They started back in the direction of the battlefield. Mathew first searched around every corner of every tent. He peered into groups of gathered men who had just come back from the battlefront and looked farther into auxiliaries that were not part of the soldiery. When his eyes failed him he started to ask each and every person that made eye contact with him. When that failed him, he started to grab people’s arms and beg to be pointed in the direction of a noble.

With all else failing, Mathew muttered about just searching for the only nobility they did know personally, Lord Gadarax. The two of them kept moving at a stunning pace, just slow enough that they could get a look at the faces of all the men and women gathered in groups. Several times on the desperate scramble, both Mathew and Max ended up tripping on stumps, bloody bodies, and shattered spears.

They could not find Lord Gadarax anywhere. Not even including the soldiers, thousands of aids, followers, on lookers, and the occasional priest blocked their progress. Being from the tiny populace of the hamlet, such a gathering would have made both boys awestruck, but at a time of desperation like this, they paid it no mind.

Finally, Mathew returned to his previous tactic of grabbing tunics and pleading for aid. Finally, one man pointed up a small incline to a group that was barely in view.

“Get yer bloody hands off my fineries. Up there’s your bloody noble blood. Ye damn fool!” Max pulled Mathew away just as the man looked about to pull a knife.

A wizened man with stringy white hair sat on a fine coarser, looking out toward the battle remnants through a looking glass. Next to him, a woman matched his fineries with a golden tunic with a cape clasped around her neck by a well shined badge. Two dozen men surrounded the pair, the two obvious nobles only viewable because of their horses. Banner men, flaggers, guards, aids, and a few well-dressed men and women made up the entourage. Mathew started to trod up the hill. His determined look deterred the first set of guards that thought to block his way. Max fell behind as he observed the details of all those on the small outcropping. He could see quickly that the guards of this noble became concerned and surrounded Mathew. They did not look pleased about the determined pace toward their liege.

“Halt in the name of Duke Warchylde,” the two guards drew swords and one pointed into Mathew’s chest.

Max immediately stepped up. “Wait wait wait.” He grabbed his friend’s shoulder. “We are friends. We only wish to ask the nobles here if our friend might receive the medical aid that he needs to survive his battle wounds.”

The closest guard motioned the others to hold position and they kept their swords drawn. That guard, wearing a ridiculously plumed helmet, sheathed his ornate blade and approached to within easy conversational distance. “When approaching a member of high nobility, especially a general’s vanguard during time of war, it is best not to approach in such a way. In fact, it might be best not to approach at all.”

Mathew gritted his teeth, “My friend is in need of your special ointments and salves, the ones that happen to be reserved for heroes and nobles. Or so we were told.”

The guard spit on the field to his side. “There are many soldiers who have fought bravely that deserve such things. What would make your friend so special that they should be used upon him?”

“Why shouldn’t all the men that fight in such a war receive such things?”

“The wounded are too numerous and those supplies are too sparse.”

“Then why would you march to such a war without the items needed to fight it!” Mathew balled his fists and his nails dug into his palms.

The guard then motioned the others back to the sides of the General. “Such things are rare across all the lands. Wars are necessary and sometimes numerous, the herbs do not grow more numerous and the poultices get no easier to make. That is why they must be held in reserve for those who are privileged.”

“You should use them on each and every man in order of injury.”

“What is your unit again?” The guard’s stance changed from superior to annoyed.

Max finally spoke, “We are with the skirmishers... good knight.”

And that revelation seemed to be the last straw. “You have squandered enough of my time, the General needs me. Be off with you.” He turned and went to assume his place.

Mathew now started to yell as loudly as he could. “General! Would you watch my friend die? Would your lady? Would you hold back your salves from her if she was sick?” He started to take steps towards the group again. “General!” The whole of the nobles, guards, and aids turned to this screaming plump man.

The same guard they had spoken to turned back towards them and motioned for some of the other guards. “Get these two out of here! We cannot have these distractions in the middle of a battle! General Duke Warchylde has a battle to run.”

Max started to back off of the small hill. Mathew resisted the guards as best as he could. Two of them grabbed his arms and no matter how hard he tried, Mathew could not push through their combined strength.

After he had been carried a good distance away and his resistance died, the guards finally released him. “Skirmisher whelp. Don’t let us see you again or you will be arrested. During a time of war, you would not be pleased with your punishment. Neither would your friend here.”

Mathew spit in their direction, but it was aimed poorly from his exhausted lips, dripping down onto his jerkin.

Max did not lay a finger on Mathew, but stood close to him. “We better go check on Brian. Provide him the care that we can.”

“I vow to learn of any magics or arts that I can to save people such as him. If there is any way, I will not allow others to suffer this same fate.” Mathew gasped. Max did notice that an aide to the older woman next to the general headed from her side down the hill in their direction. He rubbed Mathew’s shoulder with brotherly affection and looked up in hopes that the aide approached them in a non-hostile manner.

The extravagant looking young man did indeed come to them as they started walking back to the nursing tents. “Hold for a moment.” He rode up on a small pony. Though his outfit showed him of high station, the man was small in stature, perhaps not even a man. “The lady has heard your plight. A friend of yours has good friends indeed. She believes that your devotion to your friend should be rewarded. She offers a bit of her own personal stocks to help your friend.” He held out a tightly drawn pouch towards Mathew. Mathew grabbed it from him with more force than was necessary.

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Max spoke before anything could be taken the wrong way. “Thank you and thank your lady for this gesture. Hopefully it will not be too late...” Before he could finish the statement, Mathew grabbed his tunic and started to pull him in the direction of the tent.

As Mathew dragged Max he yelled out, “What are your and your ladies names so that I may thank you both?”

The man’s voice took on an odd drawl as he raised his voice, “I am Aide de camp Kingstate and my lady is Duchess Margaret Warchylde. Safe journey’s to you and your wounded friend. And to the angry one as well.”

They ran as quickly as they could. After all the exertions of the day, it seemed impossible that this energy could still exist within them. They gathered up a hidden reserve of energy to make the final dash. They slammed into auxiliaries and exhausted soldiers. They tripped over soup cooking over small fires. Then, finally, outside the tent that held Brian, they tripped on a pile of bloody rags that lay just across from the entrance.

They quickly recovered their footing and burst through the flap of the tent, startling an orderly in the process. It is then that Max’s and Mathew’s eyes both fell upon Brian. The sight that met their eyes brought their stomachs to their throats. The ghostly woman turned her gaze up at them as she now covered the torso and face of Brian with a white sheet. She laid it upon his unmoving form with great care and lost hope. Max and Mathew both slumped at the sight of their expired friend’s body.

Mathew lethargically made his way to the table and lifted the sheet. His childhood friend lay there, looking face up to the sky. He brushed his hands over his friend’s eyes to close them. He stood there and stared at his once living and breathing friend. Max could feel that reserve of energy in Mathew sputter out. His friend collapsed on the floor right next to Brian.

Max hadn’t ever been as close to Brian in his childhood as Mathew had. They’d really been like brothers. He could still understand the hopeless feeling of loss, somehow.

In the coming moments, Mathew fell unconscious. The orderlies came over to make space for more wounded. They began to heft Brian with what looked like little care for him. They move him to stack him alongside many of the others that had been brought off of the battlefield and died. Max pulled Brian’s body off of the pile of dead. He found a spot away from the traffic outside, and laid him out.

The sounds of the battle echoed in the distance. The cacophony that once filled the air now registered as only an occasional burst. Soldiers walking by spoke in labored, exhausted voices that the forces of the citadel turned tail and started to run.

Max lost track of time, sitting there, trying to think but failing to think of anything positive. Mathew returned, apparently after having been booted out of the nursing tent. He plopped down on the ground next to Max and the body. In his hand, Mathew carried the bloody remnants of his expired companion’s split breastplate. They sat together in silence for a long time.

Mathew finally broke the silence as the sounds of battle utterly vanished in the distance. “I want to take him back to the hamlet. It’s the only place he really belongs.”

“I don’t think I can go with you. I never belonged there. I understand you must do it. I can’t go with you.”

“I thought that was the case. I won’t be staying there either. I just need to take him back.”

Hours passed. The battlefield was swept for survivors and the dead were buried. The units all reformed and camps were made on the far side beyond the nursing tents, away from the smell of the battlefield. Tents were erected. Max and Mathew brought Brian’s body to their tent and stowed it inside. The usual rowdy atmosphere that had been the skirmisher part of camp was not this evening. There were pockets within it, those of the real killers, where stories were being told in loud voices that cracked through the quiet night. The new Jolly Jims and Ciylins of their unit would be filling the heads of their compatriots with their glories. Though Max doubted the braggarts would survive more than another battle or two.

Mathew and Max retired to their tent with Brian’s wrapped body sitting in the corner. They started a small fire and had a bit of dried meat and fruit to cleanse their palettes of the tough day they’d had.

After a quiet hour of that, Mathew looked over at Brian’s body. “He was a good friend. You may have gotten a lot of ire, but you were a hell of a lot better at keeping to yourself. I wanted to have friends and to be surrounded by the other kids. They always used to play at wooden swords and make shift obstacle courses. Oh, they invited me along, but usually, I ended up the pig in the pit or the monster that all the kids with swords beat and stabbed.

“Brian is the boy that stopped that and asked me if I was okay one day after a particularly severe beating. He said that he saw a look of fear in my eyes, and that’s when he realized what he’d done. From that day forward, he came to my defense. I remember the very next time we played at swords and they labeled me the monster. Well, they came running at me and Brian shoved one of them down and put his sword to another’s chest.

“That one actually went running off crying and the other two just didn’t know what to do. They stared at Brian and forgot all about me. Brian flourished his wooden sword and swung his other arm up to balance his pose.”

Both of them smiled as they wiped tears away from their dirt covered cheeks, finally cleaning them up a bit.

“He just laughed at them, this sort of an on guard taunt. The two of them went running just the same and both clattered right into me, screamed, dropped their wooden swords, which I promptly picked up, and found a path to get the heck out of there!” Mathew ended, looking smug.

Max could see the difference between them well. Mathew and Brian had become the bully in some of the kids’ eyes. Max didn’t think he could ever become that way.

“I remember Rissa and his notorious break down. He was so in love with that girl. Rissa had the cutest freckly face at that age and her straight brown hair looked almost like a fine horse’s mane.” Max laughed fondly, “Now I wouldn’t be able to say if she was actually cute or if it just adds to the fond memory of the story for Brian, but that’s about what I remember correlating her to.

“So, he was smitten with her, always joining her side in games of tug of war and always trying to be her partner in the three-legged races. She got everything she could out of him and he just thought that meant she was into him. Then, I remember, finally, when he brought her those flowers from Leia the Florists gardens. The ones he stole because he had nothing good enough to trade for them.

As Max continued, Mathew started to smile and blush, thinking of the memory, “Well, anyway. Brian hadn’t really cut them well and they were all over the place and pretty much falling apart as he brought them up from behind his back to give to Rissa. She smiled and backed away shyly as he asked her to be his love. He actually said it that way, like something out of one of the old tales. Then, when he got more persistent and she continued to back away and then to actually shake her head, the flowers drooped.

“Finally, she said that she didn’t like him.” Max stopped at that point as Mathew turned beet red.

Mathew then blurted out, “He collapsed to the ground and called for help. He acted like his heart had stopped and he was going to die right there on the spot. He may have even said as much!”

The two of them laughed hard and gave each other a friendly pat on the back. Tears started to roll down Max’s cheeks from the heavy laughter that held back his ability to breath.

Finally, after long moments of the laughing, Mathew finished, “he did always have a flair for the drama. It is no wonder he apprenticed to be a playwright.”

Max passed more stories back and forth with Mathew to fight away the pain of their loss throughout the night.

Before the sun rose that morning, a muscular figure pulled the flap of their tent back to allow the pre-dawn breeze into their resting place. Rufus spoke up after giving the boys a moment to awaken, “Hai. I’ve been informed of ya situation. Lord Gadarax az released ya from service. I got da scroll sayin’ so. He also passed on dis mule. It was somebodies. But ‘es dead.” He handed Max the end of a rope that must have been tied around the mule’s neck. In Rufus’s left hand, he held out a scroll in Mathew’s direction. A lordly seal, which must have been the symbol of Lord Gadarax caught the morning light.

“Thanks for all you have done for us. We might’ve all died if you hadn’t shown us a few things. You gave us a fighting chance.” Max said, with a somber tone.

He looked like he wasn’t used to hearing compliments. “I’ll bez off dan. Take care yaself’s.”

Obviously the man wasn’t much for conversations, and his poor abilities to speak probably contributed to that. Max thought that if he’d had the chance, we would have liked to repay Rufus by helping him with that as Rufus had helped the boys become men.