After Silva’s shots subsided, the Goblins regrouped themselves. With the wounded or dead laying on the ground, the monsters screeched at the group.

  The Goblin Leader let go of one of his subordinates, having used it as cover for the volley of fire that struck his lines. Watching this, Tomás spat on the ground. The Goblin stood defiantly, looking between Tomás and the rest of the group. He raised his arm and pointed with his weapon, a short sword, at Silva’s group. The goblins next to him, some archers, renewed their advance, now charging the ranged group. The archers opened fire, but their arrows landed harmlessly around Silva’s group, as every one of them was in cover.

  As Silva, Gustavo and Olivia downed the advancing Goblins, Tomás charged at the Leader’s position. He watched as the Goblins fell to the group onslaught, shot after shot putting them down. In a quick rush, Tomás came close to the first of the Goblin Archers. The thing, its attention focused on sending arrows at Silva’s direction, didn’t noticed how fast Tomás got to them. Tomás cut it down with a horizontal slash, sending the Goblin’s body tumbling towards his companions. As they noticed his approach, Tomás was already cutting the next one, decapitating it with a single motion. The archers became desperate.

  Some of the Goblins started dropping their bows and drawing their knives. One of the archers, brandishing a slightly longer knife, charged Tomás. With quick slashes and feints, it tried to cut Tomás’ legs, being able to cause some tears on the fabric of his trousers where it was able to scratch. Tomás noticed that this Goblin in particular was some kind of lieutenant as it used a half mask and, while trying to cut Tomás, was screeching some kind of order to the others archers.

  Tomás waited for one of the Goblin’s attempts to hit him and acted rapidly, getting hold of the hand the creature was using to brandish its knife. The creature flinched with surprise, trying to break free but Tomás simply pulled it closer and headbutted it with such intensity that the Goblin’s cranium caved in. Tomás let go as two other Goblin Archers came at him, leaving behind four others that kept firing at Silva’s direction. He went in, slamming himself against the body of the one closest to him, surprising the monster and making the other behind stop on its tracks.

  With a horizontal cut to his left, Tomás hit the staggered beast in the ribs and, continuing the movement without pause, slammed the axe handle on the Goblin behind while stepping on the corpse of the first. The Goblin, too stunned to react, didn’t saw Tomás’ boot coming down, crushing its face.

  The Goblin Leader, now directing the rest of the Goblin Archers to fight Tomás, also stepped in to fight. The five Goblins remaining on the rearguard assumed a formation and slowly surrounded Tomás, circling him clockwise. With three ahead of him and two behind, the Corporal was trapped. Tomás weighted his options. In this standoff, he noticed how much this melee combat was tiring, leaving him gasping for air. As the Goblins waited for an opportunity to attack, he was able to get some breath back in.

  Finally, sensing their formation getting restless, Tomás settled on charging the Leader when it appeared on his field of vision. Reading his weapon, the Corporal ran to the Goblin. The Leader broke its position, rushing to hide behind the Goblin on its right (Tomás’ left). When he reached it, the Goblin, now stuck between its adversary and its leader, fumbled. Tomás simply cut it down with the strike meant to the Leader.

  As he got his weapon free, Tomás sensed the two behind him charging. Spinning in place, Tomás blocked the first one attack as it almost reached him, holding the rusted knife with his bare left hand. Pulling the Goblin closer, Tomás delivered another monstrous headbutt to the Goblin’s face. Using headbutted Goblin to block to advance of the next, Tomás searched for the Goblin Leader. It was skulking him to right. Focusing back on the Goblin at hand (literally), the Corporal finished it by breaking its neck with his now bleeding hand. Raising his axe again, he cut the Goblin behind with a sideways motion as it was trying to maneuver his fallen comrade’s body.

  ‘Three down, one to go,’ Tomás thought. As he did it, the fifth goblin reappeared. ‘Oh, I forgot about you. Two to go.’ The Goblin charged, rushing Tomás. As it got close, the Corporal readied himself again, keeping an eye on the Leader. But, instead of keeping itself on the ground, the Goblin jumped and landed on Tomás left arm, hacking at it and making deep gashes on the skin and muscle. Tomás screamed, trying to break free of the Goblin, succeeding when he yanked his arm strongly to make the Goblin fall. As it tried to stand up, Tomás simply stepped on its right foot and motioned his axe down, cleaving open the creature chest.

  Tomás retracted the weapon and scanned his surroundings. He tried to control his breathing, taking deep breaths as he looked for the Leader. When he turned to the direction of where Silva was, he heard a sound behind him. Tomás quickly turned, meeting the now falling Goblin Leader as the monster attempted the same thing the last one did. But instead of clawing at Tomás’ left arm, the monster landed on his right arm and aimed its short sword at the Corporal’s face. Tomás, unable to use his axe and fighting desperately to block the Goblin attempts on his life, dropped his weapon and struggled with the Goblin. Tomás was now covered in an incredible number of cuts and bruises.

  Finally noticing the effects of the Drake’s blood on the Goblin, Tomás was finding it hard to win the strength context. Using his height as advantage, Tomás to slammed the Goblin Leader on the ground. The thing gasped and stopped its attacks. Tomás used this opportunity to disarm the monster. Tossing the short sword to the side, Tomás and the monster started clawing at each other, with the Corporal throwing punches at the Goblin’s face and the Goblin, having shorter reach, using its claws to pierce Tomás’ arms. In this brutal close combat, Tomás gave up on the punches and put his hands around the Goblins throat and squeezing. The monster renewed its attempts to claw at Tomás’ arms, fighting for its life.

  Not giving in not even a millimeter, Tomás kept squeezing, the Goblin’s face becoming more and more purple at every moment. After unending moments of struggle, Tomás, sensing the monster getting weaker by the second, twisted his grip on the thing’s neck and finally was able to break it with an audible crack. He held the monster like that for a few more moments, just to be sure of the thing’s death.

  When he was satisfied, he finally stood up and turned to see Gustavo and Olivia supporting a wounded Sergeant Silva. Tomás was panting, his clothes in tatters, covered in cuts and bruises and covered in blood that wasn’t his. He went and picked up his axe, now a battered thing with dents and chipped wood at the handle.

  He got close to the trio, noticing the severity of Silva’s wound: one of the monsters had managed to stab a knife in his left lung, causing the man to now squirm out blood and wheeze when he tried to breath. Without saying a word, he went to retrieve his backpack from where he had dropped it, waving Gustavo and Olivia to put him down. He bought the bag to where Silva now laid and started opening it. With quick hands, Tomás tried firstly to clean his hands as best as possible using the alcohol he had on his med kit. He cut open Silva's shirt and started applying pressure on the wound, causing the man to flinch.

  Silva had a very labored breath. With a wound like that, his left lung was probably full of blood. Tomás started by putting some bandages over the wound to absorb the blood, grabbing Gustavo’s hands and making him apply pressure. He then started administering a coagulant agent on the Sergeant to stop the bleeding. With that done, Tomás grabbed a stethoscope and placed it in Silvas’ chest, searching for the place with accumulated blood, locating it in the lower part of the lung. He applied a small dose of anesthetic as he would need it for what he was about to do. He prepared a syringe with some surgical tubing and motioned for Gustavo to remove the bandages.

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  “I’m going to suck the blood out of your lung Sarge,” Tomás said, looking Silva in the eye. “It will hurt a little.” The Sergeant nodded.

  Olivia turned her face, as did Gustavo after some time, closing his eyes. Using the wound as an entry point, Tomás inserted the surgical tubing in Silva’s lung. The man flinched in pain as he did it. With the tubing inside, Tomas began drawing the blood using the syringe. As it filled up, he disconnected it from the tubing, emptied it and reconnected it, restarting the process. Having moved the tubing to the sides of the lung and causing immense pain in Silva, Tomás was satisfied when the fourth syringe didn’t suck too much blood, coming out almost halfway full. He took out the tubing after some checking with the stethoscope again. The Sergeant was still awake, with cold sweat covering his brown and chest. Tomás started to think on what to do now, having a very serious wound to patch up.

  'What am I thinking? There's nothing I can do to patch up a punctured lung in a place like this. He needs a hospital,' Tomás thought, the realization quickly hitting him. If they wanted to save Silva’s life, they would need to start moving now towards one of the field hospitals, hoping that nothing on the way slowed them down and that Silva survived until they got there. 'Unless...'

  Tomás remembered the Drake's blood and its effects on his body. Looking at his arms, he noticed that his left arm was healed from the wounds one of the Goblins caused. His two options were moving a critical patient through a dangerous zone or administer unsafe and untested medicine with unknown side effects besides the ones he experienced.

  Tomas chose the latter.

  "Gus, keep applying pressure here. You two don't let him slip out of consciousness. I will be back." As the other two did what they were told, both with incredulous looks on their faces, Tomás grabbed his kit's tankard and combat knife and ran towards the Drake's carcass.

  When he got there, Tomás noticed the state the Goblins left the body. What they didn't soiled they gnawed and clawed to reach the Drake's sweet nectar.

  He tried to find a place untouched by the goblins. This proved difficult as the carcass was trampled by the monsters' small feet. Giving up on this strategy, Tomás started cutting the spoiled meat of the monster's neck to reach fresh blood and meat. As he did it, he started collecting the blood drawn by his cuts and from the arteries of the monster.

  With the craving screaming in his mind, Tomás didn't resist and devoured some morsels of meat. They tasted heavenly, remembering him of the taste of finely cooked chicken meat, with it melting in his mouth. Even at this moment, Tomás theorized that the thing’s internal heat was the responsible for its good taste. He felt the Drake's effect almost immediately, with a surge of power running through his body and filling him with energy. With his desire satiated, Tomás fought back the call of the meat and stood up, moving back to Silva’s position.

  As he got there, he noticed Silva now on a sideways position on the ground, over his wounded side. "Shit, I forgot to turn him over to his side." Cursing his amateur mistake, Tomás picked up his pace. When he got to the Sergeant, he crouched and prepared himself for what he was about to do. He turned to Gustavo and Olivia and said:

  "There's a thing I was meaning to tell you guys. When Gus hit the Drake's head earlier, some of its blood fell on my face and I drank it unwillingly. It made me go a little crazy over the Drake's meat and that's why I charged at it with an axe," he paused, watching the reactions on the faces of the trio. He raised his arms, showing them the pristine condition they were in. "But the blood healed me. The Drake's had my right arm burned to the bone and I used my left to block some of the Goblins' attacks just now. But look how they are right now."

  "Are you suggesting to use that to treat the Sergeant?" asked Olivia with a shocked look on her face.

  "Yes, and I brought some for you two," Tomás said, watching their faces. "But more importantly," he said, turning to Silva, "what is your choice, Sergeant? Will you drink it?"

  The Sergeant, almost slipping out of consciousness, was probably having a hard time thinking, having lost a lot of blood and being under the effects of anesthetics. But, even with all this, he made to stand up. Tomás took it as a yes and went in with the tankard, helping the wounded soldier drink his fill. With half the tankard gone, Tomás pulled the cup away from Silva, not wanting him to drink to much and becoming crazy.

  The Corporal watched expectingly as he waited for the blood’s effect to kick in. This time being able to watch, Tomás saw as the blood healed Silva wound, reconnecting the tissues from inside out. Gustavo and Olivia stared in awe, openmouthed with the absurdity of the scene.

  Silva then breathed deeply and exhaled. He looked up to Tomás. “You son of a bitch, that hurt a lot, not a little!!” He hugged Tomás really strongly, making the Corporal gasp for air.

  Tomás was smiling but he said “Sarge, could you stop? You are suffocating me.”

  Silva pushed him away, still holding him from the shoulders, but apparently now aware of his strength. “How did you know it was going to work?”

  “Well, it worked on me, didn’t it? Besides, it was my only chance to save you,” Tomás said, tranquilizing the man. “But I still had to remove the blood, lest it would still be clogged inside your lung.”

  Tomás then rested easy and seated himself with his bottoms on the ground. He watched as Silva pated himself, checking the now closed wound. The weariness of the fight finally washed over him even with the Drake’s meat he had just consumed. A drowsiness started to drag him to sleep. Now recalling, Tomás was awake for easily more than twenty hours. He needed to sleep.

  But he couldn’t sleep, not now. Against his best judgement, he stood up. Grabbing his tankard and the morsels of the Drake’s meat he had brought, Tomás said “What about you two? Will you want to eat it?”

  Olivia and Gustavo stopped commemorating with the Sergeant and looked at Tomás. Silva, restricting them in a double neck lock, looked at him too. The duo swallowed, looking at the Drake’s parts. Silva let them go.

  “If what you said is true Corporal, I think it’s for the best that everyone eats,” said the Sergeant.

  “I agree, but we shouldn’t tell Command about this, at least for now. Let’s see the effects on us before we do that,” Tomás said. “But what is your decision guys?”

  Gustavo and Olivia looked at each other and nodded.

  “I’m going to eat,” said Olivia.

  “Me too, sir,” said Gustavo.

  “Then dig in and drink up,” said Tomás extending the ‘delicacies’ to the duo. When both reached to grab the parts, Tomás pulled the Drake’s parts back, saying “But remember: resist the craving.”

  They both nodded again, reaching again towards what Tomás was offering. This time, Tomás handed some pieces of meat to Gustavo and Olivia. Watching they eat, he waited until they stopped munching the meat, rejoiced when then felt the thing’s flavor. When they finished, he handed the tankard to one and them to the other as they drank the Drake’s thick blood.

  When both finished taking turns eating the Drake’s parts, Tomás waited expectantly for any change, in them and also in Silva. He was afraid that the three would get the same reaction he had, having almost lost his mind in that berserker charge at the wounded Drake. They finished, with Silva now joining them. Tomás looked at them, anxiety eating at his mind.

  “So… How does you three feel? Any murderous desires? Surges of rage?” Tomás said.

  “Hmm… No?” said Olivia, checking herself. “Just revigorated. It tasted good, though.”

  “Yes, me too,” said Gustavo. “I haven’t felt this good in days.”

  Sergeant Silva, with his hand on the now closed wound at his chest nodded. “They are right. I’m just feeling the rest of the blood in my lung. Really nasty sensation,” he coughed, spiting some blood.

  “Okay… Let’s hope it stays at that then,” the Corporal said, unsure. ‘Was it just with me?’ he thought. ‘Only I got the blood’s call?’ Unsure, he brushed the thought aside, focusing on more pressing matters. “Anyways, the day is almost gone. We should find a place to pass the night. I thought that place looks nice,” he said, pointing to the house he found earlier.

  “You heard him you two, let’s settle down and rest,” said Silva, picking his kit back up and motioning the group towards the residence.

  “Let’s set up watch. Who should go first?” asked Gustavo.

  “I’m beat, so don’t count on me,” said Olivia.

  “But you are our newest recruit, it should be you,” said Gustavo.

  “And I am the commanding officer, so I will decide who it will going to be,” said Silva.

  “Not fair!!” Olivia and Gustavo said in unison.

  This exchange kept on going until they arrived at the home. Ignoring his quarreling squad mates, he checked the house for any dangers and found himself a bed. The inhabitants of the house probably had already left, as they caried almost everything essential out of the house, Tomás only being able to find some less than savory foods left. Dropping his backpack and weapons on the ground, Tomás removed his vest and fell on the bed.

  He felt how tired he was. He fell at sleep almost immediately.