69

Slowly, the gold letters Michael had seen above the massive black vulture began to coalesce to form a list of Titles and Deeds.

Titles:

Carrion King

Bloodbeak

Deeds:

Devourer of Lords

Slayer of Horses

As those gold letters floated around the humongous scavenger, it tilted its head back to swallow a head, helmet and all. Then it turned to look directly at Michael, almost as if it knew what he was doing. It opened its beak and let out a terrible cry that sounded like the screams of a hundred dead men all crying out at once.

Michael’s entire body shook from the sound of the cry, but in spite of that, he drew his sword and shield as he cried out. “Bayle, there’s a titled beast here!” As he slammed his visor down in front of his face.

The Carrion King rose up into the air after a few mighty wing beats, and all of the other vultures, ravens, and crows rose with it, a massive black cloud of scavengers.

Some of the crows dove for Michael, and he slammed them aside with his shield, killing them before cutting his way through two more with his sword. Behind them the vulture swooped, raking at him with its Talons. He managed to duck with his shield raised and there was a scrape of sparks as the tips of the beast’s talons raked across it.

“Converge on Ollie!” yelled Bayle, running through a steadily thickening cloud of black wings.

Michael saw Ollie shooting out blasts of flame from each of his hands, bringing down dozens of scavengers with each blast. As he did that, Pyotr danced around him, using his sword and shield to smack away any birds that got too close. The force of his blows made them practically explode in clouds of black feathers.

Michael ran quickly to them, though he was overtaken by Bayle, who was smashing birds aside as he moved with the ease most people would swat away a gnat. He reached Ollie a bit before Michael did and started to help Pyotr, doing his best to keep the birds at bay with sword and shield while Ollie blasted clumps of them away with flame.

“Keep them off the mage!” he yelled.

Michael joined them shortly after. He kept his arms moving, smashing away all the birds he could as they swarmed around him, feeling the occasional blast of heat from behind him as Ollie cursed and screamed to summon blasts of flame. Through the cloud of black, he could just barely see Davi, Marcus, and Crick fighting their way to them.

Crick was getting the worst of it, his lighter soldier armor and spear proving much less effective against the swarm than the plate the rest of them were wearing, though Marcus was also struggling with his bayoneted rifle. He’d fired it once, early, but was completely unable to reload in the midst of the talons and beaks that were tearing at him.

Michael realized he’d lost track of the titled vulture and started to look for him, almost desperately. If the strength of the talons he felt was any indication, the beast could kill any of them with a lucky strike. He spied a massive shadow descending toward Crick.

“Behind you, Crick!” he yelled.

He wasn’t sure if Crick heard him or if he’d noticed it himself, but the veteran ducked down and dodged backward in a smooth and elegant motion, going just underneath the scraping talons, and stabbed upward with his spear. He managed to strike the beast’s inner leg, causing it to cry out in another terrible wail as it regained altitude. Michael was very impressed by the motion; it seemed like something Pyotr might do.

Before the beast could swoop down again, the three of them made it to the rest of the group, taking their own places around Ollie. The strategy was obvious and didn’t need to be said. They just had to stay together and hold the line while Ollie whittled down the cloud of birds with blasts of flame.

Michael started to have beaks dig into his flesh, one even nearly taking his eye through his visor, and so raised his sword hand, making it glow gold and healing everyone. He could tell that Crick had taken the worst of the damage, but everyone was bleeding. He finished healing and heard the massive wingbeats of the King of Carrion approaching again. He prepared his shield but saw another shield thrown down to the ground next to him. He looked over to see Davi stepping forward with just his bastard sword in one hand, his other free and ready.

“What are you—” Before Michael could finish yelling his question, the vulture swooped down, its claw raking at them all.

Davi leapt toward the claw, grabbing it with his free hand and somehow maintaining his hold as he was dragged, armor and all, backward.

The King of Carrion suddenly slowed and tried to increase the speed of its wingbeats in order to regain altitude, but Davi was too heavy for it to gain more than ten feet.

Davi roared and swung his sword, cutting deeply into the beast’s stomach. It screamed and lost its balance, slamming into the ground on top of Davi.

Michael ran toward them, crushing a crow underfoot as he did so and bashing a vulture aside with his shield. He saw a tangle of feathers and armor struggling through the cloud of birds that surrounded him.

One jammed a long beak through his eye lens and stabbed into his eye. He cried out, healing his gored eye as he smashed the bird against his own helmet with the corner of his shield.

He heard a final terrible cry, and suddenly the cloud of birds began to disperse. As Michael wiped gore from his faceplate, he saw Davi standing above the vulture with his sword driven through its neck.

He smiled, raising up his faceplate and starting to call out praise, then Davi fell.

Michael ran, his hand already glowing as he reached his friend. As he got closer, he realized there was a terrible rend through his armor, freely leaking blood and viscera onto the ground, creating dark red pools that watered ground already full to bursting with the blood of the previous battle.

Michael started to heal him from several yards away and continued doing so until he was placing his hand directly on the wound itself, feeling the warm blood leak through his gloves. Davi’s guts weren’t just torn, they were shredded. Michael had no idea how he’d stayed standing. It was worse than any other injury he’d seen before, probably because anyone hurt so badly wouldn’t make it to an infirmary to begin with. He pushed, focusing all his energy on his healing, and felt intestines, kidneys, and other organs start to slowly form back from the soup of him, and his flesh begin to mend. It took nearly two minutes, enough time for everyone else to approach and stand behind him, looking at Davi with concern.

Davi coughed and sat up with a sharp intake of breath causing everyone but Bayle to startle. His hand instinctively moved to where his wound was but found only smooth flesh where he’d been healed.

“Cristo,” he said as he opened his faceplate to inhale more deep breaths.

“Just Michael is fine,” said Michael, falling backward to catch his breath, his vision darkening a bit at the edges.

Bayle moved over to the beast’s head, lifting it by the feathers to examine it more closely.

“The Tusynians must’ve lost some nobility or higher ranks and not been able to identify the bodies. Usually, we let them reclaim them to prevent this kind of beast from appearing.” He shook his head. “It’s good that we were here. If it had been able to eat for much longer, or even found another battlefield, it could have turned into a much more serious problem.”

“It seemed like a serious enough problem to me,” said Davi as Marcus and Crick helped him to his feet.

“That’s because you chose the absolute worst way to handle the problem,” said Bayle with a frown. “If you’d stayed in formation, we would’ve eventually cleared the other birds enough to start striking at the beast. Over time, we would’ve bled it to death, and no one would’ve taken serious injuries, even without Michael and his healing.” He shook his head. “He is the reason you are all so reckless. Tell me, can you restore limbs?”

Michael shook his head, remembering the many amputees he’d healed at the fort infirmary.

“What about infections, poisons, venoms, or diseases?”

“Not sure about poisons and venoms. I can fix the wound that the infection entered through, though, and that’s usually enough. Can’t help with diseases at all.”

“And you can’t bring anyone back from death?”

“No. Is that a thing someone can do?”

Bayle shook his head. “You all need to fight as if he’s not with you. If you keep on this way, you will die.” He sighed. “Or, possibly, your stupidity will imbue you with so many gifts from the Divine that you no longer need his healing.” He shook his head. “You can roll those dice as you will.”

He looked up and down the beast, muttering what sounded like distance calculations under his breath.

“Unfortunately, the feathers alone make transporting this body worth doing.” He looked around. “Start gathering banner poles and broken spear shafts. We need to assemble a pallet.”