Finn came out of the tent a couple minutes later. Elise hadn’t exactly known him very long, but something about him seemed off: for someone who was constantly around the general, was likely his closest confidante, he couldn’t seem to leave the tent fast enough. The conversation had seemed tense: she didn’t understand a word they said, but General Fleischer didn’t seem to like the way it was going.
She didn’t bother to ask what it was about: it probably had something to do with this war, and the Gods knew that she didn’t want to hear about how well his invasion of her home was going.
Elise turned to go back into the tent-
Only for Finn to take her by the shoulder. Gently. It still took every ounce of her strength to not squirm at his touch.
“N-no,” Finn said. “The General ordered you to come with me.”
“Why?” Elise asked. Her gut told her that whatever this was about, it wasn’t a good thing: he was being too shady about this.
He didn’t respond for a few seconds: he just rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t seem to look her in the eye. “The army’s going to be here longer than expected: he’s planning on setting the tavern up as a base camp. He wants us to get it ready while he makes certain everything else is in order.”
Elise knew that she should’ve felt something when she heard that. Anger, sadness. She felt nothing. Felt nothing at the fact that the man invading her country would be living in her home. Felt nothing as she wondered where she was supposed to sleep. Her chest felt hollow, as if someone had ripped her heart out of her chest.
“I’ll follow you,” Elise said quietly.
They walked away from the tent, towards Thaos.
And just like that, the carnage returned.
The closer they got to town, the more Elise noticed it. Air heavy with smoke, the smell of death, people yelling and crying. She felt her stomach beginning to twist within her.
It wasn’t long until she saw the first row of bodies.
Elise couldn’t help but stare. All of them wore blue uniforms, with their caps covering their faces. Garrison members. Gisken soldiers were standing guard over them, and a couple of them seemed to be taking notes about the soldiers. Blood blossomed from various parts of their bodies. Mostly their chests and stomachs. Some, she could tell didn’t have much of a face left, even with the caps covering them. As she looked at them, the names of garrison members she personally knew began to run through her head: Titus, the commander, who always kept the peace in the tavern; Brody, who stuck to Titus closer than his own shadow. Keller. Sweet, sweet Keller, who’d helped her with Ulrick, who’d been a family friend for as long as she could remember. How many of them were now dead?
“Elise?” Finn’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “Elise, we need to get going.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d stopped walking to stare at the corpses.
She shook her head and pried her eyes away. The image stuck, though: she knew full well that she’d never be able to unsee it.
“W-what are you going to do with the garrison members?” Elise asked.
“Well, there’s not many left-”
“The dead,” Elise said. “What are you going to do with the dead?”
“We’ll find their families, if we can,” Finn said. “He’ll likely have the remaining garrison members dig graves for them.”
Remaining garrison. The words reverberated in her skull. Some of them were still alive.
“Where are the other garrison members?” Elise asked.
Finn began to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you that.”
Of course not: it wouldn’t do for her to have so much as a sliver of hope that someone in town was still alive.
“… Can you at least find out if someone’s alive for me?” Elise asked.
Finn nodded. “Remind me once we’re done in the tavern.”
The tavern. Her home. Already, he made it sound like a distant thing, as if it weren’t the place she’d grown up. Where she’d sat in Ma’s lap as she told stories, where she helped Pa cook, where she played with Milo. All of that was gone, now, replaced by those few awful minutes.
She felt sick as she looked up at the tavern. She didn’t want to go back in there. She didn’t want to stand in that room where Pa died.
They didn’t go through the front: they couldn’t, not with the barricade Ulrick had put in front of the door. Instead, they went in through the back, through the very door she and Pa were supposed to leave from. Someone had put a white “x” in chalk on the door, which gave her the chills.
“What does that mean?” Elise asked.
“It means that they’ve cleared the house,” Finn explained. “It’s how we know which parts of town are safe and which are not.”
Safe. The tavern had been a safe place. She and Pa weren’t hurting anybody. Ulrick had just been trying to get away from these monsters, but they’d followed him there. The Giskens were the one making the entire town unsafe; not the garrison or anyone else who lived there.
Finn went in first. Elise stood outside the door for a few seconds, staring at that doorframe. Trying to force herself to walk through that doorway.
Finally, she put one foot in front of the other. It didn’t even feel like her walking through that door.
She braced herself as she walked through the small hallway that lead to the tavern, waiting to see her father’s body.
It wasn’t there. She frantically looked for him, wondering if she’d remembered it incorrectly. But he was gone: the only thing left of him was a spot on the floor stained a deep red.
“Where is he?” Elise demanded.
Finn looked over at her. He was by the door, working on pulling apart the barricade. “Huh?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Elise snapped. Her entire body down to her soul vibrated with panic. Her mind raced with a thousand and one possibilities, but none of them were what she wanted. Her hands were clenched so tightly, she thought they might burst. “Where did they take my father’s body?!”
He immediately looked to the pool of blood where her father had been when he and Blair had dragged Elise and Ulrick to General Fleischer. He didn’t look confused: he was biting the inside of his lip. He was coming up with some sort of story for her: she could tell.
She finally realized what that vibrating feeling she had reminded her of: a cooking pot beginning to boil over.
“I don’t know,” Finn finally said.
Elise turned to leave. “I’m going to go find him.”
She could hear Finn rushing towards her. “Elise, I don’t think that’s a good idea-”
He hadn’t even finished his thought by the time she snapped.
“You don’t think what’s a good idea?” She demanded, turning to face him, again. He nearly jumped out of his skin. “First, you people attack us in our own damned country. Then, you torture Ulrick to the point of nearly killing him for no Gods-damned reason. You walk into town and kill everyone, including my elderly father, force me to serve you for trying to defend myself, and now you won’t even let me bury him? What the hell is wrong with you? Go back to your own damned country!”
Elise was practically screaming at the end of her tirade. She didn’t realize that her face was wet from tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t even sure how she felt, anymore. Sad. Angry. Scared. It all tangled inside of her chest, made her want to look up at the sky and scream until the Gods were finally forced to listen.
All she knew was that Finn looked like a puppy that had just been kicked. He was looking down at the ground.
You went too far.
“I haven’t been home in three years,” he said quietly. “I have a baby sister I haven’t even met, yet.” He looked up at her. She saw real, raw pain in his eyes. “All of us want to go home, Elise. I think even the General wants to, at this point. But we can’t: there might not be a home to go back to if we don’t figure out how to stop the Blight. Stop it like you have.”
Elise felt cold. They all believed it, didn’t they?
He looked to the pool of Pa’s blood. “Stay here: I’ll see if I can find him. I can’t promise anything, though: they might have already buried him.”
He walked past her without another word.
Elise wrapped her arms around herself and sank to her knees. She couldn’t hold it in, anymore.
She began sobbing. She’d never felt so alone in her life.
***
Finn couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
He’d seen a lot of things in his time as a soldier. A lot of things he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of his head: the writing form of the Blight, the screams of the dying, bodies that had been shot into oblivion, butchered human remains on the streets of Idyaskoe after the siege; already, he knew that Elise’s face, red with rage as tears streamed down her face, would be another one of those sights.
He couldn’t blame her. There were days when he hated himself, too.
“Captain Ackers, are you feeling well?”
Finn just about had a heart attack. He hadn’t realized that Sergeant Levegh was standing there.
He sighed, putting a hand to his chest. “You just about scared me to death!”
“I’m sorry, sir: I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course. What do you need?”
“… My men and I have just finished clearing the houses we were assigned to; do you know if General Fleischer has any more orders for us?”
“I don’t,” Finn said. “Did the tavern happen to be one of yours?”
“Yes, sir, thought I was discussing the plans to clear all the houses while they were there,” Sergeant Levegh said. “Was it done wrong?”
“No, no: the family of the man in there would like to bury him, themselves,” Finn said. “Where have they been putting civilian bodies?”
“I believe they were all put in one grave once their families were notified. The POWs just finished up with it, I think.
Great.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying… you don’t look well,” Sergeant Levegh said carefully. “Are you feeling alright?”
No. No, he wasn’t. He was homesick - and war sick - in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. He wanted a break from all this: maybe he’d be able to forget that look on Elise’s face.
But, he was a Major, now. Possibly even the next General. He couldn’t let anyone see that.
Fractures now could mean the end of everything they’d worked so hard to do. And the end of that could be the end of Gisk.
They needed whatever kept the Blight at bay in Caithia, or everything everyone had sacrificed up to that point would be in vain.
So, he forced himself to smile. “I’m alright: it’s just been a long day.”
Sergeant Levegh nodded. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Oh boy. “Of course.”
“… Please take care of yourself. I’ve seen a lot of people burn themselves out in this business. I don’t want you to turn into an old man before your time.”
Too late. “I’ll try, sergeant. Really.”
“Am I dismissed.”
Right.
Finn saluted him. Sergeant Levegh saluted back and headed off towards General Fleischer’s tent.
He sighed and looked back at the tavern. He wasn’t looking forward to telling Elise that her father was already in a mass grave.
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