In Ashes, Part 3 of 3

I awoke some time later with a splitting headache, surrounded by several mages, including one I recognized. "Hey Jordan," I said hoarsely.

"Zer!" she shrieked, spinning around to face me, "You're awake! Thank the gods, that makes one thing that's gone right today," she rushed over to my side and I flinched away from her touch, which made her frown with concern. How could I explain that her approaching so quickly had made me defensive, even knowing it was her? I could see that in our time apart she had decided to specialize her magics in the battle mage and medical fields. There was a yellow strip on her scholar's dress denoting the medical specialty, and a bright red strip denoting her battle magic specialization. If you're wondering what the difference between a war mage and a battle mage is, it's one of scale. War mages specialize in wide-area magics while battle mages specialize into more niche roles, like battlefield intelligence, small unit combat (assassinations), and the like.

"Yeah, it has been a bit of a rough day," I said, sitting up painfully and looking around while also surrepticiously creating a little space between us. Our proximity made me mildly uncomfortable, as if I would be unable to defend myself from an attack by her. It was absurd, and I berated myself for thinking that thought, no matter how briefly. I could see we were in a very large medical tent, and gathered in vast rows were all of the wounded from our multiple battles through out the day. Apparently more wounded had been collected, and sent towards the cliff-side tower for treatment. I assumed that the more serious cases were up in the tower with the more experienced medical mages looking after them.

"You don't know the half of it Zerial," Jordan choked out, "Archmage Tika is in a coma and we cannot revive him. He looks perfectly healthy, but he won't respond to any kind of stimuli, magical or otherwise. And his skin is still that strange color, and he wont stop drawing in potential, and," at this point Jordan was rushing her words with tears in her eyes.I understood her distress, as Tika was the only father figure Jordan had ever had, and his loss would be devastating to her, as well as to the kingdom.

"It will be okay Jordan, I am sure that an archmage of Tika's abilities will be able to pull through whatever malady is ailing him," I said, doing my best to soothe the distraught sobbing girl. I felt as if I should comfort her, but even though my brain screamed at my body to move, memories of combat and slaughter brought the danger of proximity to my mind and I froze.

"It's not just that," Jordan hiccuped, not seeming to notice my inner struggles, "Sebastian is dead, and Tameral is wounded," she said quietly, and I felt my world begin to drop away from me. The four of us, Seb, Tam, Jordan, and I had been together since we were damn near babies. Those three were orphans, and to be fair I thought I was one as well. I felt numbness course through my bones at the news.

"Is there any chance Tam will make it through?" I asked in a wooden, mechanical voice.

"I'm not sure... he's still in surgery with the Chief Surgeon," she told me as she reached out to take me into her embrace. I flinched away, and hurt flashed across her features before they smoothed over into calm acceptance.

"I'm sorry Zerial," Jordan whispered.

"How did it happen?" I managed to choke out , rage building in my breast and choking my throat with it's impotent power.

"We aren't too sure what got him, but he fell during the retreat from the walls. We won't be able to recover a body since everything in that area has been reduced to ash," she murmured.

I sat and considered the fact that I would not even be able to give my friend an honorary funeral. It made me even angrier, and I seethed inside. "Good," I said hotly, balling my hands into tight fists. "It is fitting that Seb be sent off with a funeral pyre of our enemies," I snarled as I began to pace. I was full of impotent rage and my body was bursting with the need to commit acts of violence, but with no outlet all I could do was stalk back and forth as memories replayed in my mind. It is this moment that I can recall very clearly that I learned to truly hate, hate with my full being, every ounce of my existence focused on what I had lost regardless of the circumstance of how we arrived here. Jordan watched me with wide eyes, perhaps seeing for the first time all the changes that had been wrought on me over time. I was only 14 summers yet I stomped around the medical tent with all of the strength and expressive movement you'd come to expect from a fully grown man. Over the past few months I had grown, and I towered over her at my full height of six foot four inches tall. With two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle packed on my frame, I weighed more than double what she did.

It probably occurred to her for the first time, in that moment, that she was essentially tapped in a tent with a teenage boy who had been given the strength of an impressively tall and heavy fully grown man. And she had just delivered awful news to her future duke, something that must have been activating those danger senses mages develop like mad. But Jordan, an orphan and one of my greatest friends, was made of sterner stuff than your average airhead noble lady or common peasant. She stood and stepped bravely into my path and I towered over her, fury, rage, and loss in my heart and seeing threat in every movement and enemies at every turn.

"Come here Zer," she said softly, opening her arms to me. And like a wick before a gale my flame was blown out once more. I fell to my knees in front of her and began to sob as she cradled my head to her.

Later

"Zerial's wounded in more ways than just his physical injury," Jordan informed Gerald and Roderick. She had sought them out after Zerial had managed to fall back into a troubled slumber. It was a rough job for her to maneuver the large idiot back into his bed.

"What, like a magical sickness?" Gerald asked with concern.

"No. I am afraid it is much more insidious. Zerial is beginning to show signs of major mental trauma," Jordan said seriously. Gerald and Roderick shared a confused look.

"What do you mean mental trauma? Isn't that a physical injury from the strike he took to his head?" Asked Roderick carefully.

"I am afraid not. Zerial is made of extremely tough stuff, thanks to the training he endured. He shows almost no signs of physical injury beyond his many minor wounds and fatigue," Jordan informed them with a clinical tone she had managed to pick up through practice. Despite the wound in her heart at the loss of her friend, the potential loss of another friend, and the definite loss of Zerial's innocent outlook, she still managed to fall back into that professional role she had been taught. "It is not a commonly shared facet of our medical profession, but for head injuries we perform scans on the brain to ensure that no bleeding has occurred in the organ." It made sense to Gerald and Roderick that the medical mages would not advertise this. Any spell that involved a persons mind was very closely scrutinized and looked at with hostility. Even Gerald had a flash of intense displeasure upon learning that someone had performed such magic on his son, but he suppressed it with difficulty. No mage from Hexenguard would dare to harm Zerial, so deep was the indoctrination performed on people who served in the duchy.

"His brain showed regular functions across all areas except for a few. The chemical balance in his head is offset from a baseline that Archmage Tika had been taking every year," Jordan informed them. While it disturbed Gerald to learn that a mage had performed the brain scan on his son, it caused no distress to hear that Tika had done so. Tika held an almost religious reverence in Hexenguard, and even the high nobility treated him as a peer, or even their better in some instances. Few had done as much for the kingdom and for Hexenguard as Tika.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"His baseline chemical composition is upset, and he is beginning to show outward signs of this imbalance," she said seriously. "Such things like flinching from personal touch, even from trusted and loved sources. Looking for enemies and scanning rooms unconsciously. Considering current situations, this is to be expected for a while, but I want you two to keep an eye on him as time goes on. If the issue persists over time we may be looking at Battle Shock, a serious mental malady that can cause a whole host of ailments both real and imagined," at some point during the conversation Jordan had gone from informing her betters to instructing them as a physician would. The change was noted by the two men, and allowed to pass unchecked. Both believed that Jordan would be a future archmage - especially as a personal disciple of Tika.

"I see... Thank you for bringing this to our attention Physician Jordan," Gerald said formally, and Jordan seemed to realized how she had been speaking. She went bright red and bowed her head, causing Gerald to laugh lightly despite the crushing weight in his heart. "Fear not Jordan. Authority suits you well, and we need more Scholars of your stature," Gerald reassured her, and she beamed at him for a moment before the weight of events crushed the happiness right back out of her. She curtsied to the two and left the room.

"Battle Shock..." Roderick muttered to himself. "I don't remember suffering from anything like this, but I have seen those who have. I've been in some deep shit Gerald," Roderick turned to talk to his friend and lord, "but when I consider it now, we've taken a man barely out of his boyhood and thrown him into one of the worst wars this country has seen in a century. We didn't expect it to turn out this way, but it has... What are the ramifications of this?"

Gerald considered Roderick for a few minutes, turmoil rocking his inner thoughts and stalling his usual decisive decision making process. But eventually the gears started to turn and Gerald responded, "There isn't much we can do but watch him, and ensure that he receives what he needs to grow into a well balanced individual. We can't shield him from this conflict... Not with the death of his friend and the maiming of his other friend. Tameral will live, but he has lost a hand and the medical mages inform me that he might walk with a limp for the rest of his life," Gerald and Roderick considered this in silence. It would be damn near impossible to keep Zerial out of this conflict without a ducal order. Sure, Roderick and Gerald outranked him in theory, but Zerial was the heir to the realm, and considered a fully adult male under kingdom laws. The only thing keeping Zerial from leading the army personally was an order from one of the few people who truly outranked him - the King and the Duke.

Gerald and Roderick sat in silence for a long while, each man contemplating how best to help their young charge.

The Ashfield's

I stood with Roderick and hundreds of other men. What lay before them was a field of ash that stretched all the way to the melted wall they had retreated from. The wall had cracked and melted under the intense heat of Tika's spell, and now resembled an oddly long stalagmite more than it did a fortified structure. I felt that even after the rest of our fortifications had crumbled from lack of magical cohesion after we left, this wall would remain as a fitting memorial to those who had lost their lives there.

I felt lost and angry at the same time, and I wordlessly stomped out into the ash, waving Roderick down as he made to follow. I stood there, knee deep in ash and ruin and I surveyed my surroundings. Someone had gone through the trouble of repairing and polishing my armor, and I wore fresh clothing fit for a ducal heir, but all of my resplendence clashed horribly with the murky grey field, and as ash still rained from the sky and dusted us with it's reminders my heart broke anew with loss, and sadness, and rage. I fell to my knees in the ash and bowed my head in remembrance of those who had perished here in this field of ash. I heard a single clatter behind me and glanced back to see Roderick had also knelt and bowed low to the field, both fists on the ground and his head touched to the ashy dirt.

Like a wave the gathered men behind him also fell to their knees and bowed low to the terrible sight. Their solemn demeanor cracked my heart, and I felt affection flood me for these men, my brothers in arms regardless of station or rank. Standing I turned to them.

"We have suffered loss here," I spoke, and was surprised by the strength of my own voice. Gone was the boyish reflection and gentle humor. My own voice sounded strange to my ears, masculine and strong, grief-ridden and filled with fury. "A loss that can be quantified in numbers and statistics, but is indescribable in the hurt it has done to us," I addressed them, and they stayed quiet, heads bowed low. But I could feel it in my bones that every single ear here was latched on to me. Every heart was in my hand. For the first time, I felt the heady power of a ducal heir, of my future, and I contemplated it for a moment before discarding it as irrelevant. What use was power if your friends and countrymen could still die?

"If you have not the privilege of receiving missives from our mage corps, I will tell you. Some of our more educated mages performed an assay into the magical makeup - the aura's - of our Aurelian enemies, the ones who threw themselves to their deaths so callously. In this study, it was found that Aurelian mages had performed a grand working of their own, and altered their own citizens and soldiers. They turned them into wild animals, a sacrifice to wound us so thoroughly that we would halt our invasion of their country." I observed them bowed before me and felt dissatisfaction in my heart. In the distance I could see other's gathering and I raised my voice to be heard.

"Stand. Stand and face me Pervalia," I shouted, and my harsh voice thundered out, drawing an even larger crowd. Some enterprising mage cast a spell at me and my voice amplified. "Stand Pervalia. We have honored our glorious dead, but there remains a terrible crime. I will admit that our cause here seemed flimsy to me. Conquest seemed a terrible thing to perform on another, even if we bring the light of peace and justice with us, the human suffering is magnified for a time before it is ever made better. Our efforts had me questioning our goals," I saw confusion and discouragement in their eyes.

"But no more. Now my course is sure, my path defined. As the Heir to Hexenguard I declare a holy war on Aurelia," shocked faces stared back at me. "The mages of Aurelia have performed truly vile magic, and it is clear by the use of this magic on THEIR OWN PEOPLE," I screamed out and the whole line flinched from the furious tone, "That they have lost their souls, their way, and their abilities to self-govern. Very well. Pervalia is here. Pervalia is right. Pervalia will bring the light of true justice, true governance, and true magics to their lands. We will shatter their false foundations, we will kill their false mages, and we will elevate the people of Aurelia to become Pervalian. Our Goddess of Victory, Pervalia, for whom our forefathers named this country after, will allow no less," my voice dropped into a normal tone, and I began to whisper. And though I whispered, I knew that they heard me, that they were captivated. They hung onto every word, striving all the harder to hear and understand despite my quietness. It seemed fitting to whisper here, in this field of ash and loss.

"I am Zerial Hart Hexenguard, Heir to Duchy Hexenguard, Son of Jarrod Hexenguard and Minerva Ashton Hexenguard. Son to Gerald Hart, Lord of the Agile Domain, Marshal and Knight Commander of the Realm. Heir to the Heart Domain. And I name myself First Crusader in this holy war against the sins of Aurelia's mages. Who will join me?" I asked.

Without hesitation Roderick stepped forward. "I am Lord Roderick Du'Villuian, Knight Commander of the Hart Order. I name myself the second crusader in the crusade against the sins of Aurelia's mages," and I saw for the first time clear pride in Roderick's eyes. We embraced like brothers, and he took station behind me. I knelt and grabbed a handful of ash, poured water from my water bladder into my hand, and made an ashy ink. I dipped two fingers into the ash and then drew two parallel lines from the center of each eye down my cheek and ending at my jaw. I did the same for Roderick.

"This ash and water will symbolize our commitment," I said, feeling as if the spirit of our Goddess Pervalia spoke through me. "The ash will symbolize our loss, the water our regret," and with that I drew a knife and cut my hand. With a single finger I drew bright red lines down the ashy lines, dividing them in half as best as I could. Now I had two grey lines divided by a crimson line issuing from each eye as if I was crying solid tears of blood and ash. "And by my blood, I swear renewed faith to our Goddess Pervalia, I swear vengeance for our glorious dead, and I swear justice to those who need now, more than ever, the light of Pervalia. To the rest," I paused, "I offer only blood and ashes."

It started with Roderick, who cut his hand and repeated my actions and words. And it spread like wildfire through the ranks until an entire army stood in a field of ash and marked themselves with the burden of their resolve.