HE WHO FIGHTS

by Mike Morris

  Jefferson bowed his head in greeting. "Brothers and sisters, thank you for answering my summons. I just wish it was under better circumstances but these are desperate times." He paused as he looked over the sea of faces before him. "And, if mankind is to survive the morrow, we must risk all that we have in one last, desperate gamble."

  Part I

  1

  Rane sat cross-legged in the glade and concentrated on his breathing, counting to five as he inhaled and then to five again as he exhaled, trying to clear the noise from his mind. Sunlight sneaked through the oak trees, warming his body. Somewhere a bird sang and other creatures sniffled and scratched around but he was the only person for miles in either direction. Just the way he liked it. He breathed in, filling his lungs with air free of any city stink. A gentle breeze rustled its way from the south-east, bringing with it a hint of the ocean a few miles away.

  Even so, the voice whispered at the edges of his mind.

  It promised to take away the guilt that haunted him, the memories that shattered his sleep. It offered strength and power, a way forward if only he were willing to pay the price. All it wanted was blood, violence and death. A small price. A good price. A price he’d once been so happy to pay.

  But he'd not killed anyone for six hundred and forty-two days and he didn't want that to change. He was better than that. A man, not a monster.

  One, two, three, four, five, he counted as he breathed in and he almost couldn't hear the screams of the dying. One, two, three, four, five, he counted and exhaled but it wasn't enough to remove the sweet music of steel against steel that filled his mind and the smell of blood tainting his thoughts.

  He opened his eyes and saw his sword leaning against a tree. The red scabbard was dented and scratched from all it had been through, and the handle worn by years of use but he knew the blade, hidden inside, was as perfect as the day it was forged by the Naijin swordsmith, Edo. Two years had passed since he'd last shown its steel to the world but he could remember it like yesterday; the joy as he cut the man down, the ease in which the sword sliced through his flesh. The rush that filled his veins. The power death gave him. How he’d revelled in it. How it’d disgusted him. The Legion might’ve saved the world but Rane had lost himself in the process. Sometimes he didn’t know if he’d ever find himself again.

  He wanted to look at the blade, peak at a sliver of its steel. He told himself that it didn’t matter, that there was no harm in looking, but he knew where that path would lead. Better it stayed hidden. Better he stayed safe. He'd had enough of death. If only death had enough of him.

  Rane abandoned his attempts at meditation, knowing when he was past such passive attempts to quell the temptations within him. He cracked his neck, stretched his arms, and flexed his hands. The scar on his right palm shone as bright as it ever did against his suntanned skin.

  After placing a log on the chopping block, he picked up his axe. The handle was worn smooth with hard use but the head gleamed and it’s edge was sharp enough to cut the very air. The axe felt good in his hands, heavy but comfortable. He swung. A perfect arc. Overhead and down. The axe bit into the log with a satisfying thunk, splitting it neatly down the centre. He flicked the pieces to one side of the block and picked up the next log.

  A crow perched on a nearby tree stump and watched as Rane continued for hour after hour. The relentless action burned away the voices, took away the desire. His muscles complained, but he ignored them too. He vented his fury on the wood, enjoying the violence of the axe, seeking exhaustion and the silence it guaranteed.

  By the time he stopped, he’d more than enough wood to last a long winter and barely enough strength left to hold the axe. He filled a basket and sat down on the block to cool off. The late summer sun had enough heat left in it to leave a tingle on his skin and for the first time that day he enjoyed the view of his surroundings.

  He pulled his hair back from his face. He thought about tying it up out of the way but dismissed the idea. He liked it long. Even all sweaty and sticking to his face. It told him he wasn't a Legionnaire anymore, that the war was over and he'd survived. He wasn’t what the sword had made him. He wasn’t a warrior, he was a man of peace.

  He used his shirt to wipe some of the sweat from his heavily scarred chest, grateful there was no one around to gawp at all the old injuries or ask questions he didn't want to answer about how he got them.

  His little spot of land was tucked away near the south coast of Ascalonia in a part the Rastaks had never reached. As a result, some of his neighbours hadn't fought in the war. Some had managed to hide away until it was all over.

  He was a curiosity to them, someone they imagined to be full of exciting stories of bravery and heroism. In their minds, the war they'd avoided had been glamorous and exciting. They didn't want to hear about the shit and the horror, the death and despair, the starvation and the madness, of how he could still hear the screams of the dying and the drums of the Rastaks promising more pain. They didn’t know what was done to win the war. They didn’t want to hear how he woke up screaming, the blood of his friends still on his skin. Some days Rane wanted to take those cowards for a ride north, and show them the reality. Show how close the horrors had come and the mass graves for the thousands butchered by the Rastaks. They’d not have to ride for more than a day or two to find something to see that they’d never forget.

  Worse, there were the ones who wanted to tell him how they would’ve fought 'if only I wasn't too old' or 'too young' or 'had a bad knee'. Whatever their excuse for not fighting, they always imagined themselves to be able to win the war single-handedly if only things were different. It took all Rane had not to kill them where they stood.

  There were many reasons why he lived in the middle of nowhere and people ranked high up on that list.

  He pulled on his shirt, looking forward to getting home and seeing Kara. She was the exception. She was the one who’d brought a little bit of Rane back from the hell he’d found himself in. Even so, he'd left home early that day, without speaking to his wife, not trusting himself around her — not when the voice was so loud in his skull. He knew she'd understand. She, of all people, knew the darkness that had stayed with him after the war and his constant need for solitude. She’d enough scars of her own still to heal from the war.

  He picked up his sword. Despite his tired muscles, he barely noticed the weight of the weapon. He paused again, thinking about how he'd like to see the blade once more, but other thoughts quickly followed, of blood and battlefields, and the dead he'd left behind. His heart raced but he forced himself to breathe deeply once more until the memories fell away. He wasn't a killer anymore.

  Rane slung the weapon over his shoulder, placed his axe on top of the basket, picked it up and began the walk back home. The dirt track took him up a short hill, just steep enough to make Rane wish he'd packed fewer logs into his basket. He smiled at the thought. Compared to some of the weights he'd had to march with, the basket was nothing. He was getting soft in his retirement, past it at twenty-eight. He couldn't help but think that was a good thing. He might even get fat next.

  Something caught his eye up ahead, off the track, in the woods. It looked like a large fox eating some prey. Rane stopped, reminded of an animal the Rastaks had used against the allied nations in the war. One of Heras’ pets.

  But that was impossible. He’d not seen one of those since the war ended and they’d never come that far south.

  His hand drifted to his sword's hilt without thinking but he paused. He was jumpy. He knew that. The unease growing inside was nothing but a hangover from the urges he'd felt earlier. There was no need to draw his sword. He wasn't going to be spooked by a memory of something from the war. He'd resisted the temptation to use his sword for six hundred and forty-two days. He could last another day without giving in.

  Rane walked on, slower than before, watching the creature tear into its catch. It was only a fox. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. But Rane's mouth was dry all th
e same and his heart raced.

  He was ten feet away when the animal froze, aware of Rane's approach. It whipped its head around in his direction, snarling, revealing blood-stained teeth. It was no fox. With a clear view of its head, Rane knew exactly what the animal was.

  A devil dog. A Bracke. He blinked, still not believing it, but there it was. A ghost from his past alive once more. The impossible in the flesh. Returned from Heras' kingdom.

  The first time Rane encountered the Bracke, the Legion was retreating after the battle of Mislan, in the north of Fascaly. They slogged back over hard, cold ground, stretched out in a straggly line. They'd taken a kicking and a beating from the Rastaks, leaving them with more wounded than fighting fit. They were all desperate to get home, back to safety, but it seemed every few yards another body would be left for the crows.

  The main camp was two days march away when the first Bracke struck. It charged in from the side, keeping low to the ground until the last minute. It dug its claws into some poor sod's chest, eviscerating him. By the time, two other soldiers shot it dead, more dogs had attacked from the other flanks.

  The Legion formed squares, huddled together with swords, spears and muskets facing the animals, but already the creatures had claimed the lives of over a dozen more Legionnaires. They were so fast, so deadly.

  The Legion stayed like huddled up for the rest of the day and the night, too scared to move, as the Bracke kept throwing themselves at the squares time and time again. They didn't care that they faced certain death by doing so. All they cared about was killing and they weren't going to stop while there was one man alive. In the end, the Legion killed less than a dozen of the creatures while the Bracke had slaughtered twenty soldiers and left probably twice that number injured.

  And now he was staring at one again in the flesh.

  The voice in his head screamed at him to draw his sword. Kill the demon before it killed him. He knew only too well the pain of a Bracke's claws ripping through flesh, how lethal its teeth were, what damage it could do. Fear surged through him. Suddenly the war didn’t seem so far away.

  It stepped forward, still holding a piece of flesh in its front paws. The only thing it had in common with a fox was its short brown fur, but there the similarities ended. Its hind legs were larger than its forelegs so it could rise up in front of its prey before falling on it with all its weight, pining it down as it slashed with the large sickle shaped claws protruding from its middle toes of its forelegs. Its jaws jutted from a small head with a set of teeth no one would want to be bitten by, and its tail was as long as the rest of its body.

  Without taking his eyes of the Bracke, Rane slowly bent down and placed the basket on the ground. The Bracke's nostrils twitched as he did so, cocking its head from one side to the other as it weighed up what was in front of it. Rane took the axe off the basket. He could deal with the Bracke without using his sword. The voice told him he was a fool but he ignored it. The axe would do.

  When he straightened back up again, the Bracke attacked.

  He'd faced them too many times in the war, but even so he'd forgotten how fast they moved. The Bracke closed the gap on him in a blink of an eye. It leaped when it was two feet away, curled up to hook its claws into Rane. He brought the axe up in time to block it and the Bracke clamped its teeth on the shaft as it crashed into him.

  Wrestling together, tt thrashed away as it tried to hook its claws into Rane. It sliced his arms to ribbons and a foot caught his stomach. Pain flared across his gut as the creature’s claws cut deep.

  Rane ignored the pain. He’d been hurt before and survived. He twisted and threw the axe and the Bracke into the bushes before it could hurt him more. The demon dog rolled over, hitting a tree, but it was on its feet in a second and raced back towards Rane.

  As it leaped a second time, Rane's sword swept down to meet it. There was no thought, no decision. He'd not drawn the weapon in two years but it was as if no time had passed — the movement as natural as breathing — and he carved the creature in two.

  A rush of energy hit him as the sword did its work. His tiredness was gone. The pain with it.

  He stood there, sword raised head height and parallel to the ground, shining bright in the twilight. Bracke never travelled alone. If there was one, there were more. No matter. He'd kill them all. By the Gods, he hoped there were more of them. He’d show them the error of their ways. He scanned the surroundings, listening for movement, finding none, fury building. The war had found him once more.

  Rane stood there unmoving, muscles tensed. Blood from his gut ran down his legs but he ignored the injuries, knew they didn’t matter. Only when he was sure he was alone did he lower the blade. The voice warned him to be careful, to keep his sword free and ready. Its urgings no longer a whisper, nagging away at the back of his mind. It commanded him, demanding more blood. It scared and thrilled him. It was the killer in him, the darkness, and it was free once more.

  Rane moved off through the undergrowth, searching for other Bracke tracks. His home, where his wife waited for him, was only a few hundred yards away. He didn't want to think about what one Bracke could do to her if it got to her first.

  Rane spent another hour looking until the light started to fade. He’d found nothing. Perhaps the creature had been alone after all.

  Rane looked down at his sword; it was his life and his soul and he loved it. Loved it more than anything in the world. What else did he need when he had that?

  His skin tingled as he tried to calm himself. He'd forgotten what it felt like to kill. The charge that rushed through him, setting his nerves on fire. Every sensation so beautiful. Delicious. Power surged through him, changing him. He was stronger, faster, a god of death. He wanted to kill again, kill more, kill anything, anything to keep the feeling alive.

  No.

  Rane had to put his sword away. That was the choice he'd made before. The only choice to make now. One he meant to live by. He wasn't that man anymore. The monster was gone.

  He kept that thought lodged in his mind as he forced the sword back into its sheath. Hiding its beauty once more hurt, but he did it all the same. He slung it back over his shoulder, but it felt different. The weight of the sword pressed down on him, reminding him it was there, waiting, patient as death. If only he could leave it behind somewhere, he'd have a better chance of forgetting his past, ignoring the temptation, but he knew he could never do that. The sword was a part of him forever.

  With the basket in his shaking arms once more, he walked the rest of the way to his cottage. As he entered the clearing at the front of his house, his mind was a mess of thoughts and emotions. The Bracke had changed his whole world once more. Back to what it had been. Back to a world he'd tried so hard to leave behind.

  As he approached the cottage, he didn't see his home, his refuge from the world, built by his own hands. He saw a building that was defensively unsound with too many windows, doors without locks and not one place he could defend without being exposed and vulnerable elsewhere. How could he’ve been so stupid to build it in such a way? Because it was built for love and hope not death and despair.

  It was a simple cottage, with a large enough living room for the Rane and his wife, and a smaller room to the back where they slept, with a window overlooking the brook that provided them with supper most nights. A small garden to grow vegetables. Plenty of game nearby. It was all they needed and desired. Now Rane wanted to build walls and fences around it all, traps and deterrents to protect it from the world. To kill anything that came against it. Kill anything that came for him.

  He stopped by the door, trying to clear his mind. Guilt and excitement battled away inside him. He hated that using his sword made him feel so good. Hated how much more he wanted to use it again. Hated how much he wanted to fight and kill again.

  But he knew where that path led, and the end of the journey wasn't pretty. He'd managed to walk away from it before and now he wasn't going to risk losing everything he had worked so hard for ove
r the last two years. He was stronger than that. Better.

  Kara was by the stove when he came in through the front door, a welcome reminder of who he was now. A husband.

  And soon to be a father. The bump showed even more. It was still hard to believe Kara was four months pregnant. He would’ve laughed two years earlier if someone had told him he'd have a child. Such things didn't belong in a world of blood and fire. But meeting Kara had changed that, shown him another way. That death wasn't always the answer.

  After the war, he'd gone with Marcus to Rooktown to make sure his friend's family was safe and alive. They'd not expected to find his baby sister leading the local resistance. Kara was as tough and as resilient as her brother and had been through just as much as they had. Even so, it had surprised both Rane and Kara when they had fallen in love.

  She looked up and took in the blood on his arms, his ripped up shirt. "What's happened? Are you all right?" she said as she rushed over.

  Rane placed the basket of wood on the floor and leaned his sword next to it, taking his time, not meeting her eyes, avoiding her touch for a moment. The blood still roared in his ears and his arms trembled with the thrill of the kill. He didn't want her to see him like that.

  "Nathaniel?" she asked again as she lifted his shirt to see what wounds he had, and found none. "Where’s that blood come from? What happened?"

  "I need to wash first." He left her standing there and headed into the bedroom. He knew he wasn't being fair, but he needed to compose himself. He poured water into a bowl with shaking hands and wiped the blood from his skin, his wounds no more than scratches. Clean, he changed his clothes and felt calmer. He was a husband, a farmer. He was building a home, a life, a family. He wasn't a soldier, a killer, a destroyer. He took deep breaths, clearing his mind, as he watched his hands settle. He had to remember who he was. Not a monster.