Authors: John Koetsier
So I baited him.
“So, Rast. How many men did you have at the beginning of this battle? Four hundreds?”
I waited for his confirming nod, which came late, and grudgingly. He knew what was coming next.
“And you saw our numbers? Ten. Ten against your four hundred. And yet here you sit.” I gestured to the mass of reds on the ground by the canyon wall. “Why is that, Rast?”
He grunted, irritated, but resumed his circling, determined not to be thrown from his course. Determined not to be rushed, or angered. I closed the gap another half step, circling, patient, covering for feints and threatening my own assaults. The men in red grew louder, shouting encouragement for Rast. If he could win, they possibly, perhaps could somehow snag a victory out of this defeat.
Rast, circling, feinted, pulled back, and immediately pounced, striking to my knife hand. Again I rolled to my left, avoiding, simply keeping the blade between me and him. He paused his pacing, inflated his lungs, and shouted.
“You coward! Come here and—”
Instead of finishing his thought, he charged mid-sentence, hoping to catch me listening and waiting, and more than half succeeding. I avoided the deadly point of his knife but tripped on a tuft of grass. Turning the fall into a roll, I sprang back to my feet just as he managed to score my left arm with a long groove, parting the skin and drawing an immediate welling of blood.
“First blood!” he crowed, and show the red blade to his men, who responded with a deafening roar of encouragement, and were still hoping, apparently, to turn defeat into victory. “Hermes is going to like seeing you go down!”
OK, I thought to myself, tuning out the pain. Definitely time to end this. Abandoning the circling, I closed on Rast, who was not allowing the celebration of his men to distract him. Faking a direct strike at his face which would have exposed my knife arm — my right — I instead brought up my bloody left arm. Avoiding his defensive counterstrike, I flicked the arm up and at his face like cracking a whip, spattering his face with blood. Bonus points, I thought to myself: he’s even got some in his eyes.
Then came the real strike, but not at his head. With the blood in his face and the irritation in his eyes, his hands very naturally and instinctively came up and closer to his head. Waiting and ready for this, I turned my blade up and sliced the lower half of his arm from hand to elbow. Not pausing or drawing back, I twisted away from his reflexive counterstrike, not retreating back but instead turning right, coming beside him and with a continued seamless motion immediately behind him, still flailing partially blindly in desperation. Using the angular, spinning momentum I had built up in both twists, I buried my blade in far side of his neck, released it, then stepped away.
Rast twisted, fell to his knees, tried to speak. An strangled wet gurgling came out. He reached up to his neck, found the handle of the knife, and with a single convulsive motion, wrenched it out. He tried to whisper something, something I didn’t quite catch, then smiled viciously.
“You think this is the end, G?” he gurgled. “You don’t even know what battle you’re really in.”
Then he fell on his face, silent and still.
The roaring of the men during the heat of the battle died away slowly like a receding wave returning to the sea, replaced by the quiet, grudging, respectful, assent of those in the red ranks who appreciated what they had just seen.
“Last blood,” I said, and I meant it. The battle was over.
But the mystery of Rast’s last words was just beginning.
This is my rifle, this is my gun.
This is for fighting, this is for fun.
- Marine boot camp chant
Waking was a new-old sensation.
I remembered sinking to the turf in the valley, glad to be finished with the mission, glad to have won. Being captured by the mist of sleep that was not sleep as I had known it for the past few days but deeper, richer, fuller, better.
Now I was waking in the familiar old pod.
I stretched out the moments, savoring the complete renewal, the utter physical wellbeing that the varipod delivered. No aches, no pains: I had gotten quite used to those in the mornings of the past week, sleeping on the hard cold ground. And a complete healing and rejuvenation of all injuries. I yawned, and the softly susurrating lights slowly cycled down. The pod clicked open, and I stepped out.
As I gathered my dayclothes, I saw my table-mates getting up as well. Congratulating them on our victory, I dressed and headed to the hall of feasting. Suspicion turned to wondering certainty as I stepped into the hall of feasting: only our table was set, and only ten steaming plates were full of food.
Suddenly I was hungrier than I had ever been — too hungry to consider the implications just now. I sat, and my tablemates joined me. We looked at each other silently for a moment before digging in, and on a whim I raised my mug, some ale or beer glinting inside.
“Long may we prevail.”
We clicked, drained them dry in a most uncouth manner, and set to with urgency. Shortly what was full become empty, and what was empty became full. Servitors came to replace the plates and fill the cups, and we began again, but slower this time.
“So,” I said, pausing part-way through the second plate. “Just us.”
There were some nods around the table, and the chewing slowed contemplatively. The questions were on every face: why us? Why the crazy odds of the last battle? Of all the dead, only Drago, from our cadre, was awake. Where was everyone else?
Jaca spoke up first. “Hermes will answer everything, when he comes.” Most around the table nodded, turning back to their unfinished food.
I didn’t say it. The words
but will he
were ringing in my mind, as I brought up my fork and shoveled some of the suddenly less interesting roast into my mouth. I had some doubts about that, and I didn’t want to clutter their thinking. But Livia sought my eyes, and I could tell in hers that she knew that I was in doubt. So much doubt, that when Hermes finally appeared, it was almost a relief.
I thought that Hermes might skip the whole mist and lights show, but the silver gong rang, and the otherworldly reflective ball appeared, and grew, and the fog rolled, and Hermes appeared. Again, twice our size. Twice normal size, I was starting to think. He began to speak, rapidly and without preamble.
“The last time you were here you woke late, as I told Geno. He told you some of what I said. Now it is time for you to know who you are, and what you are for.”
My companions around the table glanced at me, at each other, then returned their attention to the god.
“You are not, in fact, in Valhalla. You have been in school. Boot camp. Training. And the oldest of you are not in fact, four years old,” he looked at me. “That is just the latest incarnation, or version of you. Rather, you are more like forty years old.”
That was interesting information, to say the least. But Hermes continued before we could process it.
“Each day of those some forty years you have been engaged in battle. Battle with weapons ancient and modern.” I could almost hear him add, under his breath,
as far as you know modern
. “You’ve fought thousands battles, you’ve been trained in tactics and strategy — and the accumulated knowledge and wisdom generated over the course of those battles has made you the most deadly fighting force our worldline has ever known, with any weapons of any time. This was your goal, though you did not know it.”
He paused, and sipped from a jeweled cup. It seemed there was more, but he was in doubt how much to say.
“Now it is time to finish boot camp. The fighting will begin in earnest now, and you will start to serve your purpose. You will have some time to rest and relax … and prepare.”
He started to fade, and he had not answered any of the questions that were topmost in our minds. He obviously considered the conversation closed.
“Lord Hermes,” I began, rising. “May we ask a few questions?”
The fading stopped, although Hermes did not return to full corporeal presence, so it was as if I was addressing a ghost … giving me the impression he would consider the request, but not especially favor it.
“You may ask,” he said, with a very slight emphasis on the last word that confirmed my impression.
“First of all, we thank you for bringing us here. And we thank you that you believe we are the best of all of the fighters of this hall.” It never hurt to butter up the gods. You wouldn’t think that immortal, omnipotent beings would need ego support, but … somehow they did. Made one wonder, sometimes.
“I suppose our first question is: where are our compatriots? Where are all the other men and women we have feasted with in this hall for, as you say, some forty years?”
Hermes now grew in solidity, as if he was paying more attention, and swelled slightly.
“They are at rest. Or in storage, if you will,” he said shortly. “They are now back-ups in case you fail.”
I thought I understood the consequences of what he was saying, but I pressed on grimly, wanting to be sure. “So they will not rise again, with us, to feast, and to fight another day?”
“That is correct,” said Hermes. “Unless, of course, they are needed.”
Livia gasped as she heard this and around the table there were muted ejaculations of shock and surprise as the full reality of what we had done over the past week or so settled in. All our lives — whatever that meant — we had lived to fight, to die, to regain life and health, and to feast together. Death had been part of our lives, but not a harsh part. We had sliced and diced with the greatest butchers in the long history of human warfare, safe in the knowledge that whatever damage we caused was temporary, whatever pain would be calmed, whatever injuries would be cured. And that life would be restored in place of death.
Fighting and dying had been sport, not real. Not an existential struggle with eternal consequences.
Killing had been temporary, restarts commonplace.
But now we were faced with the knowledge that those we had killed this past week were not just going to wake up after s.Leep: they were something like dead. Perhaps stored, and perhaps to be restored ... but only perhaps. Currently, and perhaps permanently, they were not alive. This was not a pleasant thought, and I didn’t know how I or the others would come to terms with it. I also didn’t know what to do with the callously casual indifference Hermes was showing to our fellow warriors.
But there was no percentage in fighting a god, so I pushed on.
“What is our task? What is the purpose for which you have intended us?”
Hermes seemed to take a few moments to think, to consider. I was fairly certain the others were still in shock, but I got the strong impression he was calculating how much of the truth to reveal. Silly me. Then he started speaking, briskly.
“You will be placed at various times and places into battles in human history. You will know what you are to do, and you will have all the tools and resources to do it.” He looked us each in the eyes, fixing me last with his gaze.
“And you will do it.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the table as most of the soldiers kept their eyes down, heads tilted in awe. I nodded, but my eye rose to meet Hermes. He had told us
what
, but nothing about
why
. Then I bent my head in a sign of respect, and opened my mouth.
“Yes, Lord. We will.”
Now I hesitated. If he had wanted to reveal more, he would have. If the purpose, the reason why we would need to fight for him, for the gods, was one he wanted to share, we would already know. So in a sense I, the creature, would be annoying him, my creator, by pressing the issue. But I wanted to know. Somehow it mattered.
“Lord Hermes,” I began, respectfully, “May we know the reason why we will enter into these battles?”
Hermes looked at me sternly. I knew — how I do not know — that he did not want to answer that question. He turned, and began to fade.
“Because it is your purpose, Geno.”
He continued to fade. As he was leaving, I was dissatisfied. I still wanted to know what the ultimate goal was. Why would we be entering into these battles at different times in history? Hermes’ answer was not an answer, which meant he was not willing to answer. And I did not have the courage to even begin to ask what was really troubling me: whether Rast’s last words had some basis in fact, or were just a loser’s last attempt to goad the one who defeated him.
Then, as the mist retreated and the figure of Hermes became translucent, just before he was totally and completely gone, I seemed to hear some words. They were not spoken, not audible … and yet I was certain they were from Hermes ... though I did not know if they were intentionally sent to me, or if I had somehow picked them up. Yet they chilled me to the bone. As Hermes left, I could swear he was thinking words that made no sense, that did not fit into my faint reckoning of the cosmos.
“Because even the gods have enemies.”