Chapter 239 – What a Real Fight Brings

Inanos woke me up today, instead of Shyla, early in the morning with a little kiss.

"Alzi, dear, can we talk?" Inanos asks.

"I'm your slave," I say. "So whatever you want."

"That isn't how this works. We aren't trying to have you be our slave. But thank you for the time. You did a wonderful job yesterday, and we are happy with the outcome. We are. It's just that, from here on out, you need to focus on the nobles. If they get healed, they can take over guard duty, and we can rotate other nobles into the fight more easily. I know it sucks waiting around and watching commoners not get the healing they deserve, and I'm sorry for asking this, but it's necessary. The nobles are talking, and if they get scared, we'll lose, and the Edeozia Queendom will steal your child. This isn't a fair thing to ask of you, but we have to."

"I already said I would," I say."Ok, we weren't told that. I'm sorry for preaching at you. We'll keep a list of the women in the army so that we can get to them after the war."

"Fine," I say. "Is that all?"

"Yes. Thank you for your hard work, Alzi. I know your skills force you into acts you would rather not do. Thank you."

"I'm just a slave doing as her Mistress asks."

"No. That is a lie, Alzi; you aren't doing as we asked, and that is fine. You're doing your best to keep to your wants, and please continue with that," Inanos says. "Sorry, but I have to leave. The fighting will begin soon."

She ducks out quickly, and Shyla is already holding out the green dress for me.

It looks like I'll get to the tent early this time around.

...

The waiting was painful. I got up nice and early and was forced out of my warm bed, only to sit around a bunch of injured women and not be able to do anything for them. But when the wails of pain came through the tent flaps, I remembered what I was waiting for.

How nice would it be to wait the entire day for a single new patient?A noble came in with crushed bones, and her body looked like some crazy kid got hold of a knife while she was sleeping. How she still had enough blood to live confused me until I remembered that they have potions.

Anyway, my kid with a knife thought was far from the truth for the noble. Each wound had plenty of rocks worked into it, proving she fought with another noble and not some silly kid, though it's not like such a guess was reasonable to make.

Cleaning the wounds took a lot of work and made me almost want to just cut off her limbs and remake them entirely.

"My Lady," Shyla says.

"What?!" I say. "I'm healing the fucking noble. She just has a bunch of rocks in her body right now."

"I know, my Lady," Shyla says. "It's just that another noble has entered who is of higher rank."

"This one will die if I stop healing her."

"Let Esta or Kali clean the wounds until you finish with the other noble. You shouldn't do the small tasks. Delegate those to others. You are more important."

"Fucking fine!" I say. I never do anything right!

"Lady Alzi, I can take over," Kali says.

"Thanks," I say. Why didn't she offer before if she was ready for it? Are they afraid of me?

I take a quick look at the others now in my tent and find many have similar injuries to the noble's. Injuries the non-mana healers can't do a thing about. They can't even make their deaths a little less painful... Unless they just slit their patient's throat.

Why bring in women who we can't even do anything for?

"This way, my Lady," Shyla says.

"The noble is right next to me. I don't need directions."

"I know," Shyla says. "You were just stuck in your head while the women need you here. You don't like how this is, and that is the correct feeling. Work on a solution when they don't need your mana leaving your massive tits."

I guess I can give her points for not just dismissing the deaths.

The new noble is in a similar state to the captain from yesterday, except she managed to come back with her limbs still attached. I swarm her body with mana, working two streams again, one to fix her insides and the other to start cutting away the charred skin. I've found I'm a lot better at using two streams now that I have the two rings on my back. I don't know if I just have a lot more mana, making it easier, or if the tattoos are helping me. It could be from when the Princess did that weird combine thing; I haven't really tried it much.

I think that's what I need to do. If I can control five or six or even ten streams of mana, I could heal the others without the nobles bitching at me. I'll just have to live with Shyla fucking me more than I would like.

I've got half the charred skin peeled off by the time her heart, lungs, and other insides have been healed. She was able to keep all her limbs attached, so I just have her skin left to fix.

"My Lady, another noble has come in."

"How many damn nobles are there?" I ask.

"Enough to keep you busy, my Lady," Shyla says.

I have more than enough patients without them to keep myself busy now. How many commoners have died to let this one noble live?

"Is Esta keeping that one alive?"

"Yes, but she will need you to take over soon."

"Working on it," I say. "Just tell me if I need to let this one die to go to someone else."

"Yes, my Lady."

Do nobles have zero self-preservation? Sure, keep on distracting me while I'm trying to heal one, just for there to be nothing for me to do with the extra information. I have plenty of reasons to move quickly without another fucking noble interrupting me.

"Kali, can you handle regrowing the skin?" I ask. It didn't take much mana for me last night, so she should be capable of doing it.

"Yes, Lady Alzi," Kali says. I guess this is what Oriphusa would have taught me: when to pass off my work. Well, if I do it too soon, I can just fuck my help to cover for my mistake. Or maybe I should fuck my patients instead? That would make it easier to heal them, and Isda shouldn't be the only girl to get some use out of that skill.

I wonder if I would generate more mana than I used if I did that. I would be naked, and I could get the commoners pregnant, a gift for going to war for my child. That should also make the mana usage extremely low and the mana regeneration high.

Would the Princess let me? Do I even want to have sex all day?

Fuck that. Why does that thought excite my loins so much?

"Then switch. Skin takes too long if I'm to get to the new nobles."

"As you wish."

Kali was nice enough to clean all the rocks out of the wounds, but not much else was done. Is the difference in our mana that great, or am I really that much better at healing than they are?

Whatever, just keeping the noble alive was a decent amount of work.

I suppose I'll stop the bleeding first, and then I can get the bones. After this, I'll need to check on the missing skin girl unless more nobles need me.

The holes closed up quickly; they weren't too big, just numerous.

"Esta, are you doing alright? Shyla, are there any more nobles hurt?" I ask.

"I have the patient stable. So whenever you are ready," Esta says.

"More are coming in," Shyla says. The groans of the commoners have drowned out the best way for me to tell if more women are entering the tent.

"Lady Alzi, that one looks like she was poisoned, and the other is more like ice," Kali says.

"I've got the ice. You get the one poisoned," I sigh. Am I ever going to completely heal a woman?

...

The answer was no, at least not until it was dark. I had thirty nobles left on the beds in some state of injury. Kali and Esta running out of mana made it so I had to just get them stable and then run to the next woman, hoping that she had already passed out so I wouldn't have to hear them complain. Oriphusa said I had more mana than her, and I was close to her speed, so do they normally have nobles dying, or are these nobles just worse at fighting than normal?

Well, I'll make sure they're healthy enough to get in plenty of practice while I have a late night of getting fucked by my maid.

*** Elora ***

The short days of winter are annoying to fight in. Even after the sun has retired, we keep posturing for space, hoping the other side puts too many women to sleep at once.

"Casualties?" I ask. We've done well to keep the hill to the west, stopping any attacks from that side for now. But I'll have to worry about my sister soon. She should be encountering the enemies shortly, and if she begins to retreat, the hill won't be enough. Mother will be fine to the east."

"A hundred dead and another hundred injured," Geta says. "Most on the eastern side, as they're avoiding the hill. Alzi has had too many nobles for patients to get to any of the commoners today, but we got all the nobles to her in time, and she is still working on healing them completely. We have confirmed they lost a fire mage. But besides that, similar counts."

"I'm fine following them in that for now," I say. "We don't need them deciding to reinforce here over continuing to push into my sister's or mother's armies. I would love to start the siege soon, but they'd just surround us right now. However, if Alzi can keep this up, we should be fine. We'll have the edge in attrition of mana."

"If she keeps it up," Geta says. "One mistake, and the nobles will riot. They all heard about the first day, but they won't care much about how she isn't letting any of them die now."

"They know she is doing her job now."

"Will Alzi keep it together, knowing she is healing the class of women that raped her and toyed with her for years while those she relates to die in that tent? What happens when she makes a mistake? The nobles could piss off Alzi enough that she decides to not give a shit about them anymore and just heal the commoners. Then we lose all our advantage in attrition."

"I'll remind the nobles to not complain," I say.

"You need to find a way for Alzi to heal the commoners."

"I'm not sending the injured home as quickly as we normally would. During the siege, we won't have many new injuries. There, Alzi will have time to heal the commoners. There's no way to help her heal the commoners right now. That will require her to build up skills or come up with a plan. I don't like it any more than you do, and I know she could break right now if she gets pushed too far."

"She will. We don't have a day when we can let Alzi rest until the collar puts her back together, and I would like my husband to be a working person when the collar comes off."

"I want that too, and I know. I was hoping Oriphusa would stay, but something is making her not like Alzi as much as she tries to make it seem she does. Right now, things are fine. I've got guards around the medical tent, we have the right position, and we are slowly gaining the advantage in mana. I'll try to find time to visit her soon and see what I can do to help her."

"I still don't like this."

"We just need to wait a week. Then the pressure should come off us, and we can push them back to the city."

"And after the siege?"

"I'll stall, and then we'll have just a month or so left until Alzi gives birth, and we can start to work on a peace deal and a wedding that should bring in the support Alzi needs."

"I love your optimism," Geta says. "More likely, we'll get stalled out here as they try their best to balance the three fronts with Azula De Vil."

"We just have to do what we can and send support where she is. If we stall out, then Alzi should get breaks where she can help the commoners. War isn't pretty."