As soon as my ‘fight’ with Joy is done – a one-minute matter of facing each other in the ring and Joy immediately conceding – I head towards my next opponent. Joy does the same – she’ll be facing Wood-shaper in the next bout. I suspect that the outcome is fairly obvious, but it’s always possible that I will be unpleasantly surprised.

I’m a little tempted to follow her – Wood-shaper is currently facing off against Runs-with-the-river and I’m very interested to see what impact her new form and abilities have made to River’s style of fighting. Having sparred so much, my erstwhile-Bound and I know each other’s techniques very well, which means that with the changes in the newest Pathwalker, I may actually be at a disadvantage.

Still, first I need to get through the next two battles, so I decide to head off to where my next two opponents are battling it out.

In the ring in front of me, I see Grower taking a bit of a beating.

She’s facing the herbalist and not doing very well by the looks of things. Like Wind-whisperer before her, she’s surrounded by a noxious cloud from which choking, coughing sounds are emanating. Unlike the herbalist’s previous opponent, however, she’s unable to control the cloud to, presumably, direct it away from her airways, hence the choking.

While I watch, she tries to back out of it, her eyes streaming and her body convulsing as it appears to try to retch. As soon as enough of her emerges from the cloud, though – which is holding together surprisingly well –the herbalist raises a stick to her lips.

There’s a soft humming sound, barely audible against the backdrop of the battle sounds coming from the other two fights. Grower flinches as if struck by something and her right arm suddenly goes limp. To her credit, though, she doesn’t give up despite the handicap, not even when it becomes clear that the paralysis is spreading across her body quickly.

Instead, when the herbalist looks away from her for a moment to fumble with her stick – the blowpipe mentioned earlier that she uses would be my guess – Grower makes her move. Fumbling with a pouch at her waist, she pulls out a small stone. Working one-handed and with judicious use of her teeth, she agilely arms a sling.

Grubs-in-the-dirt seems to be having problems with loading her own weapon and succeeds in getting it ready only to get a stone to her face. She looks up just as the small stone thumps the boney spot between her eyes.

“Impressive accuracy,” I comment quietly to the Bound around me.

She has improved a lot since last time, Shrieks rumbles both mentally and audibly. At this point I don’t know whether my understanding comes through the Bond or Animal Empathy – or both. Her accuracy was poor before – she has clearly been practising in secret. It is lucky that Weaver managed to bind her sling to her body during their bout or the outcome could have been very different.

“True,” I agree watching blood flow from the spot between the herbalist’s eyes as a second stone hits the same spot. “Perhaps she knew something that the herbalist didn’t.”

Perhaps.

The first blow between her eyes stunned Grubs-in-the-dirt; the second staggers her. I can only assume that the impact of the first stone meant that she didn’t have the wherewithal to dodge the second which draws blood. Knowing just how much damage tough samuran skin can take before it breaks or splits, I wince despite myself.

The herbalist tries to stagger sideways, perhaps realising that she should be dodging. That movement spells her doom as she hadn’t realised that a loop of roots has sneakily grown over her feet. Off-balance, she tumbles to the ground with a thump.

More roots quickly grow over her body, binding her tightly to the earth and making sure she stays down. After taking those two heavy blows to the skull, she’s not struggling all that much anyway.

Grower isn’t looking too good either, though. Within seconds of Herbalist falling to the ground, so does Grower, her right leg giving out on her. Her left arm pushes weakly at the ground but it seems to be losing its power quickly and her breath is coming in gasps. Whatever substance the herbalist injected her with via dart is acting quickly.

Her bindings holding the herbalist to the ground aren’t budging, though, which is interesting to note.

I look at the refereeing Warrior, wondering whether he’s going to call it before any permanent damage is done. He looks a little uncertain, and I don’t blame him.

“Winner: Grower,” he finally decides. Interesting. Personally, I would have called it a draw, but maybe that’s not possible in ranking fights. While Grower has definitely got the herbalist pinned and vulnerable, she looks like she’s likely to expire sooner, her breathing becoming more and more laboured.

Even her left arm and leg are now twitching uselessly at the ground. The next thing will be that her heart stops pumping: I would have to guess that this is something which attacks the muscles and the heart is as much a muscle as the arms or legs. In fact, I’m morbidly surprised that her extremities have been affected before her heart – I would have thought that something like this is carried through the bloodstream.

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Shrieks and the other Warrior are exchanging increasingly worried glances as neither Pathwalker moves, despite the bout being officially over. They keep darting glances at me too. I cross my arms – I have a feeling I know what this is about. But I let them speak – I’m tired, hungry, and grumpy. Not the kind of mood to give him more than I need to.

Sure enough, a moment later, they speak to me.

“Honoured Markus, would you be willing to use your healing skills?” Shrieks asks politely. “You were able to repair my spine; surely you would be able to help them too?”

“Quite possibly,” I respond shortly.

“Honoured Markus,” the other Warrior steps forwards, holding his claws out sideways beseechingly. “Please. I know you have not yet been accepted, but I fear that we might lose two Pathwalkers in one fight if you do not intervene. That would spell serious consequences for our village.”

They look at me expectantly. I sigh, eyeing the two fallen samurans. On the one hand, technically, I have no obligation to help. They are not my Bound. They are not my responsibility. They are forcing me to fight to prove myself to them. Kalanthia would happily see both of them dead and they haven’t given me any reason to keep them alive. Nor, unlike when I’ve healed my opponents, is it my fault – they’re the ones who went for attacks which could prove fatal.

On the other hand, I have the power to help them, so shouldn’t I? Plus, since I’m intending on taking over the village – and am well on my way to succeeding in my attempt – the fact that the village will be weakened when these two die is my concern. Or will be, at least.

Besides, healing them has got to create some goodwill among the Warriors at least – they take the safety of their Pathwalkers seriously. I’m tired and completely ready to be done with all of these battles – while still having four more ahead of me – but if I save my magic and my energy now, the consequences are likely to cause me a whole lot more trouble later.

“Fine,” I say, uncrossing my arms and striding forwards. I step first to the herbalist, just to make sure that her situation isn’t as dire as Grower’s. Once I’ve ascertained that she’s unconscious, but not likely to die from a brain bleed, I quickly move over to Grower.

Her body resists my magic with more force than any I’ve healed so far. Perhaps the danaris was stronger, but I wasn’t trying to heal that – I was trying to hurt it with venom which was already infused with my magic. The problem here is that what’s affecting the Pathwalker isn’t in the slightest linked to me. In fact, by how resistant it is to my magic, I suspect it’s mostly plant-based anyway. Which means that I need to work with Grower’s systems to get rid of it. Only, Grower’s systems don’t want to work with me.

Worse, I’m running out of time. Her heart is starting to fail, her diaphragm failing to pull in enough oxygen. If I keep going as I have been, she’s going to die before I manage to push far enough into her body to be able to make a difference.

Pulling one of River’s healing potions out of my Inventory – previous experimentation showed that they succeed in keeping their potency in that space, as opposed to dead flesh – I tip it into Grower’s mouth, then dive back into her system.

It helps, a little, but the potion isn’t strong enough to change much. Unfortunately, tipping more down her throat has diminishing returns and from what I can see, even the maximum health regeneration I could get won’t be enough. I’m sure that the herbalist has better brews available to her, but I wouldn't know the difference between the beneficial and the lethal. At least, not quickly enough to save Grower. Runs-with-the-river might know, but she’s in the middle of a fight. Similarly, I don’t have the time to heal the herbalist to get her to help.

I find myself cursing at my delay earlier – seconds count now and I wasted far too many in debating whether to help at all. I let my irritation and resentment overcome my better judgement and Grower might now pay the price for that. Frankly, by this point, I see only one option.

Pulling open Grower’s eyelid, I quickly activate the Battle of Wills. With her so weak, the resistance against me is as feeble as Wood-shaper’s was earlier. I stride forwards, stopping abruptly only an arm’s length away from Grower’s form. Her eyes look glassy; she’s not entirely there mentally. Lathani had probably looked similar when I met her briefly in this space.

I hesitate for a moment at the memory – Lathani had intentionally allowed me to heal her, which had removed the resistance of her body at the time. Could just getting Grower’s permission do the same?

On the other hand, to what end? I hadn’t wanted to Dominate Lathani because of Kalanthia’s interdiction – that Bond came later and at the juvenile’s instigation. If I don’t Dominate Grower now, I will do so in a short space of time when I face her in the ring.

Not having the time to debate with myself, I make a snap decision just to go forward with it and save all of us time and trouble. I’ll deal with the fallout later.

“You’re dying,” I say to Grower bluntly. “Your heart is failing and your lungs are unable to drag in air. I can potentially help, but your body is resisting my healing. If you accept my Bond, there’s a chance that I can still save you. But we may already be too late.”

I find fear running through me that at any moment Grower will disappear from the Battle, just as the nere once did.

You…can save…me? Grower asks.

“Possibly,” I say. “Though we’re running out of time.” I shove at her my feelings of fear, tension, and urgency. She hesitates for a second. It’s not long, but certainly feels like it with how close to the edge we are.

If you…must, she responds, closing her eyes.

Fear spikes through me and I quickly touch her forehead. The moment I’m back in the ‘real’ world, I shove my mana into her body.

Her heart has stopped.