Book 2 Ch 27: Good Sign

The cleanup went smoothly, with only one more loss of a woman Michael hadn’t yet learned the name of whose skull had been shattered before anyone could do anything. Michael closed her eyes gently and said a prayer over her body.

“Who are you praying to?” asked Suraj. He’d just finished giving a few orders to the others, but had waited respectfully for Michael to finish what he was doing.

“The divine.”

Suraj frowned. “You think they can help her? Her spirit?”

Michael nodded. “With all they’ve done for me, yes I think they can.”

Suraj shook his head. “You’re like a character from a movie. It’s very funny,” he said without even a hint of a smile on his face. “‘We have the gods on our side’, is a mad thing to say in the middle of a fight, but I have to admit it got a fire burning in my chest when I heard it.”

“In your chest? Sorry about that, it was just meant to be on my sword.”

Suraj gave an amused scoff before walking off to check on some of the others.

Michael was slipping his divine symbol back into his shirt when Pyotr approached carrying Syl bridal style. She was bleeding heavily from her calf.

“I told you I do not need to be carried,” she said, indignant.

“This is faster than you stumbling your way downhill,” replied Pyotr. He gestured with his head from Michael to her. “Would you mind?”

Michael nodded, “Of course. Sorry, if I’d realized you were injured I would have come right away.” He’d already healed all of the others’ injuries, but hadn’t seen her. He supposed that was kind of the point of where she’d been hiding.

He sealed the deep wound in her leg and she pushed herself off from Pyotr, only taking a moment to look over her shoulder and say “thank you” to Michael.

Pyotr watched her walk away appreciatively, in spite of the fact that, in Michael’s opinion, there really wasn’t much to be appreciating.

“Wasn’t she… on the opposite side of the fighting from you?” asked Michael.

Pyotr shrugged. “I just thought I might check on her.”

“And you think that worked?”

Pyotr chuckled. “It will eventually.”

Michael doubted that given her reaction, but considering how far out of the game he’d been since he died, he supposed he may not have a clue.

He walked over to one of the enemy corpses and grabbed it by the horns to get a better look at them. Their faces were a bit more elongated than humans, and their legs had odd joints like those of a goat, but they had clawed feet rather than hooves. Their weapons seemed crude at a glance, but when he looked closer they seemed to be surprisingly well made. One of them had a belt with some pouches and he opened it. He pulled out a yellow-white statuette of a female figure with horns. She seemed…motherly, but for all he knew she was the height of sexuality for the maneaters. The texture of it felt familiar.

“Bone,” he muttered to himself. He considered dropping it there, but instead he took a moment to bury it and say a short prayer on the off chance they were human remains. These creatures ate men, and looked terrifying, but he wondered what they were like. Much like the last time he’d fought them he was also surprised at how easy the fighting had been for him. He’d had much the same feeling when they were fighting the yeti. He took a moment to divine the bodies and saw not a hint of the golden divine energy that floated around him and the others. Perhaps that was the answer? Titles and Deeds were levelling the playing field and giving humans an edge they wouldn’t have otherwise. Is that why they had them?

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He sighed, in spite of all the questions he’d been asking he still hadn’t reached any answers, but he’d keep looking, just like he’d keep seeking the gods.

He walked over to Suraj who was watching as everyone finished gathering arrows and getting ready to head back to the village.

“Suraj, on the way back I’d like to break from the group for a day, maybe less.”

He shrugged. “Current job’s over, do what you want as long as you catch up to us.” He paused for a moment. “Can I ask why?”