“There, there. It’s alright, d. You’re alive. You’re alive.”Comforting words and shoulder pats. Not that they’re going to be helping the shell-shocked farm boy he’s trying to calm down right now. Worst timing possible.

  Years ago. So long ago. Homer squats there beneath fming rubble and surrounded by the remains of his unit, one lonely recruit all that’s left of them. Battle mages at the very top of the hill made the charge suicidal, but he’d been forced to make it anyway. Not like the commanding officer had to try and dodge fireballs raining down from above, he just had to sit on his horse and watch it happen.

  Ptui. A glob of blood and spit left his mouth and hit the ground, trying to ignore the impact tremors of another fireball shattering the earth somewhere else on the battlefield. Rebels weren’t usually this well prepared. Just what kind of beast had the Steel dynasty awoken with their wanton ignorance of the divine ri-

  Another.Close, this time. The hot bst wave of heat washes over him and the sobbing, panicked farm boy. That was the real problem with fireballs. Sure, they could bst out a whole unit, but even when they miss the searing heat emanating from it… At best, you’d get sweaty and tired. Close enough and the heat wave still sears flesh from bone and kills you slower than just instantly burning to death.

  He has to move his body to cover even more of the recruit so that he doesn’t fry to death. Taken too much damage, that one. Wounds open and fraying. If the heat wave hits them head on he’s going to boil from the inside. Homer is used to it, so when the bst radius hits him he just groans out and tanks the hit. His own blood boils anyway. This is light work.

  Although the smell of burning hair makes him gag. Eugh. No need to shave for the wife when he goes back home.

  Where the hell did the rebels get all these fire mages from anyway? He’d heard the royal academy had flipped sides due to some ‘grave truth’ they had uncovered, but nobody delivered any damn messages down the chain of command these days, so half the army was blind and deaf to the events back at the capital.

  “I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, please, Gods, I don’t want to die-”

  The recruit whimpering didn’t help. Now’s not the time, d. Homer roughly shoves him down to the ground and uses his strong arms to yank down pieces of rubble until he’s created a shelter of sorts- more a hidey hole- for the recruit… Or rather around him, like a protective cage. There’s enough wiggle room for him to crawl out when he needs to.

  “Stay there and don’t come out, son. Not until I come back for you.”

  Hard to tell if he’d listen, but Homer leaves with such an air of authority that he hopes he’s burned those words into the recruit’s mind. Back towards base camp. Fireballs rain down around him, but he just lets the waves of heat hit against his body, burning and searing, never killing. Boiled too hot on the inside for some pansy-ass fireballs to kill him.

  When he gets back to camp, things are dire. Dead corpses everywhere. Half the chain of command is dead, the other half keeps infighting about whether to retreat or push. Not enough men to take the fort anymore, most said.

  Homer agreed.He didn’t have enough clout to join the discussion.Being a mere squad commander in a camp of achievers meant that the most he could say was ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’, and even that only to rhetorical questions about preparedness to fail.

  Squads Hawk, Eagle and Basilisk were all taken out, squad Clifflion was on its st legs, squad Gargoyle had discovered whatever ‘truth’ the rebels were espousing and deserted the army some days ago… Whatever the hell the Iskariot rebellion was peddling, it sure took to certain minds. Like some sort of magical spell.

  A conviction.That’s what the army cked too. Conviction. Despite the name of the ruling dynasty, these were not men of Steel, not in mind nor body. Just a bunch of soldiers trying to live and eat. Fighting rebels helped… Sometimes. Pay had been starting to stagger. Lots of men talking about throwing down their weapons if the paymaster’s wagon isn’t on the horizon tomorrow.

  Some did. Many didn’t.

  Out of fear or respect, likely. Homer didn’t leave because he had nothing else to do with his life. He tells of the recruit to a couple of fresher faces so that they can go and fetch him- feels bad to betray his promise of going back himself, but he’s too tired- and then he crashes to sit right there on the ground. Common enough. Many soldiers crumple on the spot the moment they exit the kiln out there.

  The boiling’s subsiding. Plenty of men like him here. Oats of war. Sown by warriors, either by love or by force, raised on these fields so they can keep the cycle going. Some of them manage it even better than he does, some worse.

  It’s all so pointless.Life, Death, whatever. It’s all so pointless. Kill and live, kill and live. He feels a pang of guilt at the words he spoke.“You’re alive, you’re alive.”

  And what was the worth of being alive? Nothing. Just more war and suffering. And what was the reward for dying? The promise that it’d repeat all over again someday, even if the fabric of your soul forgot all the hardships that came before.

  There is nothing.

  The camp suddenly stirs as he sits there. How long? Hours, likely. Hours just sitting and staring and pondering broken by the sound of a scout arriving and rushing past wounded men to reach the commander’s tent. In mere moments, the camp lights afire. Commanders rush out, people yell orders, soldiers begin to celebrate.

  “The war is over.”

  He hears it. But there is nothing. No meaning. War is eternal when men like him live. War is eternal as long as ds like that recruit have to watch their comrades burn to death, melting into flesh and bone slurry that’s used as the glue to keep society together.

  “The war is over! The war is over! The war is over! The false Steel monarch has revealed the truth he’s been hiding! There is no Godsblood on the throne! There is no Godsblood on the throne!”

  Men yell and shout, they celebrate and hug each other, they corner the few stragglers of the old regime- and they kill those who resist. Not Homer, though. Homer just sits there and listens and thinks. No Godsblood on the throne. That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? That Iskariot fool had postured about being a true heir to the throne…

  So the old Steel monarch was just some regur human being, was he? He’d ruled well. Curbed some excesses of the priesthood. Made the nobles mad, though. That expins it. Thirty years down the drain all because he didn’t carry the right kind of blood for whatever reason. Maybe he was a bastard. So was he, though. The only thing that’d separate them then was that he’d had the god of War squirt some of his seed into an ancestor.

  Made him sick.Homer eventually rises and turns to stare over to the fortress, standing tall. The sky is no longer burning red with trails of fire, the gates tightly closed still- not for long. Give it a day of negotiations and communications to confirm the surrender and they’d swing open.

  The recruit he’d rescued comes by him eventually, although he doesn’t notice. There’s words of thanks. Empty words. The d’s going to go back home and think about those searing balls of fire for the rest of his life. Going to feel that heat on his skin forever. Going to be making love to his wife thinking about the screams. Going to watch his children grow up so they can die for some cause too.

  War is nothing.Life is nothing.Death is nothing.

  And then he wakes up, and he’s not at war anymore. He’s in the Sawbone. Night’s still in full swing, stars twinkling in the sky. Fell asleep on watch. Amateur mistake. Guess his age’s really starting to get to him. Wouldn’t have dozed off like this some five years ago. The girl’s still sleeping huddled in the corner, twitching and muttering.

  Guess that was her first time seeing things die in such a brutal way. Or in such peaceful ways, as was with that one harpy.

  … They buried that one. The others, no, she was too skittish to touch those. But that single one they dragged away and buried. She insisted. It died a death that demanded burial. Harpies don’t bury their dead, he’d told her, but she still begged and pleaded.

  Wouldn’t feel right.She was supposed to care about the feelings of the dead, no? The harpies burn their dead, or leave them out to be picked apart by condors and vultures. It’s a religious thing. Guess the shellshock made her act the way she did.

  Or she felt like Death herself had to see this one.

  Homer stands up and heads for the cave entrance, leaning against it to stare out into the beyond. They’re not even at the mountains proper. Need to keep dipping in and out of valleys for a few more days. Going to get thicker and thicker with the screeching bird women as they go.

  Should probably leave the girl behind. Not because she’s a burden… Because she’s probably not ready for what she seeks. Meeting Death is one thing, but if just seeing harpies die shook her like that-mm. No, he’s being selfish. Too selfish.

  Homer’s head turns to take one more gnce at her form. She’s calmed now. Sleeping more steadily. Barely breathing, like she’s in some sort of trance.

  He’ll see her through. It’s the least he can do for himself. Need to see one of those hundreds of recruits actually win the war they’re fighting.