62

Michael was blinded as the Fireball hit Rein, and almost immediately after that first one hit, Ollie released his own. This time he was able to hit a solid concentration of the mercenaries who started to scatter in confusion from the two blasts in their midst in quick succession.

Michael charged after the second Fireball, even as he heard Pyotr and Davi yelling for him to retreat. He leapt over a dazed dwarf, kicking him into a patch of flame as he moved forward. A human merc tried to stab at him with a sword, but it went wide, and the blade bounced off the edges of Michael’s armor. He smashed the man’s face in with his mace before pushing even closer to where he saw Rein take the hit from the Fireball.

He saw a knight kneeling over, holding something in the midst of the flames, his silver armor blackened by smoke and flame.

A mercenary was about to drive his spear into the knight’s back, but Michael crashed into him with his shield at full speed, slamming his mace down a half-dozen times until he stayed still. He moved to the knight, realizing from the hide peeking from his armor that it was Tain.

“Tain! Did your brother survive? Where is he?”

Tain turned around, and Michael realized he was holding a single gauntleted hand, white bone and burnt flesh peering over the edge of it. “Penitent… bring him back.”

He looked at the hand, gritting his teeth. “I can’t.”

Tain stood and grabbed the sides of Michael’s helmet, squeezing with enough strength to start collapsing the metal.

“BRING HIM BACK!” Spit flew out of his faceguard and oozed from the slits in it.

Michael dropped his shield and mace, grabbing Tain’s hands and forcing them away. He could see a few soldiers approaching through the smoke and fire.

“I CAN’T! If I could, I would. You think he’d want you to die too? He died for you. Get fucking moving!” He smashed a fist into the side of Tain’s head and drew his sword to catch the blade of a merc that had leapt toward them. “GO!” he yelled.

Tain’s expressionless helmet looked at him for a moment, then he ran into the woods. Still clutching his brother’s arm.

Michael kicked the man who he’d parried in the chest and started to run too, making his way for the woods. A sharp, sudden pain hit him in the back as he moved, and he cursed but kept running, starting to heal himself as he did.

He didn’t look back, but he could hear movement behind him even as he left the road he was on behind and moved into the woods. He whispered “donde,” and the marked tree at the rally point made itself known to him. It was more to the left of the direction he was running, so he tried to compensate, but several arrows whistled through the trees around him, with one of them slamming into his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and kept running. He’d recognized the arrows that had struck his shield earlier. There weren’t just dwarves with these mercs—there were aelves as well, and they were following him.

He tried several more times to deviate and change direction, but every time he did it slowed him down enough that more arrows struck his back, causing blossoms of pain to bloom, making tears form in his eyes. He’d heard enough over the last several days to know he wouldn’t be able to outrun the elves in the forest, and he was fairly sure they wouldn’t face him in a fair fight either, and he was certain he was outnumbered. He had an idea, but it was incredibly stupid. He decided to lean into that.

He started running, not deeper into the forest, but instead back up toward the path, which was where they seemed to be trying to lead him with their arrows. A few more of them glanced off his full-plate or embedded themselves in his flesh, but he ignored the pain and focused on healing himself while he ran. It was draining, but he’d built up a lot of stamina with all the healing he’d been doing, and using it also activated Fort Healer, and that with Run Conqueror gave him increased speed, durability, and awareness.

He broke free of the woods and hit the road, his speed increasing drastically now that he could move on flat ground. The arrows kept coming, and he moved both of his arms behind his head as he ran to protect the base of his neck and his skull from them. He was able to dodge a bit better on the open track, his heightened awareness letting him know where they might be heading. He was betting on two things. One, that his stamina was greater than that of his pursuers, and two, that they had a limited number of arrows to fire at him. He didn’t risk looking back, focusing instead on running forward, toward Tusynian territory, as that was the only direction available to him. He ran for what felt like an hour but was likely closer to ten minutes at full speed, his back covered in arrows; none of them were fatal thanks to his constant healing and his armor. They eventually stopped, but he kept running regardless, trying to create as much distance between himself and them as he possibly could. When he finally risked a look back, he saw no one on the road, just old wagon-wheel marks and a few heavy footprints from travelers long past.

He slowed down and walked into the woods, casting Muffle on himself as he moved, panting heavily as sweat drenched him. He started to tear arrows from his back, at least those he could reach, but didn’t drop them as he grabbed them. He was probably leaving enough marks in the foliage to track, but he didn’t want to make it any more obvious than it already was where he was going. He mumbled a Navigate spell and looked over his options. The rally point was useless, so he dropped that mark from his vision. He’d marked all of the camps they’d visited, and from those he had a good general idea of where Stent territory was. The closest camp took him back toward the ambush, so he instead just angled his trajectory to hit what he hoped were Stent lines. He would double back toward the camp after that.

He pulled another arrow from his leg with a pained grunt and held it in his hand, looking at it. Could they be marked? It would make sense if they were—that’s what he would do in their position. He stopped for a moment and started making a more concentrated effort to remove every arrow. With the adrenaline from the run fading, the pain was incredible. His healing didn’t push out the more deeply embedded arrows and instead just healed a wound that was being constantly remade by the serrated edges of the arrowhead. He eventually got all of them out he could reach, but that left several in the center of his back. Long, thin arrowheads meant to pierce thick armor. They’d be easy to pull out, but he’d have to be able to actually reach them. He loosened his chestplate, bracing himself for a moment, and then he quickly tore it off.

A groan escaped from between gritted teeth as the arrows came out along with the breastplate, torn from his flesh at a jagged angle. He started healing himself, blackness encroaching on his vision as his exhaustion started to catch up with him. He checked to be sure that he’d removed all the arrows, then he put them in a pile and placed a hand over them.

“Fuego,” he said, a small flame sprouting from his hands to light the pile aflame.

He put his chest plate back on and tightened it again, then he started walking again. He moved quickly, but not so quickly that his recovery wasn’t able to start returning some of his stamina. The woods were thick, far thicker than the ones he’d been in for the last few days with Rein and his small strike team. The image of Tain holding his brother’s hand popped into his head for a moment, and his hands formed fists. He was just a kid. All of them were just kids. He’d died a hero, saving his brother, but he shouldn’t have had to do that to begin with. It wasn’t an evil unique to Stent or even this world. His own world did more than enough of the exact same thing, but that didn’t make it right. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. Just another weight on his mind he’d have to carry.

It began to get dark, and he was forced to maintain a night-eye spell on top of his Navigate spell. He could feel his magicka channels getting strained, but he needed to keep moving to gain as much distance as he could from any aelves that might be tracking him. He was hoping they’d decided he wasn’t worth the investment at this point. If he was really lucky, aelves were completely immune to sunk cost fallacies, and he’d be home free.

He narrowly avoided tripping over a thick root and caught himself on a particularly firm, light gray tree. He ran his hand up and down it. It wasn’t a tree—it was smooth stone.