76

There was no fanfare for the Penitents and Bayle, who had been integral in the taking of the fort. Instead, there was a formal handing over of the castle from the count to the general, and they were all to watch it from the furthest wall later in the day. The general hadn’t hesitated for even a moment to take control of the narrative that he was the one who’d not only allowed Bayle’s plan but had in fact been the one to suggest it. Bayle made no complaints. He seemed satisfied that his plan had worked well and saved lives. The credit for the victory seemed to hold little value for him.

The time from the count’s surrender to the completion of the taking of the castle had been tense. It was not a clean end to the fighting. Once the count threw down his sword, he had to yell down orders to surrender. For many, the message didn’t reach them until it was too late, or they didn’t believe the order to be genuine. Others simply ignored them, too swept up in the carnage to stop. The problems were not only on the side of the Tusynians either. There were just as many Stent soldiers that didn’t believe the surrender was genuine, and it wasn’t until the light of dawn started to shine down on everyone that even the final holdouts had given up.

For Michael and Bayle’s part of things, once the count had surrendered, Michael had to stay locked in a room with the countess and her child while orders were yelled from the tower by the count. Bayle seemed to have some method of communicating with leadership outside of the walls, as despite the fact that Michael had never heard him yell any orders, it was clear that their victory was being responded to on the outside.

With the sun in the sky, Michael walked wearily through the courtyard back toward the outer wall. He’d come closer to death than ever before in that fight and had been largely outclassed, but he’d won. Still, the events of the long night had exhausted him. The exhaustion wasn’t physical, as he felt as if he could fight for another day and night if he needed to, but mentally he was hitting empty. In a single night he’d crawled through a mile of methane-filled sewer, infiltrated a castle, fought on top of the wall as soldiers made their way inside, and taken the count’s family hostage to end the fighting. That last part wore on him the most. He wouldn’t have hurt them; he’d rather have died, but even the fiction of it made him uncomfortable. He sighed and leaned against a wall for a few moments, closing his eyes.

“I thank the Divine for the fighting ending as easily as it did. I thank the Divine that I’m alive.”

He felt a bit of his resolve return as he finished his short prayer. There was one more thing he hoped he’d be able to thank the Divine for. He started to walk again, nearly being accosted a few times due to the Tusynian uniform he was still wearing, but they all caught themselves when they checked the mark on his shirt. He reached the outer wall and started looking around. It didn’t take long for him to find Davi’s massive frame and red hair standing out from the crowd. He saw Pyotr, Ollie, Marcus, and Crick too, all sitting against a tree in the courtyard with their eyes half-closed. He said another prayer of thanks to the Divine and walked toward them. He could sense a number of deep cuts and broken bones, but nothing lethal on any of them. He held up a glowing hand as he approached, healing all of them as he moved.

Ollie perked up a bit as a deep gouge across his shoulder knitted back together and looked around, his eyes meeting Michael’s.

“You’ve got me like Pavo’s dog. Every time I start to feel better, I look around for you.”

“Pavlov’s,” corrected Pyotr, sitting himself up a bit straighter as the tears in the muscle around his shoulder healed.

“That’s what I said,” responded Ollie.

“How’d the rest of the fight go for you?” asked Michael as he found a place to sit next to them.

“Not too bad,” said Marcus, who was stretching fingers that had been heavily blistered and bleeding from a bowstring only moments before. “We were able to stay in the rear for the most part. Just watched Davi push smaller men off the wall.”

Davi shrugged. “I only did that twice.” He pointed at Crick. “He was the real MVP. He is much better with that spear than I expected. We got rushed at one point, and Ollie took a bad hit. This guy pushed them all back like a madman.”

Crick shrugged. “I’ve got a lot of practice killing Tussis.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re all okay,” said Michael, reaching for Ollie to hand him his canteen, which he did. Michael drank gratefully. “No one’s going to ask what I did?” he asked as he wiped a bit of excess water from his chin.

Marcus laughed. “We all know what you did. Fuck man, I’ve been hearing gossip all around about you and Bayle. The General’s pissed that not everyone here is giving him credit by the way.”

He shrugged, his expression neutral. “What’s another person hating me?”

Pyotr shook his head. “Brother…”

“What?”

“I wish you would value yourself a bit more highly. Many are alive today because of you. On both sides. You can’t think you deserve anyone’s contempt anymore. When we first arrived, when we were raw and new, I could understand it. All our emotions were mad, our perceptions off. You feel too much guilt for that body you’re in. You buy into what these people sell with too much ease. There is a difference between wisdom and complacency, my friend.”

Michael stared at him, unsure of how to respond, and dealt with a number of uncomfortable feelings starting to crop up all at once. He stood up.

“I need to go to the infirmary. I’m sure that there are a lot of people that need healing.” He turned away and started walking. “Hopefully they’ll let me heal some of the Tusynians too.”

There was some fussing behind him as he walked away, but no one followed him.

He activated his Navigate spell and saw that the infirmary marker had been moved from the camp outside to one of the buildings against the outer wall. He made his way there and was immediately recognized by the slim, bespectacled medic he’d met in the camp just the previous day.

“Good, I was just about to send for you since I heard you were alive.” He pointed at a row of men standing in a line. Most of them had open wounds they were clutching or the dazed look of someone concussed. “They’ll start to get infections soon, and we don’t have enough men to get them sorted.”

Michael looked concerned at the men slightly further away that seemed close to death.

“I’ll keep them alive. You just start there.”

Michael gritted his teeth, feeling a bit of anger at the truth of Pyotr’s words leaking into him. After everything he’d done over the last day for all of them, they wouldn’t even let him help them the way he wanted to. He walked over to the line and raised a hand. It began glowing, not just the soft golden light it usually did, but an angry, fearsome light that made them all squint. By the time their eyes adjusted to the light, their wounds were gone, and Michael had already moved on to a man that he could tell was near death in the corner.

He raised his hand and felt the sharp pain of his brand activate. He looked back to see the medic brandishing his control brand.

“Hey! You heal who I tell you to heal.”

Michael scowled and forced himself to focus. He transferred the pain to the medic, who crumpled and started grasping at the back of his own neck. He raised his hand and healed the dying man in front of him, and then a few others that were similarly near death. He dropped the pain transfer when the medic stopped trying to activate his brand and focused on healing until a number of soldiers led by a Sergeant appeared.

“You can grab me when I finish,” said Michael, his energy starting to flag as he healed a man’s ruptured intestines, “unless you want your brother-in-arm’s blood on your hands.”

The men looked at the sergeant, and he clenched his jaw before barking an order at one of them. Michael moved to the last group of injured just as the soldier that was sent away returned with Bayle in tow.

Bayle moved to stand in the center of the infirmary and waited until Michael was done healing the last of them.

Michael was breathing hard as he finished and moved to stand in front of Bayle and saluted by placing a hand on his chest.

Bayle returned the salute.

“Well done,” he said simply.

“Take me to the Tusynian injured.”

He nodded and started walking, with Michael falling in behind him.

“What are you doing? He made his control brand hurt me,” said the medic.

Bayle shrugged. “Prove it.”

“What?”

Bayle looked at him with his full attention. “I said, ‘Prove it.’ From what I can tell, you have no brand on your neck and no physical marks of conflict on your person. I’ve seen this Penitent fight. If he wanted to hurt you, you’d be dead.”

The medic looked at a loss, his gaze turning to the sergeant he’d called in earlier.

The sergeant looked at Bayle. “Sir, you’re going to let him heal the Tusis?” he asked.

Bayle nodded. “Uninjured prisoners are more valuable and easier to maintain.” He looked around at everyone in the ward. “Anyone else want to question me?” There was no answer. Bayle smiled lightly in a way that didn’t meet his eyes. “Good.”