Sound the bugle now
Play it just for me
As the seasons change
I remember how I used to be
Now I can't go on
I can't even start
I got nothing left
Just an empty heart
I'm a soldier
Wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me
Lead me away
Or leave me lying here
Sound the bugle now
Tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know
That leads to anywhere
Without a light I feel that I will stumble in the dark
Lay right down on the side
Not to go on
"Sir, the men on the field report the arrival of General Doyle and his company!"
"Thank you, Medth," Saeryth said in an annoyed tone. He really didn't understand why that little worm always found the need to yell these things when he was standing less than three feet away.
He got up off his chair in one fluid movement, stretching the muscles of his neck and arching like a cat. He slammed his palm down toward the hilt of his sword, which had been lying on the table with the base hanging off the edge, and it flipped up into a neat spin. He plucked it out of the air and swung it once, listening to it whistle in the air just to the left of his ear, cutting through time and space in a flash of reflective light. He smirked to himself and easily dropped it into the sheath strapped across his back. Beginning to whistle as he strolled out of his tent, he found his aide outside, standing with the reigns of his horse clasped tightly in his hands. The gray stallion danced from foot to foot with anticipation at the approach of its rider, showing Saeryth genuine affection, the only creature on both sides of the war that enjoyed the General's company. He snatched the reins from Medth with a disdainful look at the man's direction and mounted up. Without a backwards glance, he broke off at a gallop towards the battlefields in the distance. Doyle was waiting, after all.
~~~~~~~~~
Doyle looked at Maj, before dropping his fierce black warhorse back a handful of paces to match the stride of his Colonel, who trotted alongside on foot. "I'm directin' my corps to the front an' center, Maj. I want you ta take Cordelia an' keep an eye on her, you hear me, man? It's too dangerous fer her to stay wit' me. Not with Saeryth gunnin' fer me the way 'e is," Doyle ordered, still a little sore at Cordy's refusal to stay behind at the camp at his request.
"Aye, sir."
"Keep her safe, keep her back, okay?" the General reiterated. "She's too green to be out there… damn her stubbornness. An' make sure she doesn't try any of her demon powers, not yet anyway. We need to be sure first."
Maj threw a look over his shoulder, where Cordelia rode at a brisk clip alongside Kal, discussing one thing or another, probably the aspects of her newly identified demonic nature. She seemed rather chipper, if anything. He frowned and turned back to face the road ahead, as they moved at a brisk pace towards the battlefield.
The distant sound of fighting could be heard, the occasional roar of a cannon, the screams of the dying all mixed into a strange symphony of pain and suffering. Something in Doyle hoped that it was the humans being burnt alive, being hacked apart and blown apart by his own men, that they were suffering for their crimes, that they would experience the most painful deaths possible. It was like his own personal vengeance, playing in his mind, the thought of hands that might have killed Aun, that killed Fessing, and could kill Cordelia in the future, would be rendered useless, a lifeless pile of ash.
Not that he relished death, no, not like Saeryth. In fact he hated this fighting, this constant struggle for what was right, for what the Powers wanted. It made his skin itch on the inside, to think that people had "earned" a spot in this hellhole, that for all their goodness in their own worlds, they should be rewarded with this, this pit of dead and dying, murder and mayhem. He had been rewarded with this, this infection within his blood that broadened day after day with every consolation letter he wrote, with every funeral he attended, with every mechanized speech he was required to give. It spread like virus in his veins with every life that he took, even more so as it wore on, and he began to care less about the faces, the eyes, the pleas. He knew it was wrong. He hated it.
He'd fought and killed the general that had downed Fessing in the first year of his command, had sliced the man's head clean off his shoulders. He could remember the wet feel of disconnected flesh and viscera splattering him in the face as his blade cut through the thick column of neck, and all he'd been able to think about was seeing his General go down in similar fashion, to this man's smirking countenance. He hated killing, hated the stupidity of it all, but for some reason, that one day, the feel of Saeryth's father's body under his boot was satisfying. He'd been at his fighting best that day, furious at cutting words thrown at him by his opponent, angry with all the death and the nonsense of it all. He tried to work himself into a similar feeling now, tried to get in touch with the Doyle of that day two and a half years past, to ignite that deadly ability he knew to be within him. He thought of Aun. **We haven't even buried 'im yet…**
"General Doyle, sir! We are holding them, but there is a breach in the southernmost point of the line!"
Doyle snapped attention as a soldier on foot stopped in front of his steed, arm still in high salute. He returned the gesture hastily. "All right then, reinforce…" he turned to look over his shoulder. "Kal, get out there." He blinked when he realized he was alone. The others must have already broken off. Shaking his head, he rode forward.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oh God."
Maj looked over at Cordelia. "Don't think he can hear you, sweetheart."
She shook her head, looked over the ledge to where armies clashed below, fierce fighting punctuated by screams and roars, explosions of flame. "There are so many bodies."
"There always are." Maj took a breath. I'm goin' in, darlin'. Cuz I can't stand bein' the passive superior officer, sit back like I'm playing a game of chess and I'm perfectly safe. But Doyle wanted me to keep you back."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why? I'm here to help…I can…"
"I know, I know," Maj agreed. "But look, he's lost a lot in these past few years, okay? And I just figured it out; don't want to throw it all away."
"Figured what out?"
"You're the girl."
"The girl?"
"The one he was miserable for leaving back home. There's always one of those. And now you're here, which is probably worse for him, because frankly, it sucks to be here." He smirked a little at that. "So I'm going to keep you back. For him. And hey, even when Doyle first came here, we kept him back the first few battles, so fair's fair. Okay?"
She looked over the top of the hill, down at the clashing lines. "Okay."
"Good. Cuz I know Doyle needs you, especially now."
She looked at him. "He seems so sad."
The wolf nodded. "He's a man at war with himself, sweetheart. That's the price when you care as much as he does. It turns you inside out. You hate the killing, the maiming, but you hate the enemy more. You find yourself wanting them dead or suffering more and more, even if you know it's wrong. You try to tell yourself you're still good inside, even when you've got your weapon six inches deep in another man's chest…" He seemed to go off into himself, pensive and painful in tone of voice. He shook himself suddenly, back to reality, back to the battlefield. "Right. I'm going now." Without waiting for her response, Maj scanned her over with his eyes once more before pounding down the hill, transforming before he rounded the slope. A fearsome howl pierced the air around them, and the conversational Colonel was suddenly a wolf the size of a small horse, sprinting the entire quarter mile down the ravine and leaping into the fray, hair long and wild, paws and fangs abnormally long, especially cutting.
She watched him a while, how he'd gone from a sweet, jovial character to a snarling mass of furious animal startled her a bit. Perhaps what Maj had said about Doyle really applied to everyone, to the war within themselves between their true natures and what had to be done, between their natural penchant for kindness and the need to kill for survival in the furies of war. She turned her head away when he attached himself to a man's jugular, bit through the neck until all that was left for the head to dangle on was a string of stubborn muscle-flesh. He shook it between his three inch long fangs to loosen it before he tossed the body away like a bedraggled chew toy, human blood staining his teeth like cherry Kool-Aid.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm going to the front," Saeryth informed one of the lower officers beside him.
"Sir…but…"
"I killed a man once, just to watch him bleed, Private. Don't tempt me."
The protest was cut short, as the soldier gave a small bow of acquiescence. "Yes, sir."
He pushed his horse forward at a ground eating gallop, away from the protective phalanx that had surrounded him upon his arrival on the field. He drew his sword as he went, jovially hacking off heads left and right, aiming mostly for the enemy, sometimes catching one of his own men just because he found it pointless to waste the time and energy to discriminate.
He reached the front lines easily enough, laughed and shouted his men on as they tried to push through the enemy lines, sitting up high on his mount like a king surveying his slaves, sword drawn and dripping sticky blood down the length of his arm.
He craned his neck in search of Doyle, and errantly plucked an arrow out of the air aimed at his heart by one of the opposing archers as he did. Reaching down, he found an enemy soldier standing over one of his men, ready to kill the man, and forcibly stabbed the point into the back of the demon soldier's skull, hard enough that all that was visible when he was through was the bottom half of the arrow's shaft. The creature wailed and fell down clutching at its head, trying to keep gray matter from leaking out of the cavernous hole and into its hands. The human soldier it had been about to kill looked up gratefully at Saeryth, got up and turned to the General with large, liquid eyes full of adoration, ready to pledge his life and love forever to his leader for rescuing him, lowly infantry, so valiantly. Saving himself the trouble, Sareyth swiftly decapitated him with his sword and continued to push forward, into a small, open circle in the field, surrounded on all sides by fierce battle. The last thing he needed was a fan.
He trotted out into the open, to wait patiently. He knew he was coming, knew his foe well enough, believed in fate and destiny to the degree that he thought they were created solely by force of will, by sheer desire, and consequently, could know that Doyle would meet him at this very spot, soon, by his own intense wish for him to do so.
As he sat astride his gray, he alternated between cutting down the occasional soldier within sword's length, whispering conversation to his horse, whose name was King, and imagining how General Doyle's severed head would serve as the centerpiece on his mantle back at his house if it was preserved and garnished properly.
A moment later, his head shot up. "Yes."
~~~~~~~~
Doyle closed his eyes and stabbed downward, tried to lose the death wail of his opponent into the plethora of surrounding ones, hoping he could pitch it into a wall of anonymity with the rest of them, as if it hadn't been by his hand but rather, more background noise. He was in full demon mask now, green and fearsome on his horse, covered in the blood of enemies that was drying in the heat into powder on his thin armor. He'd done so much of this, couldn't count the numbers of men he'd killed and rode past, dead before their bodies could hit the ground, just as insignificant as the one before it that had died the exact same way.
It all added up in the end, he supposed, the numbers of slain on the personal balance of your karma weighing down everything you thought was good in the world. Funny how in one world he'd been used by a greater power to save humans, and in doing so, tried to touch the humanity living within himself so that he might forget the demon aspects there as well. In this place on the other hand, he rode in all his morbid, inhuman glory, covered in spikes, red eyed and dangerous, every day losing a little more of that humanity he'd once cherished as he slew his fellow man left and right, all the while parading in the mask of a monster.
He tried to tell himself he was nothing like Saeryth.
He felt someone's eyes on him just as that thought sparked like igniting coal in his mind, and he looked upward into the field. He took a breath when he saw the very man of his thoughts sitting astride a familiar, massive gray warhorse, looking for all the world as if he were there to meet a bowling buddy rather than to fight a war, almost oblivious to everything around him except for Doyle's approach. Sliding into his human countenance, Doyle urged his mount forward, and the General of the Protective Armies couldn't help but wonder if staring across the field at Saeryth was like looking into a mirror, reflecting back from one side to the other the very similarities that were so obvious despite the differences.
~~~~~~~~
Up on the ledge of a jagged hill, Cordelia began to panic when she lost sight of Maj in the mass of bodies down below. He should have been so easy to discern, a giant dog raising hell with claw and fang, ripping enemies between both with an occasional heavenward howl. But he was lost suddenly, just another soldier who could die, could be dying, could be killing on the field. She squinted out, tried to find him. Could he be in trouble? Could he be at the mercy of the enemy? The look on Doyle's face as he'd described the death of his friend flashed in her mind, the absolute unguarded broken quality it had had there before her, naked and in pain, only to be replaced by a certain type of hardness around the edges, a certain cold emptiness and bottled emotion that scared her more than his brokenness might ever. She imagined his face then, looking over the body of his second in command, imagined how that crack in his armor might expand at having Maj die, how that coldness might consume him so that he might, ironically, do as Angel had given Darla's return, and stop caring about everything altogether. The possibility of Doyle as cold and unfeeling had the same appeal as Xander Harris in a grass skirt and coconut bra doing the hula while playing a ukulele and singing "Hawaii Ponoi" at the top of his lungs.
She urged her horse forward one or two paces, subconsciously thanking Daddy Chase for those country club riding lessons back in Hellmouth, USA. **Where is he?**
Something flashed behind her eyelids like a warning signal. Suddenly before her, the image of Maj appeared in real-time motion, and she watched him take a running leap forward, powerful legs springing him up ten foot in the air towards a man aiming a spear at someone out of her immediate line of sight. The wolf landed between the would-be victim and the human with a fierce snarl, greatly dramatized by the length of his shadow, stretched across the parched land in light of the late morning sun hovering like his own personal spotlight behind him. The spearman tensed and Maj sprung forward, a shaggy silver bullet, knocking the soldier's spear from his hand and slitting his throat with one efficient (if thoroughly disturbing) swipe of a paw. However, as he watched the shudder and death of the human beneath him, he failed to the shadowed silhouette of a woman rise up on horseback behind him, sword descending in a glinting arc for the wolf Colonel's tree trunk neck…
"NO!" she screamed, as the vision blacked out around her, returning to reality in a jump reminiscent of a television special effects time-warp. She blinked, could taste the death lingering on her tongue as surely as she'd seen it. "Oh that is it," she muttered, urging the horse forward, drawing the sword Doyle had given her before they'd left the base. Forgetting Maj's words of caution, she flung herself fully towards the fighting.
~~~~~~~
Doyle stopped his horse, which was nameless (another thing he refused to get close to because of the omnipresent prospect of death…), across from Saeryth's. He narrowed his eyes, sword clasped tightly in his right hand, wondering why his approach towards the other man had been relatively unhindered. **Bastard probably has orders fer every one 'o his men to leave me be.**
"General Doyle! Lovely day for a bloodbath, isn't it?" Saeryth shouted over the distance. He sounded so amused one would think it was all a really elaborate chess game and not a centuries old battle consuming the entire planet. Like it was just for his entertainment.
Doyle sneered in return, and slipped into his human face. "Don't you think this is a little sick, even fer you, Saeryth? I mean, the bodies o' your men aren't even cool from the other day an' you 'ave us fightin' atop 'em before they've even got a chance to return to the soil."
"You insult me, General. I didn't want to waste their prospective use as decorations for today's festivities." He placed the hilt of his sword in front of his face and bowed his head in some mock gesture of reverence for authority. "What's a war without the stench of carrion?"
"Are we going to fight, or are ya going to keep yappin' on 'bout corpses?"
The human smirked. "Fight, most definitely. We can resume being colloquial about corpses once you've become one."
They both raised their swords.
~~~~~~~~~
"Maj!!!"
He spun around in the middle of a particularly clean kill, wide eyed and bewildered. "What the damn?"
She was riding towards him! Why the hell was she riding towards him? He growled and fought his way towards her, watched as one of Breia's captains aimed his spear towards her, ready to take her right off of her mount as she rode foolishly into the middle of the field.
Annoyed, whether at Cordelia's willful nature or the human he wasn't sure, he knew he had to react fast if he was to save her, and took a running leap forward, impressively high over the heads of several men. He landed an equal distance between the human girl and her prospective attacker and spun at the spearman with a snarl. One more shallow leap forward and he knocked the man's weapon from his hand and slashed him across the throat in one quick, energy efficient swipe. The man's hands went to clutch at his throat as he fell to the ground, trying in vain to keep his lifeblood within his shredded artery rather than allow it to leak into a viscous puddle atop the dirt. Seeing that his opponent was on well on the road to death, and unrepentant of how painful a way it was to go, Maj spun around, furious, to face Cordelia. "What the hell do you think you're…"
He had a feeling the sudden widening of her eyes had nothing to do with his anger towards her impudence.
"NO!!" she screamed, extending her hand in front of her, as if somehow, that would save his life. **Stupid, stupid Cordy! You just made your vision come true!!! Pay attention!**
Maj began to turn around, eyes widening slightly at the silhouette of a woman on horseback with a sword trained on him. He made to collapse and roll from the broadsword's range, but even then there was the matter of allowing his synapses to communicate the information of his wishes from brain to body. Part of him knew it would be too late.
And then there was a bright flash, accompanied by feeling of momentary weightlessness, as if he were suspended in dish washing liquid, before he fell, and the world, the sounds of fury and battle, the sounds of death and dying faded to black.
Sound the bugle now
Play it just for me
As the seasons change
I remember how I used to be
Now I can't go on
I can't even start
I got nothing left
Just an empty heart
I'm a soldier
Wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me
Lead me away
Or leave me lying here
Sound the bugle now
Tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know
That leads to anywhere
Without a light I feel that I will stumble in the dark
Lay right down on the side
Not to go on