He breathed hard with his back against the dirt. He was getting too old for this. He felt it in his limbs. Constant aches that came for him.
He glanced down into his pouch. At this point… it was only a question of what would kill him first. Running out of crystals or dying on the field.
Explosions and shouts echoed behind him - out of the trench he was resting in. The very ground shook and trembled with the force of the attacks. A few moments later, there was another explosion and bodies rolled into the trench with him. Some alive, some not.
A young boy was shivering beside him. He was terrified and he was covered in blood. The poor thing was hyperventilating.
He reached over and touched his shoulder. He squeezed it hard and eventually the boy quieted down and looked at him.
“This is… this is too much.”
He wiped his face, but he wasn’t crying. It was the mud and blood he was wiping off. He slumped onto his knees and hung his head.
This old man didn’t recognize him. He must be from the new group. Young and thrown into his first battle.
The others alive in their trench had similar haunted and tired expressions. It was a terrible thing to walk onto that battlefield every day, but there was a point to it. There was purpose. They needed to win, because if they didn’t, innocent people would continue to suffer, die, or be enslaved.
They just had to bear the pain of this war for their sake.
He ground up one of his crystals to burn its dust over a small fire. It was the most effective way he had of rationing them. He inhaled the smoke and felt it take effect. The aches subsided a little.
The old man was lost in his thoughts when a visitor came to join him at his tiny fire. He felt he recognized him, but it was difficult to tell with his memory.
His face was caked with dirt - his hair was as well to the point that it looked brown.
The old man nodded and invited him to sit. There wouldn’t be much conversation, but he wouldn’t stop him.
“They told me you’re a sherta… so you can’t speak?”
He was bold with his questions, but he didn’t mind them. He nodded.
“Can I confess something to you?” He gestured to go ahead. “I came here to follow my brother. My older brother. He’s a… he was a great fighter. But… he’s…”
He struggled to say the words, but this old man understood. He had died already.
“How do you keep fighting every day?” The question was a desperate one, but the boy caught himself. “I’m sorry, there’s no good answer.”
The old man gave him a stick. Play with the fire, it’s much simpler than having to think.
The boy began to follow him. He’d visit him when they were camping. He’d fight by his side on the trenches.
This old man worked best from afar. He couldn’t run like he used to, but he could send projectiles and manipulate the shadows enough to place traps. The boy had it much worse. He was always out on the field and every time the old man saw him, he was covered in blood.
The boy, unfortunately, got more and more used to it. His eyes became less haunted and more determined. Each battle he survived only meant he’d be alive for another one. While he seemed to grow stronger, this old man grew weaker.
This old man was covering himself in a trench when once again, the boy slid down beside him. There was a fresh wound on his arm that had torn open his clothes. Yet the boy moved as if he didn’t feel it.
“How are you holding up?”
The old man tapped his response along the boy’s other arm. He’d asked to learn, so the old man had slowly been teaching him.
The boy shook his head with a smile and checked above the trenches.
It was about time for this old man to set another trap. He climbed the end of the trench as well, and looked over.
The battlefield was a mess of bodies, of magic, and of fights. A line of their fighters were firing without stop. Then… they heard a shout.
It was loud and clear and it sent a panic through their men. A huge wave of magic came crashing towards them. Before the old man could react, he was pushed down. It wasn’t any safer in the trenches, the wave of magic pooled into it with the force of lava. But this old man didn’t feel the pain he should’ve. This stupid boy had shielded him and taken the hit himself.
When the wave passed, he collapsed and the old man cursed him from inside his mind. He was not his father or his brother. He should care for his own life before one of a dying man. He had only prolonged his existence by another day.
Still, he pulled the boy to safety and signaled for help.
The boy was on his feet, faster than should be allowed. His young blood made this old man jealous. And this boy’s deaf ears to his scolds annoyed him.
He acted as if nothing had happened and refused to acknowledge the old man’s demands that it not happen again. Instead he spoke of life before this battlefield. He spoke of very simple things. Peeling an orange. Buying food. Reading the paper. But they brought a sense of normalcy that other soldiers needed as well.
“We should play a game.” He offered one day. He didn’t wait for a reply, he grabbed a stick and began to draw in the dirt. “I think of a word and you need to guess it.”
The old man extended his hand and the boy gave him a stick. He drew a letter in the dirt.
“An E… There is one. You’ve played this game before.”
The boy shared that losing the ability to hear was a fear he had. The constant explosions made his ears ring and everyday they rang for longer.
The next time they played, the word was Learn.
“I’m getting better.” He stated with more confidence than he should have for the fluency of his Touch. But during this time, it was the little things that mattered.
The old man asked him what he would do once the war was over.
The boy said he didn’t know. He already felt like a different person. It didn’t feel like he’d ever leave this place alive.
The old man chastised him. He was young. There was much time ahead of him. He could fall in love, pursue passions, travel the world - anything at all. This war would not be the end for him.
The boy humoured him, but he was very well acquainted with how easy it was to die.
This old man, despite himself, had gotten attached to the boy. He had avoided making connections to survive these battles. Now he fretted over the life of the blond haired child every time they were on the battlefield.
He was talented in fighting. He’d survived this long and he’d survived much longer still - but every time he slid into the trench he always had a new wound. There was a new cut, a new burn, a new injury that he didn’t flinch for.
This old man didn’t expect to make it out of this war alive, and so he needed this boy to do so for him.
When this boy rolled in this time, he brought a severed limb with him. The old man nearly had a heart attack thinking it was his, but the boy tossed the arm away with both of his intact ones.
“We’re not making progress.”
They weren’t pushing the enemy back enough. They were at a standstill, exhausting each other out.
The boy wasn’t the only one to notice. The leading men were talking between each other - strategizing to figure out how to give themselves an advantage. There were rumors of potential magic that could help.
The old man guessed a consonant for the first time. He guessed an L.
The boy made a face, but added the letter to the start of the word.
“I see, I’m predictable now.”
Each word the boy had made him guess, started with the letter L. This one was Lament.
“I like the letter. Pleases me.”
It was all the boy gave as explanation. The old man didn’t push for more. The hole in his pocket was his grounding trait.
They spoke of the changes in the atmosphere that night. There was a plan brewing and it smelled of risky magic.
This old man felt weaker than usual. He caught another in one of his traps and then slid down the trench to take a breath. His vision swam and he saw his life prior to all of this. He had not done much with it. Most of it was spent chasing down the crystals that now barely kept him alive.
In a sad way, this war was a redemption for him. Maybe the world would forgive him for only taking.
He felt and heard the words, and the old man opened his eyes. The boy was looking at him in concern and he reassured him. He only felt tired.
In truth, maybe this was the day he was meant to die.
The boy squeezed his shoulder as he had him the first time, before he pulled himself back out of the trenches again.
This old man was very tired. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if today was his last. This boy would survive whether he was here or not. In fact, he’d saved this old man much more than he had him.
He climbed out of the dirt hole. If this was to be his last, he would help as much as his body would allow.
The field was buzzing with energy. The opposite side was as frustrated with the stall as they were and the air sparked with that anger.
In the distance, something was spotted. It looked terrible from afar - with more limbs than any being should have and with speed that set everyone on edge.
Alarms were instantly set off and their front line began throwing everything they had at the creature that barreled their way. It wavered with each blast, yet found its balance again each time to continue charging.
It quickly became apparent that this wasn’t a simple attack. The shouting and chaos increased. The attacks were relentless, but the creature had dark spiky tentacled limbs that cut and slashed at everything it was met with.
The only thing that seemed to make it falter, was when its head would be struck.
The boy noticed it as the old man did.
The creature was tearing down their front lines, protecting its head from attacks as it completely turned the tides on them.
Why did it have to be the boy?
He launched himself at the monster and the old man helplessly watched from afar.
The boy that had panicked in fear on his first day, now threw himself at a monster that cut at him relentlessly.
One boy stopped the monster in its tracks - the endless killing halted. The boy had forced his way in, torn its limbs from its head and decapitated it.
The creature fell and the boy stood shakingly. His entire body was covered in blood from deep cuts. It dripped into a large puddle in the mud.
The spectacle left everyone speechless in front of the boy who’d saved the rest of them. They waited for him to turn around so they could cheer… but his weapon dropped from his hand… and then he dropped to the ground.
The old man sat alone at his little fire.
Loud whispers. They made the old man tiredly look up.
Their leader had come to speak.
A new soldier was introduced. Pale and scarred as if it had already seen many battles. A demonstration was made, but the old man barely paid attention.
The weapon was… very effective.
It was hard for even the old man to ignore. There had been skepticism and hesitation at first. The soldier had an air about him of forbidden magic. He looked dead, as if they had reanimated a corpse. He didn’t speak and his glowing red eyes were completely empty. Rumors were, he wasn’t human at all. Simply magic given form.
But even the most adamant skeptics began to support this soldier when they saw him in action. He had no fear. No hesitation. And he could take damage unlike anyone else.
The leader would give out the command, and the soldier would do exactly as told. He would annihilate a whole wave of enemies, before he crouched and waited for the next order. They made more progress in two days than they had for the last month.
There was something that bothered the old man about this. He couldn’t pinpoint what. Only watch from afar.
The old man’s group was ecstatic when it was their turn to have the soldier. As they huddled in the trench, he crouched on the surface. The old man hadn’t seen this soldier from so close before and that strange feeling came again.
The pale soldier had a hat on that hid his face, never looked at them and never spoke - though the large scar across his neck suggested he probably couldn’t.
The men talked excitedly. They poked at the soldier. They played with a statue that paid them no attention. A statue that usually stared ahead, but sometimes… drew in the dirt.
The old man pulled himself out of the trench during a rest period and he sat beside the soldier.
That’s when it hit him… as he saw the blond hair coming out from his hat and the lines the soldier kept mindlessly scratching over and over in the dirt with his finger.
The old man nearly fell right back into the trench.
He grasped his shoulder. He tapped his fingers on his arm. He tried to shake him.
The old man was relentless after that. As if a new fire had come over him.
Every day, he tried to reach the boy again. The same dead eyes looked back, but he tried regardless. The soldier never spoke a word. Never played the word game. Hardly even looked at the old man.
But he’d let the old man sit beside him. And despite the empty stare, the old man felt his taps were heard.
His persistence and his endless stories eventually paid off. Days later, the soldier responded to him for the first time.
He did so by Touch and it was simply…
The old man had needed to sit on that information.
This was the boy he had met. He had no doubt of it, but… he had also seen that boy die. The soldier had none of the memories. His eyes shared none of the emotions that boy had lived through.
He was no longer the boy the old man had grown fond of.
As he understood this… the old man still continued to persist. He owed the boy a debt, he owed him many debts, and the form he took now would be the recipient.
This old man could not say goodbye to this life, without making sure the boy received at least a little of what he’d given.
He treated him as someone new, and as everyone adamantly treated the soldier as only a soldier, the old man treated him as an old friend.
The soldier began to respond to it more and more… little by little he would engage… even if there were no emotions behind it. He at least seemed to appreciate the company offered.
Eventually, the old man realized what he needed to do.
The soldier was incredible for the war. He was a vicious killing machine. Quick, efficient and destructive. He would not bleed and the wounds he’d received would reverse themselves back to his original scars.
But the old man hated every second. All he saw was the boy, forced to numbly listen to the orders given to him. He believed in a future for him still. A life outside of this, and he would never get it if he was stuck in this place forever. Fighting battles that weren’t his no longer.
Even in death, war did not give him peace.
It was a magic stone that forced the soldier to listen to orders. The same magic that had brought him into existence, now imprisoned him in it.
The old man knew better than to reason with their leader. The soldier was doing too good. Sacrificing him now would be disastrous for the war.
Instead he used his skills to find out what he needed.
During the rest period, the leader kept the stone locked in a box in the main hut. With the help of shadows, the old man managed to slip inside undetected. It exhausted him deeply to do so, but he only needed enough strength to retrieve the stone.
He was too exhausted to detect the seal.
The magic on it threw him back, and the alert immediately brought in the leader.
The old man was caught in the act - amidst the confusion, he was forced to admit his intentions.
The leader didn’t react well, as he’d predicted. The old man struggled to get up from the floor, insisting it was the right thing to do. They needed to free the boy from this cycle of death.
So the leader brought in the soldier, stone in hand.
“If he wanted different, he would take it himself. But this is just a weapon. There is no soul in this soldier.” The stone was waved in front of the soldier, who only faintly glanced to it.
But that glance was all the old man needed. Still leaning against the wall - he used the last of his energy. The nearest shadow surged out and grabbed onto the stone. It plucked it from the leader’s hands and brought it to the old man’s.
The surprised looks came from both, and the old man smiled to the soldier. This was his gift and his debts repaid.
As the leader shouted for him to be stopped, the old man shattered the stone in his hands.
Something else shattered into his chest at the same moment - the leader’s desperate attempt to stop him.
The old man’s vision went dark for a moment, and when it came back, he was coughing blood. Where the leader had once been, was only a large red mark on the wall. The soldier crouched in front of him and his eyes showed a hint of concern and guilt.
The old man plucked the pouch from his side and gave it to him. This is all he had left to his name. The others would take these and sell them. He’d rather they go to the boy.
He smiled and shakingly patted his hand with the last bit of energy he had left.
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