The impromptu task force stands or sits around the bottom of the dell as Caster shows us the tracks of our insurgents. Caster's Lurps shuffle edgily around off and above to my left, staring intently at the crumbling rock of the slope, doing whatever Lurps do. Caster stands above me on the slope and we shield our eyes for a split second as the sun's glare escapes the wisps of cloud that periodically cover it. When the dazzle behind our eyes has died away I follow Caster mechanically as he takes us up to the smashed sensor. It's a deep-radar scanner, meant to probe for underground tunnels and capable of sensing a human up to thirty feet under the earth. The cords which would have attached the machine to its parachute have been slashed by something sharp. The 'chute itself is missing.
"See, here, where they came past. The scree is indented where they've trodden," says Caster ponderously.
I catch Blue's eye and we both suppress a smile. Even an idiot could see the tracks in the loose pebbles of the bottom of the mountainside. Caster has the usual Lurp failing of pointing out the obvious. But it's tracking the makers of these prints once they'd got onto hard rock that would be the difficult part, and that would be where Lucky Guy's true genius would shine.
"Where do the tracks lead Caster?" asks Blue gently to my little brother.
"They lead over the ridge and down into a gully at the other side," he replies vaguely, apparently fascinated by the interlacing of the rivers of blue crystal run through a large formation heaped at the base of the ridge, where the desert hill became a true mountain. "They go both ways along the gully and there are more along the ridge top. It's probably a roving patrol," he adds in an off hand manner, running one gauntleted hand through his matted hair in silent contemplation.
Blue and I exchange another set of looks, this time worried.
"Caster, where's this outfit's path?" I demand.
"They'll be coming out over there probably," he says gesturing at an overgrown spot on the ridge above us, where four startled turbaned figures are standing, spears held loosely in bony hands.
The camera in my head clicks on as I feel an explosion of adrenaline flood my system and time suddenly takes on a slow, syrupy quality. In slow motion a spear is levelled at me and the metal head vanishes behind the crimson sphere of a Fira blast. It floats so slowly through the air towards me really. Its sulphur smell fills my nostrils though, and my body seems unnaturally sluggish.
Caster was standing to my left. He pivots ever so slowly on the spot, his face coming to face mine, pale, with frightened eyes flashing into my own. A gauntleted arm rises up and a hammer blow to my chest, bruising, is pushing my torso out of the blast's path. His shove launches himself clear too as his left arm rises up, gunblade pointing.
I lose sight of him as the Fira screams past my face. Eyebrows' smouldering in its heat wave, my face is turning towards the ridge-line as I twist my hips and my left hand strikes rock. Right arm rising I hear the first baaoom of his revolver, and Blue's scream as the Fira boils a path of melted armour and charred flesh along her side and up her arched back.
My arm is in place and my Water spell arcs towards the second PLF fighter. Blue bubbles swirling around him he is falling, lungs filled, drowning on dry land. Next to him the caster is jerked back once as Caster's shot strikes, robes billowing, then back and fore like an epileptic puppet as the Lurps and he fire perfectly synchronised. No body armour on that one.
Abruptly I am standing and time rushes forwards. A series of scenes flood my senses, like a succession of still shots clickclickclick. The kid from Blue's squad pale on the floor screaming as his blood gushes from a stump of an arm loped clean off by the gunblade of his Beserk comrade now sprawled twitchily on the ground with black Zs pouring from his mouth. The third grunt, frantically scrabbling in her pack for a Phoenix Down that isn't there. The third enemy caster disappearing behind three Fira balls as my squad's spells reduce him to ash. The fourth insurgent cresting the top of the ridge in full flight, never having cast a spell, the Lurps in hot pursuit with gunblades raised.
I look sharply down at Blue. She's rolling slowly on the ground trying to put out the flames out. Plasteel bubbles as it cools, setting in her flesh. Caster is over her though, chanting a Cura spell that will restore her body as if nothing had ever marked it. I leave him to it and sprint over to the dying grunt, ripping the only Phoenix we have with us out of my pack. Skid to a stop next to the tearful grunt. Lift the sheet-white head, force open the jaws with the right hand and dribble the potion down his throat.
The blood coming from his stump floods out anew as the magic starts his heart thumping again. The potion multiplies cells at an incredible rate, filling his body with new blood and re-growing the stump of his arm, which sprouts up before my eyes. As he coughs back to life, alive but hideously weak I finally register the girl in front of me is leaking rivulets of blood down her left leg. A straight slash has been opened in her thigh, shallow, but a dozen inches long. She is looking at me expectantly, but I've no Cure spells drawn. Blue was our primary healer, and I'm full with combat magic.
"Let me see that soldier," I say gently.
She extends her leg, grimacing at the movement.
"You haven't got anything for it have you?" she says hopefully.
"You know the drill," I snap, "Magic saved for serious cases. We've not got many healing spells drawn solider, and they're for the sergeant and your squadmate here."
She looks ready to cry again. There's a definite wobble of the lower lip. Fair enough to be stressed if you've just saved one comrade and subdued another without killing him I suppose.
"Let me show you a trick I picked up off your sergeant," I say, relenting a bit.
The grunt reminds me of Rikka slightly.
Briskly I take out a roll of bandage from the pack and cut off a strip with Heartbreaker.
"You wrap the bandage and tie it round your cut like so," I say in a businesslike tone, demonstrating on my own leg "It's a shallow thing and clean. It should heal straight, but get it looked at when we get back to the LZ. We're going to be walking though, it'll stop it closing properly. You need a pad to soak up the blood. Inserts- Tampons are good. Sanitary towels are better. They're bigger, plus they're designed to be outside."
The grunt gaps at me. Did I just say the 'T' word?
"Well?"
She doesn't meet my gaze.
"It's not the right time sarge," she says, abashed.
Sighing, I reach into the pack and pull out the packet I'd been hording over the last three months. I'd bought them back at base on the black market, from a dodgy quartermaster. Proper commercial pads, not the crap the army hands out. I'd bought three packets and they'd cost me a week's salary. This was my last one. I open it and hand one over, gloomily anticipating the pain to come. The damn army things feel like sandpaper.
As the grunt holds the pad in place I tie the bandage into place and stand up. The Lurps are back, dragging a snoozing and trussed captive across the middle one's shoulders. Blue is upright and casting a Cure over her reborn grunt, as though she had never had her flesh charred to the bone. She gives me a wink and I straighten my shoulders purposely while grinning tiredly back. We both feel it. The aftermath of any crisis. The heightening of the senses, the sheer happiness that you are alive and in one piece especially when so many others aren't. Each breath is savoured, but you hold your weapon close all the same. Part of you can't, will never, believe the danger is over.