The Presence cracked between my fingers like ice. White light swirled around my fingertips then raced into my body. It disappeared after it reached my wrist.

  At first, it was hard to say what had actually changed. I didn’t feel any immediate adjustment to my body. But after a few seconds, my chest began aching. I fell to my knees and pressed my hands into the soil.

  That couldn’t have been from my injuries. I hadn’t even gotten hit in the chest.

  “It’s always like that,” Romance said, marching over to me. “It’s worse the first time—or you’re just not expecting it. It’ll pass in a few seconds.”

  After a few seconds of what felt like the worst acid reflux ever, the sensation passed. When I stood up, my body felt slightly different. Slightly more real. At first, my footsteps felt heavier with each step, but that might have been a placebo.

  Shave gathered two more Presences from the fallen orcs and passed them out to whoever had killed them, then motioned. “Come on. We’ll get you back to camp.” He patted my back. “You need to see a healer, lad. Get it bandaged enough that you can walk, then head back to the camp. The others will clean up the bodies. You’re entitled to the scrap metal from the fallen orcs you slay, but they’ll keep it until Slowbend until you place an order for a weapon.”

  “We have healers?” I asked.

  “What, you thought we just bandaged ourselves and hoped for the best?” Ticks said, his voice returning to its old cold tone. As we passed a fallen Dupe, he grimaced.

  “Well…kinda. I didn’t see any.”

  “That’s ‘cause our healer also doubles as our camp’s cook,” Romance said. “Rumour is, she and the captain have a little shwhiiip now and then.” He flicked his thumb up and cast us a grin.

  Trench pounded Romance on the shoulder, his chainmail-covered knuckles clanging on Romance’s pauldron, then said, “That’s not the sound sex makes. But alas! He is uneducated in the ways of the fairer sex.”

  “You don’t see any brothels around here, do you?” Romance shook his head. “The Fleshknitters shoulda bred the call of nature out of us when they were making us.”

  I laughed under my breath, then said, “I’m not sure if that’s what ‘call of nature’ means.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I’d rather not feel it.”

  The banter helped take my mind off my leg as I wrapped it. We trekked back to the camp, and I was starting to wonder if they were nattering on purpose to keep my mind occupied. The others hounded me, asking about where I was from, and I tried my best to answer. There was no point in keeping it a secret.

  However, I didn’t tell them what the technology was like. Instead of a film student, I called myself an apprentice playwright, which satisfied all but Ticks—he quoted something about ‘the immorality of poesy,’ and after that, I tuned him out.

  When we made it back to the camp, I settled down in the central clearing with the rest of the injured Dupes, and the healer came around. She was a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair, wearing a sky-blue dress and an apron, and most importantly, a white armband with a red leaf embroidered in the center.

  Shave, who sat beside me, nursing a gash on his arm, said, “That’s Hild.”

  “She’s not a Dupe.”

  “Not at all. She’s a druid.”

  I tilted my head.

  Registering my confusion, Shave explained, “Druids are most often healers, though some of them have other nature-manipulating abilities.”

  I nodded. After a few minutes of waiting in silence, it was my turn. Hild knelt down beside me and grumbled, “Don’t move. What’s wrong with him?”

  “His leg, ma’am,” Shave said.

  “Ah, I see it.” She leaned over my leg and held her hands over the wound on the back of my leg. It wasn’t bleeding as badly now, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant when she practically ripped the bandage off my leg. “He’s skinny, isn’t he?”

  “He’s working on it,” Shave replied in my stead—I was too busy wincing.

  “You couldn’t have been a little more gentle with that…” I muttered.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I don’t have time.” Hild pressed her hands onto my calf. “You’ll live either way.”

  “She only has enough Presence for three healing abilities,” Shave filled in. “And one heal, if she goes quick, can spread between ten Dupes, repairing minor damage. The battalions up north would have more druids embedded, but we haven’t needed many until now.”

  As soon as he finished speaking, a tingle erupted in my leg. It began itching, and I craned my neck over to see. Muscle folded back together, blood clotted, and skin welded overtop itself, creating a tight, red scar. I leaned forward, about to itch it, but Hild slapped my hands away. “Don’t touch it for a day. My healing is basic, and it’ll give you a nasty scar, but at least you’ll be alive.”

  I stood up and tested my leg. It still tingled, and it itched like hell, but I did my best to ignore it. Aside from the itch, the leg held my weight well enough. I hobbled at first out of instinct, but I could walk fine.

  I jogged to the palisade, where I found Romance and Trench. They were both standing next to a heap of bodies dragged in from the forest. Four Dupes had died, and their gear had been stripped off them.

  “Normally, we’d burn them with their armour on,” Trench told me. “But we can’t spare the gear.”

  “I’ve heard that the soldiers in other lands get their bodies sent home,” Romance said. “In Palan, they bury them deep in tombs, and in Vanemarch, they send them off to sea in a ship, then shoot it with flaming arrows.”

  “That’s just for the noblemen,” Trench muttered.

  I grimaced. “You guys just…burn the dead Dupes?”

  “We don’t have any family,” Trench explained. “What else should be done with us? We’ll say a few words for each other, ‘course.”

  I hadn’t known any of the fallen Dupes, but that didn’t make it any better. I averted my gaze from their corpses and said, “No family, huh? You guys all call each other brothers.”

  “Well…” Trench scratched the back of his head. “I suppose so. But you knew what I meant, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, while I churned through my chores, a horn sounded at the edge of the camp. I dropped the log I’d been carrying and looked up. A cloud of dust rose along the road, and horse’s hooves clomped on the gravel and dirt trail.

  Since I was close to the central clearing of the camp, I figured it was safe to spare a glance or two.

  Three mounted men trotted their horses into the clearing, and they quickly dismounted. Two were average Dupes, but given their standard steel plate armour, they couldn’t have been from around here. The man in the lead, however, was a regular human man. I guessed he was about thirty, but his long blonde hair and fair skin gave him an ageless quality.

  He wore a padded coat beneath a thick layer of scale mail, an orange cloak, and a thick leather cumberbund imprinted with raven etchings. His helmet covered the sides of his head but not his eyes, and it had a black horsetail plume.

  A sword hung from his hip. It was longer than most of the swords I saw the other Dupes wielding, with its hilt large enough to hold with two hands. The blade was straight, but it only seemed to have one cutting edge.

  I glanced at the Dupe beside me—Elf. We only wore light tunics at the moment, and he was carrying a bucket of water. “I can’t imagine how warm he must be…” I muttered.

  “You’d be surprised,” Elf said. Everyone called him Elf, though he obviously wasn’t one. Not even close, given his slightly-stockier-than-average physique. “That man’s a thegn. They’re almost always magic users, and I’d guess he’s Steel-tier. They’re good at regulating their heat and carrying heavy armour.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I know his tier? Just a guess. He’s higher than Iron, less than Titanium, less than Silver. So that must put him at Steel.” Elf held out his fingers and counted them, muttering, “Copper, Iron, Steel, Titanium, Silver…”

  “No, that he’s a thegn.”

  “Only thegns and higher nobles are allowed to wield a great warbrand,” Elf said. “That sword of his.”

  “Huh…” I breathed.

  The thegn dismounted, his round shield clacking on his back. A moment later, Commander Galliard rushed out to meet him. First, Galliard bowed and said, “Sir Aldhelm.”

  “Galliard, you look worse for wear,” the thegn said, reaching out and grabbing Galliard’s wrist. He pulled the Dupe up with a familiarity that couldn’t be faked, and they caught each other in an armour-clanking hug.

  “And you look the same as you did twenty years ago,” Galliard replied. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I need an escort.”

  “You? What in Pillar’s name could you need an escort for? There’s nothing in these lands that can challenge you. Least, not on the surface.”

  “Not me. The Ealdorman’s daughter is travelling to Castle Urcia, and she only has a few non-Dupe mercenary guards. Mortals, and all fools.” Aldhelm shook his head, pushed his helmet up, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “With the orcs in these areas, we cannot take risks with her safety, and I am busy on my hunt for a band of plains trolls.”

  “Understood, sir,” Galliard said. “I will send a squadron.”

  “Many thanks, Galliard.” Aldhelm bowed his head. “You will find her convoy passing through Slowbend later today, and from there, you will stay with them until they reach Castle Urcia. You are dismissed, commander.”

  Galliard turned and caught us staring at him. He clicked his tongue, and we got back to work. I delivered my plank of wood to the palisade to patch up a rotting wall, and when I returned to the stack a few minutes later, I found Shave waiting for me, hands on his hips. “You were staring at the Commander, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Not sir,” he corrected. Shaking his head, he said, “If you stare at the commander when he’s receiving orders, he always makes sure to send you and your squad on the very same mission.”

  “Oh.” I winced. “So…we’re on escort duty?”

  Shave sighed. “You, me, Romance, Trench, Ticks, and Elf. So grab your stuff and get ready. If we have time before she arrives, we can check at the blacksmith to see if the orcs’ armour has been processed. We might get you some better gear.”