Men shit themselves when they die. Legends don’t mention it. Larconica’s Comprehensive History of The Empire doesn’t mention it. Not even the few battle hardened soldiers set down here in Kitford mention it. Only the frowned upon annals of the anatomy of homo sans primus taught me the truth of death. Of decay. But the words could never prepare me for the reality of the stench. I retch silently, barely containing my meager lunch and dinner.

I raise my cumbersome head to peer over the Magma’s bar. My hiding spot seems pathetic now, the four feet of hardwood not nearly tall enough to obscure my unnatural form. Two boys, forever divorced now from the peace of innocence, clutch their swords in the streetside crevice of the Tavern almost as tightly as they clutch each other. They flinch quickly away as they realize the scuffle is over, and that they are being watched. I pass no judgment as I languidly rise, desperately hoping that they will do the same.

I am a coward, and I know it. My place is among the rows of wheat, corn, and books. As a child, I used to observe cliques of my peers as they played at being heroes. I was a freak and stranger to all, even to those who I grew up with. When I was still young enough to fit through the door, Ma would urge me to go out and play, but I learned quickly on The Gully’s hard dirt roads. I learned that the city is only kind to its own people, and that my confused genus and species would forever keep me from their ranks.

I cannot help but love people, though. I still weep for them as I catch the first glimpse of their bodies strewn broken through the street. They had families. A cowardly part of me wishes to be gone by the time the families upstairs descend to find their mutilated loved ones. But I am not that kind of coward. I will be there to offer whatever support my slightly ostracized personage can offer. Never mind if they would do the same for me. Ma would.

A woman grasps my hand from behind, her own darting from the shadows to strike like a frightened Basilisque snake. I clench involuntarily, spinning clumsily and striking her across the shoulder with the back of one powerful hand. Bone cracks and she spins into the wall, then to the ground. I dig my nails into my palms and swallow my self-hate, kneeling quickly down to feel her pulse. Luckily, her neck did not break. How could I let myself do this? I never wanted to hurt anybody, much less this devastated woman. Following instructions I have read a thousand times in my mind, I tenderly hold her back while I set her shoulder. She spasms in pain, still unconscious from a concussion I cannot mend.

“Freak! Monster!” A frightened man hisses down upon me from the safety of the top stair. He clutches an awl between his middle and index fingers, hand curled into a fist. His entire body quivers out of fear of the recent battle, his wife’s safety, and most of all, me. How could I be the object of this man’s terror amongst all this? I need to leave this place. Maybe even the civilized world. All I really want is to see my ma. To hold her as she holds me amidst the hanging draperies she is so fond of weaving.

I rise from the prone woman, my jittering lips fumbling out an incoherent apology to the man. To the town. I don’t even hear myself as I stumble towards the door. Moonlight glints off of a curved blade leaning against the doorframe. It would be beautiful, even magical on a different night. The ground beneath me is slick, and I stumble as I pass the corpse of old Sylas the carpenter. I step on something cylindrical, nearly losing my footing completely this time. A hilt of a sword, I think. I look down. A mistake. It is a meaty chord that trails from old Sylas’ chest. I cannot resist nausea this time, and I careen into the wall, heaving until the stars clear from my eyes.

When I look up, I am not leaning against wood, but the burly chest of a sturdy man. I don’t think I moved while being sick. I must have mistaken him for the wall. He is the most recent addition to the town guard. An old friend of Coran’s - Brandon. I mutter my thanks through my bile and shame, tilting to complete my unsteady voyage into the outdoors. Instead, Brandon’s hand stays me, pulling me gently downwards to where I settle abruptly in a chair. Stunned.

Brandon glides about the celebration hall turned battlefield, checking pulses and whispering comforts into the ears of the dying. The man whose wife I knocked senseless in my own stupor of fear now clasps Brandon’s hand, nodding and acting brave. He receives a pat on his shoulder for his fortitude. He stumbles to the door, keeping a wide berth about my creaking chair.

Others flood down into the carnage now, emboldened by the first, to find their friends, brothers, fathers, and lovers strewn about the ground. I don’t even realize I am sobbing until I feel my face. The sounds of my reserved mourning were far outmatched by the wails that begin in and outside the hall.

The three Heedy brothers approach me now, brass knuckles and knives flashing in their pale palms. Looking for someone to blame. Anything at all to do to mitigate their own crushing impotence. Their bodies spell violence, but their eyes speak only despair, and I lose the chair beneath me as I scramble backwards. First on my knees, then on my heels I exit the Magma frantically and off balance, unprepared for the lower, blood-slicked ground.

I fall on my back beside yet another corpse. This must be what the Abyss is like. Death upon fear upon even more death. I can’t tell whether the fallen man is a raider or farmer as I look into his eyes. He stares back at me, too dead to reach out or move. Too alive not to feel pain. My eyes leave his for one instant only, to check if the brothers have followed me into the dirt. They do not emerge from the darkness inside.

I shut the sufferer’s eyes with two quivering fingers, and wheel about as someone looses a defiant scream twenty meters down the road. Aduren clutches the pommel of a sword driven deep into his stomach, grimacing with the effort. He alone turned the tide of the battle with his righteous fury and burning mace. I should be grateful to him. Instead I just fear him. He spits blood and howls through clenched teeth as he drags the imperfect blade out of his own flesh. I cringe at the spectacle. Four other surviving soldiers watch as well. Paralized in confusion, horror, and admiration.

Aduren rips his shirt from his chiseled torso, shaking from exertion and blood loss as he molts this stained cloth-woven skin. He raises his arms to the celestia as moonrays shine down upon his dirt and blood-smeared back. I watch in fascinated disbelief as half a dozen cuts along with the impaling blade’s exit wound seal themselves before my eyes. He twists then, a fish out of water gasping for oxygen in a foreign environment, to let the moonrays fall upon his chest as well. It has been only ten seconds and his body now wears only scars. Scars that look ten years old.

He lays in the dirt upon his back, grinning up at the stars and breathing deeply. His posture is almost like that of a child making their impression in fresh dirt or snow. His relieved laughter resounds about Kitford’s single story dwellings and establishments like the song of a siren. Lively and merry, but also obscene. Offensive to the pervading crooning of the mourners who seep from the Magma in a viscous tide. Clinging to their fallen like molasses to beads of sugar.

Recovered now from the initial shock of mortal fear, I make my way over to Little Earl where he lies slumped against the stonemason’s porch. He has fastened a tight compress out of the cloth of his own shirt. He holds the ends out in front of himself to maintain pressure on the multiple laceration wounds on his right leg. He has done his best, but he cannot reach far enough forward to tie an effective knot without moving the leg.

I do my best not to pain him as I take the cloth from his weary hands, tying the knot myself. I pause before pulling it tight; look into his contorted face. He nods. I pull forcefully outwards and he groans under the new pressure. He was lucky. He will live. He pats my shoulder feebly, and does his best to smile. It doesn’t work, but I appreciate the effort. I will take any recognition I can get from these people. From any people really.

Dark Ambient Melodies

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I do my best to alleviate the pain of those still among the living while a group of men coalesce by the ravaged citadel. I expect I will be at this task for hours. Maybe days. The wounded won’t break from their suffering, so I shouldn’t break in my aid. I didn’t fight, so it is only right that I do my part. For those who will accept my help, that is.

Someone lays a comforting hand on my shoulder. I flinch, but my high-strung nerves from earlier have given way to a numbness unlike any I have ever felt before. It is Gillan, a hunter and frequent passerby through Kitford’s meadows. This friendship with the mayor brings him here every summer, where he enjoys the company of the children - playing at cards and dice. Teaching boys how to build traps and weave cord.

“Come, Kha, we could use you at the council.” The council? Usually, I would expect mockery should such an established man reach out to me for advice. There is only kindness and comfort in his eyes, though, so I rise and follow him toward the growing assembly.

Captain Coran stands at the heart of the clustered troupe, leaning heavily upon his gray mare and panting in between words. One cracked, calloused hand rests against his stomach where a red stain threatens to conquer his entire left side. He is ranting about purpose, I think. I reach the fringes of the assembly and halt, despite Gillan’s efforts to pull me farther in. He knows he cannot move me, so he lets go and takes his place at the Captain’s side.

“...it is for love that we live, but for friends that we fight. I do not live here. I did not lose that which I love tonight. But I did lose a damn good friend. You know his as m...” he pauses, lips pursed. A spasm seizes his body and his spits bloody phlegm into the dirt. “...he was...is your mayor.” Another laborious breath.

Gillan shifts towards his friend, reaching out a weather-hardened arm for support. He addresses the wounded man in a low, respectful tone.

“You know I’d follow you anywhere, goodfriend, but perhaps we should not leave these people? Perhaps...” Coran declines the offer of bodily support and gestures weakly about.

“The best thing for these people is to get their mayor… back.”

I don’t know much about Coran. Just that he comes in summer. He is quiet, reserved, helpful, and somewhat important. A captain of the third Imperium legion once. In my vivid imagination, I painted him as a radiant knight turned veteran traveler. Proud, honest, and brave. I was not that naive, really. I just enjoy seeing the best in things. In people. It seems unnatural now that he would act so single-mindedly. Choosing to pursue a single friend instead of aiding the suffering people all about him. After all, he is just a man. He continues his desperate speech.

“The raiders came straight for the citadel. Means they were after people. Herskel and the Carsus emissary.” Emissary? There have not been emissaries in the north since the War of Silence with the People’s Empire. Emissary means war. It means enemies and allies. An attitude the Centrum has not displayed publicly for centuries.

“So we chase, then!”

The gathered assembly shifts in confusion as Aduren shoulders his way through to the center. Less than an hour ago, this man yanked a sword from his own ribs. Now he stands proud, shredded armor and jacket stained with blood and earth, preparing to lead an expedition he knows not where. To save men he does not know. Action abstracted from personal purpose without immediate gain. It is heroic, I think. But I feel as though I have read of insanity defined in the same way.

Aduren claps a reticent young man heavily on the shoulder. The boy sees it coming and braces, unprepared for the tenderness with which Aduren’s hand falls. The hero looks into the boy’s eyes, but addresses the entire congregation.

“So who’s with me” he bellows. “Who will put forth their steel to save the innocent? To bring infidels to justice?”

The poor boy is simultaneously starstruck, traumatized, and overwhelmed by social pressure. He draws his own blade, and shifts to stand by Aduren, burying it in the earth. Too nervous to say anything. The blade bears the same mark as Coran’s. That of the third legion. In one hand it belongs, an extension of will and bone. In the other it quivers apprehensively, unsure why it sits where it does.

“Thats th’ spirit! There must be more ‘an one brave soul among you!”

The warrior is put off by the lack of immediate enthusiasm for his cause. How can he fail to recognize the raw wounds in every man around him? Even those lucky enough to avoid the battle are scarred far deeper than the flesh.

“You!” He points upwards past his single recruit. All turn attentively, following his accusatory finger. I turn quickly, realizing that there must be someone behind me. Someone guilty. Someone...Oh no. No no no no no. He is pointing to me. I am speechless.

“Funny I didn’t see you in the street,” Aduren prods, angling his body towards me. His eyes scour my face preditorially. My eyes search his. Frantically. Does he know how I cowered? How I hid? He exited the Magma before I fell into my hiding place behind the bar. He could have seen through the window… Gillan speaks up, saving me.

“Kha here would love to help. I’m sure he would plow your field or build your house. Better than five men put together!” Some of the men break their frowns in what might one day become a smile. “But we are not fighters, and...”

“No! No no no...” Aduren confronts Gillan now, intentions unclear. The warrior pats the ranger condescendingly on the shoulder. Gillan takes a barely perceptible step back. Sinks slightly lower, legs bent. Into a ready stance. Aduren is the larger man by ten kilos and two inches, but somehow they still look eye to eye.

“But you are!” Aduren lays a playful slap on Gillan’s bent knee. “See, goodfellows? He is prepared to defend himself.” Gillan has not loosened his defensive posture. All of the sudden, a mongoose lurching at a viper, Aduren lunges at a carpenter in the ring’s inner circle. The man is thick, but not tall. Wisened, but not too old. He starts backward, assuming a less polished, less symmetrical defensive stance. “Him too!” Aduren chuckles fanatically and pats the carpenter on the shoulder. The man has just wet himself, and he turns toward the circle’s center in hopes that no one will notice.

“And you,” the crowd parts to let Aduren saunter up to me. I am rooted by panic and indecision. “Have yet to speak for yourself!” He continues, squinting up into my face as though it were miles away instead of a mere head.

“Are you really a lamb, prepared to cower behind these harder, smaller lambs?” He pokes my chest forcefully. It is the sting of his words, not the force of his jab that causes me to lose my balance. “Will you watch as murdering, howling brigands steal YOUR people?” He is closer than I ever want to get to another man, undeterred by size. “Will you do nothing as they rape, kidnap,...”

“NO!” It escapes my chest, gusting forth like an explosion of pent up gas above a heartStone blowpatch, overturned by the first hoe of spring.

“Repeat?” my tormenter prompts.

“I will not.” I speak more confidently than before, if only a little.

“That’s right!!” Aduren wheels on the remainder of his audience. Victorious. I now realize that I was the one stone that needed turning for the rest to follow. Perhaps this killer isn’t nearly as mindless as I thought. He knows something about crowds, and this one will soon fall to him. And likely follow him, or Coran, to their deaths under the blades of the same raiders they just escaped. Strange how Coran has been so suddenly and completely supplanted in role and aura by this younger, more zealous man.

Aduren leads me to the center of the circle to stand by his other victim. The boy eyes me guardedly as I approach. No longer cowed by my stature. He looks to be eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Well formed, but with a young face. We share a meaningful glance, neither of us sure what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I watch the familiar faces about me as they are slowly overtaken by guilt. Now that the most timid among them has stepped up, their egos will soon force them to do the same. I wish they wouldn’t. Better that they stay here with what remains of their families. Their houses and hard-worked land. But they will never feel safe in their homes again. Not, at least, until those who violated their lives lie beneath the ground.

The Heedy brothers step forth, shoulder to shoulder in a homogeneous line. As one, they lift swords stripped from fallen militiamen and raiders, pacing to stand by Aduren where he has hopelessly upstaged the original proprietor of his cause. The brothers turn to me then, hefting their new weapons and enjoying the strength of unity and purpose. As their three blades lodge themselves in the earth, another is drawn. And then another. Remaining militiamen. Impressionable boys of fifteen and sixteen. The quiet killer Brandon. Eventually, even Gillan joins the inner circle, standing by Coran instead of Aduren. The brothers still eye me, and I know they will be hunting more than just raiders when they leave this town. I want to run. To scream. To cry. But I also feel empowered. I spoke up to a bully in front of those who ostracized me, and I am beginning to feel like I could do so much more.