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The battle against Infernua on the slopes of Aneine where Arven had once so long ago won independence from the Taivens had been going poorly. Infernuan troops that had been besieging Taivas had marched to the slopes, and Arven met them, trying to help their tentative allies, if only because of the shared enemy. The Taiven infantrymen were caught on the northern part of the slopes, surrounded, and Arven faced the thousand cavalry alone to the southeast. Having to fight their way uphill had them slowing, and then losing ground.
If only Dean were here, Sam thought, but his brother was leading an insurgent group against the Infernuans with the Taiven prince, Castiel.
Sam did his best to pull his men together, to rally them, but their tired horses were having to slog through muddied ground that was a dark crimson-brown, and over the bodies of their own men. The Infernuans, led from the back by Crowley, had regrouped, and the line charged.
Sam dug his heels into his horse’s flank, sword raised, and met them in a gallop.
Time slowed, even as it seemed to speed up. He faced his enemies, and felled as many as he could.
But then he saw one of the Infernuan leaders, Ruby, and she had a spear. Somehow Sam knew exactly what was going to happen, and adrenaline made his moves sloppy. Despite his trists with her, this was a battlefield, and they weren’t sparing any blows.
She charged him, and he tried to use his shield to block the attack from her spear, but she knocked his weak attempt aside, clearly focused, and using her superior strength. The spear dug right into his side as she passed, finding a chink between the metal plates of his armor, the force breaking through his mail.
Pressure buried into his right side and came out through his back. He went flying backwards off his horse, and lost his breath as he hit the ground on his back.
Hooves and boots moved in desperate motions around him, threatening to trample him.
Ruby was turning her horse back around, coming back to finish the job.
Pain flared, bright and breath-stealing, and he tried to lift himself up. Sam let out a guttural cry, hand to his side.
Have to get up, have to get up.
One of his own men was pushed back and tripped on his shoulder, heavy boot crushing for a second. Sam grunted.
Impaled, he could barely do anything. He was helpless.
His bannerman noticed, raising his flag high, blowing his horn.
“Rally to the prince!” the cries came from around him.
But men were cut down by Ruby.
A head even went flying and threatened to land right in his lap.
Sam managed to get the spear out of him, screaming as he did so, and rolled just in time to avoid the flying hooves of her horse.
He lay on his stomach, his blood joining the sickly mud, and he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get up again, that he would be sucked and pulled right into it, and become another body in the ground. The pain was just too much, his armor was too heavy, and he wasn’t sure he could even use his right arm.
Dean’s advisor, Robert, had come to the battle, and he made it to Sam, trying to pull him up onto his horse.
Blood was running down his side, wetting his armor. He had had a hand to his wound, but it did not seem to do much; he was too weak to keep enough pressure against it. He’d had to move his hand away, grabbing onto Robert’s arm, the grizzly old soldier pulling, saying, “Come on, boy!”
A driving blow from Ruby knocked him down, and his helmet went flying off. As he fell, his head knocked against the ground. The mud lessened the blow somewhat, but there was nothing he could do as blackness took him.
When Sam came to he could hear the screams and groans and shrill neighing of terrified horses, and more closely, he could hear men arguing over what to do to help him.
Sam tried to rise from the cot they’d put him on. They were rallied in the back, keeping a safe space around him.
A man—a field medic, marked by his red armband—pushed Sam back down.
“Stay still, your highness. The spear went deep. I need to stop the bleeding.”
Sam’s right pauldron and chest and back plates had been taken off, and his mail shirt lifted up. The thick woolen shirt beneath had been cut into, exposing the deep hole in his side. Men had him sit up, holding him steady, Sam’s head spinning, nose filled with the scent of his own blood, the scent of his men’s death and their sacrifices.
He could barely get a good breath in, each one straining against the wound, and suddenly he was choking, a hot, metallic liquid in his throat and on his tongue.
Wads of cotton from ripped clothing were being shoved into both the entry and exit holes of the wound, and Sam tried to scream. His voice came out choked and rough, gurgling.
“It’s no use, we need a Taiven healer.”
“Send up the call.”
A horn, clear and high was blowing, but for now, there was no answer.
Sam was laid back down, and rolled onto his left side.
The voices of the field medics around him were shrill, raised in terrified yells.
There was only one thing that meant, what all of this meant.
Sam Winchester, Prince of Arven, heir to the silver throne, was dying.
“Dean,” he croaked out, and then spat blood.
If only he could say goodbye to his brother.
He wanted his brother warm and sturdy presence with him, even wanted his brother’s friend; Castiel would be able to heal him.
He had a strange thought that maybe he shouldn’t have removed the spear. It would’ve at least held some of his blood in.
Now it was flowing freely, and seeming to fill his lungs, his throat, his mouth.
Dying. He was dying.
The pain spread across to his chest, down to his hip, around to his shoulder, his back. He wanted it to stop; but not to die!
Sam didn’t want to die, realized it so strongly that he tried to keep breathing, tried to stay conscious, even as the pain stole some of his sight, creeping farther and farther through his body and across his senses.
The horn, begging for help, called again.
One of the field medics, a man whose name he didn’t even know, held his hand tightly, and Sam tried to not let it go, tried to stay strong, tried to stay in this world he still wanted to fight for. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t lay here, losing the battle against his wound, losing the battle against Infernua. They wanted everything, and maybe Ruby loved him, but she had done this to him.
Sam wanted to see her head stuck on a spear. He couldn’t do that if he died.
Oh, how easy it was for love to turn to hate.
Suddenly, there seemed to be a change to the tone of the battle—and was that a strong beat of wings that he heard?
Hands were on him, a glow against his eyelids.
Sam peeled his eyes open, and saw Castiel before him. He was shouting instructions to the medics, and sobs ripped from Sam as they took the cotton from his body. Castiel put a hand to the entry wound where he’d been impaled. His eyes glowed a brilliant blue, so brilliant that Sam’s eyes watered, and he had to close them.
Then, life came back to him, pain rushed away as if pushed by a great wave.
Sam breathed, he gasped, body startled by the ordeal, stunned to have air back.
He spit out a last bit of blood, and Castiel helped him to his feet, gripping his forearms.
“Thank you,” Sam said, so glad to be alive, so glad to not have that horrible, mind-shattering pain eating him alive.
Castiel’s wings flared out behind him, all in tawny and creams and golds.
“You’re always welcome.”
“How’s Dean?” Sam asked, wanting to know how his brother fared.
Men were starting to help Sam back into his armor, and he let them. He wanted to go back into the battle, wanted to finish this.
“Michael fell, so Dean leads the Taiven forces now. Our mission was a success, taking out some of the Infernuan generals. The Taiven forces rallied and are making their way here.”
That meant Infernua must be pinned between their two forces. Sam tried to picture the battle in his mind, the lay of the land, of the Aneine slopes. But even so, he started at hearing the news of Michael, of Dean’s new and temporary leadership.
“Then you need to get back there!” Sam cried.
Castiel fluttered his wings in preparation to take off. “Yes, I am needed, but saving your life was a priority.”
“I’ll try to pay you back.”
“How?” he asked, squinting his eyes, tilting his head.
“By staying alive.”
Castiel grinned at him, nodding his head. “You’re a good friend.”
Sam gave his shoulder a friendly smack, feeling the metal and leather of his pauldrons against his slightly bloodied hand.
“So are you. Get out of here.”
Castiel took off, a brilliant force in the air.
“Sire, your sword.” A soldier was kneeling presenting it to him.
“My thanks.”
Taking it from him, filled with new life, Sam marched back to the battle. They were going to win this. They had to.