Brutes
"What on Mirrus is that?"
Selvig saw what Sif referred to. Upon seeing it, he was tempted to ask the same question. What was it? Why was it here? How was it made? Were they going to use it in the assault on Antium? They were shocktroopers, and shocktroopers weren't meant to ask questions (granted, no-one in the Dominion was), and yet, he found himself wanting to know. Still, given the scowls on the creature's handlers, suffice to say, Sixth Squad's shocktroopers weren't likely to get an answer.
"Seriously, what is it?" Sif asked, as the creature was dragged along – one handler had a chain around its neck. Two of them followed it from the rear, holding its chains as well has shock staves. "I mean, is that a Brute?"
"It is a Brute. And that's all you need to know."
The shocktroopers of Sixth Squad stood to attention as Freya walked over. She was still wearing her Valkyrie armour, but without the helmet, without hovering through the sky and casting death at the enemies of the Dominion, Selvig found himself indulging the notion that she was just another soldier. That she wasn't one who could wield the powers of the Anthem, or a person who could send every shocktrooper in the company to their deaths if she so wanted.
"All I need to know?" Sif exclaimed. "I mean, that was a Brute with a bloody missile launcher on its back and-"
A bolt of radiant energy extended from Freya's hand, striking Sif in the stomach. Selvig winced and looked away.
"Sergeant."
Still, now that Freya was addressing him directly, he couldn't really do that. "Yes ma'am?"
"Get your lessers in order." She cast her look over the shocktroopers. "The march south resumes in an hour, and I will find none of you wanting."
"Yeah?" Orik asked. "And what happens if-"
"We'll be fine ma'am," Selvig said quickly. "No problems. We live, we fight, we die for the Dominion."
"See that you do," Freya said, and for a moment, gave Selvig a small smile. "At least the fighting part."
Selvig didn't say anything. Life, death…for the people of Stralheim, the two states of being were so often out of their hands, they often became as one. He watched Freya walk off and his squad settle into the old routine of passing the time and surpassing their dread before moving onto Sif, bent over and putting a hand to her stomach. He knelt down to join her.
"Come on Sif, let me-"
"Get off me," she snapped, shoving Selvig away.
"Technically I'm not on you at all."
"Oh, really? I'm so grateful, I…" She trailed off, wincing – it looked like she was having trouble breathing.
"Come on sis, let's look at it."
He wasn't a medic. Shocktrooper squads weren't afforded medics, least not within the squads themselves. After battle, apothecaries might tend to them, but only once soldiers of higher worth had been tended to, and only if supplies allowed it. Hundreds of miles separated Stralheim from Antium, and the Dominion's supply lines were extremely vulnerable to the depredations of the Freelancers. Even the Outlaws had tried their hand at snagging some goods. The result was that supplies, medical or otherwise, were hard to come by. And harder still for those on the bottom of Dominion society.
Still, Selvig had Sif sit against one of the Strider legs. You didn't stay alive in Stralheim without learning how to treat family members. He couldn't have saved his mother when her throat was slit by a thief, or his father from the hangman's noose after turning to thievery himself, but stomach wounds? Sure. Even those with magic lightning.
"Take off your chest plate."
Sif groaned.
"Take it off Sif, I don't have time for your shit."
"My shit," she muttered, though she nonetheless obliged. "We've been marching through shit, and eating shit, and seeing shit, and doing shit, and-"
Selvig prodded her stomach.
"Ow!"
"Finger slipped."
She sighed, though he could tell the movement called her pain. "You're an asshole."
"I'm not the one who zapped you with lightning."
"No. You're just the one who let it happen and followed orders to sort me out." She took a breath, wincing. "How's it look?"
"I'm…not sure."
It was the truth. Sif's stomach was red, but he could see no signs of burning. It was as if the lightning had acted as a physical object rather than a source of energy. How that was possible, he couldn't say – he understood little about the Anthem of Creation. Only that one such as he was not meant for its power, that only the Monitor, blessed be the leader of the North, was entitled to change the Song of Creation. That such were the abuses of Antium that Stralheim had no choice but to march south and save humanity.
"Seriously though," Sif said. "You saw that Brute all harnessed up with a bloody missile launcher on its back, and you think that's okay?"
"Didn't say it was okay," Selvig said as he got out some ointment. "Just kept my mouth shut."
"I think-"
"You should keep your mouth shut as well," Selvig said. "I'm only meant to use this for actual wounded soldiers."
"What, so you're the medic now?"
"No, but I'm as close as Sixth Squad is going to get to one, so just shut up and take it."
Sif obliged. She kept quiet as Selvig applied the cream, and remained quiet as she put on her chest plate. Selvig remained silent as well, keeping watch.
"What?" Sif asked.
He still remained silent. Sif was two years his junior, which made her fifteen winters old. He recalled a time when conscription in the Dominion was limited to those of sixteen years and over, but things had changed in recent times. The Monitor. The Freelancers. Some said the world itself was changing, as Shaper storms and cataclysms ravaged its landscape more often, and more intensely.
"I should get back to the squad," Selvig said eventually. "Don't want them thinking I've got nepotism."
"Oh don't worry, the way you treat me, there's no chance of that."
Selvig grunted. "Father left things to chance. That's why his life ended with a short drop and sudden stop."
"Mother didn't take chances," Sif said, following Selvig as he headed back to the shocktroopers. "She still met her end on the butcher's blade."
Selvig didn't say anything. Over the last few months, he'd seen good men die. He'd taken lives, and watched prisoners beg for their lives before being executed for their crimes against Stralheim. In all of that, he'd never forgotten the look in either of his parents' eyes as they met their end.
"But seriously," Sif said. "What's up with the Brute? I mean, what, are we using them as weapons now?"
"Apparently," Selvig said, still walking.
"And that doesn't bother you? Taking animals and turning them into weapons?"
Selvig said nothing. He kept walking, gave a nod to his squad, and-
"Are you listening?"
Selvig sighed, facing his sister. "You making a complaint, Initiate? Because that's the only way this conversation is continuing."
"The only way this conversation is continuing," Sif mimicked. "You're an arse, you know that? We get conscripted together, but just because you're a sergeant, you think you can still order me around."
"I can order you around. It's my job to order you around. Just like it's my job to know when to keep my mouth shut." He sighed. "Little tip you could pick up there dear sister."
"Yeah. Sure. Keep my mouth shut."
Selvig scowled and kept walking.
"Hey, like, it's not as if this is irony right? Enslaving Brutes, making us brutes, and therefore the question can be asked who the real monsters are?"
Selvig kept walking.
"Are you even listening?!"
He was. And he didn't answer, because he knew who the monsters were. That was why he didn't ask questions.
Monsters didn't give answers after all.