Shara twirled her hair around her fingers, prepared to do her assigned duty and protect the retreat, but as the battle played out ahead of her, she became more and more unhappy about it. As the cries and wails and the slamming of weapons grew louder when the Xenai pushed through their front lines, Shara moved forward a dozen feet to climb on top of the medical cart that was still far behind the fray, brushing the dried blue paint flecks off of her hands as she stood on her toes to look over the field before her. From the higher vantage point, she could see the faint shape of the front lines as they shifted and buckled under the pressure from the Xenai. No matter how much power she sacrificed for reach, her source wouldn’t get even close to the front. The memory of pushing people with source while trapped in the Underground crowd was strong. She tried to ignore the desire to force her way to the front as she glanced around in every direction for something — anything — she could do. There was nothing.
As the minutes marched on, unorganized throngs of men pushed through the lines of soldiers in front of her, retreating with their wounds. She hopped off the cart, rushing to every injured man she could find, urging them to let her look at them. Minor injuries were a quick fix — she redirected the men back into the fight after she Lifecast a few minor spells to heal cuts and bones and to fool the body into not feeling pain from a superficial wound.
As she worked her way through the soldiers, she moved towards closer to the lines of men until she was in the middle of them. Soon enough, the sounds of the battle, so close to her, drowned out all other noises. Her attempts to speak to the injured fighters resulted in yelling matches where neither participant understood the other. The injuries quickly turned from broken bones, sprains, and shallow cuts to missing limbs, stomach wounds which were complex to heal in the best circumstances, and deep gouges that placed the soldiers seconds from death. Those unable to retreat for medical care filled every gap between the warring armies, many crushed as the battle wore on.
The putrid smell of death thickened as Shara rushed to stabilize as many soldiers as she could. She glimpsed a lean Inari boy on the ground, his dark hair instantly making her think it could be James. She rushed forward, kneeling next to the soldier and rolling him over to look into his face. His open and dull eyes were brown, not blue. Guilt welled up inside her as she rejoiced that the dead boy was not James.
The men in front of her abruptly began to retreat as she kneeled next to the boy. She jumped to her feet and allowed the force of the soldiers to push her back in the direction she had come from. No matter which direction she craned her neck, she could not get a glimpse of anything but soldiers with wide eyes that echoed a sentiment of impending death.
The hair on her arm raised on end before she heard the familiar crackle growing louder. She saw the flash as the source collided with a man to her right—bright sparks erupting from his back a moment before she smelled the burnt skin and clothes. His mouth opened in a scream as he began to jerk and crumble to the ground, but over the surrounding sounds, she couldn’t hear it.
She felt the electricity in the air building up again. Instinctively, she pushed against the people that were pressed against her so she could turn and face the cast that was bearing down on them. The mountain air was crisp and dry, but there was enough moisture added from the battle around her to use. Shara focused and felt the response as she collected all the moisture in the air and off the ground to form a wall of mist between the soldiers, herself, and the Xenai caster’s lightning. What little traces of water her source had found was augmented with the sweat, tears and the blood of fallen soldiers. Right before the lightning hit the wall, she snapped her fingers and felt the mist contact into a red-tinged barrier of ice. The lightning hit and the wall shattered, launching slivers of ice out from the impact site. She let go of the cast so that each projectile turned back into steam before any of the shards hit her and the fleeing soldiers. She stood slightly behind the rest of the army and knew that they would aim the next bolt at her.
She whipped around and burst into a run, conjuring up some wind at her back to push her and the Pact army forward. The electric charge was building up in the surrounding air. The timing had to be perfect. She let her vision blur and her training pushed the effort of running into the back of her mind. She focused solely on the source building up behind her. The sense of it drawing near grew stronger until her mind screamed that the lightning would hit her before she made her move. She waited one more second, then leapt as high in the air as she could, pulling the wind after her for an extra push as she launched off of a fallen log with a quick Ambercast. The bolt flew past her, beneath her feet, hitting the ground in front of her, igniting the brush into flames. She landed directly in the fledgling flame and dropped into a roll past the fire to prevent it from latching on as she felt the heat through her robes.
She searched behind her for the familiar draw of power that would indicate another bolt was heading her way, but she felt nothing close to her. Yells and screams broke out to her right, she turned her head to look as she continued to run. The soldiers were under a barrage of bolts. She saw a few people fall as another dozen streaks of lightning collided into them. She choked back a sob as she stumbled over a branch and fell to the ground.
As she pushed herself to her feet, she heard more cries to her other side. She looked and saw another series of bolts hitting another group. She watched as a young woman tried to roll to the ground to avoid being hit, just to be found by a second bolt in the volley.
They’re casting far away from me so I can’t sense it and block it.
She slowed down and placed a hand on a supply cart. The urge to stop running and face them down to save the army burned inside of her. She could sacrifice herself to save the soldiers. She could protect them long enough to retreat, but she wouldn’t be able to get away herself. She glanced at the cart as she continued moving, recognizing the chips of blue paint on the old worn wood.
If I had stayed where I was, I could have shielded their retreat without giving myself away too early.
She tried to tell herself she had healed more soldiers than she had left unprotected, but even she knew there was no way to know if that was true.
The walk back to the new camp location was longer, as Shara tortured herself over her own choices. She had barely walked through the wooden barricades before an officer approached her to inform her that the General was waiting or her in the command tent. Walking to the tent, she slid through the flap, hoping to find Hafi busy and be able to stay unnoticed along the wall. She was not so lucky.
“You stupid girl,” Hafi did not raise his voice to yell—each word came out like a low growl from a wild animal about to pounce. She had never heard Hafi speak in such a way, and it frightened her more than any amount of yelling could have. “Did you think I put you there for no reason?”
Shara stepped forward toward where Hafi leaned over the strategy table, “I was useless there! I went to heal some soldiers!”
The growl rose to a roar in Hafi’s voice, “You were useless until the moment I had planned for you to be of use! The men you healed couldn’t fight! Most won’t be able to fight still for a long time! Your disregard of orders killed dozens of soldiers that would have been ready to fight again tomorrow!” His voice lowered again to a growl, “If you pull shit like that again, I’ll send you back to Prin. I have enough untrained men who can’t follow orders. I don’t need to deal with a trained girl who won’t.”
Shara dropped her head, remembering the soldiers who had been hit by the bolts and the pile of mangled bodies in the Blight Field. It’s bad enough I might have been able to protect them during the retreat. But, both times I was the reason they targeted the men in the first place. She wrinkled her nose to fight back the tears welling up in her eyes. “Yes, sir,”.
“Get out of here.”
She turned without raising her head and walked from the command tent. Not knowing where her tent was in the new camp, she was certain that looking for the right flag would cause her tears to fall, so she walked to the edge of the camp, putting everyone behind her, then sat on the ground and cried.