The bards are liars; there is no glory or honor to be found in battles, most of all, war. Actually, scratch that, most of all, civil war. All there is to be found in battle is horror, screams of those dying and those doing the killing, and an assortment of bodily fluids and solids that churn the stomach and scar the mind. There are so very rarely valiant stands or courageous warriors clad in shining armor. It is almost always just men given far too little training and subpar weapons pitted against each other at the whims of the powerful.
I was one of those men, well, more or less. I am Vott Felgar Son of Drek Felgar and I was a sergeant of the royal army of Lierus. I stood on the front lines in my left hand a shield and in my right, a long spear beside me stood my squadron of soldiers each hard-eyed and as ready as I could make them. The border lords of the empire had rallied behind Lord Brine, and after decades of tensions, war had finally broken out along the empire. That is why I was here trudging through mud just as much from blood as the rains the night before. As I rallied my men to charge the walls of the besieged fort before us.
An arrow flew from the battlements and pierced the chain mail on my sword arm abe for getting lodged in the bone. I screamed in pain but kept moving forward, clearing a path in the mud for the ram behind me. I knew that the ram had to make it to the gate if the men around me were to survive the night. There were only thirty feet left to move the damn thing, but a cry from behind me and the wheels stopped turning through the churned earth. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that one of the men pushing the ram had taken an arrow through the throat and was letting out a gurgle. Several of the men around him were trying to help him and therefore had stopped pushing the ram forward. Moving quickly, I grabbed the ram and started to move.
“Get moving; he’s already dead, and you're about to be,” I bellowed over the din of battle. I pulled the ram forward, not waiting for a response throwing my considerable size and muscle into moving it. It moved slowly, my feet slipping in the slick mud of the battlefield. However, my men’s training seemed to kick in from my order, and they started to push. The ram slid into place and slammed into the gate with a resounding crash. Then I moved to the back of the ram and helped my men slam the gate. Three resounding crashes later, and the gate swung open. I was first through the hole in the gate, shield forward, and the spear held firmly.
Then I felt a sear pain through my chest as a ballista bolt tore through my shield and then my chest as well, and I fell to the ground dying or maybe already dead. The world started to fade around me. The sounds of the battle began to leave as well, sounding as if far off. The cold began seeping into me, and I stared into a dull grey sky. Then there was a pop, and I found myself standing still dressed in ragged armor and a massive bolt protruding from my chest. I also was no longer on a battlefield and instead was in some sort of liminal space. Just a deep rich black reaching out forever in all directions. A man stood in front of me. He was shorter than me though, that said little as I would consider myself too tall. He was old with a face that said he smiled, often, judging by the lines around his eyes. He was dressed comfortably in a simple white shirt and dark pants.
“Hello Vott Felgar, I am Chol, god of death,” he said. His voice was even and soft. He reminded me a lot of the old man that liked to hang out in the bakery down the street from my home. That being said, I was still very confused as to what had happened.
As if reading my mind, the man continued to speak. “I’m sure that you are very confused, but rest assured that you are not dead. Well, at least not yet, just very, very close. Hence why I am able to talk to you right now, your soul rests at the threshold of my domain.”
“Not that I’m not honored to speak to you, but why am I here? I was not the only one dying on the battlefield today, and I doubt all of them are getting the same treatment I am here,” I said, hoping to sound respectful. I was never great at social activities. I had always been more comfortable in the ways of violence and simple words. However, this was a god and the god of death at that; he was not the kind of entity I wanted to make an enemy of.
“Right you are there, Vott no other soldier will I visit personally today. Which I am sure makes you wonder why I have chosen to speak with you. Well, that is a question that is both very difficult and very easy to answer.”
“Give me the easy answer first,” I blurted before I could stop myself, “Sorry, um, please continue.”
He looked up at me, almost amused, then continued on. “Yes, well, the easy answer is that there is something terrible closing in on the world and while normally the empire of Lierus would maybe be enough to stop it. Your country, unfortunately, decided now was the perfect time to get embroiled in a civil war. Anyone I’m getting off track, I as the god of death have a vested interest in keeping as many people alive as possible.”
I think I made a face at that because he let out a sigh, and then kept talking. “I want to keep people alive because I am more or less eternal, and as such, I can afford to wait. I am not a killer; I am a harvester. I do not want to see all life eliminated, just that which has run its course. What is coming will snuff out many lives long before their true end.”
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“And I come into this where”
“You will be my champion. You will gather up an army and stand against the calamity. But that doesn’t really answer the question of you, does it? I’ll be honest, Vott, I was drawn to you not so much because of your physical might or any special talent for military strategy you may hold though those are great. I have come to you because of your will to live. You are a man that revels in the fact that you are alive. See Vott as the god of death. I am not allowed to give, only take. But I am a clever little god and have found a few ways around that little rule. I can take your death Vott. Both for better and worse, as long as you wish to live, you will continue to do so. No matter the pain you endure physically and mentally, as long as you want to keep living, you will. So I need you because the road ahead will be rich with terrible things, and I think that you are the only person stubborn enough to want to live through the center of it.”
“So I will get to keep living if I agree to become your champion,” I asked.
“Yes”
“Deal”
Chol smiled at that and nodded his head like it was the answer he had both expected and wanted. “Are you sure it will not be easy, and even though I will do all I can to help you, I fear you will face a very difficult journey?”
“Yeah, I’m sure if it means that I don’t die and get to help save the world, then I’ll do it. Just a quick question though how do you think I’m going to raise an army? I'm no Noble, and even if I was, there is a little war on, so I doubt I would be getting any help from the empire.”
“I don’t know, Vott. I am not a god of war, and I was never one for war. Though with the powers I am going to give you, I would say that there's a real chance you could swing that war one way or another. That or maybe you could just go around and create your own nation. I don’t know, and unfortunately, I can not help you beyond what I am doing now. We gods are not allowed to meddle in the affairs of the mortal plain any more than this.”
I stood there looking down at the god for a few long moments, and a small part of me wondering if any of this was real. But I knew it was that the being in front of me was too powerful and his presence too uncomfortable for this to be anything but cold, harsh reality.
“Now, Vott will please sit. I will dub you my champion proper and instill all boons in you that I can.”
“Boons?” I asked as I kneeled before the god.
“Yes, did you think that I would let you go and try to build an army by giving you all the help I can? You know the first, I will take your death, making you immortal until the time that you decide in your soul you wish to stop living. At which point, you will die at that very moment no matter your physical condition. Next, I will take one of your eyes and mark you as my champion. This will allow you to see the living energy of all the creatures around you and mark you as my champion to all those knowledgeable of the gods. Finally and this is the most difficult to explain. I will take your connection to the world your souls anchor as the mortals call it nowadays.”
I knew what was only the most basic knowledge of the anchor was the portion of the soul that touched the energy or man of the planet. Through this connection, people cast magic and cultivated their bodies to do superhuman feats. “So I will never know magic or be able to cultivate,” The magic was not too big of a deal, while very powerful magic was also unreliable in battlefield conditions, and only those with a great deal of talent and decades of training could hope to maintain the concentration needed to use it on the front lines. Not being able to cultivate thought sounded like it would be a massive disadvantage, though. I had seen Knights at the capital half my size lift stones weighing as much as horses in competitions. Even the very limited amount of cultivation training I had undergone as a sergeant had made my skin as tough as leather and let me move battering rams almost by myself on dry land.
“When it comes to magic, at least for the most part, you will never be a wizard though you may pick up a trick or two if you're lucky. Regarding cultivation, it would be more accurate to say you will not cultivate in the traditional method. Taking your anchor will leave a small bit of my power. Effectively allowing you to siphon off energy from those dying around you and turning their power into your own. I will be honest Vott I do not know what exactly that will do to you. I know that it will heal wounds and increase your cultivation, but I do not know what else. I imagine that it will be quite something, though.”
With that said, he took a short step forward and placed his left hand on my face. It was cool and rested almost gently, palm over my right eye and fingers reaching into my hairline, his thumb pressed into my forehead. Then there was a terrible pain in my eye and the feeling of falling. The last thing I saw as my now one good eye opened was Chol looking down at me through the black, mouthing the words good luck.