I wrote this while sleep deprived with a mirgaine

[Okdes he/him]

This is kinda crap but whatever I wanna share 

 

I. 

“Dammit, we used to be proud.” Conversation always turned in this direction. Sevtis saw Ixtal slam his cup down. His eyes were the glazed look of a man too deep into his drink and the night, although Ixtal riling trouble was nothing new.

    “You remember.” He slurred. “The battle of Salvation’s Valley! We cast the die that ended it.”

    “We were making the right choice.” His comrade grumbled. “Back then, we were.” He sighed heavily, his eyes and beard drooping equally.

    “But now?” Ixtal sneered. “Look at what they’ve done. Our grand ideals..those damnable politicians…” His voice faded into grumbles.

    “I haven’t had faith in them for a while.” Sevtis found himself rasping. He coughed and wheezed slightly, the metal thunking somewhere inside him as it kept his lungs working. The wonders of modern medicine, back when the world still had wonders.

    “Well, we’re all there. But we did at one point.” That was Tyv, the soft-spoken bannerman. “That’s why we chose the side we did. They made the promises, those populist scum.” That was borderline treason, and they all knew it, but talk often got heated. Besides, nobody would call the Svetsguard on the 31st Light Battalion. So what if old war veterans got a bit drunk and talked a bit too loud? Even heroes of the Unification had issues with the way of the world. With the horrible things they had seen? Everyone knew the stories. Death Spires were an uncommon sight these days, since the Old Kingdom fell, but there was not a person alive who didn’t know and dread the sound of them moving.

    A cup hit the table, and the Captain hauled himself up and out of the bar. He left if it ever got too political.

    “They used to stand for something.” Another soldier snapped. “They talked about how they’d save the world, steel and gear and flames.”

    “There have been flames enough.” Ixtal scowled. “The steelworks still churn, pouring the ash out.”

    Sevtis glanced at the fireplace, empty and cold. About it sat two urns, shining and polished. The barkeep had lost someone too. Sevtis thought about the four urns adorning his hearth. Four broken promises. Four more to a lifetime of them.

    “Do you remember Pyr, playing that damnable flute of his?” Ano chuckled.

    “Little Pyr!” Sevtis laughed. “The boy was like lightning and quicksilver.”

    “He’d play that one tune, right until we crashed into the enemy lines.” Ano said wistfully.

    “Even the battle of the Valley…” Ixtal sighed sadly. The mood turned grim again. The night outside was pitch and coal, the stars long since blotted out by the encroach of smog and soot. In the distance, someone screamed. Nobody reacted.

    “Enough of this!” Ixtal roared, swiping his cup aside. “We used to be men!”

    They all knew what he meant.

    “What can we do?” Ano asked quietly. “We did our time and fought our war.”

    “We gave them blood, they gave us ash.” Tyv spat. “We should slit that demagogue's throat in his sleep.” Conversation stopped.

    The door banged open, and the captain strode in. He had his breastplate fixed on, the metal dull and battered. His helm was also on, the engraved wing decorations tarnished and rusted. His sword was at his belt and his rifle across his back.

    “Our war isn’t over.” He proclaimed, drunken. “The ideals aren’t...I won’t let our work get strangled off in committees! If I will die to the death raining from the factories, I die on my feet for the ideas I killed for!”

    “And do what?” Ano asked quietly.

    The Captain pointed at Tyv. The small man smiled. “We kill us a Prime Minister.” The captain nodded.

    Could they? Could they really? The barkeep looked stunned, but hadn’t moved.

    “We seize the armory. Take the weapons and ride like we used to, right to the keep, and kill us a liar.” Tyv sprouted.

    “We could hit the Core!” Ixtal almost chirped.  “Take out their ability to poison our land and skies!”

    “What’s going on here?” They all turned. The Svetsguard looked in at them. Two members, with pikes and pistols, moving slowly into the room.

“N-nothing, sers.” The Barkeep mumbled. “Just old men, too deep in their cups.”

“It sounded like treason.” One guardsman said.

“Treason?” The Captain thundered. “I am Captain Yovel of the 31st Light Battalion!”

“Please calm down.” The guardsman intonated slowly.

“Calm down! Calm-unhand me!” The Captain roared. The guardsman had stepped forward and placed his hand on the Captain. “Right now, you pathetic excuse for a soldier!” The guardsman’s face twisted in anger, hand going for his pistol, and-

Sevtis wasn’t sure how it happened. A twist, a fight for the gun, a shot. The guardsman fell. The other looked up with wide eyes. His comrade had a hole in his chest, still smoldering slightly from the lightning the gun trapped. The air smelled of blood, burned flesh, and ozone. The other Svetsguard stared at the Captain, blood on his hands and gun in them, and went for his own pistol.

The Captain shot him too.

The Barkeep gasped. The room was quiet. The Captain had a look on his face. He looked angry, sad, pathetic. His armor was a mere facade of the warrior he had been. They all were.

But maybe, just for today….

“That settles it.” Tyv was on his feet. The Captain looked at him. Then the Barkeep. The man stared at the room of ex-soldiers, and quietly went to his house upstairs.

One by one, they joined the Captain. Maybe they could remember.

 

II.

    Alarm bells were ringing by the time they all got their armor and weapons. 45 of them, the entire remaining 31st Light Battalion. 150 dead in the battle of the Valley, 200 dead in the twenty years since. Ano wore a necklace with a small ring, like a child’s. Svetis had one in three of his urns.

They were at the armory. The Svetsguard outside looked nervously at them.

“Captain.” One said. “What are you…”

“We are here for our horses and charges.” The Captain said softly. The guardsmen looked at each other. One edged to the side while the first stepped forward, an amiable smile.

“Why would you need those, Rah?” He use the most formal word for commanding officer Sevtis had ever heard. Funny. Trying to keep his attention, while the other-

Ixtal shot the other man dead, his hand falling limply from the alarm. The first guard opened his mouth, only to have his throat torn open by the Captain’s sword. Two more to the list. Two more broken promises.

III.

    “Consveratis!” We preserve. “Servatis!” We save. “Praesiditis!” We protect. The horses’ hooves thundered down the main street, the cobbled stone echoing, their rifles raised and ready. The guards at the keep gate shouted, alarms all around them.

    The rifles cracked in a flash of light, the fury of heaven streaking forward. For a moment, they were light. Their armor was brilliant silver, not tarnished rust. They were the 31st Battalion again. A glorious charge. They were young again, twenty years dropping off them as they remembered the days. The days of glory, of fighting for a cause, of belief and ideals.

    The guardsmen broke before the charge. The gate was open. Sevtis heard them, the men shouting the battle cry, even Pyr playing that same tune as they rode. This would likely end the same way. Bodies and blood, friend’s ashes, banners fallen. Tyv rode next to him, his face lighting up fiercely in the flashes of his gun. Another line of enemies formed. It was so hard to see them as people, as men with families, not as the damned of hell sent to stop them.

    Damned they were, though, because this group also broke. The fires of heaven shattered them. Men fired from above in the palace down at them, and men died again. Tyv went first, blasted off his horse. Ano went down, his voice raised in shouts of defiance. “Maria! Luno!” He shouted from the ground, not quite dead, before a second shot ended him. His wife and child may yet see him, their names on his lips.

    They were inside, and there were men. Swords were drawn when gun failed. Men were rushing towards the keep from the city, men were welling up from within the fortress. But they dropped away here, as every group did. They didn’t seem to realize yet. The 31st was attacking, but they were manning a desperate barricade of hope.

    Pyr’s ghost still played.

    “This way!” The captain was yelling. They ran, 30 left, through the halls. Down, down, down to the deep, where the core rested.

    More men blocked them, steel flashed. Sevtis had blood on him, his allies’ and enemies’, none his own. His gun was long since empty, and his arms burned from carrying the explosives. He threw his rifle, stabbing a man. The 30 had shrunk to 25. Ixtal was dead now, choked on his blood and burned with the lifeblood of the new world, stolen from the sky. Everything was stolen from the sky. Color, power, stars.

    Sevtis and the captain were the only two left when they finally got to the core. Sevtis threw the explosives down and started arming them.

    “Stop.” The Prime Minister. “Why continue this meaningless bloodshed? You’ll only die.”

    “Yes.” The Captain said, his voice solid.

    “You chose to believe in us, at the Valley. You made the right choice.”

    “There were no right choices. Both sides...the Walking Platforms...the Death Spires….”

    “Were necessary.” The liar said soothingly. “Please, end this madness.”

    “Yes.” The Captain whispered. The Prime Minister held out his hand, to shake or for the Captain's weapon. Captain Yovel of the 31st Light Battalion shot him in the throat.

    He stood for a second, the defiant god, before withering in a hail of fire and doom.

    Sevtis nodded. He stepped back, offered a prayer, and detonated the bombs. For a moment, he wondered if this is how Pyr felt, seeing death rush towards him an not being able to stop it.

    Sensation ended.

IV.

    He was surprised when he woke up, but he knew he was not long. Limbs did not twist like that, and that was a lot of blood. He somehow survived the initial blast. The Core was collapsed, twisted metal and smoke. High above, out through the now-ruined ceiling, he thought he saw a glimpse of blue sky. Maybe it was a memory. But a memory was enough.

    He died.

[Grey Knight]

*reads*

*starts slow clapping*

Well done. I don't care when you wrote this, it's still better than most books I've read.

What's the story behind the world?

[Okdes he/him]

2 minutes ago, Grey Knight said:

*reads*

*starts slow clapping*

Well done. I don't care when you wrote this, it's still better than most books I've read.

What's the story behind the world?

First of all, Thank you!!

 

At the battle of Salvation Valley, the 31st Light Battalion defected from the imperial side to join the Democratic, populist rebels. Both sides deployed horrific WMDs, but the 31st's betrayal won the rebels the war. Twenty years later, none of their promises have been realized as the world has slid into corruption and pollution.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Okdes

[Grey Knight]

1 minute ago, Okdes said:

At the battle of Salvation Valley, the 31st Light Battalion defected from the imperial side to join the Democratic, populist rebels. Both sides deployed horrific WMDs, but the 31st's betrayal won the rebels the war. Twenty years later, none of their promises have been realized as the world has slid into corruption and pollution.

...Please write this. That would be an amazing book.

[Okdes he/him]

9 minutes ago, Grey Knight said:

...Please write this. That would be an amazing book.

I might, I'm looking to make a collection of short stories

[Kureshi Ironclaw]

I think this could be fleshed out into a really good novel. All the pieces are there, they just need refinement. Awesome work!

[Okdes he/him]

16 minutes ago, Kureshi Ironclaw said:

I think this could be fleshed out into a really good novel. All the pieces are there, they just need refinement. Awesome work!

Thank you!

[Gancho Libre he/him]

I may have to revise my theory that great writing happens when one is fully awake