- TMK -

A new dawn came over the village. Outside Mothgedhäi’s tent, Farsald enjoyed the quiet while his Crusaders rested inside.

           

There, he saw the first dots of black against the sky. Along those growing specks, tufts of cirrus gas ushered paint stroke bursts of teal against the blue-grey sky. And as Daiseric’s relief force approached, zeroing in on the smoldering bonfire at the village’s heart, a sinking feeling fell into Farsald’s stomach.

           

He had known it was only a matter of time before they came. That was their whole purpose for carrying out this mission after all. It was the implication that came with Daiseric’s arrival granting him pause. For if Daiseric had enough skyskiffs to relive them, then the siege at Trasap was over and the Crusade had triumphed.

           

Meaning this village of children would stay a village of children for years to come.

       

“The men are not coming home.” Byarlun’s words echoed Farsald’s thoughts. “Abardol is not one for mercy.”

           

“No, he’s not.” Farsald sighed. “I fear the goodwill we have built will evaporate when they realize their fathers died fighting us.”

           

“There is nothing that can be done about such things. Not immediately,” Byarlun replied.

 

“For now, they trust you and what we have done here. That will not go so quickly.”

           

“I hope so.”

           

Byarlun placed a reassuring hand on the talbrüder’s shoulder. “I know so.”

           

As they waited, the black dots on the horizon gave way to shapely wooden hulls and brass exhausts. Each silhouette was distorted by the rising run of the dustbowl and carried with it the promise of occupation. A notion Farsald somehow no longer appreciated.

           

“They will be here soon,” Byarlun noted.

           

“We should wake up the others,” Farsald stated. “Daiseric would not be pleased if he found them in the state, they’re in now.”

           

“Truer words were never spoken.” Byarlun nodded. “I’ll do it, been wanting to pay back the short one for his incessant snoring.”

           

A moment later, he disappeared inside Mothgedhäi’s yurt, the clamor of waking men following him.

           

Farsald strolled away from the tent, eager to escape the racket of soldiers in an enclosed space. Then, he stopped in his tracks.

           

It wasn’t a feeling or a sound that made him freeze.

           

It was a smell.

           

The odor was harsh, a burning chemical miasma that was distinct from the haze of dust and woodsmoke. There was a hissing crackle next, like a firecracker lit under his nose.

           

Then the world became a blur of orange, red, and deafening sound.

           

Heat enveloped Farsald as he flew like a rag doll, slamming into a yurt. The tent’s wood frame collapsed around him. His ears rang and his head spun. The world churned like a crashing sea. Muffled screams filled the air.

           

Farsald struggled against the broken timber and felt enveloping him. His lungs seized as panic took hold. His mouth puckered as his gasps forced felt and dust over his tongue.

           

As the world ebbed and his senses screamed to break free, all Farsald wanted now was not to die. Then God answered his prayers.

           

Through the writhing darkness of dust and cloth, a steel blade gleamed. It tore a line though the tent, streams of sunlight following the blade. Farsald scratched at the light, bursting through the collapsed tent.

           

He gagged as fresh air filled his lungs, spit and phlegm spraying the soil. As his senses calmed, his vision cleared, Farsald looked to the one who saved him. There, slamming his fist into the ground, blade in hand, was Täkar.

           

“You?” Farsald blurted.

           

“Why you no go?” Täkar returned his stare. Except there were only tears in his eyes.

 

“Why?”

           

Before Farsald could respond, a gunshot cracked, crimson exploding over Täkar’s chest. The teenager flopped over and Farsald leapt to his feet. There, midst the burning crater of Mothgedhäi’s tent, a nomad stood, rifle in hand.

           

A nomad whose face was obscured by an iron mask.

           

The nomad uttered no words as they leveled the rifle at Farsald. Acting with no other instinct other than self-preservation, Farsald lunged at the nomad.

           

More gunshots sounded, the bullets slamming into Farsald’s inch-thick armor as the talbrüder closed the distance between them. The stench of sulfur and salty blood filled Farsald’s nostrils as his hands wrapped around the nomad’s neck. His fingers closed on the nomad’s windpipe while another gunshot echoed.

           

Farsald squeezed.

           

Bones turned to glass under the talbrüder’s supernatural strength. He felt the body go limp and the rifle clatter to the ground. A moment later, he released his grasp on the corpse, Farsald himself falling to his knees.

           

He grasped at his breastplate, searching desperately for any bullet holes he could find. Instead Farsald only found scorched divots where lead exploded against the steel. His relief soon evaporated.

           

Because surrounding him was soot, burned cloth, and the limbs of his men. He struggled to his feet, tripping over a brown, severed arm as he did.

       

Byarlun’s arm.

       

He called out in vain while the fire’s spread to the next yurt, but no Crusader answered. The screams of women and children filled his ears and the roar of crackling timber accompanied them. But the Crusaders… They remined silent.

           

“Lord, father of the universe, have mercy on us,” Farsald began his prayer. “In your grace, forgive our ignorance, so that we may rest with you among the starlight. Save our souls from the firstborn and fiends of our time. And may the Angel of Ire accept our sinful hearts to keep us from the horrors of the ashen pit.”

           

As he finished, a squeak of a voice broke through.

           

“N-no,” Galacheg trudged into the crater. Soot blanketed his frame, his little boots charred by the blast. Cooked skin and red dotted his face in patches, his copper eyes glassy. He seemed to walk through the limbs and black of the crater in a trance, unable to sense Farsald was even there. The boy crumpled by the corpse at the talbrüder’s feet and wept. His small hands found their way to the mask’s straps, the boy tossing the metal to the side.

           

Underneath, Öyana’s comatose gaze stared back at them.

           

And Farsald’s blood began to boil.

           

“You did this. You and her.”

           

“You were supposed to die,” Galacheg dropped the guise of his broken Common.

           

“Yesterday, you were spying on us, trying to see when we would leave. When to attack us. Täkar, he–”

           

“Täkar was a traitor!” Galacheg screamed.

           

“You couldn’t let us leave,” the realization dawned on Farsald.  “Not when you could kill us here. You couldn’t let that chance go.”

           

“You were supposed to die.”

           

Farsald grasped the rifle as the skyskiffs neared. He inhaled the air of this cursed land as fire spread from yurt to yurt.

           

A chuckle escaped him.

           

“Your plan would’ve failed even if I had died,” Farsald explained. “Daiseric would have come and burned the village anyway. All you’ve done is make his life easier. Though, what could we have expected when fighting children?”

           

“You were supposed to die,” Galacheg repeated again, his head buried in Öyana’s chest.

           

“I know.”

           

Farsald watched as the first of Daiseric’s skyskiffs contacted the earth. He walked toward them while the village became a whirlwind of embers. In time, the screams melted away and the sulfur bouquet gave way to wood ash.

           

Farsald smiled at the fragrance.

           

This nameless village taught him what Daiseric already knew, what the Angel of Ire needed Crusaders like him to see.

           

Pagans were meant to burn.

 

                                                    

 

THE END