I advanced my pawn another space.
"Why do you follow me?" Perry captured one of my bishops with his knight.
"That came out of nowhere." I advanced my knight.
Perry paused and thought carefully about his next series of moves, stroking his clean shaven chin, "It's a legitimate question, Zien," He grinned and captured my queen with his bishop.
My visage did not convey perturbation as I replied, "In what regard do you euphemize, then?" I sat back in the wicker chair and surveyed the board. The tent at the top of the barren hill was privy to much natural light in the early mornings.
He glared up at me over his clay cup of tea, his green-brown eyes penetrating me. I averted eye contact out of habit, "Why do you put up with me?" He inquired, setting his cup on the table which also housed our chess set. Perry mirrored my motion and leaned back in his chair. The gold insignia denoting his position on his breastplate glimmered as the light hit it just right, "This civil war would have been a great opportunity for you to duck out of existence entirely. I know you hate living with people, so why are you still here?"
I grinned, gripping my own cup, filled with water, "Most people seek someone to call 'leader.'"
He sighed, slumping in his chair, "Of course I couldn't expect a direct answer from you. Are you going to regale me about tales depicting the atrocities of humanity, now? I hardly consider you 'most people' and I highly doubt you do, either."
I drank deliberately of the water, then set it down and folded my hands on my lap, leaning back leisurely, "There is no cryptic cipher in that statement, Perry," I wiggled my toes in the soil at the base of the table, "Nature is all about survival through the path of least resistance. It is as true with living creatures as it is with the laws of physics. A minimal expenditure of energy to attain one's desires is what most people seek in life, I am no exception. On the contrary, my juvenile little friend, you are quite the abnormality."
"What?" His lineament contorted, confounded, "How am I the abnormality?"
"You are a born leader, Perry," I gazed up into the folds of the white cotton tent, "Your innate charisma draws people to you. Other, 'normal' people have to exhibit effort to sway someone to their ideology and prospects. As a result, most people find it more fulfilling to bend their knee for someone whose ideals are akin to their own," I made a broad gesture with my arms, "A quick look around would tell anyone that you are not one of those people. You stand against the very nation which reared you for the 'greater good,' as you call it."
"For some reason," Perry clicked his tongue, "I get the impression that you aren't the kind of person who is easily drawn, though." He placed me under cautious examination.
I chuckled, "Means and ends, my friend, means and ends," I leaned forward and advanced my pawn another space, promoting it into a queen, "Check," I leaned back once more, satisfied, and finished my cup of water. He covered his mouth, leaning in and studiously canvassing the board. I added, "It really is just a matter of what is easiest, Perry, don't think on it too hard. You pay and feed me, I work for you. Your destination is mine, though we walk different roads, even if you cannot see it."
"I just don't understand, though," He scratched his head, frazzled, and fell back again, "You're a hundred times more suited to leading an army than I am. Why do you insist on maintaining such a lowly position? Firax needs someone like you commanding, not plodding about in the field!"
I jabbed my index finger into my cheek and propped my head up on it, "I may boast greater experience than you, Perry, but I lack that one crucial element. Have you been listening, at all?" I snapped the fingers of my free hand, eliciting his attention, "The people would never look up to an individual like me, and I would never have them looking up to me. I am but a pawn in your grand machination, my friend. Use me as you will." I chuckled, "Firax needs me? Hah, I don't fight for Firax, Perry."
Perry rested his hands on the arms of his chair, "Then who do you fight for?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I inquired, and when Perry shook his head, answered with a wry grin, "Myself, of course," His face scrunched in suppressed disgust. I pointed my finger to the standing board to my left, "See the map on that board, there?" He nodded, glancing over briefly, "Where is the Yuyulan river?"
He sighed, "I'm in no mood to humor your rubbish right now, Zien…" I cocked an eyebrow coyly. He grumbled and rubbed his head, "You know this, man, it's the border river to the west. Separating Firax and Yuragai."
"And I presume you are familiar with Detash, the independent village which lies on this river, yes?" He nodded unenthusiastically, "Detash lies on both the east and the west side of the river. Daily, the people of Detash wade to and fro the 'border' of the two nations between the shallows at the northern rift. In their simple way of life they don't care or even consider the fact that they illegally cross borders with frequency."
Perry tossed his hands, "They don't have to! They are independent!"
"Exactly!" I leaned forward, wagging my finger under Perry's nose, "To them, and to me, the lines on that map," I leaned back and tossed my finger to the board once more, "don't mean a damn thing! How do you think we humans have a right to claim and partition land? All I care about is surviving and making my environment one I can tolerate living in," I picked my cup up once more, forgetting that I had drained it of its contents, and set it down, "That's why I fight for you, Perry. I bend my knee because I believe that you are capable of making the environment which I inhabit one which I am not ashamed to call home."
Perry groaned. I laughed; when he was younger he would revel in my stories. While he still heeded my immediate advice, the more significant connotations of my conversations were lost on his naïveté, "So you're using me, then?" He chuckled, "Well I can't say I'm surprised about that. If you're really content being a pawn, I won't argue… But no matter how strong a pawn becomes," He leaned in and captured my recently-promoted queen with his castle, "he is but a mortal."
I grinned, "Indeed he is," I advanced my knight, "and a pawn nonetheless," I grabbed Perry's clayware glass and finished his tea. I was extremely thirsty; it was hot that day, "Checkmate."
"Son of a bitch!"
"Thanks." I accepted his compliment.
-----
We left the tent after breakfast. Perry was to make his debut morale speech; no trifling matter considering the circumstances. He walked onto the hastily erected wood dais at the peak of the hill where his tent was situated. There was no splendorous grandeur, here. Everyone knew what to expect, everyone here was devoted to their naïf beliefs.
It was early winter; but in Firax, where the weather is always temperate, there was still much greenery to be seen. Much of it, however, had been trampled in the erection of the advancing camp which sprawled out throughout the valley before the hill. There was an air of death on the wind; both of artificial and natural origins. The people were destitute. It disgusted me.
I sat on the ground a few meters back from the ambo and let Perry mount it alone. A few meters to my left was a mage incanting a spell of transmittance. He was the sole mage who joined our cause, and not even a member of the Firax military, at that. A mercenary, evidently well respected for his craft, and one of the very few mages scattered throughout the world.
I chuckled to myself; in this world humans were not very proficient in magic. That man, Garret, was putting all of his focus into a relatively simple Wind-type spell. I could not even remember the last time I needed to incant a spell. Of course I also had several millennia to practice my arts, even if half of that time was spent impotent.
The spell altered the density of the air around Perry's podium on one side of the flow, a sort of "wall" in the atmosphere, and redirected it to greater amplitude on the transmitting or sending end. Then, all throughout the camp, there were sustained access points for mana flows which would pull in and soften the excess decibels which would roar from the dais. The end result was a clear, consistent phoning which would carry Perry's voice throughout the camp without boosting the concussive force of the sound waves to a harmful or uncomfortable extent. The spell did not operate unlike an electrical speaker, though no one on this planet knew very much about that manner of technology…
The flows required for each access point were very simple, but the concentration required to sustain so many made the process exponentially more difficult. On top of that, the vastly more complex spell of transmittance surrounding the dais needed more immediate attention. Garret was struggling, but maintaining nonetheless, and considering the lackluster proficiency most people on Khazzak held for magic his efforts were commendable. As I said, though, an equivalent spell of an Earth affinity would be a trifling mater for me.
Perry grabbed the small iron hand bell sitting on the wobbly table, the unadorned symbol of the Firax standard, and drew his gold worked dagger. The blade is a very rare make, elaborately and painstakingly crafted, commissioned only to field marshals and repossessed after their deaths, it was a symbol of authority and honor for the people of Firax; how amusing that it was now in the hands of a traitor.
He slapped the flat of the dagger's blade against the bell, the ringing resounding robustly throughout the entire encampment. Garret had finished his incantations and was now in a meditative trance, putting all of his concentration on holding the spells.
The camp fell deathly silent after the bell's ringing stopped, not that it was particularly obstreperous to begin with. There was no formation, here; there was no organization or grandiose precessions. Men and women left the confines of their tent or stood from their seats, all eyes cast upwards towards the hill. Perry set the bell down, but maintained his grip on the blade.
The air was crisp and the atmosphere dejected as Perry began, "My loyal Firax comrades… There is no easy way to say this; but if we were the type of men and women to shy away from adversity, not a single one of us would be standing here!" Perry really was a natural born leader. Not once since his induction ceremony had he ever rehearsed or written a speech. He said what came naturally to mind, and the nescient masses consumed it with zest.
"Nay! You have faced the walls of Jubilee in Gangurria! You were steadfast at the battle of Yuwann in the Fellona plains! When you faced insurmountable odds at Sannarax, with the river to your back and the mountains to your flank YOU PERSEVERED! You have stared in the face of death and spat, time and time again!"
With the ego stroke out of the way, which seemed to elicit little to no adulation, Perry jumped into the heart of the matter, "And it is because you are audacious that each and every one of us stands here today. Because we believe that what we are doing is just. I look out upon your faces and I see the honorable soldiers who will go down in legend as the men and women who liberated the world from tyranny. We fight for a better tomorrow, not only for ourselves but for the world as a whole!"
I noticed more crowd reaction to that statement. The people here really were diluted into believing their own lies, "Our self-proclaimed lord and king would sooner have our beautiful world bathed in blood - for no better reason than to line his coffers! - than listen to the pleas of his people." A few clusters of soldiers shouted at this, and Perry continued, "He would have raped nation after nation of their dignity and lives, had he the manpower to do it. Does he speak for us? DOES HE SPEAK FOR FIRAX?!"
A blood curdling roar shook the very earth as the people expressed their derision, "Precisely!" Perry lifted the dagger into the air, "To live in the lap of luxury, our 'illustrious' leader demands that his charge fall upon their own blades; that his serfs wallow in deplorable conditions and dilapidated housing; that his people's purse strings be sundered open by grievous taxes! I lost my mother to the plague, merely one of many whose life could have been saved were we capable of affording the proper treatment! I am not alone in my personal suffering, am I?!" Another roar manifested.
"Will we tolerate this negligence any longer?" Men and women tossed their fists in the air and incoherently vociferated a negative reply, "Are we going to slaughter innocent people at the whim of an apathetic tyrant?" Again, another display of vehemence, "Does even a single one of you believe that what we fight for is in vain, that our sacrifice will not bear fruit?!" I grinned and raised my finger, hiding it away from sight. The people roared one more time, so obnoxiously that I actually covered my ears.
Perry lowered the dagger, sheathing it, and paced back and forth across the platform until the noise subsided. He displayed a countenance of authority and majesty as he continued, "We march upon our beloved capitol! We advance on the land of our birth, the land of our ancestry! We will stand against our kin, our people, and we will fight with vigor! Be not fooled, my comrades, there will be bloodshed and there will be strife! You are not strangers to war, nor to the atrocities of flagrant manslaughter. It will be no different, here, against our very own brothers in arms." The air ceased its trembling as every single voice hushed over. Perry was steeling the men for the reality of their situation - one which everyone denied until this point.
He's really selling it. I laughed to myself.
"And it is because of this, my valiant and proud companions, that we must strike decisively and without hesitation! For with every fault of heart we exhibit there will be yet another life lost. This war is unlike any other; there will be no victor. For every man whose blade falls short of his target there will be yet more blood lost in that single act of hesitation than ever there could be, otherwise. I know it is much to ask of you, my army, my family, but you must obliterate any shred of doubt you hold in your heart right here and now."
Again, eerie silence, "As unorthodox as it sounds," Perry's voice faltered a little as he choked, "To salvage the few lives that can be saved from this war: we must… kill without hesitation…" The men could not see it, but from my vantage it was clear that Perry was shedding lachrymal fluid. Perry finished with renewed vigor, "Our weak hearts are what separate us from the animals, men!" Complete rubbish, I thought, "But I must ask that you suspend this weakness until after our conquest! What say you?! Will you do me the honors of standing with me, arm in arm, against the thralls of madness and the face of abhorrence?!"
-----
The soldiers thundered for hours. I believe that Perry's display of compassion, that very weakness which he condemned, actually served to stoke their resolve. The battle hardened men and women of the dissenter army knew that their genius tactician and field marshal had never seen the brutality of combat up close, and there was a parental mentality which infected them because of this.
Perry Allerrgen; a man who had never ridden his horse into the fields of humor; who had never seen the oceans of blood and offal; who had never been forced to kill his own companions in an act of mercy. This man was the essence of innocence which both the army and I sought to protect.