In Her Blood

War, glorious, incredible war. Drumbeats and screams deep in the chest out into the rasping burning red sky. The thunder along the ground shakes the banners. War, illustrious, splendid war. Blood and breaking bone and shattering steel. The shields break. The arrows loose. The lines crack and reform with nothing in the commander tents to slow it. The fools shout the orders from the brass trumpets, and they go ignored. There is no control here. There is only formless abyssal chaos flowing like ignited oil.

I step over a corpse in the making. It reaches out for my leg, as if I have its salvation. I can't weave back a lost lower half. I can't staunch the blood and viscera from that wound. No one can. I kick the gauntlet away. I have enough tarnish on my greaves. It swears at me before choking on its own blood. It drowns in the sea of dead as I walk over another broken form that I can't save.

One more, I spy one more in the making as it wanders the desolation. It has more energy than most, still walking and screaming, beating on its shield with a flail. Despite the fire in its eyes, despite the heart still beating, despite the wholeness and wellness, it is a corpse in the making, because it is coming against me.

I move my red cape away and let it flutter in the storming wind as I pull the spear in my left hand, sword in my right. I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel anything anymore. There is a cold spark in me that carries just enough sensation away. I think I have a broken rib. My left ring finger keeps snapping out of place. There is a nasty bruise across my left cheek. I know all of these things. I shove them down. Nothing they say will kill me. Nothing that they have for me is something I care about. I shove it all down, moving to a spot a bit clearer of bodies. I would appreciate a bit of space.

The walking corpse shouts some curse at me, and I don't fucking care. I am a heretic, a demon, a mewling cunt waiting to be speared by his lance. I sigh and nothing it says is anything new. I let the wind carry my cape and my hair behind me. Light as a feather, strong as a hurricane. I start the spear moving in a lazy cyclone as it continues its fall into bestial fury.

It falls. It falls before the next threat of pillage on my body even forms. The spear slits his throat. The head is still screaming at me in its gurgling rage. The shield comes up and the sword finds its belly. It doesn't register anything. I dismantle it. I butcher it. I render it down. Spear to the arm, sword to the leg, hacking off pieces and chunks. The armor is the barest resistance for me. Paper and dry leaf, it rends and tears and breaks under my steel. It is nothing. The body is nothing. A hand comes to my greaves, and I kick it away. It is nothing to me, another drop in the sea. It is another thing to step over and forget.

I turn my head up to the red sky. Dawn or dusk, I am not sure. I have a feeling it is dawn. Darkness was behind me and there was a period of light before that. Dawn, I am settling on dawn. I am hungry and thirsty and that too falls into the pit of forgotten senses. A little more important than the pain. I remember the forgotten. He has a waterskin on him. He protests and gurgles. I kick him in the head and take it for myself. Water, its water and I don't taste as much blood anymore. Still have all the teeth I walked in with, much to my surprise. My lip's bleeding, though. Don't know when I go that. It's fine. Not the worse thing I've had. Another hand on my greave and my sword finds a neck to rip and open. And another waterskin for me. Less blood in my mouth and I spare some for my neck. Dirt and blood and filth run down my body.

I grasp for a breath of fresh air and find nothing. Blood and rust and mud. It's intoxicating, numbing, deadening. I move along. The lines move and shift as the word from the tents come down. There are a few notes for me in the song. I ignore them. It's a bad call. It's telling me to shore up the west side. That side is already gone. The east side is failing. I can thresh lines, but I cannot rend armies. The day is lost, but I did my part. There is a calling to the north, whisper quiet and carrying the scent of burning scorched earth. That's more than any brass can announced under the bleeding sky.

There's a trail of bodies in my colors laid out for me. Crushed and broken, just as the one I left in the other one. The source of trail calls to me harder. We've lost. They've won. Nothing else matters. I will have my little satisfaction from the day. That's all. I'll go back to the world of care and laze until I go back out. I keep moving. Fatigue is settling in, but the excitement of the last hint of the day is carrying me. It's when I do my best work, really. My mind is too tired, and all I have is instinct. I push the cape out of the way and keep walking.

I spy the tattered banner first, waving lazily. I can't see the insignia anymore. It's gone. It's faded. It's pulled out of the thresher and I don't even think I can call it a banner anymore. It's tatters. That's all we were now. Broken tatters held together with will and urge. I put one last foot down and I come to her.

She drains her own water skin and chucks it off into the distance. Her armor is torn and dented, a horn on her helm cracked and broken. The other seems fine, if a bit blunt and dull. She goes to her wine and takes another pull to get a fire burning in her.

"Not your best day, is it?" she asks, "Both flanks falling, commander in his tent with his feet up and cock getting sucked. How did you let it get this bad?"

I pull my spear from my shoulders and start pulling at the wind. A gentle breeze starts, and I finally get a hint of fresh fields and open skies. It's invigorating. It gets me thinking and that's something best saved for somewhere else.

"Not even a preamble this time," she says.

"I'm tired," I say, "I want a bath. But I have to do this first."

"Do you? You could just turn and go back. Probably make breakfast too."

"I'm not getting an axe in my back from you. We're having this."

"Maybe I want a bath too. Maybe I want some tea and a soft chair."

"We're not getting that. We're not getting any of that."

"We really aren't, are we? Such a shame."

I don't disagree with any of that. She pulls said axe from the ground and lets it settle in her hand. I get a wave of heat from her body, ruffling the fur trimmed leather. Her breast plate shines for one brief moment like a diamond under a bonfire. Her hair fans out like a flame, burning red like the sky. Burning, it is all burning down to cinders and ash. Storms and lightning and raging infernos whipped into tornadoes. I am light. I am flowing and sharp and glinted steel.

She comes at me, and I finally have a challenge. The shock impacts me, even when the blade falters off into my after image. Alive, I am alive. I am not a body in the dirt, bleeding out with rended and burning and torn off parts. Graveyards and slaughterhouses, I am alive on the wind with the searing smoke under my heels. I dance and move and duck and slip through it all with the grace of a petal on the breeze. My cape flairs out and lifts me up like a pair of dove wings.

She sinks into the earth, pulling magma with each thrust after. Her axe flashes and cleaves the world in twain. I am not there, but the ground moves under my feet. Blade and spear as one, I descend. A hawk dives into the burning field. I snatch at empty ground, rending it asunder. I move and press and try and drive her back. The furs ignite as something smoldering catches her. She doesn't mind. Burning we are all burning into one another.

She cuts me and my blood steams into vapor. I thrust into her, and her blood does the same. Boiling and bubbling, a pot spilling over, a fire consuming a village. Screams and winds, turning into one another. Our blades meet and sparks scatter into me. One lands on my head and the scent of burning hair mixes in. One lands on my cheek, and I wince as a sharp needle of heat breaks into me. Burning away, we are all burning away. Inferno ash carried from one end of the sea to the other. Another cut brings me to a knee, and I take her just as well.

Kneeling and panting, thoughts clouded and lost. I move to bring my spear up and she knocks it away. I do the same with her axe. Panting and sore. Pain. I am pain. The pain knits over my joints and forces me to stand like a marionette with razor glass strings.

They give out and I bring my fist to her chin. We both collapse. We both struggle to come back up. She rolls in the mud and throws a clod at me. I am bleeding. I am blinded and scrambling. I hit something else as I flail. I take her down and shove her into the mud all the same.

She is stronger than me. I am loathe to admit it, but it is the sour, bitter truth. And I am mounted. A fist comes to my cheek, and I have lost a tooth. A first connects and my nose breaks. A fist connects and I see a scattering of stars break through the bleeding wound on the horizon. A fist connects and something breaks. I bring my knee up and get a pained groan in response. It's not mine. It's not mine at all. I do it again and it feels good. Something breaks and it is not mine. I toss her aside and roll onto her.

She's not there. She's not there. I am holding a corpse in my hands as I wipe away the dirt from my eyes. I confirm the lack of heat and I push it away. A horn sounds in the distance and that is why I am alone.

I am alone. I am alone, covered in blood and dirt and dented armor. I get to my feet, somehow. My knees almost give way, but I do. I take a step and I fall into the earth again. My knee is gone. That thing that broke was indeed my knee. Shame. It was a good knee. I liked it a lot. I just hope that I broke something of hers as well. It's what she deserves. It's what I deserve.

---

I hiss as my knee snaps back to where it should be. Almost. The Draoidh backs away, but I wave her back. More parts of me need to be put where they ought. There's a balm they use that smells like sharp lilacs and that feels good and numbing as she rubs it on. She winces as I hiss again when it starts to burn. Every movement I make is something to watch and hold and shy away from. I grunt and that's a full flinch away from me. My knee pops again and it is back to where it was. I sigh. There's a brief moment of no sensation, and then it's back to what it should be.

I sit up and my attendant shrinks away. I wish she wouldn't. It's annoying. We are here to work on my body and how it broke and how to fix it. We already got the tooth back. I am making the call that my rib is next and I would appreciate a hand in uncinching my breast plate. I don't get one. There's a strap under my armpit that I can't reach without a jolt of aching pain. I still work through it and toss it to the ground. The metal's dented beyond repair anyways. The smiths will take it for scrap and break it into something a bit more useful.

I have a bit more trouble with my shirt and that falls as well. Just my bindings keeping my chest in place, but only a barely. I don't look at the pale skin turned furious purple. I just move my arms out of the way, waiting for the nurse to return. It takes a moment for her courage to collect, but it comes and sits right where it should be. Her fingers still tremble as they rub that terribly wonderful concoction. Numbing cold and then stinging heat, I wait for the bone to knit back together. She shies away as my body moves under her grip. She is very good with her hands, and I don't bother to stem the thoughts from forming. I smell the lilacs and I am calm.

I could do it. Take a wrist and have her on the table. The nurse is turning red under my gaze, looking away like I am about to devour her. But she keeps glancing back. She keeps thinking about it, what she knows about me. Her hands glance upwards, just above the bruise. They could do it. They could go to my breasts and show me her excitement. They go down and see that the rumors are true. I can take her down on this bed as my body reforms and make us whole. I grunt against the bone slides back in place. The fear takes over and breaks the spell. Shame.

"Will... Will there be anything else, Gaisgeach?" she stammers. I take stock of my body. Cuts and scrapes, bruises and splinters all gone. My finger is still breaking out of its socket. I wrench it back into place and it stays this time. My nurse winces.

"No," I say, "Get my usual retainers at my tent. That will be all."

She nods and bows, never showing me the back of her neck. Smart, not really protecting the core as much as she should, but that's not her work. The nurse gathers her bottles and flasks and turns away, rushing out as fast as politeness would allow. Hard call, between speed and vulnerability. She turned her back to me, but she was out of the room fast enough. I don't agree with her verdict, but I can't argue with it.

I do wish she stayed to help me dress. The bones are stiff, and it would be nice to work through those a bit slower. All of me is stiff and stuffed into tight clothing. My feet hit the bare earth and the impact lets me know where I need to be careful. Knee, obviously, ribs, and a bit on my shoulder that I missed. Nothing broken or out of place, but a roll gets a deep pop to let it all settle back. I'll be fine come morning.

Boots on feet, shirt back on and sword at my hip. I feel naked without the spear, but the fright I spread is apparently not worth my own bit of comfort. I don't think it really helps. As I walk through the broken lines of camp, they all shy away from me. I stand tall over the collective heads. It's a welcome warning for them, I believe. A horizon away and they all can move.

I almost step in front of a horse. Even as it stands, I am too close to the damn thing. It whinnies and rears and shakes its head as its eyes go wide. The rider stammers and clutches the reins., trying to keep the beast under control. I duck under a set of hooves aimed at my head. Another scared thing to add to the list. So many scared things on the list. I glare the thing down and away. The handler stares and skitters away just as scared.

The banners grow thicker and more ragged as I keep walking. The soldier's armor is better taken care of than mine, weapons with fewer chips and cracks and dents. They stand prouder and I don't know why. It's all the same meat and blood underneath the little bit of metal and leather. They have the same aura of scared little rabbits when I come to tower over them. I watch the little bit of sweat bead under one's moustache as I approach. He looks to his companion and loses the short argument they have. One more turns their back to me and the little black voice in the base of my mind says that it was a bad move. I have a bit of fun, though.

"Gaisgeach Finley," the loser announces inside the tent flap. And I am right there when he gets back, crossing the gap in an instant. I stare him down and watch the eyes widen and sweat bead. My face is dead even, stone cold, grave still as gaze into his soul. Small and scared, a little rabbit backed into a corner. He wants to scream. His partner wants to run. They both curse their own discipline. I move past him and keep the small evil grin from my face. Not the time, not the place.

"Finley," says Ceannard McCrae with a curt nod. He doesn't look up from the map. He doesn't do much of anything from his chair, except pull his pipe to his lips. The smoke he exhales smells too sweet and floral. It joins the rest of the clouds hanging near the candles. I suppress a cough.

"What was that today," he says. I stiffen and give the basic courtesy he has been appointed.

"Sir," I say, "The flanks collapsed under the enemy and fell."

"I know. Why didn't you fix that?"

"Sir, you marched them through the marsh. They got bogged down in the mud. They were easy targets for the archers and the dragoons mopped up the rest."

"Don't you dare blame me. Why didn't you fix it?"

"Sir, I can't beat an army. I can't stop the world from turning."

"They why do we keep you around?"

White knuckles and red vision, just as the sky. I tamper it down. I smother it in the crib. There are my accommodations at the tent, and they will help.

"Sir, you were briefed when I was assigned as to my tactical efficiencies. I have reminded you of them at every relevant conversation. And I will do so now. Counter Gaisgeach and dueling. Single, high-profile targets. I can break a line. I cannot win a war."

The good Ceannard sighs and rubs his temples. His maps are blank, vague outlines of the territory, no terrain, no notes, not expected lines or features. He's staring at them like they will chastise me on his behalf. He's staring that them like this should be easy. His pipe smolders and a thin wisp of smoke curls from the bowl. I detest the scent of it.

"Your pay is being docked. Again," he sighs, "your other accommodations are on the line as well."

That hurts. The red rises again and I envision violence he cannot dream of. Blood and quakes, rivers of red and burning skies, sundered walls and rusted earth. I let it show. He does not look up.

I step forward and that gets his attention.

It's not sootheroot in the pipe. It can't be. The dull red veins in his eyes, almost chestnut in shade confirm it. And there's an odd black scar in the crook of his elbow. He's dulled and numb to the world. He's indifferent to my presence as I tower over him, letting the rage surface. He gazes into my abyss as I burn into him. I show him the violence I can wield as a child does a well-balanced stick. I show him the true horror of my being. He stifles a yawn at my fury. He goes back to his blank map.

I snatch the pipe from his mouth and break in my grasp. The guards flinch like scared deer.

"You are treading very thin ice, monster," he slurs. I watch the numbness creep up his visage. It takes away any weight the words might have.

"So are you," I whisper. I let the words hang and there is a flicker of ice cold lightning in him. Nothing quite like fear or panic or terror, but it is something. I'll take it. He grunts and slumps back into his seat. I don't think he could get up, even if he wanted to. His eyes go back down and watch whatever he sees on the map. I hope it's entertaining. I really, really do. I hope it blots out the nightmares I want to impart on him.

---

My tent sits outside the congregation. It used to be in the rank and file. Someone somewhere thought it would be good for morale. We're all on a nice even field in a sense. But every time the march stopped, it moved farther and farther away. With any luck, I'll have my spot so far out, I'll be on the beach with my feet in the sand. Gentle drifting winds carrying the scent of salt and sun to my doorstep. Quiet, I will have quiet. A commanding officer calls out a drill and my eyebrow twitches. The healing is done and that means it is time for rest and relaxation.

I feel the gears shift in my body with each step. Teeth grinding from one state to the next, passing veils and thresholds. It's the same shape I take, but not the same form. Slower, heavier, each step taking its time, letting the urge for the next one to build and grow.

I feel the heat grow in me, replacing and mixing with the current frustration. It's an odd sensation to have all the feelings change and move and shift within. Nothing fades. Nothing dulls. It is all clear and sharp. Mercurial. The sky is clearing into a bright blue, scant clouds. Wind's picking up, as well. We're upwind of the battlefield miasma.

It is nice being out all this way. I have something close to quiet out here. Not quite, I can still pick out drills and smiths and screams of pain in the dead of night. But I can also hear a good collection of nervous tittering inside my own space. Scared, but the good kind. Nervous, anxious, butterfly excited with feather lighting in the palms. I stand up straighter. There's almost a bounce in my step. Despite what I have been told, I did my grisly work and I have earned what I am about to conquer.