by D. R. Rosier
I nodded in agreement, “Two and half more days.”
She stared into my eyes, and I felt pinned down again, but not like a butterfly to a board this time. She wasn’t studying me like a bug anymore, more like a hunter and her prey. The desire in her eyes was shocking. Then she abruptly turned away and got back on her horse with a casual leap. Fuck, I was hard as a rock, and she still intimidated the hell out of me. She was going to kill me before this temporary alliance was done.
Regina patted my ass, and then winked at me salaciously when I looked over. Damn, Saria was going to kill me, and my fiancé was going to egg her on. Regina was enough for me, no matter how damned tempting Saria might be, but Regina wasn’t interested in being enough.
It still boggled my mind, and as I was learning, was making the concept hard to resist. I’d always been faithful back on my world to the woman I dated, despite offers, but it was a lot more tempting when my fiancé was pushing me in that direction. I really had no moral compunctions against it either, and there were no vows on the line, just societal expectations from a society I no longer lived in. Instinctually, men wanted to spread their seed liberally. The full truth of why I’d never cheated, had been societal expectations, plus the love I held for a woman I didn’t want to betray or hurt. Both of those reasons didn’t exist here on this new world, but I was still in the process of feeling that viscerally.
Regardless, I wasn’t going to get my hopes up for anything with Saria, our relationship would be doomed if we started one. She was obviously attracted to me, perhaps as much as I was to her, but she was just as obviously determined to fight that attraction.
We both mounted up and followed Saria out onto the road.
We hadn’t gotten very far down the road when Saria once again held up her hand, looked into the forest, and stopped the horses. The forest wasn’t very thick here at all, and I could easily see about fifty feet in, but I still didn’t see a damned thing. I’d been giving it some thought, and decided she was somehow either talking below the range of human hearing, elven hearing was quite remarkable, or they were somehow signaling messages with heat variations in the visual spectrum that humans couldn’t see but they could.
I also figured it was one of their military secrets, so hadn’t asked.
Saria said softly, “Dismount, now, and lead your horses. Follow me.”
She slid off the horse, and Regina and I followed suite.
Regina looked nervous, and I felt that way as well. I had a feeling that soft voice Saria had used, was all about violence and not attraction given the orders.
Our horses were making less noise than I was, as we threaded through the trees deeper into the forest. The road slowly faded from view about sixty feet in, but Saria kept going, both urgently and slowly enough to keep the noise down. She led us into a copse of tightly packed trees and bushes, and I’d lost my bearings. We were probably only fifty yards or so away from the road.
The sounds of hooves cantering on hardened dirt reached my ears, the sound of a lot of horses.
Saria soothed her mount, then walked over to us, and took our hands to guide us close together into a huddle of sorts. She leaned in between our heads, her cheeks touching ours, and started to whisper in a sweet breathy voice I had to struggle to make out. Her scent was alluring, as was the sensation of one of her breasts pushed up against me. but I was far too nervous to really enjoy it, even as I couldn’t possibly fail to take note of it.
“Twenty soldiers, accompanied by a mage coming up behind us. My men and I might have been able to take them, but with that many I judged the risk to you too high. I couldn’t have protected you and fought at the same time. Don’t move or speak.”
I expected her to back away after giving us instructions, but she didn’t. Instead, her body remained pressed against mine and Regina’s, our hands in hers. I glanced over to Regina to give her a reassuring smile, and she smiled back a bit weakly. Like me, Regina’s courage was defined by a whole lot of fear.
The sounds of the horses must have travelled far in the woods, because they just kept getting louder, until they cut off altogether. We stood there frozen, and I wondered if they could feel my heart, because it was so damned loud as it pounded in chest.
A loud voice came from the direction of the road.
“Healer James! I am Master Mage Raiden. We know you’re in there, so come on out. You will not be harmed. I was told to give you a message, from Mage Irwin. He apologizes for this misunderstanding, and wants you to know you’re in no danger from the king as you made have heard. You can’t go home, we don’t have the ability to send you there, only to summon you. He fears you may have misunderstood his intentions, but in truth he just didn’t want to overwhelm you with the full truth of your situation on the day of your arrival. Given the king’s recent illness, he’s since reconsidered the hasty and ill-considered actions of his youth. We can offer you a place of ease, where you’d be welcome, and your desires would be provided for.”
Saria turned her head, and looked me in the eyes questioningly.
I winked, and saw the worry drain from eyes, only for heat to enter it.
Not running, and not being in danger sounded like a good deal. Except for two things, I didn’t believe a word of that bullshit, and even if it was true, I’d have to sell my soul for that safety. I’d rather take my chances with my beautiful fiancé, a wild sexy elf, and the danger ahead of us. Though I had moral doubts about that path as well, it was by far the more moral and noble path to take.
Saria pulled us down into a crouch, and then backed up a little. She pointed to her eyes, the road, and held up ten fingers and then five. I figured that to mean he’d sent fifteen of the twenty soldiers into the woods, while the mage and five others stayed out of them. I also figured she wanted us to stay down. Then she silently leapt straight up, grabbed a branch, and flipped higher into the tree. She was barely visible up in the branches, as she pulled out her bow and scanned the forest below us.
Guess we were fighting after all, but in the woods the elves would have the advantage. Those fifteen men were looking for me, did they know eleven more elves haunted these woods with me?
My doubts felt like a vice around my heart, if they got close I had to use my magic again, would I use it to kill? It wasn’t a treatment, it was self-defense, but it still felt wrong. The truth was, I wasn’t sure if I could if it was me, but I knew when the time came I’d do it for Regina.
In truth, what terrified me the most is that I wanted to kill those bastards, and I thought I might even enjoy it. They’d stolen me from my world, used me to heal a monster, and now they wanted to either kill me or keep me captive to assist the same monster. All I wanted to do was live in peace, and build a home and family with Regina, but they wouldn’t let me.
Why shouldn’t I defend myself?
I heard the crunching of leaves nearby, and shot my magic off in that direction. I took a split-second to examine him, and noted that the guard wasn’t enhanced, or controlled. I’d been wondering if that was only his castle guards, that were enhanced and put under the shackles of enforced loyalty, and it was. These soldiers were in full control of themselves, and had chosen this life.
I was still torn about killing them, but what was the point in putting them to sleep if the elves would just slit their throats anyway? They were my enemy, and had chased me down, probably from Dulcier on Irwin’s orders.
The choice was once again taken out of my hands, as through my magic I felt an arrow rip through his skin, flesh, and muscle until it skewered his heart. Saria’s arrow no doubt. I pulled my magic back, and waited, determined not to be a coward and hypocrite about this any longer. The idea of enjoying it was a false fear, it had to be. I wouldn’t become a monster.
I heard a loud scream to the left, followed quickly by one to the right.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I swore I heard Saria mutter the word sloppy under her breath.
Mage Raiden yelled, “Pull out, the bastard
is working with the elves!”
Then he started to chant in a loud sonorous voice.
Saria cursed as she dropped gracefully from the trees.
“Four are getting away, we have to run. Leave the horses and follow me.”
The chanting continued to our left as we raced east through the forest, as I wondered just what horrible destruction the mage was about to unleash. We’d made it about fifty feet away when his voice stopped, the last alien word like a pronouncement of doom.
A flash of bright light, along with a wave of magic so strong I could actually feel it as it went through us. I winced, but nothing happened right away. Then Saria seemed to trip, and landed on her face, which was alarming because I’d never seen her trip, or even look less than predatorily graceful in her movements.
Then the forest rained elves, making me gasp and jump. Literally, rained elves, as they fell out of the trees around us, seemingly frozen.
It seemed clear all my imaginations of destructive doom were wrong, the spell was meant to disable elves somehow, stun or paralyze them. Was this how they’d been caught last time? Regina and I were the only ones able to move, and I heard men moving our direction, no doubt in response to all the elves making noise in their falls.
I didn’t have a lot of time to figure things out, but I pushed my magic into Saria as I pulled Regina into a crouch behind a very large oak tree, keeping it between us and the sounds of the human men.
My magic showed she was perfectly healthy, and only showed me where I’d made the change to her DNA for breast size. There was no physical reason for her to be stuck. I was able to determine she was paralyzed, because according to my magic she was awake and aware. I gave up on the interface of sorts in my mind, and tried to feel the magic in her that wasn’t mine.
Nothing.
Leaves crunched nearby, around the tree toward the left. My heart hammered, and I was afraid, but that wouldn’t stop me from acting. Regina’s hand in mine gave me the strength to act to protect her, despite the precariousness of our situation I wouldn’t lay down and die, or let my future wife down.
I pushed my magic in that direction and connected to the man that stood a mere ten feet away, above the frozen form of one of Saria’s men. I didn’t have a lot of time, and hadn’t really considered before the best way to kill, or any way to kill really, with my magic. I’d refused to think about it at all, which in hindsight was stupid.
If I was going to kill using my magic, I wanted to make sure it was painless and quick. I knew a lot of ways to kill being a doctor, but my mind wasn’t very clear in the moment, and a lot of those would hurt a lot, so I flipped the switch that would put him to sleep and sent a surge of magic to see it done. I hadn’t changed my mind, but I didn’t have enough time to figure it out right now. The priority was getting us out of danger first.
The soldier dropped to the ground, making a lot of noise, and I heard eight men converging on that spot quickly. All the soldiers must be in the forest, including the five held back from before, was the mage? If they all charged me at once I’d never get them all, but they had to find me first which was my only hope.
I managed to get three more from our hiding place at the base of the large oak tree, leaving five. Three of them passed by the tree looking around from about ten feet away, the last two were rounding tree and I knew we’d run out of time.
I pulled Regina to her feet and started running, even as I knocked out another leaving four. They made chase, and were gaining on me, but running away gave me more precious seconds as Regina and I ran headlong between the trees. Another fell, three guards were left at that point, when Regina tripped and took us both down.
The soldier closest to our heels tried to stop, but tripped and fell on us. His screams of agony were horrible as Regina reflexively used her magic against the man. He rolled off of us, his body twitching in agony, and he mercifully passed out.
While that guard was screaming, I’d reached out and took down one of the last two as they ran up to us. The moment kind of froze in my mind, as I realized I’d failed. One more fucking soldier, and I’d failed. I reached up to him with my magic but I knew it was too late, two seconds were an eternity when he was close enough to piss on me.
He was right on top of us, and pointed his sword at my heart, and stabbed downward.
Regina rolled on top of me, and took the stabbing sword blade in her side. She kept rolling which ripped the sword out of the soldier’s hand.
The soldier yelled in anger and reached for his dagger, but it was too late for him now, time belonged to me thanks to Regina’s actions, which I was trying very hard not to think about. I flipped his switch absently and put him to sleep, and then turned to Regina in horror. She was bleeding freely, and struggling to breathe. I sat up and pulled her into my arms, and the little minx had a smile on her face, a pain filled smile, but a true smile.
She said weakly, “I love you.”
My magic dove inside her as I pulled the sword out.
She had ripped muscles, a severed artery, and a punctured lung. It had barely missed her heart. I didn’t have a lot of time, maybe ten seconds before she bled out and died. I didn’t have time to nitpick, yet I knew rebuilding her whole body would be bad, so I started on the largest problem, found the DNA specifying her circulatory system, and streamed my magic into it.
A moment later, she wasn’t dying anymore, but she was still in a lot of pain and gasping for breath.
Fuck, I was so stupid, I put her into a forced sleep.
I took my time, relatively, she was still in shock and hardly stable, and made sure I was doing the least amount of rebuild work to fix the issues before I rebuilt all the damaged tissues, musculature and the punctured lung. I just held her to me for a moment, she’d saved my life, probably full well knowing I’d be able to fix her, but not myself. She hadn’t even hesitated to throw herself in front of a sword stroke meant for me.
I woke her up, and gave her a deep kiss. We were both covered in her blood, and I was angry to say the least. The mage was also out there somewhere, this wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Seventeen
I put a finger over her pouty lips, and mouthed mage at her. Regina nodded at me in understanding. I pointed at her, and then the elves, before I got up and started to move through the woods as quietly as possible, back toward the road.
The anger from that soldier stabbing Regina and trying to kill me had cleared my thoughts, though I was still scared, I was thinking a lot more clearly. I’d been trying to think of a painless change to the body to kill them, through their DNA, but my power was more than that. Putting them to sleep didn’t involve DNA, it was more a state of their mind. Same thing, when I’d ejected the poison build up in the king’s body, I hadn’t rebuilt anything in his body for that, merely forced his body to eject the poisons aggressively. I could not only rebuild the body, or sculpt it with changes before being rebuilt, I could also control it.
I paused next to one of the sleeping soldiers back by the tree, and pushed my magic inside of his body. I hesitated for a moment, he wasn’t a threat right now. Killing him would still be self-defense, but a far more aggressive version of it. He wouldn’t be arrested and punished, the king and his people would order the soldier to keep pursuing me.
Or as Saria said, it was stupid to leave a live enemy behind, it just gives them a second chance to kill me. There was also the matter of justice, he wasn’t a good man if he worked for the corrupt nobility and men in power of this kingdom.
Still, it was colder. My life wasn’t in imminent danger from him either, but it was still in danger from this man. The mind’s eye visual of him in my mind showed his status as asleep. I could wake him, or put him in a coma. I dug in deeper to my options, I could force the body to act in a way I chose. That gave me almost countless options, I could force one of his glands to release enough endorphins to overload his body and mind, flood him with an overdose of adrenaline, or simply stop the heart from beating.
In short, the quickest and cleanest way to kill with my magic, would be to stop their heart and put them to sleep, simultaneously. They wouldn’t feel the brief pain of it if they weren’t conscious.
I sent a surge of magic, and the man’s chest stilled.
Bile rose up in the back of my throat, and I gasped in a breath as quietly as I could as my stomach churned. Throwing up loudly right in that moment would probably be a bad idea, I had a feeling the mage was back on the road, but I couldn’t be certain of it.
I’d also never hated this new world as much as I hated it in that moment.
This world had given me a lot of things already, an amazing woman who I loved, possibly more than any other woman I’d loved in the past, even if I didn’t understand her at times. I’d also be able to do a lot more good on this world than my old one, given my magic and knowledge of the human body and health. If I survived, perhaps I’d even help to see the day Desal wasn’t run by an evil man.
But… it had also just made me a killer. Justifiable perhaps, but I could never again say I’d never taken a life. I could hardly believe I’d thought I might enjoy it, the stillness of the soldier’s chest was horrifying. I’d taken life. My oath remained unviolated, I wasn’t treating him as a physician and was defending my life, but I’d taken a life. I felt dizzy as my head started to clear, and I spat out the bile as I stood up.
There was a lot of injustice in this world. Rape seemed a way of life for the commoners at least, and the king made abominations. Women had no rights, not really, and the nobles were the law, they didn’t follow it. My having to kill to defend my life, and the woman I loved, seemed small to bear next to that suffering in the world, but it didn’t feel small in that moment.