Michael had grown used to the sights, smells, and sounds of infirmaries by this point. They smelled either sickly and of rot, or unnaturally clean. They all had the same basic layout of beds in a row and tables or trays covered with small covered bottles, either glass or clay. There would occasionally be some side rooms for patients of status or those who needed to be quarantined, and the sounds of groaning, yelling, or even the calm tones of medics trying to soothe patients could be heard all throughout. It wasn’t too different from medical facilities back home. There must’ve been some doctor, nurse, or medic takers that had been good enough to inform the locals of germ theory and proper wound care. That or the locals were just smarter about those kinds of things than people on Earth were.

  The infirmary in Hillsedge was no different than the others. It was more on the clean side, and there were fewer screams which he counted in its favor. There were dozens of injured men and women in the beds, the most he’d seen since he was on the front lines in Stent. The wounds were varied, but most he recognized as caused by the spears and cleavers of the horned men, though a few were damaged by fire magic, and some appeared to have been harmed by some form of acid, perhaps one of the chitinous creatures Michael had seen that were under the same banner as the horned men and lizardfolk. He could tell that they must’ve had at least a few healers available as several of the injured seemed to have received at least partial healing.

  He didn’t hesitate, moving to the nearest bed and starting his healing with a man who had been skewered through his center by a spear. Once he was done Michael moved to a man that had a deep gouge out of his right side. After that he moved to the next. As he worked he could hear one of the medics moving to approach him.

  Knight Blake intercepted, not wanting him to be interrupted. “Let the man work.”

  “But, we have men who should focus on getting back into the field. Those men are as stable as they’re going to get.”

  “He’ll have this entire place up to fighting ten wars at once, dancing, and drinking the night away within the next hour, mate,” said Ollie.

  The medic began to argue, but while he was doing so Michael was already on the sixth injured. This was a female militia member who’d had half her teeth knocked out and a concussion. Once he was done with her he moved onto a man whose spine had been severed by a cleaver. At this point the line of people he’d healed was starting to regain their awareness and test healed limbs and restored senses. Michael kept moving.

  There were multiple medics that had tried to stop or redirect them, but he let Blake and Ollie run interference so he could focus on his healing. He remembered the first time he’d healed the fort infirmary in Stent. How it had taken all of his energy to heal every last one of them. It still wore on him a bit, but even once he’d hit the halfway point, the tipping point at which there were more healed than injured, he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  His Eyes of Love and Eyes of Judgement began to activate unbidden as he worked. He could see a soldier’s connections to his wife and children in Lataxia. He could sense the sins of a woman who had lied, cheated, and stolen all her life and in spite of that had pushed an ally out of the way of a spray of acid and taken the blow herself. He always felt a kind of closeness to people as he healed them and as he divined them. It was a necessary part of the process, but as he worked on these men and women he felt as if he knew them. As if he bore all of their loves, their hates, their triumphs, and their failures himself. His healing grew even more effective and quick as that feeling grew and before he knew it he was done healing the entire infirmary.

  Many of those he’d healed had run out of the infirmary, not wanting to waste their newfound health and rushing to their loved ones or even commanding officers for fresh orders. Others stayed, confused at their sudden recovery, and many actually watched Michael as he went person to person and healed them. When he was done there were more than a dozen men and women following him. He healed the last man, a knight who had sprained his ankle, and turned to look at the audience he’d gathered.

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  “I thank the divine for giving me the power to restore your strength and remove your pain. The gods are back, and I am their champion. As long as I am here this infirmary will be empty.”

  With that he finally let the gold glow on his hand fade and felt the warmth of Sara’s hand fade with it. He felt… raw. Not from exhaustion, but emotionally. Seeing all those threads of connection and knowing all the evils the men and women he’d healed had done seemed to take a toll on him. He wasn’t sure why it had started as it had, but he felt Veras and Estaid’s eyes on him, the warmth of their attention on his back.

  He managed to walk calmly out of the infirmary then slipped into a small alley between buildings and closed his eyes, taking a number of long slow breaths to calm himself.

  “You alright, mate?” asked Ollie.

  He shook his head. “I’m fine. Had a few abilities activated I wasn’t expecting. Took a bit more out of me.”

  Ollie nodded and took a step forward, placing a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Want to drink seven beers about it?”

  Michael laughed. “Yes, I suppose I could do that.”

  …

  Michael, Lance, Laird, Ollie, and Blake were headed toward a nearby rift along with a small retinue of twenty soldiers. Michael had cured Ollie and Blake of their hangovers that morning and learned shortly after that they’d be marching toward the nearest rift first thing.

  They’d been marching for most of the morning and into the afternoon and Michael could feel the rift was close by. He had been surprised at the number of soldiers that had been given orders to go with them, but once the enemy force came into view he started to have a better understanding.

  The horned men were arrayed in neat rows with spears and shields at the front. Behind them were horned men with javelins in baskets on their backs, and behind them were lizardfolk beginning to spin up their magicka channels. This was the first time Michael had seen them in anything like a formation. They also seemed better armed and armored than he’d seen in the past, and they’d clearly moved to intercept them on the way to the rift which meant that their approach had been watched, perhaps they’d been seen by one of their silver winged scouts.

  Lance and the other knights prepared their lances as the Hume soldiers quickly and efficiently fell into their own formation. It was decided that Michael would stay primarily with the main forces to keep them standing, and Ollie would remain in the center of the formation to take advantage of the protection they offered.

  The knights thundered forward on their mounts toward the rift monster’s front lines. Their lances all struck true and they trampled their way across a few of the horned men on the edges, but the enemy formation didn’t break. Lance and the knights fell back, getting just within range of Michael so that he could restore them and their mounts before they went in for another charge. After the third they broke away completely as the soldiers were nearly in range.

  Michael stepped forward to the center of the formation and raised his mace.

  “Hail the gods!” he said and holy flame enveloped Ruin.

  The horned men all staggered back and hesitated at the sight of the flames, and Michael and the soldiers took that moment to rush forward into them. Michael acted as a one man speartip, his flaming mace breaking through the armor of the nearest of the horned men, immolating him. He kicked the flaming corpse into the others, and as they scattered Ollie flung a fireball into their newly unprotected center. From there Michael and the soldiers were able to clean everything up while the knights harassed them from the sides. A few soldiers nearly went down, but Michael had been healing them before they even knew what had happened.

  Once the last of the lizardfolk was dead from a cutting spell that Ollie flung at him, the road was clear again and they were moving forward toward the rift. Unfortunately they seemed to be ready, and there were now two formations of similar size to the last one approaching them.

  Michael cracked his neck to the left and the right. Lance had told them he’d learned that they were more organized, but Michael had been unsure of what shape that would take. They were certainly more formidable, and would definitely create a greater struggle for rank and file soldiers. He and Ollie though, were far from rank and file at this point. He rolled the mace around in his hand, feeling Durand’s joy at his strength.