Peccata Doctoris

Andr felt the first raindrops come down on him. The light mist tickled his nose and it brought him back to a lucid moment. His mind curious at the sensation turned to sudden thoughts of dread. He frantically worked out where he was, and his heart missed a beat in panic, “Was the barrier still up?”

He could feel the low thrum in his bones from holding the amount of power that the barrier required, and as his vision cleared he could still see the blue lightning of the barrier batting down artillery spells that were raining in from the Nomad army. Little thoom and boom sounds shook the hillside as the cacophonous spells collided on his barrier. Of all the Nomads’ attacks, those rounds sapped his strength the most. At some point, as the minutes had worn into hours, the magical feedback from one of those collisions must have knocked him unconscious.

Another full salvo lit up the treeline the Nomads had stationed their artillery in, and he cringed in dread at the pain that was rolling in on a smokey tide. He gasped as the hammer blows of his enemy collided with his shield. He felt himself nearly lose consciousness again, but he kept saying in his head, “Just one more, you can take one more. Just stay conscious and you will find a way to get through this." As the stonking ended he had a moment to catch his breath and he reflected on how this hill had become his hell. His body and lungs had long since pushed past the point of fatigue and numbness, and his nerves had stopped trying to tell him about all the little pains he was experiencing. His mind had finally realized he wasn’t listening to those impulses so it stopped bothering to send them and reserved its commentary for the sharp bone-scraping pain that came from the larger impacts. Andr’s blonde hair had blackened with sweat and grime, causing it to press to his skull and stream sweat into his eyes. His eyes had watered up from the stinging. Most of what he saw now were the blurry outlines of terror as they came towards him, depleting his waning strength.

He daydreamed about how much better life would be if he had abandoned this hill. He should have abandoned it and the hell it had become. He had been ordered here by the Aetherian military because this hill sat on top of a ley line. In some far-off place, he knew that that had been important to him hours ago. Right now, as his body fatigued, so did his mind. His aching body and his exhausted mind pleaded desperately with his essence that the “strategic” value wasn’t worth his life or the pain he was putting himself through. The ragged parts of Andr’s stubborn soul were having trouble disagreeing with them. He had thought he was brave when the invading army had surrounded the hill; he had been bold when he started taking in the energy to power his colossal barrier. He had assumed that help would be on the way, that someone from the capital would come to drive the battle line back. Now though, he wondered if there was even a capital left. When he had started this he knew that if the Nomads captured this hill they would sit on top of it and rain their siege kettles into the heart of Aether’s capital city. The same power that was magnifying Andr’s barrier spell could just as easily magnify the siege engines that tormented him now. He had prayed for help from the capital. He knew that there was no one on this hill with the expertise to assist him. The fourteen other people on this hill, ten wounded soldiers, and four doctors couldn’t help him and so his only hope for salvation had lied in his faith that Aether’s commander would see, and respond.

Andr had known that General Hammond and the main Aetherian force had had to regroup in the capital city, safe from the artillery and horde of Nomads who had swept across the nation in their vengeful crusade. He had hoped that eventually, the cost would be too high for the Nomads to take this hill, but they seemed content to take their time and break him, rather than attempt a push into the capital.

Another set of flames arced through the forest. His spirit in its flickering flash point raged at the Nomad's merciless assault. Trying to hold the barrier spell for this long was like holding a boulder above your chest trying to keep enough weight off so you could breathe. The artillery fire the Nomads kept slamming the hill with was akin to someone coming up and hitting that boulder with a sledgehammer. As the siege spells hit their apex and illuminated the night sky Andr could see ranks of soldiers forming up on the tree line, preparing to charge the hill. Twice now the Nomads had tried sending ground troops rushing to the base of his lightning dome. During both of those charges, the Nomadic infantry had come sprinting in towards him heralded by their battle cries and the coordinated barrages of artillery. It had strained the limits of Andr’s concentration, as he had to fend off all of the attacks, even a single spear getting through to him could be fatal for him, his fourteen men on the hill counting on him, and his country. Their aggressive tactics had not been without cost and it put hundreds of their infantry in range of the lightning that lashed out from his shield. The streams of raw energy tore through sinew and bone like a kingfisher passing through the water’s surface. Both attempts had crashed and broken against Andr’s will made manifest.

In the hollow moments after these bloody assaults he remembered how when he was young, he had once been outside near the river when a flash flood happened. The water crept up the banks of the river and snaked in between the grass and rocks as it came up the hill he had been on. Little splashes had occurred where the current ran into something sturdy, like a rock, before the water level climbed ever onward above the thing that had impeded it. The water had been so peaceful on the surface in that powerful flood that had ravaged the river valley he had grown up in. The bloody current that pooled from those fallen soldiers who had charged him ominously reminded him of the hungry waters from that flash flood, and he wondered what part of his country this flood would ravage before it was through.

It was funny to Andr as the ranks of his enemies formed up that his mind was going back to how this all started and how improbable it was that he was still standing. Since the standoff had started in the early hours yesterday when the Nomad Army had surrounded his hill, Andr had blacked out twice. Both times he had woken up to the barrier still standing. What had held up the barrier while he was unconscious? The stubborn will to live, hope for a rescue attempt, or maybe just too ornery to die? He didn’t know, but as long as the barrier held, he didn’t care why. He wondered how many men had died in those charges. More men than he could count, but not enough to deter his enemy. And for what had they done this? To kill four doctors, ten wounded soldiers, one Combat Medic, and take one cursed hill? It occurred to him that If morality was a numbers game Andr should lower the barrier and let the Nomads in. A sacrifice of the few for the good of the many. He shook his head remembering how every man in his unit had died in the trenches during this conflict. To a man, they had died fighting to keep this medical station safe. The people inside couldn’t defend themselves so someone had to do it for them. His spirit answered back to his weakening resolve, “Even if someone’s death was for the greater good and saved many lives that didn’t mean they should have to go quietly into the dark. Everyone at the very least had the right to fight for their own life.” That thought popping unbidden into his mind strengthened his resolve. He found himself determined to match the will of the fourteen other men still alive on this hill. If the Nomad army wanted this hill they had to pay full price for it.

Hours ago he had hoped that he could make the cost of capturing this hill too high, or that some rescue attempt would be mounted. Both of those ideas seemed laughable now, his countrymen had their own problems as his nation was on the brink of genocide from the invaders. He illogically still hoped that if he managed to kill enough of them, they would give up. Shrug their shoulders and turn around and say “well I guess that wizard wins this one.” But the rational part of his mind, the part that wanted to let him take a rest knew that they would never do that. He had seen when he was putting up the barrier the Nomad soldiers who had rushed at him, and they had seen him. They knew who he was; The red wizard of Aether and the butcher in the sands were two of the less flattering names they called him. To say the least the Nomads hated him. They hated him with the pure unadulterated hate that can only come from someone who has been wronged and knows they are righteous seeking revenge. When the first soldiers saw Andr and saw that the barrier would prevent them from getting to him they flung themselves at the barrier trying to fly through it to get to him. It had not ended well for them. Their fellow soldiers further away had hurled their spears at him, and that was taboo in their culture, but no tradition would contain their fury at the sight of him. “Unfortunately,” he thought, “all of this means that in addition to the Nomads needing this hill for their siege, their General Seht gets the added reward of killing me. They could conquer all the rest of my homeland and still, they would wait here for my barrier to come down.”

He felt the barrier start to slip from his grasp, and the mental image that he held of the great dome flickered for a moment. His spirit rallied, and every muscle in his frame tensed to tearing, as he fought to hold onto the only thing between him and certain death, but even with all his effort and good intentions, the barrier was still slipping away. After thirty-four hours of struggling the last rays of light on the horizon started ushering in his twilight. The barrier’s walls were thinning rapidly now and the dome was nearly transparent, rather than the menacing blue glow it had been for so long. The tendrils of lighting that had batted away artillery spells so precisely this entire time was becoming sluggish. In only a few short moments since Andr’s will had started to crumble, he noticed the walls losing substance. Burning debris and raindrops had managed to fall through the barrier when a probing artillery round struck the dome. The sight of the debris coming through the barrier must have excited General Seht because Andr could see he had come running to his archer’s forward position outside the tree line. The Nomad general ordered them to fire a volley at Andr, and the timely flight of arrows forced him to decide on what kind of man he was going to be. His spirit screamed at him with the fury of a man who was disgusted with his weakness and Andr slammed the barrier back into place the way a marathon runner might make himself sprint the last mile. He felt a little pop somewhere deep inside him, something had gone wrong and as the surge of adrenaline and fury poured out of him, he felt a sickening dread wash back over him in a riptide. The strain of driving that much magical force into place finally came to collect its toll on his body. It broke three of his ribs and one of them punctured a lung. He hacked out the first drops of blood and turned it into a macabre smile, the barrier had stopped the volley. Not able to hold onto that little hope for long he shook his head and started sobbing as he felt the drowning sensation that was his right lung filling with blood. It seemed an odd time to start crying, oh certainly the physical pain was intense, but what wounded him was that he had struggled for Thirty-four hours, and for what? So that everyone on this hill ended up dying anyway. In this twilight moment, all he could think was that it was such a waste, such a pitiful stupid waste of life. Fourteen men who would never go home and whose names would never be remembered. Despair set into his mind and he knew that very soon he would drown in his blood. There came no unbidden ray of hope from his spirit this time as his thoughts betrayed him, there was nothing left of the man who was Andr to keep fighting, mind, body, and now spirit all broken. The man who was once Andr could see when Seht stood up next to his archer line and picked Andr out of the ruin of the hill. From Andr’s vantage point on the higher ground, he saw the spittle on the corners of that madman’s mouth from when he had screamed at his archers to fire. Seht was smiling as he watched the young wizard struggle to breathe, gasping for air. Andr was no fool; he knew that he had no one to pray to, no last-minute tricks, and no hope of finding mercy in Seht’s soul. His mind started to struggle to get oxygen, and his heart beat faster trying desperately to meet the demand for air. In those darkening moments; as the edges of his vision began to close he had a final idea about what he could do for his countrymen. He started pulling the power of his barrier into his hands letting the top of his barrier fade as he redirected its power. Andr saw Seht smiling as he saw the barrier come down. Andr could tell that Seht knew that the end was near, and he was near the point of ecstasy that he would finally get to claim Andr’s life. Andr looked down and concentrated on his hands as he pulled the last of his barrier’s power into himself. He was vaguely aware that no artillery spells were landing even though the top of his dome was now completely gone. He looked up at Seht as his barrier completely vanished from the hill, and he saw that the nomad foot soldiers were already rushing in to fill the space where once lightning had torn apart their comrades. Andr smiled at Seht, and something about that smile must have warned the Nomad General because his smile faded as he saw the face of the young wizard who was about to get overrun by his troops. Seht turned to run far too late as Andr’s final bolt of lightning tore from his arms in a massive electrical stream of rage and desperation. The discharge of that much magic was so great that it flung Andr’s body backward and tore his clothes off of him. He felt one of his knees give and pop as his boots flew off of his feet. His vision blurred over and he could hear a deep humming sound as though he had dived deep underwater. Well past the point that light reached, the humming started to sound like the soft hum of his mother working in the kitchen. In mere moments no sight was before him as his vision faded away. Finally, there was only the humming of his mother, and then there was nothing.