Eventually the mages arrived.
Before they did, the camp followers had already gone among our fallen, carrying the dead back toward camp on rough wagons or wrapped in blankets. The battlefield looked strangely empty in places where whole knots of fighting had taken place only hours before.
I found myself searching the faces that remained.
Tim was gone.
So were several of the boys I'd marched beside for the last three weeks.
I hadn't known most of their names.
Somehow that made it worse.
There had been a surprising number of dead.
Looking over the field, I realized something else.
Most of the bodies wearing our colors looked young.
Men who had joined the levy only weeks before, just as I had.
Brenn noticed where I was looking.
"First battles are expensive," he said quietly.
I swallowed.
"Because they don't know what they're doing?"
The old veteran shook his head.
"That... and because they haven't learned how badly they want to live."
His eyes drifted across the field where the wounded were still being carried back toward camp.
“First time a man’s hurt, a lot of ’em freeze. They lie where they fall and wait for someone else to save them.”
He sighed.
“The ones who live learn to move before the enemy finishes the job.”
Brenn pointed toward a group of wounded being helped onto a wagon.
"See that lad there? Leo."
I followed his finger.
I knew him.
He was five or six years older than I was and had marched in the fifth rank.
"He took a spear through the side."
I stared.
"He's alive?"
"Aye." Brenn nodded. "Because he got back up."
The veteran scratched at his beard.
"Didn't matter that he was bleeding. He knew if he stayed where he'd fallen, he'd bleed to death before a healer ever reached him. So he got on his feet and walked."
He looked at me.
"Sometimes that's all the difference there is between living and dying."
“Will he live?” I asked.
Brenn watched Leo disappear among the wagons.
“If a healer reaches him soon. Probably.”
I had the feeling probably was poor odds.
While we were waiting, I scavenged the battlefield for the broken spearheads. I hoped having them would get me out of trouble when the sergeant showed up.
Before long, three people in robes approached our company.
I'd never seen the like before.
The priest back home wore a simple brown wool robe patched at the elbows. These robes were deep blue, forest green, and crimson, woven from a cloth so fine it shimmered when it caught the afternoon light. Silver thread traced strange symbols around the cuffs and hems.
They didn't carry swords.
They didn't have to.
The men around me straightened as the mages approached.
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One of them, a thin man with iron-gray hair, clapped his hands for attention.
"Right then, you lot. Form a line."
We obeyed quickly.
"Weapons out."
A forest of spears rose into the air while those of us who had lost ours looked about nervously.
The mage held up an old spear someone had handed him.
"Same as every battle," he said, sounding thoroughly bored. "The bodies your weapon struck down will answer to it."
A murmur ran through the ranks.
"You'll see a faint glow. Loot those bodies and only those bodies." His eyes swept over us. "Touch another man's claim and you'll answer to the provost, the Crown, and me—in roughly that order."
A few veterans chuckled.
I swallowed.
It was a good thing I'd gathered the broken heads and shafts from my spears.
Otherwise...
I might not have been able to prove a thing.
I found myself staring at the weapons in my hands.
It looked like an ordinary spear.
There wasn't a mark upon it that hinted at magic.
Yet somehow it remembered.
Soon enough it was my turn.
This mage wasn't the one who had addressed the company. He looked much younger, perhaps in his twenties, though there was something about his eyes that made him seem older.
He glanced at me, frowned, and then looked over my shoulder.
"Why are you here, boy?"
I held out the broken spear shafts and my short sword.
"To claim my kills."
He looked from the weapons to me.
"You used... all of these?"
I nodded.
Holding up the first broken shaft, I said, "This was my first spear. The head broke off."
Then I held up the second.
"This was the next one. They chopped the head off, and I couldn't find another spear, so I had to finish with my sword."
The young mage gave me a long, doubtful look.
"Hodger!" he called over his shoulder. "You get the impossible claims, right?"
An older mage sighed theatrically before making his way over.
"Yes," he muttered. "The impossible is apparently my profession."
He stopped in front of me, took one look at the pile of broken weapons in my hands, and raised an eyebrow.
"How old are you?"
"Twelve, sir."
The older mage blinked once.
"Of course you are."
He accepted the first spear with practiced hands, turning it over slowly.
"Watch carefully," he said, though whether he was speaking to me or the younger mage, I couldn't tell.
Resting two fingers against the broken haft, he closed his eyes.
For a heartbeat...
Nothing happened.
Then faint threads of pale blue light drifted away from the spear, stretching across the battlefield like strands of spider silk until they settled upon several fallen orcs.
The younger mage let out a quiet whistle.
Hodger opened one eye.
"Every weapon remembers."
Seeing my confused expression, he smiled faintly.
“When a weapon takes a life—or leaves the wound that will take it—it carries away an echo. The magic doesn’t create the connection.”
He gestured toward the glowing bodies.
“It merely reveals the claim already there.”
He handed the broken spear back.
"Now let's see if the boy's impossible story gets any worse."
Hodger looked out across the battlefield before glancing back at me.
"Interesting."
He pointed toward one of the younger soldiers standing nearby.
"You."
The man straightened.
"Sir?"
"Help the boy. Every body that glows gets dragged into a single pile. We'll sort them afterward."
"Aye, sir."
I looked around at the others.
"Anyone willing to lend a hand?"
The young soldier nodded.
"I only got one. I've time."
Together we set off.
The first spearhead pulsed with pale blue light as Hodger whispered the spell. Thin strands of light stretched away until one fallen orc answered with a soft glow.
"There's one," the mage murmured.
We dragged the body back.
The light shifted.
Another corpse answered.
Then another.
By the time the first spearhead had gone dark, five orcs lay in a rough pile before the mage.
When I dragged the final orc back, twelve bodies lay before the mage.
I stood breathing hard as Hodger counted them.
His attention shifted from the bodies to the two broken spears and my shortsword.
“You haven’t awakened yet, have you?”
“No, sir.”
He looked at the pile once more.
“Interesting.”
He pursed his lips and fell silent, apparently deciding that whatever he was thinking shouldn’t be discussed in front of the company.
I blinked.
"It's still alive?"
"Barely."
I hurried across the field until I found the wounded orc. It lay on its back, blood bubbling from its mouth as it struggled for every breath.
Its yellow eyes found mine.
Then I remembered Tim.
I drew my sword across its throat.
The struggling stopped.
When I looked back toward Hodger, the glow had become steady.
I dragged the last orc back to the growing pile.
Breathing hard, I stood looking down at them.
Twelve.
Twelve dead orcs.
I hadn't realized there had been that many.
I turned back toward the old mage.
"Thank you, sir."
"Mm?" Hodger replied absently.
His attention wasn't on me anymore.
It was on the pile.
He counted them once.
Then again.
Finally he looked at the broken spearheads lying beside my sword.
"Interesting..."
The younger mage stepped closer.
"Something wrong?"
"No."
Hodger crouched beside the weapons, his fingers lightly brushing the battered spearheads.
"Quite the opposite."
He looked up at me.
"You said these three weapons account for all of them?"
"Yes, sir."
His gaze lingered on my face for a long moment.
"And you say you're twelve."
I nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"You are without the System?"
"Yes, sir."
Hodger slowly rose to his feet.
"Very..."
He paused, his eyes lingering on the pile of twelve orcs before returning to me.
"...interesting." He pursed his lips and fell silent, as though he had just decided that whatever he was thinking wasn't something to discuss in front of a company of soldiers.