Chapter 17: Lauraphine

The young knight strode out of the enclosed area and moved through the bodies. What was she doing? This wasn’t her job. She healed the Knights, her comrades, the innocent. This wasn’t her job. But something in her was pushing her to show mercy this time. To find someone worth saving.

Ordinarily, the enemy fallen were left to die. So, what was she doing now?

Laura looked to find the first man she expected to be alive sitting up against a tree and turning pale. She saw the shot that Erica had made and nodded knowingly. The arrowhead had impacted the man’s shoulder and cut through, past the bone and deep into the tissue. He was their leader and whilst he’d acted tough and fought through the pain at the beginning, there was only so much blood that he could put up with losing before he became dizzy.

That might have been her fault, Laura contemplated grimly. She had taken the opportunity to twist the arrow viciously during a brief grapple with the bandit leader. She knew there was a good chance it would nick the artery that ran down the arm and it looked like the gamble had paid off.

“I don’t suppose you have a healing potion on you?” the man asked feebly, already knowing the answer. Laura shook her head sadly, and the man coughed and laughed in several short spasms.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of it,” he said bitterly. “Wish I could have fucked one of those elves first. I would have made them—”

Laura nearly separated the man’s head from his shoulders before he could finish the sentence. As it was, the cut left his head hanging by the muscle alone. There was nothing that he had left to say that she wanted spoken into the world. So much for mercy so far.

“Filthy piece of crap,” came a voice to her left.

A man was coming to, with a hand on his head as if nursing a skull-splitting headache. He slowly got to his feet and spat at the body of the bandit captain. “Women were supposed to be off limits.”

Laura eyed him carefully and sheathed her sword. She wasn’t afraid of the man; he was unarmed and still unsteady on his feet. Whatever Mathew had done to him, it was lingering.

“You still fought with him,” she sniped angrily. “You were helping him!”

“WHAT?” the man said loudly, tapping his ear. Something was wrong with his hearing, and he was suddenly panicked as he realised that he couldn’t hear at all.

Laura looked at the man with astonishment. She was sure that Mathew hadn’t used any magic in the fight, but he had managed to deafen this man. How? She’d seen thunder spells render whole units of men deaf by creating large cracks of sound, but he’d done this silently.

“What did you do to me?” the man spoke loudly, confused. He was panicking and rubbing his ears, trying to hear whilst looking at her with fear.

She shook her head and mimed something she thought would convey her ignorance. He seemed to understand but slumped down to the ground, leaning up against a tree.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, depressed.

She shook her head. He shrugged and stared off into the distance, seeming to ignore her now that she wasn’t a threat.

Laura took his bow and his knife that had been lying where he had initially fallen and moved on. As the sun began to show a glow to the horizon, the wide circle where the girls had set hunting traps was easier to spot in the dawning light. Sure enough, she found a bandit further out. The man had been caught through the leg, and he was lying unconscious on the ground, still trapped with two spikes pinning him in place.

She slapped him hard to wake him up.

The man yelled in surprise and agony as the reality of his situation came flooding back to him.

“What the fuck, woman? Leave me the fuck alone, cunt! Bitch-ass trap already fucked up my leg and you want to make it worse?”

Laura chuckled at the vulgar language that the man, who was in his thirties, was spewing at her.

“Should I leave you to die? That looks like it will get infected.”

“Bitch, I will shit down your throat and fuck your ass with a dagger rather than accept help from you.”

“Wow.” Laura was speechless. She had seen the dregs of humanity before, but it shocked her every time when she was exposed to the lowest forms of life. She scoffed and stood up. “Fine. Die. I was going to free you from the trap and bandage your leg, but if you want to die—die.”

The man spat at her and continued cursing as he pulled at the trap with his hands to try to free himself. The attempt was, Laura admitted, an admirable one considering the circumstances. But the spring was designed to hold deer, and he was already weak with blood loss. She left him to it.

She leant against a tree a little way off and counted the damage. Two men caught by traps. Two men unconscious. One deaf (she needed to talk to Mathew later about how he managed that). Four more dead.

She’d missed one.

The knight retraced her steps, cursing under her breath. She could have sworn there was another one. She’d hit him with her shield early in the scrimmage, and he had gone down hard, but she’d never seen what had happened after. She just hoped he didn’t try anything suicidal now. With Asha and Mathew out of operation, Erica was hardly up to the task of handling a vengeful bandit on her own.

She moved quickly back toward the clearing. When she reached a vantage point and saw the others were fine, she paused. It wasn’t the first time she’d been in a battle against odds; it wasn’t the first time she had killed. But it was the first time she’d gone out to triage the enemy injured. They didn’t deserve it, and she hadn’t helped even one of them. But that wasn’t the point.

It was Mathew. How he’d offered the vagrant scout the bag of jerky the previous day. He knew the man was scoping them for trouble, and yet he showed him kindness. It needled at her and worked its way into her soul. Lady Lauraphine De Matre considered herself a good person. She had been raised a good person. She had honour and respect, and she treated people with compassion and… she wasn’t good enough.

He had shown kindness and charity to the enemy—something she would have done as an afterthought, maybe after a battle if they begged for their life. But to do so before a battle? Why? Why would he do that?

Laura’s thoughts drifted. She could understand completely why the elf girls were drawn to him. He was a man of mercy and compassion. He was brave and selfless. The fact that they’d already offered themselves to him was concerning, but Laura couldn’t fault their reasoning. By all the evidence, Mathew was nice. Charming. His morals were impeccable, and his self-restraint unlike any man she’d known. If they could command his attention, and he could provide for them, she imagined that they would be well taken care of.

More than her at any rate.

She had no one. A shadow crept across her thoughts. Her mentor was dead. The vengeance she had taken was bitter ashes in her mouth. Her unit wasn’t only gone; it was forsaken—every member a disgrace to the vows they had sworn. And here she was; a barely-oathed knight, twenty-four years old, scared and alone, with three civilians depending on her.

Well… two.

Mathew.

He was different. He was a man. Not that she believed for a second that being a woman made her weaker, but he had lived almost a full life. He wasn’t a boy. He wasn’t even a young man. She had to accept—his wisdom and experience dwarfed her own. It was like speaking to her old mentor again.

That made her flinch.

Could she rely on him like she did her mentor? Would he help her? She looked through the trees. Erica cradled Mathew’s head as he lay beside Asha. She was devoted to him—and he to them, it seemed. But she knew it didn’t extend to her.

Lauraphine slumped against a tree and let a tear drop down her face. Her weakness was seeping out of her eyes again. She needed to be colder. Detached. Mission-focused. Crying was only going to get someone killed. The mission was clear: get the civilians to safety, report the corruption of the First Shield to the Wizards’ Collective, and figure out what to do with Mathew. That was what she needed. Not the emotional blubbering that she was doing now.

That was when she discovered that the single tear had cascaded into a torrent of salt water streaming down her face. The knight sniffed and pulled herself to her feet. That wouldn’t do.

“I’m not Deriostos,” she muttered to herself. “But credit where it’s due; that bastard had a handle on things.” She wondered if she would ever gain the level of confidence that the seasoned captain had possessed.

Looking across to the clearing, she watched Erica still stroking Mathew’s head in adoration, the man himself cradling Asha’s unconscious head in his lap. A pang of jealousy for the intimacy of the moment flickered across her mind before she banished it in scorn.

She sighed as she started back to the camp.

“Good for them,” she muttered. She meant it, but it still felt bitter.