Embla’s Key, Part 1: The Battle for Luna Valley

    "Here," she said, pressing a key into my hand, "in my mother's home in Nohr, there's a chest. Some things you should have."

   "Embla ..." I started to push it back, but she closed her fingers around my fist. 

   "Don't be a fool, Sigrek," she said with a wry smile. "I'm not sure I have too many words left. Yet you'd prefer to waste them on what ... politeness?" she laughed until she coughed, and coughed until the blood pooling at the corners of her lips spilled onto her cheek. I wiped it off and held her face closer to mine. 

   Dark as pitch and swifter than wings, a volley of arrows hissed towards us. I raised an abandoned and stained shield over our heads, and felt their heads hammer into it. Why had they sent us, such a small force, charging into their longbows? The number of our men running back from the slaughter could be counted on one hand. 

   Fall back! Fall back! Fa--

   "They're getting closer, Sigrek," Embla winced, her grey eyes glimmering with that calm knowing, tinted by mischief and wonder, as if she understood an underlying secret to everything that made living a game, that made dying entertaining. It was not a brave face, an expression to mask her fear for embracing the end. It was the look she always carried. When I glanced at her, when I spoke to her, or even after I kissed her. That was what made it so damnably difficult to see it in that moment, and what convinced me that I should've been the one gasping for air through a hole in my lung the size of an arrow shaft. Life was never so appreciated before I met her; she showed me how. 

    The ground shook with the maddened stamping of hundreds of the Gilded getting nearer. I didn't raise my head above the trench of bodies, just kept my eyes on hers, hand trembling in hers, my words caught in her throat. She raised her hand and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. 

    "I knew you were foolish. I didn't think you were stupid. You're not going to die now that I gave you my key, will you? Run, Sig."

    Retreat to Commander Vandor! Retre-- the shouts were silenced by ragged, blood-muddled grunts, not that his commands were going to be of any use to the fallen. 

    I am not certain what I was trying to utter, only that I had hours of things to say and a handful of moments to speak them. What came out was a garbled sob and breath. Her name, the entirety of it, I managed to speak through stutters. It perplexed me, because it sounded more than anything, as if I was begging her for something.

   "Say goodbye to me, Sig. You can. I love you, but you know that." Her hand tightened around mine, and the fingers that had laced my hair back now gripped my cheek, slick with blood. 

   "N-n-no. I c-c-c--"

   "Sigrek, please. For me."

   Another volley. An arrow managed to pierce through the thinnest edge of the shield, stopping just short of my head. Another dug into the dirt by my heel. My throat desired nothing more than to scream. I looked away from her. I needed to compose myself if I was to say anything at all. The advancing army was pressing closer, but they wouldn't risk running down their own men with arrows. Their swordsmen hadn't started into a dead sprint just yet. I still had time. 

    Time is more dreadful than any army. It seemed to be the puppeteer of everything I hated in that moment. 

   "Embla, I love ..." Her hand fell away from my cheek. "Embla?"

    Her eyes were staring into mine, but there was no recognition, no flicker, no glimmer. Just stagnant orbs of grey, a crooked grin and a stiffened hand wrapped around mine. What then whispered from my lips, what came as quiet as the first winds of springs, are words I'll never speak nor write again. There are some memories that do not deserve to be shared with anyone, then there are the memories that we will seldom relive, for fear that they lose their substance, diluted by the frivolity of passing recollection. That moment was gusted by a sharp, chilled wind, its silence pierced by hailing arrows. 

    I pressed my lips against hers and ripped myself away. 

    I pocketed the key and tore off a second shield from another body.

    A whole line of the enemy's Gilded archers nocked their arrows and loosed, their men spread as far as the valley was wide. I held the shields up, caught their steel, and sprinted back towards our first lines of defense. Six of our battle mages greeted my view. For every one of them, two men carried massive bulwarks to protect them, deflecting arrows in the same fashion I was, inching them closer to the enemy.

    After every few beats of sprinting, I crouched as small as I could and held the shields up to deflect the incoming volleys.

    Behind me, enemy swordsmen scrambled over our corpses in a flood of scarlet cloth and gold-tinted armor. I was close enough to see how their expressions grew bolder tramping over them, how Embla was folded beneath the heaping mound of the dead.

    Through tears and denial, numbing fear, I sprinted down a field that seemed to stretch ever longer beneath my feet. A lone archer without bow nor sword, rather two shields, stumbled over scattered limb and strewn armor, blood and bone stamped into the earth, caught between two armies. The closer I came to my allies, the farther behind were the corpses I belonged to. They asked why I had not fallen, too.

    In range, in range! Casters, archers, on my mark! High Commander Vandor's voice rang. Hold ... hold!

    I tripped and jerked the shields back up as I heard the telltale hissing, before rising to run, only to stumble over more arrows stuck around every fleck of dirt around me. 

   "Sigrek, Sigrek, duck!" a familiar voice shouted at me, one of the elves holding the bulwarks. I saw the mages step from outside the protection, the six of them with outspread arms. They didn't seem to care for me. Behind them were our archers, a line of them kneeling, the second standing above them, their arrows drawn. Everything was pointed at the enemy, coincidentally, it was pointed at me.  

   Their swordsmen were closing in. In a few more breaths, if I stopped running, they'd be on top of me. But the warlocks' hands sparked with iridescent colors, luminance dripping from their fingers, while the arrowheads reflected that same vibrancy.

   Loose! 

   I ducked, this time holding a shield towards my own men. Scalding heat passed over my back, whirlwinds of icicles, torrents of shadow, wind and earth, and singing steel cut the air above my head. I rolled onto my back and watched a spectacle that was from neither dream nor nightmare, for there was nothing so surreal as the horrific splendor of wanton bloodshed. Spells rained, painting resplendent hues of lacerated flesh and armor melted from magma, accented by a chorus of screams, the snapping of bone and the shattering of spells against runed shields. Where their incantations failed, the arrows succeeded, cutting into the chainmail and unprotected necks of the Gilded's warriors. 

    I watched as a ball of magma the size of a boulder slammed into the chest of a man, sending him before he could scream for the pain, into a cluster of his allies that smoldered beneath the boiling heap. I watched a more agile soldier of the Gilded storm though the fallen, raising a runed shield to deflect a spear of ice into incredible, showering sparks of harmless and diffused energy. His courage bolstered, he sprinted faster, only for an onslaught of arrows to delve into the unarmored crevices of his arms and thighs.  

    The mages, much like the archers, needed time to summon another wave of attacks. A brief stillness settled over the field while more enemies clambered over the mound of corpses. I took the opportunity to rush behind our ranks. As soon as I was behind the first line of archers, another flurry of devastation was unleashed.

   As I looked back behind the safety of a bulwark, I saw none from my brigade had escaped.

   Hold your positions! Casters, prepare another barrage! Archers, fire at will!

   The warlocks' glowing fists guttered and rejuvenated as the energy throbbed with their words. One of the practitioners caught my eye as I passed by. She was snickering to herself through vicious incantations, smiling, nearly cackling, as she tossed out agony in mesmerizing creations of infernal ruin. 

    I walked until I was well past the long lines of our bowmen, no longer fueled by the adrenaline, but befuddled by the deafening realization. How could I have been so blind?

    When our scribes write about the skirmish for Luna Valley, will they describe how the Azure Cloaks sacrificed one of their own brigades as bait? I wondered this as I approached Commander Vandor on his stag, after I met his eyes and found a guilty confession in them, a confused frustration. It was a glare that told me I wasn't supposed to survive, not anymore than Embla was, nor anyone else in our unit.

    "See to Arms Master Fredrick," he ordered. "Get outfitted with another bow and sword. You fought well, but the battle is scarcely over."

   "It is, though, isn't it?" I asked, glancing at the slaughter. "It was all a ruse. We were--"

   His gloved hand slammed into my cheek. I stumbled into the arms of a few swordsman watching the interaction. "Now isn't the time for insolence," Vandor spat. "Get your gear and return to ranks. Now!" Commander Vandor didn't waste anymore of his time regarding me, just returned his gaze to the mayhem.

    "Easy now, Sig," Amor muttered to me as he hauled me to my feet. "Victory is at hand, but the bear's still grizzly as always. You fought well." He gave me a toothy smile and squeezed my shoulder. All the arrows in his quiver spent. His eyes told me he had much more to say, but that now was not the place to say it. 

    I mumbled some thanks and stumbled through the ranks.

    The six warlocks with us weren't only masters, they were the doyens of their craft. Their names were known by enemy and ally alike; each of them worth a hundred or more of us. 

    Over the course of the next few days, I pieced together what had led to the uncharacteristic slaughter of my brigade, followed by the unfathomably successful slaughter of the Gilded's forces. 

    The Gilded's reconnaissance had been purposefully mislead. Some of our divisions across the country carried decoys to trick their scouts into thinking they were heavily defended, while we dressed our divisions' warlocks in normal infantry uniform, lending the appearance of being vulnerable. Sure as the dawn, they trusted their scouts and sent a substantial force meant to crush our encampment in Luna Valley.

    But our division couldn't have simply advanced on them. At the first sight of destruction magick, entire armies will retreat and regroup to discern a better strategy for approaching the opponent. Commander Vandor knew, despite trusting their scouts, that their own officers would want more substantial evidence that they could attack with little retaliation. He needed to draw the enemy so close that by the time they were aware of the trap, it had already consumed them. 

   So our commander gave them that evidence. A full brigade of ours, sunken into the dirt by an unholy amount of serrated arrows. We were a token of good faith, nothing more. A calculated risk, a transaction. He used our blood to play into their confidence.

    Now here they were, in our grips, writhing.

    "Commander Vandor sent me," I explained to Frederick. Light from conjured flame illuminated the inside of his tent. He was sitting at his desk, quill scratching against parchment, not at all distressed by what was said would be 'a close battle' to the infantrymen.

    At the sound of my voice, his head snapped up. Frederick's expression didn't attempt any falsehoods, portraying only shock ... inspiring only horror from me. A long lock of his black hair fell over his face as got up. The surprise wore off from his face, leaving only a grim countenance. "How many of your brigade returned?"

    "Only me."

    He nodded and fell silent. He turned away, giving his attention to a pile of bows and quivers on a separate table. "I'm assuming then, you've been sent for replacements. How much weight do you draw? Eight, seven stone?" His question was detached, a feigned concern. His long, sharp nose and high cheekbones, along with the sharp curvature of his jaw, remained utterly still as he processed the fact that I was still alive. 

    "Eight."

   He rifled through the bows and found one before pairing it with a quiver and passing it to me. "Only sevens and nines left. This one's a seven."

    "You knew, Frederick."

    Again, he nodded, but this time he didn't turn away. "All the officers did," he admitted.

   "And?"

   "And what, Sigrek? What do you expect me to say?" He dared to be dismayed that I expected a response from him.

   "You ... were my friend. Or at least I thought as much," I scoffed. "The fool I was."

   "Sigrek, I--"

   "This morning before we marched, when I looked at you, why didn't I see something betraying the secret you held? No flinch of remorse, of guilt? What was it that so compelled your silence, that allowed you to look in the face of someone meant for death, with no thought to warn him?"

    "The Gilded are ruthless. We had no choice but to counter with that same ruthlessness. Luna Valley will tip this war in our favor. It has already! Just look!" His hand pointed toward the plumes of smoke rising from the cinders of the Gilded's incinerated forces.

    I belted on the quiver, equally infuriated as I was dazed that he could be so callous. I began to walk away, but stopped. My fingers found fletching, and before I could think what I was doing, I had an arrow nocked and drawn, the arrowhead trained between his eyes. "You're no ally, nor friend to me. You sent me to my end and here I am to confront you, and all you can do is summon up words of practicality? Tell me, why I shouldn't kill the people who sought to kill me?"

    "It's not as simple as that. You know that war turns lives to numbers. Please, put that down."

    A tear slipped from my eye. "Not us. The Azure Cloaks don't throw lives to dust ... didn't." My hands trembled, and the arrow shook while my grasp dared to loose the tension. "Not one of you warned us!"

    "If one word of it spread amongst you, it would have all been for nothing. The plan would be forfeit, the battle perhaps lost. We have been losing this war, Sigrek."

    "And what would you have done?!" I screamed, letting the arrow loose just to the right of his head. "Falling like cards in a game of dice? Would you give yourself so simply?! A sacrifice for a meager gain?"

    Shouts of victory started to spread amongst the clangor of  swords. Swordsmen rushed into the fields to finish off the wounded and push the Gilded into a retreat that would lead into a slaughter in the woods. 

    Frederick's eyes were wide as moons after the arrow had nearly shaved the tip off one of his long, pointed ears. The arrow had torn clean through the canvas of his tent, catching a stack of parchment on his desk along the way.

    "For pity's sake, I'll give you ..." I wiped my face, "I'll give you one chance to reconcile any shred of humanity you might have."

    "I am only an arms master. My words count for nothing. I fought them, but the other officers were utterly convinced there was no other way. That--"

    "Enough!" 

    Frederick ears and eyes fell toward the ground. He held his head in his hands before raising bloodshot eyes to meet mine. He was only two years my senior, blessed with fulfilling a role that required little combat from him, rather the organization of contracted blacksmiths and the arming of our infantry. Still, we trained together for a time, traveled together for years, and spoke at length regardless of the illusion of authority his position often lent him. 

    "You truly have nothing to say for it, do you? For betrayal? For the merciless sacrifice of your own people?" I thought aloud, my voice growing dim. "Did you think, then, this morning would be the last time you looked at me?" I wondered.

    "I'm sorry, Sigrek."

    I held up my hand to stop him, still bearing the two-fingered glove of an archer, its leather stained with Embla's blood. I turned until my heels faced him. But before I walked away, I found words slipping from my lips, oddly collected, cold, and calm. "Were it not for the present circumstances, I would have buried that arrow in your skull and saved one for each of the other officers. I don't wish to speak to you again, and I advise you avoid me just as well ... for your own sake. Put my head on a spike for saying so, at least I've spoken my truth."

    When he didn't attempt to respond, I walked away.

    Behind me, the sky hemorrhaged with the cries of the dying, the shouts of the victorious, the commands of the cowardly. A silence deepened in my chest and fell from my lips in steady breaths of resolute hatred, a callous and unperturbed desire for retribution, at whatever expense it would ask of me.