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They couldn’t breathe.
Well. Not quite true.
The breath they tried to draw turned into a bubbling, agonised gasp, as the splinters that were once their ribs dug into the softest, meatiest parts of their insides.
“Someone see to Mil, first – and get a healer over here to this one!”
The Ard Ri was so very far away, silhouetted against the sky as he stood over them. Orders weren’t shouted, but they were commanded, and people leapt to obey.
The ground was cool, and the sun was warm. They blinked, for a long time, and the sharpness of each breath didn’t seem so bothersome any more. A nap would probably help them feel better; sleep is healing, that’s what Willow was always saying.
Someone was taking their hand, and as their eyes opened, the Ard Ri had become Scatha. Scatha, staring down at them, hand around the few unbroken bones in their body, mouth moving- speaking?
“- absolute fucking lunacy, Sparrow,” she was saying, conversational tone completely at odds with the intensity of her gaze, and the solid grip she had on their wrist. “You complete one feat of strength, retrieve one—one!—bastard large rock, and you think that means you can take on a Formorian with just your knives?”
Mil, Sparrow tried to say, is Mil alive? They could feel their lips moving, but they weren’t sure there was sound as Scatha continued to berate them in that level, oddly calm way.
“You don’t even have any woad yet, you do know that, right?”
Hendrick dropped to the ground next to them, heavy hands prodding at bones that shouldn’t have yielded as easily as they did. Their vision didn’t want to focus through the pain, kept narrowing in on the singular point of Scatha’s golden arm band, so they almost missed the look Scatha shot over at Hendrick as he whistled low through his teeth.
Sparrow tried to lick their lips, to speak again, even as Hendrick started extolling his gods in that savage tongue he and his brethren spoke.
They were going to kill Mil when he couldn’t fight back, they wanted to say, you said that’s dishonourable. No-one else would have made it to him in time.
Hendrick pressed both hands against their mangled ribcage, and as splintered ribs withdrew from shredded lungs and punctured vessels, drifting back to where they should be, they couldn’t even scream.
They’d definitely been stupid, Sparrow conceded as the pain of flesh and bone knitting back together set their body alight with agony. But despite what Scatha said in that calm, chastising way, they didn’t think it was taking on the formor that had been the stupid thing – they’d killed three of them at Lughnasa for Cernunnos’ blessing, after all.
No, the stupidity had been something else, something so utterly ridiculous they were almost ashamed to admit it to themselves.
They’d turned at exactly the right moment to see Mil flung through the air, slamming against the inside of Culhaven’s walls, shield in pieces and the front of their strange armour caved inwards alarmingly. The formor had stepped forward, and they’d waited to see if Mil would get up, roll away, do something to fight back... but he was eerily, uncomfortably still as the warrior had lifted the massive club.
White hot rage had propelled them forwards at a dead run, knives sliding readily into their hands, Magpie’s soft voice reminding them that this one had the visage of a fish, so it would be blind to them if they kept themselves angled in that one specific spot—
The formor’s flesh had parted readily enough as the knives slid in and around the armour, again and again and again, until with a shrug it had sent Sparrow tumbling away, landing hard against the walls, sending a shock of numbness down through one of their arms that left it hanging uselessly at their side.
“Coward!” The warrior had bellowed, staggering to a knee as thick green blood began to flow from the many wounds Sparrow had opened. “Dishonourable coward, attacking from the shadows!”
This was their stupidity. The formor had been bested, and even with one arm numb and useless they could have stepped forward and with one smooth cut, slit their throat and made sure Mil was alive. They might have gotten in trouble for it, but Mil was important – more important than them – so surely a little trouble was worth his life.
But instead. Instead.
They’d lowered their knife, stepped forward, and began arguing.
“You dare call me a coward?” They’d screamed back, feeling that white hot rage demand blood. “You, who would kill a downed warrior? You would call me a coward and dishonourable?”
They must have stepped closer while they were shouting. There’d been so much to focus on – keep an eye out to your rear, keep an eye on Mil, keep that wrathful call for blood at any cost under control – and at some point, they’d stepped forward just a little too close.
Formor move deceptively fast, even injured, and the great club was already whistling through the air by the time Magpie was calling a warning to them.
The force of it connecting with their chest had carried them through the air to slam painfully against the walls of Culhaven as Mil had done.
Mil wore armour. As Scatha was still reminding them, they didn’t even wear the red branch woad.
Hendrick was shouting now, and as the fragments of bone that made up their chest finished returning to the places they belonged, as the air filled their chest cleanly and the taste of copper and iron swam in their mouth, their rebuilt body heard the tone of command in the strange words of the Norse priest, and obeyed.
Knives back in their hands, they were on their feet, ready for the next wave of attackers.