“Listen, Hessian,” spoke a determined voice inside Hessian’s head, carefully wrapping her hands around the stem of his brain. “Do not forget what I am about to teach you. It will determine the path you forge.”
“Listen to what we are saying!” Bjorn shouted. “We can still capture them. We just have to-”
“Shut up, you slave. You’ve no right to lecture us!”
Bjorn was losing his patience. “Stop floundering with your pride and listen to what-”
The moment the soldier slapped Bjorn with his gauntlet, the Reiszer knew it was futile. Teamwork was non-existent. The rift between them had grown too far.
Slave warriors and soldiers of the Reiszer Nations couldn’t work together in fulfilling their mission to catch the Escapees—even though failure likely meant their deaths.
The soldiers had it, and the slave warriors were close to boiling over. Hessian wasn’t taking care of the situation, tired as he was. Bjorn was the only one left to mitigate the situation—and he was reaching his limit as well.
“You slaves run your mouths as if you are in charge!” The infuriated soldier hit the stone wall with her fist. It surrounded their perimeter from one side to the other, separating the Reiszer from the Escapees.
While the Reiszer were bickering among themselves, Xander enabled the second phase of their plan.
They were too late to react to the rise of the stone wall, and frankly, it didn’t matter.
Xander had watered the seed of hatred. Cylia did well telling him about it, and he used it to their advantage—showing them their cultural inequality and fragile form of cooperation between each other. How much they quarrelled for a spec of freedom and to be superior to others—even if they were once slave warriors too.
Hessian couldn’t blame the Escapees for the plan. It was cunning. He complimented Xander’s ingenuity and despised him for it, but there was one other person who infuriated him the most.
He broke the grip of his sword. “Ki–Ur-”
“Hessian, you have to do something.” Nertha joined Hessian beside the stone wall. All the slave warriors respected him. He was their leader. Nertha trusted him with all her heart. She needed to reach out to him.
It was a welcome surprise for them when a Reiszer Elite from the West chose Hessian to lead a dispatch group to capture the Escapees. Though not for everyone—the free soldiers had to swallow their pride but were terrible at keeping at it.
They only followed him because their superior told them so, but she was nowhere to be seen, still engaged in mortal combat with the leader of the escapees—their discipline slipped.
“Where wolf’s ears are, Wolf’s teeth are near,” repeated the voice inside Hessian’s mind. The voice of the one mentor Hessian had in this world. A woman with raven black hair and silver eyes. A chained slave with no fear left for the world.
“No way to break through nor a way around,” mumbled Hessian and wandered over the rough stone structure with his hand. His fresh blisters stained the surface.
The teachings of his mentor played out in his head over and over as he thought of a solution. The true enemy was not the one they faced, but the ones in their midst. Meaning: their own people. It was his mistake to trust them.
“Hessian, please listen.” Nertha tried to reach out to Hessian, but he gave her the cold shoulder. “They’re getting on each other's throats. I- We- no, you need to get them in line!”
Hessian glanced at the bickering group. Slaves and former slaves quarrelled with one another—trying desperately to feel superior over their own people. What difference would it make if they become free if all they did was repeat the same vicious circle of oppression?
“Nertha, how’s your thigh?” Hessian asked suddenly.
Giving a sheepish expression, Nertha rubbed her leg. “That girl got me good. It stings, but I can endure it without trouble,” replied Nertha, feeling Hessian scrutinising her, who had noticed her shaking leg. She didn’t want him to see her so weak.
“It will do. Bjorn, Lovis, come here,” yelling their names, they ignored the soldiers and immediately pushed through to Hessian Both were in stark contrast to one another. Bjorn was tall and robust, while Lovis was sinewy and on the smaller side—his height passes him as a dwarf, but his vicious character was akin to an animal.
“Lovis, don’t mind if I cut your hair and take your weapon,” taking the sword from the smaller one, Hessian cut Lovis’ dirty and long blond hair and tied it around the handle of his sword with the broken handle for a better grip. “This ought to do it.”
Remaining expressionless, Lovis stared at Bjorn for answers. “It’s alright, Hessian knows what he does,” responded Bjorn, using sign language and turning to Hessian. “What do you need us to do?”
A grin on Hessian’s face revealed a plan whose revelation was promptly interrupted by the female soldier. “You! We will not follow you or listen to anything you say anymore. Why should we obey a dirty slave? We’re the free people here!”
“Hear, hear!” The soldiers cheered as their representative made her stance against Hessian.
She sneered at Hessian and was about to take off her gauntlet to hit him, saying, "We don’t care why you were appointed! Listen to us now, or you all will regret it!”
She wouldn’t get to it as Nertha came in between, standing tall and towering before her with her animalistic side taking over. Her teeth sharpened, and her eyes became fiercer—not quite as intimidating as Archil did, but she came close. “Back off, or you will regret it.”
“Do you think I would be afraid of you?” Challenged the soldier with the rest of her entourage backing her up. Their numbers equalled that of the slaves, but their equipment was far superior.
“Not of her,” grinned Bjorn, who held his friend Lovis back, whose hands were trembling while clenching their pair of axes. More and more slaves and soldiers came forth, ready for yet another fight. Why shouldn’t they? Catching the escapees was a doomed plan now, anyway.
“Don’t waste your time looking back,” she whispered huskily. “You’re not going that way. Instead, fight your foes in the field or be burnt in your house.”
Over the years, Hessian had listened intently to every word his mentor had edified in him. Piling up words of every piece of advice there was. She was fierce and wise, holding a strength that rivalled any soldier or slave warrior. Yet, there was nothing Hessian knew how to defuse the situation.
Nor did he care anymore.
“Do what you want,” replied Hessian coldly, baffling the soldiers for him giving in so easily. “Not like you will be of any use to me anymore.”
“W-what was that, you-”
“Bjorn, boost us up!” shouted Hessian.
Bjorn obeyed, brushing the soldier aside. “On it.”
“Wait what-” Without further ado, Bjorn picked up Lovis and Nertha and threw them upright before the stone wall, covering several meters at least.
“Hey, we’re not done here-”
“I believe we are.” Hessian let Bjorn pick him up. There was nothing he could say to them to make them listen to him or make a difference. Instead, he would listen to his gut, and it told him to pursue a golden sheep. “See you after the hunt.”
With that, Bjorn sent Hessian flying, propelling him up into the air. Meeting Lovis and Hertha on their way down, they turned, and each placed their feet on Hessian’s giving him another boost upwards.
The gleaming sun and strong winds greeted Hessian as he easily reached the top. They warmed his skin and energised his frail body as Hessian took a deep breath. It was the first time he was so high up, and he almost forgot why he came this far.
Then Hessian locked his eyes on his targets, and he remembered. He couldn’t recall the reason why, but he simply wanted to finish his pursuit. He needed to catch the golden sheep.
“My small cub, Hróðvitnir.” She embraced the small Hessian as if he were hers. She cared for him when no one else among the slaves did. Maybe she didn’t care about him and only wanted to replace him with the child she lost, but he didn’t care. He was yearning for her recognition. “One day, you shall swallow the sun and make the world fear you. You are fearsome and irrepressible. Let them know. One day, you will raze the world and bring it upside down.”
“I will,” chanted Hessian against the wild wind and stretched out his arms. “Here I come. I’ll catch you, golden child.”
—✴—
“Maybe my academy will reward me for this.” Xander was lost in thought about the possibility of receiving an accolade. After all, he helped in the escape of the prisoners while wading off an entire contingent of Reiszer.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Even if it was only a small group of people he might exaggerate a bit in his tale for the extra bit of drama.
“Surely, the Idariens and Navarriens will vouch for me. Seeing how I enabled this all.” The others unmistakably heard his chuckle. “Maybe I will even receive a medal from the respective king or queen themself. Oh, what a treat that would be, hehe.”
“Your laugh’s sooooo insufferable, ergh,” Cylia groaned and lay exhausted against the wagon. “Did someone ever tell you how complacent you are?”
“Oh, shut up,” Xander weakly waved his hand. Like Cylia, he was exhausted but also depleted from overusing his magic. “Let me bask in my glory. It’s because of me we got away.”
“Nu-uh,” responded Cylia, being complacent herself and with a shaking finger pointed at the operating golem. “He is.” she referred to Kiur, who was tirelessly tending to the golems so they would operate smoothly—despite how much stamina and mana it cost—not to mention the mental strain. “Without him, nothing you did would have mattered.”
“Tch,” Xander clicked with his tongue. “Sure, he deserves soooome of the credit,” he drawled, “but it was my plan I thought of on the spot, which was the deciding factor. I was wracking my brain on how to implement everyone’s strength to make the best out of it.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Cylia let out a sigh, pressing her back against the bars of the wagon and letting the rattling massage her tense back. “At least one of us did something.”
Xander raised an eyebrow, his attention on Cylia. “What was that?”
“Nothing, don’t make me repeat myself.”
“No, I am serious. I didn’t hear it.” Xander held a hand before his ear and leaned closer.
“I was saying how lucky you two are for being able to do anything,” confessed Cylia, pressing her hands on her knees. She was glad Xander was the only one present to understand her language. “I have no magic or wit or other skills. All I can do is watch from the backseats with no one to praise me for my efforts.”
“That’s not true,” thought Xander but held his tongue. They weren’t friends or anything, but Xander didn’t feel like remarking. He was always ambitious and looked forward to being praised. He couldn’t imagine how Cylia felt.
Then another thought came to his mind of something he deemed more important. The single attention of a person he sought after. “Maybe my father will praise me,” he mumbled.
Xander was woeful. He couldn’t wait to come home, though he couldn’t deny he would miss the people he met. “Everything eventually comes to an end,” he thought.
There was a different wind blowing in their direction, not just the casual airflow they were riding with. A current of the air felt different, settling down on the desert. An eerie stillness followed.
With the wall they have erected, Xander thought it was just the downwind that had changed direction, but no, it was something else. “Something’s off.”
A premonition.
When he saw Hessian looming on top of the high wall, Xander knew something bad was about to happen. The wind dishevelled Hessian’s hair, showing his wicked grin from far away.
There was no time to react when Hessian took a step forward and slid down the wall. He rocketed himself off the surface to propel himself towards them at a speed impossible to recreate.
It came to no one's surprise that Hessian was a madman incarnate, but even that was too much. In a single jump, he had closed the distance to them and thrust his rusty sword into the axle of the wagon, driving it crazy as it lost control.
“ARE YOU INSANE?! You will get us all killed!” exclaimed Xander, unable to comprehend what Hessian was doing.
“What do a few broken bones change? All that matters is catching you all,” Hessian laughed unfettered, despite the sand and debris slapping against his face and body. How a simple human could be so mad about risking their own life was beyond Xander’s understanding. Hessian couldn’t be human or anything comparable!
“Someone, do something! The wheel can’t take much more!” Kiur cried out, trying to maintain control of the golem and stabilise the wagon.
Panic and fear were forming among them to do something. Approaching Hessian was not smart. He was snapping at them like a rabid dog, and the axle was about to snap.
This time, magic was not the answer to this problem. They couldn’t risk breaking the wheel.
“Evacuate to the other wagons before he-” Xander stopped himself when he saw Cylia flashing by him. He only caught a glimpse of her jumping and bouncing off the wagon as she grappled with Hessian, removing him from the wagon as they rolled out of the distance and kicked up dust.
“Cylia!” Xander’s eyes couldn’t believe what he saw. She had leapt at Hessian to stop the wagon from derailing. She abandoned her only chance of freedom, but for what? “Why?”
“What happened?” yelled Kiur, seeing how the wagon stabilised. He spotted Xander looking over the wagon and asked, “Where’s Cylia?”
No answer came as Xander continued to watch doubtfully.
He couldn’t comprehend it even if Xander continued observing the brawl between Cylia and Hessian happening. It was all so sudden. He didn’t see it coming. “Damn it, I didn’t get my payback for the sand she threw in my face.” Xander bit his tongue as the wagon was rattling them all through. A commotion brought the wagons into disarray, threatening them all to tip over. “What is it now!?”
Focusing on the direction where Kiur was, Xander witnessed the sand exploding into their faces, shaking up the wagon. The explosions grew in numbers until all Xander saw were the wagons derailing from their path.
—✧—
Kiur felt his grip slipping.
In a moment of pure egoism towards himself, Kiur released his magic to be set free around him. Connecting with the ground, Kiur lifted the sand. Cushioning those who had fallen off and bringing them back on board.
A crevice gaped open before them. With a wave of his hand, Kiur somehow understood how to carry the wagons over. Sand formed a makeshift bridge and immediately fell apart when they crossed it.
Despite that, Kiur didn’t know how he did it, but it happened in a heartbeat of his own volition.
He instructed the golems to continue their path. One of them looked back at Kiur, conflicted over the instructions it received. It was the same one that briefly saved Kiur and received a scar on its muzzle—it wore it with pride.
Should it help its master or obey its orders and leave him behind? “Go on, go,” hushed Kiur and with a nod, the golem turned and continued its way to the East where Navarre was.
To deliver the remaining passengers to safety, no matter what—even if it meant his creator’s safety was not guaranteed.
“Ptoo,” Kiur wiped the sand off his face on where he landed. Everything happened so fast that he had a hard time gathering himself, though when he saw the massive crevice and the wagons disappear, he understood. “Ah, so I was able to at least save them.”
Kiur dug his hands into the sand, tears welling up and dropping into his hands. “I did it. I’m in control of myself,” cried Kiur, sobbing silently on the edge of the crevice.
“Lo-look what the dead brought to me,” Kiur heard the voice of Hessian huffing towards him. His ragged voice broke as he fell to his knees on the rough patch of sand. He was beyond exhausted and barely alive himself.
“How are you so persistent?” asked Kiur, pushing himself up with the warmth of the sand energising his blood vessels. His flames danced. “After all you have been through, how can you still go on?”
Hessian has been a constant nuisance to Kiur ever since Nippur.
He almost killed him on numerous occasions. He displaced him and everyone else beyond their homes. And at all times, Hessian used every neck-breaking attempt to catch him and the others.
“For what?” grumbled Kiur. “What could he possibly gain from risking his life over and over?”
“It wasn’t easy,” grinned Hessian. He laughed the pain away from all the broken bones, cuts and bruises. Standing up, he revealed a body dragging behind him. “She’s persistent, I give her that. Slowed me down quite a bit.”
With a yang of his foot, Hessian revealed the girl clinging desperately to his ankle. A sight Kiur couldn’t believe. Cylia was unconscious but still fighting to keep the madman at bay.
“First earth, then fire, followed by golems and sand.” Hessian kicked Cylia against her ribs. “You are full of surprises, just like me-”
“Let go of her, you brute!” Although his punch was weak. Kiur knocked out one of Hessian’s teeth, but he retaliated quickly.
Without moving away, Hessian, with his one free leg, kicked Kiur against his guts and sent him packing. “That tooth was rotten anyway, so thank you for that!” With another boot, Kiur vomited out the remaining contents of his stomach. Hessian spat blood. “Too bad I don’t have a sword with me. Otherwise, I would have cut that cur’s hand off by now.”
Heavily slowed down by Cylia, Hessian limped forward, his eyes glassy from dehydration and exhaustion. He was so close; he needed to push on further. “Stop resisting, so-”
“Hiya!” Xander’s fist smacked Hessian. It did little to impress him. “You know why you got punched! Let go of her!” yelled Xander, putting his arms up for a fistfight he was not ready for how much he was shaking.
“You bastard,” Hessian slurred and cracked his jaw. “I’ll tear you limp from limp, you cocky little-”
“Hah!” Kiur smacked Hessian over his head with a crude polearm he quickly constructed from the stone underneath. With one heavy hit against the stomach, followed by the back of the head and then against the knees, Hessian was out cold.
“Ok, where did this come from now?” wondered Xander, dumbfounded. “It could have come in handy earlier when you asked me-”
“Xander!?” Kiur exclaimed, startling him. “What are you doing here? The wagons are gone. You could have escaped!”
“What do you think?” Xander crossed his arms, huffing his hair from his face. “I was thrown off the wagon, and escaping on my own is still too dangerous,” answered Xander in his usual blunt way, though he lied. He deliberately avoided the sand to be pushed back onto the wagon but couldn’t bring himself to say it. “We better get going. I don’t want to be caught while-”
His words got stuck inside his throat as Kiur unexpectedly hugged him. “I am glad to see you’re alright.”
It was like a burden falling from Kiur’s chest. No matter how unpleasant Xander tended to be, he was the closest to a friend Kiur had in a long time. Even if they only knew each other for a month. “I’m sorry you got stuck with me here.”
Awkwardly, Xander responded to this showcase of emotions with a hesitant pat on Kiur’s back.
“I guess the most troublesome pests don’t tend to run off first, huh?” They both broke away from one another upon the voice of a woman.
It was not Cylia—though they wished it was her. Instead, they were greeted by the masked figure of a Reiszer and her entourage of warrior slaves and soldiers.
Just like that, the heavy burden Kiur felt had come back, intensifying by the realisation of who she was. The Reiszer leader who was supposedly being held back by Archil so everyone could escape.
She was here, but not his brother. She was mostly unscathed except for a tear here and there, a fresh blood wound and a chipped mask. Resting her Katana against her shoulder, the blood dripped off its tip.
It could only mean one thing. Kiur’s brother had lost the battle. “Oh please, continue the hug,” she replied in mockery, narrowing her dim green eyes and laughing loudly.