T - Temond Keroda

To say the day had not gone well was a dramatic understatement. They were the lone survivors of the battle that claimed ninety-six of their own men and close to one hundred fifty of their enemy. Temond Keroda could see the echoes of the souls lost that day dancing in the flames of the camp fire.

Neither Temond nor the other survivor wished to speak. He was exhausted, and disgusted, on a level that few can understand. The pair of men sat staring into the flames, eating rations scavenged from the dead and contemplating their next move. Survival was not easily won, but the significant cost survived Temond. The battle began an hour before dawn. On the previous day. They hadn’t slept in more than thirty-nine hours.

Their six units had prepared to face off with the soldiers from Aurchis from a high point with two good retreat paths. They had set up early so that when the enemy arrived they would have the high-ground, if not the numbers advantage. That day the battle went back and forth, but the Hatrans held their ground and managed to cull the superior numbers of their enemy with a combination of long-bows, and sniper fire from a small handful of positions with well-trained shooters. They’d lost some numbers in smaller skirmishes intended to keep the Aurchians boxed in and in range of the snipers. The low ground was pinned behind a mesa to the south of their position, and adjacent to a deep ravine with a trickle of water at the bottom. If the fall did not kill a man, drinking the water surely would.

High up the hill on the far side of the stream were two snipers. Two more had made their nests at the ridge of the flatiron to the left of the hill where the Hatrans were poised for battle. There was very little ammunition due to the high-cost of making gunpowder, but a well-trained sniper was worth two units by herself. When she ran out of shells, she wouldn’t be missed in the dirty work of broad swords and axes, so it was rare to have a man sniping. Also, sniping was considered a feminine skill.

“So. It is just us, then.” Temond said between slow bites. He sat on a rock padded by a rucksack from a fallen man. The gash from his lip up into his left cheek still wept blood, and soaked into the bandage wrapped around his face. The sword that cut him almost relieved him of his head. I wonder if he will try to kill me next.

“Looks that way. Now we need to own this debacle.” Marcas Kane said, his posture more erect than Temond’s, but still hunched over a tin of chopped and stewed meat. His clothes were soaked in blood that dried quickly with the heat of the fire. Very little of the blood was his own. A few tattered cuts through parts of his sleeves and pant legs left him with minor bandages, but none like those of his comrade.

“Own it? Huh. So, the council will just forgive us for this slaughter?” Temond took another bite from his tin of tubers and quickly shoved a fork of meat into his mouth so he could hate them both at the same time. He grimaced and grunted at the effort of chewing under the effects of the combination of pain, drugs, and rough field-stitches.

“They will if we explain it right.” Marcas groaned as he pushed himself off the pile of packs that he sat on. He tossed some more scrub oak pieces on the fire. The tiny needles smoked and popped as they lit. The smoke kept the wild predators away. And the smoke dulled the acrid scent of death.

“I suppose.” Temond sighed. “Your father is Chancellor, so it is your explanation to make. You don’t even need me, do you?” Let’s see what he is planning to do with me.

“We will both be fine as long as we are telling the same story, my friend.” Marcas looked down at Temond across the fire light. Through the swirls of smoke, he caught the man’s eyes. “You were a fiend out there, soldier.”

“Thanks. There is only ever one story that survives, right . . .” He cleared his throat. “The winning one.” Friend? How could a man truly trust him? Do I even have a choice?

“I have been thinking.” Marcas let himself down on the pile of packs again. “When my father steps aside, I will need a helm— a man I can trust. I see you being the best man for that, especially after the skills and courage you displayed today.” He paused and watched Temond’s eyes. “What do you say?”

Temond stared through the smoke at the Chancellor’s first-born son — the heir to the council leadership. “It seems we do fight well together. If I must pick whether to have you as my friend or to bleed out in the night, I will take friend every time.” He cleared his throat again, and swallowed some additional blood that was trickling through his sinuses down the back of his throat. “It will be an honor to be your helm when the time comes. But until then, what am I? The only one besides you to survive the battle of ‘we slaughtered our prisoners, and then our own army?’”

“That’s not what happened.” Marcas’s voice was flat and hard. His eyes reflected the flames from his lounging perch, dozens of dead men visible in the dancing light behind him.

“Okay. My mistake. Exactly how did everyone die then? I must have what . . . blacked out?”

“No. Here’s how this went. This is the story.” Marcas began. “We engaged with the enemy shortly after sun-up and were succeeding. Eventually, they surrendered what remained of their forces. Having fought all day, we secured them for the night in the battlefield down below the mesa there. Right?”

Temond took a couple of measured breaths. The best lies closely mimic the truth. “Sure. That sounds like what actually happened. So how do we explain their parts everywhere?” Temond looked up, eyes weary.

“That’s easy. Kavarus Lozou decided to blow them up in the night. He was furious about losing so many soldiers to them.”

“I see. That was not you, then.” Temond stayed still and watched the embers flitter into the air. The needles were all gone but the bark was popping. “You say Kavarus did that? Will anyone believe that story?” Temond’s voice was a fraction of its normal forcefulness.

“Hmm. You have a point. Hofflen Early had to have done it. That’s what happened.” Marcas paused to think through the next piece of his fabrication. “Early’s forces took the brunt of the day’s losses. He was distraught and enraged. We calmed him down, but after everyone was asleep, he blew them up along with a couple of guards.” Marcas smiled from one side of his mouth.

“Either way, Julen will take over for his brother now that Hofflen is dead, so this will weaken House Early. It is at least believable that old ‘Hot-head’ Hofflen did something like that.” Temond was getting into the strategy of the story-building. I better make this dust-clogged story work for my own sake.

“Right. You are right. So, before blowing up the Aurchians, Hofflen killed the rest of our men in their sleep, and we two woke up in our separate tents and survived the onslaught, to find each other and fight them back.”

“Okay. But why would we know to find each other?” Temond said. “That sounds too easy.”

“It does, but we were camped near each other.”

“I do not like this. This is wrong. What you did . . . was horrible.” Temond set down his empty ration cans and felt for his sword at his side. I can’t let this be okay. There must be a way to stop him.

Marcas sat still as stone. His eyes watched Temond, who refused to even twitch after finding the pommel with his right hand.

“Do either of us have a choice now?” Marcas spoke in a low gravely growl, then pulled a dead man’s canteen to his lips and took a long drink.

“I see your point, but why, Marcas? I just see no reason. Why do this?” Silence stretched across the remote night. A few stars twinkled past the high filtered cloud layer. Not enough to make it rain, because that almost never happened out here, but enough to obscure the hopeful lights of the night sky.

“You want the truth? Tell me your name again, soldier.”

“Temond Keroda.” He slipped his hand around the blood-sticky, blackened grip of his blade.

“Temond. It’s a strong name. And I like you, Temond, so I will tell you the truth.” He paused, and stared up at the wisps of high moisture floating slowly overhead. “I’m tired, Temond. Tired of the fighting. Tired of the killing. It is wearing me down and I hate it.”

Temond shifted his weight. He was uncomfortable now.

“You are tired of it too, I can see. I wanted to bring all this to an end. I could not see sending them all home to attack us again next month or next year. You and I would be out here again earning new scars.” Marcas pointed at Temond’s face. “And for what?”

Temond shrugged. He has a point, but he’s still wrong. Killing never made peace.

“I don’t know what for, but that’s my place.” Temond’s voice was as calm and quiet as it would be at a dinner party.

“That’s the thing, my dear Temond. I don’t know either. This is my problem right now.”

“But that’s not going to end anything.”

“Well maybe not, but it’ll slow it down for a minute, won’t it?”

Temond selected his words carefully. “There is no way to know what Aurchis will do. They may have sent them all out here to die, so maybe it will slow them down. Maybe not.”

Marcas shifted his weight, making a couple of the packs dislodge, pushing his pile lower than before. The crackle of the fire and the streaks of light upward were the only disruptions to the quiet of the night.

“The Early forces that remained were very few. That is true,” Temond offered.

“So, they could have been quiet enough to sneak up on our tired Kane soldiers,” Marcas added. “The cowardly soldiers of house Early were no match for the few of us that woke up to fight. Mostly you, Temond.”

“Me?” Temond was surprised by the apparent offer to make him the hero of this debauchery.

“Of course, you. You saved my life. This is true.”

“I just stopped my blade before it hit you.”

“That is also true. See? You saved my life by stopping the blade that would have struck me down. You did kill twenty soldiers on your own, did you not?”

“I did.” Temond didn’t like the way this was going, but it was better than death. No version of the actual truth would let him keep his head off the top of a pike.

“You see, you need to be the true hero here today. We also need to make sure Lozou looks good. Let’s say Kavarus woke and fought beside you . . . and he killed a few of the Early cowards before he was cut down in my defense. You stepped in and the two of us fought off the rest.” Marcas stretched out with a satisfied grin.

“I’ll be what then?” Temond said quietly.

“The hero, of course. The legendary Temond who saved the heir.” Marcas smiled an unsettling, too-wide grin. “You know, Temond. You fought like a wild lizard today. If I didn’t know there were none left, I might have thought you were a drakko from the ancient wilds.” Marcas said, then reached back and dug into one of the packs. His own this time.

“The drakko are extinct, no matter how fiercely the hunted, Marcas.”

“Oh, I think not. I am going to call you Drakko now. It can be my personal nickname if you like.”

“I’d much rather you didn’t.”

“I’ll speak to my father. Lorinas Kane will reward you for keeping me alive. You will have a place in our house.”

Temond took two more despised bites from his tins and chewed very slowly, despite his ravenous hunger. The two sat silently in the ring of light casting shadows into the pitch-dark night. There was no concern about a varnok attack with so many fallen men around them. Just beyond the reach of the light there were nearly two hundred more bodies strewn across the ground. Below on the main fields of death, the smoldering, obliterated remains of close to a hundred Aurchians lay scattered across the landscape.

Temond sat still for a long while, thinking through his options. They were few. After the fire began to die down, Marcas spoke.

“Oh now, Drakko. Don’t be sour. We’re the only survivors of the ‘Early Massacre.’ You really were a marvel with that blade.” From the depths of his pack, he pulled out a small broach-like ornamental wooden knife barely bigger than a finger, and a strip of black cloth. He wrapped up the tiny dagger in the cloth and tossed it to Temond. “Drakko, these are the duub-blade and black marker of house Kane. Wear the cloth proudly, and keep the duub-blade on you. They signify you are my helm.”

Temond unwrapped the small ornamental piece of wood. Shiny and black as the night. He looked up at the slightly younger man, the son of the chancellor, and thought, Is this how I end up? I commit my life to a mass-murderer?

“If you call me Drakko again, I’ll jam this tiny blade so deep into your ear, the surgeons will never find it.” Temond smiled weakly, baring the teeth on the right half of his face, the one that wasn’t stitched closed.

Marcas smiled. “Excellent. We have a deal.”

* * *

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