Wychling

Chapter 28

Ulrich was kneeling, deep in concentration. He had peeled off the breastplate and helmet of his patient, discarding them and tutting at the damage he could see, wondering at that which he could not. The kid had taken a beating fit for all of the participants of a bar brawl. The armour was probably the only reason he was still living, the unprotected parts, a sight fit only for the blind.

Ulrich looked at the dents in the breastplate, wondering at the strength it would take to achieve that kind of damage. Was it a warhammer, or mace that had collapsed it inwards? How bad was the internal bleeding? He thought back ten years...it felt like a lifetime, but he remembered.

He searched the once handsome features on the boy's face, saw the grim cruelty on the face of his attempted murderer, as he slowly bled out. He gripped the shaft of the arrow protruding from the dying man behind him and placed his other on the shattered leg of his patient.

It was easy. Exactly as he remembered, but using a man like this, to the very last drop of his vitality, even if he was going to die from the arrow in his lung, came with a grim, dark undertow to his thoughts.

His macabre mood also seemed to affect the magic, or maybe it was just because he wasn't working by instinct now. Either way the effect wasn't as raw, being directed with a cold yet bloody-minded determination. Ulrich slowed the draw of life from the body behind as he felt the heartbeat falter, there was still so much to heal within the boy.

His Father had been right, this really wasn't something he wanted to become an expert at. Who was he to judge when this kind of magic was justified? To judge right from wrong? To literally decide who should live and who should die? This instance seemed justified, self-evident even, but what if it just made the next time easier? Would he end up an arbiter of petty justice, moving life from one body to another according to his whim, all across the lands to the East of the Sunset Sea?

Ulrich ground his teeth and ploughed on through his doubts. Moving onto the ribs, his senses were again extended. He could feel that the kid's lung had been pierced by the broken ribs in several places on his left side.

He concentrated harder, remembering the casual way the Acolyte had drawn the knife, the way the lookout smiled, clearly enjoying their position of power. The first Acolyte's cold dead eyes as he went to end this boy's life.

He used his anger to detach himself from the horror he was committing, pouring one man's life into another's wounds, eking every last drop of the power bridged within himself already, to fix the tiny holes in the lungs and heal the broken ribs. Savagely efficient. Ruthless.

Ulrich paused a few seconds, assessing, before increasing the pull from his hand on the shaft again, feeling the heartbeat twitching along the length of the wood as it grew more frantic. He pulled that energy into his patient, deliberately callous and greedy with one hand, and carefully placing the precious vitality near the areas that needed it most, with the other.

His hand travelled to the nasty cut and growing lump on the Watchman's head, pushing the last of the power there. He saw the wound heal, the sides of the cut closing before the edges flowed back together and the raw looking scar closed up, leaving just a small 'Y' shaped line on the temple.

Ulrich released the shaft and nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a shrill scream from the alleyway. A woman stood aghast, holding her hands to her mouth and staring back and forth between him and the...Ulrich looked to his left and saw what had become of the Acolyte.

It wasn't pretty. The face was locked in a soundless scream. The previously muscular man was now all sinew and bone, no muscle, or even fat, left on him. Worst of all, the veins were vivid blue and raised against his skin like a man who hadn't an ounce of water in him. It looked like a body from an ancient tomb, standfast the raw pinkish hue to the skin.

Ulrich turned back to the woman, hands raised towards her in a placating gesture, and she threw herself to the ground like he had slung a knife at her. He almost had to admire the athleticism she displayed in rolling as she hit the ground, and reaching her feet, pumping limbs desperately so that she was at full sprint within three paces. She didn't even pause as she threw her head up to the sky and screamed shrilly.

"Blood Mage!! Blood Mage!! Dark Magic!! Murder!! Dark Magic!!"

A cough and splutter shook Ulrich from his stupor as the kid vomited blood over himself. He rolled over, bracing himself on Ulrich's leg as he spewed more onto the ground. Ulrich saw the hands he had raised to the woman, also red.

-No wonder she ran-

He turned back to the Watchman who pulled his legs underneath himself to kneel, shakily. He took a second to recover his breath before looking up at his erstwhile saviour in utter confusion, panic fading but not quite leaving as the screams got louder.

"Well kid. You're alive, but if you want that to last more than a few moments, you'd best be a runner!" Ulrich said pulling him to his feet.

Ulrich gave the scared and dazed Watchman his most devil-may-care grin. Strangely he thought of Suma.

-Bastard cat hasn't been in my life a day, and look what an influence he's having-

He pulled the Watchman to his feet, just as he heard the rolling thunder of a crowd of feet hitting the stone floor of the alleyway that he had appeared from himself, not so long ago.

"Time to go!" he said, as he pulled the kid with him.

Ulrich hated being hunted.