88

Michael awoke to the feel of cold metal pressed against his lips. He opened his eyes to see Davi holding a canteen for him. He drank greedily, coughing a bit as it went down the wrong pipe. He shook his head and cleared his throat.

“Is everyone okay?”

Davi re-sealed the cap on his canteen. “Mostly. We lost a few. Would’ve been a lot worse without you. Ollie, Crick, Marcus, and Pyotr are fine.”

Michael began to push himself up, pulling a long, thin arrow from his leg as he did so, and slowly healing himself to preserve his strength. “I’ve got to learn how to be more selective with my healing during long fights like this. If I’d been more careful, I may have been able to keep more alive.”

Davi shook his head. “Prakash’s skull was cut in two, and Lee was stabbed through the heart. There was nothing you could’ve done for them.”

Michael didn’t recall Lee dying. He shook his head and placed a hand on Davi, healing a half-dozen wounds on him, nearly collapsing as he did so, Davi barely managed to catch him.

“Ay, don’t do that. I’ll be fine. You need rest.”

Michael shrugged. “Too late.” He pulled off his helmet and buckled it to his waist, pushing back long blonde hair thick with sweat. “Where are Lee and Prakash?”

Davi motioned for him to follow him. They were in a small group of soldiers still in the midst of the battlefield. Stent soldiers were being identified and buried, and even Tusynian officers and mercenaries of repute were being given at least some kind of burial. Remembering the fight they’d had with the King of Carrion, Michael felt like they had the right idea.

From what he could tell, the Tusynians had been routed, and Stent hadn’t taken nearly the losses they’d anticipated. Michael stopped to heal people as they moved. The Stent soldiers knew he was a Penitent, but unlike in the past, none of them refused his touch.

“They’ve all heard of you,” said Davi as they walked over corpses.

“What?” asked Michael.

“Apparently stories of you healing whole camps of injured people have spread. They don’t know your name, but the ‘Penitent Healer’ is a common bit of gossip.”

Michael shrugged, leaning down to heal a man with a bandage over his eye. “Whatever works to let me help them.”

They eventually reached a wide open pit where a number of Penitents had been covered in their uniform jackets and placed inside in neat rows. He quickly found Prakash and Lee, who’d been placed side by side. He slid into the grave and placed a hand on each of their chests. He closed his eyes.

“Divine grant them mercy and rest. Their lives were too short. There was… more they could’ve done. Please give their souls peace.”

He could feel a kind of warmth settle over his shoulders, and he shuddered a bit. He opened his eyes and looked around. He took his symbol of the Divine from his neck and started going from body to body in the pit. He didn’t know why most of these men were Penitents. They could’ve been rapists or murderers, or they could’ve just been men who made a single bad decision at the wrong time. Still, they’d fought and died next to him, and he said a small prayer for each one before he climbed out of the grave with Davi’s help.

“Thanks,” he said as he steadied himself. “I guess I’ll go to the infirmary, then find the others.”

Davi chuckled.

“What?”

“That’s where we were all planning on meeting. You are predictable.”

Michael laughed. “I really am.”

The walk to camp was short but felt like a hundred miles. Michael’s stamina and recovery had been pushed to their limits, and he could feel a deep weariness down into his bones. They arrived as the camp was being broken piece by piece to be moved deeper into Tusynian territory. Outside the infirmary, the others were waiting for him, and Michael felt a bit of the weight in his chest lift seeing that they were okay, though Marcus had an odd expression.

“Glad you’re all okay,” he said as he approached.

Pyotr gave him a clanging hug, Ollie patted him on the back, and Marcus clasped hands with him and shared a quick embrace. He and Crick exchanged a nod.

“Crim is in there,” whispered Davi to explain Marcus’s mood, “as a Penitent.”

Michael nodded. “I know.”

“I really thought they’d let her get away with everything.”

Michael shrugged. “Guess they get things right sometimes.”

He moved toward the tent, and Ollie put a hand on his shoulder. “You sure you’re up to heal, mate? You look like death.”

“Well, hopefully I won’t scare anyone when I go inside.”

Michael walked inside to a number of sights and sounds he’d grown very used to. Seared flesh, leaking wounds, missing limbs, nicked intestines—all of that had become normal to him. He went toward the nearest injured person and placed a hand on his shoulder. He healed the head wound the man had suffered but ignored the minor scrapes and bruises across his body. It took more focus but less energy, and energy was what was at a premium for him at that moment. He moved from person to person, taking his time even though the screams and moans made him want to try and heal them all as quickly as possible. He eventually reached Ogun, who was arguing with the medic, waving a severed hand at the man.

“I am telling you, Michael may be able to put it back. I did not dig it out from under seven corpses with one hand to not try! You people pulled your men back so that we could be surrounded and you could take your sweet time catching up, and now you deny me my fucking arm!? Oh, there you are!” Ogun pointed the hand at Michael. “Put this back on for me.”

Michael surprised himself a bit by laughing at the absurdity of the scene but shrugged and took the severed hand. It seemed like he’d managed to at least partially heal the stub during the battle, but there was still a lot of exposed tissue. The hand itself had an open wound at the end on which flies were trying to land.

“I’m not sure if this will work. If it doesn’t… we may need to try reopening the wound more first, and that may not work either.”

“It will work. If you can keep me fighting with one hand, you can put the other one back.”

Michael sighed and placed the severed hand against the healed stump, taking a deep breath as he felt the heat of his wife’s hand build up in his. There was a burst of golden light, and Ogun’s arm was whole again.

Ogun twisted the hand around a bit and wiggled his fingers, sending the middle one up in the face of the medic that had been arguing with him. “See! I told you.”

Michael was unsteady for a moment but managed to keep his feet. It actually hadn’t taken as much energy as he’d expected, but it was still a large drain.

“I’m glad that worked,” he said as he started to walk toward the next of the wounded.

“Of course it did,” said Ogun, standing and making his way to the exit. “You’re the best.”

Michael appreciated the vote of confidence and got back to work with a bit of renewed vigor. By the time he was done, no one was going to die in the infirmary that day, though a number of them would need to rely on their natural healing to finish the job. Michael stumbled out of the tent when he was done and made his way to where the Penitents were. Pyotr handed him a roll with salted meat inside, and then another, and then another. After that, he ate four bags of nuts and dried fruit he’d had squirreled away and washed all of it down with three canteens full of water. He could hear a bit of chatter around him, but all of them were in recovery and survival mode, so it was limited.

Once Michael felt recovered enough, he stripped off most of his armor and went to his tent, where he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

He was awoken by the sound of his tent opening and Jakub peering his head inside.

“Gather your things, Michael. We’re leaving now.”

He nodded as he rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes and pushed himself out of the tent and into a pitch-black night. He started instinctually putting on his armor.

“Just pack that—we need to move quickly.”

Michael nodded, exchanging a frown with the others who were also in the midst of packing. He felt groggy and unfocused, but he’d grown used to operating in such a state. Once he had all of his things together and in his pack, Lance showed up wearing only his uniform, his silver-hilted blade at his side.

“Our orders were to participate in the last battle. We need to leave before we receive any more.” He gestured for them to follow him. “Now that Hans knows about what Michael can do, there’s no way he’s going to let us go if he gets the chance to stop us.”