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Blood.
There is blood everywhere.
No matter where he looks, there is blood. It stains dull oranges and reds on his coat. His hands, no matter how often he washes them, are still covered in it, heavy with the lives of those he couldn’t save and those that he could barely save.
In exchange for a life, Guthred amputated a soldier’s arm. Still, he has failed. Her life is fading on the tent’s cot as the Khaenri’an refuses to eat. There is no point if she cannot fight, she claims, and so the hunger strike continues. He supplements her life with what little he can spare, but he can’t save or berate someone whose desire to live has gone along with the arm they wield a spear with.
He hates himself, at times.
There is no way around the fact that he is also struggling with the Abyssal corrosion and attrition. It always smells sweet around him, sweet with the heavy tang of iron that is old and decaying blood, sweet with the Abyssal corruption that clings to them all. It is unbearable and he would like nothing else but to leave, to go back to his old life when people didn’t die at his hands because of lack of supplies, time, or manpower.
They left that life behind in Khaenri’ah, though, and Khaenri’ah has long fallen.
(He doesn’t know how long it has been any more. A week? A month? A year? Hours fade into days into weeks into months, and he has never had a good sense of time to begin with. He cannot understand the calendar of the Surface, can’t make sense of the spiralling disk the Natlanese show him, and time is— was difficult to keep back home with their lack of natural sunlight.
Whether it has been days or weeks or months, he does not know, but he does know they are surviving, though just barely.)
The familiar forces they brought from home are slowly diminishing. The forces they have gained since have strengthened their numbers, but it is not enough.
The fighters, the injured, they are all losing the will to go on, now that it has been crushed by the despair that haunts them like a heavy cloud of tar at all times. It is dark and poisonous as it fills his lungs whenever he breathes, sweet like candy yet bitter like rust.
They will not make it.
He will not make it.
His mentor always said a smile keeps worries away; unfortunately, all Guthred’s smile does is make people grimace and ask him to stop. Thus, he can only lie and tell them it will be alright. He operates on allies around the clock, mechanically tending to complex wounds, just like how he slices his arm and thigh open every few days to replace the failing drain and let the venom dribble out of his skin and bloodstream before it festers inward. His blood thins, and he feels faint. Iron supplements and food are saved for those who need them more.
The weight of war prioritises the combatants and leaders.
These are lives that will have to get up the following day to continue fighting, but they struggle with pain and endless nightmares. He made an oath, once, to do no harm, but how many times has he broken it, now? Euthanasia is a reality, and time does not let them make worthy pyres as the Natlanese customs demand.
Farewells are not important in the flood of blood. The few living take up any remaining resources and Guthred’s patience.
It is hopeless.
“We will stay back to stop the new hub,” Irizar said a few days back, smiling and confident with his squad. “We will return victorious.”
Only one returned alive, and that sole survivor is not sane enough to be left alone at night. If Guthred does not concoct a cure to this soon, he will have to give the man a merciful death as well. He will not do that willingly, not unless circumstances force his hand. The soldier is still alive.
Sometimes, his team couldn’t even triage before the worst off were dead already. Death came by their patient’s own trembling hands, driven by fear and despair.
All trials are run on his own body. Nothing seems to be enough to stay the Abyssal insanity or the tar seeping into his limbs. Tinctures come and go, but there is no change to his failing health. Each experiment fails. He struggles to find the right ingredients in these conditions. The herbs cultivated in the depths of a lightless land are no longer at his side. He has to work with what they now have, and his lack of progress poisons him. The burden of failure will not be on his patients.
The Masters of the Night-Wind, who have taken them in, help. Their aid and knowledge of Abyssal corrosion, ancient techniques, and Khaenri’an medicine grow, evolving with each passing day, but their combined efforts are not fast enough for what they need.
They are fighting for a futile cause. Everyone understands that, and it compounds on Guthred’s growing sense of insanity.
It is routine now, where he hides at the back of the infirmary at night. Guthred ignores the pain by distracting himself, running calculations for a newer and more reliable formula. He can feel he is close to a breakthrough, but it is as stumbling through fog, where one turn and fall can render everything useless.
Inside his tent, the man wails as he always does, and Guthred cannot do anything about it. Not now. Not yet. The corruption has reached his mind, and he can’t take it out of there, not the way he drains it out with his own body.
Guthred is still sane, he repeats to himself. He isn't sure if he's lying to himself, either.
He returns to camp, returns to the dim light of a campfire, and slumps heavily on a log as he receives his share of what is considered ‘food’ these days. At least grainfruit is nutritious enough to keep them alive. He has come to hate the taste of it, though, or rather he has come to hate the constant taste and smell of iron and rot on the tip of his tongue.
The only reason that anyone can keep fighting is due to their Commander, whose presence and actions still inspire hope and will in them.
He isn't quite sure if he could force himself to remember his humanity if it weren't for his Lord.
“We will move eastwards tomorrow,” their Commander, the hope and life of their forces, says to them all. He glows the way few other people did before, even when Khaenri’ah still stood with her sages and mages, and Guthred cannot look away. “A new hotspot appeared closer to the Colosseum. We can move our injured there with the rest of the refugees.”
“Sir!”
It is the correct play. Most of their remaining and active troops are stationed at the Colosseum or at Mictlān, on the mend or as guards. Even the Natlanese warriors give their approval. Ayizu simply gives a weary nod, already dozing. He has been their sole scout for a few days now, ever since they had to send the trained scouts back towards other hotspots.
Guthred is the sole medic left in their platoon as of now. The last remaining one before he himself falls off the edge with madness and hysteria.
(His head is a mess nowadays, thoughts melding together yet staying apart like oil on water, unable to make sense of each other. The world goes round and round and back and forth and at times he finds himself craving silence, craving it all to end, yet all he gets is disjointed ideas and grainy sounds and colourful smells that are red and red and red—)
The Abyss is learning. The Abyss is reading through their strategies and attacking their weak points. The Abyss is—
“Guðrøðr.”
His true name rings like a curse in the silence of the field.
He doesn’t even realise when he is alone with the Commander at the campfire. Sentinels are scattered around at a distance and the camp is secure. They march and fight for two days, rest for one night, and their forces all feel the weariness of being unable to properly rest. Hopefully once they reach the Colosseum they can have a few days, even if just two, to regroup. Hopefully once they reach the Colosseum, Guthred can have a few more hours of peace to continue his experiments with the cure.
He is no Alchemist. This is not his area of expertise. He is just a medic. Their actual Alchemist, Hild, is currently stationed at the Colosseum, testing the properties of local remedies and tending to their incapacitated troops; she sends reports every week.
“Commander.”
“Commander?” The Commander lifts an eyebrow under his helmet, clearly visible from the mild, amused tilt of his lips, and Guthred resists the urge to reach for him.
“…Þráinn.” He shakes his head, trying to ignore the feeling of something in his heart, as if it were being squeezed by a hand and juiced for magma that flows into his navel. This is not the time for whatever that is. It is never the time. Will never be the time, not as things are going. “Did you need anything?”
“How go the trials?”
There is only one trial he can be referring to, and Guthred knows he has only bad news.
“Not well, there is progress with managing the hallucinations, though.”
“If you need anything we can find nearby, just say the word. We can find it as we march.”
“Yggdrasill leaves,” he says, knowing it is an aimless cause. He doesn’t think there are Yggdrasill left even in Khaenri’ah, or whatever is left of it.
“Now, where would I even get that, Guthred?” Thráinn just shakes his head with mild amusement. “Have you asked Ayizu?”
“There are some herbs with similar properties, but I still haven’t figured out the doses.” There are bad reactions and even worse side effects. His head rarely stops aching nowadays. “I’m hoping I can speak with medics from the other tribes and Hild, at the Colosseum.”
“Now, ‘hope’, that’s an interesting word.”
‘Hope’ is indeed a word that they don’t deserve to use, not them of Khaenri’ah, but it is a regular word in Hebdomad Common. Everyone is hopeful about the future, about a moment when it can all end. Everyone aims for it without knowing if they can reach it, everyone who is still sane at least. It is mostly the tribal warriors, too.
“Well, there is no other word for it.”
“Faith, perhaps?”
It could be, but there have never been Gods in Khaenri’ah, and the Gods of the Surface care not for them. The only faith he has left for the world is for the man before him.
He thinks about it as he goes to rest, leaving the Commander awake to keep watch.
At times, Thráinn wonders just what he does to deserve everything that has happened to him. He is no longer what he once was: the title of Sentinel Knight is just that, mere words on stone and heart both. The war against the Abyss they fight on Natlan soil is not in any way his fault, or his people’s fault —it has been going on for millennia—, but he has come to find himself deeply embroiled in it.
Perhaps he feels too much, as his partner would say.
Well, he doesn’t know what he did to deserve Guthred either, but he isn’t giving him up anytime soon. That’s one choice he will never regret: keeping his part-time-turned-full-time medic by his side. Perhaps he should regret it just a little, as Guthred is currently refusing to speak to him.
If there is one thing his partner can’t do, it is to properly hide what is bothering him. Or maybe Thráinn has trained himself to see through those white lies after all these years together. Reading Guthred’s tells is like reading an open book, or opening that one book that has all the solutions in it.
The fact that he didn’t fight back at all when Thráinn changed their march plans to escort a struggling caravan back to Mētztli is alarming enough. Usually, Guthred would be the first one to tell him to focus on their people before the locals; usually, it is Ayizu the one arguing against Guthred to help his people, but this time, there was nothing.
A mere distraught nod was all Thráinn got before he was splitting their forces to lead their injured back to the Colosseum —the locals call it a Stadium, but habits are hard to break. Guthred covered logistics of the wounded, and just like that, their troops are now split almost in half
At least the injured are no longer holding back their march. They will cover more ground safely.
They aren’t deadweight, Thráinn keeps telling himself. They are just injured and suffering from ailments of the mind that they have yet to find a cure for. Thráinn also ignores the urge to send Guthred along with them, as he is one of their ailed members, but Thráinn isn't sure if he could bear the distance.
He would prefer to force the man to rest and properly recover, but they still march.
For the caravan’s sake and not the wounded, they set up camp. Until they return to the Colosseum, Thráinn needs to protect the caravan and their urgent supplies, the troops —healthy or not—, and Guthred (combat medic training or not, he is still injured, and he has neglected his training no matter how much he insists he hasn’t). All this he must do with his meagre forces.
His thoughts wander with the task, and he makes a slight mistake in what could barely be called a skirmish. As his reward, Thráinn ends up getting exposed to Guthred’s beration as his injuries are tended to.
He has been going on for a while, now, but it is all things Thráinn has heard before.
“—you know we can’t afford to have you injured, Commander. Please realise that you are not expendable and keep your head in the battlefield when needed—“
“Then I can think of other things when not needed?”
“ Sir.” The exasperation is still as endearing as it was the first time.
His smile doesn't last as he goes silent. As far as Thráinn knows, Khaenri’ah has always been at war some way or another: war against the Gods, war against the Surface, war amongst themselves. It is just the nature of their people, a tradition he keeps alive by leading his people away from one danger and into another. Sure, they now have allies, but he knows too well that this just means that he has more people to lose to war.
He watches idly as Guthred finishes bandaging his torso after applying a small apothecary of ointments to his wounds. He is being overly cautious: all Thráinn has are superficial wounds. He isn’t poisoned, he wasn’t exposed to corrosion, all he did was get injured by a weapon so common it wouldn’t be out of place in one of his borrowed warriors’ hands.
Still, Guthred pays special care to him, so why shouldn’t Thráinn pay special care to Guthred?
Thráinn reaches for his medic before he can retreat to tidy the prized infirmary and carts. His fingers graze Guthred’s own, fingers that tremble at the touch, before he grabs his wrist and brings the man closer. With his other hand, he slides his palm up Guthred’s clothed arm, settling where he knows the wound sits.
Guthred flinches, but Thráinn’s grip is steady. No matter how much he hates it, Thráinn is aware that Guthred would first harm himself before he would harm his Commander. He keeps his voice low and stable, free of hostility.
“Let me help.”
Thráinn’s knowledge of venom draining is not particularly good —he knows more of mithridatism, when it comes to toxins—, especially not for the thick, clingy Abyssal tar, but he can cut, sew and bandage a wound well enough. It isn’t like the wound is fully closed: all he would have to do is cut some thread and apply antiseptics.
“I—“ Guthred blinks, staring for a few seconds before he shakes his head and composes himself. He makes a weak effort to pull away, but in the end just sighs and sits down next to Thráinn in their makeshift cot. “How long?”
“How long have we known each other?” Thráinn smiles slightly, helping Guthred with the laces of his sash —the one proof of rank he hasn’t given up by now— as the other man works through his uniform. “You aren’t particularly subtle, not to me. I have been keeping an eye out in case you try to bleed to your own death.”
“I know my limits well enough.”
(No, he doesn’t.)
“And yet you keep doing this instead of using what we know works against the venom.” Thráinn gets distracted for a few seconds when he sees Guthred’s skin, but he quickly redirects his attention to the tight bandage on the arm.
“I have patients who need it more than I, and we are already low on antidotes that have some effect on Abyssal venom—“
The man winces when Thráinn reveals the mess under the bandages. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t going to be anytime soon, or ever. Abyssal venom is an odd substance that, if not ailing the mind directly, proliferates on open and healing wounds before moving on to the bloodstream. The swollen, purplish-red skin around the wound on Guthred’s arm is the source of the venom, of his pain, and unless he directly slices the affected flesh off he will not heal, not completely —he can’t amputate himself, and he can’t just gouge the flesh either: Guthred needs his wounds for his experiments.
(Thráinn hates that.)
It is this feature of the cursed thing that makes amputations, gouges and excisions so common lately, and that is if they are lucky enough for the venom to react this way. At times, due to unknown causes, it will spread at impossible speeds, and then the affected is simply unsalvageable… until Guthred finds the cure. Thráinn knows he will, because his partner is not anything if not endlessly stubborn.
“It isn’t necrotic, Commander. You can stop looking.”
Thráinn blinks himself back to awareness, halting the unconscious movement of his thumb rubbing Guthred’s arm below the wound. It takes him a short while to understand what the other is saying, because no matter how he looks at it, the wound might not be necrotic but it will probably soon be: it is a mess barely recognizable as part of a human limb anymore, and it must hurt just like the Abyss is a vast chasm.
Instead of chastising Guthred as he wants, he holds his hand up so the medic can give him a fresh pair of surgical scissors and a small metal tray. Despite every nerve screaming at him to not do it, he quickly cuts the threads and widens the wound before holding the tray in place. Black, tar-like blood seeps out slowly as thick sludge, the foul and familiar smell of candied iron filling the tent even though the smell is already part of the fabric from how many times it has plagued it.
He doesn’t miss the slight, almost unnoticeable tremble, or the way Guthred clenches his teeth when the substance comes out in ugly blobs. He can’t miss it: he has trained himself to notice things that his partner tries to hide, simply because it is his duty as both Commander and friend to see that his medic and second-in-command is well. ‘Safe and well’ is something that Guthred definitely is not.
He hates it, and he hates himself for being the one at fault for this wound.
“How bad is it?”
“It is… bearable.” The sludge slowly thins, becoming redder as it starts mixing with healthier blood.
“So it still hurts.”
“But it is tolerable.”
“Guthred.” Thráinn quickly holds the other’s hand, squeezing slightly before reaching for the thread and curved needle. “Do you really think so little of yourself, that it wouldn't wound me to see you in pain?”
Guthred’s mouth falls open and he blinks, dumbfounded, but Thráinn only lets himself get distracted by the unexpected expression for a second before he gets back to work. He sews the wound shut as quickly as he can, trying to keep the extra pain ‘tolerable’ for as little time as possible.
“You are my only marching medic. We need you healthy,” he says as he does so, but his words slowly shift away from his ‘Commander’ persona, becoming simply ‘Thráinn’: “I need you, at my side. Please be more considerate of yourself.”
“…It hurts like a bitch,” Guthred whispers only when Thráinn has finished bandaging his arm, the curse senselessly guilty and ashamed. Thráinn squeezes his hand once more.
“It will hurt less if you use some more supplies on yourself. We will restock soon, please—”
“I can't. Anything I use may alter the results of the trials— Ah, wait, don’t—“
Thráinn stops what he is doing, stuck midway in pulling Guthred’s leg onto his lap. There was still the other tumour and he wanted to do the same procedure on the other wound. He raises an eyebrow at the man, but all he gets in return is a hasty retreat.
“I— I will deal with that, on my own. You can go.”
“I’d rather not?”
“Commander, please— just, leave.”
So he does, keeping the image of the light blush on Guthred’s cheeks and the weight of his legs on his mind for the future.
With Hild’s precious notes and the safety of the Colosseum walls, a formula gets completed. Guthred couldn’t remove some of the side effects, but time is running out, and at least they don’t lose any more lives from sheer Abyssal corrosion. They could finally have a break to lick their own wounds.
Things go well, until they don't.
There wasn't even time to celebrate. By morning, the Colosseum was completely enclosed.
Troops quickly rise to arms with practised ease. Natlanese warriors defend the northern and southern gates, already making use of their knowledge and familiarity with the terrain. The east has collapsed the bridge, defended by lines of archers.
Thráinn and his people stand in the west, watching the horde with apprehensive eyes. Ayizu holds his spear tightly in hand, eyes watching the skies in hope of some news from his tribe —they haven’t sent information in days now. Something is wrong. Guthred stands at Thráinn’s side instead of with their wounded, stubbornly covering his blind spots like usual. The rest of their troops —Mictlān warriors, Khaenri’ahn soldiers, everyone the other fronts of this battle could spare— linger nearby, swallowing their fear and hopelessness with war cries and jokes.
This is no joking matter, though.
“There are at least three lines of enemies,” the scout with the spyglass says once she comes down from her perch. “Wolves everywhere, one or two mid-sized Alphas and an Elder at the back. Creatures scattered around, though they are currently serving as meals for the Wolves. Warriors —either brainwashed or Mimiflora— at the front. Giants at the rear, though they are few in number and probably commanding, so they might move lines. Regular Mages, Knights and Mage Knights in the middle, with groups of controlled cursed ones.”
Guthred cringes and Thráinn pats his arm consolingly, quietly agreeing with his partner’s feelings. They can't do anything about the cursed Khaenri’ahn or how servile they are to the Abyss. They can’t do much about the brainwashed warriors either, as they wouldn't be able to differentiate them from the Mimiflora in the midst of battle. As much as Thráinn hates it, it would be a mercy to just kill the cursed ones, Creatures, and the brainwashed.
The strategy for dealing with Wolves is to just send the matching Element wielders after them to disassemble them so they will flee. Alphas will naturally leave when they notice they are running low on food, and Elders tend to follow unless they are being manipulated somehow. The latter are quite intelligent and most refuse to expose themselves to danger if they don’t need to, so they can be reasoned with —and then they will, hopefully, bring the rest of their cohort with them. The Giants are… easier to deal with, or at least easier than the Mimiflora or the controlled warriors and cursed ones, as they depend almost exclusively on their stolen Elements. Countering them is within their skill sets, like how Heralds can be brought down with some skill and mastery of Elemental reactions. Lectors and Baptists can be sent back by breaking their rings… unless they are manic.
Manic Baptists have strict disengagement orders.
“Any Baptists?”
“Just the one. Enemy movement indicates they are in command.”
That’s at least a relief. Thráinn would rather there wasn’t one at all, but if it’s just one, he can personally deal with it.
The main problem here is that the Baptist and Lectors, possibly the Wolf Elder as well, have to go down first. Getting rid of the Giants would mean an advantage, as the brainwashed warriors would at least come to their senses —unless they have been warped into Corruption. Eliminating the Elder first would make most Wolves retreat to whatever pocket space of the Abyss they have made a home of, but they are the lesser evil. Getting rid of the Giants, especially the Baptist, will also break the chain of command.
The issue is, the Baptist is on the opposite side of the battlefield, and there is no way to reach it easily unless they break through the front and middle lines. That will be impossible without considerable losses to their own men. Thráinn could probably do it, but he'd expose himself and the warriors to great danger.
And then, Ayizu saves him with a timely report.
A falcon flies past the enemy lines at an unusual speed, dodging the Abyssal lines’ arrows and thrown weapons with expertise, and lands carefully on Ayizu’s arm. Thráinn watches, rather anxiously, as the man reads the message and feels a weight lift from his chest at his friend’s relieved expression.
“Warriors from the Masters of the Night-Wind and the Flower-Feather Clan are gathering at the cliffs, awaiting orders for a pincer.” Ayizu lifts his arm and lets the bird fly to land on someone else, tapping his spear twice to the ground. “We would have better chances of success if someone could lead them.”
“I will do it,” Thráinn says immediately before Guthred interrupts:
“And how are you getting there, exactly?” The familiar criticism makes Thráinn smile. “You can’t be planning on breaking through the enclosure when we have the worst side.”
The thing is, Guthred isn’t wrong: the western gate was exposed, easily allowing the enemy to pressure the bottle with impunity. Their numbers were almost double the other gates and they also have the Baptist which, according to reports, the other fronts don’t have. Baptists get in your head and are really annoying by default, but at least they aren’t as bad as the Lectors who keep throwing recruitment pitches at Thráinn whenever he finds one in the open. As masters of the four base elements, their shields can be difficult to break.
Thráinn is still the best choice. There is no arrogance here: he is currently the best shield breaker in the Colosseum.
“What are you smiling for, Commander—“
“I am just happy that you still worry about me.” He grins at Guthred like a fool and lets out a small laugh at the red creeping on the medic’s ears. “I can break through— no, I will break through. I just need… a diversion.”
His voice falls. A diversion.
Unfortunately, everyone knows what it means in this situation, and neither Thráinn nor Ayizu are willing to sacrifice their people for the sake of it. However, if Thráinn wants to make it through the enclosure to take command of the tribal warriors, then he needs a vanguard to hold the enemies’ attention for some time, on both sides of the battlefield.
It shouldn’t be long. He is fast. He still needs time. Against this number of enemies, defences like shielding will probably turn out useless.
He sees the spyglass change hands, though he doesn’t know who took it.
Thráinn looks at Ayizu, and Ayizu looks back. Time seems to stop as they discuss their strategy through their eyes. Someone will most likely die; decoy missions are perhaps the most dangerous. They know they will need not the best nor the strongest, but rather the fastest, in order for them to survive. They know that they have very few troops who fit that criterion and that neither of the commanders here is willing to lose them.
Still, they need to do this. The Baptist is too much of a danger to leave alone: cutting the head of the enemy off is the easiest, if riskiest, way to minimise damages. Attacking from behind the enemy lines will spare the west gate from immense casualties. If they succeed, they could even spare men for the other hotspots.
Decoy missions were still practically suicide with a battlefield this complex.
When it finally seems like they have a resolution for whatever it is they are going to do —Ayizu resignedly looking at his warriors and picking some of them in his mind, Thráinn looking for someone fitting enough to lead both the small diversion detachment and the defensive front—, an unexpected voice speaks up.
“I’ll have to do it,” Guthred says. Thráinn falters: Guthred —brave, lovely, wonderful Guthred—, is a war medic with considerable defensive training and, most importantly, he is fast enough to keep up with Thráinn. The spyglass is carefully returned to their scout. “The left is mostly Wolves. I’ll take the ones who developed corrosion resistance.”
“No.” Thráinn was planning on leaving Guthred on the defensive. The left might be mostly Wolves, but corrosion resistance is not immunity: without at least another healer, or a few, it would be a battle against time and blood loss. “You are on the defence.”
“No, I’m going. You won't last a minute alone. Ayizu has to take the right with some Vision bearers against the Mimiflora. We can't afford an extended fight with our own men, you know how they are.”
“No, you don’t have support.” Their healers are inside the Colosseum, as they should be considering their injured and how all sides are fighting on the defensive. They have more use there.
“We will take Hild’s supply of potions, there should be enough for a group of… ten.” Guthred has that annoying, yet endearing glint in his eyes that says his mind is set and it will take a fight or a better solution to convince him otherwise. He doesn’t have a better solution, though: unfortunately for Thráinn, Guthred is right. “We can last long enough for you to send reinforcements, Commander. It should take you around fifteen minutes, right?”
“I need to organise the troops before I can send reinforcements. You won’t last.”
“Then we will retreat after you break through.”
Ayizu looks between the two of them before stepping away, dragging the scout with him as he goes to assemble his troops. It seems he has already accepted Guthred’s proposal —Thráinn has already accepted the proposal, even though he doesn’t want to admit to it. It is difficult to refute Guthred, especially considering the enemy lines keep advancing, and they can’t have the fight right in the doorway of the Colosseum. They need to move and they need to move soon.
It shouldn't take long. Thráinn is fast, and the Natlanese from both the Masters and the Clan are well organised as far as he remembers. There are lots of risks, far too many for his liking, but it is the only plan they have. Stalling will just result in more bodies.
Breaking the chain of command comes first —what little there is of a chain of command, at least. The Abyss tends to be obsessed with hierarchy, so they know control lies with the Baptist, but given the size of the enemy faction, they might defer to instinct. The Abyss has also learned strategy and tactics in these past millennia of war against Natlan, and will retaliate to the arrival of the reinforcements. Their window of safety will just shrink with each moment Thráinn delays action.
Whatever the Abyss is supposed to be, it knows what to aim for and how to win. That one infiltration by the Mimiflora is still fresh in Thráinn’s mind.
There is no way out of this. There is no way out of sending Guthred to do what is easily the most dangerous job of this operation. The worst part is that Guthred is right, and the abysmally bratty part of him knows that he is right.
Thráinn sighs and rubs his face with a hand before stepping forward and wrapping his arm around his second-in-command, his stalwart companion, his dear friend and the love of his life. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve Guthred, but he is reluctant to let go. He wishes he could keep Guthred in his reach at all times, but that’s not how you win a battle, let alone a war.
“You will win.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will come back.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“I’m not worried about myself.”
“Commander, where would we be without you?” Guthred sighs at the fussing, almost exasperated if not for the softness of his voice. He returns the hug with both arms, squeezing slightly before pulling away.
Thráinn hurriedly closes in and kisses his lips, a feather-light touch that sends warmth all through his body, and then lets go.
I love you, he wants to say.
“I will see you, then,” he ends up saying instead.
Guthred looks at him with wide eyes, red climbing up his neck to his cheek, before he looks to his feet, unusually bashful. Thráinn wants to cradle him longer.
“I will be going,” is the last he hears from Guthred, his voice unusually steady for what just happened, before he quickly runs away to assemble his team.
Thráinn can’t pay attention to much after, completely focused on the operation. He barely hears Ayizu saying they are ready to begin —Guthred remains quiet—, and then he stops being Thráinn and turns into the Sentinel Knight of Khaenri’ah, whose one job is to break through the enclosure.
The Sentinel Knight will be victorious. He will see his soldiers again.
Thráinn will see Guthred again, because Thráinn will come back.
Thráinn makes it back. His other half doesn't. He missed a line, and now the whole book is gone.
Ayizu squeezes his shoulder, but the world feels numb. He can hear words, but they come from deep underwater, and he can barely make sense of his own thoughts. Thráinn feels lost: he looks at his hands, and they are whole, yet he feels like he is missing something. Like he has lost something so important, he doesn’t know how to live without it.
Guthred’s body is a mangled mess, but within seconds the image is replaced with a whole, if pale and still, man. Thráinn refuses to see the limbs torn from their sockets or the gaping hole in Guthred’s torso. He can’t see the truth. All he sees is his partner lying on the ground, gone from this world. Thráinn’s will and command falter.
The battle is a victory, but as usual, the losses are far too many. Guthred isn’t the only one, but for today, for Thráinn, he can be the only one that matters.
He trails a finger down the man’s cheek, ignoring the blood drying on his sword, on his hands. He leans down for a cold and empty kiss, a last reminder of what he could have had and has now lost forever.
Thráinn doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream in despair. He simply blinks the dryness from his eyes as he runs his options through his head. Guthred will scold him if he doesn’t think.
(No one will scold him. The one who does isn’t here anymore.)
They will not rest. If they die here, they will never find rest. All his soldiers, all the warriors, Guthred; they will lie here, forgotten in time, but they will never be able to be at peace, not when they died knowing only war.
They can’t find their peace, now.
Thráinn can stall. His sanity in exchange for his comrades is a negligible price to pay.
He makes a choice, and he doesn’t regret.
It will take 500 years for his mission to be fulfilled. Five centuries of constant schizophrenia reminds Thráinn that he has a mission. The souls of his men, and more importantly Guthred, fill the gaps of his cracked self. Their voices plague his days and nights. What little sleep he gets is for nought. Every day, he feels more of a weapon than a human, but his feelings never dull.
He once loved a man. He still loves him. Maybe that’s what keeps him from collapsing from the weight of his life, his choices and his duty; the knowledge that the brittle soul, souls, he holds need to be put at rest.
Time moves on, and he tries to keep himself active. He fights. He protects. He does what he knows best, which is to stain his hands with more blood. His skin rots and falls off his body in chunks, and he hides his deformed flesh from the Fatui soldiers he raises, many of whom he trains from youth and watches die from age or violence. He fights. He protects. He loses his name and is now the First of the Fatui Harbingers, a weapon struggling to continue being human.
But at long last, five centuries later, he can sleep at ease. He sits on the throne and watches the world grow dull under a sun of hope. There is no more war in Natlan. He fulfilled his duty to the Fatui and his allies. He won.
He can sleep at ease, knowing he gave them peace.
He can rest now.
He wishes Guthred a good sleep and a safe return, and he closes his eyes.