with. “Jesus, man, you’ve been practicing that fucking stroke for like three hours.”

Michael shrugged, swinging again. “Nothing better to do. How’d your game go?”

“I had to stop winning for a bit. I could tell they were starting to think about mercing my ass.”

Michael chuckled. “Probably wise.”

“Crick’s still at it, guy knows how to keep a game going.”

He shifted his stance and put his right foot in the lead. He then started repeating his strikes again. He looked over to see Ollie leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. He thought at first that he’d been sleeping, but looking closely he saw a small beetle floating in the air above his head. The beetle crawled along an invisible wall of force and then flew away on iridescent wings. Looking closer, he could see the slight purple sheen his shield spells created, and he could also see a half-dozen small motes of light moving in a circle in front of him. It seemed that Michael wasn’t the only one keeping busy.

Davi stood and pulled his knife from the tree.

Another knife thudded just a couple inches from where Davi’s hand had just been, center of where he and Pyotr had painted a bullseye using berry juice earlier that day. Davi turned to see Pyotr wearing a shit-eating grin.

“Oh yeah. Well, let’s see who wins an arm-wrestling contest.”

“You, but that won’t mean you won this, brother.”

There was a stir in the camp as a scout whistled, then entered to speak to Rein. The Penitents were near the center of the clearing that had been made, but in spite of that, the rest of the soldiers had spent most of their time ignoring them. Marcus only got some talk in with the regulars because he was the only one with a set of dice and boredom could apparently even override hate if you experienced it for long enough. They watched the scout give a report, and Rein moved to address the rest of the camp. “Break camp, we have a new target. A fresh group of mercs along with a mage. Armor up!”

Michael and the other Penitents were already putting on their armor when he gave the order and had their weapons belted before he even finished speaking. Michael had kept the mace he’d taken and fashioned a loop out of some extra material from his tent canvas to keep it at his belt. He didn’t want to be found without a backup again. A lot of the knights had long narrow daggers for driving into enemy armor, but no such thing was issued for them.

Once the camp was broken, they all followed the scouts. First they went to the regroup location and marked a tree so they’d be able to easily find it in the heat of battle and left their excess supplies to be grabbed on the run, then they moved along old abandoned trails until they were able to set up on the road. This time, the order of things was going to be slightly different. The Dragoons would fire first, targeting the mage, then Ollie would start to release his salvos.

At first, everything went the same way as all the other times. The mercenaries were approaching up the road, and Michael was standing in front of Ollie to guard him along with Pyotr and Davi. These mercs were different, though. Michael could see, even at a distance, gleaming armor and weapons as well as a banner with a blackbird on a blue field. Some of them were short and wide, and he realized that they were dwarves. He steeled himself for a tougher fight and stretched his neck side to side, making it crack.

As the column of mercs reached the point where the dragoons were meant to fire, Michael realized something was wrong. He wasn’t sure what made him act, but he suddenly stood, and an arrow with a serrated point embedded itself in his shield, and another simply broke inches from his face, the amulet on his chest heating as it happened. Two more arrows bounced off a shimmering purple shield that Ollie summoned up, and Pyotr and Davi closed ranks with Michael, and they all locked their shields in front of Ollie in case something broke through his shield spell.

At the same time that they did that and got ready to yell a warning to the others, shots rang out, but the enemy mage didn’t go down; he just spun as a bullet hit his shoulder.

“Fuck it,” said Ollie throwing the blast of flame that he’d been preparing. Michael had thought he’d stopped the spell to pull up the shield, but a basketball-sized ball of flame still exploded against the mercenaries’ front lines. They separated before it hit, as if they’d been expecting it, and then they moved around it and toward them; only one of them hit solidly enough to catch flame.

“This is bad,” said Michael, catching another arrow in his shield, while another bounced off his pauldron.

“Just keep them off me so I can prep another one to cover our retreat,” said Ollie, another ball of flame slowly gathering in his hands as he muttered a slew of “fucks” and “cunts” to prepare it.

Two dwarves and three men moved toward them.

Davi was the one moving forward this time, readying his massive bulk to counter them.

One of the men went down from a bullet before he reached him, but another slammed a massive two-handed axe into Davi’s shield. Davi brought his bastard sword up to swat him away, but the man quickly recovered and dodged before trying to swing at him again. Davi roared and pushed toward him, with his shield slamming the axe away before it could be brought down and knocking the man back into the other man as he approached.

While he was focused on them, the two dwarves got around him and aimed themselves like missiles at Ollie.

Michael opted for his mace, noticing that they had thick armor with almost no gaps between slats for him to target with his sword.

The dwarf swung a two-handed morningstar at his legs, and he jumped over it before the dwarf aimed a fist at his codpiece.

The blow landed, and Michael let an involuntary groan escape him as he narrowly blocked another hit from the morningstar, which got lodged in his shield. He somehow managed enough focus to transfer the pain in his groin to the dwarf, who himself gasped and dropped to his knees in pain. Michael yanked his shield back and the morningstar with it, then slammed his mace down on top of the dwarf’s head. The dwarf went to throw another punch, and Michael needed four more full-strength blows on top of his head to bring him down.

He looked toward the fray among the other mercenaries and saw a number of soldiers dead or dying while the mercs cut them down. It was a reverse ambush, and a good chunk of the Stent soldiers and knights were already fleeing. Their retreat was covered by Rein and Tain, who were cutting down mercenaries left and right as they tried to push what advantage they had from their Titles to their limit. Arrows and swords were sticking from their armor; their every sword stroke was bringing down another enemy, but their blades were quickly dulling, unable to meet the strength they derived from their Titles.

Michael saw the enemy mage standing and aiming a hand at the brothers.

“Rein!” yelled Michael.

Rein saw immediately what he was yelling about and threw himself toward his brother, pushing him out of the way as the full force of a Fireball hit him in the back.