"No!" Doevm yelled as he rushed in the cave. A Ghoul hunched over a b.l.o.o.d.y and wounded Frey. Its mouth was wide open. Although its prey was inches away, it was stuck in place. Not willing to take any risks, Doevm activated his life essence and launched his weapon, which pinned the Ghoul to the rock wall. He jumped over the numerous corpses and guts and kneeled at his friend"s side. Despite being covered in blood, his condition was better than expected. None of the wounds were very deep and they were still fresh. He sighed and dispersed his life essence. "I need some bandages and alcohol," he snapped. The squad members backed away by a few steps. "Come on, I know one of you has a bottle. I can hear you guys drinking it in the night. Give it to me now!" One squad member fumbled bandages and a jug of alcohol out and handed them over. The bottle"s cork made a little pop as Doevm ripped it off and poured it on Frey"s wounds. After emptying the contents, he tossed it away and unrolled the bandages. While some of the wounds could only be fixed with stiches or a healer, it was best to wrap them up. This cavern was a perfect place to get infected. In addition, Ghouls were infamous for giving deadly infections.
Doevm glanced over at the corpse pinned by his spear. It had no wounds on it (despite the spear sticking out of its chest) unlike the rest of the corpses. It just slumped over, lifeless. "Frey must have used his ability. It was already dead when I got here. Does this mean the ability wasn"t as slow as I thought? Maybe he can "eat" faster the more times he does it? I"ll ask him about it later."
As he picked the giant up, Hopi a.s.sisted him. Now that Doevm calmed down, he glanced down the cave. About twenty Ghouls covered the walls. The ones further down the cave were crushed. The closer the Ghouls were to Doevm, the better their condition was. In fact, some of them were still alive but merely unconscious. "It"s impressive," Doevm thought. "Judging by trail I followed, these weren"t his only victims. He probably fought for three days straight. I wouldn"t have done that." He stopped walking and took another look back. "Couldn"t or wouldn"t?" he asked himself.
"Frey and I have similar fighting capabilities. If I were in Frey"s position, would I have taken these odds on? No, I would have relied on my magic…" as the thought went through Doevm"s head, a realization took root. "How many times have I used magic now? I swore that I wouldn"t rely on it. I swore to myself I would only occasionally practice holy magic. Did I live up to that promise? I didn"t hesitate to sense the Elven mercenary squads. While it wasn"t me who used wind magic to correct my men"s spears, that doesn"t change the fact that I relied on magic again. When coming up here, I relied on magic. When finding my men I relied on magic. It doesn"t matter if I used it to save my life or save my soldiers. I haven"t changed at all! Frey was able to fight this many Ghouls because of the life essence he had developed. While we might be equal now but if I keep relying on magic, my life essence won"t grow. Frey will surpa.s.s me. What was the point of all of this?"
"Doevm, are you ok?" Hopi asked. "You"re looking awfully pale."
"I"m fine," Doevm lied. "I just need to think for a second." He grabbed his forehead and cursed. As doubts emerged, he thought back to his speech on heroism. "Heroes are ones who suffer more than anyone else yet keep moving towards their goals…" "The hero usually has an extraordinary amount of life essence because of how much conflict they face. When I faced conflict, when I saw the enemy a few days ago, I chose to retreat. I didn"t even think about a strategy to defeat them. I just ran down here. Now Frey nearly died and nearly half my squad was wiped out. How am I supposed to fight the hero like this? Will I just get scared and use magic? I can"t go on like this." He looked at his soldiers, who had followed him in retreat. Just a week and a half ago he was preaching about heroism. "I"m turning into more of a hypocrite. I"m becoming more of a human."
"We need to get moving." Doevm said. "We"ll look for a few more people and then we"re getting out of this place." The men let out a half-hearted cheer. For the rest of the day, everyone followed the wails of the Ghouls. Whenever they encountered any, Doevm wiped them out before any of his men got the chance. In total, they found seven more people, all from Frey"s squad. It seemed like his squad had ended up at higher levels while Doevm and his men were further down. All missing people were a.s.sumed dead. In a matter of four days, fifteen of Doevm"s men were dead. Frey was down to only seven men. While he wanted to continue looking, Frey wasn"t doing so good. His body was getting slowly colder. The alcohol wasn"t potent enough to kill all of the infection.
After some time, they were at ground level. The large tree had a large smooth hole straight down the center of its trunk that led to the outside. While the inside of the tree didn"t have any handholds, everyone still had their hooks. They made their way up where Doevm peeked out. Seeing no one, he signaled for the rest to follow. Emerging to the sweet, sweet blistering heat of the forest, they climbed down the tree. "I guess the enemy figured out this was a dangerous spot and left," Doevm thought. "Either that or the Ghouls wiped them out." Small slivers of the evening sun lit up their way back. Everyone was covered in sweat, dirt, and despair.
They navigated their way back to base using Doevm"s map. While it had been a few hours just getting to the tree on the first day, the way back took nearly half a day. Despite starting out with a week"s worth of supplies, most of it was gone. They hadn"t antic.i.p.ated the increased consumption due to combat. The men dragged their blistered feet in the rich soil. They had failed their mission and nearly died. Doevm let them relax. They had gone through enough. While he was getting a little nervous over Frey"s condition, he wasn"t worried. Healers could fix him right up. The thing he was most angry at was himself. His men gave him more room than usual. "That"s for the best," Doevm thought. "I just might kill someone if they say the wrong thing." He took deep breaths. "I can still change. It"s not too late. I can still change."
When they neared the base, they were stopped by the elevator"s guards. Doevm slapped them with his squad leader license and walked past. The shocked guard, upon seeing their sorry state, called for the healers. "I"m sorry Doevm, squad leader sir, you were all a.s.sumed to be dead!" the guard said.
"Not even a search party huh?" Doevm thought. "What a good captain who looks out for his men." When the healers rushed out, Wade ran alongside them. He almost hugged Doevm but a stare pushed him back. Then he saw Frey, who was covered in blood and bandages. "He"ll live," Doevm said as he handed the giant off to one of the healers. Amidst the chaos, he felt stare drill into his back. Looking around, he noticed a set of righteous eyes.
"I"m glad to see you"re ok." The war monk rushed out, his robe flapping behind him. "Lift your arms." He pat Doevm down, inspecting for wounds, and sighed. "We had all thought you had been slain. I am glad to know that we were mistaken. Let"s get you healed up." Oliver ran out and carried the men. He seemed to hold his head a little higher.
Even Marcus had come out: "Glad to know you"re alright. You scared the c.r.a.p out of Wade. He was muttering to himself ever since you left."
"Captain, I was fine!" Wade chuckled and pat Doevm on the shoulder. "I just thought you were dead. You know, perfectly valid reason to be upset."
"Now," Doevm thought, "Which one of you is the spy?" On the inside, he was interrogating each one of them. He imagined the tools he would use. "Which one of you am I going to kick into the Ghoul"s nest?" He glanced at everyone, waiting for someone to ask the most questions or look the most surprised. He couldn"t notice anything. Oliver tried to heal him, but Doevm just waved the apprentice healer off. "I just need to be alone right now. I"ll get healed if I need it." He turned to leave.
"Did you see the squad leader?" One whispered. As Doevm walked away, he used life essence to eavesdrop. "I"ve never seen him look so scary, even in practice. I thought he was going to kill us."
"I know right!" another said. "Do you think he might fancy Frey?"
"Might as well. If looks could kill, we"d all be like those Ghouls!"
"Did I really look that upset?" Doevm thought. "Well, I did invest a lot of resources in him. It would be strange if I didn"t get a little attached. Still, I didn"t think the attachment would force my emotions to the surface. Is that why the men hesitated when I ordered them around?" He shook his head and focused his thoughts elsewhere. "I have to break my addiction."