A young man walks at the head of a ragged band of rough looking men, each marching amidst the dull and plodding staccato of their boots against the soggy and verdant forest floor. Somewhere behind him a branch crunches under foot followed swiftly by a hissed out and tired curse, it was the first word that had been spoken by the downcast and downtrodden band today, they had long before fallen into the melancholic and silent harmony of their marching ever forward. They weren’t far off now.

The boy, (for in truth it was disingenuous to call him anything but) Looked up, feeling the taught cords of the muscles in his neck aching in protest to the erect posture they were forced to assume. Doe eyes peered out from over an aquiline nose to study the impenetrable wall of rising and titanic pines, their cracked and chitinous bark covered trunks stretching up to the sky like the quills of a porcupine, each bristling with needles and swaying slightly in the cold and pregnant morning wind. A storm would hit soon, he just had to get the men home first.

A huffing advance broke the silence from behind him, turning, he was met with the large and good-natured clasp of a calloused hand resting on his shoulder. He cancelled his investigatory pivot before he laid eyes on the now adjacent figure. He recognised the laboured panting and heavy touch of his late father’s master at arms.

“You walk to fast for this old man, Karl.” Huffed out the stout figure who was struggling to maintain lockstep with the tall youth. He slowed his pace, he owed this man comfort, even if his legs begged him to run his way through this last stretch of faceless wilderness between them and the lives they had left behind.

“Sorry, Its just...” He trailed off, arms waving about before him as if trying to act out the emotions he could not put into words.

“I know, we all want to get home, but it's no use pushing the men to exhaustion, they’re as eager as you but it’s hard to hold your wife if you can barely raise your arms.” Karl turned around and examined the ravaged troop which he led home, he deflated when he saw the gaunt faces and empty gazes of his companions. They were all a far cry from the plucky and eager group which his father had marched beneath the great gate, their current taught and hard closed mouths hard to reconcile with the joyous and enthusiastic smiles they wore through the downpour of pastel spring flowers which the town’s citizens had reigned down upon them.

He turned back to the woods in front of him, finding comfort in the nostalgic sounds of life and mindless nature of his current journey, surrendering higher order thoughts and worries to instead focus on picking his way through the crowded undergrowth of ferns and small, scampering animals, showing nothing but a flash of terrified fur before disappearing to either side of the marching men.

Jorick was right, these men had been put through more than any lord had any right to request, fighting in every hard battle and subsequent rout the Hegemony’s armies had been in. He could see it in their eyes, on the scars they bore and bandages they were swaddled in; he could smell it too in the scent of death which clung to their clothes and hung over them with its foul-smelling pall. No, he had no right to push them harder than he had already.

The older man caught the pained and lingering look in Karl’s eyes as he scanned the battered men who trailed silently behind them and tightened his grip on his shoulder.

“There was nothing you could have done; you’ve done far more than anyone expected of you. The men know it, I know it, you’ve gone above and beyond for someone so...”

“Disappointing?” Karl cut in and Jorick frowned, the cantankerous cast of his features burning holes in the space before him.

“Young. For someone so young. You’re 18 Karl, barely of age, you’ve led these men home, you’ve kept them together, that was you. Own your successes, it’s unbecoming not to.” Silence fell over the two of them again, strangling any conversation which would have been born in the cradle. Karl hadn’t spoken but they both knew what he would’ve said to that. Sure, he had led the men home, but when they had started their journey they were two thirds of their original number, now they were half. They had been harried and mauled by the pursuing enemy all the way up to the River Tepan. And even then, the pursuit had only stopped because it had become too inconvenient, not because Karl had seen them off. He shouldn’t have assumed command. He was nothing more than the fail son of a great leader, not even a first born at that.

“It should’ve been me that...”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Smoke! The city welcomes us home with warm meals and hot baths boys!” A cry from behind cut him and any retort from Jorick off before the argument which had plagued them the whole journey could begin again.

Karl looked to the tumultuous and grey sky pockmarked by the dark, imposing blanket of the pine canopy and saw that the men were correct, the eddying and swirling clouds of smoke which he had before mistook for the blanketing, miasmic grey of the sky now wafted stark above them, the lilting notes of its scent invigorating the men. Teasing at the warm hearths and good food they had left behind more than a year prior. They had made it back to Martibeliard.

Karl turned to the men behind him and nearly broke into tears as he saw how the weight of the march melted away from them like the winter snows, the spring of their smiles and bright eyes nearly taking the last of the energy which had brought him here. His job was done, he could see how the men wanted to bolt out of formation, to run through the last vestiges of the wood and break into the cleared ground around the city, to then crumple into the waiting arms of their loved ones. But still they stood, eyes darting between Jorick and him in rapid succession, they were well trained, it was what had kept them together on the march, it was what had kept them alive.

Jorick turned to Karl with a conspiratorial grin and mischievous fire in his eyes, it was the good-natured look that had before now lived only in his memories and the light smatterings of good dreams he still had, but here it was again alight on the old soldier's face, ceding the honour of letting loose the men to his young lord and long-time student.

Karl smiled wide, his slightly crooked teeth on full display and all tremors of the previous argument that had threatened to emerge between him and his old guardian forgotten. He looked to his men; their own feelings echoed on his face and he smiled wider still, a look of pure joy brightening a face which had for so long been missing its warmth.

“Go, you’ve earned it!” He roared to them, his voice cracking slightly with both youth and overwhelming emotion. The stumble went unnoticed as his men repeated his good-natured bellow and charged forward into the trees, running as fast as their tired legs would take them.

Karl watched with a pained smile as the last of his men, mainly those wounded they had managed to take with them, limped away into the trees. Only Jorick remained with him, standing next the boy who was trying his best to hold back tears.

“It’s because of you that they made it back.” Jorick said, still watching the backs of the slowly disappearing men as they faded away. Karl turned to him, the sad smile returning to twinge his features.

“We both know that’s a lie. They deserve better... They had better.” The smile faltered briefly, and a small group of tears sallied out and ran down his cheeks before he was able to regain a hold on them.

“You better not be talking about the Tepan again.” Anger slipping into his voice as he spoke, he turned slowly to the boy who still just stared painfully into the trees.

“What else? How do I face them again Jorick? I'm nothing but a damn coward.” The older man rounded on him as the words crept their way out form between his lips. Rough hands grasped him violently on both shoulders as Jorick forced the taller, slighter Karl to face him.

“Don’t you dare do this again! If you were my son I'd slap this madness out of you. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.” He folded the boy into a hug to stop any of the myriad of responses he had used over the course of the march. “We can save the rest of this talk for after, let this be a good day my friend, please, don’t punish yourself anymore.” He released the boy from the hug but left his hands and gaze firmly on him, studying to see if his gesture had made any impact.

Karl met the grey and steely eyes of his companion and made to respond, lips opening to wail and eyes making ready to weep. Before he could however, they were both forced to turn rapidly toward the city, toward where a flock of birds had taken flight in a panicked and frenzied mass, toward the sound of a keening and mournful cry weaving its way toward them through the labyrinthine woods.

Without a glance or a word spoken between them they both broke into a run with Karl quickly outpacing the older, shorter man. He was blind to the branches that whipped at his face and the thorns which tore at the thick leather of his pants focusing on his breathing and his thoughts. Why, what was happening, were the enemy here?! No, they couldn’t be, he hadn’t slowed the march after they crossed the Tepan and they had had a lead, there was no way they could have been passed, even accounting for their lack of mounts they knew these lands better than any, besides the speed horses provided was negligible this deep into the northern woods.

Karl shook his head impotently, trying to banish the thoughts from his mind. Yet as he approached the end of the woods and the screams got louder and more frequent so too did the questions. Had they led the enemy here? No, that was the very reason they hadn’t used any of the major paths or trails, just encase the enemy were tracking them. Why then as he approached the city did the smoke begin to turn darker and the scent transform into the mouth-watering smell of cooked meat, he gagged in disgust at his hunger addled mind.

Karl broke through the trees and fell to his knees, skidding forward slightly on the wet and torn earth. A small way from him he could see the cause of the screaming, several of his men were staring at the city and howling their sorrow, alternating between tearing at their hair or what armour they hadn’t previously thrown out for mobility. Further forward he could see the dark silhouettes of the bulk of his force making their way toward the ruins of the great gate, it’s charred mass of stones and ash visible from even Karl’s distant vantage.

As for the city itself it was a corpse, a rotting, stinking, feted corpse of something which had once been grand. The walls were shattered and torn asunder as if ploughed into with the fist of an angry god and the fires, oh god the fires, it was as though maggots and flies and all manner of scavenging beasts had torn their way into the flesh of the city and had ravaged the suburban districts, even reaching as far as the ruined and razed keep, the scant remaining evidence of its previous existence being the tattered remnants of the inner walls which ringed the central hill on which it had stood. The only echo of the before imagined welcome being the motley collection of ravaged women and other refugees clad in rags and soot who emerged from amongst the rubble.

Jorick broke out from the wood a short while later, screaming orders at the wailing men to tell him what was going on, they died in his throat when he saw the ruined city. He stared in silence for a moment before turning to Karl and asking again what was happening, yet now his voice was quiet, demure, lost. Karl didn’t respond, instead he turned to the sky just as the storm which had been brewing broke its banks and spilt down from the heavens, drenching the mourning men. At least It would serve to hide his tears the boy thought.