“I know,” she said. “But one loss does not equal the end. We will live on, to fight another day. You have made it through this, and you gave it all you had. We’ve shown Gabriella today that we will not succumb so easily. So I say, continue to give her hell.”
A couple of cheers went up amongst the soldiers, though they were subdued. A few men clapped for us as we moved on toward the hospital tent. That was where the worst of it would be, and Emma and I desired to help out where we could.
One of the first cots we came across had a sorceress stretched upon it. She screamed in pain as the remnants of a spell ate away at her body, crawling across her flesh and eating it alive like some kind of awful parasite. The nurses were doing everything in their power to get the curse to break, but no matter what magic was attempted, the spells would not work.
Emma rushed to the woman’s side, and knelt there. The sorceress saw Emma, and for a moment, her face showed trust. Emma took her hand. The sorceress held on tightly as the pain of the spell worked her way through her body, screaming in pain. Emma bit her lip, but she held back the tears.
Suddenly, the sorceress gave a gasp. She clenched Emma’s hand, until her eyes rolled back in her head and her neck fell backward. Emma gave a look to the nurse, and she shook her head. Emma let go of the woman’s limp hand, and the nurses covered her up with a plain white cloth.
She wasn’t the only one we saw die that day. There was a young wolven boy, barely eighteen who was lying on a cot in the middle of the hospital tent. He’d been split open from a battle orb, his torso ripped from shoulder blade to hip bone. The ground beneath him was soaked with blood.
He’d never recover from his wounds. The nurses had ceased to try and help him further, in favor of rescuing others. Only one young Marked knelt by his side, stroking his hair.
“Look, the king has come to visit you,” the nurse said. Tears beaded her eyes as she attempted to put on a cheerful tone.
The boy’s eyes searched upward, until they connected with mine. Hope flooded his gaze, and he rasped, “Will I be all right, sire?”
Emma put a hand on my arm. I strengthened my tone and forced myself to speak. “You’re doing just fine,” I told him. “Once the nurses patch you up, you’ll be home before you know it.”
The boy gave a slight smile, and the light began to dim from his eyes. “I knew I’d be okay. It was an honor to fight for you, my king.”
Those were his last words before he gave a gasp, and died in peace. The smile was still on his face when he became still.
Emma and I did what we could to help, bandaging wounds, washing injuries and lifting soldiers where we could. Within the hour, both of our clothes were ruined, stained with blood. Alexei ran throughout the camp, aiding where he could, face crumbling under the weight of all the misery around him.
Every second that passed, it seemed like there was someone else that needed help, and it was overwhelming. There were too many injured soldiers, and not enough nurses. We couldn’t save everyone, so we had to pick and choose the soldiers we helped. It gutted me to listen to the sounds of dying shifters calling out for their mothers. What was worse was I had to ignore them, because their wounds were too severe and there were others that still had a chance.
They died believing no one heard them.
Eventually, the area around us went silent. We left the hospital tent shortly after, as most of the soldiers within had already passed on, or were unconscious. We could save no one else. Emma and I wandered through the remnants of the camp like ghosts, witnessing the carnage of the soldiers who would live, but be forever scarred. Soldiers were missing eyes and limbs. Some brightened when we passed, but others didn’t acknowledge us, as if they didn’t realize we were there. They stared outward, observing the horrors of battle that we could not see.
One griffin shifter hadn’t made it to the hospital tent. He was on the ground. Three others held him down. Two nurses approached with a bone saw, and I looked down. I felt achingly empty as I saw that the shifter’s left leg was barely holding on by a few threads of muscle at the knee, mangled and beyond repair.
“Don’t sever it!” the shifter screamed, fighting with all his might. “I want to keep my leg!”
I dropped to the ground beside him immediately, soaking my pants with mud. I grabbed onto his arm. The shifter looked at me, his mouth dropping open in almost reverence.
“I promise you will survive this,” I told him. “A lost leg does not mean a lost life. I lived on, and so will you.”
The shifter’s jaw quivered. “What will I do if I cannot walk?”
“Youwillwalk, just not in the way you did before,” I insisted. “Hold tight to me.”
The soldier screamed in pain as the nurses amputated what was left of his ragged limb. The soldier passed out, slumping against me, and the nurses wrapped the wound. He was carried off. Emma grasped my shoulder as I turned away.
There were so many more.
At sunset, Emma and I climbed a hill to look down upon the battlefield surrounding Pruska. A breath whooshed out of me when I caught the sight.
“By the gods,” I whispered. A hundred bodies didn’t sound like much, but in person, it felt like the whole world. There were dozens of corpses of soldiers down there, both in their human and shifter forms. The bodies of dragons, alicorns, griffins and wolvens lay discarded next to those of sorceresses, who had done their best to try and save their mates, and failed.
Most had preferred to die together. It was, perhaps, the saddest thing I’d ever witnessed.
Gabby had been ruthless in destroying these people. She had told her forces not to hold back.
If there was any mercy left for her in my heart, it was lost to me now.
We remained at the camp past nightfall. It was then Alexei insisted there wasn’t anything more we could do, and we needed to rest.
