פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Butcher's Bill

Stef Reimos groaned, feeling a dull pain echo deep within his head. He blinked against the sharp lines stabbing into his eyes, but could not find a clear vision. He tried to sit up, but found that his left arm did not seem to want to respond. Nausea racked his stomach and his vision dissolved into dark splotches.

"What's bloody wrong with me?" Stef muttered and brought up his left arm and squinted with a bleary eye. It was a bandaged stump, stopping just before the elbow, bound in a thick gauze, stained dark with dried blood.

Then the memories rushed in.

The earth shuddering as the Jumara thrashed in a crazed throe. A flash of light in the fog. The chain wrapped around his upraised arm. The crack of bones breaking. And as the Jumara struggled, it snapped away its chain with deadly force. Then pain. And only pain.

Stef cursed softly, mesmerized by the sight of his arm—or what was left of it. He could almost feel his fingers still...if he wanted to, he could move them, but they escaped his grasp. A lot of things escaped his grasp now. Then he could no longer maintain focus, as the world began to spin around him.

"That's a pretty wound. The name's Danel Sevor, 126th Longbow under Flargen." A soldier lying next to him said. Stef cracked a weary eye to view the soldier who had a blood-stained bandage wrapped around the top of his head.

"Stef Reimos, 50th Light Infantry." The sergeant murmured, still in mute shock.

"You alright? You lost a lot of blood there. The medic didn't think you were going to make it. But the guy that dragged you here was pretty insistent."

Stef turned his head to study the mess of the field hospital. There were no cot or blanket for the injured to lie on-just the soldiers' own cloaks spread over the dirt. The occasional field medics dashed around, and the smell of death and disinfectant was strong, almost overpowering. If it wasn't for the abnormally dry weather in the Blasted Lands, more than half would succumb to lethal infections. Stef then felt the devastating effects of months of hard march, sleep deprivation, undernourishment, and the heavy blood loss.

"I don't...Danel, how goes the battle?" Stef managed to say before lying back down, his head swimming.

"Wish I knew myself. Got taken out during the final wave. But they were some battles we had. I hear you were the ones who got us through those giant worms? I don't know what we would've done if you guys hadn't freed those Jumaras like you did. Probably die horribly.

"It was all confusion after we cracked through. But then, that was the last of the organized resistance, so it was just a matter of hacking through the faces that appeared in the fog. Those beasts were as lost and confused as we were in that soup. But when we came in sight of the wall, a Dreadlord leading a fist intercepted us. They caught us by surprise and nearly ended our march right then and there. But a knot of cavalry reinforcement stumbled on us then too and we quickly turned the tide.

"Then, I swear my heart almost stopped when I saw the Dreadlord raising an arm towards us, and most of us flinched back. I would never forget that image, for I knew that was the last sight I'd probably see. But, it was the oddest sight I've ever been a part to. The fire that left his fingers burned back and consumed his arm and pretty soon his entire body, like he lost control. We left his charred and twitching corpse smoking on the ground, and reached the broken gates.

"Then the next thing I knew, a sharp pain stabbed down on my head, and I woke up here..." Danel droned on.

Stef soon closed his eyes, drowning out the voices, the screams, and the din. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to glance into his father's eyes.

"Stef, I heard you were here." Jorj Reimos kneeled beside his son. This was the first he had visited his son since T'Eldrene Company had first arrived.

"Da… Jorj... why aren't you fighting...are you injured?"

"The battle's over." Jorj replied softly.

"Then...?" Stef struggled to remember what it meant.

"We have been recalled. Homeward bound."

"We were at the Gates. Why?" The last words trailed off in bitterness.

"As we have struck at the heart of the Shadow, have they struck at the heart of ours. I have heard that the generals acknowledge Manetheren's siege."

"Is this what we are left with? To leave with nothing? I gave my arm for...for nothing?"

"Stef, know that I am as proud of your courage as I am saddened by your sacrifice. But this is a case where my allegiance lies with the Generals. To continue here means perhaps the destruction of the Shadow threat, but it will also mean the destruction of the Mountain Home. The path leads unto mutual annihilation. That is not a path that we take. Call it patriotism, call it nationalism, or call it jingoism. It is the foundation of our beliefs. Certainly, in the annals of history, this might possibly be marked down as the greatest folly of Mankind, if it is not forgotten completely in the dust of time.

"I know that I will never convince you. But without trying, we lose the one thing we have fought for and will continue to fight for. Winning a war does not mean to have killed the enemy. Winning a war means to win the objective. Our objective is the preservation of our home. If we have destroyed the enemy and lost our goal, then we have still lost."

Stef listened to this silently; a dull feeling ached in his chest. He could not tell whether it was resentment, sadness, or acceptance. But it was a cold sensation, and it left him exhausted.

Jorj Reimos sighed, his eyes glistening. Then he removed a ring from the thong around his neck and placed it in Stef's hands.

"Here is the ring back, the ring of your mother. It has given me closure, but I think that you will need it more. To remember what you are fighting for." Jorj stood up and saluted, "For the Band of the Red Hand."

Stef felt the cool silver ring in his hands and finally closed it tightly in a fist. He heard his father leaving, heard the light snoring of the nearby Danel Sevor, 126th Longbow under Flargen. He heard the soft patter of wearied feet and the wind whistling over the rocks.

He slept like a man wearied of life.

פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ