Zamir made his way to Rollus' sleeping area, his feet landing in soft crunches on the dark, damp dirt, careful not to make too much noise. When he slipped into Rollus' tent, he found the man missing from his sleeping mat. “Fuck,” Zamir said. He ran back out into the main area of the camp, looking around for his friend. “Rollus,” he said into the empty air, trying to whisper as loud as he could. There was no answer. He scanned the perimeter of the camp, and saw a man in orange standing on the edge of the forest, watching for someone to meet up with him, it seemed. Zamir ran over to the man, and as he got closer, he realized Rollus himself was standing with his back to Zamir. A great well of relief fell over Zamir, as he realized finally his friend was okay. He touched him on the back of the shoulder. “My dear friend,” Zamir said. Rollus turned around finally to face him.
“My Grace,” Rollus said, forcing a smile, his eyes a strange mix of sadness and anger.
“Tell me, Rollus, what are you doing out here this time of night. Were you sleepwalking again?” Zamir asked, surprising himself at the degree to which he trusted Rollus, even though the situation was suspicious and, deep down in the heart of his nature, Zamir knew Rollus was hiding something from him.
Rollus did not acknowledge Zamir's question. “I have something to confess to you, my Grace,” he said. “Do you remember that day when our great village crowned you General of the Armies?”
“I remember it fondly.”
“The night before your coronation, I snuck into your bedroom and found your scrolls. Those lovely scrolls you had collected on your travels throughout the land, searching for answers. You wanted to know what it took to make a great leader. You said that, remember?”
“Yes, I do. What of it?”
“I thought maybe I could be part of that world, too, if what you knew lay in those readings.”
“Of course you are, my Rollus. If you wanted to read them, you should have just asked me,” Zamir said, his brow furrowed, as he tried to piece together his friend's point.
“I snuck into your room, not because I was afraid of asking you what you knew. Or that you might tell me those books were off limits.” A flash of pain surfaced from within Rollus' features, but subsided back into the interior of his heart. “I just didn't want you to know how much I wanted to be like you. How much I wanted to know what it felt like, to experience being the Zamir the Great.”
“Rollus, what is this nonsense? Tell me what you are doing out here in the middle of the night. We can talk about this tomorrow, as we have much planning to do.”
“The Book of Virtues was the first one I saw,” Rollus said. “There were 13 of them. Do you remember?”
“Yes, of course,” Zamir said, still puzzled.
“I read through all of them. You have acquired all of them since your childhood. Clementia, or clemency. I remember when I accidentally killed your sister's kitten as a child. It was right after we found my mom and dad. You told me it was an accident.”
“You were suffering, Rollus—”
“But it wasn't accident, my Grace. I wanted the kitten dead. And you gave me mercy. You could've torn me to pieces. But you didn't. Dignitas, or dignity. You would never lower yourself to appease the other kids, even when they would have liked you more for it. When they mocked me behind my back, you protected me, even though it hurt your reputation.”
“Rollus, tell me what's bothering you—”
“Honestas, or Respectability. Our first hunting season, when all the other guys wanted to bed the girls instead of making the hunt, you spent that time alone, preparing your hunting gear. No one knew you never went to the brothel like the other guys did, except me. Pietas, or loyalty. No matter how little I could offer you, you protected me as your best friend.”
“Yes, of course, my friend. You're my true comrade. We have been together since we were just kids.”
“Yes, of course. And after reading all those virtues, I had not one of them. None. Truthfulness. Sternness. Health. Prudence. Industriousness. Frugality. All these and more, I lacked, while you were blessed with an overflowing supply of.”
“You have a virtue I will never have, Rollus.” Zamir wanted Rollus to value himself more.
“And what's that, my Grace?”
“Auctoritas, Spiritual Authority,” Zamir said, his words strong and forceful to Rollus' ears. This was the one virtue he indeed lacked but which Rollus had more than anyone. “You knew from such a young age, what it meant to suffer. The grief of losing your family to the enemy made you stronger.”
“It made me pitiful, my Grace.”
“No, stronger. You had an empathy and compassion for those who were mistreated long before I knew it. Do you not remember all the times you reminded me how important it was to pick the smallest kids for play first? Have you forgotten the times you showed me how much my sternness and strength could hurt others, even when I was not aware?”
“You would have learned that sooner or later. I was not of much use. But now it's time to quit this talk. I want to thank you for all you have given me. And I want to say—”
“What is this?” Zamir asked, utterly confused about his friend's direction of the conversation.
“I want to apologize for my actions.”
“Rollus, you've done nothing wrong.” Zamir grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled him close to embrace him, hoping to remind him yet again that Rollus need not feel guilty for failing to live up to Zamir's image. But Rollus didn't hug back, and his words rang out in Zamir's mind, as he saw shadows move from within the forest. Zamir realized that, yes, Rollus had in fact been speaking with someone in the forest. Not just one person, but many people, and as the Obotrites emerged from within the woods, one at a time, Zamir's heart broke for the betrayal he ultimately knew was coming. He let go of Rollus, to speak directly to his face. The man seemed to go limp in his hands, as if all his life-force had suddenly been sucked from within him, and only a shell of a person was left. “My dear friend. You have betrayed me,” Zamir said in a matter of fact tone, unable to process the danger he was now in. Without thinking further about the matter, he turned to the main camp, his thoughts on saving many of them as he could his top priority. He screamed into the still tents, full of sleeping warriors, as hard and loud as he could. “My men! Awake yourselves! The battle has found us unprepared this night!” Almost immediately, Joslyn emerged from the tent, his face weary from sleep, looking around for the alarm Zamir had just sounded. He jolted back into his tent and re-emerged with his sword. He locked eyes with Zamir. “Joslyn, my friend has betrayed me! Remember this if you remember nothing else!” Before Joslyn could respond, his face showing signs of a continued effort to piece together the night's events, Zamir felt a violent grip of a Obotritian warrior on either shoulder, sending a familiar pain shooting through his torso. He looked down at the warrior's dagger buried deep within his abdomen. He immediately pulled it from his body and used the same weapon to obliterate the Obotrite who put it there. He waved the dagger across the man's neck, and as Zamir turned to face him, he could see a lock of confusion run across the man's face, whose goatee was smothered with mud and whose matted grey hair hung down over his eyes. He fell down onto the ground, blood spilling from his neck. Holding his side, Zamir turned to the crowd of his men now emerging from the tent. “Fight, my warriors. Fight with all you have got! We have been betrayed!”
And fight they did. All the men, rushing to arm themselves with their freshly sharpened axes and whips and ball and chain flail, banded together, and Zamir could see the training he put them through finally pay off. They organized themselves into a circle of men, the strongest on the outside slicing and dicing through the Obotrites with vigor, making their way over to Zamir's location, as he continued to tear each and every Obotrite that came his way into pieces. Had anyone been watching, Zamir's efforts would have appeared that he had not been wounded, so easy a time he had tearing the warriors apart. He was almost twice as big as those warriors, but they were many, far outnumbering his men by the thousands. They spilled from the edge of the forest in droves, wave after wave of them pouncing, slicing, stabbing, and beating their way onto Zamir. At least 20 Obotritian warriors piled onto Zamir's body, tearing at his clothes and stabbing his legs with their makeshift weapons. The adrenaline made it easy for him to ignore the pain, at least at first, but he could only hold them off for so long.
“My Grace! Fight for your honor,” he heard Rollus say. “He has betrayed us, men!” Rollus shouted through the noisy fighting. Some of the men responded by hovering near Rollus, and around him to protect him getting injured.
“Lies! You scoundrel!” Zamir yelled, looking through the crowd for Joslyn, who reached him from behind, backing him up.
“My comrades, ignore Rollus! I saw the whole thing. He lies!” Joslyn screamed through the crowd as he and Zamir stood against each others' backs. The fought their way to the high ground, to where they were in a safer spot. Eventually two groups of Zamir's warriors formed, one flanked by he and Joslyn, with the other featuring Rollus as the center. Amidst the fighting, the men managed to already form an opinion as to who was telling the truth.
But they were losing the battle, and quickly. Despite their extensive training and more sophisticated weaponry, Zamir's four hundred warrior could not handle the two thousand Obotrites. He watched as his men, one by one, dropped like flies, in only a matter of minutes.
“We're losing, sir,” Joslyn said to him, under the barrage of fighting. “We're not going to make it.”
“Don't speak like that, or the God's will give you that wish,” Zamir said, rubbing the mud from his brow.
“The God will do what they must,” Joslyn said. “But so will I.” The two groups of fighters grew smaller by the second, and they migrated closer together, as Rollus and Zamir fought the smidgeon of Obotritian warriors between their two groups. As they got closer together, Zamir made eye contact with Rollus, and his expression spoke volumes. Rollus turned to the two groups, which were at this point merging into one.
“My friends and compatriots!” Rollus said. “Stay with me, and Odin will reward you with handsome riches in the afterlife. There is a traitor in our midst! Make me your General and Supreme Commander, and I'll decide the proper fate for the traitor Zamir. The lesser one!” They responded in acceptance.
“He lies!” Joslyn continued. “I was there! Do not trust him. He will betray you as well. Zamir cares for you men. He cares for your families and your children. Do not toss him to the wolves which you currently surrounded by. You will regret it to the end of your days.” Zamir said nothing, as he was busy fighting the blockheaded Obotrites, one of whom was tall and strong enough to pick up a large boulder to throw into the dwindling crowd of Zamir's army.
“Take this, weaklings,” he said, pushing the block above his head and into the air. The other Obotrites followed suit, picking up the largest rocks they could find and tossing them high into the air, so that they rained down onto their enemies heads. The center of the single group, which Zamir could not see, as he protected it from the outside ring, suffered blows from the boulders, smashing eyes and cracking skulls.
Then, Zamir saw another Obotrite warrior drink a swing of fluid from a canister, then spray it from his mouth onto a sack of cloth. Other enemy warriors stripped some of Zamir's men naked, using their clothes for ammunition, spraying that cloth with fluid as well. The Obotrite warrior used a sharp sword to scrape against a rock, making a small spark onto the cloth, which then ignited into a violent flame. He continued doing this, circling around Zamir's group of men, which now numbered less than 50. Never would he have thought that his mighty arm could be reduced this quickly to something this small and pathetic. In some ways, he wished this reality was the nightmare, and the dream which had awoken him was his real life. He preferred becoming a werewolf to this situation. The fire grew in size around Zamir's group, and he could feel the heat. Some of his men started screaming from their burns.
“Rollus, I can't believe you!” he said, and as if he had magical powers, he turned around to face Rollus himself. Rollus no longer hid his hatred for Zamir, and the hurt and pain Zamir felt had no comparison to any experience he had heretofore in his life. “Why, my friend?” Zamir asked him.
“In case you haven't noticed, my Grace, I'm not your friend,” Rollus whispered so the other men could not hear his true intentions. “When all this is over, and I'm the only one left standing, I will make sure to kiss your wife on your behalf, if not much more,” he said, a vicious twinkle in his eye. Those words stung Zamir to his core, and in that moment, he became two people. His old self began its long journey to atrophy away, and his new self was left, full of red-hot anger and fury. Something in Zamir came to life, a piece of himself he was not familiar with, something not even the most violent wars and ugly deaths he had witnessed brought out. His animal nature emerged, as he stared with an eagle's concentration on his former friend. Zamir was oblivious to the growing red light which bubbled over the group of men, like some supernatural crystal cocoon, coming from deep, wild nature, to save Zamir from almost certain doom. Rollus looked up into the air, as the red crystal blossomed over the group of men, cooling their burns and shielding them from the barrage of rocks and weapons tossed at them by the Obotrites. They were safe, but none of them knew why. Zamir's last 15 men dropped their weapons and looked about them, at the red crystal in which they found themselves, the walls glowing fire hot in color but not in touch. Rollus' eyes wandered around the tiny area in which he found himself, trapped with the military men he betrayed, and their leader, who still stared at him with murderous rage.