Year 350 after the War of the Gods, Late Autumn

Camp of the Imperial Militia near Andras, River Lands

Two days. Two days without food or water. Two days in the cold and mud and fog. Two days, but finally he had reached Andras. At first he had been running. He just wanted to get away from Cruidín. He had regretted that fairly quickly. Doggedly he had run for longer than he could. With every step he had felt those accursed monsters behind. Soon he had been exhausted. His lungs burned, his muscles screamed. But he wrested the way from his body.

Night had been worse than the day. Colder. Wetter. Despite his exhaustion, he barely slept. Every second he expected death to reach for him from the night and drag him into the darkness.

On the second day he started to question whether he should just leave behind his heavy crossbow. Without its weight he would be so much faster. No. He clung to it; it was his life, his rope that saved him from drowning. He would not give it up.

Around midday his senses started to dissolve into small wavelets – The fog inside him as the fog around him. Every thought, every intention mere pale shadows through a milky white haze. He relied solely on his leg carrying him further. One foot in front of the other. Just keep going. Step by grinding step. On and on. He would reach Andras, there the walls would protect him.

With the sun a last memory, hidden behind jagged firs, dark shadows divided against the crimson sky, finally, on the evening of the second day, he stumbled into the encampment of the Imperial Swords. The banners had already greeted him from afar: the black sword on the blue and white background, the golden wreath around it. Saints, was he relieved to finally see them. The desperation that had kept him going all this time threatened to leave his body and his legs started to buckle.

And then it hit him like a punch to the face: reinforcements had already been on the way. Unfortunately, too late. Too late for Róise or Caolán. Too late for Cruidín.

Crossbow shouldered, he stumbled past the tents. Past soldiers calmly sitting and talking; calmly going about their tasks; cooking, mending holes; sharpening axes, spears, swords. So calmly. Far too calmly. The did not yet know that in the west the line of defence had fallen, that death was marching for them, running. With carapace and claw and serrated mandible.

He had to find an officer; someone who would listen to him. They had to listen to him or all these men and women would walk to their demise, their chests swelling with pride.

Step by exhausted step, he fought his way through the camp until someone finally stopped him at the third ring of tents.

“Solder! Rank and name!”

Slowly he raised his head to see who was shouting at him; any discipline and quick response bled from his body. In front of him stood a woman in the uniform of a second sergeant, but something didn’t seem right. The details were off.

He didn’t salute.

“Áed Cahill. Private. Sixth Bow squad. Third platoon at the western frontier.” The words felt jagged in his throat. He coughed.

“Why did you leave your post, Cahill?” From above she looked down on him. In her voice there was no pity for his sorry state. The crossbow slipped off his shoulder. The steel of her question tore through him like through wet paper, leaving nothing but soggy, pulpy shreds.

“We were overrun. There–” He faltered beneath her gaze. No, he had to report what had happened in Cruidín. “There were no elves. It was something else. Killed them all.” He wasn’t sure how to describe it. Had he even seen it? How his comrades had been eaten? Or had he just been imagining that?

“And what would that be, soldier?” She had no intention of believing him. She would not believe him. She had already made up her mind about him. He still tried.

“It looked like elves, but… with growths and… carapace like beetles. As if they had ascended straight from the hells. Saints… they devoured everything.”

“So lead us to them”, she said with a wicked smile. “Then we’ll see if the eighteenth platoon can’t handle it.”

“Please! Listen to me! Send a scouting party, they can confirm what I said. In the meantime.. Fortify Andras! Or evacuate the city! You must–”

“Private, lead us to them!” She didn’t believe him. Of course not. Why should she? As if he didn’t know what he was telling her. Aside from him there was nobody left who had seen what he had. The others were dead.

“No, I won’t go back to those things.” Should they go if they wanted to die.

Her expression had changed; with disgust she stared down at him. “A coward. A liar. A deserter. You are a disgrace.” She spat the words in his face. “There is no place for you in the Imperial Militia.” She turned away from him in contempt. “You know yourself what happens when you desert your post during times of war. Take him away. Tomorrow he’s going to Merun.”

“To Merun?” Panic flared up inside him.  It spread through his body as twitching threads, as taut strings plucked by vicious fingers. No. No. No. No! Bloody hells, no! His life shouldn’t be his first concern right now. “Fine, take me to Merun! But by all the saints, send scouts to our outposts and evacuate Andras!”

Gloved hands seized his arms, jerked them behind his back and tied them with rough rope. He didn’t fight it. At least he wouldn’t have to fight anymore. He had to laugh. This woman wouldn’t believe him and for the other soldiers, too, he was nothing but a mad coward trying to run from his duty. At that moment, when he realised that no one would believe him, he was overcome by a sense of calm that he had not felt in the last two days. Not since he had stood on that battlefield.

“Take me to Merun!”, he screamed. “Let the people die! But their death rests on your shoulders.”

All the gnawing thoughts of what would happen to the people - with their teeth and their chatter and their twitching legs, nails on glass, wood-splinters in the coils of his mind - they all blurred into grey again. He had done everything in his power. It would cost him his life. Everyone here was as good as dead. Hopefully at least the gods would recognise his attempt.

The had taken his armor, his crossbow, his knife and they had dragged him into a tent and tied him down. He had let it happen. From here it wasn’t in his hands any longer. They had left him to his own devices between crates of supplies and rolled-up tarpaulins. And having to no longer keep up appearances, he collapsed from exhaustion. The march had taken its toll. Merun didn’t matter now. If one of the saints was sympathetic to him, he would fall asleep here and never wake up again. With his last clear thought, he asked Naomh Cairistiòna to make it so.

#

When he woke his mouth was dry, his tongue swollen and his throat burned. When he swallowed then it felt a sticky, thick, unmoving mass in his throat. His heart pounded with slow, heavy thuds; life-drum inside his chest. He was still tied to the pole at the center of the tent where they had left him. Now there was someone standing over him, though. The man nudged him with his boot.

“Here. Drink.”

The words only made their way through his sluggish thoughts when the man handed him the waterskin. He drank greedily, coughed, then continued drinking. The water ran from the corners of his mouth, over his chin, dripping to the ground. He drank until the waterskin was empty.

“Ní Tíghearnáin doesn’t want you dying here. She prefers knowing you on the sands in Merun.”

Áed put his head back and looked up at the man. “Thank you.”

The soldier re-corked the empty waterskin again. He hesitated. “The people out there are talking. Is it true? What you said?”

Áed nodded. “Yes.”

“Hm.” The soldier looked at the ground. “You’re still a deserter. You should have held Cruidín.”

“We should have held Cruidín… I would have died there with the others.”

“Then you would have died a honourable death. For the empire and the emperor.”

“I will not throw away my life for the emperor.”

The soldier snorted, turned around and left the tent. “Just like the woman…”

“Woman? What woman?” Áed shouted after him but got no answer. He stared at the white canvas above him, how it resisted the gentle wind, threw waves, fell back again.

There had been few women serving at his border post. One had to have made it out before him. From outside he heard the camp being broken up. Tarpaulins dragging on the ground, the clank of weapons being gathered. Carts being loaded. Who else could have made it out from the outpost? Who had been on guard duty? No. It couldn’t have been one of the guards. She’d have raised the alarm. Right? Outside two men argued. Maybe one of the guards had fled their post the moment she had seen what had been storming for the camp. He would probably have fled, too. Had fled.

Above him the canvas billowed in the wind. So this was how it was going to end. Not as a soldier at the frontline; not as a peasant on a farm; not surrounded by family; as a deserter in the arena. He should have fled. Far away. Maybe to Finavarra and from there to Damh. And from there he could have made it to Bay’Asin. But what the hells did he want in the Sea of Sands?

#

Áed was finally picked up. Two soldiers tore open the tarpaulin, yanked him to his feet and untied him from the tent pole.

“I hope you like long journeys. It’s close to a month to get to Merun.”

They dragged him outside and Áed didn’t resist. The sun was blinding and his leg barely carried his weight. He was led to a cart where in between supplies there already sat a woman. She refused to even look at the soldiers around her. One sitting in the front, two others on their horses as reinforcements. Nobody seemed all too excited to be here.

“Onto the cart!” a soldier commanded and Áed obeyed. Then he was tied down again. The woman opposite him also refused to look at him, but he thought he knew her. Could it… No. Was that really Sara? There was no more pride in her bearing, none of the fire that had been there just three days ago. But it had to be her. How many women with only one arm served in the Imperial Militia? He lowered his gaze to the wooden floor of the car after staring at her for too long. They had both survived the attack just to now die in the capitol. Maybe one day someone would make a joke about it in a tavern. Some might laugh.

The officer who had greeted Áed so kindly approached him again. “Some final inspiring words for your comrades before you leave?” she said with a way too friendly grin. For a second he lifted his head but remained silent. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. “Nothing? Well then.” She gave a sign and the party set off. “I hope you like the capitol.”

#

Nobody spoke a word. There was nothing to speak about. In his estimation, Sara was too proud to talk about her escape. He himself simply didn't want to. What else could they talk about?  How nice the weather was?

Even as they set up camp for the night, Sara remained mute. And so all that remained in the darkness of the night was the chatter of the soldiers as they cosied up by the fire. Sara and Áed on the other hand stay behind on the cart. Tied and in the cold. With bindings too short to lie down they sat all night and were silent at each other; watched the cloudlets rising in front of their faces; stared at cold earth, cold wood or the cold sky above as the ice started eating into their bodies.

For food they had been given when the soldiers were done and what they had left over. Little more than scraps, but for Áed it had been the first time he had eaten in days. He had wolfed it down with little dignity. He had not cared. Nobody had been watching him. And when he had been done, he had sat again. Shunned by sleep, banned from fire’s warmth, in solitary cold and only icy silence his company. He sat and counted the stars hanging unchanged in their spheres as if the gates to the underworld hadn’t opened just a couple of miles west from here and spewing demons into the world.

#

The next day went by in a similarly uneventful manner as the first leg of their journey. Woken by a beating, scraps for breakfast and then hours of watching the scenery. Only fields and meadows to the left and right of the road, here a tree, there two, maybe a creek - just as everywhere else this far south. They came past a farmer’s family including farmhand toiling on their field. They gazed up at the soldiers, then bowed and went about their work again. Since the start of the war people around here have shown more respect for the Imperial Militia.

Áed still hadn’t  exchanged a single word with another human past the third day of their journey, but he was starting to understand his travel companions quite well. The command was with a corporal, obviously unhappy with having to head back to Merun and who had most likely hoped to prove himself at the front. The two privates of the Swords, the dragoon from the Lances and the two archers from the Bows on the other hand seemed quite happy to not have to fight after all. Full pay and just having to ride half way across the empire for it - things could not have worked out better for them. Of course nobody dared mentioning that in front of the corporal. Two of them also seemed to know each other rather well. On another icy, waking night, he heard them sneaking away.