Ogre Squire Ch. 3: The First Hunt

Ukura goes for revenge on the warg

I collapsed on a bale of hay in the barn, and promptly began staining it red. Althea hovered over me, her expression still cross.

“Soul of Metaton,” she said softly. “Healing Light.”

I saw briefly, hovering before her, an angel like those painted in human buildings. But this angel had no beatific smile but a completely blank face, a slate of dark skin without eye, ear, or nose, and four tight-angled wings that looked likely to cut. And then it was gone, and a warm feeling started to envelope me. White light began to flow into my wounds, and, for an instance, I was filled with warm comfort, like the best campfire night.

And then, a moment later, it all turned painful. My skin stretched out to stitch itself back together, and it felt like having my hair ripped out. My leg, which had been broken to at least some degree after the warg had tossed me into the wall, forcibly bent into its former shape with an audible snap. It was a year’s worth of healing, and a year’s worth of pain, condensed into a minute.

Even after it was over, it took a little while for my skin to stop burning with the echo of the original pain.

“How did that feel?” Althea asked.

“Terrible,” I said.

“Good. It will teach you not to be so reckless. And remember – every healing spell ages your body, so it is best not to become too reliant on them.”

“Can I still be your squire?”

Althea scoffed. “You’d have to try harder than that to get out of it. One good thing you did is to leave a blood trail – yours and the warg’s. We’ll pick that up tomorrow. Do try to actually sleep this time.”

That was one piece of instruction I didn’t need. The healing had made my body exhausted from all the self-mending it had to do. I didn’t even move from my cradle of hay before falling into a dreamless sleep.