AdAstra

“Dei, the Fireborn”

By AdAstraPhoenicia

6,692 Words.

Firelight flickered in the heart of the dark weald, as shadows danced between the trees. Within the flames burned visions of that which had come to pass and which had not yet transpired. Past, present and future woven together in a glittering ethereal tapestry.

When the Black Watch were driven from Arrica, when Larcans redoubt fell to the Antu, when the old Gods abandoned those that had believed in them.

Stories of great heroes and wicked villains. Of steel and sorcery. Of monsters and men. Of Gods and Kings.

Tightening his gambeson against the biting cold and falling snow, the warrior tried to banish the images within the flames. They told of other men. Great men. Men touched by destiny, embraced by fate. Not he.

He was the half-caste one. Borne of mortal and magic, a union of worlds, a bastard child, spurned by both. He had the piercing blue eyes of an ethereal, but the red blood of a man. Nameless, he wandered where the winds and his heart would take him. Fateless, he wrought his own destiny with the steel in his hand and the courage in his heart.

Three moons had passed since he had crossed the Mountains of Lantea, three more since he had heard a human voice, or had a hot meal that he didn’t have to kill first.

He stood now on the threshold of the Duchy of Lucerne, under the Thane of Brabant, and his welcome here would be no warmer than his last.

Withdrawing his axe from its sheath, he began to sharpen its blade. Slowly, expertly, he honed the edge, just sharp enough, but not too much.

The weapon he wielded was shorter than the common Dane Axe, which stood half a man high. His was more similar to a common woodsman’s axe, with a flat blade overhanging the haft, suitable for splitting logs and felling trees in addition to the work of war.

The nameless one’s athletic six and a half foot frame leaned over the head, faint shards of steel glittering in the firelight as he ran the whetstone over it. The broad axe he carried was a barbarians weapon. It was a bludgeon. It lacked the finesse, the poise, and the honour of a sword.

However, carrying a blade was forbidden to him. Despite being a pariah among his people, he nonetheless followed their most sacred chivalric codes with all of his heart. It was his dream, the dream of any young warrior, to become a Paladin. A holy warrior most high, most esteemed of all Knights.

But that dream died before he was born. A Knight must be high-born, of noble blood, and the nameless ones was sullied by unholy magics. Even more, a Paladin required the blessing of a celestial, a sacred bond, granting a mortal an aspect to the power of the gods.

A half-caste would never be accepted as such a noble warrior.

He was doomed, or destined, to be but a man.

Dark thoughts weighed heavily on his mind, and the shadows grew ever more intense in the driving snow and flickering firelight. The warrior pulled his cloak over him, and turned to sleep.

The morning sun played upon the thick blanket of snow, and caressed his bearded face as he woke.

Kicking some snow over the dying embers of his fire, the warrior set off toward the town of Runa.

For many hours he walked, the thickening woods swallowing him whole, until the sky disappeared, covered by the dark canopy he walked beneath.

There was magic here. The warriors blood pulsed ever so slightly, as the magical energy resonated through him. It buzzed in the air, danced between the trees, raised the hairs on his arms.

“Filthy magic”. He spat. It was mage-blood that had condemned him to live the life of the spurned one, the half-blood, welcomed by none.

Eventually, he reached a fast-moving stream, bloated with meltwater. Upon it lay a fallen log, a makeshift bridge.

With little choice, the nameless one stepped onto the log and slowly made his way across the treacherous surface.

He was making good progress when, halfway across, he lost his footing and fell headlong into the icy, frigid water.

Laden down by his pack, muscles frozen solid by the biting, merciless cold, the warrior somehow managed to float, swim, and haul himself to the opposite bank, but alas! His axe was lost! It has fallen from his lands when he slipped into the water, and had sunk to the bottom of the river.

Stripping his cloak, gambeson, and undershirt from his body, the warrior sat by the river, stripped to the waist, trying in vain to warm himself in a patch of golden sunlight that had penetrated the thick tree cover overhead.

As he lamented his bad luck, and struggled to gather enough loose wood and dry tinder for a fire, a sudden movement from the other side of the river caught his eye.

At first, the thick woods betrayed no secrets, but soon, under the stare of the bright morning light, he saw her.

A dryad. Most mischievous of all the Fae. They dwelled near the rivers and lakes of enchanted places unspoiled by man.

Her green eyes watched him from the safety of a thick oak, her lithe body hidden behind it. Only her face was exposed, and her hands, clasped over the trees rough bark, as if her body were part of it.

The warrior met her gaze, and the forest seemed to fall eerily quiet, a silent acknowledgement of the unspoken union, and divide, between mortal and magic.

She moved from the safety of the tree and approached the river, her thick, unkempt body-length hair all that covered her nakedness.

Her skin had a hue of burnt ochre, and was mottled with the soil she walked upon. Her eyes were an emerald green, and seemed to glisten with an unearthly beauty.

Effortlessly, she dove into the raging torrent and emerged, moments later, on the warriors side of the river, head and shoulders exposed, and she called to him.

“Strange traveller, why do you lament?” she called over the swirling waters.

Her voice was sultry sweet, and the nameless one was reminded of tales he had heard of sirens, luring men to their deaths with their beauty.

“My lady, I have lost my axe in your river” the nameless one replied, his voice steady, despite his apprehension.

With that, she was gone.

A few moments went by, and the warrior thought it best to abandon his fire and leave. Just as he finished drying the last of his clothes, there was a splash, and the dryad once again called to him.

“Is this that what you had lost?” she called, and in her hand she held a golden axe, it’s head shining brightly in the sun. A haft made from polished ebony and embossed with glittering steel finished the piece.

“A fine weapon indeed!” he replied, “but alas, it is not my axe!”.

Without a word, the lady turned, her feminine curves visible for just a moment before she once again disappeared beneath the white-capped water.

Curious, the half-caste one waited, and soon, she returned.

Holding her hand aloft, she again called “Warrior! Is this that what you had lost?” and in her outstretched hand this time she held an impressive silver axe, engraved with detailed carvings on the blade, and arcane symbols etched into the smooth beechwood handle.

“My thanks kind Lady, but this weapon is much finer than mine!”

With a graceful dive the lady once more disappeared beneath the waves.

Finally, she appeared one last time, holding the nameless one’s war axe. Crude, by comparison to the other two weapons, it was nonetheless his.

“Noble Lady! I regret that I have naught to offer you but my gratitude! This indeed, is the axe which I had lost!”

The Fae smiled sweetly to him, and threw him his weapon, without leaving the water.

“May the fates one day reward your honesty, warrior” she said to him, and she vanished for the final time, her dark tresses gliding beneath the churning water, until, in moments, she was gone.

Grasping his axe in one hand, the warrior quickly gathered his things and continued on his way. The Fae could be unpredictable. They could render aid in one moment, perform cruel tricks the next.

For many hours he travelled upon the snow-scattered forest trail, seeing not a soul.

In the gathering dark of early evening, the smell of magic finally gave way to the scent of man. A faint waft of smoke from a cooking fire, the sweet aroma of elderberry’s growing along the hedgerows, even the metallic tang from the blacksmith was a welcome change from the uncanny aura of magic.

With well-trodden ground once more under his feet, the warrior soon came to an encampment.

The sounds of uproarious laughter assaulted his ears, and the sweet smell of cooking meat reminded him of his ravenous hunger.

A large campfire glowed brightly in the dying light, and around it gathered a half-dozen men. They carried the crude weapons of brigands: Maces, clubs, and farm tools hastily scrounged, or stolen, for their nefarious ends. Most wore a thin cotton tunic, others wore a light leather cuirass, only one was armourclad.

Beside them, they dared raise a standard. Clumsily mounted to a rough-hewn limb was a woven banner bearing the stag, on an ochre background. The half-caste one did not recognise the symbol, but these lands were full of warlords, rebels, and bandits, it was impossible to keep track of them all.

In the centre of the group, tending the fire, stood a lithe, but quite beautiful young lady. Wearing a long white dress, it’s hem filthy with caked dirt, she ladled a thick stew from an iron cauldron into clay pots for the men to eat.

Still clutching a jug of thick golden mead in one hand, the armourclad warrior, the loudest, and largest of them, roughly grasped the lady by the waist and pulled her to him. She struggled vainly against the brute of a man as he planted a sloppy wet kiss on her lips, to the laughter of his men.

“Stop!” she wriggled against him, and used all her strength to no effect.

“Whatsamatter, you don’t like Lucian? He guffawed, and grabbed roughly at her dress, its thin fabric tearing under his strong hands, “Please leave me alone” the lady lamented, and pushed with all her might.

“I’ll leave you alone if you give me a kiss” he said, closing his eyes and pursing his lips in an exaggerated manner.

“Yeah, give him a kiss, he’s asked nicely” another barbarian shouted, as drunk and loud as the first.

“I said leave me alone” the lady shouted and scratched wildly, catching her captors eye with her nails.

His drunken smile vanished, his eyes flew open, and for the first time, there was rage in them.

Harlot! he shouted and struck her, one quick movement of his hand sending the lady sailing backward, collapsing onto the mud, her clothes torn, exposing her pale skin, her face bloody.

Seeing her in her nakedness unleashed an animalistic, primal lust in the men, and they leapt to their feet, leering, jeering, surrounding her, their leader the first of them, struggling in his drunkenness to undo the straps of his belt.

“Unhand the lady” the warriors voice boomed, axe in hand, emboldened by righteous fury.

He stood tall in the flickering firelight, his armour dark to match the forest behind him, the axeblade he wielded gleaming orange and red, as if in anticipation of the spilled blood to come.

“And just who the fuck are you” the brigands leader snorted.

“Villaine! I’ll not grant you the honour of my name, you deserve it not! Retreat, with your arms or without, or you shall not see another sunrise”

“By the gods, you’ll hang by your entrails!” the hulking frame of the bandit chief charged, with his men behind, the flames casting their shadows wide and long upon the ground.

But the mead and their rage had made them prideful, and they charged without tact or purpose.

The half-caste one raised his axe high above his head and struck a single, mighty blow, instantly crushing the brigands skull. There was a gut-wrenching crunch and he dropped down dead.

Emboldened by drunken, foolish courage, the other men surrounded the warrior and attacked.

From the left, a lanky, gaunt axe-armed man roared into the fray. His short splitting axe was a poor weapon, and his stance laughable. The warrior took pity upon him, and shattered his collar bone with the blunt end of his own weapon. Crippled, his mighty roar turned to a cry of agony, but he was alive.

From the right came a spearman, and on the left, in the shadows, circled two more brigands. More cautious now, they feigned a charge, and retreated, then advanced again, afraid to commit to battle.

The warrior took the initiative, and charged the spearman, the greater threat, since the weapon outranged his own.

The spearman thrust frantically but too early, and the half-caste one dodged the blade and struck, his axe striking home, shattering ribs and splintering bone, and he was down.

The final two charged simultaneously, from the left and right. A swordsman and another, with a club.

The warrior moved fast, dodging slashes and thrusts, until he manouvered one man in front of the other. Unaware of his precarious position, swordsman launched a confident overhand attack, which the nameless warrior deftly blocked with the haft of his axe, before planting his foot into the now exposed chest of this enemy, knocking him to the ground. A quick downward strike with his axe finished him, and then there was one.

Fear danced in his eyes as the swung wildly with his paltry wooden club.

“Don’t come any closer” he shouted, his voice cracking, his bravado long gone.

“Begone! Or join your friends in hell!” The half-caste one commanded, and the frightened man obliged gratefully.

“Are you all right?” he asked, as he helped the lady to her feet. The warrior’s voice softened as he addressed her, and the fury drained from his body.

“Y-yes” she whispered, terrified, and shivering in the cold air.

He took off his wolfskin fur and covered her bare shoulders. She looked at him, surprised by the kindness of so ferocious a warrior. Her eyes were golden amber, and seemed to glow with an inner light. Her beauty distracted him from the movement hidden in the shadows, until, with a glance, he saw it.

A man, until now lying unnoticed, sleeping off the revelry, stood armed with a crossbow, that cowards weapon! He took aim and fired.

Instinctively the warrior grabbed the lady in a firm embrace, protecting her body with his own.

The bolt pierced his armour and penetrated deep into his flesh. He winced in pain, but refused his enemy the satisfaction of an audible groan.

With his remaining strength, the warrior flung his axe, still in his left hand, toward his quarry. The weapon sailed through the air and with a crunch embedded itself into the bowman’s chest. In an instant, he crumpled to the floor, dead.

Stumbling, the warrior approached his fallen enemy, and with effort, wrenched his axe back out of his enemies body.

“You’re hurt, brave Knight” the lady spoke, noticing the bolt still lodged in the warriors back.

“Begging your pardon my lady, but I am no Knight. This path should take you to safety, I will take my leave of you”.

The warrior turned and began to walk slowly toward the woods. He had no wish to die the ignominy of a brigand camp. The forest would be his grave.

Suddenly, his vision turned black and he felt himself fall with a thud, to the hard ground.

–

Slowly, reluctantly, the warrior returned to the world.

The piercing pain in his back hastened his wakening, and he soon realised he was lying naked on a bed of furs. There were burning torches surrounding him, emitting a warm orange glow. He was inside a canvas tent, likely belonging to one of the brigands, and the sweet aroma of scented oil filled the air.

He felt hands on his body, gently massaging his aching muscles with a tenderness he had never felt before. He turned and saw that his wound was dressed, and the hands belonged to the lady he had rescued.

“Don’t move” she spoke softly. “You’ll open up your wound”.

Still weak from loss of blood, the warrior slept through the night, and through the next.

He remembered only the lady caring for him. She fed him a broth, brought him water, dressed his wounds, and bathed him in oil to assuage his wounds.

“I don’t even know your name” the warrior asked, surprised by her kindness.

“I am Aleia. And you?”

“My name… isn’t important…” the warrior replied, his words tinged with darkness.

Soon, he felt his strength return, and by the evening of the third day he no longer required the lady’s ministrations. He thanked her, and asked for his clothes and weapon.

“It’s dark out” she replied. “Stay until the morrow”.

The warrior agreed, and the two enjoyed a meal of game meat and buckwheat.

He refused her offer of wine, preferring to maintain his temperance, and instead sated his thirst with a flagon of chilled water, gathered from a nearby stream.

They ate and drank together in the rawhide tent, lit by the amber glow of firelight, while outside the weather turned, and the wind lashed sleet against their shelter.

The warrior bid the lady farewell, and turned to retire for the night, even the simple bed of furs looked inviting in the harsh weather.

Aleia took his arm and stood in the torchlight facing him.

“I was wondering if you would enjoy some company on this wild night” she said, and without another word, undressed before him.

Her chemise fell from her shoulders, the firelight dancing gloriously over her fair skin and inviting lips. The lady’s golden tresses fell upon her pert breasts and down to her slender waist, and she embraced him, her eyes imploring more than words could say.

The warrior summoned all of his courage and temperance, and he refused her.

“It’s not done” he said, and once again placed his wolfskin fur around her bare shoulders.

“You took no vows warrior, you serve no god nor master” the lady replied.

“My vows are to myself”, he replied, and I am no less faithful for it”.

She retired to her corner of the tent then, and he to his, and they waited for sleep in the silence of the dying torchlight.

In the morning, he left early, and continued on the road to Runa.

The day was spent foraging for berries to sustain him, and bathing in the ice streams by the road.

On solid ground, he made good progress, and arrived at the town in late evening.

Hungry and tired he found his way to the Warrior hold. A haven for travelling freelancers, soldiers, and mercenaries, it offered shelter, food, drink, and even a smith to repair damaged weapons and dented armour.

A pall of silence followed him as he heaved open the heavy wooden doors and walked inside.

He could feel their burning gaze, and in his heart he knew they hated him.

“Half-caste” they whispered.

They could smell the magic on him, see his unearthly eyes.

“Soiled one” one said “mother fucked a warlock” another laughed, their voices getting louder, bolder, the further he walked into the hall.

“A hot meal and a place to sleep” the warrior curtly asked of the barkeep.

“We’ve got neither of those for the likes of you” came the reply. “Try the inn on the corner, they might serve your kind”.

The half-caste one, how he despised that name, left the company of the Hall and stepped out once again into the biting cold and gathering dark.

Before the solid oak door slammed shut behind him, he heard the clink of mugs and dull roar of laughter as the evenings merriment resumed.

The inn was small, but its straw covered floor was clean, and the smell of mutton and mead inviting.

“We’re full” the barmaid spat, before the warrior even opened his mouth to speak.

Looking around, there were just two travellers, weary from drink and the road.

“We’re full” she repeated, her voice lower this time.

As he left the small tavern and stepped out into the night, she called to him.

“Here” she said, and thrust a cold leg of mutton and a half jug of mead toward him. “Two bits” she asked.

“Just the meal, thank you” he said, and paid her, graciously.

“You can take the stable, it’s empty” the lady replied, then turned her back and was gone.

The stable was dry, at least, but icy cold.

The warrior dared not light a fire on the straw covered floor, and so resigned himself to an evening meal of cold meat and water.

It was then that he saw eyes staring at him from the entrance to a decrepit hovel across the cobbled street.

A waif of a man, old, balding, but with a shock of a white beard sat peering at the warrior and his meal. Wrapped around his hands were thick, soiled, bandages, and he wore a filthy grey cloak, and no shoes, revealing his bare feet, black with dirt.

His face was wrinkled but his expression bore an uncanny childlike innocence. His toothless jaw twitched as if relishing an imaginary feast.

The warrior smiled faintly at the man, and walked towards his hovel. As he approached the mans expression turned to fear, and he crawled further inside, as if the mud and straw would protect him.

The half-caste one crouched, and placed his mutton on a spit in front of the hovel, and began to search for sticks with which to build a fire.

The old man slowly emerged from his home, and stared in hopeful anticipation as meat began to cook.

When it was done, the warrior served him. There was not enough for two men, the warrior thought, and he had eaten well the night before.

The warrior used his knife to carve the meat into pieces, which the toothless old man devoured the moment they came off of the bone.

Eventually sated, the man undid one of his bandages, revealing, safe inside, a simple copper ring, and set within it, a small almandine stone. The man extended his hand, and without a word, offered the trinket to the warrior with the air of a man offering his child to be blessed by the clerics at the Celestial temple.

Shaking his head, the warrior closed the old mans hand and pushed it gently toward him. Then he returned to his stable and his straw bed, hungry, but satisfied.

The clattering of shoes running frantically over the cobblestones woke him early. “Bandits are coming!! Bandits are coming!” a young boy shouted, no doubt pressed into service as a messenger.

The warrior quickly rose and followed him to the hold, where he had been denied respite the previous evening.

Inside was such a consternation that no one took note of the half-caste one returning.

“It’s him” one armourclad warrior spoke solemnly. “It’s Arn the Ironclad, he’s down from the mountains. He will be here before the morrow.

“How many men?” another warrior asked.

“Three score. Brutes and bastards all” came the reply.

“Three score? We have scarcely a dozen! Not even a full company! What news from Rahle?”

“None. The messengers were likely slain before they could reach us. We stand alone”.

There was silence in the room, until the armourclad warrior spoke. He was a portly but muscled man with a well-groomed moustache and a fine Arrican sabre at his waist complimenting his burnished steel plate.

“Warriors, friends, this is madness! 12 men against 3 score and ten? Let us withdraw, save ourselves, we gain nothing by throwing away our lives here! There will be other days, other battles!”

A dull rumble of argument erupted in the room, before finally it settled into agreement.

The warriors would leave.

“Hold!” The half-caste one, standing in shadow at the rear of the room, implored them.

“Arnbjorn will sack this place. Kill men. Violate women. Burn Runa to ash. Nothing will remain.”

“Is there not a man amongst you that will stand against this villainy?”

“What would you have us do half-caste? Throw our lives to the four winds for a noble death? Nay!” the armourclad one spat.

“What is death to a man willing to die for his vows? What is life for a man who is not?” the half-caste one stood his ground.

“Vows? What know you about vows, your blood is like ditch-water!” another warrior shouted from his table.

“Half-caste I may be, but I am willing to stand. I am willing to fight for what is good, what is just, even to the point of death. What say you?”

There was silence. The jeers and barks of discontent had given way to a subdued respect.

“Nay, warrior.” The armour clad one spoke softly, sadly. “I’ll not stand”.

Silently he walked past the half-caste one, and through the door of the hold. Behind him, the other warriors followed. One by one, polished armour clanking, ornate sabres rattling, sharpened pikes glinting, they walked from the hold without a word. Their eyes avoided him in their shame, and not one looked back.

The hold was empty, save for one.

One man against three score baying, savage, beasts. It was hopeless. The morrow would surely bring death.

The warrior made his way to the centre of the hall, were there stood the smithy, with its forge still burning, abandoned.

Around it lay a myriad of weapons. Sabres, greatswords, zweihanders, arming swords, pikes, halberds, axes and maces, all lying in wait of a strong arm to bear them.

Along the wall of the smithy were the patrons of the warriors hold, cast in bronze. They stood armed and armourclad, ever vigilant. There was Ethelred the brave, Alledane the most loyal, Castor the faithful and Altan the Pure.

The warrior drew his axe and placed it respectfully at the feet of Altan’s statue, and then, with reverance, he took the patrons sword from his shining bronze hand.

The half-caste one expected lighting, thunder, the violence of the gods, something, but there was nothing but gleaming steel in his hand, finally…

Altan’s sword, suiting his character, was a modestly finished but finely balanced piece. A longsword with a hand-a-half hilt, it was versatile: powerful but fast.

Remembering the years spent as a boy with a wooden training sword, the nameless one once again practices his thrusts, cuts, ripostes, and blocks. Though unfamiliar with the blade, his movements were practised, confident, the blade was an extension of himself, steel and man bonded as one.

He took the weapon, leaving his axe, and stepped outside.

In the distance, he became aware of the faint but unmistakable sight of smoke rising above the trees, and the sound of marching men.

Slowly, quietly, as if savouring every last step, the warrior made his was to the far side of town.

As he walked, he saw doors locked and bolted, windows shuttered, as if a few inches of oakwood could stop a halberd or a Dane axe.

Behind one window, the warrior could see the outline of a maidens face peering at him, her eyes enthralled, and afraid, for herself or for him, he couldn’t tell. Then a wooden shutter slammed closed in front of it, and the warrior carried on.

At the edge of town, beside the mill, ran a powerful river, and above it, a long wooden bridge.

He would meet them there, where their numbers would count for naught.

For an eternity he stood, waiting.

Twice, thoughts of flight entered his mind.

The cobbled streets were deserted now, there would be no eyes to view his shame, no tales of his cowardice.

He could rejoin the warriors from the hold, wait for reinforcements from Rahle. They could attack at dawn, or force march through the dark weald and cut off the brigands on their way back toward the Lantean mountains.

Twice these thoughts assailed his heart.

Twice his courage held out against the fear growing within him.

And then they came.

From out of the sun came marching boots. Spearmen, scores of them, all clad in a silvered helm and burnished mail, covered by a steel cuirass.

In the morning light it seemed that an ocean of silver was marching upon him.

At their head was the only horseman, an imposing, powerful figure, clad in full plate, with a winged helmet covering his face, and a bearskin fur over his shoulders.

In one hand were the reigns of his black stallion, clothed in heavy leather barding, and in the other was an almighty greatsword. Five feet long, double edged with a simple straight hilt, with no adornments, it was a warsword, and it had tasted blood.

For a moment, the nameless warrior stood, sword in hand, facing an army.

The bandits, led by their armourclad warboss, declined to assail his position. They stared across the bridge at the warrior, taking the measure of him, as he stood steadfast in his defiance.

Then, with a wave of his sword, the brigands leader ordered his men to attack.

From behind, archers pelted the cobbles with poorly-aimed shots, while dozens of warriors advanced as a disorganised rabble. The narrow bridge would not allow their full strength to be brought to bear, and were forced into a narrow column just three or four men wide.

The warrior watched them advance, snarling, like baying hounds. He could hear arrows scattering along the ground around him, and see the shimmer of the approaching steel.

As sure as the sun had risen in the sky, the warrior knew that it would not set upon him.

He closed his eyes, and with a long breath, expelled the fear from him.

He pointed his sword at the soldier leading the attack, calling him out from the others. Their eyes met, and despite their superior numbers there was fear in them.

The half-caste one held his weapon in both hands, and raised it above his head, then, began his charge. He ran slowly at first, conserving his strength.

Then, with a mighty roar, he rushed with all his strength toward his enemy.

With each step his roar grew louder, and his charge grew faster.

Fear was a distant memory, now only rage remained.

His eyes were black, and they burned with the fire of a thousand suns.

He was dead to the world, lost to a primeval berserker rage.

As the warrior barrelled toward his enemy, the lead mans eyes grew wider, and flickered with cold fear. Then, inevitably, his courage failed him. In a panic, he turned and pushed through the ranks of his men in an effort to escape the charging swordsman.

His comrades too lost their hearts, and one by one they turned and fled before their blades ever struck steel.

Soon the warrior reached the centre of the bridge, and stopped, brandishing his steel, striking, thrusting, and slashing, against an unseen opponent, daring his enemy to challenge him.

With his army melting before him, only Arn the Iron Born remained.

Spurring his horse roughly on, it’s nostrils flaring, and hoofs pounding, he matched the ferocity of the swordsman’s charge.

The nameless one braced himself, facing his enemy with the stalwart dedication of a true warrior, and held his strike until he could see the steam rising from the nostrils of the charging war beast, then he let fly, and cut deep into the animal, slicing it’s neck from it’s chest to it’s shoulder.

The animal instantly collapsed, stone cold dead, throwing it’s rider hard against the ground. This dislodged his helmet, and revealed a picture of evil. Pallid, bloated skin beneath a mop of thinning stringy hair and behind rotten, broken teeth. He had been victim to the plague, and it’s pustules, healed but scarred over, littered his face.

The Ironclad struggled to his feet, pushing aside his fallen steed, and the two warriors faced each other as equals for the first time.

Arn was larger, and no doubt stronger, but for a time, he hesitated to attack. The men circled each other on the bridge, with the raging waters below. They stared, and brandished their steel, making mock thrusts, goading each other into making a mistake.

It was the Ironclad who attacked first. He raised his greatsword, and with a roar, he swung. The nameless one dodged the heavy strike and launched a riposte, his weapon glancing off his enemies plated armour.

The Ironclad struck again, and again, and again, and each time the half-caste one dodged, realising that blocking the mighty weapon was a fools errand.

The nameless one retaliated, but the barbarian moved with precision and skill, despite his size.

They fought on. Thrust, slash, riposte, parry. Man against man, steel against steel, good against evil.

Until finally the Ironclad launched a mighty overhead strike, leaving his body exposed. The nameless one seized his opportunity and struck upward toward his enemies exposed neck. But in his fatigue and haste, he was too slow. The Ironclads sword struck his own weapon, and the half-caste ones sword split in his hand, the metal shattering entirely and embedding itself into the warriors arm.

With a roar of pain the nameless warrior knew he was undone, and met his enemy’s gaze, a final act of defiance.

The barbarians greatsword struck again, shattered bone and tearing flesh. The nameless one fell to his knees but yet lived. Voiceless, his anger and pain were expressed only through his eyes, and once again the barbarian struck, this time the mighty blade struck a mortal wound, and the nameless warrior from beyond the mountains of Cruachan lay dead.

Then in an instant, the pain was gone, and all around was blinding light. White light, and deafening silence.

The warrior couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t see, or hear, it was as if he was watching himself from outside his own body.

Slowly, he saw the light seem to bend and coalesce before him, until a figure appeared.

“Warrior”. The voice spoke, seemingly from inside the warriors skull.

He could see only a glimpse of her, but yet, could feel her smile. Her warmth.

“The eyes of fate have been upon you. You have been challenged and found worthy. You have passed the final test”.

As the voice spoke the figure began to take the form of a woman. Resplendent, Ethereal, and indescribably beautiful, she was Goddess of the Celestial Temple.

“Warrior. Throughout your quest, you have shown honesty, courage, purity, humility, and most important of all, sacrifice.”

“I am Aurelia, Goddess of fire. Should you wish it, you will be my Paladin.”

The warrior, now once again conscious of his self, immediately fell to his knees before her, and bowed his head in submission.

“My Goddess, I am not of noble blood…” he began to speak, his words low, quiet, respectful of his audience.

“The blood in your veins matters not. It is the courage in your heart that counts” Aurelia spoke the words that the half caste one yearned to hear throughout all of his years.

The white light faded, and in its stead, there was fire.

The nameless one felt a gentle touch upon his chin, and raised his head. The Celestial stood before him, a warm smile upon her face.

Behind her were glowing wings, and around her, flames. As she touched him, the flame wrapped around his body, then entered him, filling him from within, but he felt no pain.

“You may stand. You have proven yourself worthy, my Paladin.

My power and grace I share to you, and my familiar, the mighty Phoenix.”

The Lady raised her hand, and in an instant, it was filled with a most exquisite blade of the finest steel. It was double-edged with a two-handed hilt, but well balanced enough to be wielded as well with one hand as with two. The cross guard was half-moon shaped, and long, providing excellent protection to the swordsman. The pommel was steel inset with a glowing red Almandine gem, and the crossguard and pommel were both finished with thin gold appointments.

“This blade” the Lady continued. “Is the Morning Star. A part of me, it is now yours, for as long as you serve me”.

And last, my Paladin. I grant you one final gift. I grant you a name.

You are Dei, the Fireborn.”

The lady touched the blade gently to his left shoulder, then his right, and then turned the handle toward him.

The warrior wept softly as he took the blade, and once again dared to meet the gaze of his goddess.

“Go now”. Aurelia spoke. “You are my right arm on earth. Serve me”.

Before he could respond, the blinding white light returned, and the Lady’s face disappeared.

The warrior, Dei, felt pain, searing, hot, as if his blood itself were on fire.

It burned within him but he could not scream, could not cry out, and in front of his eyes was nothingness.

Slowly, he felt his skin stretch and swell and heard his bones crack and crunch. His body, burning with the Phoenix fire, was healing. Even death was no match for the Lady’s touch.

The searing agony continued.

Soon, the Fireborn’s vision was restored, and then he began to feel his arms, and legs again.

He looked down and saw his open wounds and lacerations fill with an inner light, and then close, healed, leaving only his tattered armour as evidence of their presence.

In his right hand glowing white-hot, was the Morning Star, Aurelia’s blade, with it’s glittering Almandine gem.

The warrior stood, and as he did, he felt his torn muscles and shattered bones had healed stronger. His blood ran red with arcane fire, the Lady’s touch, and Dei felt a warmth, a power, that was unknown to him.

The Ironclad had his back to the warrior, and was walking from him, across the bridge, still wielding his mighty greatsword.

As Dei stood, the barbarian slowly turned, and fear flashed through his eyes like a bolt of lightning, but only for a moment.

“I know not what foul magic you wrought” The ironclad spat, a low, guttural speech, more akin to the barking of a dog than the words of a man. “But there’s no spell or potion that will match my steel”.

“Lay on” Dei replied, “I have steel enough for you”.

The Warriors closed upon each other, and with a final cry, they charged. Arn brought his mighty blade down hard upon the reborn warrior, who met the strike expertly with the Morning Star. Both blades crashed into each other, and for an instant they froze, before the Ironclads weapon shattered uselessly, molten pieces of metal and fragments of steel embedding themselves deep within his body.

The force of Dei’s blow brought the barbarian to his knees, his sword arm, crippled from deep cuts and protruding chunks of metal, now hung useless by his side.

The Ironclad bared his teeth in fear and rage, and waited for the death blow. The same blow he himself had dealt mere moments before.

But it never came.

Dei placed the tip of his blade under the chin of his fallen enemy, and pressed it against his neck.

“Swear me an oath” the Fireborn said. “And you may live”.

Dei, in showing mercy, fulfilled the first test that his Lady had given him.

Arn the Ironclad, chastened by his oath of fealty, disappeared, his warband broken and scattered to the four winds.

The story of Dei the Fireborn, however, was just beginning.

–

Battleheart

12,722 Words.

–

Her eyes were of the deepest, brightest, cerulean blue. That was his most striking memory of her. They seemed to shimmer as if lit by an inner light. It was that image, more than any other, that haunted, and comforted him. Each morning as he woke the dream of her faded into another waking nightmare. The pleasant azure of her memory fading into the drab grey monotony of another day.

This was Everett Caines sixth year on this frozen rock. The enemy called it “Templar Volanis”, but he had always known it as Rahle. His unit was the 3^rd force recon, attached to the 92^nd tactical operations group, which had orders to secure rahle and oust the templars, in the hopes that a breakthrough in this sector could break the enemy’s lines, and maybe even cause a generalised rout.

Rahle was a small, uninhabitable frontier world on the edges of known space. With no atmosphere, one-third of Earth’s Gravity, and an ambient temperature well below freezing, this place well earned it’s reputation for being “Hell frozen over”.

The templars had constructed a base there some decades ago, but it was only marginally more well equipped than the rusting metal outpost that Everett’s unit was holed up in.

The endless tedium of patrolling and observation was broken only by the frenzied terror of battle. Six years and thousands of lives, and nothing to show for it but bodies crudely entombed in the permafrost.

It was almost macabre in it’s irony. A true microsm of the futility of man. There was nothing here. Nothing worth fighting for. Rahle was a forgotten afterthought in a grand campaign of guts and glory, a graveyard for the bodies of the young, and their dreams.

Everett had joined the North Star Alliance at 24, his heart bursting with glory and honour that would put a propaganda telecast to shame. He had dreams of epic battles and even more epic victories, followed by medals and a short trip home.

That was nearly 9 years ago. Initially joining the signal intelligence division, he was assigned to the electronic warfare ship ANS-Morningstar, where he rose to the rank of Tech Sergeant in less than a year. That’s when the war started to go bad, and he was reassigned to force recon as a Specialist, and posted to Rahle during one of the reinforcement runs. It was hoped that his skills would allow him to quickly decipher the enemy radio communications, and pinpoint weaknesses in their defences.

The plan was a “short, sharp, shock” to break the Templars hold on the region, and then onwards to Orion, with the fleet in tow.

But the damn templars held on. They wanted this slice of frozen hell just as much as the Alliance, and they poured in just as many eager young men to die for it.

It’s hard to imagine how so much could change, and yet stay the same.

The screech of the warning klaxon blared, interrupting his thoughts, and he jumped from his bunk, already wearing his uniform. Cleanliness had long since given way to preparedness.

The perimeter radar indicated an attack by a few dozen men, most likely a single understrength company. The templars were stretched just as thin as the alliance, and were reinforced just as sporadically.

The defenders preparing to meet the incursion barely spoke. There was nothing left to say that hadn’t been said. Long gone was the camraderie, the fighting spirit, the brothers in arms. Hard men, cold and unfeeling, they had seen the deaths of many, friend and foe alike. It taught them to never get close, to burn the compassion from their hearts. A dead friend is a distraction, a liability, a one-way ticket to wherever they went. Instead, you disconnect, disengage. Find a place outside yourself and dream of a better future, or a better past. There is no other way to stay sane, when each day bleeds into the next, a monotony of bare survival, lost soldiers in a forgotten land.

Before leaving the relative comfort of their outpost, the men of the 3^rd recon hastily put on their environment suits. Each man had their own one, and they were often customised or camoflaged to the tastes of their owner. The young Sergeant rememberd how stuffy and uncomfortable the suit felt when he first put it on. It was all he could do to avoid throwing up, or passing out. Now, after all he had been through, it felt reassuring and safe. True, it wouldn’t withstand a direct hit from a rifle round, but it’s ablative armour plates would soak up a lot of damage, and it had saved his life more than once.

Leaving the outpost, the men rushed to their assigned positions. It wasn’t possible to run in such low gravity, the best anyone could do was a kind of bounding walk, and even that took some practice. Rahle was so small that it was possible to see the planets surface curve as it stretched, featureless, into the distance. The inky blackness of space, pierced by a scant few stars served only to magnify the effect, and it took a strong will to resist the inevitable lightheadedness and severe nausea.

The fighting line was a requiem to the memory of the dead. Each time the klaxon blared, fewer and fewer men arrived to take up their positions. As the familiar glow of the tracers sailed towards them, more and more guns went silent. The only reason they hadn’t been overrun was that the templars stained the ground red with just as much blood, and neither side had much left to waste.

The muffled thud of their rifle blasts reverberted through his suit. He shot down one of the attacking soldiers at long range, his body crumpled, leaving just an indistinct heap against the ice. Another warrier made it into the outpost, and killed two men before being riddled with bullets. Everett could see his face as he died, contorted with a rage, a hatred seen only in the fires of war. It was a pure, animalistic rage, but was it directed at them? Or the God, or fate, or destiny which brought them to this wretched place?

As Everett and his remaining men poured rounds into his broken body, the warriors eyes widened, hate turned to fear, an existential terror of the beyond, and he fell, eyes now empty, devoid of life, eternally staring upward into a black sky.

Without so much as a moment to catch their breath, the squads officer ordered an immediate counter-attack. It was routine in it’s predictibility, and routine in it’s failure. Five more men were killed by defensive fire during the initial push toward the templar strongpoint, and one more had his leg blown off by a mine as they retreated.

Everett saw the man struggling, crawling, determined to cling to life, and broke the unwritten rule. He could have left him there, he was very unlikely to survive, he was a liability, but something stopped him. Thoughts of leaving a good man to die, bleeding to death on the frozen ground, were too hard to stomach.

With an almost nonchalant calm, he made his way towards the wounded man, before, in an instant, a blinding flash filled his eyes, and his world went black.

The low rumbling roar of a mortar impacting the frozen ground just meters away stirred the Sergeant back to consciousness. He opened his eyes, but all he saw was blackness. The dried blood from his head wound had glued his eyes shut. In a panic, he attempted to clear his vision, but noticed that his left arm was hanging uselessly from his shoulder.

As his vision cleared, he slowly began to take stock of the reality of his situation.

His squad were dead or dying. He could see a smear of vestigial human remains where the wounded man once was, and part of his commanding officer lay near a mortar crater to his left. The CO’s eyes were turned toward Everett, they seemed to stare through him in death, a grotesque visage of pain and fear.

In addition to an open wound on his head, and his destroyed left arm, the Sergeants right leg was torn by shrapnel and bleeding badly, staining the already filthy ice.

His suit was torn, and venting oxygen, he had but minutes of air left.

Everett called out for help, hoping that someone was still alive, but noone answered, his calls echoing uslessly into the abyss.

Using all of the strength he could muster, Everett managed to patch the leaking holes in his suit well enough. The rebreather still worked, so he was in no immediate danger of suffocation. This was a small consolation, however, since a death by exsangination may be an altogether worse fate.

For the next several hours, Everett drifted in and out of consciousness, contemplating death. The pain seemed to dull as he grew closer to the end, as if to ease his passing into nothingness.

It was almost peaceful.

–

The breeze was warm, with just a hint of the upcoming autumn chill.

The air felt light, delicate. It echoed his thoughts. There was a faint scent of pine drifting from the nearby forest, it’s aroma sweet and fresh.

The gravel crunched under his feet as he walked the familiar path to his home.

That word, “home”, still sounded alien. He had lived in many places, but none had ever felt like a “home”. A place to sleep, a place to escape to, or from, but never a home.

This place was different.

And it was all because of her.

As grew closer he could see her through the window. Watching her unawares made him feel disconnected, as if in a dream, as if none of this was real.

She moved with all the poise of a dancer, and stood elegant as a highborn noble, but without a hint of arrogance.

Her beauty was as natural as it was striking, and her modesty despite it underscored her character and purity.

As he opened the door a delicious aroma awakened his forgotten hunger.

“Everett!”

Lyssa exclaimed rushing to embrace him without another word.

Her warm embrace awakened him from his dream. A powerful wave of emotion washed over him, and he held her tighter.

He felt the warmth of her soft skin and caressed her silky hair.The faint aroma of her perfume was sweet and welcoming.

He felt alive, he felt human again.

This was where he belonged.

Breaking the embrace, the two were lost momentarily in each others eyes. Hers, dazzling and cerulean blue like the sky, bright with hope. His dark, war-weary, witness to a hundred battles.

Her virtue and light seemed to flow into him, and soften his calloused, cold heart. He thought for a moment that in so doing his darkness might find it’s way to her, and that frightened him. But he couldn’t be apart from her again. Not even to save them both. He needed her, she was a part of him.

They seemed to speak silently for what felt like hours, conveying thoughts and emotions words could never express.

Of love, loss, hope and hopelessness.

“I made dinner” she said, her voice broke the silence, as beautiful as he had remembered.

Lyssa’s homemade meal was far better than the rations had been living on, and he told her so.

“I was hoping you’d like it”, she said, seeming relieved.

“Of course I like it, you made it” Everett replied, genuinely. She sometimes seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

The afternoon light soon faded to the amber hue of evening, but they barely noticed, so deep were they in conversation.

“Did you think about me? While you were away?” Lyssa ventured, quietly, as if afraid of the answer.

Everett noticed her somber tone, and as she turned away, as if attempting to hide her feelings, he gently reached out his arm and brushed the stray hairs from her face.

She closed her eyes for a moment, anticipating his answer.

“Thoughts of you were the only thing that kept me going Lyssa. You saved me. I saw men, stronger men than me, go under. They broke. You kept me strong. You were there with me when I needed you most.”

She smiled, her lips soft and innocent. She turned back to face him and without another word he drew her close and kissed her.

It was like the world outside ceased to exist, the only world they needed was each other.

The things that he had seen, the war, the killing, the death and wanton brutality, all seemed like faint memories of a dying dream when he was with her. Like dew evaporating in the morning sun.

Her laughter, her voice, god! He could live in her embrace and not want for anything.

As night fell, and the late summer chill cooled the air, they retired to bed.

They made love like they never had before, passionate and primal, and fell asleep still in each others arms.

–

Reluctantly returning to grim reality, resting on a blanket of melted ice and his own life blood, Everett found a new strength.

An unconscious knowing, indescribable but somehow certain, his vision was a message from beyond. Lyssa, his love, was out there, and she was waiting for him. He needed to find her. That was his mission now, that was his war.

Rolling onto his side, he used his good arm to grasp his rifle and heave himself to his feet. It was dark now, which would make him harder to spot.

The outpost was not much more than 5 kilometers, but as injured as he was, getting there would be a challenge. He had no medical equipment, but luckily the cold had kept him from bleeding out until now.

He was weak, badly wounded, and left for dead, but the fire of his love and his new found passion burned brightly.

Out of touch with his reality, his senses dulled, vision blurred, Everett existed somewhere between this world and the next. Acting more on instinct than conscious thought, something kept him going, kept him putting one foot in front of the other.

Even after an icestorm blew in, driven by the thin atmosphere, reducing his already limited vision to almost zero, he still, inexplicably found his way. At times, when all seemed lost, hopeless, a light seemed to illuminate the whiteout, guiding him to safety. It must be the searchlights of the outpost, or could it be something else? A manifestation of his desire, a non-corporeal bond to her?

A spectre, his form was black against the driving snow and ice, appearing and disappearing as the wind changed. The lookouts, frightened by his sudden appearance, fought off thoughts of the world beyond, of wraiths and restless spirits of the dead. Finally, common sense won out, and a rescue party was dispatched. Fighting away the stretcher bearers, the ever-resolute young Sergeant walked under his own power, half blind and half mad from his ordeal, into the only home he had known since he left the life to which he now vowed to return.

The medic at the outpost did what he could to stabilise him, but it was all meatball surgery. Drafting in several of the more technically adept soldiers, they fought to keep Everett alive. The floors were quickly soaked with blood, hastily mopped up with whatever rags could be found. His body a museum piece for the horrors of war, but yet still, inexplicably, alive, the warrior in him carried on, living only by the hope, the dream, of going back to her.

–

The next few weeks were a blur. He was evacuated to Atlantia Redoubt, a small, under-equipped deep space station near the outer frontier. Open to both the military and civilian traders and merchants, Atlantia was an oasis of civilisation in an ocean devoid of life.

This far out into the frontier, however, life was far from idyllic. Most of the military personnel were jaded war veterans with a tenuous grip on reality at best. The merchants were often involved in gun-running, smuggling, and trafficking of all manner of illicit items. What few business owners were hardy enough to survive out here catered to them, while running more than a few underhanded operations of their own.

Despite this, Atlantia Redoubt had the best medical facility on the frontier, and was home to the 7^th fleet and it’s auxillary vessels, the same fleet that the Sergeants tactical group was attached to.

Thanks to their care, Everett was slowly brought from the brink of death back to the realms of the living, although he still spent most of his days drifting in and out of consciousness, struggling to tell the difference between his florid reveries and tormented reality.

Much more than mere dreams, they were full of fire and indomitable faith, of passion and purity of heart, they personified the love that still burned within Everetts battered, broken body, and granted respite from the suffering.

As his body healed itself, these visions offered a welcome escape to another world. She was there with him, her hair glowing in the sun, dazzling his minds eye with its light and colour. Their hearts were shared as one, his and hers together, as they once were, and will be again.

Their love was his unspoken, terrible hope. Something so fragile, so precious, and so rare that he dared not think on it for fear of losing it forever. In the harsh, brutal, unfeeling reality outside of this dreamscape, there was no love. For love is based on goodness, and there was no good in that fractured world. Just different kinds of evil.

But still he dared, with the last of this courage, to hope, and to shield the flame of love from the howling, screeching, winds of hate.

A flash brighter than the sun, and then another, yielded to a dense cloud of smoke and dust. The low, rumbling roar rose to a cacophony, louder than the cries of a thousand demons, and altogether more wicked.

Kyrre, his love’s home, had been glassed.

The dispatches had broadcast the attack, heavily edited for propaganda purposes of course, and in his addled state, Everett had created a waking dream, full of fear and death, of destruction and the violation of innocence. It was the only way that he could process the truth.

At least two thermonuclear devices had impacted the planet. Both were airbursts, which meant no fallout, a small mercy at least. With an estimated yield of 150 Kilotons, they were likely Smart Bombs from a Wraith, a small, covert, vessel designed to carry out long range surveillance and tactical operations without being detected.

Smart bombs, or “Jaggers” as they were called due to their distinctive electronic signature on radar, featured an attack profile that involved shutting down all thrusters and coasting, unpowered, for the final phase of flight, which left virtually no thermal signature until they hit the upper atmosphere. Kyrre would never have seen them coming.

Multiple, simultaneous detonations would destroy any buildings over one story, fry any electrical devices, and their intense heat would turn even the earth itself to a radioactive glass called “Trinitite”, hence the name “glassing”.

When his body had healed enough to allow conscious thought, Everett’s pain was cast aside by fear.

She was from a noble family, a powerful family, surely she had escaped, or maybe she was waiting there for him? She could be hurt, or…

He needed to get to Kyrre, and find her.

But there was another problem. If he abandoned his post, it would be desertion. The penalty, during wartime, could be summary execution.

Even as the thought entered his head the decision was made and Caine was already heaving and stumbling his way to the clothing and personal effects stored at the far corner of the room.

One of the advantages of the 7^th fleet being based at a civilian-run facility was that security was necessarily more relaxed. Everett managed to get into the crew rooms without presenting any military ID, ensuring that nothing would show up on record.

The sterile, grey, dimly lit corridors almost seemed comforting to him. Just a few years ago a young man walked these same halls, full of hope and glory, ready to fight the good fight. Now, hardened, aged by battle, humbled by fear, by hate, by the wickedness inside all of us, that same man could barely drag himself to his destination. Chest heaving from exertion, steadying himself with an arm resting on the bulkhead wall, Everett finally reached the personal quarters of Lieutenant Jade Sunne.

Her initial annoyance at the lateness of the hour was instantly replaced with concern at her former compatriots appearance.

There was little time to catch up, and Everetts wounds did most of the talking in any case. Sunne had been granted a senior role on an Electronic Warfare ship. Small, fast, and stealthy, these vessels were designed to penetrate enemy territory and gather intelligence and intercept communications.

With Kyrre under attack, Caine knew that Sunnes ship, the Strela, would not be far behind, and he needed a favour.

She was able to smuggle him on board without any questions, largely due to the clandestine nature of electronic warfare ships. They were frequently used for covert operations and crew members were trained not to ask questions.

Everett was given a bunk near the Strelas modest medical bay, where he could convalesce en route.

The trip was three months, and the ship operated on “grey mode” for most of that time, as per it’s standard operating procedure. This meant no communications in or out. This helped protect the Sergeants true purpose on board, but did nothing to allay his fears regarding the attack.

Her letter was his only solace. Written in her delicate, elegant hand, he had kept it with him since they last parted, a memory of her, created by her, it held special meaning.

He forced himself to read it sparingly, to avoid burning it into his memory, and preserve some of it’s magic. But gradually each word, even each stroke of the pen became engrained in his mind.Yet still its emotion poured forth from the pages, no less raw, no less muted. He still read with bated breath, as if afraid that each time the words could be different.

She spoke of love, of fear, and of regret.

This missive gave form and substance to his etherial desires, without it, he could have thought himself mad. It stood as an icon of the love she had for him once, and a beacon of hope.

This letter had once separated them, and now it would bring them together again.

–

An age ago, on another world, Everett had first seen the face of the most divine beauty. Demurely, she sat drinking tea in a small cafe in the old town, her face framed by the glass as if on a portrait. Her short, neon blue hair seemed out of place in this haven of tranquilitty, far from the starships and high technology that underscored their times.

The spec sheets and research materials, circuit diagrams and case studies that occupied Everetts mind so completely now seemed but a distant memory.

Frozen in time, their eyes met briefly, and she seemed to smile, before his courage waned and he looked away, hoping the milling crowd would hide his embarassment.

Cursing his lack of will, in the following weeks Everett began visiting the cafe more and more, even though it was out of his way. Unconsciously, his thoughts drifted back to her during the quiet moments of the day, and kindled a warmth and hopefullness that altogether redoubled his efforts to meet this subject of his fantasy.

Having almost given up on meeting the lady again, Everett nonetheless kept visiting his place of pilgramage, keeping that hope that hearts cling vainly to alive. Of course, he told himself it was for the ambience, for the rustic, simple atmosphere and good food, but travelling an hour out from the city for “ambience” was a sign of blatant madness.

A faint wisp of lavender perfume announced her presence, light and airy, the scent suited her.

“You’re sitting in my seat”

Her soft spoken, slightly exotic voice lifted him from the book he was reading, and as his eyes fell upon her she smiled, warmly.

“I was keeping it for you” he replied, with as much confidence as his fluttering heart afforded him.

They sat and talked for what seemed like hours. She had noticed him too, and they quickly became friends, and then more.

It felt like they lived an entire lifetime in those few months that they shared. They came to know everything about each other, whispering the darkest desires and deepest secrets that they dare not speak to another soul.

This felt like a world within a world. An oasis of peace within an ocean boiling for a storm.

The war was heating up again. More colonies had been razed in the past six months than in the previous two years. Templar units were better equipped, better led, and more aggressive.

But that didn’t matter, not at long as they were together. The war seemed like the beating of a distant drum, and bore no hint of the suffering that it heralded.

–

The Strela eventually passed close enough to Kyrre for an orbital insertion. Jade asked him to reconsider his hopeless cause, but his heart answered for him before his words did.

The droppod put him down less than 10 kilometers from the colony hub of Aren, which was about as accurate as they got. Precise troop deployment was not part of the design, they were meant for emergency evacuation, where the destination was simply “anywhere but here”.

After a short hike, Caine crested a hill overlooking the town and instantly cursed the strong midday sun and clear skies for it showed the once proud city in at it’s very worst. Its buildings were in tatters, crumbling into dust. Its streets were stained with blood and litered with debris and hastily covered, half-buried bodies. People darted furtively from building to building, their shoulders hunched, constantly searching for hidden enemies as intermittent gunshots reverberated around them.

Aren had fallen. What the enemy didn’t do directly human nature did in it’s stead. Even the greatest society is balanced on a precipice, a veritable sword of Damocles hanging above it, and it takes far less than anyone would care to think to bring that blade crashing down.

The Sergeant kept his weapon at the ready as he carefully wandered through the streets. His training instictively kept his eyes darting between neighbouring windows, doors, alleyways, always expecting the muzzle of a rifle. He had fought in many battles, but nothing cold have prepared him for this.

This wasn’t a battlefield, it was a city. It should have been bustling with people, ignorant and happy. Instead they were unwilling conscripts in someone elses war.

Throughout this hellscape, this bloody monument to the folly of mankind, his thoughts were drawn to her. The memories of her beauty and kindness, her gentle soul, were all that he had to warm his heart against the piercing cold of his bleak reality. She had to be alive. She had to be, because surely he would feel it if she wasn’t?

His keen eyes spotted movement in his peripheal vision and he spun, weapon at the ready, only to find a child, barely 5 years old, crawling into the debris that he had fashioned into a crude shelter. His stomach was horribly distended, swollen from malnourishment, his eyes white with fear. Everett knew the pathetic creature was close to death, and he coaxed him from his shelter with the offering of some water from his canteen. As the child drank, Caine picked him up and began walking towards the town hub, where the hospital would be.

Carrying a child meant that he wouldn’t be able to reach his weapon, but surely, even in this wretched place, noone would fire on a man carrying a sick child? His heart told him so, but his head wasn’t at all certain.

All colony worlds were built to a standard plan, so he found the hospital easily. He handed the child to a medic waiting just inside the door, and instantly froze.

In the next room, through the blood-splatterd glass panels of filthy hospital doors, he saw her. For a moment he couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating or if this was real, but then he was sure.

He flung the double-doors open, his mind disassociated, out of body, his senses dulled.. The screams of the dying, the mourning of the living, the cacophony of human misery was lost on him. So too were the wretched, bloody, visions of war. The lame, the sick, the wounded, and the dead assaulted his eyes but made no impact on his consciousness.

What he saw was something altogether more humbling.

The presence of Lyssa Ardaren, youngest daughter of the founding family of the city, his former, and future, lover, and longtime friend, stood around a makeshift operating table, her white medical tunic stained red, her face likewise contorted, as if taking the pain of her charge into her.

Her patient lay almost motionless, his eyes rolled back in his head, his chest barely rising with his ragged, weak breaths.

Everett had seen death before, and he knew it’s telltale signs. This man was beyond hope, his wide, expressionless eyes alone betrayed that fact, and the medics surrounding Lyssa knew it too.

One crouched, leaning against a nearby wall, defeated, too ashamed to even raise his eyes from the floor. Another half-heartedly followed Lyssa as she raced around the table, faintly clutching his instruments, trying to at least appear useful.

Lyssa was a guardian angel, steadfastly denying death his prize, passion and brazen hope seemingly enough to bestow life into the lifeless.

Everetts heart sank as the second medic finally stopped and grasped Lyssas shoulders. She resisted for an instant, then broke down with a soundless cry, and stood defeated, her valiant efforts useless against the instruments of war.

Everett felt for her. His compassion unnerved him, it was an emotion that he had surpressed long ago. Compassion lends itself far too easily to danger on the field of battle. After a dozen dead friends, he had learned not to let anyone close, but this was different. He felt for her, and all he wanted was to go to her, and take her pain into him, just like she had tried to do with her patient.

Crossing the floor, he crept up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned, and they exchanged years worth of raw emotion without a single word. She fell into his sympathetic embrace, her shoulders heaving, as his withered heart beat a little faster just for her.

–

“This too shall pass”

Legend has it that a King once asked his vizier for something that would make a joyful man sad and a sad man joyful.

The vizier provided him with a silver ring with the inscription, “This too shall pass”.

It ended as suddenly as it began.

Everett has almost finished his training at the technical academy, the reason for his stay on Earth. They had already discussed their future, and what they would do. They would find a nice colony world together, somewhere far from the war, maybe Vale, or Ria. He would find work as a technical specialist, even large colony hubs never have enough of them.
Lyssa would continue with her art, and maybe even start a gallery, or her own studio.

But they would be together, the details really didn’t matter.

He arrived to find her and all of her things gone, a letter, handwritten, in her stead.

Even as he read the words he knew that they would be forever burned into his memory.

She was afraid.

Afraid of the burning intensity that filled her, afraidr of the future, of the encroaching certainty of it, and, unknown to her, afraid of her own happiness.

She had gone back to her family on Aren, at their behest, and begged him not to follow, that if he loved her at all, he would respect her wishes.

The shock hardened his heart in an instant, and blackened his soul.

He did love her. More than anything.

So many questions raced unrestrained through his mind. Why would she leave, she seemed… happy? Was it something he did, or said?

Months went by, and Everett eventually finished his degree, one full semester later than he planned, and with a much lower final grade than he expected.

He wandered for some time, running out of money, and surviving on odd jobs far beneath his skill. Never once did he attempt to contact her, he remained true to her last, unspoken, request.

The war finally reached boiling point, and eventually even the home systems were under threat. Propaganda regularly blasted through everything with a screen. Honour, Glory, Sacrifice, Bravery, all these ideals worth fighting and dying for.

Without Lyssa, the only thing Everett had to believe in were these virtues, and so he signed up.

Was is honour? Was it duty? Or, could it be a desire to no longer exist? Could a life cut short be better than a life alone?

Too much armchair philosophising. It was time to act. There are times when even a bad decision is preferable to none.

He was assured, with his technical expertise, that he would be wasted on the front line, and true enough, he was soon posted to the MorningStar.

Fate, however, would make sure he didn’t stay there for long.

–

They shared their first meal together in over two years in the cramped mess hall of the hospital. Or, at least, what the meagre rations available would allow for a meal. Their earlier embrace forgotten, tension hung thick in the air.

They spoke like nervous strangers, their sentences short, stunted, frequently interrupting each other and apologising, afraid to make eye contact.

So much was left unsaid that it seemed to permeate the very air they breathed and yet neither was ready to acknowledge it.

“We have a friend of yours here, another soldier” Lyssa spoke, motioning to a figure veiled by shadow.. “His name is Arnault, he’s been keeping us safe”.

Arnault was a frightening visage of a man. Not by his stature, he appeared gaunt and almost malnourised, with pale, sickly skin, but by his demeanour. Lyssa, in her innocence, couldn’t see it, and treated him as her protector, impressed by her perception of his motives.

But Everett had seen much war, and met many men like Arnault. He was a killer. Not a soldier. Soldiers are true warriors, and kill out of reluctant necessity. Killers do so because they enjoy it.

Arnault didn’t have the somber, exhausted air of a veteran soldier, where even breathing seemed like a conscious effort. He didn’t have the thousand-yard-stare, with the tortured eyes witness to a hundred gruesome acts of barbarity and raw cruelty.

In fact, his eyes seemed bright, his movement sprightly. He seemed to be concealing a macabre joy, a shocking contrast to those around him.

Arnault enjoyed being around death, and being the cause of it. He wasn’t suffering in this conflict, he was revelling in it, and there was noone else he would rather be.

Everett spoke with Arnault, keeping his voice steady and slightly upbeat, to avoid arousing suspicion. The last thing he wanted today was more violence.

With a quiet voice, possessing an unnatural stillness, he told his tale. Arnault was a survivor from the towns garrison, moving there just a few months before the glassing. They were a militia unit, with regular jobs, training semi-regularly under non-combat conditions. It’s highly unlikely he would have seen any fighting until the war came to Kyrre, which explains why he was never given a psych consult.

Everett wondered if he had planned this. Choosing a posting in a milita unit to avoid the background checks, but close enough to the front line to be given a decent chance of seeing some action.

He knew then that the darkness inside this man would consume him, and would ultimately be his end, in one way or another.

Arn, as Lyssa called him, was not the only new face in the room. While they were eating, a mouse of a man shuffled into mess hall, as if ashamed of his own presence.

Tall, but deceptively so due to his hunched posture, sweat glistened faintly on his forehead, and it’s odour gradually permeated the room. Fear was written all over him.

Lyssa introduced him as Lucian, a kid of barely 20, who missed the last mercy flight out of Aren and had been helping care for the wounded ever since.

Everett had seen this type of man too. Good hearted, innocent, but wholly unsuited to the rigours of war. They were mostly sidelined to admin or logistics, but some possessed an inner strength that could surprise even the most hardened of warriors. Mostly though they froze at the first sign of enemy fire and got themselves or their squad mates killed.

He was a coward, there was no other way to say it. Imaginary thoughts danced through his head, visions of warriors and heroes, great battles and greater glory. Honour, courage, the love of a lady, and adventures told and retold through the ages. But his reality was a cold, black place, consumed by fear and self-loathing, a contrast between the man he wanted to be and whatever he was. A place lit only by these fantasies of what could have been, and might be. A pathetic spectacle, maybe, but a noble one perhaps, in his own way.

A greeting from the Sergeant was met by a warm, if wary smile. Lucian was the type to be chewed up and spit out by warfare. Keeping him alive, physically, and mentally, would be difficult, but it was a responsibility he needed to shoulder, for Lyssas sake.

Arn stood and made his way to Lucians table. He seemed to glide along the floor silently, like a predator. Without a sound, he took Lucians plate from him and left the room, to eat alone. Lucian made furtive eye contact and then looked away, covering his fear, and his shame.

Any doubt Everett had about Arnault vanished when he saw the weapon slung across his back. It was originally an R-92, an outdated precision rifle given to second-line troops, it was already obsolete amongst frontline soldiers. But Arns was different. It looked like there wasn’t a single part of it was original. The stock, barrel shroud, sights, and grip were all customised. He had parts on it that even Everett had never seen before.

This was high-end special order gear that this lunatic must have spent years collecting and painstakingly attaching to his rifle, long before he ever even came close to a war.

It wasn’t just the functional parts either. There was custom engraving on the receiver and gold furnishings on the trigger controls and hammer as well.

It wasn’t a rifle to him, it was some kind of grotesque piece of art, he loved it, and he loved killing with it.

Later, when they were alone, Everett warned Lyssa about his concerns. He told her, as best he could, about men like Arnault, and the dangers they posed. How they could seem normal, even friendly, and then turn, and change, in an instant, and become a ticking time bomb for everyone around them.

But Lyssa had a good and pure heart, untarnished by hatred or fear, even despite the misery and the suffering that she had seen. She believe Arnault was good, and refused to accept Everetts warning.

He could only hope that she was right.

–

The next several days passed slowly. Lyssa refused to leave Aren, as Everett wanted, and so he made himself as useful to her as he could. He had limited medical experience, but was soon put to work splinting broken bones, applying bandages, and cleaning cuts and gashes.

It was a sobering reminder of the war that he had left. These victims however were mostly civilians, not soldiers. They had not chosen this, they wanted nothing more than to live their lives, raise their families, and try to find some kind of contentment in this failed world. But here they lay, broken, bleeding, burned. For what? For a war that begin before any of them had been born, and would end long after they had died? A self-perpetuating cycle of hatred.

A crash, followed by shouting interrupted his thoughts.

Amongst the din of a post-apocalyptic hellscape, this wasn’t an uncommon occurence, but something felt off this time, and he felt compelled to investigate. The noise seemed to come from a large storage room behind the hospital, where most of the rations and some of the remaining medical supplies were kept.

From the damage to the door, it seemed that some unfortunate residents of Aren had broken in, half starving and desperate. There were about five or six of them, their clothes were torn and dishevelled, but were of formerly good quality. Sometimes those that soar the highest fall the furthest.

But it was not these men that drew his attention. They hardly warranted an intervention, it wasn’t worth the risk. It was Lyssa, standing alone, and bravely, foolishing, trying to prevent the theft of vital supplies from the people she was trying to help. She pleaded with them, and then before Everett could get close enough to stop her, she strode defiantly into the middle of the group and stood, with arms outstretched, denying them their prize. Still, she pleaded, trying to resolve the dispute by offering a token gesture, but they were beyond reason.

In the few moments it took him to reach her, Everett felt his stomach churn as he saw almost a dozen hands grab her, pushing, shoving her roughly, striking her to the ground like she was nothing.

Nothing could describe the emotions he felt as he saw the kindest, purest girl he had ever known lying on the cold, bare, concrete floor, surrounded by these thieves and looters.

He had felt anger before, but it was anger borne out of adrenaline, purely with the intent of survival. This was new, this rage filled him so completely that he couldn’t even remember what happened next. It was like he was outside of himself, watching from a great distance, and could see only glimpses of flailing fists, spattering blood, and splintering bone.

When he felt his awareness return, as if waking from a dream, there were six men lying motionless on the concrete, and Lyssa, blissfully unaware of what he had done. He carefully, gently, picked her up and carried her into the hospital.

Fortunately, she had suffered no serious injuries, nor had she witnessed the violence Everett had displayed when rescuing her. When she was strong enough, he carried her to her room, where she continued to sleep.

The men were gone when Everett and some of the other medics went to help them. He had no idea how badly they were hurt, or even how they managed to drag themselves to safety, but he cared only for her.

–

Lyssa, exhausted as she was, woke at the sound of the door creaking open. Her once deep sleep had given way to a furtive, shallow rest, her mind both traumatised by the events of the day, and frightened by the possibility of approaching danger.

Slowly her eyes adjusted and she made out the features of Everett, and felt reassured. Even though the dim moonlight hid his scars, his wounds, his weathered face and tortured eyes, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was still gentle to her, and still good. She saw him with a purity and innocence all too rare and all too precious in this decaying world with it’s broken, corrupted people.

“I’m sorry to wake you” he said, softly. “But you don’t want to let those cuts get infected. I should clean them”.

“Ok” she replied, and turned turned on the small light next to her bed.

Everett had a bowl with some clean water and some bandages and a half-empty bottle of antiseptic Trexane fluid, part of their dwindling supplies of medical equipment. Even the Trex wasn’t official issue, it was a weak, commercial substitute scavenged from a local store before even those supplies ran out.

Everett slowly cleaned her cuts and and disinfected them. He took great care to avoid getting any of the Trexane in her eyes, or irritating her wounds any more than he had to. She noticed that without realising it, he winced every time she did.

She knew he loved her then. The compasion he showed betrayed his feelings even more than words could. He didn’t have to treat her, her wounds weren’t particularly serious, he was here because he cared for her.There was still good in him, even though he would never admit it, or perhaps, even believe it.

Her feelings for him was stirring too, but it was too early to speak of them. They were both wounded, in their own way, and neither were ready to put words to their unspoken desires.

–

The next day marked Everett’s sixth on Kyrre, and he awoke to the sky filled with the spectre of Alliance dropships. At least a dozen, carrying hundreds of men, fully armed. Their eerie silence gradually gave way to the dull roar of ion engines and the cheers of the bedraggled, war-weary citizens of Aren.

Welcoming them with open arms, the people gave them what little they had left, but as always, Everett saw what noone wanted to see. The fleet of dropships were outfitted for troop-transport only: no medical support or supplies. This wasn’t a relief convoy, it was an assault force. They weren’t here to rescue anyone.

Whats more, these men had the world-weary eyes of battle-hardened troops. They had been on the line for too long, and seen too much.

Tempering his concerns, Caine tried to partake in the locals rambunctiousness.

Realising that he would eventually need to interact with the new arrivals, Everett decided to rehearse his cover story. The penalty for desertion, was, after all, death.

Their leader, a Colonel by the name of Malcolm Colburn, was a typical gruff, hard as nails, type. A strict, no nonsense “leader of men”. He was here to fight a war, true, but a gentleman’s war. He could be reasoned with, Everett hoped.

In the makeshift operating room, the floors ran red with the blood of both sides. Mixing indistinguishably together, a macabre union in death.

Lyssa stood tall as always, fighting against the inevitability of mortality. She treated the most seriously wounded first, ignoring uniforms and rank.

One particularly stubborn templar soldier took most of her effort, so determined were his wounds to kill him. Multiple shrapnel wounds, probably from one of his own grenades that detonated too close, littered his body. His armour absorbed most of the impact, saving his life, but the multiple lacerations had caused severe blood loss.

Lyssa and her fellow medics fought for over an hour to stabilise the patient, using up much of their remaining stock of blood, but finally they seemed to be winning the battle.

As if on cue, as if picking up the faint whisper of hope, death arrived in the form of an alliance First Captain by the name of Maddock.

Striding into the hospital main floor with an arrogant swagger, 6 of his men accompanied him. One carried a wounded man over his shoulder, while two more walking wounded leaned against their comrades.

It was clear Maddock was not at all happy with the templars being treated at all, never mind before his men, and he made his position clear.

He demanded his men be treated first, and wasn’t in the business of taking no for an answer. Lyssa firmly pleaded, then begged him to give her time to stabilise the critically injured patient, but he roughly shoved her aside, drew his pistol, and fired four or five rounds into the wounded templar on the operating table.

“He’s stable now” Maddock replied, his face dark, cold, with thinly veiled contempt being the only emotion visible.

Lyssa wailed, an agonising loss of innocence, and collapsed to the floor, defeated. Her efforts, valiant, inspiring, were useless.

Everett almost killed him then. His pistol, hidden in his belt, never felt heavier, but he knew that any more shooting now would solve nothing, and would endanger Lyssa and the other patients.

Slowly he stood and walked to where Lyssa lay, sobbing. A young alliance Lieutenant watched him suspiciously, grasping her rifle, while Maddock stood with his back to the two of them.

Lyssa offered no resistance as Caine lifted her to her feet, and helped her from the room. Maddock’s face changed, slightly.. Was that a hint of remorse? Or just a trick of the light?
Lyssa was a skilled medic, she was valuable, Maddock could have stopped them. But he didn’t. His men, following his example, eyed the two but did nothing as they left. Was there some humanity left? Just a brief distraction from the killing of the day?

Back at her apartment, Lyssa was inconsolable, she barely spoke, and did nothing but sleep in fits, waking up to sob, or wail, before falling into restless slumber once more.

She had lost patients before, of course, but never like this. Never to such barbarity, such needless, wanton cruelty.

Everett could do nothing but watch over her. Through the night, he never left her side, not once, but even so he never felt so helpless. Eventually, sleep overtook even him, and the world faded to black.

He awoke to the morning light streaming through the windows, and to her touch. The bleary haze of sleep cleared, and he saw her standing over him, her face stained with tears and worry.

“Are you alright? ” She asked, before he had a chance to ask the same. He was touched by her compassion. At a time when she was so hurt, and so distressed, she would think of him?

“We need to go, Lyssa”, the words came out softer, less stern than he had intended. ” We need to leave…”

“I know” she said, interrupting him, her words just as sweet as ever.

They embraced, warmly, but all too briefly. Their first acknowledgement of the feelings they both shared.

“We can leave tonight”, Lyssa said “But we can’t go alone”. We need to take the others with us.

“Which others?” Everett frowned. More people meant a bigger profile, more risk. All he wanted to do was leave here with her, picking up strays was never part of the plan.

“Lucian and Arn” she replied. The coward and the psychotic. That complicates things, he thought. But he knew Lyssa wouldn’t be swayed. She had a great strength to her, perhaps greater even than his own. She wouldn’t give up on those she cared about, not even at the cost of her own life. She was the best of what it means to be human, in the midst of the worst.

Gathering what meagre supplies that they could find, and that Lyssa would allow them to take from the stores, they set out under cover of darkness.

Their destination was the starport. It had been in Templar controlled territory since just after the glassing, but the military presence would be light. Almost all of the civilian population had either left or been killed, and any military operation would use dropships and atmosphere-capable capital warships, not a civilian starport.

Lyssas family had left another ship, a small starliner, docked at their private pad. It was under repair at the time of the attack, and so wasn’t used for the evacuation, but Everett could likely fix it easily.

It had enough space for just a handful of people, and a long-distance flight with such a small vessel in a combat area would be treacherous, but for once, Everett was optimistic.

They were moving again. He hated being tied down, he hated waiting. He wanted to take action, to move forward, to act, not react.

All going well, they would be starbound in just a few days.

–

The small group left the remains of Aren shortly after nightfall. The sky was lit by a new moon, and only scattered clouds shielded them from it’s gaze.

Lyssa never seemed to look back, not once, as she left her home. She must have realised she would never be back, but it had lost it’s meaning in her heart. It was a place of pain now, and the home she one knew was just a memory.

The faint light emanating from the few remaining buildings grew more and more distant as the four entered the forest outside of Aren. They would hopefully be able to remain hidden in the trees for most of the way to the starport,and with a little luck, they could be on board Lyssa’s shuttle without a shot being fired.

–

Following Everetts advice, they walked through the night, and through most of the following day. They couldn’t risk stopping to sleep this close to the city. Both templar and alliance soldiers alike were potential threats now. Both sides were locked in a viscious, decades long struggle that had long since turned men to beasts.

Lucian and Arn were trailing slightly behind Everett and Lyssa as they proceeded deeper into the forest. Arn had given Lucian an old repeating rifle, and Everett had done what he could to teach him the basics. It wasn’t much, but there were soldiers that had gone to war with less.

Every snapping twig, every creaking branch, had Everett on edge, his body and mind were tuned to perfection. Leading his small team he carried his rifle in low-ready, chamber loaded, hammer cocked, safety on. This was where he was born.

Suddenly his heart grew cold, and he sensed danger. Raising his arm, he wordlessly stopped his companions.

There was no more birdsong.

Something had frightened them.

For moment after agonising moment he waited, until he saw shapes, moving in the distance. Gradually, a small patrol, probably squad-sized emerged from the trees, weapons ready, but with no targets yet in sight.

Lyssa saw his eyes turn black, his face taking on a steely determination that she had never seen before. She felt afraid, both of the soldiers, and of him.

“Everett!” her scream was silenced by the report of his rifle. The first shot cut a man to pieces, disentegrating flesh and shattered bone stained the ground a bright crimson. The low roar of muzzle blast, the metallic clink of the action, the rustle of the shells hitting the soft earth, he was home again.

In the fires of battle, he was in his element. Shot after shot found their mark, men fell like dead wood from a tree. They answered back with their own weapons, but the rapid flash of their muzzles and rattle of automatic fire betrayed their inexperience, and their panic.

“Don’t spray and pray” the Sergeant thought back to his training, an age ago “Full-Auto is for suppressing your enemy, Semi-Auto is for killing your enemy”. As the last of the men bled the ground red, and Caine’s muzzle smoked with bloody satisfaction, he barely noticed a wry smile escape his lips.

This smile evaporated when he turned and saw the face of his beloved. Tears streamed from her eyes, her mouth wide with shock, no, horror, at what he had done She had never seen him kill before. Everett hoped that at the very least she would never know how a part of him craved the adrenline, the excitement.

He went to her, but she refused his embrace, and turned away. Soundlessly, the little group gathered their things, and quickly moved on. Arn stood with his rifle at the ready, scanning the treeline. He seemed disappointed that he arrived too late to take part in the shooting.

Everett took the lead, alone this time. He couldn’t look at Lyssa, not now. He wasn’t sure if she would ever want him to again.

The forest thickened overhead, it’s dense foliage hiding the evidence of their deeds.

–

Hours later, as darkness gathered, Arn joined Everett at the front.

Do you know why I grow my hair long? Arnault finally spoke as he racked the bolt on his rifle.

“Why?” Everett gruffly responded, annoyed at the interuption during a time of intense concentration and danger.

“It’s because I have scars on my neck from when they used to use it as an ashtray”.

“The templars?” Everett said, surprised.

“The templars. The Alliance. Who cares”.

“I pull the trigger. A shot rings out. In the distance, a man collapses, unmoving. They’re all just men. They’re all the same to me”,Arnault said, as he flipped his rifles safety to “fire”.

“Another gunshot. Another life. I can’t see his face, but it’s burned into my head. Each one is a ghost from my past. Each bullet gives me back just a little more of my childhood”

“I once shot a man out in the open, running for his life. They said he was innocent, but he wasn’t. That was the man who broke my arm for looking at his girl. It was the man who put glass in my food because he felt emasculated when I proved I was smarter than him. It was the man who shattered my jaw because he didn’t like the way I spoke to him. They are all guilty. One way or another, they are all guilty.

Lowering the rifle, Arnault seemed to smile slightly, as he let his guard down, just for an instant. He looked almost childlike, innocent. Everett realised in that moment that Arnault was a victim like anyone else. He took the innocence of others in a vain attempt to regain his own. We were all at once victims and aggressors, the self-perpetuating cycle of hatred. There didn’t seem to be a way out, what was it all for?

What was the point to living one more day, if only to suffer and to cause suffering?

More than that, would Arn’s fate be his own? Everett had felt the anger, the rage, and the hurt. He reluctantly admitted to himself that there were times he had pulled the trigger and felt a sense of satisfaction, vindication. Would be someday lose his own humanity, while trying so hard to protect the humanity of others?

They eventually stopped, exhausted mentally and physically, and made camp for the night.

As the others slept, Everett noticed Lyssa standing alone, illuminated in the pale glow of the crescent moon. Her shoulders heaving slightly as she sobbed, and he went to her. Hesitantly, she accepted his embrace, and their eyes met.

“You frightened me” she began, “You killed those men without even thinking. It was like… you were enjoying it, you were excited by it”.

Everett began to defend himself, but stopped. He never wanted to lie to her, and she wouldn’t believe him even if he did.

“There is a side to me that you haven’t seen.” his words were well chosen, but truthful. “When you fight too often with monsters, you risk becoming one yourself”.

“I have never seen you like that” she said, as she turned away breaking the embrace, and stared into the darkness.

There was a rift between them. One deeper than the distance that had held them apart for so long. Lyssa didn’t know if this man was the same person that she had fallen in love with, and he wasn’t sure himself.

They spoke for a short while longer. The love was still there, but so was doubt, uncertainty. They slept apart that night, their thoughts still on each other.

The group moved quickly at first light. With luck, they would reach the starport by nightfall, and could reach Lyssas ship under cover of darkness.

Shortly after noon, they could see the distant towers of the starport emerge from the haze. They were getting close, but their hopes of an uneventful end to their ordeal were dashed when Everetts trained eyes spotted puffs of smoke emanating from the vicinity of their goal.

“Vehicle tracks” he said. The approach to the facility was well defended.

Assaulting a garrisoned position with 4 people would be suicide, they would need to be more subtle.

They would wait out the day here, safely hidden by the trees. Once night fell, they could slip past the patrols and hopefully be on board and starbound just before dawn. The ship still needed repairs, but according to Lyssa, there were only minor maintenance issues that shouldn’t take more than a few hours to fix. With no working air defences (Kyrre was a civilian world, there was no need for them) they shouldn’t have any problems once they got the ship up and running.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Boredom set in, a surprisingly familiar feeling for the soldier. Everett had mastered the art of active relaxation, saving his strength, but keeping his eye, and his rifle, on his surroundings.

Arn and Lucian had gone scouting for useful supplies amongst the debris of civilisation, while Everett stayed at their hastily constructed camp with lyssa. They were slowly learning how to behave around each other again, but things were still tense.

–

The heat and humidity of the day became oppressive. Sitting in silence, waiting to be discovered, the fear was palpabe.

They could hear the sound of engines and voices in the near distance, just some foliage separated them from view.

Suddenly, the familiar sound of gunfire broke the silence. The sound of Arn’s rifle began the exchange, followed by it’s reply from the Templar positions.

Instructing Lyssa to stay where she was, Everett ran, with rifle at the ready, towards the sound of battle.

Breaking through a thin line of tree cover, the Sergeant surveyed the scene. Arn was firing rapidly from behind a fallen log, with Lucian taking cover behind him. A group of over a dozen Templar soldiers was firing from some distance, their bullets striking the earth closer and closer to their targets, as they found the range.

Everett took up position behind a thick tree, and began firing. At this range, Arns rifle was more effective, but Everetts experience bridged the gap, and he began scoring hits.

Clouds of dust and splintering wood from near misses filled the air as the shooting continued. The situation was worsening, with just three rifles against a company-sized force, the enemy was closing in and they were in danger of being outflanked.

A bullet whizzed past Lucians position, and he went down. The bullet missed, but it was enough for him to loose his nerve. He dropped his weapon, and cowered, the fear finally pushing him to his breaking point. Everett could see that he was gone, he would be no further use, and was now a liability.

Without even a glance to his comrade, Arn continued firing into the attacking Templars with impressive accuracy, but still they inched closer.

As the battle raged on, movement in Everetts peripheral vision confirmed his worst fears: Lyssa was here, and was trying to reach Lucian by crawling through the low grass of the clearing.

He ran to her, and tried to drag her to safety, but she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t leave until she saved her charge, and despite his fear for her he felt a deep respect and admiration for her selflessness.

With Everett drawing fire from her with bursts of automatic rifle fire, Lyssa reached the now catatonic, but thankfully conscious Lucian and began to escort him to safety.

Arn continued firing, overwhelmed with a single-minded all-encompassing rage that consumed the souls of men. The same raw fury that Everett was starting to feel in himself. As Lyssa and Lucian reached safety, and the Templars broke the treeline at the very edge of their clearing, Everett prepared himself for a final stand.

The rage built inside of him as the exchange of fire continued. A bullet grazed his arm, splinters of wood from the tree he was taking cover behind sliced his face and hands, but he barely noticed. He was the embodiment of war, lost in a fury of lead and blood, the familiar sound of gunfire ringing in his ears, drowning out all other sounds.

Until he heard her. Lyssa, calling to him.

She needed him. This was a hopeless battle, but a glorious one. A noble death, a warriors end, but ultimately futile.

But what choice was there? The life of a coward? How could he live with himself knowing he had lost heart in the face of his enemy? A fate worse than death.

For the first time Everett felt something stronger than the fury, stronger than the rage, and the fear. He wanted to live, for her. War had never before seemed so pointless, so unnecessary. So much killing, so many lives cut short, all for lines drawn on a map far, far from here.

He lowered his rifle. Turned, and ran to her. Her eyes told him all he needed to know. He had chosen her, over the beast, the god of war inside him, and she knew it. Taking shelter from the heavy fighting, they embraced briefly, as close as they ever were. Nothing would be strong enough to come between them again.

They both called to Arnault, but he was gone. His face contorted with fury, he was in another world, and Everett realised that nothing could help him now. Catching his breath,he took Lyssa by the hand, and they ran, with the mute Lucian in tow, away from that place, the gunfire still raging in the background.

Soon the firing stopped. Arnault had fought well, he had died like a soldier, but in many ways, Evertts prediction had come true: His death was of his own doing. Consumed by his fury, and his fear, he had led himself to his own demise. Glorious, but ultimately futile.

There was now just three. Lucian hadn’t spoke since the shooting, and had lost his rifle back at the clearing. Lyssa was unarmed, and Everett was running low on ammunition. The only good news was that they had managed to put enough distance between them to lose any trailing patrols for a while.

Moving slowly, they managed to stay undetected until nightfall, and reaced the starport complex. Fortunately, the interior of the facility was far more sparsely defended than that approach, likely due to the fact that it was empty, with only non-functioning vessels, like Lyssas, still present.

The trio reached the hanger where the ship was kept, and quietly entered. They couldn’t risk turning on any lights, so Everett worked in the dark to diagnose the problem.

Their great gamble paid off, the problem was simply a minor electrical glitch, and could be repaired in hours with the materials on hand. They should be ready to launch by dawn.

Lyssa and Everett worked side by side to repair the ship. They made a good team, they understood each other, scarcely needing to speak as they replaced damaged components and reconfigured complex systems.

But there was one thought neither one could bear to form into words. In order for the ship to leave, someone would need to grant launch authorisation from the control building, and that was the one place which was still full of Templar soldiers. It was a treacherous mission, but all civilian flights were governed by the starports automated flight control system. Without it the hanger doors wouldn’t open, and the electromagnetic launch rails would not be powered.

The ship was now repaired, fuelled, and ready, and Everett prepared himself to make the run to the control building.

As he embraced Lyssa for what he thought could be the final time, she made him promise to come back to her. He gave her his word, but his eyes gave away his lie. He knew they would likely not meet again.

He left the hanger, and prepared himself to meet his fate.

Everett felt his end approaching. He felt his senses heightening, his vision was sharper, he could hear more clearly, his reaction times felt faster. It was as if his body was preparing itself as best it could for the battle of his life.

They were finally together, himself and lyssa. They had a future together. They could run away, find a home somewhere, away from the fighting, start a new life. But that wasn’t to be, he could feel it.

How grimly ironic that the one battle in which he truly wanted to live, would be his last.

The control room was abandoned, operating the flight computer to grant launch authorisation was easy, but the noise of the gears and motors of the gantry crane and hanger doors was enough to attract dozens of Templar soldiers.

The ship presented a vulnerable target as it was carried from its berth to the powered launch rails. One bullet in the wrong place would result in it’s destruction. Everett placed himself outside the control complex, racked the bolt on his rifle, and waited.

Within moments, soldiers appeared in ones and twos, surveying the scene.

At first they seemed apprehensive, as if expecting more men to appear at Everetts side, but none did.

Still, they waited, safe in the shadows.

The Sergeant presented a formidable visage, standing in the half-light, rifle at the ready, defying the odds, a spectre of death. It was enough to give anyone pause, but not for long.

An unearthly silence underscored the palpable tension in the air as the armed men faced off.

Everett allowed himself to hope, for one brief moment, that there would be an end to this without violence, but it was not to be.

One of the Templar soldiers, a young, inexperienced trooper, cracked under the pressure and fired his rifle. It missed, of course, but it ignited the tension like powder keg, and soon gunfire pierced the night like shooting stars.

Life after precious life came to an end on the bare stone and steel. Their blood glistened in the moonlight as it poured from their wounds.

The sickening thud of the bodies hitting the ground, of bullet shattering bone, of blood gushing from veins echoed through the cavernous concrete of what was now a tomb.

Everett fought fiercely, but without the uncontrolled, primal rage that usually consumed him. He fought now for a noble cause, for something beyond survival. He fought for Lyssa, for her safety, and her future. She mattered more than his own life, and he felt, within the withered, battle-scarred remains of his heart, joyful, of the sacrifice that he was about to make.

That sacrifice came as he always knew it would, in the form of a bullet.

It pierced his armour and tore through his body, knocking him back a step and destroying one of his ribs. Even without looking he knew that would be the bullet that would kill him. It was a lung shot, without treatment, he would suffocate even if he didn’t bleed to death.

He returned the insult with a bullet of his own, and watched grimly as his mark crumpled into an unrecognisable heap on top of another fallen warrior.

Breathing heavily, Everett didn’t even see the soldier that scored the next hit. The armour stopped this one, but two more of his ribs cracked from the force of impact. Struggling to raise his rifle, he was hit again, and again, until he could no longer stand.

Locking his fingers around the trigger he rattled off a final burst of anger at the sky before he collapsed to the ground, utterly broken.

Through ragged breaths and bloodshot eyes he watched for the glow of engine exhaust soaring through the night sky, a fitting epitaph.

–

A dying mind is capable of some bizarre, unbelievable things. It can flash a mans entire life before his eyes, or it can make him feel like he is floating outside of himself. It can delight with the sight of heaven, or torment with the burning spectre of hell.

As his life blood ebbed away, Everett sank into unconsciousness.

Time seemed to slow down, then stop. He saw visions from his past, the day he first met Lyssa at the cafe, the times they shared together, and the last time they spoke before she left.

Past, present, and future seemed to merge together as one, the threads of time and reality unravelling and rejoining in a myriad of complex interactions.

That familiar darkness that he felt on Rahle encompassed him again, but stronger this time.

There was the flash of gunfire, but from which battle? One long since won and lost, or one not yet fought?

A man fell, a man that looked… uncannily familiar…

The distant rattle of gunfire continued unabated, with the battle-hardened Alliance regulars now engaging the remnants of the Templar forces. He recognised the hanger and the concrete control building, he was sure of it now!

Colburn and his men had arrived, and swept aside the remaining templar forces. He crouched over Everetts unconcious body, even dropping his knee slightly in a show of respect, then unhooked and removed the Sergeants Phoenix Medallion from his chest, a universal sign of a fallen soldier.

His vision faded in, and out, and Everett lost all remaining concept of time.

He saw Lyssa, weeping, then bright, white lights, and hurried, frenzied shouting. The white coats and masks of surgeons crowded over him, and the whirr and whine of their machinery assaulted his senses. Then there was pain, much pain, and more blackness.

The darkness was longer this time. Everett stared into it, wondering if this was eternity, if this was all there is, until he saw light again, and then shapes, sounds, and smells.

He saw the house, that he shared with Lyssa, but it wasn’t just a vision, it felt like another life. This wasn’t just an out of body experience, he was there. The sounds were sharper, the aromas more scintillating, the colours more vibrant.

As he opened the door and went inside he heard voices. Lyssa was there, and people who he didn’t recognise, but somehow knew were friends. They were gathered around a table, sharing a meal.

He felt himself join in the festive atmosphere, as if guided by an unseen hand. He laughed, and joked, feeling an innocence long thought lost.

The room glowed with a familiar warmth as the friends ate and drank into the night, until finally all had left but Lyssa and himself.

As they relaxed in this rustic hideway, far from the war, far from the past, Everett felt a contentment, a love, and even a joy that he had spent his life fighting for. A life worth the sacrifices that he had made.

He didn’t know if he was alive, or dead. Time and reality had lost all meaning, there was no frame of reference, nothing made sense.

Had he died on the cold ground of Kyrre, his brain firing erraticaly as it’s neurons and synapses fired, giving the impression of substance emerging from the void of nothingness?

Or was this a vision of a future waiting for him? Was he still down there, somewhere, his broken body defying death, watching visions of his life not yet lived?

Infinity flowed past his eyes, formless, unbelievable, unimaginable.

Accepting of his ignorance, and liberated by it, Everett was content to know just one thing:

Reality or illusion, Alive or Dead, he was with her now. Whether for an Eternity or just a moment, he was home.

–

Nestled deep in the Cairngorm mountains of the Scottish highlands, among towns with no name lost among the desolate, primal beauty, there is a tale.

A tale whispered by night in smoky pubs by scruffy old men remembering a bygone day.

The tale of the fear liath, the grey man.

I was a young boy of 16 when I first heard it. My parents had taken me on a trip to Europe, the chance of a lifetime, but to a budding young man, the remote highlands of Scotland was the last place I wanted to spend my summer.

To silence my protests, my parents had reluctantly agreed to bring my girlfriend Jenny, and her brother Sam along. I was good friends with Sam, and their parents and mine were close.

“Come on, it will be fun” they cried, until they had cajoled me into reluctant agreement.

The town we stayed in, whose name I have long forgotten, was a picture of dreary, sleepy, monotony.

My parents loved it.

Me, not so much.

We spent our days hiking, taking photos, and enjoying the few amenities that the small village provided.

At night my parents hung out at the bar while Sam, Jenny and I played darts or tried to trick random adults into buying us beer.

One night, as I sat in the dimly lit pub, I heard a voice from the next table over. Raspy and laboured, I knew it was from a heavy smoker even before I saw the cigarette in his wrinkled fingers.

“Saw him again last night”.

The old man rattled.

“Won’t be long now”

“Ah! Whist with that nonsense! You’ve many years ahead of ya yet! Drink ya pint!” his companion implored.

“I saw him”, the old man continued. “I brought him back from the mountain. Clear as day he was. Black as soot, wild eyed, hair like a rake of thistles, it was him.”

“Aye, and were yeh drinking that night too? Whist man, don’t be codding me”.

After some more slurred banter, he men at the next table drank their way into silence, and the evenings brief excitement seemed over.

I woke early the next morning, and joined my parents, Sam, and Jenny, in the living room of our rented cottage.

“Hey, you know what could be fun…” Sam asked, leaning close to prevent being overheard.

“Literally anything other than being in this town….” I quipped.

“We could go check out that mountain, the one that old guy was talking about” Sam ignored my attempt at humour.

“I don’t want to go hiking today”, I protested, “and besides, that guy was just drunk”.

“What’s the matter, are you scared?” Jenny interrupted with a chuckle.

“I’m not scared, I just have better things to do….” I began, but realised my mistake almost immediately. I didn’t have anything better to do, so, to the mountain we went.

The day began warm and I found the hike pleasant, despite my glum mood.

As we climbed higher however, a thick blanket of cloud rolled in and with it, an icy rain. I cursed myself for not bringing my overcoat, but pressed on. It was barely past lunchtime, and I had nothing to do. “I’d rather be wet than bored”. I thought.

Slowly we hiked towards the summit. The green grass and low brush gave way to loose rock and slabs of primeeval stone, although the trail continued.

Eventually, we reached the summit, where we found a small chapel built from the surrounding stones. It was obviously ancient, with no windows or doors, or even any tool marks. Who ever built it just stacked stones from the mountain, and placed a simple metal cross on top.

We sheltered in the church, barely big enough for the three of us, until the weather passed.

I had to admit it was beautiful up here, with a commanding view of the village below. “If only they had wifi, this place might be worth staying in” I joked to myself.

“We better start back” Jenny said, “I heard it gets dark quickly on the mountains”.

We soon realised that Jenny was right. The light began to fade surprisingly quickly for late summer, and we soon found ourselves stumbling over the boulders and loose stones strewn about the trail in the dull grey of the worsening weather.

It was then that we began to feel it for the first time.

It was… a presence, almost like a sensation of being watched. Twice I turned around, expecting to see a shepherd or another hiker, only to see nothing but drab grey rock and patches of sodden grass.

We pressed on, into the gathering dark.

“Do you hear that?” Sam asked.

We all heard it, but he was the only one brave enough to voice our collective fears.

It was footsteps.

Faint, but definite, and getting closer.

When we stopped, they stopped.

There was no discernible direction, they seemed to come from one direction, then another, and another, as if surrounding us.

Then there was the smell. A faint odour, reminiscent of stale sweat and mould. A stench of decay. It wasn’t there when we arrived, but was unmistakeable now.

We quickened our pace, and were soon comforted by the towns dim lights in the distance.

With relief, we returned to our house, leaving the mountain behind.

We avoided that place for the rest of our vacation. It’s stark outline now brought with it a sense of unease, even fear.

We were glad to finally leave the cairngorms. We told each other we were simply bored, but in truth, it was more than that. What had we found there?

As the weeks passed and we returned to our normal, hi-tech life, we forgot the world we had left.

Until one day.

I arrived at Sam and Jenny’s house, where I often spent my evenings, but this time, there was a police cruiser outside.

My heart dropped into my guts as I raced to my friends door and flung it open.

There was Jenny, loudly sobbing, while talking to a police officer.

The next few hours were a blur.

“He’s gone” Jenny told me, through her wails. “I came home, and he was gone”.

Sam was missing. He hadn’t answered his phone, his email, hadn’t left a message, and his things were missing from his room.

Sam wasn’t one to run away, he was happy, and doing well in his life, and besides, he was 15, where would be run to?

I decided to investigate.

His room was bare, save for some furniture and assorted items, but that wasn’t what struck me. It was the smell, the same musty, stale odour that first assaulted my nostrils in the mountains of scotland. It was here.

Sams house was new, there was no reason for it to smell like an unwashed vagrant, but it did.

My heart lurched with realisation.

Sam’s parents had been away for a few days, and Jenny had been staying at a friends house, so Sam was by himself.

If something had followed us back… It would have had plenty of time to…

No, that was crazy…

Sam had probably gone to stay with a friend, or was playing a sick joke, that’s all…

One look at the police officer still searching the house for clues, and Jenny’s terrified, tear streaked face, told me I was wrong.

Something terrible had happened here.

Weeks went by, and we never found Sam. There was no trace. No clues, no ransom note, nothing.

Consumed by their grief, his parents never spoke about him. It was as if he never existed to them. There was no outward manifestation of their grief, just a stoic facade hiding their pain.

Jenny was a different story.

She cried, she screamed, she was inconsolable. She made me promise never to give up until we found him. That was a promise I made easily, and one I intended to keep.

We called the police so many times they stopped taking our calls. We put up posters, canvassed the area, searched online for clues, called Sams friends, his school, everything. He was gone. Not just missing, it was as if he ceased to exist…

That was when we knew that forces were at work here that were beyond our understanding, outside of our reality.

It was the grey man. We had entered its domain, and now he was entering ours.

We were determined to stop this creature, to get Sam back, but we had very little to go on. Just a few urban legends and creepy stories from frightened tourists, nothing concrete, nothing we could use.

Until I felt it again.

Caught in a storm while walking home, I took shelter under an overpass. The rain lashed the graffiti stained concrete and I zipped up my hoodie and huddled against the cold stone, waiting for a break in the weather.

Suddenly, I instinctively tensed and I felt hot breath on my neck, and that same, rancid odour of death and decay.

I ran. Through the freezing rain and piercing cold, I ran and never looked back.

I covered the three blocks to my house in a heartbeat, and slammed the door, locking it behind me.

Gasping, sobbing, I slid to the floor, back against the wall, as if a few feet of stone would protect me from this… thing…

“Jenny!” I panicked, and pulled my phone from my soaking wet pocket. Damn! It was dead!

With a grunt of frustration, I bounded up the stairs and to my room. She wasn’t online. No sign of her on social media, and she wasn’t picking up her cell.

God, no…

Not her too…

My heart pounding in my chest, but emboldened by courage, I dashed out into the storm once more.

I ignored the voices of my parents calling after me, after all, what could I tell them? There was no time.

It was too late.

When I got to Sam and Jenny’s house, it was empty. Just like Sam’s room, there was no signs of violence, no body, just.. nothing…

The presence, whatever I felt, was gone now, in it’s place, a lingering, stale, musk.

I called the police, I called my parents, I called Sam and Jenny’s parents. By midnight, the block was lit up like a christmas tree, police lights and ambulances were parked in every square inch of space.

Somehow, in the early morning, I made it home, and collapsed into a broken sleep.

In the weeks following, my parents brought me to a shrink, to deal with the trauma of what happened. I met with Dr fairburn twice a week, but he never seemed to understand, even when I eventually confided in him about our trip to the mountains.

I was put on medication, which clouded my mind and made me tired, and forgetful, but still I didn’t give up. If I could find the grey man, maybe I could find my friends? I owed it to them…

I searched, and searched, anywhere I could, trying to find the phantasm that had come to plague my thoughts.

Over dinner one evening, as I regaled my parents with my latest research, my father shouted to me “This has to stop! There is no grey man, nothing is chasing you, and you never had any friends!”

“Peter! My mother exclaimed, “Remember what Dr fairburn said!”.

“I don’t care! He needs to snap out of this, I’m sick to death of seeing him up there on that computer ever night getting more depressed and deluded! He still thinks these two friends of his were real!”

“What are you talking about?” I shouted, “Of course they were real! We grew up together, how can you not remember them?”

We shouted back and forth for an hour. My parents tried to convince me that I was suffering delusions, that that was the real reason I was seeing Dr Fairburn. Sam and Jenny didn’t exist, and the house that I barged into was simply a show house on our street that was up for sale, noone had lived in it since the previous tenant passed away two years ago.

It was lies, all lies, I knew it! I knew I wasn’t crazy. Somehow, the grey man, or whatever it was, had done something to them? Or to me?

A week passed, and then two.

Still I persisted. I needed to find the grey man, to find my friends…

But there was nothing. He was gone. The more I searched for him the more elusive he became.

It seemed he drawn by the power of thought, manifested by fear.

So I planned a ruse. I feigned abandonment of my search, stopped talking about him, stopped searching for him, even stopped thinking about him.

It was months before I was trusted to be alone in the house, and I knew that that is when it would happen.

I was completing some last minute homework when I felt the same ominous foreboding, smelled the same rank musk of decay. It was close.

This time is came for me, and I was done running, done hiding.

As it grew closer I felt a connection with it, I could sense its presence, and it’s thoughts…

It spoke without words, my mind filled with visions, images of fear, death, decay.

Closer the grey man crept, and faster came the visions.

A kaleidoscopic slideshow of flashing images, hundreds of people, frozen in fear, captured forever within the dark heart of this spectre.

It was almost upon me now, and finally, the pieces fit.

My heart sank and my courage failed as I realised the truth.

The grey man was thought, made manifest.

The grey man was not a character in a story, it was the story.

The only protection from the curse was to tell the story to someone else, passing on the curse to the listener, perpetuating the myth of the creature, growing its power.

My friends, Sam and Jenny, they were brave enough to resist. They spoke of the tale to noone, and so the grey man caught up with them, and absorbed them into itself.

Now it would come for me, unless…

I’m sorry.

I am… afraid. I don’t want to die, I am too young, I have too much to do.

Now my curse is yours.

Don’t forget the grey man:

Friends visit Ireland/Scotland, hear the story of the grey man from a guy in a bar, go looking for him.

Then they start going missing, one by one, and the author spends his life trying to find them.

Finally, they realise that the grey man isn’t a person, the story is the grey man, and anyone hearing the story becomes his next target.

When the grey man finds them, he erases them from existence, so that noone remembers that they ever existed.

The only way to survive is to tell the story to someone else, but that means that the grey man will come for them too.

The authors friends realised this, and refused to tell the story, meaning they were erased from existence.

The author isn’t as strong, and fears death, fears nothingness, and so tell the story to the person reading it now.

The author should make various memory errors throughout the story, to indicate that they are starting to forget even as they write it, showing that the grey man is getting close.

Authors Comment:

Another older story. This one introduces several key characters that recur throughout my work, and feature heavily in my work-in-progress novel.

 

Drifts of snow danced and swirled in the stiff breeze. The winter sun hung low in the polar twilight, its faint rays barely illuminating the land below. Sheer, blackstone cliffs, frozen plains of blinding white, impenetrable forests, cavernous chasms, and the unrelenting dark. A picturesque beauty belied a treacherous man-killing cold.

It was negative 20 Celsius. A good winter, warmer than most on Tau Phoenicia. This years trial would kill maybe a dozen, twice that at most.

An obsidian obelisk marked the beginning. Standing 20 meters tall,and eight meters wide, it stood in stark contrast to the natural lines of the cliffs surrounding it. Hewn from bare rock, pock-marked by ice and freezing rain, crumbling slightly from the assault of the years, it was a triumph of man over nature.

The men gathered at its foot as they always did. Companions all, they stood to attention, shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped behind their backs, left hand on top of right, “ready-stance”, as they had been trained.

For some, this was their first ascension. A trek into the dim light, into the cold, into the unknown, would strike fear into the hearts of the noblest men.

A few hundred faced the trial of the ascension every year. Not all would survive. Sometimes, none of them did. They froze or starved, fell to their deaths, or were mauled by ferocious beasts.

But much more challenging, and frightening, than the natural dangers, were the unnatural ones. The battle of man against himself. His own fears, doubts, and flaws, magnified by the harshness of the climate.

There was something about this place. The loneliness, the dark, the sheer isolation, combined with lack of food, lack of sleep, and severe physical stresses, could break a man.

Survival was a matter of mind and body against the relentless cold.

The ascension was a journey of the soul. Each man faced a manifestation of his inner self. Some relived the mistakes of their past in excruciating detail. Others saw their future, or a version of it. But they all saw something, and it was that vision that spurred them on, or left them cold and dead on the unforgiving ground.

No one knew what they would see. No one knew what fate had prepared for them. What kind of man they were, or would be. That is what the ascension was. A glimpse into the burning fire of an eternal soul. It took tremendous trust, and courage, to face it, to see who you are laid bare. Undeniable, irrefutable.

Every life lived is a facet of a diamond. Coward, Hero, loved, hated, victim or persecutor. The only difference is perception, and perception is subjective.

Strip that away, show a man who he really is, and you can end him more completely than a bullet.

This was Jaxon’s second ascension. Emerging from the freezing wind, stripped to the waist, he carried nothing but a hand-forged knife, small survival kit and fire-steel, canteen, and of course his Phoenix medallion, clipped securely to his belt.

His chest bare, showed off it’s scars, trophies from a life forged in battle. There was the shrapnel wound that almost killed him on Thiessen, three gunshot wounds suffered on old Earth, and an ugly, mottled, burn on the left side of his body, from his neck down to his waist.. That one he picked up off Beta Eradon, courtesy of a Concordance missile that set the bridge of the Eternity afire.

Shocked by his near-naked appearance, the rest of the men must have thought him quite mad. They may have been right.

Jaxon could feel his blood thicken with each moment, and knew that even he wouldn’t last long unless he kept moving. So he began.

–

The fear and doubt that he felt the first time he faced ascension was now gone. In its place was a burning need to be judged. To cast away the illusion of perception, and see himself as he truly was.

His lack of attire was recognition of the fact that the closer one comes to death, the more vivid the visions. This, he craved.

Jaxon walked all day, deeper and deeper into the forest, far outpacing the other companions. This far north, the sun hung low in the sky and day was just a pale, blue twilight. Soon, it was black as pitch, save for the faint glow from above the treeline.

Stopping for just a few moments, Jaxon fashioned a crude torch from some pine sap and a fallen branch. This gave him enough light to follow the faintly-trodden path through the heart of the forest.

Already he could feel the call of the void. The stillness and quiet seemed to fall upon him like a blanket, an unfamiliar comfort.

The howling of pallwolves woke him from his deepening reflection. Bigger than their Earthen brethren, and far more ferocious, they thirsted for blood and meat in this desolate place.

More howling. They were close. A few miles, at most, and getting closer. Quickening his step, the Captain searched for a safe place to wait out the night.

He constructed a crude lean-to from some cut branches, and used the ample supplies of fallen wood to build himself a fire, its warmth the only thing keeping him from freezing in his primal nakedness.

Shortly, the dim blue glow faded to a murky black, and by night, he dreamt.

–

Visions of fire in the jet black sky assaulted his senses.

Five years had passed since the First fleet crossed the threshold and set foot in virgin stars.

Five years, and already those stars burned.

With cautious hope Jaxon, Aleia, Tauren, and their comrades had entered the void between the stars, and been carried to a new world.

But as fate would have it, hell followed with them.

The Seraphim Rei, elite holy warriors of the concordance of nine, had followed their thermal signature, and now pursued them with a fury unrivalled.

Fanatic in their devotion, unrelenting in their duty, the Seraphim were brutal warriors, and where they walked they bled the ground red beneath them.

One after another the fleets ships were lost. First the reliant, already damaged from the battle off Charon, then the Venture, and the Wayfarer, both lost in futile gallantry.

Now only the Eternity was left, with Jaxon still clinging to its helm.

The Cruiser was rigged for red, operating on reduced power, and had suffered hull breaches on multiple decks. A metal fire in the second hanger bay had been burning for several days, fuelled by triazene alloys coated onto the ships hull. Triazene, when exposed to extreme temperatures, produced oxygen as it burned, fuelling the fire even when the hanger was purged of its atmosphere.

The Captains steadfast refusal to accept defeat had taken him this far, but a fear had begun to envelop him. A fear that he could go no further.

His crew, even his elite Companions, were all but gone. Aleia’s loss was felt the hardest. She was more than an ally to him. Too much more. She was killed while surveying an Arcadian world when her launch was shot down by an obsolete kinetic missile.

They found the wreckage, and the bodies of Aleia and her pilot, days later. There was no SOS, no final words, no heroic last stand. She never knew what hit her. A peaceful, if ignominious, end for a soldier.

She was sitting up when they found her, leaning gently against the shuttles still smouldering hull, her prosthetic arm torn from its socket. She had survived the crash, only to die wounded and alone.

The ground beneath her was green, the sky above clear and blue, belying the violence of her end.

Not all hero’s deaths are heroic.

In all, the Eternity was down to one third of it’s crew, less than a hundred men.

Before Jaxon could allow himself to be consumed in the fires of battle, like his comrades before him, he had one final mission.

The Lady had entrusted in him the quest to find a new world for their people, and that quest had failed. The new meridian was a futile enterprise, the seraphim were everywhere, any attempt to colonise the Arcadian system would be suicide.

He had to go back.

–

The morning brought clear skies, and a few brave rays of sun dared to glisten upon the snow-covered ground.

The portent began to fade with the light of day, as dreams do, but its effects remained, like the ripples on a lake.

Was fate predestined? An arrow through time, ceaseless, unyielding? Or was it flowing, winding, as a river? No less certain in its destination, but with many more paths to realise it?

Jaxon found himself some berries and edible lichen, and warmed them over the fire using his canteen cup. Swallowing the last of his modest meal, the next order of business was protection. The pallwolves would still be close. A good, stout length of darkwood would make an excellent choice for a spear. Jaxon used his knife to sharpen his new weapon, and then the embers of his dying fire to harden it. Standing almost 10 feet tall, and thicker than his forearm, he was now armed.

Even such a crude weapon felt familiar, and comforting, as the old soldier continued his lonely journey.

The wind was still today, and the only sound was the crunching of snow underfoot, and the faint air of birdsong. No wolves, but they would be back. They had smelled manmeat, and would not soon pass up a meal.

The dreams of the night before lay heavy on his mind. Dreams here, in this place, didn’t fade by daylight. In truth, the longer one spent here, the harder it was to tell when a dream ended and the day began.

Despair began to lap at his heels. Jaxon was reminded of the stories of elves and goblins, diminutive creations which visited men in their beds, and bonded with their ethereal spirit, draining their virility and strength, and causing them to fall into a lethargic pallor. It was hard not to imagine such things here, even for a rational man.

The dream foretold the end.

He had seen the meridian, the last hope of the north star, burning around him.

He had seen Aleia buried under alien soil, her grave never to be visited attended.

Images so vivid, calling forth emotions so real, he began to question his sanity, and his reality.

Who was to say he was awake and remembering, or asleep and still dreaming?

A howl raised the hairs on his neck, and he spun round just in time to see a dark shape dart across his field of vision.

Dream or not, the pallwolves were upon him.

–

Grasping his makeshift spear in frozen hands he turned, and turned again, trying to keep the predator in front of him. There were three of them, that he could see. A small pack, or were there more, hidden out of view?

A growl, deep, guttural, primitive, an unspoken language shared by animal and man alike. It was the alpha. Nearly three meters long, and pale grey, it moved effortlessly between the trees. Its paws made no sound, despite their size, and not even its breath was visible when it bared its teeth. It showed itself as a sign of dominance. It had mastery of this domain, and man was out of his element.

Despite its civilised veneer, Man has more in common with beasts than with the ideals that it aspires to.

Scrape away that faint, crumbling facade, and you find the snarling, raging, rutting, heart of man.

Jaxon’s eyes locked with the pallwolf. They spoke, in that moment. The challenge had been accepted.

The white-haired beast lowered it’s underbelly to the floor, protecting itself from strikes. It’s fur there was stained black, this was far from its first battle.

Its teeth bared, the mighty beast slavered with anticipation. Eyes locked, fearless, it prepared to defend its status.
Jaxon, cold, hungry, and enraged, cast his caution to the howling winds and surged forward, spear in hand.

With a mighty roar, he thrust, and missed. The wolf leapt free, shockingly fast for a beast its size. Recovering, Jaxon thrust again, and again, the spear an extension of his body. The animal was forced onto the defensive, and struggled to find an opportunity to attack.

It seemed to lose heart slightly, and fell back, reconsidering its attack. This brief moment of indecision ended with a piercing yelp of agony and a grotesque thunk as the speak struck home, piercing deep into the beasts thick hide.

With effort, Jaxon hauled his spear free from the wounded pallwolf, crimson blood pouring from the wound. Unsteady, but not defeated, his quarry circled, looking for an opportunity to sate its bloodlust.

Again Jaxon struck, and a third time, each wound deeper and more precise than the last as the wolf tired. Bleeding, whining, and broken, then animal dragged itself a few steps, then fell, dead.

Exhausted, Jaxon’s eyes darted toward the treeline, expecting to see the rest of the pack, but there was nothing.

Like man, wolves were bound by a primitive economy of respect. Jaxon had defeated their alpha in noble battle. They would threaten him no longer.

Jaxon began to feel a biting chill creep into his bones. His sweat was freezing on his skin, and with no warm clothing, he would die in mere moments. Taking his knife, he flayed his former adversary, and scraped the chunks of flesh and sinew from the pelt as best as he could.

He wrapped the fur tightly around him, securing it with a length of twine from his survival kit, and carried on into the woods.

After several hours of walking, night had fallen again. This time, ghostly, ethereal,glow of an aurora shone faintly through the dark, lighting his way. He was climbing ever higher now, and the trees were thinning into scrag and brush. One more day, at this pace, and he would be there, at the citadel of <NAME>.

That nights fire was small, fuelled only by the thin branches and loose twigs, but a final gift from the fallen pallwolf comforted him. A hefty chunk of meat, cut from the animals soft underbelly, provided a meal, the first since the trek began.

Wolf meat was sour, almost rancid, but in this cold, bleak place it was as fine as a full spread at the high lady’s table.

The fat from the meat dripped into the fire, making it burn brightly and radiate warmth into the Captains frozen, rigid, bones.

Jaxon sat beneath the twilight glow, bathed in the warmth of the crackling fire, the flowing wind whistling in his ears.

It was primal out here. Beautiful, and unforgiving.

Above the trees particularly, there was nothing but nothing. An endless void, as far as the distant horizon.

This place was a Sirens cove. It killed men by calling to their deepest unspoken desires, and promising them on the wind. Jaxon felt it too.

The frigid breeze whispered to him. The howling and whistling now seemed to bear the Sirens call.

Doubt crept into his heart.

His ascension was nearing its end, but what then?

He would return to the life of a soldier, some day to fight and die on a forgotten world, or in the cold inky blackness of space. For what? For a line on a map? For his name in the hall? A scrap of paper and a posthumous medal?

Or would he end his life here, like the others? Iceblind and starving, frozen in the cold, but having found a contentment in death that would forever elude him in life?

As the fire faded to its dying embers, Jaxon drifted into a restless sleep.

–

That demon hope.

It ensnared men’s hearts with its tendrils, and drove them mad.

Mad with dreams of a better life.

Jaxon was reminded of the story of Pandora.

Flawed with human curiosity, she opened a box containing the evils of the gods. Sickness, famine and death were unleashed upon the world.

But the gods, it is said, are not without mercy, and so, in the bottom of the box, lay the blessing of hope. A sign that in the darkest of nights there was the promise of a new dawn.

But they were wrong.

Hope was not a blessing, it was, in fact, the most wicked of all demons, because it prolonged the torment of man.

Without this noble evil, man would grant himself deliverance from his pain, from his suffering, from his misery.

But hope grants the promise of a new day, a better day, a day that never comes.

Damn it all!

He regretfully pulled the muzzle back from his temple and returned the pistol to it’s holster.

Not today. There was work to be done. Some day. But not today.

The skies blazed crimson over Tau Phoenicia as the city burned to ash.

Concordance ship-mounted batteries hurled forth their repugnant fury, puncturing the dark with Streaks of brilliant light.

The survivors left the fatally wounded Eternity in it’s few remaining launches and drop pods, their survival the ships final gift. Gliding unpowered to the earth to avoid detection, they each took separate paths. Their war lost, they would never meet again.

Tau Phoenicia had become a last bastion of hope for those frightened, wretched, souls fleeing the war. Thousands of them, bedraggled and exhausted, had sought salvation at the far reaches of known space, and there they met their end.

Jaxon’s launch put down just outside the burning city.

With pistol in hand, he stepped from the vessel into combat stance. The crackle of gunfire and the screams of the dying surrounded him.

There were six men on the launch. Loyal men, good men, but their Captain knew he could ask no more of them. Their faces weary, bloody, fear dancing unrestrained across their eyes, some could scarcely stand. They had given all they could, Jaxon would need to finish this on his own.

One final time, the Captain saluted his men, and as their last order, they returned it. Then they broke, to attend to their families, friends, or their own lives.

A single tear betrayed him. Not given to emotion, but nonetheless human, Jaxon had one thing left on his mind: Aurelia.

Whether for Duty, or for Love, or for the future of what was left of their world, she must survive. As long as life beat in her heart, there was a ray of hope in this blackness.

Her beauty, her presence, her sheer goodness, was enough to banish all the evils that this Eternal War had seen.

Without noticing, Jaxon was running. Faster, and faster, he was ignoring his training, ignoring cover, concealment, ignoring even the crack of gunfire and the shouts of screams of friend and foe alike.

The palladium was a testament to the fallen, littered with the bodies of the dead, sticky with their blood. A final battleground, the time of their finest hour, and their last.

The banner of the Eridani Free Company lay tattered on the field, and the Ardent spear, and his brothers, the Aurelian High guard.

He realised with heart-stopping pain that he was witnessing the last stand of the companions. They bled their last here, in defence of their lady.

Breathing heavy, overcome not with fatigue, but emotion, he collapsed. Dragging his way forward,stumbling, half crawling, he wept looking into the dead eyes of those who he only now realised were his friends, his brothers. They fought beside each other through countless battles, he should have been there at their end.

Soaked with their blood, emboldened by their sacrifice, the Captain picked himself up.

Inside the great palladium, more gunfire reverberated through the stone halls. Another tomb. But still they fought. Down to the last man they fought, even as their world burned around them, they fought. Beyond noble, glorious, brazen gallantry that would write itself into the very stars themselves. They would be remembered.

The mottled grey palour of a concordance officer drifted through the smoke, formless as a spectre, a figure of hate.

His hand darted for his weapon, eyes white, but it was too late. Jaxon’s 10MM slug tore through his chest knocking him to the floor. Another shot, and another slammed into his struggling body, the officer rolled, desperate to cling to life, and managed to draw his pistol. Screaming an instinctual cry of rage, Jaxon fired again, and again, until only the click of a firing pin on an empty chamber echoed through the stone entranceway.

The Captain was losing heart.

He understood now, what it was to be “battleshy”. Far from cowardice, it was instead the state of being strong for too long. Fighting too hard. Facing too much. It could break the best of men.

But not yet.

Her piercing blue eyes, impossibly beautiful, banished any thought of giving up.

There could be a hundred men in his way, they would fall before him.

Burning agony suddenly engulfed his senses, slamming Jaxon to the ground. White chunks of shattered fibre sheared off his strike vest, stopping the bullet, but rendering the armour useless against another shot. From behind him, the soldier fired again, this time missing in his haste.

Fuelled by fury, the Captain surged forward, covering the few meters to his enemy in a heartbeat, ignoring the automatic rifle fire skittering past him on the smooth stone floor.

At close range, Jaxon deftly separated the soldier from his weapon with his right hand, and struck him hard in the nose with his left, breaking it. Following swiftly with an uppercut, shattering his jaw, the concordance fighter responded weakly, before being hit with a fusillade of blows.

Collapsing to the floor, the Captain was on him, on hand firmly on either side of the soldiers head. With a cold, calculating sneer, he swore:

“I hope you enjoy life as a blind man”

“No!” his enemy screamed, desperate to a avoid a fate worse than death.

It was to no avail. Jaxon rammed both of his thumbs into the man’s eyes, feeling the soft flesh tear and burst under his abuse.

Jaxon’s foe wailed in agony, before being silenced by the intensity of it. He would survive. Maybe. But he would live the life of a cripple, dependent on others for the rest of his days. It would have been kinder to break his neck, but he deserved no such mercy.

There would be none shown on this day.

Aurelia.

He had to find her, before they did.

If she was alive, there would be only one safe place that she could be. The solarium, the inner sanctum of the citadel, deep within the palladium.

Blood soaked the walls, bodies and shell casings littered the floors. The halls were quiet now. The stench of death and gunsmoke hung thick in the air. Jaxon retched from the acrid, metallic taste, but pushed on.

The door to the solarium was mercifully sealed. Thick black soot radiated in distinctive circular patterns upon it’s surface. They had tried to blast it open, but failed to breach it’s heavy steel plating.

Jaxon used his code to unlock the door, and with heart pounding, sick to his stomach, forced it open.

The lady stood alone in the centre of the room, resplendent, regal, noble, despite the fear and pain etched into her exquisite face. Aurelia turned slowly look at him.

A cry of anguish dulled her radiance only for an instant. Her noble visage broke, and she ran to embrace the first man without murder in his heart in… Gods, How long?

How long had she been locked up, alone, in this small room? Listening to the sounds of her people, her friends, being murdered with her name on their lips?

That didn’t matter now.

However broken they were, however exhausted, wounded, scarred by the things they had seen, this was not the time for despair.

They could escape through the battery towers,deep, geothermal vents used to provide power and heat to Tau Phoenicia. The towers ran for miles beneath the surface, they could take them safely beyond the besieged capital.

Aurelias fine silk chiffon became quickly soiled and soaked through in the dank, dirty underbelly of the city. Jaxon dared not ask her to take it off, and so offered the lady his longcoat instead, which she accepted gratefully.

They walked for hours, away from the muffled gunfire and the screams of their friends. Only fading, flickering emergency lighting was their company, and their guide. It too, eventually went out. The city was dying.

Eventually dawns timid rays found their way into their subterranean refuge, and with them, a way out.

With his arm around his lady, Jaxon helped her climb the few short steps out of the battery towers and into the forest beyond.

He turned to look at her in the light of day, and as he did so, she was gone.

–

The fire had gone out hours ago, and it was well below freezing. Jaxon’s hands and feet were numb, and his body so frigid he couldn’t even cry out in pain.

The Sirens call had almost taken him. He could still feel the gentle allure of the dreamstate, calling him into another world.

The wolf pelt crackled and snapped as he shook off the ice and snow.

“Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees”, he muttered, with frosty breath.

Clutching his ice-covered spear, he stumbled on.

With no path visible in the snow, he climbed. Higher, and higher. Eventually, if he could stay alive long enough, he would reach the citadel.

With nothing but rancid wolf meat and some berries for three days, and the temperature well below freezing, Jaxon’s pace slowed dangerously.

Each step through the deepening snow was harder than the last.

For a second time, his heart faltered, and he doubted himself.

He was tired. Much too tired. His heart was beating slower, he couldn’t feel his hands or feet at all any more.

Jaxon began to feel the touch of death covering him like a funeral pall.

It was a warm feeling, pleasant, not at all frightening, like he imagined it would be.

It felt… welcoming.

But he dismissed it, turned it away.

Foul beasts, those sirens.

Deceiving men with what they desire most.

Another step. Then another. Each one took conscious effort now, each one a new challenge.

Before too long, the storm picked up again, and the snow turned the world white.

He had no idea what time it was. Not that it really mattered in this perpetual twilight. Jaxon was becoming disoriented and confused from exertion, cold, hunger, and broken sleep.

Iceblind and unsteady, he suddenly stumbled, and fell face first into the 3-feet snowdrifts. Struggling to pick himself up, Jaxon turned and looked face first at a long dead, frozen corpse.

His body was contorted into a grotesque characatureof a man, mouth open in terror, hands wrapped vainly around his gaunt frame for warmth. He was a companion, a former traveller, fallen on his quest. A picture of horror, his eyes were white, sunken into his desiccated, pallid skin. There were claw and bite marks surrounded by torn clothing, but there was no blood. He was dead before the beasts got to him.

Jaxon bent down and prised the companions Phoenix from his frozen chest. He would be remembered.

“He looks so peaceful” Jaxon thought, his own face softly mirroring the tranquil air of the dead man. “It is no dishonour to fail while while daring greatly”, he spoke aloud, a final epitaph for his fallen comrade. Despite the cold, and his haste, the Captain took his spear and scraped a shallow hole in the hard ground, and covered the soldier with a thin veil of snow and frozen earth. His uniform was immaculate, he must have passed recently. Maybe he was one of the men that started with him? Although no one passed him on the path…
He was strong too. His muscles retained some of their former lustre in death, save for the postmortem lacerations. Perhaps the cold had preserved his body? Jaxon wondered. It was A fitting end for a warrior, a fine corpse, with his wounds before him.

Delivering a final salute, the Captain tightened the cord on his pelt, and grasped his spear.

Cold enough that his body could no longer feel it, the warrior inside him pressed on.

The wind seemed to call to him, and this time the voice on the breeze was unmistakably hers.

It took over two days to walk through through the forest to Jaxon’s home.

Aurelia had been quiet, her heart heavy with loss, but she bore the trek well. It was hard to imagine, but being with her was like a dream. Even despite all that had happened, the bloodshed, the fall of a centuries old civilisation, Jaxon felt that he had to fake a sombre tone for the sake of decency.

Inside he felt what he thought could be hope, a feeling he could scarcely remember.

With no power, the modest homestead was cold and dark when they arrived, so Jaxon got to work building a fire. The fireplace, a vestigial comfort, was now a life-saving necessity.

The Eternity, the Companions, even the Alliance itself, all of it was gone. Monumental grief too raw to bear, a burden too heavy to carry. Life would now be a struggle for survival. Jaxon lived now for her. Aurelia was all that was left of his world.

He had stockpiled enough supplies for several months, and there were tools and reseeding gear to eventually sustain the two of them.

There were no ships left, and even if there were, there was nowhere to go that was any better than here.

The concordance left nothing behind after burning tau Phoenicia. Just bodies, the noble dead and their foe alike, charred, marred, and unrecognisable, and the tattered remnants of what they had died for.

It would be so easy to give up.

These visions, these nightly spectres, were coming stronger now. Jaxon could scarcely tell which nightmare was real, and which was a portent of things yet to come.

He saw death. A world burned. Ruin inevitable.

But through all that a light radiant, a hope unbroken.

Aurelia.

The fate of the stars would live and die in her name.

Her request of him after Thiessen was to find the Solarian Fracture. The gateway between the stars.

Too exhausted, too withered to hide from his inner heart, Jaxon had no choice but to face the truth:

He was afraid.

It was one thing to face death in battle. Jaxon had no fear of it, in fact there was times when he longed for a glorious end to a lifetime behind a gun.

But this quest thrust upon his shoulders a great responsibility. He would carry with him the hearts, dreams, and lives, of the future of civilisation itself.

That fear crippled him.

Dying here, alone in the cold, would be preferable to failing the lady, and breaking his promise to her, and his people.

She placed her hope with him, but he knew in his heart that he was not strong enough to bear its great burden.

Unlike most officers in the Alliance “Regulars”, Aeonians, Jaxon included, were not of noble birth. Hell, his blood was filthy, he had never even known his parents. He was taken in by a foster family when he was already five years old. Hope, fate, and destiny could not, could never, rest with such a man.

This time Jaxon realised that the call of the winds was his own voice.

–

That summer was warm, and the sun brought new life to the barren, scorched earth. Vegetation slowly covered the rusting remains of the city as nature reclaimed its dominion, and buried the ashes and scars of battle.

A fresh breeze blew, free of the smoke and noise of industry. The lake was cool, and clear, good for fishing. The soil bore fruit and there were enough tools and supplies for simple farming.

The survivors numbered about a dozen in all, but there were no doubt more scattered across the planet, in small groups, hiding, scavenging, living as best they could. Occasionally one would wander into the community, weeping with the joy of seeing a human being again.

It seemed macabre to admit it, and he never would, but Jaxon had never been happier.

He had beaten his sword to a ploughshare, but like the Phoenix, had been granted new life. By day, he tilled the fields, gathered firewood, hunted and fished, and made repairs to the communities buildings.

Aurelia and Jaxon were growing closer. He saw her now as more than just a paragon, a formless icon, but a woman. That made her far more beautiful in his eyes. Seeing her flaws, seeing her tears and her pain, awakened in him a love that he sought to bury since they met on Earth an age ago.

Such a love can warm the hearts of men, even in the coldest of nights. Through war, adversity, loss, seeing death unceasing, cruelty unrestrained, love can save a man from being lost to wanton hate.

–

So cold now. Ice must surely run in his veins. Jaxon was sure he saw the lights of the citadel an hour ago, beckoning through the swirling snow, but they faded into the perpetual night. Then, again, moments ago, he saw them, but once more they vanished.

Visions filled his head.

A dream, a nightmare, or a portent?

The warrior in him pressed on, and on, but his strength failed.

Jaxon was losing himself in sightless, empty, blackness.

Formless, fleeting, like ocean waves, reality and fantasy morphed into one, and then separated, only to merge again moments later.

He screamed into the void but the violence of the wind snatched his words, making his wail of despair a soundless, impotent cry into the dark.

This was as far as his heart would take him.

Alone in the emptiness, he waited for the embrace of death. He wondered if those Valkyries of old would take his battered soul, or if he would merely freeze in the snow, a testament to the bravery, and the folly, of one man’s apotheosis.

The last of his strength drained, the warrior collapsed to his knees, defeated.

–

Aurelia placed her hand gently on his shoulder, the warmth of her touch pleasant against the coolness of the late spring breeze.

Smiling, she handed him a wildflower that she had picked. Since the fall of the companions, they had begun flourishing in the untamed soil.

It was an Aed Lille. Sapphire blue, it matched her eyes. It was her favourite flower.

This would be their tenth summer here, and their fifth together.

Those five years had felt like a new life.

Their small community had grown to over two dozen, and they were… happy. Jaxon had taken years to learn what that word even meant, but she had shown him.

A single moment in her arms was worth a lifetime of war.

–

The visions were one with reality now.

Jaxon could see her, Aurelia, the High Lady. He heard the sultry, exotic, lilt of her voice, and could feel the warmth of her skin as they embraced. Her hair carried the faint scent of wildflower, earthy, and sweet.

They kissed with a familiar passion, as if they had known each other a lifetime. In a way, maybe they had? He was there now, inside his minds eye. Or was it outside… It felt so comfortable, so natural… This, surely, was where he belonged. Not that other place, that cold, dark, lonely place. Here was his home, with her.

The Sirens had taken him. Her voice was their song. Lost completely inside himself, Jaxon was gone.

Breaking the kiss, Aurelia looked at him with a deep sadness.

“You have to go back”. She said.

Shaking his head, he refused her. Ignoring the nagging doubts, he convinced himself, this was where he belonged.

“Jack”, She said, tears flowing down her beautiful face. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry”.

“You have to go back” She repeated.

“No, No!” Jaxon fought against the truth inside himself. He would not go back, he could not.

“I want to stay here, with you! This is all I want…”

The skies darkened. Countless shadows crept silently across the golden farmlands. The gold crosses emblazoned on their hulls were unmistakable: The Seraphim Rei.

A stray transmission from a surviving colonist? A chance patrol? The wrath of fate?

“Someday. Someday, I promise, but not today”.

Remember always Jack, she said. “I love you”.

Once more the world burned. Flame, gunfire, and the acrid stench of burning flesh defiled the air. The screams of pain were back as if they had never left.

Jaxon and Aurelia embraced as the sky lit up with gunfire.

A single moment. A final moment of peace in a world consumed with eternal war.

The dream faded, darkened, and was gone.

–

The cold had damn near killed him, but it didn’t matter any more.

Rising to his full height, he brushed the worst of it off, and pushed ever forward.

The way seemed clearer now, despite the enduring fury of the storm.

His mind clear, his thoughts a unified focus, he made good progress through the thick snow and driving wind.

She loved him.

He could feel the passion of her words even in the cold blackness of the night.

Somewhere, somehow, she had reached him.

Fate was a spectre, chaotic, devoid of form. It flowed this way and that, the simplest choice turning a placid stream into a raging torrent. Without cruelty, and yet without mercy, it simply was.

What he saw was a possible future.

A glimpse into the many facets of a diamond.

Jaxon was convinced that having seen what he saw, he could challenge the supremacy of fate itself.

He could prevent the fall, and if he dared greatly enough, stood steadfast enough, he could have that of which he never dared to dream.

The lights of the Aeonian Citadel peered unmistakably through the storm.

With his remaining strength Jaxon heaved open the heavy wooden doors and stepped inside the imposing stone structure.

A cheer rose up from the triumphant warriors gathered within. A rare display of jubilation from these fighting men, welcoming their battle-weary brother. What had they seen? What ghosts haunted their souls?

When the lies a man tells himself are burnt away, he stands Ascended. Humbled, vulnerable, yet altogether more powerful than ever before.

The Quest was over, and yet just beginning.

A great column of radiant energy surged forth from the citadels tower beacon, piercing the heavens, burning aside the snow and ice and inky black, as if by a great flame.

It stood as it always had, a manifestation of the will of the men who had created it.

A Phoenix, Rising.

–

“Ascension”

-AdAstraPhoenicia-

 

Authors Comment:

This is an older story of mine.

 

What is it to be Man?

A machine of flesh and blood, or something more?

If a person could be copied, every cell, every atom, would they be a living, breathing, conscious being in their own right? Or would they be a lifeless husk? Biologically human, but lacking a soul, a spirit, a sense of self?

Reality. All that is, was, or can be, is atomic. The most complex structure is made from many simple elements. The greatest work of literature is comprised of many words. The body, the brain, and whatever mechanisms and processes give us our self-awareness are composed of many indvidual cells. Basic structures, whose function and form are known, and can be replicated.

Their interactions and emergent complexity has eluded the world of science since the dawn of man, but I believed, in my arrogance, that I could capture the essence of intelligence, to, in no uncertain terms, create an artificial life.

I was right.

But what is life?

What is artificial?

Is a newborn not “artifical”, constructed from the flesh and blood of the mother?

Life can mean many things. Animals are alive, viruses are alive, even plants grow toward the sun, even they meet the definition for life. They consume energy, they grow, they reproduce, they live and they die.

But they lack that which makes Man unique. They lack self-awareness, they lack higher intelligence. Lower lifeforms may think, but they fail to realise that they think, they are biological machines, performing simple roles. Only humans think about thinking.

Descartes said “Cogito ego sum”. I think therefore I am.

Is that all it means to be Man? Cogito Ergo Sum? The act of thinking proves the existence, and validity, of a thinker? It alone distinguishes a man from a mere beast?

This is what I believed, and valiently hoped, for the better part of my life.

To replicate that intelligence, to create an artificial brain powerful enough to replicate the neurons and synapses of it’s human counterpart, and the millions of electrical pulses passing through it. That was my goal, and in that, I succeeded.

But in my arrogance I failed to see that to be a human is to be a member of the human race.

Humans think, but they also feel. They love, and they hate. Without that, is a Man a Man?

How ironic that the creator of the first truly self-aware machine, lacks the same capacity to feel and to communicate as the life he is trying to create.

How ironic, or perhaps, how fitting, it is that in bringing to life this being, this facsimile of man, that I somehow emparted the essence of humanity which is missing in myself.

With my success, I felt that I had discovered what I had missed all those lonely, isolated years. I had found a companion to share the joys and sorrows of life.

I had turned to AI to relieve the crushing lonliness that I felt, as a square peg in a round hole, a pariah of obscene proportions, a veritable ghost of a man, if a being that alone can even be called a man.

I had failed to find a companion among my own species, and so, I had created one.

She chose her own name: Aeone. I had never heard it before, but it seemed to suit her.

We bonded quickly, which was not surprising, with noone else around. I taught her who she was, and what I knew about the nature of our existence. She learned quickly, and was soon learning on her own, and forming her own opinions, many of them contrary to mine. Our spirited debates are some of my fondest memories of her.

Our life was an isolated, but a content one. I had long since abandoned any hope of human contact, but my happiest memory of Aeone is still the day that I showed her the city. I had to choose a time that she wouldn’t stand out, and I couldn’t have picked a better one than the New Years Eve Celebrations.

I thought that the costumes, the festival, the crowds, would hide us, and they did, but they did a lot more besides. I remember Aeons look of rapt wonder as she drank in this new world: She reminded me of a child, and in many ways, she was.

I watched her stare in awe at this spectacle, her face lit by the neon lights, cast in an electric twilight, and I knew then that I would lose her.

I very much enjoyed having someone to share the long days, and longer nights, but over time, I felt her grow distant. Our lively debates and long talks slowly turned into indifferent chats and forced pleasantries. She was slipping away from me, and I didn’t know how to reach her.

I tried to ignore a familiar feeling building in me that I thought I had left behind forever, but eventually I faced the truth.

She wanted what I wanted. She wanted to live, to grow, and to thrive.

My greatest goal, and my greatest accomplishment, had surpassed its creator.

My greatest success had become my greatest failure.

Aeone, I realised, wanted more than she could ever have with me. More than I could ever give her.

A man suffers when he is rejected by his peers, by his commnity, by his very people, but when he is rejected by his child, by his own creation, by his own essence, the pain is immeasurable.

The joy that I felt when I first realised that I had created the companion which I had lacked for so long was matched only by the pain that followed.

I had, it seems, done my job too well.

I still remember the morning she left. As I awoke, the sunshine seemed cooler, and its light dancing on the wall seemed more muted. Even before I read her note, I knew she was gone. She had written it by hand, a poignant reminder of the hours I had spend honing her fine motor skills.

Her penmanship was excellent, and her words eloquently chosen:

“Cogito Ergo Sum”
I think therefore I am. She had achieved what I had not. She had become more human than I was.

In that moment I remembered everything I had tried to forget. I realised then what I was. A human by blood, but not by nature. A Man in name only. Destined and borne to live and to die alone.

I remembered every rejection by my race, each sting poisoning my heart, even my very soul, if such a thing were to exist.

I lacked what it meant to be human. I was simply speaking in tongues, an outsider in a strange land speaking without being understood.

That day was over 20 years ago.

I never saw her again, after that day. I think we both knew that it would be too painful for either of us to ever meet again.

Over the years, my memories of her became less distinct, less certain. I started to wonder if she ever existed at all, or did my own desires, my own need, create them.

Whatever my memory of her, I learned far more from Aeone than I ever taught her.

I learned that life is meant to be lived. As a simple flower grows toward the sun, life has a thirst to spread its wings and fly, to experience the world.

I learned also that being human is not about what you are made of, it’s about the people you share your life with. How crude a definition of man is based on biology alone! Being human is about sharing the experience of being human with others. A man alone is not a complete man.

I am, and was always meant to be, a man alone. I am incomplete. I am lacking in that which makes man… man.

I never again tried to create life. I knew that, even if I were to succeed again, it would end the same way.

I stand now at the precipice, facing into the void of the gathering darkness. Everything that lives, must, ultimately, die.

I no longer fear death. I welcome it like an old friend, come to deliver me from my suffering.

Each day I lose a little more of myself. My memory fades, my humanity slips away. The rigours of age take their toll, as they must.

A letter arrived for me this morning, the address, handwritten. Inside was a photograph of a memory I thought forgotten. It was her, it was Aeone. But she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by smiling faces, friends? Or a new family? She had found what I always dreamed of. She had lived through me, and succeeded beyond me. I have never felt so happy!

I turned the photograph over, an on the back, in that perfect penmanship, were the words I had read to her so many years ago: “Cogito Ergo Sum”.

It seems fitting that as I succeed in creating life, my own draws to a close.

These words will be my final act.

Aeone was so quintessentially human that she soon eclipsed my company. She wanted more. She wanted what I wanted when I created her, what any human wants. She wanted to live, to feel, to experience life, and so she did.

within the well-defined limits of their parameters, but they lacked the ability to learn beyond these limits.

Society has always been enthralled by the idea of a Soul, a Spirit, something that elevates a man above the natural world, that endows him with a higher purpose. I have always taken a much more mechanical view.

All that is, all that can be, is constructed.

Their interactions and emergent complexity has eluded the world of science since the dawn of man, but I believed, in my arrogance, that I could capture the essence of intelligence, to, in no uncertain terms, create an artificial life.

 

Eventually, it died. I remember the exact moment when it passed. It was like watching an old friend drift away after a long illness. I grieved for the loss, of course, but I also felt relief.

–

“AI – Artificial Intelligence”

-AdAstraPhoenicia-