Penitent

Running quickly down the road, Michael was impressed with the speed and grace of his aelven escorts. While his own footfalls were heavy and firm, theirs seemed light, as if their feet were only barely touching the ground with every step. The closest Michael had ever seen to that had been Pyotr when he was fighting.

It was a twelve- or thirteen-mile run before the other Gemini mercenaries came into view. Michael was barely breathing heavily, but his escorts had started to slow a bit, one just a hundred or so yards behind Michael and Syl having slowed so that Pyotr wouldn't be alone on the road as he slowed. He sprinted the last leg to the others and was greeted at the front by the twins.

"You ran here to heal?" asked Finnegan, with a serious look on his face.

Michael nodded.

"Quickly then, follow me," he replied, exchanging a quick nod with Tai who kept the others moving.

Finnegan moved Michael to the center of the group where a number of people were bandaged, or had arms in slings, or were even dragging themselves forward with makeshift crutches. In the center of that group were a number of people actually being carried on pallets.

Michael moved to those on the pallets first. He recognized Trina, the young diviner and healer in the center of them. He raised a hand to heal her, but found that she was uninjured.

"She exhausted herself healing others," croaked Ollie from behind him. "Reminds me of a certain someone."

Michael whipped around to see that his friend had a burn across one side of his face and a thick scar across the other. He raised a golden hand to his friend, finding that the majority of the damage that had been done to him was actually in his throat.

Ollie swallowed. "Thanks, that's much better. There were these fucking lizard people. They sent smoke at me and the other mages, made it a lot harder to use words as a focus and cost us a lot of magicka."

Michael listened to him as he started going from pallet to pallet. The injured were numerous, and the damage they'd taken was severe. He could detect the start of some healing on one of them. It hadn't been enough, but had definitely kept them alive until that point.

Michael was rested, well fed, and stronger than ever, but still he tried to be conservative about his healing. He focused on mending the problems that were major first, nicked organs and arteries, wounds nearing infection, anything fatal. Once that was done he focused on injuries that would reduce mobility and effectiveness as well as quality of life. When that was done and he was certain he had enough in him to finish healing everything else, he worked on healing anything that would be particularly painful.

When he was done he was panting hard, but there was only a bit of darkness at the edge of his vision. He left the small cuts and bruises for their natural healing, or for when he was recovered. He wanted to heal everyone as quickly as possible, to spare them suffering, but if he wasted all his energy and became a liability or wasn't able to heal something else unexpected that would be a much greater problem for everyone.

"By the divine, I didn't know that this was something a healer could do," said Finnegan with his eyes wide.

Michael smiled. "As you say, it's 'by the divine' that I can do this."

"You're worse than a missionary," said Marcus, clapping him on the back from behind. "Glad to see you're alive."

"Same to you. Though, I suppose shooting things from a distance makes things a bit safer for you."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"You'd think, but when you're fighting squids on land it turns out that they can cross a short distance very quickly."

"Squids… on land?" asked Michael.

"Yes, and their suckers hurt like hell," he held up his hand showing the back of it along which were a number of circular scars.

Michael touched a golden forefinger to them and they sealed.

"Where's Davi?" asked Michael, fear suddenly gripping him.

"He's okay. He volunteered to stay behind with a few others to help with some cleanup."

"Thank the gods," he said.

"The gods, me, his own damn self. We can list things we could thank all day."

"What a beautiful idea. We can all work on our gratitude," said Michael with a faux serene smile.

"I know you've found religion, but if you're being real I'm going to throw up."

"Don't worry, I'm not that far gone yet."

With everyone healed, the only pallet still holding anyone was Trina's so the group as a whole moved much faster. Everyone was still tired, and sore, but without broken limbs and open wounds they seemed to have a bit more pep in their step. It wasn't long until everyone made it back to the farmhouse.

Suraj and the others had worked to prepare a clean space for the wounded, but were surprised when it wound up just cleaning a few small cuts and laying down their smallest diviner for a rest.

"You were already the best healer I've ever seen. I'm wondering now if you're just the best healer," said Suraj as Michael took a last look at Trina to be certain there was nothing else he could do.

Michael shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't met many. I still can't heal illness though."

Suraj nodded. "Well, I guess everyone will just need to wash their hands."

Michael went back to the tents he and his friends had set up, and found them all sitting in a circle and drinking from a bottle of wine that Marcus had acquired from somewhere. Pyotr patted the ground next to himself for Michael and he sat down. He took the bottle that was offered to him by Ollie and took a long sip, feeling warmth bloom in his chest, contrasting with the coolness of the liquid. It had likely been chilled by Ollie as he'd handed it to him..

"So, you just got to fight the horned ones again, and we had to fight giant lizards and land-squids."

Michael nodded. "Yes, Pyotr and I had the great luck to fight maneaters twice our size. We were truly blessed by the divine."

"Their favoritism only hurts a little," said Ollie. "Considering how much their attention fucks you, I'm not really all that jealous."

"So how did Lys do closing the rift?"

"She was slow, at least compared to you. Managed a pretty incredible parry of spiked tentacles while she was closing it though.," said Marcus. "I think it was harder than they expected, even after we warned everyone of what to expect… or to expect the unexpected."

"Ours was harder," said Ollie. "The lizards were smart and the girl had a lot of trouble. I don't think she was slow, but she wasn't focused. I mean, closing a portal to another fucking dimension the first time you're holding a sword against monsters you've never seen before can't be easy. The twins though… They fought like madmen. Tai kept the fight at the gate itself and his brother kept Trina safe. Still, I think we lost more people than they expected."

Michael frowned, wishing he could've been there himself, in both cases. He stood up and looked around. He saw a number of small groups gathered around, talking with their heads hung low. One or two people were disassembling tents and handing things out from them, honoring some kind of oral agreement they had with the deceased. It tugged at his chest and he took a moment to pray to the divine for all those that had been lost. He'd been lucky enough to lose only a few friends in his old life as he'd wound up dying before most of them. He imagined he was the friend most of them had lost that started them thinking of their own mortality more seriously late in life.

He sat back down and took another sip from the bottle which was rapidly nearing its end.

"Should we save some for Davi?" he asked, swirling what was left around.

"I think that saving a man the swill at the bottom of a bottle is more evil than not sharing any with him at all," replied Pyotr, taking the bottle from him and finishing it off with a satisfied sigh.

Michael looked at Ollie. "I thought you were doing two rifts? Did both have lizard people?"

Ollie nodded. "The twins pulled us back after the first one. Decided it would be smarter to regroup and then go at it later. Apparently the last one is the most isolated, on the shore of the lake itself, not near any villages or settlements."

Michael frowned; that made him nervous, but he certainly couldn't fault the twins for their caution. If they had been the type of leaders who would throw themselves at a problem like that after their diviner passed out and they took losses, that would've made him more nervous.

After they all ate some dinner and went to their tents. Michael said his nightly prayers, throwing in some extra gratitude that his friends were okay, and then drifted off to sleep.