In the corner of the battle celebration, two friends talked while stoking a fire.
"So after you ate that 'boon' your body became different and you can even survive decapitation?" Renault asked.
"Yeah, I would be dead otherwise. I don't know what it did to me but I don't think I'm human anymore," Garrett replied.
He shivered, despite the warmth of the fire. Renault had been his brother-in-arms for over a decade. They'd survived countless battles together, saving each other's lives more times than he could count. Garrett hoped their luck would hold.
"Of course you're human! The boon is a gift from the lord on to us mortals, it gives us some of his abilities!"
Garrett and Renault were startled to find two young men wearing formal clothes, seemingly appearing from the shadows.
One met his gaze with a disarming smile that didn't reach his cold, cunning eyes. The other hung back, face obscured beneath a hood. Their stealthy approach set Garrett on edge. These were no ordinary people.
Even though they should attack, Garrett was curious. He also had the confidence that he couldn't die. "Who are you?"
"Well we're from the Church on a mission right now. It's what brought us here!"
"What was your mission if you had to come all the way here?"
"Chaos of course!"
The young man narrowed his eyes on Garrett as he raised to either side. "Leader of the Rebellion, as a follower of the Church you must follow its doctrines, yes?"
Garrett tried to respond but he felt weird, his voice opened as words that weren't his own escaped from his breath.
"Of course, I will do anything the Church requires."
"Garrett?"
The man smiled. "Great! Now kill everyone here. Slaughter your men."
To Garrett's horror, his body picked up his axe laying beside him as he turned towards Renault.
Garrett's axe thudded into the earth mere inches from Renault's boots. "Garrett! It's me!" Renault stumbled back, hands raised. Garrett wrenched his axe free and advanced again, pupils contracting to pinpricks. He had become a passenger in his own traitorous body.
"Garrett? What are you doing? Is this because of the boon they gave you?" Renault turned his head to the two from the Church. "What did you do to him!"
Crgk
It was too late to stop, Garrett's axe was already halfway through Renault's neck. His arm pulled out the axe and with another swing Renault's head was lopped off.
"Good, now kill the rest."
Like a puppet, Garrett walked to his men, some close by heard a commotion and were already walking towards their leader.
"What's wrong Lea-"
A head flew from its shoulders as the rest looked on in horror. Garrett was trapped in his mind like a passenger as he watched through his eyes. He saw himself killing his men brutally and with efficiency, slowly killing some while quickly finishing others.
He had already broken down from killing Renault, if he had control of his body he would be holding his head while crying and sobbing in horror. But none of that happened and he had to watch as he continued the massacre of his own people.
Garrett's axe slashed through another neck, but his mind was back to his village years ago. Garrett pictured Taylor as she was the last time he saw her, joyfully tying a crown of purple cornflowers in her chestnut hair.
Their delicate aroma returned to him on the iron stench of blood. She'd grinned up at him, two bottom teeth missing, and promised they'd visit the peddler's carts at the summer fair again next year.
But the imperials had extinguished her fiery spirit mere hours later, her screams echoing in his memory over the cries of dying men.
It was like he was reliving the night the imperial soldiers dragged his wife and daughter from their home as he watched helplessly, rage and grief rising in his throat like bile.
He had sworn vengeance ever since, doing anything for the chance to make the empire pay. And now the deaths of his own men brought that night's anguish flooding back. How many more loved ones would he lose to others?
Garrett strained with all his might to divert his axe, but his puppet limbs barely twitched. The blade sliced into a soldier's shoulder instead of his neck. The man wailed, clutching at the wound as he crumpled.
Garrett recoiled in anguish, trapped in his own mind as his body mechanically raised the axe again. He was forced to observe each agonizing detail as the massacre unfolded - the gurgling cries, the stench of voided bowels, the growing slickness of the mud underfoot.
It took almost an hour for everyone to die, he even had to chase a few who escaped into the swamp. Garrett could feel his body slowly return to him as he looked down at his hands and saw blood, all he saw was blood.
"Haha good job! With this chaos will spread even more and the Empire won't stabilize hehehe!"
Garrett turned to the two from the Church, they looked immune to the carnage around them.
"With this we can head back! Everyone has gotten time to train while we had to do errands cause was weak! But now it's all over and we can have a break and train! Aren't you happy brother! These last few months really stunk!"
The quiet one responded quietly, Garrett could almost not hear him. "I suppose so. I'm just glad we can help the Church."
"Why would you want that! We-"
The talkative brother began to complain to his other about the annoyance of having to come here. Garrett watched this unfold before him and anger rose.
'He's annoyed he had to come here. He controlled me to kill everyone! My best friend, my brothers! He controlled me to kill them all! Why! ....Why! Why do this to us! We only wanted what was best!'
His erratic thoughts transferred to his body as he screamed out in despair. "Why! How is killing all these people so worthless in your eyes! How!"
The two looked at Garrett with astonishment. "Hey, how are you able to talk without being spoken to? Do you still have free will? Hey bro how is this possible?"
'What? Are they treating me like some servant!'
"Of course I have free will! I am human! I am a person!"
Disgust swept the pair's face. "No your not. You took that false boon, that makes you a creature of war. The Church has lots of animals like you, they were created by Bishop Yonio."
One of them then looked to the other. "Should we take him back now or just kill him? We have to tell the Bishop about this, a war animal having free will shouldn't be possible."
The quiet brother fixed Garrett with an impassive silver gaze, assessing him like a specimen. His next words confirmed it.
"The subject is experiencing emotional distress but has failed physically. We may yet glean some insight into the flawed augmentation methods from further observation."
His clinical analysis belied the sadistic pleasure Garrett saw a flicker in his otherwise lifeless eyes. This man would happily vivisect Garrett given the chance.
The quiet one then announced his final conclusion "Just kill it and we'll bring it back. It's a failure and its body is collapsing on itself. It must be due to this that it gained sentience. It seems the Bishops work collided with whatever the lord did."
"Ah right, the lord did make this guy a puppet before! The two influences must've done something!"
"Perhaps, were no experts. Just kill him and we'll bring him back."
The other brother then turned to Garrett with a sinister grin. As he neared him Garrett's mind buzzed as his thoughts became more chaotic and hectic.
'What? I'm just an animal! How can that be! I have emotions! I have thoughts! What was all of this for if not to avenge my family! I am not a monster!....am I?'
Standing before Garrett was the young man, he picked up a spear on his way over and his grin turned into his smile as he said his final words to Garrett.
"Goodbye defect."
'Why...I just wanted to avenge Taylor, I just wanted to kill the bastard who killed my little girl.....why did it come to this.'
The spear pierced through his brain as blood and grey matter seeped out like a pimple. Garrett's body began to reject itself and break down, his body shook before inflating.
Before it burst, the spear once again cut open the skin so Garrett would slowly deflate, leaving a pile of flesh.
"We're done here." The quiet brother turned abruptly and melted into the shadows between the trees.
The talkative one giggled, his shrill voice ringing across the clearing. "Let's go tell the Bishop how much fun we had!"
The two left as piles of corpses remained, they would fester and begin to decompose as crows and small animals would feast on the buffet before them, feasting and celebrating just as the soldiers did.