by Jared Ravens
"Why?" said Fairfax. "I don't care if they like me."
"Fine, but they won't have your back when you need them."
"When would I need them?"
"When those western friends come for you."
Fairfax blinked several times and his face became agitated. Eryck knew he had hit a cord. Then as quickly as the memory came and emotion came to Fairfax it fluttered away and he sunk back into the blank emotional space he preferred.
Fairfax saw his personality like a set of blocks that could be stacked and unstacked, built and rebuilt. He could spend hours laying down and watching it be made and unmade over and over again, like a house with infinite ways to rearrange its floors and walls and decoration. He was a pacifist home keeper one moment and an violent, adventuring fighter the next. He saw how all the pieces fit together which made it hard to take any person or personality seriously. He would wake up feeling dazed and broken. He would spend his mornings building up a personality to face the day only to knock it down again at night. It amused him and frightened him. The memories of who he was seemed like a different person in the same body. When he saw Eryck, smiling and leading and laughing, he saw both the personality and the persona that accepted that personality. He admired that but was afraid of it; it was like having a mask glued to your face.
He could not explain this to Eryck, nor could he explain how he had come to be. He felt stuck, mentally and physically, with an arrangement put in place by someone else for the their own uses. Eryck didn't ask many questions because he seemed to sense the psychic instability of his new companion. Then one day the answers came looking for him.
Fairfax had taken up in the shack that Gim and his two relatives were at. Fairfax still could not entirely understand what they were saying since everything sounded angry. They seemed appreciative of the great wealth Fairfax brought with him in the form of shells and furs, but they expressed that with words that caused them to spit.
The wealth was so great that Fairfax built a second room for himself and his treasure. He slept on the ground, often in full armor made from the shells and bones of the things he had killed. When morning came they knew he was waking by the clanging he made as he tried to maneuver his unwieldy clothing into place so he could stand up.
He noticed immediately that something was different. Peering out from the slats of wood he could tell that people were missing. He had heard no bell.
Gim walked in with with a tanned hide drapped over his entire body. His head only reached at little over Fairfax's waist making it seem like the fur had reanimated into a faceless slab of hair.
“Eryck's not ere," was all he explained. He couldn't tell Farifax where he had gone nor what he was doing.
Fairfax waited restlessly until Eryck returned at midday. He came with about twenty men, trudging up the trail from the desert, the opposite way of the black ocean. He waved Fairfax over and pulled him into the empty dining tent.
"They come for you, son," he said, his face far from jovial. "About a hundred I guess. But not too much about them, they dress nice but I don't think they wouldn't shit their pants if they saw us come after them."
Fairfax began to sweat and his face turned red. He wiped his brow as the heat rose inside fo him. Eryck had him sit, hoping it would clam him.
"From Sigma?" Fairfax asked.
"From The Hill. Sigma troops but the officer said they followed Genesee's orders. But its just them! No one else. I can tell them to go and -poof!- off and they'll leave."
"How do they know I'm here?"
"They don't! They probably just saw you running a while ago in this direction, they say they know you’re here but I know they don't. You come with me later and I'll give them an answer, that answer is no! But..” He sat down beside Fairfax. "...You ran off from the army? Is that it? I don't know, I just need to ask."
Fairfax thought a long time, reflecting on his fragmented memories.
"I was at The Hill.."
Eryck blew air out from his lips, interrupting Fairfax. "So you did come from up there, I thought they was shitting us. You must have been born strange, then he brought you up there and then you got knocked on the head and you left, that right? Say that's right?"
"I wasn't... born..."
Eryck eyed him.
"You didn't come from no ocean, did ya?"
"No," he said quietly. "I remember my mother's face. But I don't know who she is."
Eryck tilted his head to one side and smiled.
"All right, that fixes it. So, you’re crazy, but you have reasons. I don't judge, let's go do it."
They ate and began their walk down to the valley to give the answer to the waiting army. Fairfax kept his distance, staying at the back of the pack, out of sight. About fifty men and women walked in front of him, heavily armed and fearless. Then they passed a large boulder and the floor of the desert came into view.
There were at least two hundred soldiers in gleaming red and silver armor, waiting with spears and swords in neat lines. These were novices, as most soldiers from Sigma were, but they did their best to be intimidating. In back of them stood a figure who had not been there in the morning, a huge man with a worn red helmet that engulfed his face. At his side was a sword the size of three men, and he rested his enormous hand on it as if waiting for a reason to use it.
Eryck immediately saw the situation was much worse than he had anticipated. He turned and waved to Fairfax to hang back. Fairfax snuck behind a boulder far up the hill. Eryck hid his fear behind a smile as he walked with three of his figures to the officer.
"Lil much for just a person," he declared. "No one here by that description, like I said so before."
The officer, an older gentleman with white stubble, looked in back of him where Atrios stood. Although they couldn't see Atrios’ face they could just make out his eyes. His head tilted back as if contemplating the situation. It was clear to Eryck that the officer was not the one he should be speaking to.
"Sir, like I said," he shouted to Atrios, "No one here. We just live up in the mountains and protect you, like our duty is."
Atrios said nothing but opened his hand to motion at a crowd of soldiers. A older man, thin and weak was pushed up through the throng. Eryck sighed as Hellis stumbled towards him. In his broken language he exclaimed that there was a Fairfax here, and that he was causing problems and needed to be taken away. Eryck glanced back up the hill to the boulder where Fairfax hid, and at the slope where his soldiers stood, waiting.
“One moment,” he finally said, and excused himself to walk back up the hill.
"Looks bad," he said to Fairfax behind the boulder. “I am a fucking idiot! They got Hellis down there speaking bad things about you. What did I say about making friends?”
A piece of his old self emerged somewhere deep inside, like a friend whose name he couldn’t remember. He felt a twinge of regret, not anger. He saw his blunder. There was value in personality, in relationships. Hellis might be a traitor, but it was just as much his own fault.
He peaked out from the side of the boulder. The large man in the red helmet dominated the landscape. Another fragment of himself fell into place. He remembered him.
"I can take him," Fairfax replied.
"Atrios? He's all war, my friend. You want to take up with him?"
"Yes," Fairfax said firmly.
"And then what, and then what? You can't kill em, you know. You think you can drive em off? And then what, and then what after that?"
"I'll leave."
"Too late for that."
"I'll fight and then I'll leave."
"Too late for that, too,” replied Eryck. “You think they leave us alone? Whoop us here or whoop us later. Don't matter if you are here or not."
Fairfax slipped another peek.
"Yes, it does."
Before Eryck could pull him back Fairfax stepped out from behind the boulder. He walked down the slope in full view of Atrios. His soldiers became alarmed and turned in unison towards him, pitch
ing their weapons upwards in his direction and grunting. Fairfax continued to walk. Atrios turned slightly, keeping his hand on his sword's hilt.
Fairfax stopped near the end of the slope and looked around. He spied a boulder about three times the size of himself and walked towards it. He reached his arms around it, as much as he was able, and cried out as the muscles of his body strained against it. It moved slightly and the soldiers jerked again, anticipating an attack. Atrios put up his hand to signal for them to hold back. Fairfax groaned three more times, moving it slightly until it finally lifted a tiny bit off the ground. He threw it as far as he could, which was barely a measurable distance, and it rolled towards Atrios.
Fairfax walked towards the still boulder and repeated this, pushing it nearly to Atrios' feet. Panting, Fairfax climbed the boulder and thus was the height of Atrios’ neck.
"That's my father's Axe," Atrios said, pointing to the enormous weapon on Fairfax's back.
"Is that all you wanted?" Fairfax asked.
"No," Atrios said gruffly.
"I remember you, vaguely. Is that a new helmet? I believe I smashed the last one."
"It is," said the face hidden inside the metal.
"And your head is OK."
"Somewhat."
"You're used to pain."
"As you will be."
"I already am," Fairfax replied.
"I am only holding my weapon out of orders," said Atrios. "You would be dead otherwise."
"I thought so when I came down that hill. I want to know what you need from me. My memory is poor. I don’t know if I was ever told what you need from me.”
“You’re to come back with me and do as you’re told. You made a deal and now you have to fulfill it.”
“I don’t remember what the deal was.”
“You’re supposed to be doing the dirty work, keeping the peace.”
“I’m supposed to do your job.”
Atrios pulled in a deep breath.
“I have authority over you. You will do as order.”
Fairfax nodded and scanned the ground with his eyes, thinking.
“Whatever they did last time doesn’t lend itself to me trusting them again.”
“Then we’ll take care of you here.”
"And you have to offer me the option to come peacefully."
Atrios drew back a bit, obvious disgusted.
"Not my choice."
"Genesee's."
"He's foolish."
"You take orders from him, though.”
Atrios paused. In the dark helmet Fairfax imagined that he was clinching his teeth.
"Not my choice of chain of command."
Fairfax looked back at the motley group of troops behind him. He wasn't sure if they could hear his voice, so he lowered it a little and leaned in.
"What happens to them."
"What do I care about them?" Atrios asked.
"They lied to you."
Atrios' head moved a little and Fairfax could see his eyes narrow.
"They wanted to keep me to themselves. They wanted my abilities to use for their own... purposes."
"Of course they would."
"What I want to ask you is that, if I came with you, could you bear it to forgive a people that lied to you? How could they continue to exist? Would it be too much to let someone that disrespected you to stay here and simmer in the desert?"
He could see teeth in the darkness of the helmet. A smile of indescribable fury was forming. Atrios leaned in closer to Fairfax.
"I want them to be free," Fairfax said.
"I will allow the children to live," Atrios said. "The men and woman must die. That is honorable."
"Say that louder," Fairfax said. "I think if it’s honorable for them to know the terms."
"The women and men of Eae must die!” He called to his troops. “Put the children to bed without their parents and let them grow knowing their parents lied to those that ruled them!"
There was a sudden, collective scream of horror from the soldiers in back of Fairfax, and a collective grumble from those at Atrios’ side. Hellis drew back, confused and horrified. Atrios’ mouth widened behind the helmet and he reached out and grabbed Fairfax in a swift swoop of his hand.
It was not a tight grip, as the axe on Fairfax's back cut into his fingers every time he tried to tighten it. As he struggled to release his arms from Atrios’ fingers, Fairfax heard the soldiers of Eae running down the slope and into the Sigma contingent of soldiers. He knew that as long as he kept Atrios tied up they stood a chance. Atrios tried to reach down with his other hand and pick at Fairfax’s head but Fairfax pulled this head down just enough that the axe caught Atrio’s finger other hand. At the same time something picked at Atrios’ ankles, and he looked down to see several brave soldiers stabbing at his legs. Atrios was then caught in a dilemma of deciding who to deal with, as the soldiers would not quit coming. They had made quick work of the Sigma guards, overwhelming the clean looking troops and causing them to run.
Atrios kicked at the warriors but they kept at him. They attacked him with a ferocity he had not experienced before. They had adapted to the fear of fighting things larger than themselves; to them, this stranger was no more dangerous than anything they had faced before.
Atrios dropped Fairfax, grabbing his sword with his bleeding hand. He was able to pick off several of the warriors but they were so small to him that he had difficulty hitting them. They were soon in his undergarments and running like ants over his body. He yelped and fell down, rolling to squash them with his body.
Fairfax recovered and intended to run into the fight when he heard something behind him. Atrios’ soldiers were running back to the battle, but they did not run straight for their enemies. Instead they ran up the slope, heading for the trail that lead straight for Eae. Unable to take the warriors on directly they were going to follow their orders and take out the entire city.
Fairfax yelled at the Eae soldiers who had overtaken Atrios. Atrios flailed on the desert ground, throwing them off one by one. As they each heard Fairfax's call they abandoned the giant and ran with newfound energy up towards their families.
They caught up to the rear end of the division of soldiers and cut them down. But by then many had already made it to Eae and were setting buildings on fire. As the city burned around them the soldiers of Eae forced their way through the soldiers of Sigma with a bloodthirsty abandon. They spared no limb on any of them, thrusting a spear into anything that was red and sliver.
There was no time to recover and return to the battle scene even when the last of the Sigma soldiers were killed. The tent city was on fire and they had to gather their possessions and escape. The little that they had was packed up and every family hustled down the trail to the relative safety of the desert.
By the time they reached the desert Atrios was gone, a bloody spot where he once was. It would take him time to recover, Fairfax, believed. But he had stirred up a nest of anger he could not put back, not Atrios’ anger nor that of his adopted city. There was not much to Eae but it was a home. Now it was gone with the smoke. What was more, they knew they could not rebuild there. He had prodded Atrios into destroyed their home, his home. It would be another secret he had to keep to himself. He needed these people to go with him. And now they had no choice.
They walked past the corpses of soldiers. Fairfax stopped to find Hellis, his ancient face locked in a moment of surprise when a sword cut through him. Laying out on the desert floor the tribe of a few hundred set up camp as they decided where to head to next. Shock was on every face, though it would have been assumed that every one of them had seen nightmares on a daily basis that could dwarf this. The one point of stability they had was now gone, and their life would not be the same.
Eryck collapsed to the ground beside Fairfax. The rush of organizing a mass retreat from the city immediately following a battle had left him as drained as Fairfax had ever seen him. A look of emptiness drifted over his face.
"
The black sea..." he said, realizing the implications.
"Leave it," said Fairfax. "The black sea can run over with creatures. Let them deal with it."
Eryck blinked several times. They would have to run quickly to escape the hordes that would come the next time it erupted.
"Do they blame me?" Fairfax asked.
"They need you," Eryck said.
"I need them."
"Neither of us has a choice," Eryck replied.
"I hope they don't stop to think."
Gim brought them some unidentifiable meat on a piece of tin. It might have been from a human; both ate it anyways.
"We'll need more people,” Fairfax said. "More tribes."
"To protect you," Eryck grumbled.
"To protect us. Until we can be declared safe here. Free."
"We were free..." Eryck grumbled.
“I don’t think so," Fairfax said. "What just happened doesn't seem like it happens to a free people."
The Shadow
The plan was thus: Create a mess and then run from it. And it worked perfectly, in that the tribe of Eae was good at creating messes.
Their old homelands became overrun with beasts from the edge of the world, and, on his return to the scene of last battle, Atrios found himself faced with the things that the people of Eae had trained themselves on. He expended much of his resources and troops gaining control over the area the monsters had overrun. Depleted, he had to run back to The Hill to get more soldiers, not just for his army but to man the outpost. By the time the bureaucracy had cleared the request and troops were collected, the area was again overrun with nightmares that had to cleared, again, at great expense.
Many of the creatures from the edge of the world found their way to surrounding towns and even to the edges of Sigma before they could be put down. So Atrios found himself in the role of janitor, cleaning up the mess rather than a hunting down his prey at the most critical time.
It was as much his fault as any, though. Although he was the manger of War, Atrios was not trained as a general. He was a solitary warrior who did not have the patience to master the basics of building an army. There had been no direct threat to Sigma from an organized army in some time. What threatened it was always was some giant that he preferred to take care of himself. So order in the army had atrophied to the point of that it was barely organized.