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Oh, am I getting ahead of myself?

What is there to tell? A booming voice ordered all warriors to the front. Some idiot who called me ‘shieldie’ pushed me in that direction.

The cyclops pointed, uttered the words: “Tree explosion.” and laughed as everyone trying to circle around him developed a case of wood shards that had to be pared down to make tent stakes out of them.

The gladiators fought like ... well, like wolves. Skirmisher Pack Tactics, I would call the feat. It was meant for things like bears and trolls, but it worked well enough on the cyclops. By the time I was removed from the fight, it was covered in blood from the waist down, and hadn’t laughed in a while.

Some of ours had worked around behind it, and kept it at bay with spears when it tried to run. That worked for long enough for me to dance around the edges of consciousness for a while.

It is an odd and not triumphant thing to hear the weeping of a giant as it flees, snapping limbs off trees in its haste to get away.

It was worth Combat XP, though.

But the big haul that day was Medical Treatment. Broken bones, dislocation of both hip joints, and of course, a skull fracture. Once that one was treated, there was another. Some time during the treatment of the third, I discovered myself lying on my side, young minotaur poking me painfully with a stick.

.....

“Looks alive to me, older brother!” he bellowed.

“Well, then move along and poke someone else.” the reply boomed back. He was scraggly, black of fur but pale brown of mane. His left hoof showed where it had once been split, and been fused back together.

He came up to me. “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant.” he said. “I need your coins. You don’t. Hand them over and...”

I threw the money pouch to him.

He looked at it, there, dwarfed by the palm of his hand. “See?” he said, “Painless, like I told you.” He did some manner of strut that I suppose was to look mature or dominant, or both.

[This petty criminal has no significant vengeance sword against him; two points of Servant of the Divine will...]

I told my System.

Okay, wrong time, wrong place. It wasn’t as if there were markets to spend the coins at. Let him burn the energy carrying them all the way back to Achaea.

I found a passable branch, stuck my left armpit over a split, and hobbled around to where more of the wounded were being treated.

The effort that required! But when your heath is under a quarter of full, you tire quickly.

“More frames!” a familiar voice boomed. “When she comes back with friends, we want to be nowhere near this place!”

An elderly man was suddenly there, pressing a broad axe into my hands. “You are a carpenter, are you not?” he asked. “With all this shattered wood around, surely some of it can be of use?”

I didn’t have much stamina myself, and my entire body was shaking. But I could tell others the knots, lay out the wood at the angles, and so on.

We were under way within twenty minutes, the walking wounded such as myself taking up position as rear screens. But yes, we had encountered a cyclops and lived to walk away from it. Not a small feat, as feats of endurance went.

We trudged away from the setting sun until it began to dull and change color behind us. We didn’t need the loud voice; we set up such camp as we could. In a small glade of trees by the river, we lay down to sleep.

I didn’t get much. It was that same damn old man, shaking me awake. “Every warrior needs to take a guard shift.” he told me.

“I am heavily wounded.” I said.

He blinked at me. “So are over half the warriors; you must take a guard shift.”

And damn that old man, he was correct. I took first; if I managed to get to sleep, I wasn’t even certain the sun could wake me.

It was the cold, the sudden frigid cold, that made me look up.

The ghoul blinked yellow eyes that reflected moonlight at me.

“I taste terrible.” I said.

“I didn’t ask.” he said. “You’ve got people who won’t make it through the night.”

“And some who will.” I said. “This migration has fought off a cyclops. Wait until morning.”

“Cold food?” a nearby shadow said. “Heh. Pass.”

“You have no clue...”

My world exploded in redness and pain as one of them hit me on the back of my head with what felt like a dull mining pick. It wasn’t, of course, for I woke with the sun.

I was missing two fingers off my right hand, but they were nearby. I’d tried to warn them how bad I tasted.

“We thought you’d been eaten by ghouls.” said the guard at the edge of the camp.

I raised my hand. “They may have taken a nibble.” I said. “How bad were things here?”

“Maximus says we can’t sleep here again, and he’s not wrong.”

“When are we forming up for that?” I asked.

“Come.” said the old man. “Get at least a few winks of sleep.”

How was he everywhere? It made about as much sense as when he gently pushed me to lay back on a cargo frame and threw a blanket over me.

I was [Delirious] most of that day; we took lunch by a river, but at the rate I was sweating, that did me almost no good.

The next day, I walked. At least until I saw the giant mound of earth along the river’s path. I found enough charges of Fleet of Foot to find Maximus. “Maximus, we need to turn south. Or north. But we need to turn.”

“There are giant cockroaches to the south.” he replied. “Omnivores. They’ll eat us alive.”

“Then turn north.” I said.

“And leave the river?” he said. “Why must we do that?”

I pointed at the mound. “Because of that.” I said. “I’ve had time to wonder what kept the roaches in check, and now we know.”

“A hill of dirt?” Maximus asked. “A bare hill of dirt scares you?”

“That is a giant ant mound, you dolt!” I snapped at him.

“Here now.” one of the gladiators said. “We’re alive because of that man, and you WILL show him respect.”

“Merciful gods.” Maximus said. “No wonder its outline looked familiar. We’d have been eaten alive.” He turned to the north, let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess we find out what’s this way.”

That way, as it turned out, was rich in wild boars as well as the hardy root fibers they survived on. There were rodents, some large enough to make a meal of, and mighty elk. There were also cougars, but some of them were sentient and willing to negotiate passage.

I lay close to a fire that night, exhausted from the day’s travails.

“Hey, reptile thing.” the gladiator from earlier said. “Are you dead?”

“Not far from it.”

“Maximus says you saved our lives today, twice.”

“What? No, that doesn’t sound at all like the sort of thing I’d have energy to do.”

“But you did. You knew what that hill was just by looking at it. And those giant cats? They were all kinds of territorial until they saw you.”

I squinted. “I’m trying to remember, but I think I just introduced myself.”

He snorted. “Must be quite an introduction. I’d like to hear it some day.”

“My name...”

But his hand was right there, holding my jaw shut from the end of my snout. “Someday soon.” he said. “Like when we meet the elves.”

“Tmorrw.” I said.

“What about tomorrow?” he asked.

“We pass by the deer stables tomorrow. I’m known to them; there shouldn’t be many problems.”

“Deer? Deer are food.” he said.

“Not these deer.” I said. “These are awakened, and it being spring their antlers will still be strong, if not as long and pronged as later in the season. I advise you to be on your best behavior.”

He snorted. “However smart they are, they’re just deer.” he said. “They eat only vegetables; they can be on their best behavior around us.”

I sighed. “You won’t like how that ends.” I said.

“They will like it less.” he said. “They can avoid us, or become meat.”

I yawned, and stretched out among the young foliage. “I can only warn you, I cannot protect you from yourselves.”

“Whatever.” he said. “You saved our lives today, so I say thanks for that. And you’re trying to make us scared of food, which is... Anyway, thanks. But no free meat for you tomorrow, you coward.”

“I helped to fortify their homes.” I said. “There’s no free meat for anyone.”

But he was gone when I turned my head to look at him again.