פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ

Chapter Twenty-Five: Homecoming

To Stef Reimos, the journey from Shayol Ghul was a blur in his memory. Immersed in the fog of delusions and fever, it was like a dizzy dream where nothing was in focus. Like the rest of the invalids and those too weak to walk, he was at first carried in the wagons, until the vehicles were abandoned at the Waygate in the Blight, or whatever they called that blinding portal which he had stumbled through on the shoulder of another.

Without the wagons, the Band had to share the dwindling supply of horses among the wounded and dying. The crippled and near-death had first call, while others like Stef had to stumble part of the way, his head swimming and his muscles cramping up. In his daze, the Ways was like a soft breeze felt through a thick layer of wool. There was something there, but there was a wall of haze between them.

He remembered eating fruits, divine to the taste, but his stomach clenched up in protest at the sudden unusual diet. As a result, he had spent the majority of the non-marching hours perched on the edge of the walkways, retching into the blue void. Then tottering back as vertigo almost sent him toppling into the eerie nothingness. Stef had a feeling that if he fell over, he would be spinning through the serene abyss for the rest of eternity.

But he survived and grew stronger as he held down more food, his stomach growing accustomed to the new diet. But, others didn't. There were many who were too far gone in their wounds. It was the policy of the Band that no one living is left behind, not if they can take a breath. And as a result, any perched on the brink of death was carried towards home. And despite the best wishes and will, most of them died, and were buried under the fruit trees, holding vigil over the future travelers who would pass through this strange land and whispering their last requests into the wind.

So it was in his cloudy but stable condition that Stef approached the final Waygate, the portal that would take them all home. Home, at last.

There was a rustling uneasiness among the men. Many of them had not been home in decades. Behind that door could be their long-last friends, families, and loves. But behind it could also be the ruins of Manetheren and the very vision of despair itself.

But there was no hesitation. The men poured through, and Stef was drawn with the flow, the white glow surrounding him and stretching him through the passage of time and space. A deafening ringing sounded in the ear and blackness suddenly exploded into the white.

Then he stumbled into the night to the sound of cries and clash of swords. Stars danced in his eyes, blinding him, but the sound of battle was unmistakable. Stef fumbled for his sword, and tried to draw a sword that was not there, with a hand that was not there. He was forced forward by the press of men behind him, and he tried to take a step—a step that did not touch the ground where he expected it to be. He stumbled, and rolled down some distance on the rocky incline upon which the Waygate sat, scraping his face and arms. A hand reached down, grabbed his collar and yanked him up to his feet. He finally shrugged his sword from its new position on his left side with his good hand, holding it awkwardly before him. He had never held a sword in his right hand before, but he had better learn. And quickly.

A sudden motion in front of him prompted him to raise his sword defensively. The blow that came nearly took his sword off, along with his head. The face of the Trolloc came into focus for a second, before nausea claimed his vision. He fought a desperate retreat, backing up as fast as he physically could, only reflex and training keeping him alive.

Then two red blurs rushed past him and the pressure was suddenly off. A gurgle and the Trolloc crumpled to the ground. Red cloaks were all around, and suddenly it was all over, almost before it even began.

Stef leaned on his sword unsteadily, his hair sticking damply to his head with sweat. He glanced at the corpses of the Shadowspawn lying on the ground, and the various rotting blankets on the ground. A giant cauldron was hanging beside him, on a makeshift frame, before a tight-lipped soldier tipped out the contents to drain its evil content into the rocky soil. A Trolloc camp. Perhaps a fist or two. They had poured out of the Waygate into the surprised and unprepared Trolloc, and slaughtered them, quick and efficient.

"Sergeant? You alright?" He felt a hand on his clammy shoulder. "It's me, Cordin. That was a nasty fall. You might want to get those cuts looked at." The voice came as if from a far distance.

"I just need. Rest. Can you. Get my water skin?" Stef fumbled with the clip on his belt.

"Yeah sure." Cordin unclipped the skin and quickly snapped the top off. Stef held out his unsteady hand as the young soldier poured the flat water into it. Stef splashed his face with the flat water, feeling the sting of the cuts on his face. He glanced down at his wet, red hand and let his arm drop limp.

"I…" But before he could finish his sentence, exhaustion suddenly drilled into every single muscle of his body. Stef would have toppled to the rock ground right then, if Cordin had not caught him. Stef sensed rather than felt Cordin drape his limp arm across his shoulders and carry him some distance, and laid him on a hard surface that creaked under his weight.

"You there, sarge?" Cordin studied his face, "We scavenged up some of the Trolloc wagons. You'll have to share this with some others though."

"Yeah. No problem. Just tired." Stef closed his eyes, and was enveloped in a feverish dream that must have carried him through several days. He seemed to have relapsed into his earlier state. He was awakened only for occasional meals, spending most of the journey towards the city of Manetheren in a clammy stupor.

He remembered only pieces of that last few leagues, like still images that flashed into his mind. He remembered the dawning sun shining across his face, waking him from a restless sleep. He remembered seeing a massive iron gate, forged with both beauty and utility, slowly opening with a deep groan that resonated through the air. There was a cheer that started like a murmuring brook that increased in intensity until the roar shook the earth, and birds took to the sky in fright. A small smile crept onto his face. They were home. They were finally home. As he felt sleep take him again, he clenched his hands possessively around the silver ring that now again hung from his neck.

When he woke, the headache was gone and he could glance at the room he was in without the walls and ceiling moving around him. He was on a pallet, of which many were lined in a row, filled with many others. He sat up and removed his blanket, and saw that someone had stripped him of his clothes, and replaced it with clean cotton trousers and undershirt. Then he saw the ring was still safely fastened to the thong around his neck, and gave a sigh of relief. His cloak hung on a hook above his pallet, looking almost new, washed and pressed.

"I must've been out for days." Stef's stomach gurgled in agreement, and for the first time, he felt hunger instead of nausea. He swung his legs to the side of the pallet to stand up, quickly dressing in the folded shirt set out for him and carefully setting the red cloak on his shoulder. There was finality in the closing of the clasps, echoing slightly in the cavernous room that housed the wounded. He didn't know how long he had been out, but he had to find the Band. And maybe grab a bite to eat. His stomach grumbled. Well, a couple bites.

"Returnin' to war again so soon?" Stef froze and turned to see in the neighboring pallet an old man, covered to his wispy chin by his blanket. He looked ancient, his face a maze of wrinkles and lines, his hair all white and radiating from his head like a crown. But, what drew Stef's breath away were the eyes. They were the eyes of a blind man; the pupils were the lightest blue before white. But they almost appeared to focus on Stef's face, their milk haze delving into his soul. "Too busy to talk to an old man?"

Stef had to tear his eyes away from those blind orbs. His eyes lit on the hook above the man's bed and saw the faded red cloak with black etchings of a veteran. "I am sorry to have bothered your rest, Learned One."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" The man grinned wide, showing his two remaining, yellow teeth, "When you're as old as me, you can't be bothered by much, though give me my daily mush and a pot to piss in and I'm right as rain. Though I ain't regular as rain, but I hardly need to be filling your young head with such when you need to be using it for what you be using it for."

The sergeant's head swam with the flood of words pouring out of the old man. I guess he doesn't get visitors often, Stef realized. He talked like a nomad who had finally met a fellow man. Or perhaps all old people talk like this. He didn't know, there were few who survived the war to live to a ripe age.

"Learned One, do you know where we are?" Stef also wondered what the old man was doing in the midst of the new wounded, but he wasn't quite ready to break etiquette.

"You are in the Royal Palace. The zenith of civilization." The man kept grinning his toothless mile, "In the Healers Quarters to be precise. And to why, I expect probably because of that pretty scar you have on your arm there." To this Stef froze and stared into those milky eyes. "No need to act like a bullied sheep. I may be blind, aye, but there are more ways to look at this world then through the eyes. Perhaps…" Those eyes seem to suddenly focus on Stef with clarity, and the grin was gone. "Perhaps what you see with your eyes is not really there, but in reality, there is something there that cannot be seen. You see blue, but he sees green, and you both call it yellow. You see? Sight is an imperfect instrument, and perhaps it is good that I am free from its encumbrance. One truly cannot notice something until it is gone." A boney and pale hand slithered out from under the blanket and gently touched the stump of Stef's arm. The sergeant flinched and jerked away.

"A gift of war." The old man whispered, "We have both left a piece behind and paid a price. Tell me, who is the Marshall-General now?"

"First Lord Cathon." Stef croaked out.

"Cauthon?" He gave the name a country twang.

"Cathon. Lawe Cathon."

"Cathon…Cathon. Does not ring a bell, but then my memory ain't what it used to be. I served with Lord Prodis, you know. Or perhaps you don't know. An arrogant man, but I guess all Lords and Ladies and Barons and Dukes are, though one wouldn't expect it, having them lug their heavy names and titles and entourages around. I suspect that things are quite different from when I served, young sergeant. That is the truth. You know this is the first time that the Band of Red Hand has returned to Manetheren in forty years. It is lonely in the North, is it not? But perhaps..." The old man coughed into his blanket. "Excuse me. Perhaps we will know true loneliness."

He was silent for a moment, "You know where I lost my eyes, son? In Aridhol, no no, not in that cursed city—that was before my time-but fighting for that blasted country. It was a dreadlord who sewed fire into my regiment. A very...special Dreadlord he was. Special in that I once knew and served him before he turned. Ah, you know who I'm talking bout. But, I digress. I did not know how I survived. I still don't. I just know that the fire that engulfed us was the last thing and the only thing that I will see. And I can still see the flames flickering before my eyes as we talk. Flicker flicker flicker.

"And I was discharged and sent home. Discharged. What a funny name for that word. You don't really hear that word much anymore. It is an extinct animal, sometimes remembered in the back of some old man's head. Aye it is, I bet you have never heard of it. No, there is no longer a discharge. It is death now. A close friend he is, this fell sergeant Death, who is strict in his arrest. And that sergeant is a fairer end. Look at me, who was given that animal of discharge, who came home to lie in a bed. That is it, until I die. And I can see death now. You see, sergeants like to stick together. Stick together. And I see Death following you. And you follow Death." His grin stretched the skin tight on his face like a fleshless and somewhat wrinkled skull.

"Death?" Stef muttered. The old man seems to be in quite a stage of advanced senility, but there was some hypnotic power in those eyes that seem to freeze Stef to the spot. There was insanity in that pale blue, but there was also knowledge. In those blind eyes was the sadness that bound two soldiers of two different generations of the same war. "If death be what follows me, then be it. For I am a soldier. It is my calling and I accept it."

"We are soldiers." The nameless old man echoed, but his voice grew soft and his eyes closed, his voice fell to a dull wheeze, as if it was torture for him to breathe, "And from one soldier to another, one generation to another, I will give you a message. Listen and listen carefully to the blind man who can see. You live in a reality where nothing is what meets the eye. Everything you know is wrong. Everyone you see is false. Betrayal will come from the most trusted. The dead will rise and the living will eat dirt. Death will come to those who are victorious." The last word was an almost inaudible sigh that Stef had to lean close to hear. Then those eyes closed forever, for they were the last of a generation.

"So is Ol' Sanus ready for his dinner? Or still gabbling his old yarns to you?" A nurse appeared by Stef. But when she took one look at the old man's lifeless visage, she quickly seized the pale arm that had gone limp. Then feeling no pulse, she shook her head and slowly folded it over his chest. Then she gravely folded the blanket over the blind man's head.

"Did you know… Ol' Sanus well?" Stef uttered.

"Aye, he has been in my care for some time now. It's really a pity. We knew his time was approaching. He knew his time was coming. He was such a cheerful man and born to talk, of course. He had been a servant in the Palace since, well, long before I was born. But, he was such a lonely man. War was all he knew, and when he came back. Well, he hadn't married and then he was too old . No wife, no children." The nurse shook her head again. "Well, how may I help you, sir? It looks like you're all packed there, ready to leave. You certainly look better than when they brought you in here."

"Aye, I have been bedridden since...I don't remember when." Stef smiled at the nurse, who was certainly pleasant to look at, with large pretty eyes, blue like the sky, and an almost impish nose. She wore clean cotton scrubs over a light brown dress, and her auburn hair was wrapped and pinned with a white ribbon. "And I am rather hungry, but I really would like to see how my men are holding up."

"Oh, most of the Band is housed in the Central Barracks just outside the Palace. But, I hear that in the morning, they are setting out for the Tarandrelle. So, are you an officer then?"

"No, milady-"

"Zira will do."

"Stef Reimos." He shook her offered hands. "I'm just a sergeant." Just a sergeant. Like Ol' Sanus

"Well, Sergeant Stef Reimos. I can't stop you from leaving. Just take it easy then. Perhaps we'll meet again sometimes." She winked at him.

"Perhaps, Zira. I would like that." In fact, it was Stef's strongest desire. He had not been with a woman in ages, but duty was stronger than any desire he had. "I would like that a lot."

He thanked her for her care, though he didn't remember, and shrugged on his pack. He had a duty. As Stef left the Quarters, he was troubled by the voice of Sanus. He muttered the old soldier's dying words again, "What I know is wrong. What I see is false. Betrayal will come from the most trusted." What did it mean? Who will be betrayed and who will do the betraying? "The dead will rise and the living will eat dirt." Was it just the ravings of a dying man? But is it not said that the dying can see the future, for they are in that thin veil between two worlds. "Death will come to the victorious."

Even in the warmth of the Manetheren Palace, Stef shivered.

פּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּפּצּ