#hmbverse

[heavymetalseries]

A Verse of Vengeance | Chapter 1

1918, The Front, France

“So I says to him—”

“Brys, are you paying attention? I need your attention out there.”

“Of course I’m paying attention. You act like I haven’t been doing this the last two years. Am I paying attention… Fuck off, asshole.”

Brys’ eye hadn’t left the scope of his rifle the entire time he’d been talking. Even though he’d been lying on his stomach in the dirt for hours with only Gwilym spotting for company, his body hadn’t moved so much as an inch. He was too used to it for his muscles to fatigue the way they used to at the start of the war. 

Between the two of them, Gwilym was the better night spotter. He could make out figures in the dark that Brys couldn’t. Even when Brys couldn’t see through the lense of the rifle, Gwilym always made sure he made his mark. 

They were a good team. They’d bonded immediately over both being Welsh soldiers fighting for the British army. Gwilym had been in the service since long before the war broke out, and he’d taken Brys under his wing to replace his last partner. 

“Bullet between the eyes. So keep your head down,” Gwilym had said, drinking from his flask when Brys had asked.

It was advice Brys hadn’t forgotten so far. Every second he was out here, he was too aware of what could happen if he stayed upright too long. 

“Hold steady,” Gwilym said, shifting slightly as he looked through the periscope at the enemy line. 

Through the lense of the rifle, Brys could only just make out a shadow that was either a cloud, a head, or a dog. There were plenty of scavengers taking advantage of the corpses lining the battlefield. 

Brys hadn’t expected it all to be so bad. He’d heard the stories from soldiers returning from the front before he’d been drafted, but not even the most nauseatingly vivid descriptions could do it justice.

This wouldn’t have been the first time he’d seen bodies. He’d been there when Dad died, and he’d been there when Eirwen lost Ivor. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything in the world could be worse than holding his newborn nephew’s tiny, unmoving corpse as the doctors tried frantically to save his sister from bleeding to death.

While all of that had helped steel his stomach a little, nothing could have prepared him for the reality of it. The sighs were bad enough. He’d seen more organs that first week than his entire life. And the smells. Good God, the smells. Nothing could have prepared him for the smells.

“Hold steady,” Gwilym repeated.

Though Brys’ muscles relaxed as he slowed his breath, his position didn’t waver. His rifle didn’t slip as he focused on the shadow. Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving like an animal. He still couldn’t be sure if it was a person, but if Brys was sure, that was enough for him.

“Hold.”

If Gwilym was wrong and Brys fired, he would be giving away their position. Out in the middle of No-Man’s Land, with barely any cover, they were sitting ducks. A German sniper could take them out with one well-placed bullet each. 

I don’t want to die.

This wasn’t Brys’ fight. If Her Royal Holier-Than-Though wanted to get involved, that shouldn’t have been his problem. His brother-in-law, the predictable English bastard, had enlisted immediately and then gotten himself killed. He’d left Eirwen and her three living kids to fend for themselves. Her work as a seamstress didn’t even cover the rent, let alone food or anything else. Brys supplied the rest. The Front wasn’t the place for him. He had a family to support. 

And then the Empire decided Wales hadn’t bled enough for her. They didn’t care that he was the sole provider for a woman they’d widowed. He was over 18, healthy, not a widower himself, and not a minister when the conscription came. Shooting himself in the foot had crossed his mind, but he didn’t think it’d much help on the whole taking care of his family front. At least the bastards gave him a decent enough pay to keep a roof over their heads.

“Fire.”

The word seemed to bypass Brys’ brain. 

Don’t!

His body ignored his brain. 

It was a reflex now, for his trigger finger to twitch when Gwilym said it. There wasn’t time to hesitate. If he did, the target could move and he would give away their position with nothing to show for it. It wasn’t the only involutary reaction he had to Gwilym some days, but it was the one he hated the most. Watching the soldier’s head explode like a melon and the shadows of what was left of his body drop was almost enough to make Brys resent him. 

It wasn’t Gwilym’s fault, though. It wasn’t Gwilym’s fault the war had started or he’d been drafted. It wasn’t Gwilym’s fault Brys was the best marksman in training. Gwilym might have seen his potential and molded him into a sniper, but he wasn’t the one who’d decided he was just a number, good for nothing but killing.

He couldn’t resent Gwilym. Out here, Gwilym was all he had. If Brys started to resent him, he’d go mad.

The first time had been the worst. Brys had been spotting. Watching through the periscope, he’d seen every detail in vivid slow motion. Blood, bone, and brain matter spraying into the air. The brief spasm, then the stillness. It was like there had been a moment before the poor bastard’s body realized it was dead. And then the way it crumped to the dirt like a puppet who’s strings had been cut.

He’d realized in that moment that was exactly what they were. Puppets. Nothing more, nothing less. He’d known it the moment the draft had come in, of course, but it hadn’t truly sunk in until that moment just how disposable they all were.

“It gets easier,” Gwilym had promised as Brys puked his guts out onto the cold, blood-drenched ground.

It hadn’t gotten easier. Not right away. Somehow, the first time he’d actually done the shooting was even worse than that. It was everything that made him sick the first time with the added guilt of knowing he hadn’t just helped it happen, but he’d done it himself. He could have widowed a mother the way Eirwen had been widowed. All he could think of for days was that somewhere, a mother was getting a letter that he boy’s brains had been blown out by some Allied bastard.

Now, it just made him feel cold. Hollow. Like he wasn’t even human anymore. Humans cared when they killed somebody. Somewhere in the last two years, he’d lost that. He didn’t care anymore. They’d made him into this and he would never forgive him for it.

“We should move positions while it’s still dark out. I can keep spotting for a bit. You need some rest,” Gwilym said.

Brys didn’t move for a long few seconds. The space between his heartbeats was so long, he wasn’t sure it would start again.

What if Brys was already dead? What if that was why he couldn’t move? There were so many bodies. His very well could have been one of them, and he might not have even noticed until now. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be dead. But God, he didn’t want to be alive either, not in this place where everything tasted like blood and ash. What if that was his blood he was tasting, his own rotten entrails?

He couldn’t be dead. Not even Hell could possibly be as bad as this place.

A large, cold hand settled on the back of Brys’ neck. 

“Come back to me, love. Don’t start going to that dark place,” Gwilym murmured.

Brys’ shoulders twitched. It was enough to unfreeze the rest of his body. He jerked hard, gasping a little. He nearly dropped the rifle like it was made of snakes. It was probably enough motion to get the attention of anyone on the other side who might have been watching them. He held his breath, waiting for the bullet to shatter his skull into a hundred pieces. It never came, but his shoulders wouldn’t relax.

Gwilym brushed the back of his knucles over Brys’ cheekbone. His expression was unreadable in the dark.

“You’re all right,” he said softly.

To Brys’ ears, the tone sounded almost like pity. He pretended his hands didn’t shake as he disassembled the rifle. He pretended his stomach didn’t try to weigh him down so he couldn’t stand and be spotted by someone on the other side who’d only see him as a mark. 

If anybody did spot them, they didn’t have a clear enough line to shoot. The clouds moved overhead, blocking out what little light the moon gave. Gwilym found a new cover, and they repositioned themselves.

“I’ll take first watch. You get some sleep,” Gwilym said.

He touched Brys’ cheek in that soft way again. If it was anyone else, Brys would have jerked away.

If it were anyone else, Brys wouldn’t have pulled that trigger so many times.

Brys slept. At least, he thought he did. He couldn’t be sure. Sometimes, it was hard to tell the difference between the Hell he dreamt in and the one he lived in. 

Behind his eyelids, he was still holding the rifle. Gwilym was still spotting. Gwilym told him to fire, and he did.

He had to be dreaming, because he stood and crossed No-Man’s Land to check the body. He never did that when he was awake. It was a sure way to get sent home in as many pieces as they could collect, if anybody even bothered. Most people weren’t even worth the risk of collecting. 

Nobody shot at him. Nobody was in the trenches. 

He almost didn’t see the body. There wasn’t even a whole body left, only bits and pieces of Ivor splattered across the dirt.

He jerked awake, biting his knucles to keep from screaming and tasting his own blood. There was a split second where he swore he saw glowing eyes watching him in the darkness.

###

“You ever been in love?” Brys asked.

Gwilym looked away from the scope. His scarf was wrapped around his face. He burned like an agoraphobic Irishman in the sun. It was a wonder he’d been allowed to enlist, but Brys figured it didn’t count as a proper medical condition. As long as was fit enough to kill, they didn’t care. There were never enough bodies out here.

“What?”

“I said, you ever been in love?��

“Strange question, isn’t it?”

Brys shrugged his shoulder without looking away from the German line. It was a strange question. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked it, whether it was out of boredom or curiosity. They spent so much time out there, just the two of them, their conversations did sometimes get a little odd. It seemed in the past two years, they’d talked about everything but this.

“Not stranger than anything you’ve asked me,” Brys said. 

Gwilym hummed softly. From the corner of his eye, Brys watched him suck on the end of a cigarette and exhale through his nose before holding out to Brys. Still keeping his attention on the view through the scope, Brys held it between his lips. He spent longer than entirely necessary inhaling the nicotine into his lungs. It helped warm his skin and curb his appetite. 

“So is that a yes or no?” Brys asked, handing the cigarette back.

He savoured the way their fingers brushed together. God almighty, they spent way too long out here together. This was the only human contact he’d had in days, or maybe weeks. Time out here tended to blend together.

“I don’t know. Maybe once or twice. It’s been so long, I can’t remember.”

Brys snorted.

“You aren’t that much older than me. You’re, what, thirty? Thirty-something?”

“Something. When you get around my age, you stop counting.”

Brys’ snort turned to a laugh. He looked away from the scope only long enough to press his mouth to his arm so he could stiffle the sound. Even if he didn’t think it would carry to the German trenches, anything louder than a whisper was risky. There was no movement on the other side. It was getting late. It was more than likely there would be no more shots fired until morning.

“I still got a few years to go, then. Assuming I make it out of this war in one piece,” Brys said.

Gwilym’s fingers hovered over Brys’ hand a moment before he lowered it. Brys clenched his jaw to hide his disappointment.

“What about you? You ever been in love?”

Brys almost closed his eyes. There was some movement in the trenches, but it wasn’t enough to do anything about. There was no clear line of sight. Part of him was relieved. It meant he wouldn’t have to be complicit in any more deaths. Part of him felt worse. Every one of those soldiers was aiming at someone on his side. They wouldn’t care about taking him out. They’d made Eirwen and countless other women a widow. Why should he care about taking them out?

“There was one bloke. Sloan Lockwood. Handsomest man I ever seen.”

Second handsomest.

“Anything happen between you two?” Gwilym asked.

“We, ah… got caught skipping Sunday school together.”

His lip twitched at the memory. Sister Mary had gone so red, he thought her head was about to explode. It was nothing short of divine intervention she hadn’t told Dad. It would have broken his heart to see his boy going around with a Lockwood. He wouldn’t have cared that Brys was chasing other lads, but a Lockwood! 

He would have been right. 

Sloan Lockwood had been drafted too, but while Brys hadn’t had any excuse to get out of it, Sloan’s father had paid some doctor to forge documentation about some bullshit injury. Sloan had told Brys himself. He’d even seemed proud of himself for it, like he was so clever for finding a way to stay home. He’d gotten to take over his father’s law practice, while Brys had no choice but to die out here in the dirt a million miles from anybody who gave a shit about him.

Gwilym cut his laugh short. He jerked upright and swore loudly.

Brys stiffened, his body reacting before his brain had time to process what he was seeing. Shots fired overhead. Soldiers popped out of the ground one by one, firing and ducking down before he could shout directions to Gwilym.

“Take a breath and talk to me!” Gwilym shouted over the gunfire.

Brys did as he was told. He couldn’t think. If he wasted time thinking, they were dead. They were all dead. Every soldier on their side, on the other side. 

His lips didn’t feel like his own. The voice coming from his mouth, shouting instructions at Gwilym on where to aim, didn’t feel like his own.

The bodies dropping weren’t people. They couldn’t be people. They were… It didn’t matter what they were.

Canon fodder. They were canon fodder.

Bullets whistled past his ears, leaving them ringing. Shells exploded around him. Dirt sprayed over him, blinding him. 

“I can’t see anything!” he shouted. 

“Keep your head down!”

Bullet between the eyes.

Brys pressed his forehead to the dirt. His hands gripped at the periscope so hard, he thought his knucles were going to pop out. He couldn’t quite tell if he screamed or not. The ground shook beneath him like Hell itself was preparing to open up and swallow him whole. 

Gwilym grabbed his arm. His voice was too muffled for Brys to make out. His face was streaked with dirt, making the whites of his eyes stand out. His eyes were the palest blue Brys had ever seen.

He was shouting. Even if Brys couldn’t here the words, he could tell from the way his mouth moved. He tugged at Brys’ arm, pulling him up to his feet.

“We— go!”

What?

“— on!”

They were running. They were running. The ground was uneven beneath Brys’ feet. He stumbled more than once. If not for Gwilym’s hand pulling him, he would have fallen.

This is the wrong way.

Brys wasn’t sure how he could tell. Everything looked the bloody same. There was something, maybe a colour or the shape of the trenches, that spoke to a deeper instinct.

There was a gun aimed at them. The man’s leg was clearly shattered. A piece of bone stuck out from his uniform. It was a mystery how he was standing on it. Blood streaked his face. His rifle hung at an odd angle, suggesting his shoulder was broken. His shouts were incoherent sound. 

German, Brys’ mind supplied.

He’d picked up a few words and phrases, but not enough to understand what the soldier was saying. The gun aimed at his skull didn’t need any translation.

His hand went to the knife that was supposed to be at his hip, but his fingers only found air. His heart lurched into his throat. He’d heard that in the moment before death, people’s lives flashed before their eyes. Thankfully, Brys’ didn’t.

What flashed before his eyes was so much—

Well, he wouldn’t say worse. It was stranger. 

What in God’s name was he seeing?

One second, the soldier was aiming the gun at him and screaming. The next, he was gone.

Brys’s eyes darted left and right. He didn’t find the soldier until he looked down. 

Gwilym was on top of him. How had he moved so fast? He’d been behind Brys a moment ago, hadn’t he? He’d been behind Brys a moment ago, and now he was on top of the German soldier. His face was buried against the man’s nexk. His hands had torn the dirty uniform open, and his nails scraped bloody gashes into his skin. 

When he looked up, his face was covered in blood. A stream of it pumped from the soldier’s neck. His pale blue eyes glowed like a cat’s. The red ring around his irises had bleed into the whites. The thin veins around his eyes were black through his pale skin, and his teeth—

His eyeteeth were extended into sharp points. He bared them at Brys, snarling. 

“H-Holy mother of God.”

Brys didn’t consider himself to be a religious man. Mom was Jewish, but Dad had always insisted they be raised Catholic. The cross he wore around his neck was more a habit than anything, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to church, but in that moment, the only thing he could do was make the sign of the cross as he stumbled back.

He was seeing things. He’d hit his head, or he’d died, or— or—

Gwilym’s teeth retracted back to a normal size. He wiped his face on his sleeve, smearing blood over his skin. He reached out for Brys.

Brys jerked back. He couldn’t breathe. There was too much smoke and blood in the air. He stumbled over something, likely his own damned feet, and hit the ground. Flashes of white danced across his eyes.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

He couldn’t wake up because he wasn’t asleep. This wasn’t a nightmare. It was a nightmare, but it was part of the same waking nightmare he’d been living in for the last two years. 

“Gwilym,” he gasped.

He wasn’t sure if he actually said it outloud or not. His lips were numb and all he could hear over the ringing in his ears was his own racing heart.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Please, we have to get out of here,” Gwilym shouted.

Gwilym didn’t wait for Brys to say anything. He hauled Brys up to his feet like he weighed nothing. It was only his grip bruising Brys’ bicep, half-pulling and half-dragging, that kept him moving. 

Brys swallowed down something sharp and acidic, nearly choking on it. Dust and dirt stung his eyes and throat and nostrils. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

They didn’t stop moving until they reached the Allied trench. Soliders moved around them, too busy dealing with the injured to pay them any attention.

“Are you hurt?”

Gwilym’s voice was still muffled.

Was he hurt? He couldn’t tell. Everything felt numb except the pressure of Gwilym’s hand.

The medical tent was full of wailing soldiers. The image of a bone sticking from what was left of a man’s leg burned itself into Brys’ mind. His screams mingled in with the rest of them. 

“Sit down. There you go. Look at me. Can you tell me your name?”

Large hands cupped his cheeks, angling his head so he was looking down at Gwilym. Even covered in blood and grime, he was beautiful. His full mouth was pulled down and his brows were drawn together in a concerned scowl.

Brys licked dirt from his lips and immediately regretted it. He grimaced and swallowed a few times. 

“Brys. Brys Tuck.”

“Good man. And do you know who I am?”

“Gwilym Darcy.”

His partner. The man he’d fallen in love with. And a monster.

Keep Reading