Seeking the Veil, Part 2

Bloody Pickings

Hestea swallowed roughly, touching his belly as he knelt on the battlefield. All around bodies were scattered, limbs at odd angles; eyes wide and staring, closed and peaceful. The smell. Another wave of nausea hit, bile rising, but Hestea shook this one off and smiled anyway.

Grimback hobbled by and spat on a corpse of the dead. The mercenary with a spine like some twisted, runty tree, kicked at a lifeless leg and pulled away a black sword from the rigid grasp of death. He looked at the edge and then tossed it onto a pile of others. Durtle nodded his great shaggy head and pushed the cart on, others adding to the haul. There were carts elsewhere, and there were carts for the dead.

Hestea placed a shaking hand on his knee as he rose. He was alive. Looking around, the Band treading the torn, icy ground of battle, looking for friends that lived, or for friends that had died; he nodded his head. Many had fallen, but many had also survived.

"Blasted Sordin!" shouted Orangebeard, shaking his shiny head as he rubbed a large palm across his forehead, swiping beads of sweat onto his bloody trousers. "Lotta good men." He scowled as he looked around. "Hammerblood! Quit yer mopin' an' put those shoulders to use. And where's some blasted food!" Orangebeard rubbed his belly with a grimace, saw Radish the scrawny cook, then stormed off. "How can a man work without a full belly?"

Hestea looked down at the severed arm of a Saeordin soldier, as Orangebeard continued to rant. Blood stained the snow around the arm, the ice looking like some summer time treat he had had as a child. "I may never eat sweet ice again." He gulped, then bent over, breathing through his mouth, the fog of his breath clouding his sight as he gingerly pushed at the body, moving the torn clothes around, looking for weapons, looking for gold. He thought back to the fight. Back to when he had laid into the enemy, the hum of power in his ears, his vision white. What happened?

Hestea moved onto the next figure, doing the grisly work, as the clouds shifted overhead and Orangebeard's voice faded away.

The two cooks, Radish and Tot, strolled near, lugging baskets of bread and cheese for the men. It was basic fare, but the mess tent had been half-demolished in a fight. In his fight. Radish glanced over at Hestea, the stubble of a light ginger beard on his cheeks. He stumbled, then ducked his narrow head at Hestea, half-grinning, half cringing away, then he turned and passed on another slab of white cheese.

Amott was dead, head cook and friend, but Radish and Tot still lived. Hestea had kept them alive.

"Somehow..." Hestea narrowed his eyes as he pulled at the buckles of an iron bracer. "But how?"

***

"Word is you killed ten Saeordin on your own."

Hestea blinked, turning from the mess tent as he helped fold a canvas-tethered pole. Grimback stood there, back twisted, shoulder drooping, two quarterstaffs held in a hand of sinew and tendon.

"Word is it happened here."

Hestea nodded, dropped the poles in a small wagon and pulled up a flap of canvas, a long rip down the center. He had no thread, no needle and no idea how to stitch it up. Folding it over he shoved it in the wagon. Orangebeard wanted to move. 

"You learn how to fight? You some magus?" asked the twisted man. Blood still soaked a brown sleeve beneath scored mail, the front of his plate mail had a band of char and two more scratches. Grimback pulled back his lips, showing yellow teeth.

A smile?

"Show me your new skill...Hammerblood." Then he tossed Hestea one of the dark staves, mouth twisting with the name.