XVII

The light faded, a blinding glow and he felt her muscle push his finger out of the wound as it was knitted back together at a supernaturally fast rate. He felt the drain, the fatigue of the magic pull him down, his eyes drifting closed. It felt like he had been back in the labor camps, never a good night’s rest for fear of someone coming up to murder him or Isi. The mere thought of the labor camp caused his eyes to shoot open, a new shot of adrenalin coursing through his veins.

“Is it done? Are you done?” A man screamed his question, his hand shaking Adrian on the shoulder. Adrian looked up at the man expecting to see Torin, but it was another man, this one with blood splattered all over his square-jawed face. Adrian leaned over Isi and felt the slow and shallow rise and fall of her chest with his hand. She was alive, and if he could get her to someplace safe then she would remain as such. Though she had lost a lot of blood, which was not something sorcery could fix, her own body would need to do that and that would take time and she would need a place to lie safe and sound.

“It is done, we need to fall back,” Adrian said, scooping up Isi in his arms and struggling to his feet.

“Gods be praised!” the man bellowed, “Fall back everyone fall back!” he shouted before shoving Adrian along with a large palm in the square of his back. “Fall back!” All around Adrian men dropped what they were doing and began sprinting away at full speed, some even dropping their muskets to not have such a large burden. He didn't blame them, lives were more important than muskets. Hefting Isi’s small frame into a better position he did likewise, refusing to acknowledge the burn in his legs and back as he ran for the safety of the treeline. It was a mad dash away from the battlefield, each man for himself as the orderly formation Torin had set up dissolved. The regiment of white coats on their tails was within range and Adrian closed his eyes and hugged Isi tighter as he kept running, using his own body to shield her as best he could, waiting for the lead ball that was surely coming for him to take his life.

It never came, instead, he almost tripped on tree roots as he entered the swamps, sloshing once again through the brackish liquid that made up ninety percent of the total ground here and he felt relief as he pushed around a tree and used it to shield his and Isi’s form. He breathed heavily, catching what little breath he could before he leaned his head out and looked at the white coats. A grim smile fell into place in his lips, seeing as they had all stopped and were staring at the swamplands. They were not pursuing, this was likely due in part to the hit and run guerrilla tactics that his wolf pack had been employing these past two months, they had chased a fleeing enemy into more than one ambush and were now hesitating to do so again. Adrian pulled his head back around the tree and rested it against the smooth damp bark. He could feel the coppery taste of blood in his mouth after exerting himself too much and it took much to long for him to get back his breath. Slowly he looked around at the men that were with him.

Of the 150 men he had begun with he now had if he had to guess just over 80 left, which was a win in any general’s books seeing as they had inflicted far more damage to the enemy, wounding and killing perhaps 200 -400 hundred men. But Adrian was not a general, and each loss gnawed at him. “Torin?” he asked, looking amongst the faces of the men gathered. He found the Sargent leaning up against a tree, eyes closed and felt relief, but that relief was washed away quickly when he saw the man’s wounds. He had been shot twice that Adrian could see, once in the gut, once in the shoulder, and it looked like perhaps a third time in the hand, which was a mangled mess that no sorcery no matter how powerful would ever fix, and even if he knew the spell he had lost his reagent tin in the mad scramble away. The man would never be able to shoot a rifle again, he closed his eyes and made up his mind.

“Bind his wounds,” Adrian barked, “Aswell as any other man who is wounded, but do it quickly we need to move before those damned whitecoats wise up and realize there is no ambush waiting for them.”

***

The camp was in disarray, men being carried to medic’s tents, the screams of the dying and wounded as the sergeants saved what they could and amputated what they could not. Based on the screams that were sounding from the sea of medical tents they had run out of opioids and other pain relievers and the doctors were simply knocking them out with a blow to the head and move as quickly as possible to remove the limb. Of the wounded nearly half would die even if the wound was not fatal, this was in part due to the diseases that were often so rampant in military camps or in field hospitals. Many men like Torin would be losing a limb tonight.

Adrian pushed his way through the camp, feeling oddly alone and naked without Isi shadowing him, the feeling alone was more than enough to harden his resolve. He found the command tent with relative enough ease, seeing as it was the only one that was a proper pavilion structure. He swept the canvas flap aside and stepped in to find Emilia standing over a table with that same farce of a map, several of her commanding officers arrayed around her, her eyes flicked up and she looked at Adrian a smile forming on her lips until she saw the look on his face. “Lutenit, I would like to speak with you,” he said, standing at attention, she also stood and gestured for him to speak but he looked to the commanding officers and back to her. Her eyebrows raised but she addressed them none the less.

“We will continue this discussion later gentlemen,” she said and dismissed them all. Adrian stood at attention as they all shuffled out, his eyes not meeting hers, and as the last man left she initiated the conversation. “That flanking maneuver was quite effective, broke the moral something fierce of the enemy, I suppose you are the one to thank for the rather timely and effective Firestorm?” she asked.

“I am unfit for command duty,” he said, looking at her in the eyes, her head rocked back slightly like he had just struck a blow at her.

“That is not something I would have ever guessed you would say,” she said softly, “what pray tell lead you to this belief?”

“During the flanking Isi was shot, and we were being rushed by an enemy regiment, I ordered the men to hold the line as I healed her, resulting in the deaths of 74 men.” she pulled a breath in between her teeth. “And I would and will do it again, I have betrayed the trust of the men under my command and do not deserve the honor of leading men into battle.” she slowly nodded and looked at Adrian, the thoughts almost visible in her head as she worked through every possible answer she could.

“We are currently at war with a superior force, today I lost near 8,00 men in a pitched battle against the Kurtz empire, I mean no offense when I say this but I am denying your request to turn over the command of the regiment, we need you out here Adrian, that maneuver you pulled saved hundreds of lives.”

“They will not follow me, not after sacrificing them like this,” he said, his teeth clenched as he spoke.

“I would not be so sure of that,” she said walking over to a side table piled high with written reports on anything and everything from how many casualties to the position of the enemy, and even how much food stores they had. She shuffled through the papers and pulled out one, this one written on a single sheet of paper. “I received this report around a half hour ago from a Staff Sargent Torin, I was going to reprimand the man for his abhorrent writing which is nigh unreadable, but then I learned this is due to him writing with his left hand, due to a wounded right hand,” Adrian winced and looked away slightly as she said this, ignoring it she continued. “He reported that you ordered the line to hold so that you might heal a fellow soldier, he said nothing about it being Isi, if you ask me the man was either covering you or actually sees Isi as a valuable member of your regiment, and if I was to say based on the language used in this report he found nothing wrong with your command decision, in fact he calls it a victory, seeing as you cost the enemy soldiers a good four or five hundred men with just over a hundred of your own. And if I am being honest I am inclined to agree with him.” she looked at Adrian in the eyes, “What you have said is an issue, we cannot afford for you to spend our men’s lives pointlessly, or in trade for a single woman’s life. See to it that it doesn't happen again, am I clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” he growled, even if the two of them were the same rank, at this moment she had the superior force, and therefore she was the person in overall command.

“Good, now, I want you to come look at this, we have the latest movements from the enemy as well as a casualty report.” Adrian sighed slightly, before walking over, he would have to go see how Torin was doing after this was over after all Isi owed her life to Torin, and in Adrian’s book that meant he owed everything to Torin...