Victus Vaelar’s wagon haul left the dark, muddy environment of Fort Blavim. They were off to a different region, northeast bound. A place better suited for treading, as Jama Bog would dirty anyone who pranced around in its thralls. Yes, a place better for the Legus to work was in the verdant and scenic plains of Gjoffir Greenage. The sun soothed the dirt in the greenage, unlike the soggy mess that was the bog.

  It had been lucky to be untouched by any real battle. As of now, at least. That didn’t stop the Legus from building their camps. Their outposts, their guard towers. And they needed funds. For workers, for materials. Who would be footed the bill? Why, the well-meaning civilians that had no stake in the killing at all. Taxes went up and innocent farmers met their lords—growing to hate them in mind, flesh, and idea.

  Disheartening, it was. But the gears turned and the soldiers trained and the commanders barked their instructions. A few disgruntled farmers would not halt the machine. If they attempted to, they would crushed in seconds.

  Vaelar and his charge, coming back into the greenage from Jama Bog, was beginning to despise the picturesque hills and pastures of a million flowers. This place had been all he knew, and he was tired of it. Commands would be thrown at him. ‘Patrol this patch of land!’ ‘Train these new recruits!’ ‘Collect the nearby plebians and cast all these dead into the fire!’

  The same tasks, over and over, with no promotion in sight. Not a lick of momentum. He felt physically ill hearing the same orders repeated in a slightly different choice of words. Then again, Vaelar could have had it worse. Being a Victus meant he had some authority over others. Not a lot, but just enough to sate his ego.

  On their voyage, Vaelar looked at the fifteen soldiers he had in tow. Looked at their feathered armor and sleek silver breastplates. Their winged helmets and heavy pale pauldrons. Then, he gazed at his own. He nodded and knew his was better. As it should be. What was the difference between them, if one had to know? Why, only a belt strapped around Vaelar’s waist. Tints of gold on display, but only in color and not in material. Anything for Vaelar to be different. To seem exorbitant.

  Their wagon train bumped over rocks. Weaved between winding bush and rudimentary road. The mix of horrid stench and rough ground led some of the wagon’s passengers to unload their stomachs. They hurled what little they had off the side of the vehicle. For many it was dry. Their bellies were empty; That’s why they agreed to do this demeaning work in the first place.

  After a day’s travel and a night’s rest under inky skies, their destination was not far off. The Ul-Baqshan-Ontullian War had raged for around eight months, and in that time, the fallen long-eared brothers had to be put to rest somehow. Either an Archon or an Antarchon or the Emperor himself made a decree. Of how to dispose of their many corpses.

  Whoever decreed the idea knew that pyromancers were crucial to the effort. Lots of buried in caskets would slow the war. And their only ocean was to the southeast, so burials by wave would have meant travelling hundreds of miles with decaying brothers.

  No, couldn’t be done. No one would do it. Their next course of action was a cleansing in flame. A corpse pile with pyromancers aplenty. Ready to send their fellows away to the sacred place. By the time cleansing fire was complete, their brothers would be nothing but ash and a memory.

  Vaelar arrived at this nearest corpse pile. Truthfully, there were dozens of corpse piles around Ontullia, but they functioned as a singular. A focused idea that the armies of elves knew as their final resting place. To many, it was unsavory. But it was silly to expect that any aspect of this brutal war would be savory at all.

  The peasants jumped down from their wagons. Weary and sick, but motivated by the dream of a hot meal. Indeed, they heaved and their nostrils shriveled at so much putrefaction. Maggots fell from the pale, shrinking skin. The cries of sad farmers formed a cacophony. As for the masked mancers and guards, they were mostly indifferent. Shinies would flow to them for dealing with dead.

  Dragged and carried, the fallen were. Past massive wooden fences, all painted in black. No grass was present. Not the shortest of blades. The corpses and bootprints killed all chance of vegetation. Movement everywhere. The slain thrown about, like a child would throw their toys. One couldn’t pick out a single head there that enjoyed this work. There were many different groups, going about their parlor duties: The go-in-silence crowd. Their true thoughts unknown. Then, the visibly agitated ones. Who likely were vomiting and cursing the gods. And lastly, the daydreamers. The folk of wandering mind. Distracting their senses with any delusion.

  A teenage laborer—a clouded elf named Trucius—fit into the daydreamer category. However, his subconscious fantasies of wealth and status would not remain dreams at all. Whether by fate or the random chance of the universe, Trucius would have his dreams. Neatly placed into his gloved palms.

  ?

  Arnzos hated feeling powerless. In his weakened state, practically motionless, he was at the mercy of those moved him. He knew he was transported. His armor was gone; His pouch of shinies removed. (Oddly enough, Sunslash was still with him.) But the state he was in was dubious. So close to death and yet, way too far. Arnzos felt his weight lifted by a group of elves. They had thin, moth-eaten clothing. Barely shielding their backs from heat.

  Arnzos was being moved right now. His sight was blurry—only recognizing colors and blobs. But he saw lots of darkened shades: In the ground, in the faired cloaks of mysterious phantoms that surrounded him, and in the steed of the phantoms’ leader. Vaelar. Posited confidently on his muscled black horse.

  “Work faster, shithuffs! I’m not sleeping outside my own bed tonight.” Vaelar said.

  Arnzos desperately needed to scream. Or to talk. Or even to whisper. Anything to let the crowd know that he was alive. Different from the corpse pile. He pushed his chords to release any sound at all, but nothing came. It was as if a doctor sewed his pipes shut. Muting him for the rest of his life.

  But Arnzos was certain that he had noise to make. He would not be silenced. He strained his chords again as he was laid by others.

  “You are all pathetic.” Vaelar scolded the struggling laborers. “You toil on farms and in fields, yet this is your fastest work? If I were in your stead, I’d wish death upon myself.”

  He ignored the many factors of their weakness. The malnutrition. The smell that was shielded from his nose. And the journey, the walking. Oh, so much of that already worn out their stamina.

  On the topic of stamina, Arnzos’ was light. Gradually, he would build it up, but only by specks. He needed enough to spit out a word. A syllable. A letter. With all his strength, he urged his lungs to force out…

  “…h-help m-me.”

  The gang of workers who dropped him into a death most certain had vanished. Gone off to add more meat to the mound. A pyromancer next to Arnzos lit a heap of cadavers on fire. Crisping their skin and rotten flesh. He could feel the daunting force of his heat upon his cheek. If only he could get up and run. So he tried, he pressed his feet down. Desperate to move, to rise, to do anything but stay and die.

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  But his muscles would not respond. He called again, with a hoarse murmur. As it was all he could muster.

  “Help. Help me.”

  Another pyromancer saw to his task. Obliterating the mass of flesh before him. Arnzos felt like an anvil crushed his chest. It was hard to focus, hard to take a breath. Seeing what would befall him if he didn’t bolt. He survived, just to perish like this? No! He would not have it. He would not suffer AGAIN—

  Then, Trucius arrived. Arnzos was face to face with an elven laborer, of teenage years. He was a skinny one. Appeared as if he hadn’t eaten a fair meal in… well, ever. He had chipped ears, like the edges were clipped off. Trucius’ clothes and face were caked in dust, with short brown hair one would not associate with an elf. In truth, only the Ontullian nobility had the means to look like an idealized image of elventry. The peasants were on their own.

  Arnzos groaned, blinking slowly. Trucius’ eyes nearly popped out from his head. “You’re… holy shit. How? You?” Coherence was lost on Trucius. “I have to tell someone. I need to—”

  “Shhh!” Arnzos eeped out. “Don’t talk. I just need you to lift me to my feet.”

  Trucius completely ignored what he said. Scatter-brained. “Were you on our side?”

  Arnzos gave it a moment. “Yes, I was.” he lied.

  “Okay. Wait, why did you pause there?”

  “I am in so much pain, it hurts to speak. Sorry if I lack the wit of a playwright when I’m this close to death.”

  Trucius rubbed his neck. “All right, I believe you. Yeah… what did you want me to do again?”

  Arnzos sharply sighed. “Lift me to my feet, dumbass!”

  Though Trucius had not lifted him yet, he felt his strength returning. The chance of actually escaping fiery torment filled his soul with resilience. His legs felt less wobbly. His neck, sturdier and in less pain. The light, which first seemed so far away, was getting closer and closer. Arnzos would’ve snickered, if he had any extra strength to.

  As Trucius hoisted Arnzos’ arm up—to pull him to a standing position—he heard the whoosh of a fire sprout. But not near his ear or his back. No, it was behind Arnzos. From the ground itself. Until he looked upon Sunslash and spotted awakened crevices in the dracokin’s rock. Orange heat trickled within. His blade, Sunslash, had arisen once more. And Trucius couldn’t keep his eyes off of it.

  He dropped Arnzos, who by chance, fell onto his stomach. Giving Trucius an even better view of this prized artifact.

  “Damn it! Why did you let go of me?” Instantly, Arnzos knew why.

  The silence unnerved him. He felt helpless as Trucius was lost in amazement. All from Sunslash’s beauty. Not a physical beauty at all, but a symbolic one. Arnzos knew that his artifact, the limb of a dead Sorcerum Construct, would sell well on certain markets. Or as an offering to nobility. Trucius looked like the byproduct of a horribly poor childhood. A peasant abused by those higher in status. And Sunslash could be an escape.

  “Look, kid. Let’s make a deal. I’m a sellsword. I make money fighting in wars and things like that.”

  He wanted any confirmation that Trucius was listening. As Arnzos couldn’t see his face. He got no such verbal cue.

  “I apologize for calling you a dumbass. All right? That sword, the one you’re eyeballing, is how I make my money. My sister and her children are poverty stricken. I have to support them, and Sunslash helps me to do—”

  “Sunslash?” the boy repeated, like a parrot.

  Fuck, Arnzos thought. He wasn’t picking up anything he said.

  “Your family is in trouble? You only want to help them?” Trucius said.

  Ah, he was paying attention after all. Still, Arnzos felt a cavernous hole of unease swallow his stomach. But he nodded, as best he could, to reply to the kid.

  “My family’s in trouble too. And you look strong. You can earn your blood money without Sunslash. But for me? This is my one chance to break free. So… sorry.”

  Trucius tugged on the back strap of Arnzos’ blade. The merc had no willpower to continue fighting. He prepared all of it to stand, but with no help from the elven boy, it made his goal of fleeing that much harder. Arnzos’ flimsy hands tried to grip the strap, but even a malnourished boy could wrestle it away from him. Soon, it slipped over Arnzos’ head and into Trucius’ hands.

  Still, Arnzos had one more play. Or rather, Sunslash itself did. The bond between Arnzos and his sword would manifest into a flame lighting the peasant’s fingers ablaze. Arnzos waited for the burning. And he waited. Why was Trucius not howling in pain? The dracokin anchored his head just enough to look behind him. He saw…

  Trucius had on a pair of leather gloves. They absorbed every ounce of heat and then some. The blade’s last line of defense was as useless as a chicken herding cows. Trucius brandished the sword, like he actually knew it. A disgrace. It angered Arnzos, but he couldn’t act upon his emotion. His limbs would not follow through.

  In this restrained rage, a horseman from afar noticed the lack of work that Trucius was doing. He approached, looking to amend that. “Boy! Taking a break, are we?”

  Trucius glanced up at the soldier—who upon looking at the peasant boy—twisted his face with such smugness. The elven boy was not fond of that. Not. At. All.

  The horseman spat out a ball of mucus. “If you don’t drop that and start dragging a body, I’ll cut your fucking ear off.”

  He pointed a dagger at the boy. In response, Trucius chopped his arm clean off! The horseman screamed, only to be silenced when the boy ran his new blade straight through the soldier’s chest. His armor melted around his stuck flesh, metals seeping into the cavity. Horridly hot liquid scorching him from within. The horseman fell, joined with all the other dead. Fitting.

  Before his freed mount could gallop off, Trucius took hold and held on tight. For having a new rider spooked the horse. It fired off. It leapt over the black fence, taking Trucius with it.

  And the boy strapped Sunslash onto his back. A liberated soul. Or so he thought, as a patrol of Vaelar’s inferiors caught wind of his flight. A handful of horsemen pursued, but Arnzos lost sight of them as soon as they curved over the shallow hills. Disappeared into Gjoffir Greenage.

  Arnzos was livid. He clenched his fists so hard he could almost feel them cut scale and bleed. If he could breathe fire, like a dragon, he would burn this whole corpse pile down. These past two weeks, nothing but abuse and thievery and manipulation. It sickened him. He felt the strength to launch to his feet, just to get back at the universe for torturing him like this. Arnzos dug his talons into the dirt, as he spotted more horsemen proceed towards him.

  Vaelar was with them. And he noticed the blue dracokin body that magically started to move. “The scutumhead. It lives!” Vaelar shouted.

  Arnzos propelled off the ground. He grappled an elf, and with all the red boiling within, catapulted the rider off onto hard soil. Cracking his back on it. And Arnzos was off! Left his armor and his pouch of shinies to the Ontullians. He couldn’t risk going back. Not now, anyway.

  Vaelar and his unit had a moment of gasping, before their Victus said…

  “KILL HIM!”