It took just over an hour to find the ogre group, right where our scouts said they would be. With silent signals, I divided my soldiers into pairs and sent them to surround the ogres. We would attack when the farthest group was in place, the ready sign their descent on the campsite. I settled in and waited patiently beside the soldier left with me. He was young, but having survived the frontlines since the onset of this insurrection, his experience made him old in war. We didn’t say anything, we didn’t share anything, and I’d wager his thoughts were as empty and singularly focused as mine. There was nothing ahead of us but the successful completion of this mission, the time for last thoughts had been back in our tents.
At first, everything went as planned. As soon as the final group was in position, they drew attention their way, allowing the rest of us to come pouring out of the trees swinging our axes and wielding our knives and swords while the ogres were momentarily distracted. We pounced upon them and everything was working in our favor until one ogre whistled sharply and there followed a momentary lapse as if all waited together to see what would happen next.
A slight rustle over the treetops. We looked up. And I knew I’d finally get to die.
For our scouts had missed one small, vitally important detail.
Eight gargoyles, their ugly snouts illuminated in the torchlight shadowing the rest of their faces, tracing a silhouette of their magnificent arching wings. Smoke rose from their stone-gray bodies against the night sky, steam puffed from their mouths as they looked down on us with vengeance–chiseled features.
One sitting in a tree to my left opened its mouth and let out a thin stream, visible even in the dark. Somewhere below it a man screamed as his skin bubbled and burned from the scorching heat of the water the creature shot from its belly.
“Get under them!” I yelled, knowing that even with the ogres on our tails, we were safer if we could just get out of the gargoyles’ range. They had limited mobility in their necks, so it was crucial to get below or to the side of them. At the very least, it would force them out of the treetops if they wanted to give chase.
There were still enough ogres left to cause trouble, but we scrambled anyway for the trees, the more adept of us fighting backward, pushing at our opponents even as we lost ground. I ended up backed against a tree trunk, locked in battle with an ogre matching my sword stroke for stroke with a grace uncanny for such a wild creature. I did not miss the irony that I was battling one of the few who knew how to use a sword instead of just swinging a mace with lethal abandon. It was as if I was battling another version of myself, a beast with some human qualities.
With that thought, and knowing the shuddering I was feeling from the tree behind me was a signal that a gargoyle was coming down, the only thing left was to allow my thoughts and emotions to flood back in, to anger the beast enough to unleash it so some of the others could possibly escape with their lives.
Until then, I had approached the war with a cool calculation, knowing I was feeding the beast with every man I killed. No matter how necessary, war is not gentle with a man’s soul, and my situation only compounded the truth of such a notion. Still, I had been able to keep myself together enough so that no one would suspect I was any more a beast than what my Academy nickname suggested. Having other soldiers to worry about helped, somewhat.
And, for a while, it worked.
That night, however, was something entirely different. I had only one chance and was lucky enough to have the cover of darkness or I would never be able to face another soul. I opened my mind, reached deep into the void, and allowed all that I had been damming up to rush in. The darkness flooded my limbs to the tips of my fingers, to the ends of my little toes, rushing through my body like an avalanche roaring down a mountainside. With it came savagery, sweeping through my heart and mind to eliminate any lingering holdouts of mercy or humanity. My body was colder than freezing, the darkness iced the mercilessness of my rage, until it erupted with a wild, guttural snarl, unleashing the beast in a frost of cruel intent.
Forward, forward, I slashed against the ogre, pushing him back relentlessly until I overpowered him completely. I stabbed my sword through his heart so viciously it speared him onto the tree behind him. I didn’t have time to wrench my sword out because I could already feel the heat of the gargoyle’s breath at my back. I had a few more knives strapped about my body, but they wouldn’t do much against the creature behind me, not with skin almost as hard as the stone it resembled. I gnashed my teeth. I didn’t have a suitable weapon. Nor did I need any.
The gargoyle was surely taken aback by the wicked smile that stole across my face. As far as it knew, it was here to hunt down humans; it never expected to come across anything like me.
I growled and ran head-on at the creature, diving sideways at the last minute and using my momentum to launch off a tree and jump onto the gargoyle’s back.
I landed between the gap in its shoulders separating its two wings. The creature bucked and turned and tried to throw me just as the majestic stag had, but I held on. It began to beat its wings, looking for a way up and out of the trees, but suddenly both hands were there, and I ruthlessly wrenched one wing until I heard the bones crack. Then there was a knife in my hands and I was sawing away at it. The creature let loose a raw howl and thumped to the ground.
I was making it suffer, inflicting the most pain possible in removing its limbs from its body while it thrashed and screamed. Its wretched cries brought another gargoyle to its side, and having finished with the second wing, I jumped from one back to another, repeating my process of maiming the creatures in the cruelest, most barbaric fashion.
The gargoyles lost their will to fight without their wings. As if the unbearable agony I’d inflicted upon them hadn’t been enough to make them give up completely.
I repeated this action about six times before returning for my sword and slitting the throat of each mutilated creature. By then, I was hardly thinking anymore, the beast had so completely dug its talons into my psyche that my body did its bidding easily, willingly even. As always, I saw but did not feel, not shame, not remorse, not compassion, and certainly not horror. And when it was done, I walked back to the center of the campsite where the remains of my unit had gathered. They seemed to know the fight was over well before I appeared out of the trees, and I later found out they had been calling for me a good fifteen minutes. I—rather, the beast—never heard them.
The soldier who had stood beside me at the beginning of the attack stepped forward to give a report. His face was scratched and slightly singed, and the way he was holding his hand indicated just how much the nasty bite he’d taken hurt, but he was otherwise in one piece.
I was grateful yet again for the cover of night, for the dying torchlight that hid the look on my face and in my eyes, the very look that would reveal the beast still ravishing my soul. It was taking longer than usual for my vision to clear, for the black to give way again to color, for the darkness to return to me the use of my limbs.
“Report!” I demanded.
The solider saluted sharply. “Four dead, all of us injured, Your Highness,” he said.
“Them?” I asked.
“Ten ogres, eight gargoyles, Highness.”
Eighteen creatures in total. I had killed at least seven, probably closer to nine or ten. More than my fair share. I prayed to Heaven it really was dark enough to hide what I’d done to those gargoyles. I couldn’t remember from which direction I’d come, but I sincerely hoped it wasn’t the one we were about to take back.
With the successful completion of that mission, we were awarded a week’s rest away from the frontlines. Not a soldier among us wasn’t glad for the break. Even the beast hardly stirred as we left the blood behind for what was considered more civilized quarters, by war standards anyway. Perhaps even it felt a break from the feeding frenzy was in order.
Heaven smiled upon us further, because at that point Prince Alex had set up camp in a village he’d taken back from the ogres.
As such, there weren’t many villagers around, what remained of the village anyway was the burned and looted remains of homes and shops, but it looked fit for royalty after close to three months of sleeping in the dirt. At the front, conditions were often pitiful enough that the only thing separating us from the dead was that we were actually above the ground when we slept.
After cleaning myself up as best I could, I reported to Prince Alex in the home he’d commandeered for headquarters. I only went to deliver a report about the frontlines, a generic overview of all that had happened through my point of view, which didn’t change much in the grand picture, but was still procedure. One or two figurines may be shifted on the map from my words, but this visit was more a formality.
The same guard from the tent let me in as soon as he saw me, familiar with me by now. As I stepped in behind him, a hearty burst of laughter rang out from somewhere around where the dining room would be. Soldiers laughed, even on the frontlines, but there was always a bitter or desperate element laced within the merriment. The laughter here sounded less spoiled, more jovial and genuine. I doubted I’d ever sound like that.
I waited in the foyer for the guard to announce me and used the time to take note of my surroundings. It had certainly belonged to a merchant who must have enjoyed some success because there was a full second floor to the house. The structure above all others was the most intact, which was reason enough for Alex to stay here. I took a few steps forward and peeked into the room immediately off the entrance, a small parlor that had been well appointed for the afternoon sunlight it caught.
Unbidden, my mind replaced the little, dusty room with another room, one in a castle in another kingdom where a warm fire emitted an enveloping, golden glow. I saw a large man stretched out in an oversized chair, ostensibly resting though in truth his eyes watched a woman of beauty and strength and kindness reading a book on the floor, her back pressed against the sofa opposite the fire. They seemed content in that moment, the scene looked so right, so why had she left it all behind?
Before I could think on it any further, before the anger could carry me away and no doubt destroy the innocent room before me, the guard returned with a sharp click of his heels. He bowed stiffly and led me toward the door of the assumed dining room.
Inside, Alex stood over a map spread across the length of the dining table. Beside him was the ever-faithful Captain, looking even more war-torn than the last time I saw him. He looked more like a displaced villager than a soldier, marking him beyond doubt as the man in charge of espionage.
“Azahr,” Alex beckoned me over. “Heaven bless us, you’re still alive.”
Closing the door behind me, I caught sight of the rest of the room. A man stood on the other side of the table. He turned his head when I came in and even though the beard had grown longer, had even whitened some, there was no mistaking those deep purple eyes.
“Yarrow?”
Yarrow dipped his head in a respectful bow. “Highness.” A soft smile, a light dancing in his eyes, suggesting at a secret only the two of us shared. “What brings you here?” I asked.
“With respect to each prince, my first allegiance will always be to Farthington and my king,” he said, “but I am always and ever keen to help a friend in need.”
I nodded even though that revealed little about why he was truly here, standing over a map to help a neighboring kingdom with what shouldn’t have been viewed as anything they weren’t capable of solving on their own. Though I wasn’t about to say as much in front of Alex.
“We’ll see you later at dinner,” Alex told Yarrow, clear indication it was time for him to leave.
The mage took his dismissal in stride. “Thank you, Your Highness,” he said, bowing to Alex.
He winked at me on the way out, sweeping off to whatever other task he was really about. Alex followed with his eyes, a weird mix of fascination and amusement playing across his face.
“I don’t trust him,” he abruptly told me and Captain as soon as he was gone. “He’ll hold our secrets well enough, but I don’t like magic much. Never took to the manipulation of nature the way Heaven intended it to be. Laurendale—all the realms—would be much better off without any of it, though I can’t deny he’s a rather resourceful individual to have on our side.”
He turned back to the map and we dove into my report as though nothing had happened. He’d tried to punctuate his derisive tone with a charming smile, but his little announcement made me shudder inwardly. Honestly, I had never thought too much one way or the other about Alex until that moment. Once he’d voiced his mistrust of Yarrow, he planted a seed of distrust in me against him. For my part, it really had nothing to do with Yarrow personally, I was hardly partial to magicals after my mixed encounters with them, but Alex treated the mage with duplicity. It was the first time I noticed the mask of the charming Prince Alex, the one he put on at will to befriend those he sought to take advantage of. As a prince, I wondered why he bothered with this guise at all when he could simply command someone to do his bidding. I didn’t think Yarrow would be keen on such treatment, but Alex didn’t have to go out of his way to be friendly to a man he just admitted to fundamentally disliking.
Prince Alex was entirely too charming for his own good, I decided, and hoped he would learn to tame what I saw then was his own kind of beast before it was too late.
Still, despite my dislike of Alex, I did my duty and accepted his invitation to dinner. I left the room before he could dismiss me, walking briskly out of the house and not once glancing over at the parlor that seemed to hold the life I’d been cheated of. The one we’d both left behind.
Later that night, after a delightful enough dinner that I was unable to appreciate, I left the house intending to work off some energy with a roam around the village. The blasted demon was stirring inside me, possibly realizing I wasn’t immediately returning to the battlefield, and I wanted to outpace the restlessness before it could take over and make me do something irreparable.
On the way out, I was intercepted by Yarrow, who’d suddenly appeared close on my heels.
“May I walk with His Highness?” he asked too politely.
“Do as you please,” I told him, wary of the possible reasons for why he had sought me out so hastily. If he simply wanted to inquire after my health, he’d had a full evening to do so.
“How is His Highness faring?” Yarrow asked pleasantly.
Just to see if I could rattle him, I answered with, “As you saw, Prince Alex is in good spirits considering recent developments, and I have been privileged to be part of several successful campaigns at the front.”
Yarrow smiled and cast me a look showing that he knew what I was up to. He didn’t say anything else until we were some distance from the house.
“If the prince will allow me to speak openly—” he began.
“Permission granted,” I interrupted shortly.
In the blink of an eye, Yarrow was in front me, forcing me to pull up short so I wouldn’t trample him. “I wonder,” he said carefully, “why a prince, and next in the line to the throne, insists on fighting so close to the front when he can easily inspire his troops from a much safer distance.”
“The men risk their lives for the security of the kingdoms,” I rejoined, “and there would be no kingdoms without such men. I fight for that as much as they.”
“Of course,” Yarrow nodded in agreement. He peered at me intently, as if intending to take the full measure of my soul with those astute, magical purple eyes of his. “But what are you really doing here?”
I wondered why I hesitated to tell Yarrow the truth then. From the outset, he’d shown an uncanny ability to see me as no one else could, and I wasn’t sure that he didn’t already know the answer to his question. Perhaps I was afraid that admitting it to him would make it more real for me as well, emphasizing the reality I could do nothing about.
“She left,” he concluded from my silence.
“I let her go,” I countered defensively.<
br />
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
Even without meaning to be menacing, the force of my words was enough for Yarrow to hold up his palms showing he meant no harm. I didn’t miss the faint purple glow enveloping them, his magic at the ready. As soon as the point was made, however, the purple faded.
“I have not been in your head nor have I lived in your heart,” Yarrow told me, “but I understand there are things that lead a man to act from recklessness or desperation. Any human that’s ever lived will admit to such.”
“Ah,” I replied bitterly, “then I am still human after all.”
Yarrow nodded again, made to speak, then held himself back.
“What?” I demanded of him. “What is it?”
“It’s not my place,” he tried to backtrack.
“Say it anyway,” I commanded, glowering down at him.
Yarrow was not a man to be frightened, so when he chose to speak, I wondered that he had given in so readily. Only later did I think that perhaps what came next was something he really wanted for me to know, and having no other opening to warn me, he simply created one.
“If I may,” he said, raising a hand to place over my heart without permission.
His hand glowed purple and a sudden warmth flooded out from it. In its wake, it left a sense of calm and tranquility, a type of peace that I did not remember knowing or having ever really known at all.
“This is what it will feel like when the curse is broken,” Yarrow explained.
My anger flared briefly and I flung his hand from my chest. “Why do you tease me?”
“So you know what you fight for,” he replied.
“I know well enough!” I cried angrily, “I fight to prove that a man can fight, and a whole lot of other pretty phrases. And still she left! She didn’t even look back.”
Human Again Page 22