Chapter 11: Recoup

  The clearing had fallen silent save for Cato’s pitiful moaning. Winnie seemed unconscious but breathing, as did their captured foe. The tiny creature was covered in blood from the pile of bodies it had landed in but not struggling. Shaking their bearded head, Nixen’s armored form moved toward the novices.

  Cato was awake, though moaning and making small pained movements with his body. He also seemed without visible injury, so Nixen moved over to Omara’s now alarmingly still form.

  Seeing that she was not breathing, Nixen swore and hurried to the mage. The dwarf knelt by her side, gently turning the woman onto her back. Seeing no visible wounds on the mage’s body and no joints awkwardly pointing in the wrong direction, Nixen gently cupped the back of the woman’s head and supported her neck as he moved her. He checked for a pulse and found nothing.

  No breathing, either.

  Nixen carefully readjusted her head to align her airway. With their other hand, opening her mouth and clearing it of any possible obstruction. Nixen pinched her nose then sealed his mouth over hers and blew hard.

  Repeating the breath, the dwarf sat up and placed both hands over each other just below the mage’s breastbone. The paladin gave the still form five sharply measured shoves.

  Then, moving back to breathe into her again, Nixen was caught off guard as she sat up, coughing, and smacked the brow of her face right into the dwarf’s helm.

  As the woman’s head clanged off the dwarf’s protected dome, there was a sorrowful hoot. Pellet flapped from the overhead branches.

  She landed next to her downed friend. Then, butting his head gently against her cheek, he hooted again and clacked his beak softly at her.

  Collapsing back to the ground, Omara continued coughing, swearing between breaths as she rubbed her forehead. Nixen sighed in relief at the sight of the mage breathing on her own again. Starting to help her to her feet, Nixen said,

  “Easy now, Omara. Easy, lass.”

  Cato stumbled over to the pair and mumbled while holding his head with one hand,

  “What the fuck…What the hell happened to Winnie? Is she starting a terrarium the hard way?”

  Omara looked a little unsteady but stood and worriedly gazed at the last of their party. She stepped closer to Winnie’s prone form before Nixen’s hand at her waist stopped her forward progress.

  She looked down at the dwarf with a questioning expression and asked,

  “Why aren’t you helping her?”

  Nixen had a worried expression as the dwarf replied while moving toward the downed woman cautiously,

  “I’m not sure if I can, lass. But I’ll do what I can until we get her the help she needs. This will probably need the Knowets and Mages branch of the guild to sort out.

  “I’ve heard rumors about strange magic causing transformations. That’s supposedly how Master Ian became a cave bear, but nobody has had the nerve to ask him directly.”

  Reaching the tall druid, the dwarf gently moved the owlet to one side. The bird tried to move back to her friend. Nixen gently moved her back again and murmured some words to reassure her. Seeing that the bird would not move back to interfere, Nixen extended their hands over the prone form and began to pray,

  “Oh, Jeph, purveyor of sustaining confectioneries, lend succor to my Kitchen staff. Her baking is not done, and I ask for time to prepare her needed aid,”

  Pausing to listen to something only the dwarf seemed to hear, they uttered the following words with a power that shook the air around them,

  “Deep freeze.”

  As the dwarf prayed, a soft glow enveloped the druid at the dwarf’s feet and moved up their body. Extending from their hands was a calming yellow light tinged with blue at the edges.

  At the final words of the paladin’s prayer, a barely seen flash emanated from the prone form of the druid, and her entire body was tinted a faint blue. Pellet waddled into her friend’s side. Nixen let her.

  Omara and Cato observed from slightly farther away before Cato spoke up,

  “As terrifying as that is that you can do whatever that was to someone, I have a different question besides why your prayers are phrased so oddly.

  “Why didn’t you heal Omara? That breathing thing you did seemed to work well enough, even with the creep factor of kissing her like that, but wouldn’t your magic have worked better?”

  The dwarf, carefully observing Winnie’s downed form, responded absently,

  “It’s not everyday magic. It’s divine favor, also called threshold magic.

  “Omara’s malady was easily treatable without it. Had that not worked, I would have asked Jeph to step in, but divine favor needs to be used sparingly.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Cato scoffed at this and said,

  “Your god demands baked goods in return for acting on that farmer’s behalf…do you know how stupid that sounds? The god’s rules make no sense.”

  The paladin eyed the glimpses of sky through the canopy with a thankful thought,

  No bread loaf-shaped thunderclouds, good. One less crisis to deal with right now.

  “You didn’t complain when Jeph healed your busted-up legs earlier. Quit questioning my God before he or I smite you.”

  “Even without the cost of the one healed being a factor, since Winnie obtained her injury in battle, Jeph would impose a very light cost. You are not in any god’s service, so it is difficult and dangerous to explain too much to you, but here’s a decent gist to shut you up.”

  Nixen pointed a finger at the sky.

  “He’s in charge, not you. Question his ways at your peril.”

  “If I could heal her from whatever was done to her in that explosion. I am unsure of the cost. I am not sure the county has enough flour to cover it, though.”

  Gazing at the druid, the dwarf noted that the long gashes and bite wounds covered with bark appeared larger than when he had first seen them on the girl. Before the blessing, the dwarf had also noticed more buds sprouting on the druid’s head. However, after Jeph’s blessing, the transformation slowed almost to a stop and reversed it to a small degree.

  An afterthought struck the paladin, and they looked at the surrounding trees. They noted a spot near where they had thought the scribe had been with depressions in the ground where a desk and chair might have rested.

  Ignoring that for now, the dwarf continued,

  “As it is, had I waited to ask for that blessing, I think Winnie would be much worse off than she is now. Show thanks next time you pass Jeph’s Temple because I have no idea what the fuck just happened.”

  Nixen surveyed the carnage of the scene.

  “In any case, we need to round the captured mobs up and harvest trophies from the dead for proof of the quest’s completion. Both ears where you can, tongues or what’s left of the head where you can’t. Let’s get to work. I’ll handle the captives.”

  The dwarf issued the orders and once again unslung their axe. They walked to several small saplings where they had spotted the out-of-place scribe. Nixen began cutting them down and trimming their limbs.

  As the paladin worked, a subtle scouring of the ground nearby made their chosen sapling sacrifices showed six circular impressions. Signs of a desk and chair. They hadn’t imagined it.

  Omara hadn’t moved from her spot. Instead, she was staring at the dwarf blankly as they worked, not comprehending the gruesome orders.

  Cato stated rudely,

  “Omara, trophies.”

  Omara paled. She turned to Cato,

  “Wait…trophies?”

  Cato grinned at her words as he replied,

  “This one I paid attention to. We don't get paid if we don’t have proof that the mobs hired to be cleared are dead. Grisly, I know, but Papa needs that gold, so let’s get to work.”

  Finished with his explanation, he retrieved his other dagger from the corpse he had left it in after a few grunts of moving the others out of the way to reach it. Having acquired his dagger once more, he casually started sawing at the ears of one of the bodies, muttering,

  “Tough little bastards, aren’t they?

  Omara’s mouth turned up in distaste, but she slowly withdrew her belt knife and approached the piles of dead bodies.

  She thought to herself,

  Where do I even start? Ew, ew, ew!

  While a disgusted Omara made gagging noises and a enthusiastic Cato bent to their grisly task, Nixen laid out the saplings they had trimmed down. Then, using some rope from Cato’s pack and an extra cloak from Omara’s, the dwarf quickly fashioned a drag litter.

  Then, fetching the bad-gir and younger captive from the first clearing, the dwarf dragged them to the litter and snagged the last white-furred creature that had led the ill-fated ambush against them.

  Judging the litter undersized for the burden, the dwarf took their cloak and some more rope and reinforced the work. The paladin nodded at the now-reinforced litter.

  Nixen thought constructive thoughts,

  It’s not pretty, but this paladin doesn’t serve Zach, the builder, either. We’ll need another for Winnie, though.

  Getting to work on another litter, they pulled another cloak from Cato’s pack and used the last of Omara’s rope to fashion it. Then, tightening the last knot, the dwarf stepped back to admire their work.

  Satisfied that his makeshift affronts to the crafting art would hold long enough to get them back to town Nixen loaded the unconscious monster bodies onto the ‘load bearing’ litter and Winnie gently onto the other. Pellet allowed Nixen to settle her softly onto one of the litter poles and then hopped to perch upon Winnie’s chest after Nixen covered the tall woman with a blanket.

  As the dwarf finished, Cato came trotting up, loaded with decapitated heads and some sets of messily chopped-off ears. Omara stumbled over behind him with her couple of sets of ears, pinched tightly between two fingers on either hand, and held as far away from her body as she could reach.

  Fetching the dwarf’s pack from the clearing where the two original captures had been, Nixen dug out two burlap sacks and held one open. Cato filled one with some of the trophies and placed the remainder in the other. As Cato took Omara’s pairs of ears, he wiggled them at her and then said,

  “Listen, you’ve got to get used to this.”

  Omara, with a profound look of disgust, replied,

  “I hate you. Not in a fun jesting way, either. You are a horrible person.”

  Cato grinned, then jiggled the sack with the heads in it,

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We’ve barely known each other a few months.”

  Omara’s face blanched, and she quickly rushed to a bush nearby and was noisily sick.

  Nixen shook their bearded head at Cato with a disapproving look and said,

  “Classy, as always, Cato.”

  Looking around at the leftover remains, Nixen spoke up again,

  “Alright, we’re done here. Let’s get back to town and inform the local lord that the job is complete. Cato, you’re carrying Winnie’s litter. We’ll do a last sweep through the original site of the complaint on the way back. We won’t dawdle, though. Winnie doesn’t have the time.”

  Pellet hooted forlornly at the statement, standing vigil on her friend’s chest.