by Kyle Olson
There was a crack of a twig just above his head. He peeled back his cover, expecting another one of his men to be there, but nosed out his rifle just in case—only to have the gun wrenched from his hands by a massive figure in the gray, full-length greatcoat of the Topiary Army. Stooping over him in a casual squat, the soldier lorded it over him, trying to find the balance point of his rifle. Tarkit hadn’t surrendered, and he was going to make the giant regret his complacency. With superhuman speed, he was already drawing his sidearm.
Tarkit stared down the barrel of his own rifle, the pistol hadn’t even cleared its holster.
“Is that any way to greet your mother?”
Tarkit blinked. A cloud shifted, allowing more starlight to illuminate the gloom. His heart soared, but just as quick he shoved it back down.
“Ma? What are you doing here? I can’t believe it!” He spoke in an excited whisper.
“It has been some time since your last letter,” Sejit said, returning his rifle.
“That’ll happen in war,” said Tarkit. A burst of wind howled, cutting through his jacket and sent a shiver down his whole body. “Don’t just stand there, come on inside,” he said, sinking down into his cozier-than-standing-there spot.
Two bodies made for cramped conditions, especially with someone as large as Sejit, but it meant more heat to go around.
“I’m glad to see you,” Tarkit said once the roof was back in place, “But what made you come all the way out here? How’d you even find me?”
He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. Sejit hooked an arm around him and pulled him close. The major resisted, at first, until the warmth radiating from her melted through his frozen clothing. It’d been so long since he’d been warm.
“Your last letter stated you were heading for Rutherstown, so that is where I began.”
“But I sent that letter what, three months ago? We weren’t even able to hold it for more than a week.”
“Indeed,” Sejit nodded, “The Topian garrison was quite forthcoming with information regarding their victories. I know you grew up in Tulmenia, but joining their army was not advisable. Things have not been going well for your side,” she added, matter-of-factly.
Tarkit was surrounded by the billowing wisps of his sigh. “You don’t know the half of it. For a while we were doing great, victory after victory, rolling through with hardly any resistance. General Kinsley promoted me on the spot after our victory at Pyroschi. But then… Things stopped being great and here we are, surrounded. Speaking of which, how did you even get through the enemy lines?”
“A small matter,” Sejit said, waving a hand dismissively, “I came across one of their scouting parties and liberated part of their uniform. The cold made them less alert. None detected me, even when I was close enough to reach out and touch them. But that is beside the point…”
Her tone darkened.
“…I have been watching for several days. You cannot stay here. The Topian commander does not realize how small your force is. They believe you have several times the men you do. However, they will cinch the noose within the coming day.”
“I’d leave if I could, but as you so kindly illustrated, the noose is already around our neck. They just need to kick the stool out from under us.”
Sejit’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t matter there was next to no light within the foxhole, they still gleamed with an inner radiance, “I do not mean that rabble. I have come to take you home, to safety, away from this pointlessness.”
The warmth became overpowering; Tarkit forced himself away, insomuch as he could distance himself from his mother within the confines.
“Ma, I told you this when I joined. I have to make something for myself, fight for what I believe in. The Topians can’t win, that dictator of theirs won’t be satisfied until the entire damn region is under his heel. You know how many people he’s killed in his purges? How many people he’ll keep killing?”
Sejit regarded him as a mother would, as his mother would. “You are my son. They are nothing. If your home is no longer safe, then I will provide you with the means to find a new one.”
“They are nothing? Do you hear yourself? Yes, you’re right, I am your son,” Tarkit said, bringing his voice up as loud as he dared, “But all these men around me? Guess what? They’re sons, too. Brothers. Some are even fathers. All the people that’ll die in the purges, disappear when the secret police take them?”
Sejit watched him, calmly, though a hatch had formed in her breathing. “What do they matter? They have no respect for us.”
Of all the places to get into this argument, yet again, with her.
“Yeah, well, maybe they don’t respect you because all you do is sit in your hideaway and single-handedly support the entire wine industry when you could be out there, leading them.”
And then, something happened he didn’t expect. There was no fiery come back from his mother. Instead, she looked away, a tightness to her eyes. It’d only lasted a moment.
“I will not lose you,” she said, standing in a start, ripping away the cover, “Not to them. Not to anyone. Let someone else take your role, to die in your stead. There are no end to mortals wishing for promotion.”
He jolted to his feet right after her, “There will be an end if I don’t do something! Plenty have already died for me. I’ve ordered men to die. Even with everything you gave me, all your knowledge and insight—That first time I knew someone was going to die at my command, when I knew it was just to buy time, to retreat without a hope of victory, I didn’t sleep at all that night.”
The Victor of a Thousand Battles took a half-step back, but in the same breath leaned forward to eye-level. Staring down the barrel of his own rifle was less intimidating. He swallowed and reaffirmed his feet were planted.
“Congratulations. You have tasted battle and command. You have held the weight of their lives in your palm, you have discarded those lives, and yet you got over your sleeplessness. You think that makes you unique among their kind?”
“No, but I know I’m damn good at it. I can ensure our losses are as minimal as they can be.”
Sejit let loose a mocking snort, her lips set into a sneer, “What use is that which I have taught you if you are subject to the whims of those above you? Your so-called superiors? They have led you into… This,” she said, gesturing at the cratered hellscape around them.
“I have to ascend the ranks on their terms, so yes, sometimes I’m subject to bumbling commanders and poor planning.”
“And that is where you err: You sink to their level,” she pressed forward, looming over him, “Why debase yourself so?”
His mind scrabbled at the pages of memory. The longer he took, the more her confidence grew, the more she lorded, growing like a shadow over him. If he couldn’t convince her, she would just scoop him up and carry him away like a child who didn’t want to come in at night.
The pages flipped, one by one. Finally, his mental finger crossed a line of text that held the key.
“Because I must,” he said with all the conviction he could muster, “Who else could safeguard these lives, this nation, this world,” he said, sweeping his arm towards the front lines where his men slept and shivered, “If she herself has turned her back on them, then who else but the son of She Who Stood, The Indomitable?”
A chill wind blew, tussling their winter jackets about.
“…Where did you learn that?”
“Somewhere.”
“Was it Yf?”
“Maybe,” said Tarkit unable to look her in the eye, “Ma, why do you think I always wanted to be a soldier?”
“I had assumed you wished to be like me,” Sejit said, taking a seat on the edge of the foxhole.
He sat down next to her. “I did. When I heard about what you did, I thought you were the most amazing person—Well, even more amazing. Though even now I can’t understand why you shut yourself away from people.”
Leaning back onto her hands, Sejit peered into the heave
ns. “You are young and yet you have already felt the burdens of life. Remember when your cat died?”
“Don’t remind me. A grown man shouldn’t cry that much.”
“You are not nearly grown. Besides, Yf was pleased to hold the funeral for you,” Sejit said, smirking as she twisted the knife.
“Yeah, yeah. So what’s your point?”
The smirk faded. She wasn’t looking at the stars now, but some place beyond them. “As your years accumulate, so too will the weight. You will know joy and loss, and then you will die, releasing your burden and floating free. It is a sad thing, but a natural thing. You will never want for purpose. You will never wish to…” She fell silent, hands clasped together on her legs.
Tarkit rested a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I can’t know what you’ve seen, what you’ve lost. But I know you’re my mother. You raised me by yourself, made me who I am. You’re stronger than I’ll ever be. All I ask if you give people a chance, show them how to be better than they are.”
There they sat, mother and son, for some minutes in silence. Gusts whipped up the powdery snow. Tarkit kept trying to say something, but the way she hung her head, wrought her hands together… She seemed… Small. He feared he’d hurt her in some way and sought for the right apology, but the words would not come.
Then, she spoke, “Fine.”
“What?”
Sejit dusted herself off and stood, taller than before. “Tell me. If you wish to be a champion of this world, how do you intend to achieve your goals from your present situation?
Major Tarkit Reith, “Tiger” to his men, a tower of inspiration and font of battlefield wisdom, stood alongside her and found he couldn’t look her in the eye. “I suppose I’d have to ask my mother for help.”
“I could be inclined to aid my son. Gather your men and await my signal to the south.”
He nodded, and as a courtesy, looked away as her stolen trench coat fell to the snow, along with the rest of her clothing. A sound like rustling fabric and stretching sinew filled his ears.
A lioness on two legs stood where the human had once been. She cracked her neck. “It has been some time since I have stretched my claws. Perhaps this will not be so bad after all.”
“My prayers have been answered after all,” Tarkit said, grinning.
“Please.”
“Though, I have another question… The last time we spoke, you said you wouldn’t interfere, no matter what. What made you change your mind?”
“…There was something I had intended to say, but the conversation went in an unexpected direction.”
“Oh? What was it? Must’ve been important.”
“It matters not, but enough talk. We must get you—”
“—And my men.”
“…And your men to safety.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Before she could depart, Tarkit embraced her in a hug. “Thanks,” he said, feeling every bit a child again—especially when she ruffled his hair after returning the gesture. “Love you, Ma.”
“I love you, Tarkit. Rest assured, there will be nothing left.”
Once she had vanished from sight through the tree-line, Tarkit donned his helmet and straightened his coat. He felt… Different. Proud. After all, how many men could say they’d bested a god, or even their own mother?
“Your mother came to pick you up from a warzone? That’s… something else,” Sophia said, suspicious.
“What, you don’t believe me?”
“No, it’s not—”
A shrill beep cut her off as the oven signaled the readiness of the dessert. Tarkit extracted the pan with, to Sophia’s amusement, a pair of potholders shaped like lion heads with the mouths grabbing onto whatever it was that needed grabbing, and placed it on a cooling rack.
“There! Now it just has to cool and I can garnish it with a chocolate drizzle and some chopped walnuts. Should be ready to eat just in time after dinner,” said Tarkit as he admired the sweet product of his efforts, “Now that, you were saying?”
“Er,” Sophia stumbled as she righted her derailed train of thought, “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I find it hard to believe she came there out of some motherly concern.”
“Hah! I don’t blame you, but that’s how I’ve always known her. For example,” Tarkit paused for a think, to dredge up the past, “Ah, yes! One of my earliest fond memories was way back when I had first started school. I think I was seven or eight. Oh, and this was in Tulmenia. Warm weather in the summers, mild winters, though it so happens that while it didn’t snow often, when it did, it’d dump so much! So I was at the school house and during the day flurries had turned to steady snow, and then a full-on blizzard. More than a foot of snow fell in no time at all and there weren’t any signs of slowing down. Now, we lived in a secluded, quiet village, the kind that meant there was a lone schoolhouse attended by all the children for miles around and was a good two or three-mile walk from our home. We’d just gotten electricity, at least in the village center. No telephone at our house, we had to go to the Janson’s if we wanted that luxury, since they were close enough to the main road the utility posted a telephone line to them.”
“Sounds… stereotypically rural,” Sophia said, her imagination painting a rather bleak picture of life.
“It was, but enjoyable all the same. We lived on a large plot of farmland, but Sejit didn’t bother with any of that. Leased it to one of the neighbors and she made… I don’t recall what she did for most of our income. Knowing her, I can only imagine.”
“…I’ll bet.”
“Most of the students walked to and from the schoolhouse anyways, so it wasn’t that big of a deal—just meant taking longer to trundle through the heaps of snow. Except for the smaller of us, myself included. You may find it hard to believe, but I was quite the late bloomer. Some fathers came to pick up the small ones, carrying them back on their shoulders or horse backs because they had no hope of walking through that. So, while we were waiting, us children got to talking. It was well-known by all the adults that I did not have a father, just my mother. The other kids knew this too, of course, and would attempt to tease me, especially when we got into those “My father could beat up your father!” type arguments. In my case, “My mother could beat up your father!” was something I used often,” Tarkit said, chuckling as he spoke. Crow’s feet crinkled up at his eyes.
Even Sophia smirked, until she caught something: “Wait, you didn’t have a father? Were you, like…”
“No divine birth here! Of course I had a father, but I never knew him, and he never knew me, or so far as I know. Ma would tell me he was away when I was very young, but once I started catching on that she was… special, she sat me down one day and told me all about herself, how she had loved and how I was the result. To safeguard the both of us, she left him and raised me on her own. For a while it was a sore point, but when I matured enough, and knew enough about how the gods get on with each other,” said Tarkit, making the sort of face that also said: ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ “I saw the wisdom in what she did.”
“So, the other kids thought it was the funniest thing and would taunt me, but I knew better. After all, I lived with her! And, to get back to the main point, I did half-expect her to leave me to fend for myself on the return journey. A daunting prospect for a boy when the snows came up to his waist.”
“Wow, that seems really… You were 8, and there was really that much snow?
“Fairly certain, at any rate. And yes, that’s how she was. She’d leave me to do things most other parents, even back then, would find… irresponsible, admittedly, though whenever I ran into trouble she always appeared before things got too out of hand. Convenient all those times she just happened to be nearby. Hah! Only reason I hadn’t started my way back home right away when they let us go was because, that day, I really wanted to prove those little devils wrong about how great Ma was. Fortunately for me, she didn’t keep me waiting too long. See, back then people
were a little bit shorter than they are now, on average. ‘Course there were giants here and there, but nothing like her, and a woman at that! She could loom from across the room!”
“…Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“She marched in through the snow as if it wasn’t even there and the kids gasped and awed. Even the fathers were impressed. Oh, how vindicated I was! Smug from ear to ear! Though, instead of an easy ride on her shoulders, she made me walk as we left. Not that it mattered too much to me, I was still high on showing those spiteful bastards what for. Plus, look at me, the big boy who didn’t need to be carried, eh? She did tell me, in that calm way of hers, that I shouldn’t boast…”
Sophia nodded along, knowing precisely what he was talking about.
“Though, all the snow wiped the grin off my face right quick, let me tell you. I’d attempted to follow in her footsteps, such as they were, but with one stride should cover a distance I couldn’t hope to jump. Even with her plowing through the snow it was more than I could handle, and the going was slow. But… once we were out of sight of the other kids, she scooped me up without a word and deposited me on her shoulders. Back then I assumed she was just impatient, but nowadays, hmm, I’m not so sure.”
“Letting you save face, huh?” Sophia wondered aloud.
Tarkit nodded with another hum of agreement.
“That’s how she was. Clever and calm about everything, a tranquil pond. I broke my arm once, fell off the second floor of the barn. And there she was, showing up in seconds despite the fact I knew she’d been in the house when I left. Other mothers, I’d seen how they fussed and carried on. Even fathers, sometimes. But Sejit was herself, running her hand through my hair as I cried—She never told me to stop or that boys didn’t cry, mind you—Ah, the things I realize only now,” said Tarkit, scraping the bowl clean of the last of the batter. With a few flicks of the wrist he smoothed out the top of the mixture in the pan, and once again, it found itself in the oven.
“As she set the bone, she hummed a little song. Couldn’t tell you what it was, maybe something she came up with all her own. Something she always did to calm me down… And it always worked.”