Legionnaire

The west cut stank of blood, dust, and opened bodies. Broken shields lay under dead cragbacks. A spear shaft twitched where one dying beast still had enough nerve left to move. Someone behind me was breathing in short wet pulls.

Kael turned back toward Isolde.

“The road is ours to the fall.”

“For now,” she said.

“For now.”

Her eyes moved over the wounded, the dead, the ledges, then finally to me.

I stood with my shield still raised, because lowering it felt like admitting what my arm was doing.

Isolde saw anyway.

“Archer.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Lower the shield before you fall over.”

I lowered it.

Slowly.

My arm dropped like it belonged to someone else.

The fight was over.

The pass was not.

The fight was over.

The pass was not.

Kael made sure no one forgot that.

“Eyes high,” he called. “No one past the fall. Wounded first. Confirm the dead. Watch the ledges.”

The command moved because that was what trained people did after the noise stopped. They did not stand around staring at what had happened. They worked.

Two fighters watched the cliffs. Others went to the men down in the road. A cragback near the broken stone still twitched, and someone put a spear through the soft place under its jaw without ceremony. Another fighter kicked a fallen weapon away from one of the bodies so no one tripped over it.

I tried to lower my shield.

It did not move right.

For a second, my arm pulled and the shield stayed with it like it had been nailed in place. Pain came up from the forearm, deep and hot, then settled into the elbow and shoulder.

I looked down.

The center of the shield had buckled inward around the boss. The metal had collapsed into my gauntlet and crushed tight against it, trapping my arm in the ruined shape of the hit.

The shield was not strapped to me anymore.

It was bent onto me.

Isolde saw it the same time I did.

“Healer,” she called.

One of the healers looked over from where she knelt beside a man with blood running down his neck. She finished tying the bandage before she moved. That told me exactly where I was on the list.

Alive.

Standing.

Waiting.

When she reached me, she did not start with the shield.

She caught my wrist below the gauntlet, pressed two fingers hard into the inside of it, then checked my hand.

“Move your fingers.”

I did.

Slow.

Not clean.

But they moved.

“Again.”

I moved them again.

She watched my face more than my hand.

“Can you feel this?”

She pressed the tip of one finger into the side of my thumb.

“Yes.”

“This?”

Index finger.

“Yes.”

“This?”

The smallest two fingers were duller.

“Less.”

She looked at the shield, then at the arm above it. “Bone is not shattered.”

“That sounds like the good version.”

“It is the version where I let them take the shield off before I finish deciding how stupid you were.”

There was enough dry bite in it that I almost answered.

Then I looked past her and saw two men dragging one of ours away from beneath a dead cragback.

I kept my mouth shut.

The healer turned and pointed at two nearby fighters. “You and you. Hold the shield. Not the arm. The shield. If he moves, stop.”

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They came over without question.

One took the lower edge. The other braced the upper. The healer slid a short iron tool from her belt and worked it under the bent boss where the shield had collapsed against the gauntlet.

“Do not pull your arm,” she said.

“I won’t.”

“Men always say that before they pull.”

“I won’t.”

She glanced at me once, then nodded to the fighters.

They pried.

The metal gave a low groan.

Pain tightened from my wrist all the way up into my shoulder. I locked my jaw and looked at the ledge instead of the arm.

The first attempt shifted the shield but did not free it.

The healer adjusted the tool.

“Again.”

The fighters pulled outward while she levered the boss away from the gauntlet.

This time the shield came loose with a hard metallic pop.

My arm dropped.

I kept my feet, but it took work.

The ruined shield hit the road beside me. The center was caved in deep enough that I could see the shape of my gauntlet printed into the metal.

The healer pointed at my hand. “Gauntlet off.”

I worked the straps loose with my other hand. It took longer than it should have. My fingers had gone clumsy, and the swelling was already starting. Isolde did not help. She watched. That was better. If I could not get my own gauntlet off, I had bigger problems than pride.

When it finally came free, the skin beneath was darkening fast. The forearm had a long angry bruise spreading under the flesh, and the area halfway down the bone looked wrong in a way I did not like.

The healer took the arm again.

This time she checked it slowly.

Wrist.

Forearm.

Elbow.

Shoulder.

Every press found something that hurt. One spot found something that made my vision narrow for half a second.

“There,” she said.

I breathed out through my nose.

“Hairline crack. Deep bruising. Shoulder strain. You are lucky the gauntlet held shape.”

“And the Anchor.”

She looked at me. “That too.”

Her tone made it clear she did not entirely approve of either one.

“Can it work?” Isolde asked.

The healer lifted my hand and had me close it into a fist.

I did.

It hurt.

I opened it again.

“It can work,” the healer said. “Not well. Not for heavy shield work. Not for catching another cragback.”

“I was hoping to make that a rare experience,” I said.

That got the smallest look from her.

Not humor exactly.

Recognition.

“Good. Men who make habits of being crushed become simple to treat.”

“How’s that?”

“We stop treating them.”

Dark enough.

Fair enough.

She pulled a small vial from her pouch. It was not one of the high draughts from the reserve case. Smaller. Practical. The kind used for keeping a fighter moving, not dragging a man back from death.

“A sip,” she said.

I took the vial.

“How much is a sip here?”

“As much as I tell you.”

She tipped the bottom slightly until the liquid touched my mouth.

I swallowed.

It tasted bitter first, then hot. The heat moved into my chest, down my arm, and settled around the crack in the bone like a wire pulled tight. The pain sharpened, then changed. Not gone. Not even close. But the bad edge dulled enough that my fingers stopped wanting to curl on their own.

The healer took the vial back before I could drink more.

I flexed the hand once.

Still hurt.

Still worked.

“I have a healing draught of my own,” I said. “A good one. If more would actually help, I can use it.”

Her eyes moved to mine. “High draught?”

“Yes.”

“Save it.”

“If it fixes the arm—”

“It is fixed enough.” She wrapped my forearm tight while she spoke. “More healing is not always better. The crack is sealed enough to hold if you do not abuse it. The rest is bruising, strain, swelling, and angry tissue. A high draught will spend itself trying to clean all of that at once.”

“That sounds useful.”

“It can also leave you shaking, fevered, and useless until your body catches up. Or it wastes a draught you may need when someone is opened from throat to belly.”

I looked toward the dead and wounded.

That answer made sense.

I hated that it made sense.

“So I keep hurting.”

“You keep functioning,” she said. “Pain is not the same as damage.”

I almost laughed at that.

Not because it was funny.

Because I had paid doctors in another world to say the same thing with more words and less blood on their sleeves.

“Yes, ma’am.”

That earned me a short nod.

“No full shield on that arm,” she said. “If you must hold something, hold something light. If the fingers go cold or stop moving, you find me. If the pain turns sharp again, you find me. If you get clever, I will know because you will be on the ground.”

“I’ll try not to be clever.”

“Try harder than that.”

She moved on before I could answer, already looking for the next injury.

Isolde watched me put the gauntlet back on loosely.

“Can you continue?”

“Yes.”

“Truth, Archer.”

I flexed the hand again. The wrap made the movement stiff. The pain stayed deep, but the arm answered.

“It hurts. It works.”

She accepted that.

Kael’s voice carried from farther up the cut.

“Cores.”

The word changed the work again.

Not less serious.

Just different.

Two fighters moved to the nearest cragback with knives. Another went to the one Kael had killed. They worked carefully around the plates, cutting into the softer places beneath the jaw and chest. The bodies were thick and ugly and hard to open. Blades scraped against natural armor. Blood steamed faintly in the cold air.

No one treated it like treasure hunting.

It was part of the field.

Check the dead. Take what mattered. Leave nothing dangerous behind.

A woman near the first corpse reached deep, twisted her wrist, and pulled something dark and wet from inside the meat.

“Core.”

Kael looked to Isolde.

She nodded. “Bag it. Mark the body.”

Another fighter called from the second cragback. “Nothing here.”

“Keep checking,” Kael said.

The pass remained quiet above us.

Quiet did not mean safe.

Everyone knew it.

I stood beside Isolde with my arm wrapped, my shield ruined on the ground, and the taste of bitter potion still in my mouth.

The road below us was ours.

For now.

Isolde looked from the ledges to the bodies in the road.

“Kael,” she said. “After-action report.”

AAR, my brain supplied.

The similarities kept surprising me at the worst times.

Kael wiped blood from the edge of his sword before answering.

“Four dead. Four wounded. Two of those can walk with help. Two need carried.”

Isolde’s face did not change.

Mine probably did.

Kael looked toward one of the dead cragbacks. “When those things hit, my lady…” He stopped, jaw tight. “Either it connected or it did not. Even a glancing blow was enough to break something.”

“I saw.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How many to get them back to camp?”

“Eight for the dead. Four for the wounded.”

“Twelve.”

“Yes.”

“That leaves us roughly ten if we carry on.”

Kael looked up the pass.

The dust had settled some, but the upper road still disappeared behind broken stone and shadow.

“I say we head back, ma’am.”

Isolde turned to him.

He did not back away from it.

“We pushed them off this stretch,” he said. “We have wounded. We have dead. We do not know what pushed the cragbacks down or whether more are above us.”

“No,” Isolde said. “We do not.”

“Then we should not keep climbing with ten.”

“If we go back now, they can take the cut again before dark.” Her voice stayed level. “Then we pay for this ground twice.”

Kael said nothing.

Isolde looked at the dead.

“It already cost us four good men and women.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he said. “That is why I am saying it.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

This was not argument for argument’s sake. Kael was not afraid. Isolde was not reckless.

They were both looking at the same ugly choice from different sides.

Finally, Isolde looked up the pass again.

“We are going to find out what is forcing them down.”

Kael held her gaze.

Then he struck his fist to his chest.

“Yes, ma’am. I will organize the remainder.”

Kael moved before the answer had finished settling.

The cut became motion again.

Not rushed. Not clean either. Dead men and women do not leave a clean road behind them.

Orders passed low and fast. The wounded were checked one last time. The dead were lifted with care that did not make the work any less ugly. Four legionnaires were chosen to stay with the wounded on the way down. Eight more took the dead.

That thinned the command fast.

By the time Kael called the remainder together, there were ten legionnaires left to carry on.

Ten, plus Kael.

Plus Isolde.

Plus me.

Thirteen going farther into a pass that had already taken four lives