The horses stepped delicately over the mud, carrying ladies or supplies. All twelve Elders had been found, half a dozen Gaurdsmen and Madiens plus Arbiter, Healer, Leader, and Lady. Claudia was upon a horse but John led Darkling, boots stepping over the puddles and body parts as best he could. So many dead. "Should we do anything with the dead?" Miko asked. He was towing a small brown mare behind him, which Ceci rode. She claimed to be a Guardmaiden.

      "There are too many for us," John said, "try to find if there are any wounded, no matter which side they were on. This is no place to get well."

      "They burnt a hospital," Ceci said and they were moving away. John looked up ahead. More dead, more blood and strong stench of them. There were a few survivors, no longer fighting but agreeing to put down arms long enough to gathered dead and wounded. Morpheus already had an armful of uniforms.

      John turned to the group yet behind him, Claudia riding Cloud and Merideth beside her on Velven both looking so sad. "If it does not make you too queasy it would be OK to take gear from the dead. They can't use it and rations and first aid kits particularly will help any of their survivors."

      Elzbieta was just ahead, bent to check a body for pulse. She stood as John reached her, walking stick in her hand and long skirt in knots about her knees. John could not decide if she looked more ready to wade through the dead or part the sea of them. "I had to make myself go," she said, "Once I thought not of the horror of it, but just thought of them as people, I was no longer afraid. Disgusted, of course, but not afraid to walk among them. It is the only way to find if there are wounded survivors."

      "Yes. I know," John said.

      "We should all split up, walk with me, you have a horse." John only nodded at Elzbieta. He was not really concerned for the physical saftey of any of his tribe at the moment. He walked along slowly, Darkling dancing a little at his dislike for treding along dead bodies. There were a very few stray horses, the ones whinying from the ground would have to be shot, there was no means here of transporting them to vetrinary hospital without them struggling from pain and fear enough to kill themselves.

      John began to look for a pistol or small gun. It seemed the Spanish carried them and some Americans. He took a handgun carefully from the holster of a very dead American who had never drawn it. Elzbieta turned and regarded him as he looked over the guns make. He could fire single shots from the semi and it was loaded. He set its safty before tucking it in his belt. "Only for the horses," John explained, "I heard some crying."

      Elzbieta sounded relieved. "Of course."

      John found one of these few wounded animals lying on the ground. This one was still dying but would never live with the large bleeding wound in its gut. John set the gun and aimed for the head of the animal. He pulled the trigger and winced at the sound. The animal died quickly.

      "Wounded horse!" Elzbieta called out loudly and looking up John realized the gunshot had draw attention. Vague shouts of understanding.

      A voice called weakly from one side, "Por favor, Goth Chico, aqui."

      John looked down to his left. A arm in olive uniform waved. A Spanish soldier spoke to him. John knew no Spanish so he tried English. "Do you need help?"

      "Sí, help. Mi leg is broken. I only ask you to help me find my people. Mi Dios!" he tried to lift himself but was clearly in pain.

      "It will hurt you to move, but I can put you on my horse and take you to what is left of the EL armies."

      The man nodded.

      John bent and lifted the man in both arms, strained to right himself. Darkling stayed still and the Spaniard used his arms to help himself up onto the saddle. "Gracias Goth Leader," he said. Looking around now he seemed to see the larger scope of destruction. He spoke a prayer that had to be to the virgin and crossed himself.

      He must have seen his allies, the small group stacking and counting off dead in the light rain. He started to curse the enemies but saw perhaps that they were not so much better of if at all. John walked them to the small grouping of EL soldiers. A woman in Swiss uniform approached. "Broken leg," John told her.

      "Danke," she said, helped the soldier to hop down from Darkling. "The boy is like a saint," she said as he walked away, "Always appearing to help and vowing pacifism. Did you hear how Regensburg just handed itself over to him with no fight. Our comrades agreed with the VC not to take it!"

      John found Elzbieta giving water to an Egyptian. He thanked her profusely in his native tongue. "He was unconscious," Elzbieta said. She pressed a lump on his brow tenderly. "Thrown into something?"

      "Missile," he spat as if any combat from a distance was dishonorable. He fingered the blade of his sword.

      "You better join the other Union survivors," John said.

      He saw a fairly fresh looking squad of red uniforms with a few others trailing, moving about the field. "Angel," John said as he realized the general was leading them.

      The EG soldier stood quickly as he said her name. He rushed dizzily to join the moving group. Elzbieta moved around through the still thick cover of bodies. So many had gaping wounds or missing limbs that it was obvious they were dead. Some bodies seemed to be in two or more pieces. The battle had been fought thoroughly and it seemed the only survivors had been knocked down early and hidden from view or had fought until a cease fire was called.

      John looked around. Some soldiers still wandered dazed, the area of the battle was immense, across the valley, and they had not even traveled to the south bank where more dead lay. John left the locating of survivors to Elzbieta and took up searching the least torn up bodies among the dead for useful gear. Mostly they had weapons but there were bits of food and compact first aid kits. Some carried radio communicators or specialized gear that marked them as technician or medic. John slung the tool kit and large medical kit over his shoulder and led Darkling on.

      "Look," Elzbieta said and pointed. "That American, he's sitting in the middle of dead and talking. Does he think he's talking to them, or that they are alive?"

      "He's alive," John said, "take this." He gave Elzbieta the medic's kit. John stayed still as she left, looked again out over the dead to those moving.

      As Elzbieta and he had the other Goth had split into small teams to seek and help survivors. Karina and Merideth were nearby. Vivianne and Claudia were quite a way east. The largest group was that led by Angel. They seemed focused on collecting only their own, many walking wounded added to their number now and the fresher looking ones that John supposed had not actually entered battle carried wounded.

      "John," called a voice. It was like a whisper. "John," it came again and was inside his head. He knew this mode of speech. A Vampyre called to him. Afraid to know who it was he turned about slowly searching. It was Darkling's dancing away from a place that led John to find the wounded Vampyre.

      John walked toward the red uniforms and saw a face he had not expected. It was Joshua, the VC negotiator who had come into Regensburg. "I signed your treaty, how about helping me out?"

      "I'll help you for free, that is why we are here."

      Joshua shook his head as if disappointed. There was a large chunk of pants and flesh missing from his right thigh, right down to the bone.  Besides he looked covered in blood and had a number of smaller wounds about his belly and even one on his neck that he held tight with his left hand. "I'm bleeding out here, bleeding too fast to patch myself up. I'll black out soon and the Rowan will stake me. If you can just get Angel to come here, even one of my siblings. I just need a bit of patching and blood, really."

      "Can't you drink from one of these others?"

      Joshua scowled and then stopped, seemed to lose consciousness a moment. "VC do not use the fangs in battle, nor do they drink from enemies or fallen allies. It is against our code. Just call her. John, understand."

      It came into his head and maybe it cost Joshua his last bit of strength but John understood. Angel was mother to most of the VC. She couldn't enter battle, because every wound to her children was felt and distracting to her. And any wound to her would be sensed and cause distraction. Angel couldn't enter battles this large. She had to stay away and communicate by thought, send orders. And now she was here, and every one of her barely living children called out to her at once, the voices in her mind jumbled and they all knew she might never reach them all in time. An outside force had to attract enough attention.

      "Angel! General Angel! Joshua is bleeding out fast!" Joshua was actually unconscious, seemed dead, but apparently that was the danger the Rowan posed. Sleeping or unconscious Vampyres did appear dead. One had to sense the life inside psychically. John saw Angel, the far figure in red with red cloak besides where others usually had black if any. She looked toward him.

      "Angel, it's Joshua, one of your children. He's fading, bleeding out, needs to be patched up and fed!"

      How she moved that quickly John did not know, but it was like there was a red stream of light and then it ended where Angel stooped down near Joshua. She looked over his wounds quickly. "Be right back."

      Again the fast movement John couldn't track. Angel was over another body, doing something. Then she was back. She brought from under her cloak a tool, cut the flesh around Joshua's thigh into clean lines where there had been uneven tearing. She produced a slab of pale-skinned human flesh just the size of the hole she had cut and set it in place.

      John winced slightly thinking about her scavenging bits of flesh from bodies here and there to patch her children. What if those humans were later shipped home for funerals and their bodies found a nice rectangular slab of flesh missing? Angel had a small auto stitcher in her right hand, and moved it over the seams. As she did this, another VC soldier with equally fresh looking uniform squeezed blood from a packet into Joshua's mouth.

      His eyes snapped open rather suddenly and John took a step back as Joshua sat. He started to speak and Angel silenced him. She brushed the other soldier away and shoving at her sleeve put her left wrist to Joshua's lips. "Mother now, not general," she said.

      John felt he should not be seeing this. He stepped backward and after putting distance between them turned and walked on. Elzbieta now led the American soldier she had gone for by the arm. His eyes were bandaged as well as most of his head, besides that he was whole. He leaned on her walking stick as well, feeling his way as Elzbieta spoke directions and obstacles. "Someone is here," she said.

      "Hello?" the young soldier called out.

      "John is here. He is the leader of my tribe. This is Justin Templeton. He cannot see right now or hear from his left ear. He needs a real hospital, they could help him there."

      "Hello, Justin," John said, tried to be clear without being patronizing. "There are a few other American's about."

      "A few?"

      "Justin," Elzbieta said, "I told you, it was a bad day, not only your platoon are dead. Both the Union and EL have many dead. You are so lucky you cannot see it."

      "How can it be that bad? I knew it was a war, but, how can it be that bad?"

      Elzbieta frowned. Justin had no idea. John was afraid describing the scene to him would make things worse.

      "Bring him along, Elzbieta, we'll try to find a place to take all the wounded."

                      †               †               †

      The Second Lieutenant who had been rushing about after Angel was sent to deal with them as if the Goth were now of no consequence to Angel. Forget that they had helped locate and patch many of her seemingly dead soldiers and children. John had to force himself not to be upset, to seek gratitude or reward. They had done good. He had been surprised at the number of VC that had been resurrected, but as the Second Lieutenant had been explaining, if they were not beheaded or otherwise deprived of brain and heart both, or obviously, burned to ash, they could be restored, even if the process took years and was painful, it was possible.

      That was the definite advantage of the VC. They could appear dead temporarily and be restored later. Adequate knowledge of how to send Vampyres to final death had deprived them of perhaps half their number, but this was far better than the percent lost by other armies.

      The Second Lieutenant, who was always called so by Angel, said they might find Marius easier to say. Claudia seemed to think the name somehow suspicious, but couldn't say why. And so Marius was left to explain that Angel needed to rally all her VC to Neuberg and move quickly to take Dillingen, because only then could they take Ulm without being ambushed from behind.

      The remaining DG, all originally from Poland, Hungary and Germany, though not the entire DG force from any nation, was reduced to Perhaps 100. Angel had ordered them to leave her and go to Berlin, seemed to think this deserved. John did not know if it was reward for nearly fighting to the last man or punishment for the losses they did suffer. There were blessed few EG left or Americans, but then all had been Human but for a few Americans, as their nation had agreement with the Union to keep Darkling in their own military even during calls from tribes or broods went out to recruit for the Union's military.

      So few, Angel told them to go home, didn't bother to arrange transportation. Claudia urged everyone not to verbally attack Angel, she had just lost hundreds of children that apart from being soldiers in her army must be known to her as names and faces and tastes. John could not quite imagine how it felt to lose children.

      "Marius," John said to the Second Luitenant, "The brave remnants of the American and Egyptian forces are all wounded and in need of real hospital care. Berlin and Alexandria are much too far. Angel says civilian hospitals can't be put at risk and cost too much, or we would take them to Regensburg. Isn't there some military base or hospital in any friendly location?"

      "The American's came here from Rhine-Main," Marius said flatly.

      "Where?"

      "German-American military air base near Frankfurt am Main," Justin spoke up, "We came by highway, maybe 150 klicks north from here."

      "A couple hours by highway," John calculated. He looked at Marius. "Thanks for all your help. You can thank Angel as well for all her efforts. I think we can get these soldiers the help they need without you."

                      †               †               †

      The hours the Elders had been helping the wounded soldiers, the Goth on the hill had continued their projects and taken down the rain shelters. Both restorations were somewhat incomplete but usable. Signs had been crafted and posted to inform other visitors that on this date the Goth had worked to restore the structures.

      As soon as John rode up the hill, he gave the orders to break camp and pack all they had as fast as possible. The rest of the Elders, but for Elzbieta, Karina and a few others who had stayed below with the soldiers, returned to help pack. It went more easily than the unpacking. Each small group that were used to sharing a particular vehicle gathered the equipment they had been using and took it with them. Shared food stuffs, cook equipment and tools were stored in the now usual truck. Somehow, they left the camp cleaner than it had been when they arrived.

      At the bottom of the hill, they met with the soldiers and four others of their tribe. Miko and Vivianne had overseen the conversion of the now emptied delivery trucks from Regensburg into ambulances, and with cameras still going Gerhard and his crew saw the soldiers inside with various volunteer caretakers from the tribe.

      Again the horses would slow them and so John ordered that the vehicles with the injured travel ahead. The rest of the train would go back to their older method of taking a highway in different lanes and meeting at an agreed destination whenever the slowest vehicles could be there.

      John didn't know Morpheus was gone until they were on the road. He thought the part-Angel must have followed after the General, as he had been.

      Alaric had volunteered to drive and had Rory in the Jeep with him should he need to take a break. There was finally a moment of real rest. John lay in bed within the trailer and did nothing. It felt rather good.