The Wizard patrolled the area like the rest of the men. His stick poked at the ground, touching things before he would touch them, or digging up tiny bits of dirt. Naden yelled, “Hey, whatcha doin’, Wizard?”
“Listening for bombs,” he said. Nobody asked what what he was doing anymore.
They worked without incident. The engineers staved up what was left of the building, to make sure no one would get hurt going by it, and then they all mounted up.
The Wizard kept his eyes closed through the bumpy ride home, while the men watched warily around them. No one was on the street. Sundown was close. They would get there.
Then the truck in front of them went up in the air.
Rick slammed on the brakes, the Wizard’s eyes flashed open, his eyes red and aflame. The truck bounced off of a shield that was about a foot around them. The truck tipped over, landing on its side.
Cody and Jason ran out the side doors, while Custer looked back at the Wizard. “Wizard…”
“I can’t sense everything. I already told you, I can sense around me for fifteen feet, and that means this Humvee.” The Wizard started to get out of the vehicle. “Besides, we weren’t going to hit it.”
The wounded consisted of two men, one screaming he was blind even as Cory wiped the blood from his eyes. He had a nasty gash across the top of his head which kept bleeding down.
The other wounded man was calmer. He saw the red torch patch of the Magic Corps, and nodded when the Wizard walked up to him.
The Wizard closed his eyes again and held out his hands, as if in benediction. The soldier before him was bathed in a red aura. When the Wizard opened his eyes, they were red flames.
The aura quickly resolved into two places, one at the soldier’s left forearm and the other at his left shoulder. The red light flared. The soldier gasped and moved his arm, staring at it in wonder.
“Shut the fuck up, bro, you’re not fucking blind!”
The Wizard sighed and said to the healing soldier, “Excuse me.”
“Sure,” said the soldier, still watching the red light. It would heal at his pace, disperse on its own when the bones knitted together. He would still be sore.
The Wizard now turned to the “blind” soldier who was sitting down. He bent to the man’s face. “It helps if you open your eyes.”
“I can’t! They’re stuck!”
The Wizard took out a simple rag from his pack and wiped away the remaining blood. He staunched the wound on the man’s head. He could have healed it, but he didn’t feel that it was that big of an emergency. “Try now.”
The man’s eyes popped open. He blinked a few times, looked up at Jason, then at the Wizard. “Hold this,” he said, putting the rag in the man’s hand. “Put it up here.” He pulled the man’s hand to his forehead.
The man looked at the Wizard. “You saved me.”
The Wizard shrugged and went back to the truck. “You have a fan,” said Jason, following the Wizard.
“He’ll have to join all the other Twitter fans. Hashtag Armymage.”
Jason laughed. The Wizard got into the humvee, the wounded on either side of him, and the two men in the far-back, seated where gear usually was.
(Total written thus far with this story line: 3090 words in 2 days. Let me know if you want to keep seeing it because the muse doesn’t want to let this one go: Twitter @warwriter; grimaulkin.com)