The soldier leads me off to the side, maybe about a hundred feet beyond the makeshift storage rack, if that. Temporary cots are set up. Some blankets were thrown on the ground to handle the overflow. It looks disorganized, but the Priests are tending to the wounded and that is what is important right now.

There are faint groans and weeping throughout the makeshift medical camp. ‘Heal.’ I just start with the first person I come to. ‘Heal.’ I continue to walk. ‘Heal.’ Coming close to the next person and lay my hand on him as I pass. Once in their midst, I can see that there are not as many as I had first thought. Maybe around thirty or so, I didn’t count.

About halfway through, I come to a soldier who has lost the bottom part of his leg, just below the knee. ‘Heal.’ He looks up at me and smiles. I note that his leg has not instantly grown back. I wonder if it will.

‘Heal.’ A soldier who looks like he had his weapon disarmed, with his hand. ‘Heal.’ ‘Heal.’ There are several more with similar injuries that include the loss of a hand. ‘Heal.’

I come to one who is having a mental breakdown. A Priest is trying to console him, but he will not stop rocking back and forth. Neither will he give up what he has clenched in his hands to the Priest. ‘Heal.’ As I pass, I see his face twisted in anguish. Our eyes do not meet, nor does he focus on anything.

Moving to the next cot, ‘Heal.’ I feel someone, like a child, take hold of my hand. It is the soldier having the breakdown. He is on one knee, holding my hand in one of his. He has stopped rocking and crying. This man, the Priest, and I pause in silence.

Looking at the Priest, he gives me a head nod. It takes a few times, then I finally understand what the Priest is trying to tell me. The soldier is holding my hand, looking at my blue ID band.

Silence passes for a few more minutes as we wait, the soldier gathering himself as he looks up at me. I feel him press something in my hand, using his other hand to close my fingers around it. “Thank you,” I tell him as he sits back on his cot facing the Priest, not giving me another look.

‘Heal.’ As I move to the next cots. ‘Heal.’ Making my way to each man until I come to the end.

Looking over the camp, making sure not to have missed anyone, I walk back out where I came in. I see the soldier now speaking with the Priest. His back is mostly towards me, but I can tell. I think he’s going to be okay and it makes me smile. Remembering and looking down into my hand, I stop and lose it right there. My heart breaks as I weep. Not twice in my life have I cried. It was years after my father died when I finally did and let it go. This almost rivals that as in my hand are three unbroken blue bands.

Five, ten minutes, I don’t know. I am unable at first, but after a few minutes, I pull myself together and control my emotions while looking over at the silhouette of the palisade in the distance.

I meander a bit as I make my way back to the tent I woke up in. When I can’t find it, I realize that it must have been pulled up. I find the chunk of wall I was dragging around when vine and root had it wrapped to my sword, and sit on it.

Looking again at the palisade in the distance, I imagine nuking it and it going up in a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame.

A few Priests walk by in a group. One of them giving orders and commanding in a very non-Priestly way. There’s no attempt to mask their conversation. They are to hold and move no closer or do any more damage. Corrupt politicians come to mind.

Sitting on my chunk of wall, I start to fantasize again about Nuking the town. What could I do?

Stolen story; please report.

What would I do if I could?

As I sit, I can hear the town in the distance sounding like a large crowd. I watch, and periodically I see one of the soldiers hoof it forward, almost out of sight. Picking up things left out on the battlefield, then returning only to dump the items by the storage rack or give it to one of the Priests.

One of the soldiers coming back slows when he notices me. Changing course, he comes near. I recognize his face as his tears have washed clean streaks down his face, under his eyes. Throwing another piece towards the storage rack, he then beckons me to follow.

Reluctantly I follow at a slow pace as he waves me forward to follow, a finger to his lips to stay silent.

He does not try to conceal himself. Walking forward, he stops when he’s about two football fields away from the palisade and starts watching the sky.

We wait. After a while, I grow impatient. When I try to return to the camp, he gets overly animated until I stop and stay a little longer.

The sound of the crowd in the town starts to pick up again. It crescendos with the “Thunk” of a catapult. The crowd inside roars with laughter.

The soldier’s head snaps in the direction of the catapult sound. Sighting something in the air, he races towards it, stopping well away from where it will land.

Coming closer, I see what he is pointing at. “Yay, another piece of my wall.”

Giving me a serious look, he stands over something and points down at it until I come close to look.

‘Another mismatched gauntlet’ I think to myself as I see it spiked into the ground from the catapult. The crowd inside has quieted but is still loud enough to hear.

Pointing, now standing over something else, a leather high-top boot, he continues to stare at me.

“Yes yes, it’s stupid. I don’t know why they’re doing this.” Why they would bundle up armor pieces, with a chunk of wall and toss them over? I’m sure it’s psychological warfare for them, and very traumatic, but this is barely a “B” rated movie to me.

Giving me a focused stare, he picks up the boot by the heel, raises it over his head, and starts whipping it at the ground. After the third whip, a leg comes out and splats onto the ground.

Putting the boot under one arm, never taking his eyes off me, he picks up the gauntlet. With a giant whip to the ground, a hand flies off that I had thought was part of the gauntlet.

Standing near the chunk of wall, he points down at something else. He stands. He waits until I relent and walk over to look.

It is a Blue Band.

I stare at it. I lost my breath for a moment. My heart skipped a beat. The tiny arm was still in it, cut off just above the elbow.

It was disgusting. Bile started to rise in my throat but the rage kept it down. Like a piece of roadkill, it was mutilated.

Rage forces me to pick it up, just above the band. The outrage and revulsion I feel touching it fuels the rage.

“Burn!” Escapes my lips. Turning, heading back to camp. The question is now, what can I do?

Fantasies and imaginations started to churn. Dropping a nuke. Planetary bombardment from orbit. Tanks and aircraft. Guns?

Even as I think about it, a gun isn’t big enough. How would I even make one here? Maybe I get a blacksmith or someone to make the barrel. I still need gunpowder or something. A railgun would be better, I could use lightning?

Did people call down lightning in the Bible? Moses killed the Egyptians parting the Red Sea. Was that using wind to push the sea back, then letting it go? Elijah called down fire and killed the fifty. Jesus cursed the fig tree. I stop.

Turning, I stand and stare at the palisade, listening to the crowd beyond. I could curse them. I know it in the depths of my being as I listen and stare.

I could curse them. They would die.

Jesus cursed the fig tree. That was a judgment.

Moses sent ten plagues against Egypt in judgment.

I want to kill them.

It’s at the tip of my tongue and the rage does a slow burn at my core. Something inside me says don’t do it. I feel it pull at the essence of who I am. Who I will become. What I will become. Seldom in the moment, do we grasp how the choices we make, the paths we choose to walk, shape who we are. What we are.

I continue to hold my tongue. If at that moment the crowd would have roared to life again, or the ‘Thunk’ of the catapult would have sounded, would I have been pressed enough to curse them? I can feel it burn like an alignment shift or a class change, to release, let it happen, to kill them.

The soldier is there, waiting on me. Maybe it’s what I needed, maybe not. I see it in his eyes. Controlling his emotions or deaden to them, he waits on my lead. Not hours before he had gently pushed the blue bands into my hand. Now I see in him the will, the resolve, to push through where he is directed. I turn. I will remain who I am… But they will still pay…

Making my way to that storage heap, I continue to brainstorm internally with myself. The best I can come up with so far is the Raiding Party, buying what I need, or paying someone else to do it for me.

I see Dr. Lightbringer just beyond the storage rack, closer to the medical camp. Coming up to him I ask, “The Priests. Is there a charge for healing?”

Half pulling his attention away from his tablet, “It’s part of their service for the wounded. For any layman, a donation is required.” Nodding to the soldiers scattered about, many who are watching us. “For what you do? A year's wage would not cover it.”

“Thank you,” I reply as I hand him the arm to take.

Almost accepting it. “Ah!” as his head flinches back and away. Taking a cloth out of a pocket, he wraps it before taking it. Placing the other three blue bands out into his chest, his hands get bloody anyways. “Where did you get these!?” he asks.

“From him, and out there.” Indicating with my head the soldier and the battlefield. Turning I start heading back to the tear.

I hear the soldier's footsteps following.

“Make sure he gets there safely.” Says Dr. Lightbringer.