Interludes 2

As the hour of battle grew closer, Marcus felt anticipation growing within him, his palms were sweaty, and he could feel Merheeth humming excitedly in the back of his mind.
And now he was here, in this strange land, as his fathers own squire. It wasn’t his first time outside the mountains, but it was his first time in the forest, he hadn’t believed plants grew this tall anywhere. Previously when people had talked of trees, he had expected them to be no taller than a man, this seemed unbelievable, like he had ended up in a fairytale.
But no, this wasn’t the time to be admiring the foliage, this was war, and the enemy forces were drawing near.
This was what Marcus had been waiting for his whole life, every decision he had ever made had prepared him for this moment, the moment in which he would be able to prove himself as a man, and as a warrior. There had been many moments he had thought a war might start, but alas, tensions had simply grown, simple border skirmishes before finally, an agreement would be reached without the need for open war.
In the end, it had been the invasion of the middle wood had been what set of this conflict, and at last, Marcus would get a chance to prove his skill in battle.

“Why do you think they did it?” He asked his father, he was standing next to him, still a head taller than him. “For honor and glory? Or just for the sake of it?”
His father shoot his head, “No, son,” he said, “That is not why men start wars, perhaps they fight duels for that reason, or engage in raids or skirmishes, but war is another matter entirely.”
His father was a tall man, taller than most, and he kept his dark-brown hair long, tied back with a leather string. He was wearing sturdy woolens reinforced with leather, and a thick gambeson underneath. Most notably, were the bracer's he wore on his lower arms, they were thick leather, and inlaid with several sapphires, a mark of his status as an elemental mage. His spirit might be generic, an elemental conductor, but that didn’t mean his father was an ordinary mage, he specialized in the element of water, hence the sapphires, and he was one of the best water mages on Cloud.
He also dabbled in the element of venom, but he rarely used it, or wore his emeralds, as he said that green ruined the color-scheme of his outfit.
He also wore a battle worn bastard sword on his hip, as he didn’t have the power to summon a blade out of thin air, like Marcus could do now.
“Then what?” Marcus continued, “What else is there, other than honor and glory?”
His father sighed, “Power, my boy, I know I have always taught you that our good goddess Emina only rewards honor and glory, but many people believe that power is the best way towards those virtues, and therefore, they seek to gain more of it, why else would she test people that way in her towers?”

***

This was it then, their primes were dead, the sacred spirits who had led them all had been destroyed, and Zenithrix had been imprisoned.
“What do we do now, Jrythinae?” The young woman asked her.
“Now, child, we rebuild.” She sighed. They would have to gather every Malishaien left, and form a new council, even if it would be lacking any carriers of the primes.
“Do you think we made the right decision?” the woman asked, “with… you know.” She hesitated, “Opposing Zenithrix, imprisoning him?”
“Well,” Jrythinae started, “considering all our primes are gone, and most of our elders have been killed, and half of Themaea is now underwater, I would say probably not.”
“So you think we should let him free?” The woman asked after a moment, shock still on her face.
“It doesn’t really matter now, all the people who could do that are dead, and it wouldn’t do us much good anyway, I think we have confirmed that this particular demi-god does indeed hold grudges, perhaps we won’t have a choice in the end.”
The woman, one of those she had saved when Zenithrix’s defeat had thrown the world into chaos, nodded, and asked no further questions. Good, she thought, she had more pressing matters on her mind than comforting lost puppies.
“Now,” she started, addressing the whole group, all fifty of them. “In the miraculous case that we are not the only women left on Malishai, we will have to locate the rest of them, and the faster the better. We leave immediately, take what little you have left, and make haste.”
“Where are we going?” one of the women said, and a rather young looking one at that.
“I suppose custom and propriety has been forgotten now that the world has ended, I guess?” She asked in the most sarcastic tone she could muster, but didn’t wait for any response. The look of shame on the girls face was enough. “To answer the question, in case anyone else is wondering, we are going back to the Capital, if there are others, that is where they will go.”
A few minutes later, they were off.

***

The incredible thrill of battle had quickly turned sour, as he had been separated from most of the people he had met during their briefing, he had felt a strange feeling mixed with pride and satisfaction, each time his blade had struck true, and he had seen the light in his victims eyes, as they slipped into the afterlife. Surprisingly few of them glowed white with the color of Emina’s realm. 
For some reason, Marcus had assumed that all those who died in battle would go to their goddess, but no, most of them were some shade of red or pink, he had even seen some black ones, meaning they would go to hell. 
How could it be that someone who died fighting for their lord, something everyone agreed was heroic and honorable, would go to hell?
He had never feared going to hell before, as he had been sure he would die a warriors death, honor intact, but he wasn’t so sure now. 
It wasn’t just that, it weren’t the eyes of his enemy that disturbed him so, it were the eyes of his  comrades, his brothers, even if he didn’t know many of them personally, he thought he had known them to be good, and courageous.
Still, he felt pride in his accomplishments, every battle he helped win, every sword stroke well aimed, he was sure that it would all come together in the end.

***

It was good to be back in the capital, it had now been years since she had last seen it, and it felt like returning home, to the place she had grown up in, where she had trained, where she had spent all he time learning the ways of the Malishai, until she had been granted the rank of elder.
Still, she had never made it near the top of their nation, not even close, the council of elders had always been made up of the carriers of the Primes, the sacred spirits who would always choose the most powerful, the most capable, those who were worthy of them, but not anymore.
Their primes, along with all those in the rest of the world, had been destroyed, corrupted, and there would be no way back for them.
The world would never be the same again.
And neither would her life.
“And hereby, we, the elders who are left, elevate Jrythinae, elder of Malishai, to the council of our people, may she lead us with grace and with wisdom.”
“And I, Jrythinae of Malishai, accept, and swear that I will serve our people, as all the council members have done before me, to the best of my abilities, this new council may lack any Primes, but we do not lack the power to lead our people.” She kept the speech short, not wanting to say too much, but she could feel the room, people were unsure.
No primes? That was just a rumor, right? They would be thinking, but no, it was no rumor, it was their new reality.

***

Blood, death, everywhere, he had been in many battles now the last year, he was far from unexperienced, but for some reason he couldn’t explain, it didn’t get any better.
In the beginning he had thought that it was just because he was new to warfare, and all learn to love it, but that time was yet to come for him. The worst was the smell after every battle, the stench of death and shit, because all the corpses, once rigor mortis had worn off, would relax, and their shit would spill out.
The screams he could ignore, even the flashing of eyes, as people died, but not the scent, it was suffocating, unending, and inescapable.
He just clutched his blade, which huffed and puffed as he swung, ever telling him to quit complaining, and that scents were a figment of his human mind anyway, and he should just turn them off.
The blade was good to him though, despite all the wheezing and grumping. His spirit always helped him find the best angle to strike, the right place to put his foot, even in the muddy grass where few places allowed him to stand strong, he always needed to be wary of slipping.
He had seen some men go under, and all of those were dead now, so he could not risk going as well, and he was glad for the help.
Still, despite all of this, he pushed on, ever improving his form, and ever going forward.

***

“Given our circumstances, we may have no other choice,” a fellow councilwoman said, “We imprisoned Zenithrix, and look what it did to the world, Noramia has become a battleground for bloodsuckers, Eskar has fallen into war and invasion, and our own Malishai is barely holding on!”
Jrythinea clapped, showing her agreement, and it was the next council womans turn to speak.
“Our primes, and their carriers each made a grand sacrifice, imprisoning Zenithrix, are we to just ignore that, and let him free? I say we keep things the way they are, yes there is chaos, but it is just a process of change, things will get better.” There were some claps, and some boos from that, but Jrythinae knew this was not an unpopular sentiment, alas it was now her turn to speak.
“Sure our primes sacrificed themselves, but it was not because they knew they were going to die, nobody could have predicted what happened, it is clear that their course of action was in error, and we should have looked for another solution. Now, with the power of hindsight, we have the opertunity to put things right, either that, or let them fester further, until this world is a shell of It’s former self, and besides, to say there is just chaos is a wild understatement, we have seen it everywhere, the world has fallen, much knowledge is lost, even the spirits now are weaker!”
She had chosen her words as well as she could, and she noticed many showing a sentiment of agreement.
“Before we even think of doing anything, what do we do with Aqriël, poisoning our lands, and what of the other three of Zenithrix’s minions, they have gone mad without their master!”
It was a real concern, these minions had been slaves to Zenithix’s will, and now that his power was locked away, they had each gone rogue. They had already imprisoned Aqriël before the collapse had even begun, which was probably why Zenithrix had hated them so much. His prison had survived the collapse, but it was weakening, the cracks were starting to show, and their lands were slowly being poisoned.
“Sangiël has already been imprisoned, and Juliël has gone quiet, But Mariël is still wreaking havoc on Cloud, he has to be dealt with, or the people there may never get a chance to recover!”

***

Blood, corpses, the cruelty of the twins had proven absolute, every time they manage to retake a region, they had been left unpopulated, all resisting inhabitants slaughtered, their corpses stuck on poles, and put on display around the town. Marcus couldn’t fathom why they would do such a thing, it wasn’t honorable, or courageous, and he had never heard of anyone saying that Emina rewarded cruelty.
The twins apparently did not care. They left only corpses in their wake, not to mention that they burned all food, and killed all the animals they couldn’t bring with them on their retreat, forcing them to rely on supply lines, which were slow and left them hungering for more.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this, he had been fighting in these lands for two years now, and there was no sign of it ending, in fact, he was positive that this battlefield was in the exact same patch of forest as that very first one had been.
Now he was on the field again, the trees skeletons, husks of their former selves, bleached white, and stained black by fire, where they had once been brown and green, hiding them from the sun, now they fought exposed to the rays of light,  encumbered by a pack of snow, making their marches harder, and their defenses weaker.
He had gotten better, even if they were not winning, his arm swung and swung, never missing, and never giving out.
He had killed so many people now that it would be foolish to keep count, he had almost lost sensitivity to the gruesomeness of it, and somehow, the scent barely bothered him anymore. Perhaps because the corpses froze over more often than not nowadays. They would still thaw out in the summer, and he hoped to their dear Goddess that he was nowhere near here when that happened, as last years thawing had been extremely unpleasant, not only because of the smell, but because of the outbreaks of disease that had followed it.
In the beginning they had burned corpses, but there were so many of them, that eventually they had just given up.

***

“We must give Zenithrix another chance, a chance to set things right, but in the mean time, his minions must be contained!” Those were her words, and they had been met with mostly clapping.
“The best we can do, is plead to the goddess, ask her to grant us a chance, for we do not have the power to make one for ourselves!”
Those had been the words of many councilwomen, and they had been right. The time of great powers was past, they were just regulars now, with regular spirits, and regular magics, but now, it was time to invoke a spell, one so ancient it hadn’t been spoken in many millennium, one older than her people, and forgotten by most. They would have to invoke the goddesses mercy.

***

“Son, it is time for you to take charge, it has been three years, you are seventeen now, we must have men like you in charge of our armies.”
Those had been his fathers words, as he had been sent to lead their armies. Marcus didn’t know why, they had lost the war in the east, the twins had proven too strong, and too ruthless.
Now, he had been sent to the north, where some part of the war was fought between the white fields, and once again, the twins, for some reason that was completely lost on Marcus.

***

“I can give you a chance, but only this one, one day, there will be a single individual, a man born in bondage, whose birth will loosen the bars on Zenithrix’s cage, enough for him to escape, this will be preceded by the death of immortals, the bleeding of the moon, and hellspawn bringing war to the north, these are my words, and they will prove true, watch for the signs, and the chosen one may bring you a chance anew, a chance either to end the world, or to put things right. I cannot promise you the return of your primes, as their transformations were not of my making, but the chosen one will have the power to rule the fates of all, spirit and human.”

***

He knelt in the dirt as he held a small body in his arms. Why did these things happen? Why were families killed like this when they had nothing to do with anything? They hadn’t started this war, or done anything to aid it.
But the enemy had simply broken down doors, bashed skulls, and taken everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Marcus could feel his mind start to crack, as the beating of his heart became louder and louder.

***

Jrynthnae sat on a stool on her balcony, staring at the city. It had grown a lot since the collapse, which was over seven hundred years ago now. She had seen to many things since then, the containment of Aqriël not the least of them, it had been her idea to move him to the magical dimension, called witchworld by foreigners, a name she didn’t like, though she had to admit it accurate, after all, it was the ancestral homeland of all Malishaiens, and it was where they were strongest.
They had never managed to capture Mariël, he had simply escaped to the nether realm, where no living being could follow.
Her people had recovered quite well after that, the men still lived in the forest, and he women lived, well, wherever they wanted, really, but her council was here.

***

The war was over, he could relax now, or so he told himself over and over again, as he sat outside his hut on the most remote mountain he could find.
He kept telling himself all these things, how he had done what he could, and he had served well, but his experiences still haunted him, they chased him like a shadow, they kept playing out in his head, over and over, as if they hadn’t been bad enough the first time.
It was in that moment, when he was doing his breathing exercises, the he closed his eyes, and saw the white fields, over run by red skinned beasts, for the first time.

***

Jrynthnae rushed towards the place where it had happened, and as she arrived, she gasped in shock. She found the body of a women she had known for hundreds of years now, one that had been made immortal just like her, a gift bestowed on precious few Malishai women, but now, the woman was dead.
In her moment panic, the words of the prophesy echoed in her mind, ‘The coming of the chosen one will be preceded by the death of immortals’ it had said, among other things, and it was then, in that moment, the she got her first vision, a vision of a man in the mountains, whose name was Marcus, and she knew that she would have to find him, and do whatever she could to help him, because the chosen one was coming, and the goddess was giving her a helping hand.