The punch connected.

  Korreth's helmet—dark iron and enchanted—disintegrated. The front half exploded outward in a spray of twisted metal fragments that whistled through the air and embedded themselves in nearby trees. The back half peeled away like wet paper.

  The orc's head snapped back. His entire body followed, lifting off the ground, horizontal, parallel to the earth. Blood erupted from his nose, his mouth, his ears; a red mist that hung in the air where his face had been.

  He flew backward fifteen feet before his back slammed into an oak tree. The trunk shuddered. Bark exploded outward and a crack ran up the wood as Korreth slid down and crumpled at the base.

  For three seconds, nothing moved.

  Then his chest rose, fell, and rose again in a shallow and rattling tempo.

  Sael lowered his hand and looked at the general. The orc's jaw was at an unnatural angle, nose flattened, one eye swollen shut and the other staring at nothing. Blood ran from his ears. His breathing was wet, mechanical, the sound of things broken inside.

  Level 1143.

  The number appeared in Sael's awareness, then faded. He'd pulled the punch significantly, but even so, the general was dying. Half an hour, maybe less.

  The rest of the orcs stared at Sael and there was a silence that stretched, then shattered when one of them took a step backward. Another turned. Then someone ran, and that broke the spell entirely.

  Orcs scattered in every direction. Some dropped their weapons as they fled. Others kept them as if steel would protect them from what they'd just witnessed. They ran for the tree line, the road, anywhere that wasn't here.

  Sael raised his hand again.

  [Gravity: Inversion]

  The fleeing orcs lifted off the ground mid-stride. Twenty, thirty of them, suddenly airborne, their legs still pumping uselessly as gravity inverted around them. They rose about meters, suspended in place by invisible force. Some shouted while others went silent, too shocked to make sound.

  The spell held them there, immobile and helpless and finally, Sael turned away from the floating orcs and surveyed the clearing properly.

  There were so many bodies...

  Those still alive moved among the dead and wounded. An older woman pressed cloth to a guard's stomach wound, her hands shaking as she was praying. Two merchants tried to pull a beam off someone trapped beneath a collapsed wagon. A child sat beside a body—her mother, maybe—and cried with the raw, broken sound of someone who didn't understand why screaming wouldn't make it stop.

  Sael started to cast immediately.

  The beam lifted off the trapped man without anyone touching it, floating ten feet into the air before settling gently to the side. The merchants stumbled backward in surprise. The trapped man gasped, clutching his ribs.

  Three more spells followed in quick succession.

  Water materialized above the burning wagons and fell in sheets, dousing the flames. Steam hissed into the air. The bodies of the dead—scattered, sprawled and undignified—shifted and aligned themselves in neat rows along the clearing's edge, moved by invisible hands. Weapons clattered together in a pile. Debris from the destroyed wagons sorted itself into salvageable and ruined.

  The survivors stared.

  Sael walked toward the guard with the stomach wound. The older woman looked up at him, her bloodstained hands still pressed to the injury. Her eyes were wide with fear—not of him, but of what would happen if she stopped applying pressure.

  "Let me see," Sael said.

  She moved her hands. Blood welled immediately, dark and steady. The wound was deep, a sword thrust that had gone clean through. The guard's breathing was shallow, his face gray. His eyes tracked Sael's movement but didn't quite focus.

  Sael knelt and placed his hand over the wound.

  "[Heal]."

  Golden light mixed with green erupted from his palm, spreading across the guard's abdomen. The man gasped—a sharp, shocked sound—and his back arched off the ground. The light intensified, sinking into the wound, and the flesh began to knit. Muscle reconnected and torn tissue sealed.

  The guard's breathing deepened as color returned to his face.

  When the light faded, the wound was gone. Only blood remained, staining his torn shirt, evidence of an injury that no longer existed.

  The guard stared at his stomach, then at Sael. "I thought... I was dead. I thought—"

  "You're not," Sael said simply. He turned to the older woman. "You're injured."

  She blinked. "What? No, I'm—"

  "Your shoulder."

  She looked down at her left arm, which hung slightly lower than the right. "It's nothing. Just a fall. There are others who need—"

  "Please allow me."

  Sael reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but didn't pull away.

  "[Heal]."

  The same golden-green light appeared, softer this time. The woman's sharp intake of breath suggested the moment the joint relocated itself, sliding back into the socket with a sensation that was probably deeply unpleasant. The light faded.

  She rotated her arm experimentally, eyes wide. "How did you... I didn't even realize it was that bad."

  "At your age, a fall like that could have caused permanent damage if left untreated," Sael said. He stood. "Your son will be fine. Keep him lying down for another few minutes."

  "He's not my—" She stopped, looked at the guard, then back at Sael. "He's my nephew. But thank you. Thank you so much."

  Sael nodded and moved to the next injured person: a merchant with a broken leg, the bone visible through torn flesh. The man had gone into shock, shivering despite the warmth, staring at nothing.

  "[Heal]."

  Golden-green light. The bone shifted, aligned, fused. The flesh closed over it. The merchant gasped and grabbed his leg, feeling the place where the injury had been.

  A woman with burns across her arms from the wagon fire. A young guard with an arrow still lodged in his thigh. An older merchant with three broken ribs and a punctured lung. One after another, Sael moved through the wounded, casting the same spell, watching the same light sink into damaged flesh and repair it.

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  The survivors watched him work. Some with awe, some with relief. And others with blank expressions, which was understandable, as they seemed too overwhelmed to process what they were seeing.

  The child was still crying beside her mother's body.

  Sael stopped in front of them and looked down. The mother lay on her side, one arm stretched toward her daughter as if she'd been reaching for her when she fell. An arrow protruded from between her ribs—a clean shot, straight through the heart. Her eyes were half-open, already glazing over. She'd been dead for at least ten minutes, maybe more. Long enough that the blood pooling beneath her had started to darken and congeal.

  The child had a wound on her temple, above the eyebrow: a gash where something had struck her, probably debris from the wagon. Blood had dried in a dark line down the side of her face.

  Sael knelt beside them.

  The girl looked up at him, her face streaked with tears and dirt, her eyes red and swollen. "Can you... can you fix her?"

  The question hit him harder than it should have.

  He saw himself at nineteen, standing over his mother's body. Her throat cut. Blood soaking into the earth. Demiscles, First General of the Corrupted One, laughing at him as he screamed in terror and rage.

  After that, he'd fled Hel through the portal his master had made and spent four months alone in the Cursed Forest, lost, confused and terrified. Monsters in the dark. No food or shelter. It was just pain and the desperate, overwhelming wish that someone would find him. That Pitch would appear or that his master would come. That someone, anyone, would tell him it would be alright.

  But no one had come. Not for months.

  Sael looked at the mother's body, then back at the child.

  "No," he said quietly. "I can't bring back the dead. I'm sorry."

  The child's face crumpled. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "But you fixed everyone else. You made them better. Why can't you fix her? Please, she's my mom, she's—"

  "I know." Sael reached out and gently wiped the blood from the wound on her temple. "[Heal]."

  Golden-green light flickered briefly across the gash. The skin closed, leaving only a faint pink line that would fade in hours.

  The child touched her forehead, then looked at her mother again. The tears kept coming.

  "What's your name?" Sael asked.

  The girl sniffled, struggling to speak through her sobs. "L-Lira."

  "Lira. How old are you?"

  "Eight." Her voice was barely a whisper.

  ...So young. Too young for this.

  "Do you have other family, little Lira?" he asked gently. "Anyone else traveling with you?"

  She nodded, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. "My... my dad. He's waiting for us. At the frontier. We were going to Antor. Mom said we'd be there in three days and Dad would be waiting and we'd all be together again." Her voice broke. "But now—now she won't—"

  The sobs overtook her again.

  Sael moved closer and placed both hands on her shoulders, turning her gently to face him. "Lira, look at me."

  She did, through the tears, her small body shaking.

  "You will see your father," Sael said firmly. "I promise you that. And your mother—" He glanced at the body, then back to her. "Your mother loved you very much. She brought you on this journey because she wanted your family to be together. She did that for you."

  "But I want her," Lira whispered. "I want my mom."

  "I know." Sael pulled her closer, awkwardly at first, then more naturally as she collapsed against him and sobbed into his chest. He placed one hand on her head, his palm covering her dark hair. "I know you do."

  He held her while she cried. It felt strange, he hadn't done something like this in so long he couldn't remember the last time. But he remembered wanting it. Needing it. That desperate ache for someone to just tell him it would be okay. So he told her.

  "It will be alright, little one," he said quietly. "You're going to be alright."

  She cried harder, her small hands clutching at his robes.

  After a long moment, Sael gestured toward the woman's form. The body shifted gently, straightening until she lay on her back, arms folded across her chest. The arrow dissolved into motes of light. Her torn, bloodied dress smoothed and cleaned itself. Her eyes closed. She looked peaceful now, dignified, as if she were only sleeping.

  Lira pulled back slightly to look, her breath hitching.

  "I need to help the others who are injured," Sael said, still holding her shoulders. "Can you wait here for me? I'll come back, and we'll make sure you get to your father safely. I promise."

  Lira nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off her mother.

  Sael squeezed her shoulders once, then stood.

  His cloud had landed now, settling beside the clearing's edge. Gorek and the others were climbing down, tentatively approaching the survivors. Robin was already helping someone—a young woman who'd twisted her ankle fleeing. Oz remained on the cloud, naturally.

  The suspended orcs still floated overhead as Sael walked toward the old man in the protective dome, the one he'd saved first. He sat with his back against the invisible barrier, breathing heavily, one hand pressed to his chest. His eyes tracked Sael's movement with a mixture of fear and gratitude.

  Sael dispelled the dome with a gesture.

  "Are you alright?" Sael asked, kneeling beside him.

  The old man nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again. "I... yes. I think so. You saved my life. That axe would have—" He stopped and swallowed hard. "Thank you. I don't know how to... thank you."

  "You're welcome," Sael said simply. He placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "[Heal]."

  Golden-green light spread across the old man's chest. He gasped as his labored breathing eased, the strain on his heart from the terror and exertion fading away.

  "Rest here for a moment," Sael said. "You'll be fine."

  He stood and moved to the next person, the young woman Robin had been helping. She sat on the ground, her ankle swollen to twice its normal size.

  Robin looked up as Sael approached. "Twisted it pretty bad running from the orcs. I don't think it's broken, but—"

  "Let me see."

  The woman extended her leg hesitantly. Sael placed his hand on her ankle.

  "[Heal]."

  The swelling receded immediately. The woman flexed her foot, eyes wide. "It doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't hurt at all."

  "Good," Sael said. "Stay off it for a few minutes anyway."

  He continued through the clearing, healing the remaining wounded and when he finished, he counted seventeen survivors in total. Most of them sat in small groups, speaking in low voices or not speaking at all. Some stared at the rows of bodies along the clearing's edge. Others watched the fallen and floating orcs with hollow expressions.

  Sael felt his Wrath level still rise and closed his eyes, breathing slowly. In. Out. In. Out. The anger was there, a low simmer beneath his thoughts. The bodies, the child, the senselessness of it all. But he pushed it down, compressed it and locked it away.

  After a moment, the number stopped climbing.

  [Wrath Level: 4%]

  He opened his eyes.

  Robin approached, glancing at the floating orcs, then back at Sael. "What do we do now, sir?"

  "We take them with us," Sael said.

  Robin blinked. "The survivors?"

  "All of them. The wounded. The orcs. Everyone."

  "The—" Robin looked up at the orcs. "You're taking the orcs?"

  "Yes."

  Robin opened his mouth but seemed to think better of it, then nodded slowly. "Understood, sir."

  Sael's gaze shifted to Korreth's body, still crumpled at the base of the tree. The general's chest rose and fell in shallow, irregular gasps. His body had begun to spasm—small, involuntary twitches in his arms and legs. The Corruption inside him was trying to leave. When the host died, the Corruption would attempt to escape, to find another body or dissipate into the air.

  Sael would need to deal with that soon.

  He turned to the orcs from his group—Gorek and the others. They stood together near the cloud, watching the scene with uncertain expressions.

  "Do you know where the Orc Lord is at this very moment?" Sael asked.

  Gorek stepped forward. "When we fled, he was in Darransh... sir. That's where he set up his base after the fall of Korthak."

  "Darransh..." Sael murmured.

  He had history there. Darransh was a kingdom about a few hours' travel from here. And it was on the same route as Antor. The same road Lira and her mother had been traveling.

  Around him, small pebbles on the ground began to shift. They rolled slightly, then cracked. Hairline fractures appeared across their surfaces. The air grew heavy.

  Sael inhaled slowly, then exhaled.

  The pebbles stopped moving.

  He turned and looked at Lira. She sat beside her mother's body, no longer crying but staring at nothing with red, exhausted eyes.

  "How about we go to your father now, little one?" Sael said quietly.

  Lira turned around, her eyes widening. "But—but Mom is still here. I can't leave her. I can't—"

  "I'll take her with us," Sael said gently. "All of them. Everyone who fell today will come with us on the cloud. You won't leave her behind."

  Lira looked at him, her lip trembling.

  Behind Sael, the cloud began to rise from where it had settled at the clearing's edge. It lifted slowly, and as it rose it expanded. The surface stretched outward, growing larger and larger until it was easily twenty meters across, more than enough space for seventeen survivors, the bodies of the fallen, and fifty orcs.

  The survivors watched with wide eyes as the massive cloud settled just above the ground, hovering at waist height.

  Sael turned back to Lira and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Your mother will be with us the entire way. You can stay beside her if you wish. And when we reach your father, she'll be there too. I give you my word."

  Lira nodded slowly, wiping at her eyes.

  Sael straightened and addressed the other survivors, his voice carrying across the clearing. "I... know you've all been through something terrible. I know you're tired, hurt, and afraid. But I can take you somewhere safe. I can take you to Antor, to the frontier, to wherever you were traveling." He paused. "Will you come with me?"