Peace bred war. War made peace, and it left behind a surviving generation weary of its grueling growing pains, wrought with the sacrifice of too many souls to count.
Some would say every soul is changed by the touch of battle. Some, like Marco Garland, would agree with that sentiment.
He had not died, but as he watched his greatest friend be interned into the frozen Valkenheim ground, he wished he had been dead. Enduring the next five months in a three month campaign were that much more difficult without him.
He could scarcely believe it when the sun did not hide behind low northern clouds. Not low, the ground was higher. Marco did not envy God high up in cold… cold Heaven.
The sweat on his brow and on his skin and on his hands underneath the silver-tipped iron of his armors were a welcome distant friend he had begun to think were mere dreams of a life before this life. That long had his mind been muddled with frost, shivering wet body bidding morn to the only reason that seemed to exist in Valkenheim.
Men died overnight. The cold could snuff out a soul's fire if the will was not as a stone wall, impenetrable, and the spirit would be called away to wander the unending forests and eternal snow, becoming white falling memories of Mount Rust.
Marco pondered too much now. The Warden wondered if the cold had softened his resolve, or hardened it through every frigid night, when he felt his tears freeze at his temples, alone with his thoughts under the stars.
There was no sleeping the first night Marco was safe behind an Ashfeld fort's walls.
Her breathing was ragged as she rested on his lap, rolling her hips against his own in the darkness of his room, licking his ear and whispering his name with a honeyed tone.
She was resting her thighs. His lap drenched in her body's lust for him, drinking of his presence, tearing strands of much too long hair off his scalp when she felt him gnaw at the end of body at the most uncomfortable angle. The thorns to every rose, as it were.
Marizia had always known what she wanted out of life, from every facet of it.
Scars on her arms, whipped into her skin by the mentors in the Warden's Order, frustrated by her twisted flair that seeped into her sword form. She wanted to fight as she wanted.
Broken nose, cracked ribs, twisted elbow, countless injuries she inflicted on the men and women she took into her bed, lapping at the frustrations of the needy. She wanted to fuck as she wanted.
She missed him. For the months after her fall in battle, carried away south to die and recuperating instead, she waited for her favorite lover.
Marco did not believe her when she told him she waited, leading him to a room on his time for rest and relaxation, barely able to contain her excitement in that drunkenly hugging blouse that spilled the flesh of her breasts.
He did not believe her until he entered her, chilled muscles straining until there was no cold that was not engulfed in her warmth, a vice to welcome him back into the real world.
"I'm sorry about Jon…" Marizia spoke in the darkness as Marco laid on his back and she rested her head on his shoulder. The bed was barely big enough for the two of them, and he had his arm downwards to slowly circle his thumb at the small of her back.
She could feel his heart race to a gallop at the mention, even at rest, the thud of his swallow up at his throat, the long exhale from his nose that depressed his ribcage.
"Me, too." Marco answered, the circling resuming, occupied mind drawing life back into his thumb.
"When I heard that he'd… I should've been there to save him instead of being back here dying of infection. I couldn't get you out of my mind." Her thoughts were sporadic. She relived weeks in a second, and Marco wished she'd been born mute. He'd give up every crude joke and wild tease she'd ever uttered just to never experience this conversation right now, right here.
Marco had been pushing Jonathon from his mind to save himself the pain. If it was feasible to have carried his body back to Ashfeld, he would've volunteered himself. As it was, surrounded by Viking parties, the choice to bury him was both to grant the man's soul some peace and to spare the camp the indignity of watching the Lawbringer rot and foul the air.
The universe in Marizia's mind revolved around her, and she forewent noticing that Marco had not answered her in that tert silence he offered. She continued to speak.
"He was a good man. He was a great friend…" Came her words, and as horrible as it made Marco feel, to him, her words came hollow. She did not know him as he did, as long as he had, keeping the gate to mourning Jonathon fairly locked tight.
He knew he had no claim on sorrow for Jon, but feelings were not logic.
Days came and went, and Marco was dropped back into the routine of life in Ashfeld, or rather, expected to. A senseless denial plagued his resolve, to see that the world had not stopped for his grief, clean shaven face populated by brown trickles of his coming beard while he watched the second caravan arrive from Valkenheim.
Leftover supplies, leftover soldiers… prisoners of war.
These were not the days of Apollyon, lopping heads from necks on pushes forward or on slow retreats from victorious battles. The Vikings had little in the way of goods to plunder, and soldiers needed plunder to yarn their greedy dreams away from abandonment of their posts.
Though the spoils contained Viking-reaped gold from the coasts of Ashfeld and its monasteries, its best taken export was in the market for flesh, for slaves in a free country.
It would certainly astonish the commoner to know just how many Vikings and Samurai actually resided in Ashfeld at any given time, serving as field workers and farm tenders and house keepers to the lords and ladies that settled the better volcanic soil of this western land. The numbers could amount to a terrifying insurrection.
Marco gave it no real thought, watching the shackled Vikings being led through the courtyard and towards the dungeon structure.
He pitied them, and he felt sympathy for them, but he had enough strength of mind to know that, unlike Marizia, he had no way of knowing just how horrid it must feel to be a prisoner in a foreign land…
No philosophical musing on the nature of the imprisonment of dutiful military service could compare to actual iron chaining wrists and shins together to await a fate beyond control.
Marco's concentration returned to him as the Ironwood Legion's Commander, his legion's commander, addressed him later that night in that same courtyard amidst a formation of all the warriors that belonged to an Order.
"Marco… Say something…" Marizia hissed beside him, the metal of his gauntlet tapping against his own.
"Garland over here!" The Warden exclaimed, raising his head a little more and realizing he had to approach the front.
He did so, and the commander shook his hand with a nod, squeezing the unprepared appendage into an aching dull pain. As he'd done for the past ten soldiers, he congratulated Marco.
"For meritorious service and outstanding bravery in battle, I present you with this golden token." The commander spoke.
There was more to the speech, but nothing that reached Marco's ears, looking at the applause from his peers and the soldiers that stood around the fort to bear witness. The entire legion was present, as a feast was to commence, celebrating the fact that no more Ironwood soldiers resided outside of its walls.
The token was perfectly circular, and flat, empty but weak to be stamped when it was spent. It served one purpose; bounty.
He could take his weight in pillage if he wished with the token. Somehow, the thought did not appeal to him tonight.
He did not drink as the feast roared on in the fort, or perhaps he drank so much that he ascended past inebriation into a stone-like trance, staring at the stone wall that was used to scribe the names of the fallen.
"Jonathon 'Timber' Fieraguila IV."
Marco knew not how long he stared, but it had been long enough for someone to get worried and call for Marizia to get her friend.
"He'd want you to celebrate, you know?" She spoke beside him, barely drawing Marco from his stupor.
"I can't…" He answered back, and it was the truth. No joy would arise.
"Sure you can… You just need a little more drink in you…" Marizia petitioned sadly, knowing more alcohol wouldn't help her friend right now. She had an eye for the pissed drunk, and it was clear by the way Marco swayed in his stoic stature that he was one drop away from taking a nap. To some, that would be preferable to wallowing, but Marizia wanted to dance the sadness from his bones in her own selflessly selfish manner.
"How long has it been since he died?" Marco asked aloud, a thought escaping his mouth, a wonder not meant to be asked but pondered.
Marizia did not know, truly. She could not, as she was not present. She only found out after the fact.
The answer was months. It had been months since he had died, and Marco had come to the slow and dreadful realization that he had never mourned his friend.
Valkenheim had swirled his life into a nightmare, unrealistic situations of sordid machinations that beheld him no importance but personal survival. Only now, safe from that creeping and surrounding death, could Marco work out his loss, even if it had built up like a failing dam.
"I was going to wait, but… here… You need this." Marizia spoke again, the rustling of her fumbling hand drawing out a sealed letter stamped with the very familiar insignia of a wing-shielded eagle that chilled the Warden to belook upon.
His shaking hands were no longer steady from the ale, peeling apart the hardened wax politely before opening the letter to translate the words as he scanned them.
/
"Marco,
I struggle to write the words in this letter and I would be embarrassed to have you know the amount of times I rewrote this, however short it is.
When the news arrived, I was struck with hysteria. When the condolences became clear, the words held no meaning, for I had lost my son and the world became as the words.
Jon told me much of you in our correspondence. Even in that stale prose he bore, it was clear to a mother how much you truly meant to him. A life could've gone by at the estate and he would have never found so great a companion had he not joined the Order.
So it is to you that I write this, to thank you for filling my child's heart with honest love before he was called on by our Heavenly Father.
There are so many things I will never get to say to him now, so many things I won't ever get to share with him, so I leave them to you, as this war has claimed two of my children now.
Within the Heartlands lies twenty acres of land under your name, and a modest estate home resides there, should you choose to accept this gift. It was to be Jon's. I know he would've liked for you to have it.
Even if you don't accept it, please take the time to visit an old woman and regale her of tales of her son at his happiest.
- Francesca Fieraguila"
/
Marco read the letter, and reread it till the sun rose and his tears had dried on the parchment beside Jon's mother's own tears, looking at the indent that Marizia had left upon his bed before she left come morning.
She knew already of his surprise inheritance, knew since she'd read it over his shoulder and rubbed his shoulders and spoke words that fell on his deafened ears. She seemed excited.
He found her again when he walked about the courtyard, the woman speaking to their commander, beckoning him over happily.
Marco did approach the two, unsure of what to expect as the commander spoke in that tone deaf voice that plagued him.
"I'm told you own a little more land today, Lord Garland. Another congratulations, of course." The commander spoke first, standing half a head taller than both Marco and Marizia.
Marco had already begun to regret letting Marizia view the contents of the letter, but he thanked his commander either way.
"With the war winding down, I've been convinced that allowing you the respite to tour your new property should be in order. Some time outside these walls might do you some good, too."
It was a strange comment from what was an unfeeling man. Perhaps he wasn't so emotionally stunted. Maybe Marco's darkened demeanor had become too visible, as his unkempt growing beard did him no favors.
"... Thank you, ser. I'll… be sure to visit it sometime…" Marco answered quietly. Truth be told, he had no intentions of going there. He could not bear the thought of living in Jon's inheritance. It was a foolish gift from a grieving mother, and he was waiting for her to come to her senses.
Marizia almost rolled her eyes at his answer. There was certainly an ulterior motive behind her gossip. Marco knew she wanted to come along to christen the damned place.
"Sometime? Today, I believe, would be a good time to take your leave, while nothing is taking up our schedule." The commander responded, and Marco understood it was not a suggestion. Marizia was looking pleased, a familiar consummated face.
Marco wanted to retort, but there was no recourse.
"And now that you've got some… property beyond your sword to attend to, it's only fitting that you take a helping hand with you."
The Warden bowed his head. He knew what this meant, too. Marizia chuckled lowly as she patted her friend's back. The commander pointed at a passing pikeman.
"You there. Head into the dungeon and speak to The Beak. Tell him to pick one of the Vikings to give over to Lord Garland here, and if he gives you any trouble, tell him I said it." He waved the young man off, and the soldier jogged to his destination as Marizia glared confusedly at the commander.
Marco did not, in fact, know everything after all.
"Eight Vikings, that man picked. Eight! He can spare one… I'm going to need your token, too. You see what happens when you let a man accumulate eight of these things."
The two Wardens bade their leave from their commander, their path subconsciously leading them to the dungeon's entrance. Marizia appeared less than pleased with the outcome, stewing in some contempt and taking glances in Marco's direction.
"I suppose I'm stuck here while you go off to enjoy your private paradise." She grumbled, like a leaking spout that meant no harm.
"You told him. I didn't want to even mention it." The Warden replied just as quietly, stopping in his tracks to address his peer.
"I'm sorry. You're right… This is on me… He's had me on patrols since I got better. I'm sure it's just too late to get me off the next rotation and I can go with after." Marizia commented, almost like she was convincing herself. Marco had no response to assure her.
He could feel his heart in his ears, pounding, listening to her talk as it dawned on him that he was going to have to escort a Viking a whole province over. A Viking, an enemy he'd spent months fighting against.
Where some could let that anger go to own a human being, he did not think himself that callous or even capable of being the bigger man to dispose of that boil in his blood at the thought of a hundred rabid Vikings ambushing the patrol that took Jon from him.
So when he looked to behold the sight of that same soldier leading a small woman out of the dungeon by a chain to her neck amidst bound roped wrists, the Warden's blood stilled, and fantasies of rolling one last head on the ground evaporated.
Hair as dark as night, eyes akin to the very light that escaped her mane, a white drowned in the faintest of blue hue, the Viking woman winced at the pull on the back of her neck. Her gaze landed on him as the soldier recognized Marco and began to bring the property to the Warden.
Lips dried and pale skin marred by wounds only fists could bring about, evidence of the process used to break these people into submission. The Viking wordlessly sized Marco, judged him and found him lacking, spitting on the ground before him only to receive the punishment of a backhanded slap by the soldier for her insolence. She glared at the Warden anyway.
Marizia was in the same state of shock as the Warden to her side. The woman's mouth opened to say something, anything, but she only uttered the one word that had melded into Marco's.
"Shit."