Aiden looked out his prison window at the skies above that morning; hoping to gaze one last time at the castle of Riffendow. That morning was dark, and a fog had just rolled in after the terrible storm the night before and it blanketed the kingdom. On a more blessed day this Kingdom would have illuminated brightly and the decorative features that adorned the white buildings would radiate light off of them creating an almost heavenly atmosphere. But today was not a day for blessings and today Aiden would face judgement before the king along with the rest of the survivors who made it back from their failed mission.
A loud bell echoed through the prison hall and it was time for the prisoners to awake and proceed to the great plaza to receive the king's judgement. As the gates to the cells were opened, men stumbled out of their cells looking fatigued. Aiden got up trying to shake loose some of the dirt and grime from his ragged uniform which was already looking worse for wear. His short brown hair was matted and caked in mud that had dried overnight. Most of his wounds were minor but the thing that hurt the most were his feet. Aiden was a runner for the army which meant he had to constantly supply the front lines and due any another duties that were beneath a soldier.
Before leaving his cell, he tried to help his cellmate Huren up from his cot. He was one of the older soldiers in their unit and to Aiden Huren had more honor and bravery than all the knights of Riffendow.
"Thank you, Aiden, but I can help myself," Huren said as he slowly pulled himself up using a broken wooden staff to keep his balance. It pained Aiden to see Huren like this. He was old but our last mission nearly killed him. Huren had raised Aiden since he was a small child and trained him in the ways of the oath knights. He was like a father to him and in this world, he was all he had left.
As Aiden left his cell with Huren, he reached inside his shirt pocket to grab an emerald brooch. He rubbed the top of it with his fingers feeling the grooves of the emerald.
Aiden paused for a moment and tried to remember the moment he was given the brooch. The memory was still somewhat vivid in his mind and it was just before their unit escaped realm two.
…
"Aiden, hurry it up!" Lochlan screamed. Aiden was helping the last of the soldiers up the hill towards the warpgate home. In the distance, a flare was rising up from a field of black smoke which signified defeat and for any remaining soldiers to retreat. The only thing he remembered prior was being told by one of the knights to run to the warpgate and get as many people through as possible. After that it was mostly just a blur, smoke and fire were making the battlefield barely visible. Aiden tried not to dwell on what happened and was trying to stay grounded in the present.
"They lost! If we stay any longer, we'll be next and awaiting the king's judgement is better than this fate." Lochlan said as he finished activating the warpgate.
Looking out at the massive battle in the distance, all that could be seen was black plumes of smoke and fire while the only sounds accompanying it were the audible screams echoing in the night. Aiden looked down the hilltop from where his unit were setting up to leave and noticed a girl laying down against her fallen horse. Her movements were subtle, but they indicated she still had some life left.
Protect the Innocent, Aiden thought.
That was one of the oaths that a person took before becoming an oath knight. He wasn't a knight himself, but Aiden valued that oath all the same. That girl, even though she wore the colours of his enemies she was still an innocent. He was about to go down and try and bring her with them, but suddenly Lochlan approached him.
Lochlan tried to grab Aiden's arm, but he pulled free running towards the girl. Lochlan just shook his head and made his way to the warpgate that would send them back home.
"If I can save just one more life. Just one." Aiden muttered to himself.
Aiden ran up to the girl and noticed her holding a cloth to her abdomen. It was soaked in blood and it dripped down on her blue tunic. She was crying but it seemed that she was more focused on the chaos going on in the fields rather than her own wound.
Aiden knelt down and tried to see the wound for himself but upon seeing it he knew that she wasn't going to make it. The girl looked up at Aiden and her eyes were a pale green but before Aiden could say anything, she unfastened a brooch from her dress. She reached for Aiden's hand and placed the brooch in it.
"We are not your enemy anymore. This is only the beginning; they will march upon every realm and consume them in darkness. Make them see before it's too late."
She was starting to fade now but the despair in her eyes was still ever present. "We need hope more than anything right now. Light the beacon. Light the….," before she could finish, she slumped down and she was gone.
Holding the brooch in his hand, Aiden rushed back to the warpgate where Lochlan was preparing to close it. "Why did you try to help that girl down there? Even after everything that's happened you still want to help them."
"They're not our enemy anymore…" Aiden said quietly.
"I don't think it matters now. There won't be any of them left after today." Lochlan said before spitting blood on the ground.
"They won't believe us Lochlan. Our goal was to take control of this portion of the realm and get their people to join under our banner." Aiden was in a panic now, but Lochlan clasped his hands on Aiden's shoulders.
"We tell them what we saw here, and we'll figure out what move to make next." Lochlan said.
They both proceeded to exit through the warpgate and once they were through, it turned to ash and fell to the ground where the winds took it away.
…
Lochlan noticed Aiden in the hallway of the prison and approached him, startling him in the process. Aiden was still holding that piece of jewelry in his hand and Lochlan looked at it with interest.
"What's that piece of jewelry, you got there?" Lochlan asked as he wiped his forehead with a rag, cleaning off the oil and dirt.
"Remember that girl that I tried to help last night? She handed me this brooch and was rambling on about... lighting some sort of beacon." Aiden passed the brooch to Lochlan. Lochlan held it to the light, slowly turning it, watching the light reflect off its metal housing and emerald centre piece.
"Sometimes people say profound things when they die, nothing more than the ramblings of the dead. You should be worrying about your own skin. Start saying your prayers because were about to see the All Spirt soon. You're young Aiden, same goes for Flora and some of the others. None of you deserve this end."
Handing back the brooch to Aiden, Lochlan went back to check on some of the others in the hallway.
Standing there, Aiden wondered if prayers would help this sorry lot. What their army did goes against the precepts. Aside from himself and the four soldiers who went out to due battle in that godless field, the rest of his unit was stationed at the warpgate miles away.
Would the All Spirit at least spare them? What about Flora, surely, she would be pardoned. Aiden thought to himself.
She was the surgeon of Aiden's unit. Aiden barely knew her, but she was around his age and was deployed to his unit after the last surgeon was killed in a previous battle. What stood out the most was her light green hair, and that joyful smile.
All through the night, she worked tirelessly on many of the wounded soldiers cauterizing and stitching their wounds shut. To Aiden, she was what the precepts tried to preach to the people and where many others failed in understanding. People put their beliefs and faith in the All Spirit but it's the acts of mortals saving one another where true faith is born. Not in some almighty spirit who doesn't respond to our cries for help. Aiden wished he could be more like her and not the scared, anxious boy he's been his whole life.
Looking at the ground, he collapsed to his knees and was suddenly filled with emotion. Tears ran down his face and he couldn't keep it together much longer. Huren promised him that he would train him to become a soldier and give him the opportunity to become an oath knight. But now he would die a useless runner who's only purpose was carrying supplies and crates to those soldiers and knights he envied so much.
The other soldiers were too busy mourning their own losses to notice Aiden sobbing just outside his cell.
Lochlan made his way to Flora just at the end of the stone hallway tending to a soldier on a wooden table. The stone floor around the table was covered in rags and cloth that were sitting in small pools of blood and muddied water.
Flora managed to plead with the guards enough so she could help save some of these soldiers instead of being locked in a cell overnight. Lochlan liked that about her – her caring attitude and unyielding responsibility to do her duty.
Upon seeing Flora, Lochlan glanced at her hands which were trembling as they tried to hold the needle and thread in place. "Here," Lochlan said as he took over to help her tie a leg wound shut on the injured soldier.
"Thank you, I didn't know soldiers were trained in medicine." Flora said looking drained.
"We're not, but when you're stuck in the fields fighting you need to learn how to do these things yourself. There's not always a surgeon around who can help." Lochlan said as he finished stitching and then proceeding to wipe his hands with one of the clean rags.
"I want to know something. How many of these soldiers were sent out to fight in those fields?" Lochlan asked.
"The four that did manage to make it out of there were gravely injured…they died last night. I couldn't save them." Flora said as she sat down on a wooden stool by the wall trying to catch her breath.
"That's too bad, I wanted to ask them what they saw out there. I still wonder what changed in the oath knights to abandon our cause and join the enemy."
"Out of everything that's happened, that's what your thinking about? Not the fact that we barely got out of there or that we're about to be executed?" Flora asked as she untied her surgery apron.
"We all worry about different things child, nothing wrong with trying to make sense of what happened."
"What do you think happened last night, Lochlan," Flora said looking somber.
"What do I think? I think we abandoned the All Spirit and he abandoned us. Why we made it of there and still live is beyond me. But we will meet our ends soon enough."
Flora got up and went to hold Lochlan's hands but before she knew it, she was embracing him in a hug, tearful and mourning the soldiers she couldn't save. She didn't want to die either, but she wondered how many people had to die before this realm controlled all five.
…
As Huren made his way to the front of the prison hall, he was greeted by two other surviving soldiers, Calum and Leith. They were brothers, Leith being the older one but aside from Leith's beard – the two of them were nearly identical. Blue eyes and short blonde hair were their defining looks. Huren nodded to them but before they could converse, the guard rang another bell telling them it was time to make their way up from the prison to see the king. Another guard placed irons on their hands and feet and locked them in place forcing them in a single file line. After he was finished, he walked up to the front of the line and spoke to the prisoners.
"You traitors are being sent to the great plaza and will be judged by the king himself under the guidance of the All Spirit. The walk from here is a long one, so if you want to keep your eyes, I suggest you keep them covered lest you want them taken out by one of the onlookers throwing rocks. If you want to keep your head, that's a different story." As the guard said this it brought on a guffaw from the other guards.
Many of the survivors knew that what was about to happen was wrong, but they put on what little courage and dignity they had left and walked out of the prison into the streets of Riffendow.