#theffers

[mudg123]

A STEP TOWARD VICTORY

The alarm echoed around the valley, a signal for us to prepare for battle. Our preparation occurred with a minimum of fuss. We buckled on sword belts, picked up shields or spears and reformed our battle lines to march from our camp to the valley floor. We assumed our battlefield positions facing each other across the enemy line. This scene, so often repeated, goes back so far in time none of us could remember the very first battle.

The alarm echoed around the valley, this signal to resume battle. Our usual battle plan combined an aerial and land attack, varying strategies according to the soldiers manning that front. We aimed to outflank the enemy and circle them and pick them off one by one. Both sides matched in every way, even the different strategies we used resulted in similar losses in every battle. And yet, we continued to fight, knowing that there was no end to the war.

Today was different. I felt lighter with a joy in me I hadn’t experienced for a long time. The course of this war was about to change, starting with the end of this battle. My goal was not to get injured if the plan was to succeed.

The fighting was steady, with the same feints and slashes in the air and on the ground. We kept at it, with everyone taking only minor hits, until I gave the signal to change tactics. I wanted to lull our enemy with the sameness of the battle, same battle different day, nothing unusual happening.

At my signal, my soldiers paired up, one in front and one behind each enemy in the air. The soldier in front continued to fight and parry as normal. The soldier behind lifted his sword and, with the flat, hammered hard along the top edge of the wing of the enemy in front of them. They repeated the blows, breaking and shattering the humerus and radius bones in the wing with each stroke. We struck together, leaving the target with only one working wing. Unbalanced, they crashed to the ground, doing more damage to their bodies on impact.

Part one of my plan was working, employing simple and effective strategy to disable a winged warrior. Its very unexpectedness threw the enemy into disarray. As the enemy crashed to the ground, some of them left the land battle and flew to join the air battle. We attacked them in the same way and watched them crash back to join the growing mound of broken on the ground. In the melee of broken bodies on the battlefield, I could see Mica trying to rally his able-bodied troops. He gave orders to those still on the ground not to fly to the air battle. I returned my sword to my scabbard and flew to the edge of the field, looking for a target that would be the ultimate piece of the puzzle.

I walked in amongst the groaning bodies towards Cass. Mica was in front of him, directing those around him. Cass was never at the centre of events, too young, too green and too conscious of his inadequacies. Walking up behind him, I called to him gently and as he turned; I plunged my dagger into his side. He started, gasped for air and swooned onto the ground. He was still alive as I walked away, replacing my dagger in my scabbard. I lifted off to join the remaining flyers, battling it out in the air.

The alarm echoed around the valley, the signal for retreat.

Everyone stopped fighting. From the air, I watched as Mica’s troops flew down towards him, surprised at how few remained. He moved with speed, organising those that could assist those too damaged to walk back to camp. I looked for Beel and Modus. My generals, both in the air, flew towards me. I asked them to be careful of those soldiers on the ground with more than broken wings, as they would have to be carried back to camp. They flew down and began the same work as Mica, organising the retreat.

This process was orderly, each side assisting their soldiers too injured to walk off the battlefield. While Beel and Modus organised our retreat, I flew to a vantage point so I could observe the battlefield watching both sides gather their fallen. I wanted to observe uninterrupted and until I saw the result of the poison; I had smeared on my dagger. The poison was new to me and its manufacture had been a part of my vision. The poison had taken me some time to gather and then make.

At least one thing was clear to me today. Mica knew nothing of the vision, he had not received it as I had done. The advantage was mine. I could not pass it up. My blind faith in this vision from unknown origins had left me with a fear of the outcome that I did not want to share with my soldiers. When I was sure of the outcome would be time to share what would come next.

My troops were all back at camp. It was time for me to leave, or my presence noted.

It had been two days since the last battle; I was standing on the boulder outside the camp, looking towards the enemy’s camp as I had done each day. At night, the enemy never lit fires like our camp. They stayed as close to our shared roots as possible, even in our current form.

Tonight, a bonfire was lighting up their side of the valley. They had lit it in the centre of their camp. We could hear their singing across the valley. I knew what the fire signified. The first of many fires for my enemy. They were honouring Cass; their fallen warrior, unable to heal himself and departed from this life.

They could honor all their fallen this way until the last one of them lay on the battlefield unburnt and unsung and this war would finally be over. And I would be victorious, standing triumphantly over that last broken body on our shared battlefield.

[mudg123]

Reincarnatio

The chopper crew watched the explosion mushroom. They were heading towards the explosion as part of a rescue mission. The pilot manoeuvred the chopper away from the debris field while scanning the area, looking for any likely threats and a safe place to land.

He said to his co-pilot, “I hope Theo wasn’t in that.”

∞∞∞

“Hello,”. a voice said near Theo. The effort to open his eyes and reply to the voice exhausted him. He waited in silence, gathering his strength and thoughts. Something was wrong. He guessed he was in the hospital, but could not remember what had happened. His vision was black and his arms and legs felt like cotton wool, and his throat felt tight. The thought of the damage to his body overwhelmed him. He allowed himself to sink back into the comforting darkness. The same voice said, “Rest for a while until you are ready to talk.”

∞∞∞

He spotted the big shed from the road after three hours of driving following the kidnapper’s clues, and they pointed to Milo, the kidnapped three-year-old boy, being held there. The isolated location offered no cover; so his arrival would not be a surprise. The child and his survival relied on his past military training. Milo’s parents were relying on him too, to bring home their little boy as they endured condemnation from the little town where they lived. They hired Theo to find their little boy, banking on his need for redemption. The media, parked outside their home, howled for their blood.

Inside the gloomy shed, he looked around, but it appeared empty except for the office-like room in the centre. He circled it, noting the only access was a metal door and a couple of small vents at the top of the wall. Back at the door, he called out to Milo, but there was no response. He tried the door, but it was solid and his basic lock-picking skills were not good enough for the sophisticated lock, nor was he able to access the door hinges to remove them. His next instinct, as a big guy, was brute strength to shoulder the door open, but it didn’t budge. He walked the perimeter of the shed, looking for anything he could climb on to assess the roof of the room for another means of entry. He dragged an empty oil drum back to the brick wall, climbing on it to examine the roof, but it was solid. The door was the only access; he got down from the oil drum. With all of his options exhausted, there was no alternative but to call for help.

Outside in the bright sunlight, he found a spot where he could get a weak signal on his mobile; he gave the police an update and a list of the equipment that would be required for the rescue. Back inside the shed, he sat outside the metal door, waiting. The town authorities had thrown all the town’s resources together for the search. They had nothing left, so they would need to ask for additional help to scale up a search of this type, and he had been specific about what needed to be sent. He had also requested an ambulance.

He continued to talk to the child he thought was in the locked room, even though there had been no response from when he arrived. The sound of a chopper in the distance was getting louder, coming towards them. He stood up and, as if by magic, the metal door opened inwards into the darkened room. Theo heard an indrawn breath, probably his own. He stepped over the threshold, calling to the child. A single light turned on, allowing him to assess the rest of the room; it was bare except for the chair in the centre facing the door. A small body with headphones on sat tied down in the chair. The child was not moving; he rushed forward, only to stop and stare at a dummy. While his brain processed the situation, he became conscious of a ticking. Too late, he turned back toward the door.

∞∞∞

Theo woke up. He was lying on his side, looking across at a camp. A gentle breeze wafted over his body while he registered that the sky wasn’t blue, even though it was daytime and there were no clouds. His mind was having difficulty making sense of what he was seeing. He retreated into himself, reliving what he could remember of the moments before the explosion. He knew he was dead.

His body rolled forward, rising fluidly, lifting off the ground, jolting him back to the present. He didn’t remember consciously wanting to get up. His body propelled itself up and away from the camp. He tried to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He was flying. His body touched down lightly on a large boulder. And then sat down with a practised ruffle draping the enormous wings unhindered over the boulder.

He had huge spectacular wings, and he wanted to stand up and look at them. He tried to turn his head but couldn’t. He could feel his body, including the wings, but he had no control. He wanted to look at everything all at once, to look at the sky, at the camp, at where he was sitting. Instead, his whole body was facing a valley.

“Theo.” a voice said, “I know you can hear me. Just think about your words and I can hear you. We have some time now before you go.”

“Who are you? Where am I? Go? Go where?” Theo said in a rush.

There was a huff, and he felt his shoulders shrug and the magnificent wings resettle over the boulder. The voice said, “You can call me Mica and I am a guardian. Your guardian. And you are between cycles. This is not new to you and not your first time here.”

“Where is here?”

“Here is with me between your old cycle and the next.”

“A cycle? A lifetime?”

“Yes, one cycle finishes, and then a new one begins.”

“A new cycle? Back home?”

“Yes,”.

“Will I remember everything?”

“For those that have completed many cycles, sometimes a past cycle resonates so that parts come through into the new cycle. It is rare.”

“Ah,” Theo thought, “That explains a lot.”.

A horn blew, ringing out over the valley. The sound surprised Theo, but not the owner of the body. With a graceful push, the body rose from the boulder, extending the wings to fly back towards the camp.

The voice said, “It is time for you to go. You are not ready to go into battle with me. Rest now before you begin your next cycle.”

[mudg123]

One dream, one teardrop

Mica woke up from his dream, soaked through with sweat. Keeping his eyes closed, he listened to the rhythmic breathing of his sleeping companions. Unwilling to wake them from their rest because the longer they rested, the stronger they were, he sat up, folding his legs under him and opening his eyes.

The only light tonight was from the occasional twinkling of a star revealed as the dark clouds moved overhead. His camp never wasted time lighting fires. They wrapped their wings around themselves when the weather became cold. A long time ago, during a rest period, Cass, a young companion, spoke of the beauty of the flickering light from the fires of the enemy’s camp. He wondered if we could light fires, too. That casual remark earned him no favours. The older companions questioned his commitment to the war. He felt the full weight of their disapprobation for a long time. He battled hard and incurred multiple injuries, all to right himself in their eyes. No one else, Mica included, dared speak again of the attraction to the light or lighting fires for our camp. No flickering lights danced from the enemy’s camp across the valley tonight.

Mica thought about the last moments of terror in his dream. The reason for the terror wasn’t clear. An immense sadness had accompanied the terror and was still with him. He shook his head to clear the feelings; he rose and picked his way through the sleeping companions to the edge of the camp so that he could walk. He assessed the number of injured companions after each battle, asking those that could speak how the injuries had occurred. Then, he walked the perimeter of the camp to clear his head and allow any adrenaline still coursing through him to dissipate. When he calmed down, he began reviewing the last battle, working out what they could do better to avoid future injuries. Every injury sustained during a battle had to have adequate rest time to heal. If the injury didn’t heal, the companion knew they were a liability. If a companion had successive injuries from multiple battles, they became a weak point during the next battle. The number of companions still injured dictated the strategy before they resumed battle.

As he walked, the dread that they would have to fight this war forever overwhelmed him, enveloping him like a shroud. Their only future fighting this war in this valley. They let go of their old existence, never remembered it or hoped to return to it, except for those who hungered for lost possibilities.

There were no new reinforcements. There never had been. Only those in the camp were all that stood for their cause. Nothing changed. They battled, they rested, they got injured, they rested, they healed, and they resumed battle.

He walked to the furthest edge of the camp, spread his wings, and lifted himself to stand on the flat top of the enormous boulder. Mica used this vantage point from the start of the war to look across the valley toward the enemy camp. The feelings from his dream and his helpless dread at the longevity of this war left him at his lowest point. He wanted to howl at the moon hiding behind the clouds; he wanted to scream at the unfairness that constrained armies equal in strength to battle again and again without an end. But only a single tear trickled down his face. 

[mudg123]

Turning Point

With the sound of retreat still ringing across the valley, Luce sank onto the rock, his black wings draping down on the ground behind him; the feathers matted with sweat and blood. His head bowed, his arms by his sides still clasping his sword and shield, he drew in deep breaths to calm himself, slowing his heart rate; letting his strength return. He raised his head to scan the valley, not seeing any of the movement before him. His mind was in turmoil from profane images that had distracted him in the last moments of battle and almost got him killed. Images projected into his mind from who knows where.

On the valley floor, the fallen from both armies rose, their wounds beginning to heal. As soon as they could fly, they retreated to their camps on either side of the valley, where they continued to heal. It took time for their strength and vigour to return. The uninjured attended to those weakened from multiple slayings. When battle resumed, if the rest time was short, they would still be weak and an obvious target for the enemy. Weakness made them a liability in the next battle and that would leave their fellow soldiers with reduced numbers.

Luce’s rock was a little away from his camp, giving him some space as his soldiers regrouped. He took time to order his thoughts. His primary consideration was whether the images were a new type of weapon from the enemy, or were they from another source? If he implemented the actions in the next battle, what would be consequences? This led him to wonder if his counterpart had the same images and the same thoughts he had now? If he did nothing, could this turn the tide in the next battle, allowing his soldiers to die and lose this war?

They waged an immortal war, with both sides matched and incurring similar losses by turns. Neither side prevailed. Dismissing the thoughts about the source of the images as unimportant, he took the new knowledge and shaped a plan of action in his mind. A plan to end the war. They would slay their enemy for one last time. Did he dare to implement this plan?

He stood up, stretching his wings, shaking the now gleaming feathers. His mind made up, he beat his wings to lift him up, flying towards his camp.