The rebels surge forward, climbing the ladders with extra haste. Rosen turns around and shouts words of encouragement. The loyalists continue to fall back, abandoning their positions on the ladders.
It's a rout. It will be a massacre. The rebels fall to their desire for blood and action. All that time camped outside the walls has made them agitated and pent up. They enact their anger upon the defenders.
Rosen rushes forward, his eyes meeting that of the defiant man he saw earlier. Rosen sees how unshaken his gray depths are. He sees no modicum of fear in those cunning eyes.
It's the first time Rosen questions what he's about to do. The first time he questions what is to come. But the mentality of the crowd keeps him moving. There's no time to turn back.
He raises his shield and battleaxe as he charges along the front. The loyalists are now grouped up against a tower, unable to press through the doors fast enough. Or so Rosen thinks.
But seeing the loyalists corner themselves fills Rosen with confidence.
This shatters when the unshaken one raises his spear, shouting, "Get 'em, boys!"
From both the front and the rear, arrows begin to fall. The loyalists in the nearest tower hurl stones and debris upon the charging rebels. Within moments, the air is full of lethal rain.
The rebels' bloodlust turns to panic. Rosen feels a sharp pain in his right thigh, followed by a frightening, dull numbness as all sensation below the wound vanishes. His leg no longer moves. He tumbles to the ground, crying out in fear.
The rebel force, still committed to the assault, rush forward, trampling Rosen's body and the bodies of others who have fallen.
He has no time to think or feel before he's killed beneath the feet of his own comrades.
Next
Your order rouses your band into action. For a brief moment, you're back in The War. You're back where the mud and blood are one and the same. You're among your veteran army, leading reluctant but hardened men into yet another miserable engagement.
But you're not in The War. You're leading a group of peasants to kill another group of peasants. Brothers to slay brothers.
Were the men more disciplined, perhaps they would have held ranks. Perhaps you would have advanced as one line, killing with machine-like efficiency.
But bloodlust goes both ways.
Seeing this sudden charge, the rebels falter. Many turn tail and run. But the arrows keep coming. More and more fall beneath the mortal rain.
The worst thing to do in combat is to do nothing. And your enemy does nothing.
You're among the first to reach the demoralized enemy line. You rush forward, spear in hand, plunging it into the chest of an unprepared rebel. Your slaughter continues as you throw the body to the floor, wading deeper into the line.
With another few attacks from your polearm, five rebels lie dead before you. Some are too shocked to retaliate or defend themselves. Those that fight back, you block and leave for your men.
At some point during the slaughter, you lose your spear and switch to your blade, hacking away with terrifying skill. The rebels flee.
They run for the ladders, desperate for escape. Those that climb down are felled by arrows. Those that stand and fight are brought down by loyalist blades.
You watch as man after man throws himself off the wall, mangling themselves upon impact with the hard ground. But you don't care. You continue to press forward, cutting down one man after another, leaving your own personal trail of dead.
Next
------
Duke Mozoroff watches in horror as another man throws himself from the walls of Wrido, plummeting to a gory death. He can hear the sounds of vicious combat.
He can see the hideous violence unfolding before him.
Rade wasn't expecting the defenders to lay a trap. The bravado and stupidity of the new king, displayed earlier, had led Rade to believe that this opponent was incapable of such a brutal tactic.
A trap that seems oddly familiar. A trap he had used against the cavalry earlier. A trap perfected during The War.
A trap that he had developed and perfected with the help of…
A grim smirk spreads across Rade's lips. Smart boy.
Rade already ordered the retreat. He already sent for his men to fall back. But he knows that at this point, it's all futile.
The boy's ruthless.
The Butcher turns away from the sight of his army being butchered.
Next
You watch from atop the walls as the remaining rebels flee and scatter. The lucky are those who never climbed the walls in the first place. The unlucky are those whose lifeblood stains the stones of the mighty walls of Wrido.
You don't know when the weapons that sound like thunder will fire again. You've already set the men to haul the wounded away while you have the opportunity. But there are just so many.
The reinforcements from the other portions have been put to work. And you, the brave commander, are just… standing there.
The wind blows against your face, bringing relief to your heated skin. Sweat and blood run down your body in near-equal measure. But most of the blood isn't yours.
It's rebel blood.
The blood of young men.
You scoff internally at the phrase "young men." It sounds so pretentious to you. They're boys, damn it. Boys.
You look around you at the dead and dying. Your ears are filled with nothing but the death rattle of hundreds of dying boys. They're choking on their own blood. They cry out for loved ones or desperately hold broken limbs together.
Fingers held on by strands of flesh. Eyes staring blankly into the sky. Minds, once full of youthful ambition, now feeling, thinking, grasping nothing. Boys who once loved and were loved wail in agony as their short lives are extinguished before they could go anywhere.
And people still find this fun. They find it entertaining. They find it to be full of glory and loot. Your own soldiers, those under your command, cheer and rejoice before the sight of the defeated enemy.
Do they not know of their own sacrifice?
Do they not care for their brothers' sacrifice?
Does death mean anything to them?
You find yourself looking into the lifeless eyes of a dead boy. His eyes are gray, the same as yours. They are dead eyes that stare endlessly into nowhere. But what strikes you most is how young he looks. He has a boyish face, rounded cheeks with a dusting of acne, and the faintest hint of stubble growing above his upper lip.
The boy is younger than you were when you were forced into service.
You ask yourself why you let yourself be forced into this life. Why he was pressed into this life. Why you didn't just run away. You ask yourself why you stayed with Sobik. You ask yourself why you must be the sacrifice in his cursed marriage with your loveless mother.
And you ask…
You grew up in a life of luxury, which was destroyed and replaced by a life of pain and teary nights. Nights where nobody was there for you. Or if they were, you didn't seek them.
The memories from before your fall are vague and blurry. But the memories of everything else are painfully clear.
Mira blamed you for ruining her life. She called you so many names. She said you're inherently bad. Everything else, and most others, seemed to reinforce this.
So if everyone says it is so, why do you still believe it isn't?
Surely, the majority must be correct. They're the majority.
But these festering thoughts fade into a sea of anger. Anger at yourself. You're surrounded by the dead and have the audacity to feel bad for yourself.
I don't deserve self-pity.
You feel a sense of responsibility for the death and bloodshed. A small portion of your mind tries to tell you that you're doing the best you can. That you're helping. That all this guilt is irrational and pointless.
But this small portion of your mind is drowned away by the rest. The rest that forces you to stare at the blood and the bodies. The rest that tells you, It's your fault.
You feel yourself becoming unhinged. You feel the edges of your composure begin to fray.
So you lie to the men around you. And to yourself. You ignore your pains. You force them down, down into the repressed part of your mind that, with every approaching day, threatens to shatter and burst into a million pieces.
But this will not be that day.
You climb down a spiral staircase inside one of the towers and off the walls, brushing past the enthusiastic men rejoicing in their slaughter. As you make your way through the streets, another series of thunderous explosions erupts from outside the walls.
The chorus of smoking artillery fills your ears as you make your way back to the royal palace.
Next
-Two Months after Belos's Sally-
The chill in the air has grown. The first light coverings of snow have fallen and peppered the land in a reflective white. The cemeteries are overflowing. Food rations have been cut.
There's an ever-present chill in your bones and a constant pang of hunger in your stomach. But you will endure. You always do.
You stand just beyond the training grounds, adjusting the pieces of your outfit just before presenting yourself to the army. They stand in what could loosely be called a formation. The levies are disorganized and chatting among themselves. Those in the retinue of the three thousand are more presentable.
Not by much, however.
A makeshift wooden stage stands before the soldiery, constructed not long after Rade's failed assault on the walls. The entire courtyard is covered in various structures. It has been converted into a training ground.
The grass has been worn down to dirt and turned to mud by the melting snow. As you approach, your heavy boots slosh through the layer of mud. The sun bears down on you and all those who stand in the formation, but the early winter air is much more tolerable than the burning heat of summer.
With each step, you get closer to the stage. To the army. To those who will be sacrificed upon the altar of nobility.
But they do not know it.
Next
You don't feel nervous as you ascend the stage. In fact, you feel nothing. The act of command is natural to you. Darin is standing at the very top of the stage, flanked by both Obren and Velinor.
Obren turns to face you and gives you a small nod. You return it, looking Obren in the eyes all the while. You try and discern his intentions. You search for any hint of disloyalty or malcontent.
But you see none.
It surprises you. Obren was dead set on not letting you even near the training fields, but now he welcomes you. It had been Belos's orders that kept you from seeing the army. Your army. But with Elya technically in command, Obren had abruptly changed his tune.
The trio of commanders step to the side and allow you to take center stage. You notice how both Darin and Velinor are dressed casually, but Obren remains in a full suit of mail and half-plate, blade on his belt and a trumpet in his hand.
From atop this wooden structure, you can see the six thousand before you stretch on. It's a truly massive number that spreads nearly to the walls of the palace itself.
Yet six thousand soldiers, as a number, is truly not that many. In a battle, hundreds of these men will die. You know that the men are often little more than a statistic in a commander's mind. Yet as you look upon the six thousand before you, you can't help but consider the fact that they're all human.
Each and every one of them is a man with his own loves, dreams, and ambitions. You saw so many die upon the walls of Wrido and in the jungles of Krorid. Each death is a life extinguished. Permanently.
You stand at the edge of the wooden stage, gazing upon the rows of men. The ones under Obren's training regimen, the retinue, are noticeably less rowdy than the levied garrison. Standing on the stage, you start to draw attention.
Near the six thousand peasant soldiers are the few hundred knights and lesser nobles, the survivors of Belos's Sally. They're a mixed bunch, some rowdy and boisterous, others quiet and reserved.
Many start to point at you. The retinue begins to rapidly fall silent. The others do not.
The blast of a trumpet demands silence of the army.
Next
This sudden noise draws the attention of the restless soldiers to the stage itself. All six thousand men have their eyes on you. You do not bask in this attention, nor do you falter. You stare unflinchingly onward, the attention of soldiers a known sensation.
The soldiery, seeing their new commander standing before them, starts to whisper. They whisper amongst themselves, questions and rumors being spread through the line. This surprise is like an electric current, spreading from man to man and through the whole army.
It isn't long before the sound of a thousand whispers grows to a fever pitch.
You raise one hand in the air, palm facing the army, to signal for silence. Some fall quiet at this signal. Others do not see or care.
You're used to such disrespect. You're used to gathering an army of rowdy boys.
You clear your throat and take a deep breath of the cold, early winter air into your diaphragm. Then you shout…
This sudden, powerful cry, forged and perfected by years of command, stuns the courtyard into silence. Obren and Velinor look completely shocked. A satisfied, knowing grin spreads across Darin's face.
A ripple of whispers, full of disbelief and surprise, shudders through the line one last time before it falls silent.
You continue, still shouting from the diaphragm. "I am Marshal Arthur Hornraven, the new leader of the army of Kanton!" The shout is loud and guttural, demanding attention from those before you.
Such a powerful shout carries across the entire courtyard. They all hear you now. You're at the head of an army again.
You are in control. You control the army. You control your fate.
It feels good to be in control again. But there's a nagging feeling that has only been growing with time. A nagging sense of dread for the living and responsibility for the dead. You will not have a panic attack. You will not crack in front of the army.
You will hold strong.
Next
"By the command of Her Majesty, Queen Elya of the great House Stiedry, I have assumed full control over this army! All of you lot answer to me now!"
This message sends another ripple of whispers down the line. You look down at the army. Your army. The army that has granted you control. And it feels good. It makes you feel powerful.
It makes you feel alive.
A sudden shout from behind you captures your attention. You turn around, moving to face this sudden noise. You watch as the drunken form of Vedran begins to climb onto the stage. What the fu—
"Yer a goggam… soddin'… stealin' bastard!" your drunken half-brother cries. His expensive clothing is stained by whatever alcohol is on his breath. The prince's dark-blond shoulder-length hair is messy and unkempt, falling into his eyes and across his sweat-covered, dark-brown skin.
Crazed, drunken brown eyes scan around, not comprehending or understanding.
Darin takes a protective step toward you as Velinor steps away, hands in the air, clearly not wishing to deal with royal drama. Obren, however, rushes forward, apprehending the drunken boy as he reaches the top of the stage.
Obren grasps Vedran's shoulders, holding him back. Holding him from you. The drunken one shouts, "Yer soddin' sidin' with the… the bastard? What happened to us, Obren?"
Obren winces as if he'd been physically struck by Vedran. He replies, his voice calm and deliberate, "My loyalty is to the crown, Your Highness."
"The crown… was… it was, er… stolen from me! That soddin' cuckold stole it! He stole it… and gave it to my si-sister!"
This shouting doesn't go unheard by the gathered army. Again, they begin to whisper. Whispers lead to rumors. Rumors lead to malcontent and disloyalty.
The only way to handle this is to confront the drunken child. Establish authority.
You call out to Obren, "Let him pass."
Obren hesitates but then obeys, letting Vedran stumble toward you, unbalanced. Darin quickly places himself between the two of you, but you call him off, telling him to step away.
Darin steps away, but there's clearly worry on his face. His hand rests comfortably on the hilt of his sheathed blade.
Vedran drunkenly rushes toward you, shouting vile curses and incomprehensibly rambling. He stands in front of you at his full height, but only comes up to around your neck. You stare down at your half-brother. You smell the ale on his breath. You see the alcohol-fueled confidence behind his brown eyes.
Your closed fist collides with the side of Vedran's jaw. His jaw audibly snaps together as he stumbles back, collapsing to the ground. His alcohol-sloshed mind, already on the precipice of unconsciousness, is thrown over the edge.
His body goes limp as he sprawls onto the wooden stage. The crowd audibly cringes. Many laugh at the sight of you so nonchalantly striking down the smaller man as if he were nothing.
With the crowd's complete attention, you know you must seize this opportunity. Make an impression on your men. Let them know who's in charge. Let them know who the leader is.
You turn back to the army and shout from your diaphragm…
------
A young levy in the front row keenly watches this new "Marshal" guy. His comments carried an edge to them, especially after he took down the prince so quickly.
This new commander scares the levy. He's this massive, imposing warrior who has the strength to back his appearance up. He dropped the prince with a single punch. A single punch.
The way he did it radiated such nonchalant skill. He didn't gloat. Just a single grim and icy comment toward the army, and then he went right back to speaking.
The young levy had been told an old adage by his father. He doesn't remember the exact quote, but he remembers the gist of it. It isn't the ones who gloat you should be afraid of, but the calm. The calm don't need intimidation, because they know what they're doing.
And by God, the levy knows that man knows what he's doing.
Next
Two-and-a-Half Months after Belos's Sally-
Boredom is one of the worst aspects of a siege. It is sheer, monotonous misery. Most days, you patrol the walls, dictating patrols and calming fears. Other days, you're sheltered in the palace, unable to bring yourself to do anything.
Elya has been quiet. Despite her status as the new queen, you've really been the one in charge thus far, at least of the ongoing siege efforts. You've gone to bed with an ever-present pang of hunger. The rations are starting to take their toll.
The men grumble. So do the people. And because you're the one enforcing the rations, their ire is directed toward you.
You idly wonder how long it will take until the citizens break into open unrest. The patriotic fervor you've tried to whip them into can only last for so long when you're fighting your own side.
You idly wonder how long it will take until that damned artillery stops firing. You've never seen anything like it. There are no counterweights, no large wooden structures full of pulleys and levers, just large, metal tubes on a wooden apparatus. Metal tubes that spew smoke and bark thunder.
But the walls of Wrido hold. You don't know for how much longer, but they do. Towers have been smashed into rubble, houses reduced to kindling, but still they hold.
The original terror of the weapons has faded into a resigned boredom. They are no longer scary new weapons, but a fact of life. Just like the men who no longer return from the patrol routes. Men who leave their wives and children, dead by artillery from half a mile away with no chance to protect themselves.
There have been an awful lot of new widows recently.
Next
Today, as the winds howl and snow begins to fall from the sky, you're trapped inside the royal palace. You sit on the windowsill, gently leaning against the frame. There's no glass in this window, just shutters blocking nothingness.
The cold wind whips against the side of your face, causing you to sigh contentedly.
It feels good.
Your hands are occupied as your mind drifts. Your hands idly write, pressing inked feather onto parchment. The words begin to flow naturally as you start writing.
Today is much and the same. Unceasing and unending monotony, topped with a dash of miserable contemplating.
I don't want to think, but fuck, I can't stop it. Fuck. All I see now is that boy. That poor kid. So goddamn young, sent to die, and for what?
Rade? Fuck him. Fuck everything he's stood for. All he does is send men to their deaths…
The pen drifts off the page. That's all you do, too. You send men to die. You send—
A small prick of pain from your reopened wound brings you back to reality. Sustained during Belos's Sally, it reopened on the walls of Wrido.
You step away from the windowsill and throw it loosely onto the bed. You take another deep breath. But your unoccupied mind drifts.
Next
All the leading has built up a tension inside you. A great, overwhelming tension. A tension formed by stress and old scars, meshing together into a perfect storm of misery. It builds like a literal pressure behind the skull.
You want to scream. You want to kill. You want to hurt. To burn away the tension. To break down this awful feeling of deadened half-feelings and pent-up anger. But you don't deserve to hurt people. You don't.
You've killed so many. Wounded so many others. Ruined so many families, forever. So the only one who truly deserves this ruin… is you. You deserve all this torment. Everyone calls you a liar, so it must be true.
You're one person. It doesn't matter what you think. How can so many people be wrong? If it's all their words against yours, then why trust in your words at all? Surely the words of the many outweigh your own, right?
But there's no guilt inside you. And you hate this. You hate yourself for this. You beg, plead to feel something. Anything. To feel a small piece of guilt or sadness pierce this veil you've thrown in front of yourself.
But nothing can.
And nothing will.
Pain is a feeling. And you must feel. You must punish yourself, because you are a terrible person. Everyone says so. You think so. And that's all it takes.
Your nails slide down the inside of your wrists once more. It cuts and burns, but it burns good. The desire to hurt, to kill, is being spent. And you claw, again and again. Violently.
Red marks are left upon your wrists. Painful ones. Bloody ones. But you deserve it for what you've done. For what you do.
The tension fades from your mind, instead turning into a white-hot rage. Rage directed at yourself. Rage directed inwards. Rage at you and who you are and what you've become and what you've done.
Rage turns to clawing. Clawing turns to pain. And the pain fades, sizzling away on your wrists. Warm blood runs down them. So you stick wrists outside the window, letting the wind blow the blood away and fall to the courtyard below.
The wind stings for a moment, but the cool starts to feel good. And your mind feels… actually relaxed. Actually empty. And this empty is intoxicating. It feels like bliss, not having the screaming thoughts bouncing around leaves you in peace.
And it reinforces a terrible habit.
Next
It clears your mind. It releases your tension. It makes you feel something.
It makes you oh-so-alive.
It's costless, right? It's just a transfer of emotional pain to physical, right? And this physical pain goes away fast, right? And you deserve the physical pain, right? Not a big deal, right?
It makes you feel better, so why not do it?
The sensation tells you to not speak to others. Internalize. Don't try to heal. Let the pain work its way through you.
You stare down at your slashed-up wrists.
What have I done? The thought penetrates straight through your justifications. Through your web of lies.
You sit down on the bed, your legs feeling weak. What have I done?
Your head falls into your hands. Your breath starts to race. Your heart starts to pound. Your whole body just… aches.
It aches and burns with the pain of numb emotions crying out weak cries that only inspire a longing for real cries.
You want to feel. Feel. Just not this pain. Not this pain.
Please not this pain.
Not the self-induced pain.
Not the emptiness.
Not the broken promises of control.
Why can't you feel?
Why can't you cry?
No tears.
There can't be tears. Not anymore.
Only broken places where the tears should go.
Only a horrible place of emptiness, so deep in your soul that it drowns away what was once there. And this void only grows, and grows.
It keeps growing. Consuming more of you. Dragging it down to the place where you cannot pull it back from. The place beyond where you can hurt it back into existence.
You want to scream. You want to cry the cry that normal people can. But you can't cry.
You just can't.
There's no emotion to cry with. But this aching lack, this aching lack where you want to feel burns in its own way. And you want it to end.
You want it to all end.
Next