Splinter Angel Chapter 99 (Patreon)

This is probably the longest chapter I've written of anything. Long enough, at about 7000 words, that I turned it into a two-parter, and that's how I'll post it on RR. But you all, my dear Patrons, get the whole thing in one go. Enjoy!

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“Sorry about that,” Ana told Deni, Mirell and Varron as they left the Revenant. “I hope it’s alright I roped you into more work.”

“I don’t think any of us expected to find the guilty parties there,” Deni said, the other two murmuring their agreement. “And I certainly don’t have any better plans tonight. Rel, Ron, how about you?”

“Nah,” Varron said. “Do you need us until then, though, Miss Ana?”

“No, not until sunset,” Ana said. Then she dropped her voice and added, “I think we all know they’re not going to show up tonight. It’s just a question if they hide or run. We may need to go hunting for them. Are you up for that? I can just bring people to you if not.”

“We’ll be at Petra’s,” Mirell said. “Anything you need us for, whenever you need us, that’s where you’ll find us.”

They walked together until the square, where Ana’s companions continued on as she dropped into the guard house to tell Falk what she had planned. The captain sighed, and simply acknowledged that she was telling, not asking. She couldn’t say for sure if he was opposed to what she was doing, but if he was he clearly didn’t think it was a battle worth fighting. And, she reflected, he must trust her not to do anything hasty. Mamtass the priest had told her that Falk worshiped the Lady of Justice, and not allowing the innocent to come to harm was apparently pretty central to that faith. No way would Falk give Ana free reign if he thought she might hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.

Then Ana returned to Touanne’s and crawled into bed with Messy. If she hadn’t already made enemies of Liu and Belov and the Stolen who listened to her, she definitely had today. It had been necessary, but her life going forward was going to be more difficult. Her nerves were frayed from a combination of a grinding anger that she could do nothing to relieve yet, and the fear that anything she did was going to put Messy in more danger. Frankly, she needed Messy to soothe and comfort her as much Messy needed her, and Messy was happy to oblige.

They got a few hours together. It was less than Ana had hoped, but more than she’d expected.

She’d told Deni and the others that she wasn’t sure if the perps would hide or run. A few hours into the afternoon she was woken from a nap with the answer: they’d run. Sira came hurrying to tell her that a group of half a dozen Stolen with camping equipment had left through the dawnward gate almost an hour earlier; apparently the guard on the gate hadn’t gotten the message to delay and report, and had simply let them go.

Ana thanked Sira, bit down on her renewed anger, and silently vowed to find out who the guard on the dawnward gate had been. Then she kissed Messy, threw on her boots, and ran out the door with her equipment in hand.

She desperately wished that Rayni or Omda were back, but her Party was still to the south. But she did have Deni and her friends, and she knew that Varron had been training his Survival Skills, including Tracking, to qualify for the Ranger Class. She tore up Main Street, turned west onto Cross, then turned onto the side street where Petra’s inn lay, leaving startled yelps and curses behind her as she passed people too fast for them to realize before she was long gone.

She threw the door to Petra’s open no more than a minute after leaving Touanne’s, exclaiming, “Deni, Mirell, Varron! It’s time!”

To her surprise she saw not only the three she’d expected, but Petra herself already in her armor and with her serious boots on. She had a light pack prepared as well, as did the three others. “Going after the shits who beat Messy?” the older woman asked as they all got to their feet.

“Yeah,” Ana confirmed. “They’re going dawnward, and they’ve got an hour’s head start.”

“Better not waste any time then,” Petra said, passing Ana in the door ahead of the others. “Come on! Get that armor on! You’re the only one not dressed for a chase!”

They crossed the outpost quickly, pausing only to tighten straps and secure buckles. Leaving through the dawnward gate and making for the forest, Ana took the lead, pulling Varron along to track.

“A medium-sized group definitely came this way, not long ago,” the Archer said between breaths. “Can’t tell you if it’s the right people, but odds are good.”

He led them to the edge of the trees where he called a halt, taking some time to look around. Several paths led into the forest in different directions — no surprise considering how often people came and went — and Varron performed what looked to Ana like some kind of arcane Tracking ritual. She had no idea if Varron was using a Perk, or if he was relying on practice and experience, but after a minute or so he confidently declared, “This way,” and took them along one of the paths.

It didn't take long before Deni and Petra started flagging, and Mirell and Varron weren't far behind. The one-mile run across the clearing had already been more than they were used to; they could march for hours, but there wasn’t much need for casual Delvers to run any real distances, especially at the pace Ana pushed them to. They were going to have to slow down to something more manageable or risk having some of them fall behind, no matter how determined they were.

Ana felt her frustration rising. Perhaps Mirell and Varron could handle a slightly slower pace until they caught the fleeing Stolen, but they’d have to drop to an eight-minute mile at best if they didn’t want Deni and Petra to collapse in the next few minutes. And while she only strictly needed Varron, she was aware that leaving two people who’d offered to help her behind in the forest would probably be seen as a bitch move. That, and they were chasing half a dozen people. If their quarry split up, Ana would need help running them down.

They could just slow down. They'd probably still catch the bastards.

Nah. Fuck that. Ana looked south, to where her Party was, and took a decision.

“Stop,” she told the others, her clear, easy voice contrasting embarrassingly with their labored breathing. They did as she said, confused but grateful as they tried to catch their breath. “Disband your Party, then accept my invitation. And brace yourselves. Maybe sit down, even. This is going to feel really good.”

Then she left her Party — she was going to owe them some apologies next time they met — and sent out the invitations.

She got some odd looks from Mirelly and Varron at her warning. Neither of them were slow to accept, though Petra was quick to accept and Deni’s was damn near instant. The young Evoker’s eyes lit up as soon as Ana mentioned a Party invitation, and the moment she accepted she let herself fall backward onto a patch of moss with a big, satisfied sigh.

“Gods beyond, Ana!” she laughed from the ground. “You need to be careful with this! People could start craving the rush!”

“You don’t say,” Ana deadpanned as she stood above her prone friend. Then she bent down, put her hands under Deni’s armpits, and easily hauled her to her feet, feeling the slight ache of the rough handling herself and ignoring it. Mirell and Varron, who’d both sat down in surprise, each got the courtesy of an extended hand to help them up. Only Petra had remained on her feet, though she still had a serene smile on her face. “I know it feels good,” Ana told Deni’s friends, who hadn't been in a Party with her before. “That’s 18 Points of Endurance and Vitality you’re feeling, as well as my Enhancements for those Attributes. But we’re not doing this for fun. Every second we sit here, those bastards get farther away. It’s time to run them down, and now you should have all the stamina you need to let you keep up with me for as long as it takes. Varron, take point!”

When they started again, everyone’s breathing was steady. Ana still wasn't going to push them too hard; running was as much technique as basic endurance and stamina, and she could see herself that none of the others were running very efficiently. Hell, she herself was very much an amateur. But she doubted anyone there had an Effective Endurance below 30 after her bonuses, and Indefatigable would let them push on regardless.

She pushed Varron to what she estimated as a six-minute mile. It might be hard on them, but they should be able to take it. And let a bunch of random people from the twenty-first century try to keep ahead of that!

“They move like they’ve never walked in a forest before,” Varron said in a steady cadence of two words, one breath, two words, one breath. “At least some of them”

It was easy to see what he meant. The ground was churned where people had tried to walk two or three abreast, slipping on fallen branches or stones instead of taking the easier path single file. Branches that could have been easily pushed aside had been hacked or snapped. Whoever had come this way before them clearly had no idea how to move through the forest, even along a well-trodden path like the one they were on.

They were perhaps half an hour and a few miles into the forest when Varron held up his hand for them to slow down. “Getting close,” he said softly as they dropped to a fast jog. “These tracks are only ten minutes old, fifteen at most, and they were walking. We should try to keep the noise down.”

Then they reached a small meadow among the trees, roughly circular and perhaps fifty yards across, and Varron halted them entirely. “Gods dammit all,” he swore. “They split up. I think they may have met someone, too. We’ll need to—”

Ana wasn’t sure what tipped her off. A soft sound, perhaps? The creak of wood under tension? Whatever it was it wasn’t conscious, but its presence registered only moments before Ana’s Danger Sense activated and her bonuses kicked in. And while Ana was fast, while she managed to scream “Ambush!” and shove Deni into the cover of the nearby trees, she wasn’t fast enough to dodge the crossbow bolt that punched into her side, piercing her armor just under her left arm, nor the one that took her low in the gut.

Ana’s first thought, there and gone in less than a heartbeat as she became aware of the injuries and the pain, was I’m dead. But the pain never left the background. It never touched her, and she never stopped moving. She’d shoved Deni, and she’d screamed, and now she kept moving, following Deni into the undergrowth and shouting, “Cover! Cover!” as she dove after the Evoker.

As she dragged Deni behind a tree, Ana cursed herself. She'd been doing a lot of that lately. A fucking ambush? Of course there’d be a fucking ambush! Falk had told her outright that he suspected some kind of conspiracy, but despite all her Acuity she hadn't considered that the conspirators might be willing to do their own dirty work. The guard on the gate hadn’t said anything about anyone accompanying the Stolen who left, and she in turn hadn't considered the possibility of some others leaving early. They must have known that she'd come looking for whoever hurt Messy. They must have instructed the Stolen who did it to run, and where to. The whole goddamn thing had been a setup from the start. It wasn’t even complicated, and she’d still missed it!

But that didn't matter in the moment. Ana had two bolts in her, and she fully expected whoever was out there in the trees to try and finish the job.

More bolts sliced through the foliage, but none hit. When she looked up, Ana saw Petra, Mirell, and Varron disappear into the trees at the other side of the clearing. Nobody looked hurt, and she couldn't see any spent bolts or arrows in the ground. The ambushers had all aimed at her.

It made sense, she supposed. She was the outsider. She was the Wayfarer’s Chosen. She was the one the Sentinel wanted dead so badly, because for whatever reason she was a threat to some grand plan to save the world. The others were neighbors and Guildmates before anything else. Perhaps even friends. The ambushers wouldn't want to hurt them if they could make sure that Ana was dead and then melt away into the forest.

Behind the tree, Deni’s thoughts caught up with the situation. “Oh, gods!” was all she managed to say as she looked at Ana in horror, reaching for the shaft of the bolt protruding from Ana’s stomach then aborting the gesture, as though realizing that anything she did might make things worse.

“I’m okay!” Ana hissed, keeping her voice down to make it harder for anyone to locate her by sound. She wasn’t sure if she was lying or not. She could draw breath normally, so the bolt that she’d felt punch into her side must not have gone deep enough to pierce her lung. “I’m going around the clearing. You stay in cover! If you see a target, use your judgment, but don’t take any risks!”

“But you—! You’re—!”

“We’ve got potions.” Ana looked out across the clearing as she unhooked her buckler from her belt. Only seconds had passed, and nothing had happened yet. “Be careful, okay?”

“Okay,” Deni replied, wild-eyed and bewildered. Ana couldn’t blame her. At least the last time they got shot at, they’d been the one to launch the surprise attack. “But—”

Ana didn’t stick around to hear her objection. She’d seen the rough direction the bolts and arrows had come from. She knew where she wanted to go, and she set off in a series of short sprints, moving from tree to tree and knowing that every time she passed between two trunks she left herself open to some shot or Shaping. With every stride she felt the bolt move around inside her — an awfully disturbing sensation — and she could only pray that it was an armor piercing one and not a broadhead. If not for Fight Through she’d have been incapacitated by pain, she was sure of that. And perhaps it was stupid to move the way she did. Perhaps she was killing herself; she could feel her tunic clinging to her as blood soaked into it, and there was a sticky wetness creeping downward, already all the way to the top of her thigh. But she’d do the same if she fled, and she definitely wasn’t staying where she was, waiting for the ambushers to close in and finish her off. No, she thought, it was better to take her chances and go on the offensive. She already had her shield and started to draw her weapon from its loop, but thought better of it; with a weapon in hand, she doubted that she’d leave anyone alive for questioning. Better to leave her left hand free.

Behind Ana, Deni overcame her surprise and shouted, “Circle! Circle!” presumably to the other half of their Party. She checked the direction of each of them relative to her, and found them moving, just as Deni had called out. Good. They weren’t letting the ambush keep them down, and she’d have backup — or a distraction, at the very least. She deliberately slowed down in her circling maneuver, taking longer in the cover of each tree before moving on and letting the others catch up on the other side.

Every time she stopped she listened carefully, and after only a few bursts of movement, perhaps thirty seconds after the ambush had been sprung, she heard terse voices, the words indistinct but unmistakably in Inter-Guild. Then a raspy woman’s voice called out, “We only want Cole! The rest of you are free to go! Petra, Deni, please! There’s no—!”

She was cut off by Deni’s cry of, “Eria? You fucking traitor!” Her voice shuddered, like she was half in tears. That was followed closely by one of Deni’s plasma bolts, which blew a smoldering chunk out of a tree across the clearing approximately where the voice had come from. Deni might be pretty much a one-trick pony, but it was a hell of a trick.

There was a chorus of alarmed cries from near where the bolt had struck, and Ana took advantage of the ambushers presumably pulling their heads down. With a burst of speed that was practically a single leap she covered the distance between her current shelter and the next. Steel-tipped wood thrummed through the air behind her — clearly not everyone had taken cover — and when she stilled again she heard cursing from up ahead cursed. She caught the same woman, Eria, saying, “...too fast! She’s too damn fast!” Then a nasal man’s voice, which she thought she recognized, said, “Parser’s on the move, right side!” and another, “From the left! They’re almost—!”

Ana took that as her cue. If the others were almost upon the ambushers, then she needed to get in there.

There was the snap of a crossbow loosing from above and in front of her, and  moments later, Deni’s startled yelp from behind. Ana gritted her teeth against the urge to run back to see if the girl was okay, and instead raised her eyes to higher in the trees. And there, among the branches of something like a very stout birch, was the shape of a man reloading his crossbow.

The bastard had taken a shot at Deni. He wasn’t getting another.

Ana could have easily climbed the tree, but she wasn’t going to waste time or make herself an easy target. Manifesting her wings, she took one leaping stride into the open and launched herself into the air, something hissing through the air just below her as she beat hard and shot straight for the crossbowman.

With his attention on Deni it took him a second to see Ana coming, and that was one second too long. He was still swinging his crossbow toward her and had just begun to cry out in alarm when she struck. She’d turned her body so that she avoided the larger branches and the trunk of the tree and hit him headlong, smashing into the half of his body that was exposed to her with her shoulder and sending him screaming and tumbling away from the tree.

He hadn’t been high up. No more than forty-five or fifty feet. If he had a decent Vitality he might survive, not that it mattered to Ana. As long as he was out of the fight, she was satisfied, because below her, each in cover behind a tree, were four armed people she recognized with varying levels of certainty. Beyond them was a huddled group of seven that had no fucking idea how lucky they were that Ana had spoken to Falk that morning. Some were looking in the direction of Petra’s half of the Party. Most were looking up, either at her or the crossbowman, tracking him as he plummeted to the ground.

Ana burned every one of their faces into her memory. She didn’t expect them to stick around.

One of the armed four raised her crossbow in Petra’s direction.

Ana folded her wings and dropped, but not fast enough. In the two seconds it took her to reach the ground, the woman with the crossbow had already loosed in the direction of Ana’s friends and put her foot in the stirrup to reload.

Ana landed hard right next to the woman. She led with her fist, which she drove into the ambusher’s spine so hard that she felt flesh and bone give as she drove her to the ground. The woman didn’t even scream — there was a wet, popping “Ah!” as the force of Ana’s blow compressed her chest against the ground, but that was it. Then the confused yelling turned to terrified screaming, and Ana got to work.

Ana launched herself out of her crouch and at a goateed man that she recognized as one of the food vendors who usually occupied the square around midday — Toldor? Tolgor? Something like that. A crossbow bolt flashed in from the direction of the clearing. It passed behind her, and there was a shocked gasp as it hit someone close-by, presumably one of the others in the group of four amongst whom she’d landed. The food vendor struggled to draw a sword; Ana incapacitated him by the simple expedient of grabbing him by the wrist, yanking and twisting his arm toward herself, and smashing her shield into his extended elbow. In quick succession he went from surprised yell, to panicked scream, to agonized shriek, as the joint bent backward with a dull Crack.

Half a second later she punched out with her shield again — this time at his shoulder, shattering it and turning his shriek into a dazed wheeze before she remembered that she wanted at least some of these people alive.

She shoved the man away and whirled around to take in the situation. The woman she’d struck was motionless on the ground; if she wasn’t dead, she was dying, paralyzed, or both. A second woman — practically a girl, really — slumped against a tree, pain and terror in her eyes as she clutched at a few inches of thick, feathered wood that had pinned her skirt to her leg, mid-thigh. Beside her was a grim-faced man, his face covered in a few days’ black stubble, and Ana knew this guy well enough that seeing him there actually hurt. The civilians were one thing, but this was one of the militia: a Hunter named Rohger, who’d been in Simt the Kineticist’s team. She’d trained him. She’d spoken with him, and he’d never been anything but polite. He’d joined in the attack on the white obelisk without complaint, and she’d never seen a hint that he might be one of the Sentinel’s fanatics. Yet here he was, trying to kill her.

There was something pained in his eyes as he drew back the string of his bow, but he did it, and his arrow was aimed straight at Ana’s heart. As she stared at the thick, narrow head of the arrow she became very aware of the two bolts already in her, doing gods only knew what kind of damage. With potions, and so close to the outpost, a gut-shot was survivable. The bolt had struck her low in the belly, away from the liver, spleen, and pancreas; her Vitality should carry her through the bleeding, as long as none of the major arteries were hit; and with any luck Panacea should mean that there was no risk of the massive infections that would usually follow a damaged bowel.

The injuries she already had might be survivable. She very much doubted that she’d survive a heart-shot.

Behind Rohger, the Stolen broke. They turned and ran, some staying together, others taking off on their own. To Ana’s right, Petra and Mirell left their cover and charged in, Varron behind them with his bow bent and an arrow nocked. Behind her, she knew that there must be at least two more attackers in the bushes under the tree she’d just knocked a man out of, but they’d unloaded their crossbows in the last few seconds. They might have reloaded; there might be more than two. Without being able to see them, the man holding a bent bow on her had to take precedence. She hoped that her allies would deal with the others.

Instinctively throwing one of her wings between them to foul his aim, Ana charged at Rohger, turning her body sideways and leading with her shield at the same moment he loosed. Something saved her; he’d shifted his aim, and the arrow bounced hard off her neck guard. An inch to the left, and it would have taken her in the throat. But Rogher wasn’t done. The moment his arrow was away he leapt backward, quickly drawing a long knife on his belt which he swung in a wide arc.

It wasn’t good enough. Ana remembered Rogher as attentive during her training sessions, but the short time they’d had hadn’t turned him into a fighter. He was trying to get around her shield, which was reasonable, but his movement was huge, obvious, and left him wide open.

Ana was in an awkward position to block the Hunter’s swing, so instead she bent her knees more and dropped under it. The blade Whooshed harmlessly above her head as she stiff-armed Rogher in the gut with her shield, driving him back and the air from his lungs. She pressed forward, driving with her legs and supported by her wings, and by sheer strength she bore him off his feet and put him on his back in the moss.

Ana ended up in a half straddle, one leg bent and pressed into Rogher’s waist. He’d kept his hold on the knife, but when he tried to stab her she punched out with her buckler. There was a wet Crunch as she connected, and the blade went flying as Rogher’s mangled hand swung out and into the ground. The man let out a high-pitched wheeze, which turned into an awful, wet gargle when Ana punched him once, hard, in the sternum.

“Bastard!” Ana screamed as she drove her fist down, and there was far more betrayal and pain in that one word that she’d care to admit. She felt bone break, and used her wings to lift herself to her feet and turn around. Maybe he’d live. Maybe he’d suffocate, or drown in his own blood. Served him right, the piece of shit. She’d trained him. She’d given weeks of her life, pushed herself far beyond what she was comfortable with, for him and everyone around him. He’d looked her in the eye and thanked her. Now she knew what his gratitude was worth.

She tried to tell herself that he didn’t matter, but she couldn’t tell if she’d stopped after that one blow because she hoped he’d live, or because she didn’t want to make dying easy for him.

The fact that the Stolen were running pissed her off beyond belief, but they were less important than these traitors, and the fight was still on. Only…

Ana staggered. She smothered a gasp as the pain flooded in, all at once, and had to fight herself to keep from curling up around the bolt in her stomach. The fight was over.

She took in the scene. Among the trees and bushes, three people lay still on the ground. One of them was smoking and slightly on fire — Ana vaguely remembered hearing another of Deni’s bolts, but hadn’t realized that it hit anything. Rogher writhed on the ground at her feet, breathing in short, agonized gasps. A little farther away the food vendor wept softly over his ruined arm. The girl with the bolt in her leg sat slumped against her tree, absolutely still, Varron holding her at knifepoint as he checked her for weapons. And at the foot of the tree from which Ana had knocked that first crossbowman, Petra and Mirell held their weapons trained on a kneeling woman. A crossbow lay several yards away, as though thrown, and the woman was in the process of removing her sword belt with slow, deliberate movements.

Ana knew her, too. She was a little older than the average in the outpost, appearing in her thirties or forties. Deni had said her name. It began with… an E, maybe? Another person she’d trained, at any rate. Again, the betrayal was much more personal, much more painful, than when it was just someone whose life she’d fought to save.

“Gods dammit, Eria,” Petra said, and her voice was thick with betrayal. “Why?”

Eria threw her sword belt and the sheathed sword and dagger on it far to the side, and replied in that raspy voice that had called out earlier, now tired and defeated. “It’s necessary, Petra. The Lord of Order says that her death is necessary. And he doesn’t lie.” As though she could feel Ana staring at her, Eria looked up, meeting Ana’s eyes. Her breath caught for a moment, like most people’s did unless Ana tried very hard, but she recovered and said, “I’m sorry, Miss Ana. I really am. But it’s necessary.”

“Fuck you,” Ana hissed, stumbling forward. God, the pain was bad. Some combination of Attributes and pure bloodymindedness kept her from falling to her knees, but her belly was on fire, and every heartbeat was like a small explosion going off, radiating agony from where the bolt pierced her. She really wasn’t sure that she hadn’t killed herself by moving and jostling the damn thing around in her guts the way she had.

“What about Messy?” Ana spat every word as she struggled to keep her breathing under control, and Petra rushed to her side as she took another step toward the kneeling traitor. “Was that necessary?”

“Hearthlord preserve us, Ana! Are you alright?” Petra asked.

Ana ignored her. “Was that necessary?” she repeated.

“Yes, for all the good that will do me,” Eria said. She looked away. At least she had the good taste to look ashamed. “We had to—”

At that point Deni stormed out of the bushes, stalking straight toward the kneeling Eria, and all eyes went to her as she shrieked, “Traitor! You fucking traitor! We were friends!” Tears streamed from her eyes from some combination of emotional and physical agony; blood dripped from the fingers of her left hand as her right held on tight, trying to staunch the bleeding around a bolt that had taken her in the forearm. It had gone straight through; Ana could see the thick, square head sticking out an inch or so from the flesh.

“Deni!” Eria exclaimed. “Oh, gods, I’m so sorry! You weren’t supposed to—”

Deni kicked the older woman in the mouth, and she went down with a muffled groan. Mirell’s arms wrapped around Deni as her boot lashed out again and hit Eria in the stomach, and then Deni was being hauled back, spitting and cursing at both Eria for being a traitor, and at Mirell for not letting her kick the shit out of her.

If it had been Ana, she probably wouldn’t have stopped the girl quite so soon. She wasn’t sure what the story was, but it was clear that both Petra and Deni had considered Eria a friend. And she was in too much pain to worry too much about things like that for the moment.

“We need some of them alive,” Ana told Petra, her words coming out clipped, but more controlled. She didn’t want to breathe too much; breathing hurt. “The more, the better. But Deni needs medical attention. Me too.” She groaned between clenched teeth as she breathed a little too deep, the movement of her abdominal muscles shifting the bolt. The one in her side, she realized, had come loose at some point. That whole side of her body felt wet and sticky all the way to her boot. That couldn’t be good.

“Ana, we… we need to get that out of you!” Petra stammered, her eyes wide and fixed on the short length of wood sticking out of Ana’s gut.

“Doesn’t matter.” Eria’s words were pained as she slowly got up from the ground and back on her knees. Blood trickled down her chin from a split bottom lip where Deni’s boot had caught her. “She won’t make it back to the outpost. Not even with potions. Those bolts were covered with enough poison to kill a giant. I’m amazed she’s still on her feet. We won.”

But there was no triumph in Eria’s voice. It was pained and hollow as she looked at Deni, who’d stopped fighting Mirell and now sat on the ground, eyes fixed on the traitor as her friend tied a tourniquet above the bolt piercing her arm. “I’m sorry, Deni,” Eria said. “I’m so sorry. I hated that they dragged Mestendi into this, but that was necessary. I hoped that… Nobody else was supposed to get hurt! We just needed to get a hit, and get out. And now you, and Mista—”

Eria’s voice broke as she looked at the girl with the bolt in her leg. Ana followed her eyes, and realized that the girl — Mista, apparently — was too still. She was motionless, and her head hung, but not in defeat. Her chest wasn’t moving.

Varron had apparently realized the same thing. He gently put his free hand under the girl’s chin, lifting her head, and her half-lidded eyes stared straight ahead, unfocused and glassy.

Varron sheathed his knife. Then he carefully laid the dead girl on the ground, and closed her eyes.

Poison, Ana thought. It had been less than a minute since someone, either Eria or the smoking corpse, accidentally put a bolt in that girl’s leg. She looked at Deni, one of those same bolts through her arm and dripping with blood. Thank the gods, or the System, or just dumb luck for Panacea. If not for that, Ana suspected that she’d already be dead.

That wasn’t my doing, the Wayfarer whispered. That was luck. But I’ll take partial credit for Bastion. It’s all keeping your friend alive, after all.

Deni, who’d just realized that a girl much like herself had just died after being hit with one of the same bolts as her, looked like she was about to faint. Her aura flared sharp and cold with horror as she stared, stricken, at the bolt in her arm and breathed, “Oh, no. No, no, no…”

“It’s okay, Deni,” Ana said, pulling Petra along as she forced herself to take the few steps needed to close the distance, to carefully crouch and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay! Think!”

Deni turned her eyes on Ana, tears streaming down her face, and Ana saw the moment she remembered Ana telling her and the others in the Party about Panacea and asked them to keep quiet about it. Deni gasped, a little inhaled, “Oh!” and relief, warm and soft, flooded the space between them, washing away the horror. The tears didn’t stop, though. If anything they increased, as Deni threw her good arm around Ana, burying her face in the crook of Ana’s neck, sobbing with relief. “Oh, thank the gods! Thank you, Ana! Thank you! I thought I was dead!”

“Careful!” Ana said, awkwardly pulling away without breaking Deni’s embrace, her shimmering wings closing around them. “Still have this fucking thing in me!”

“What?” Deni sobbed. Then she gasped and let go, leaning back and covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Ana, I’m so sorry!”

“You’re good. No harm done. But I really need this thing out. Mirell, Varron, can you look after the prisoners and stand guard while Petra helps us with these damn things?”

“There’s no point,” Eria said from where she crouched on the ground, but no one paid her any mind. “They’re already dead. They—”

“We need to get your armor off, Ana,” Petra said softly and started working on the straps. “I’m sorry Deni, but you’ll have to wait. Can you get some potions and clean cloth out with your good hand?”

“I’ll try,” Deni sniffled.

“Can’t leave the tourniquet on for too long,” Ana argued. “Her hand needs blood.”

“Her hand won’t die in the next few minutes,” Petra shot back, all business now that she had a task to solve. “You might. Gods only know what your insides look like. Eria! Bodkins or broadheads, what did you use?”

“I told you, there’s—” the traitor started.

Petra cut her off without looking up from the straps she was working on. “Mirell, if that backstabber says anything that isn’t an answer to a question, kick her in the mouth again for me! Now, Eria: bodkins or broadheads? And I will punish you if you lie to me, no matter how long we’ve known each other.”

Eria hesitated, then muttered, “Bodkins. All of them.”

“Good. Okay, Ana, that’s all of them. Lay down for me, okay? I’ll help you. And your wings won’t get in the way, right?”

“They’re not real. Just light,” Ana said. “Or maybe mana. They’ll be gone in a moment either way.”

“Good. Now, we’re going to need to lift the front plate of your armor off you and pull the bolt in one go. Deni, give her a potion and stand ready with another one.”

Deni did as Petra told her, and helped Ana drink down a potion. Ana remembered that eating and drinking were emphatically not something you were supposed to do after suffering a gut wound, but magical healing potions were presumably a special case. She was also pretty sure that you weren’t supposed to just pull out something lodged in your flesh — they should be carefully cut out — but again: magic potions. And she only needed to survive long enough for Touanne to get her hands on her.

When they’d made what preparations they could, Petra got to work.

As Varron stood watch against any new threats, and Mirell watched the — for now — three surviving ambushers, Petra fully undid the last of the straps and clasps so the front of the armor could be fully separated from the back. Then she started working her right hand in under the armor from the side. “I’ll need to be able to pull straight up on the bolt,” she explained.

Ana just gritted her teeth and nodded. No matter how gentle Petra was, it rated among the worst experiences of Ana’s past few months. With every small movement of the armor the shaft of the bolt tore at the skin and muscle that held it, and the point constantly jostled around inside her, a sensation that was as filled with abject wrongness as it was painful. The potion she’d drunk was either not strong enough to numb the pain, or it was just that bad. It was to the point where Ana almost wished that one or another of her Attributes was low enough to let her pass out, but no; she was strong enough to stay awake for the whole damn thing.

Finally Petra stopped. She had her left hand firmly around the protruding shaft of the bolt, and Ana could feel her right palm flat against her stomach, pinching the bolt on the other side between her tunic and the leather of her armor. “Alright, Ana,” the innkeeper said, “it’s time to get that armor off, and get the bolt out of you. And I’m afraid this is going to be really bad.”

As though it isn’t already, Ana thought. But to Petra she just nodded and gasped out, “Go on. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Deni,” Petra said seriously, “Be ready with that potion. There’s going to be a lot of blood. Maybe some… other stuff. I’ll wipe away what I can, and then I want you to press the mouth of that flask directly into the wound and pour it in. Spill as little as you possibly can. Alright?”

“Alright,” Deni said. Her voice was a little wobbly, and her aura was all over the place, but Ana had faith in her. She’d never let her down yet. “What about her other wound?”

“If she can breathe, and it hasn’t killed her yet, then it can wait until we’re done with this,” Petra said. She licked her lips, and though her voice was steady, Ana could see the nervous sweat beading on her forehead. “Alright. Let’s do this. On one. Three, two—”

On a silent “one” Petra pulled. It was a straight, firm, and even pull, and Ana screamed through clenched teeth as everything she was tried to leave her along with that bolt. She barely registered the next minute or so, as her world became a confusion of pain and the mingled stench of blood and shit, and she put every ounce of her will into not lashing out at Petra and Deni as the first tore her tunic and wiped away what she could from her bare stomach so the second could shove a goddamn bottle in there and pour liquid fire into her torn bowels.

Things went mercifully dark and numb for a short while after that.

Ana came back to with a gasp and a groan. Petra was still pressing a thick, folded cloth to the wound, and Deni was wiping Ana’s brow with something pleasantly cool. She couldn’t have been out long; the sun hadn’t moved, but more importantly, neither had Varron, who stood right where he had before the bolt came out. The man looked a little green, but otherwise alright.

Petra lifted the cloth to take a quick look at the wound, and heaved a great sigh. “Alright,” she said, “the bleeding’s slowed. I don’t think we’ll need that second potion after all.”

Around that point Eria seemed to accept that Ana wasn’t going to die from the poison, or from the bleeding, and that everything she and her co-conspirators had done had been for nothing. She slowly folded on herself, hugging her knees and burying her face, and in her haze of pain Ana didn’t even pretend that the sound of her misery and defeated weeping didn’t bring a deep, spiteful satisfaction.

It was nowhere close to what the woman deserved, but it would do for now.