Rules of Holy Procedure

Those defeated in battle, along with their families, lands, and properties, shall become the spoils of the victor for ten generations. All generations from the eleventh on shall be free. So demands the God of War.

— Book of War: Chapter 37, Stanza 19

The flags of the world government, red stripes top and bottom on a white background with a black skull in the center, flapped in the arid winds off the desert. Gulls called from the shore of the ocean that lapped against the city’s edge. Other than the birds, the streets of the city were silent, everyone taking their mid-afternoon break for prayers and meditation. For Berk, it was a chance to get out of the heat and rest. He wasn’t one for prayers, or meditation, or religion at all; especially not the warrior cult that had taken over the entire world.

He sat at his reloading station, powder, primers, bullets, and shells around him, the press in front. A box full of reloaded ammo sat on the floor next to him. He took a shell and seated a primer. He placed the shell in the press along with a bullet and seated it, no powder. The dummy round sat in the press where he left it.

“Hey, Armine, is it still a cult if it’s the primary religion world-wide?” Berk asked. He turned to look at the young woman, the slave he’d grown up with. Her straight black hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun, and a loose, sleeveless yellow summer dress hung on her thin frame, highlighting her dun skin. Her bright blue eyes shone with a smirk he knew well.

“It’s my opinion,” she said, “that every religion that ever existed or does exist was, and still is, a cult. Even one that runs a global theocracy.”

Berk thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think you have the right of it.”

“You know, if anyone hears us talking like this, we’ll be in the training yard.”

“I know, Armine. It’s just us here, love.” He stood and crossed the room to the small kitchen. “Would you like something cold to drink?”

“Yes, please,” she said. A small chuckle escaped her lips. “What would the priests say if they saw this?”

“Something like, ‘Treat your slave in a manner becoming her station, say ten prayers for purification and meditate on flanking tactics,’ I guess.” He set two glasses of ice-water on the low coffee table and sat on the sofa beside her.

She took a long drink then laid her head on his lap. “No, I think they’d say, ‘Into the yard with both of you!’”

His brown eyes searched her face for some hint of a joke but found none. He frowned. “You’re right, you know.”

“I usually am,” she said.

Berk stroked her hair. “We’ve got the monthly service to attend this evening. I’m sorry in advance.”

She smiled. “It’s okay. I know you don’t mean anything by it, and I’m used to it. My family has been slave to yours for eight generations. This house, and the land around it, was my great-great-however-many-times-grandfather’s when your people raided this land.”

Berk looked out on the sun-bleached skeletons of the orange grove that lay behind the house. His frown deepened. “I know, and it makes me sick. You know I only act the part to protect you — and myself, if I’m honest.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, raising a hand to stroke his cheek. “But hey, I have no offspring, you have no offspring. If we just wait it out it’s over for both of our families.”

“I know.” He continued to pet her hair. “I want my family to end, that’s why I got the operation. But yours doesn’t have to.”

“My child would be your property until your death, at which point I, and my child, will belong to the priests.”

“The Holy Court has already set a precedent. They let a slave and his family go after seven generations when the owning family died out completely.” He smiled at her. “They even awarded the properties of the former owners, as the slaves ‘defeated’ them by outliving them.”

“So, I should just kill you in your sleep?”

“I’m really not ready to die, love. I think I might fight back out of instinct.”

She grabbed his knees in an awkward hug, her head still on his lap. “I couldn’t do it, you know.”

“I know. And again,” he said, “I want to apologize in advance for this evening. It’s not going to be easy for either of us.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The doctor that did the surgery last year was — questioned by the priests last week.”

“You think he told them?”

“I’m sure they tortured it out of him. I’ve been told to be in full battle dress for the service.” He took her hand. “You are to be as well.”

“Full battle dress?” Her eyes went wide. “But slaves aren’t allowed to carry weapons in the city.”

“Tonight, you are.” He helped her sit up and stood. “You’ll use one of my carbines.”

“Do they know you trained me how to use it?”

“I’m sure. It’s expected that I’d teach you how to defend your home.”

“You mean my owner’s home?”

“No, your home. It’s not really mine. Never was. I just happen to live here.” Berk gave a sad smile. "Let's just get ready."

Berk laid out his uniform, a pair of matching carbines, and two magazines. He loaded the ammo into both. He looked at them and pulled a round out of one. He dropped the round into the box of completed reloads and pulled the dummy from the press, loading it as the first round in the magazine. He compared the weight of them. Satisfied, he dressed and placed the magazines in a cargo pocket.

Petitioner Garret Hern, 7^th generation slave to family Pritt, has been judged as defeating said family by virtue of outliving the entire family line. For what is victory in combat, but staying alive longer than your foe? For this reason, the Holy Court has adjudged Garret Hern and his family free citizens and awards all the properties and monies of the family Pritt to his name. He is cleansed in the sight of the God of War and worthy of entry into the land of the blessed.

— Holy Court Ruling: Hern v. Pritt (decedents represented in absentia by the Priesthood)

Before they left the house, Berk and Armine checked each other’s uniforms, and Berk handed Armine one of the carbines and slung the other over his shoulder. He placed a folded piece of paper in his breast pocket. She slung her rifle and reached for the paper, but Berk stopped her hand. "What is it?" she asked.

"Just a reminder for later,” he said.

She followed Berk by the prescribed three small steps behind to the church. As they entered, they were stopped by a priest, hidden in red and white robes with red gloves, who examined their weapons. “Do you have the ammo?” she asked.

Berk pulled the magazines from his cargo pocket.

The priest looked at the magazines, pushed down on the tops to ensure they were full, and handed them back to Berk. If she noticed any discrepancies, she didn’t mention it. “You may give her a magazine now. You are not to load until ordered.”

“Yes, your holiness,” they replied in unison.

He hefted the magazines for a second, one in each hand, and handed the one in his right to Armine. For her part, she kept head bowed during the entire exchange as expected of her, and accepted the magazine with a “Thank you, master.”

Berk walked to his place in the church and Armine picked up a stool from the pile in the back. She brought it, head bowed, and placed it for Berk to sit on. As he sat, she knelt on the hard stone floor behind him. Around them, others were sitting on stools either brought by their slave or, if they had none, by their own hand. There were glares and scowls on the faces that turned Berk’s way, along with pity in the eyes of those who deigned to look at the slave to his rear.

Beside the podium stood the statue of the God of War, a skeleton clad in combat armor. The priests, instead of beginning the service, motioned to a tall figure in a black robe with a long grey beard hanging almost to his waist; a Holy Court judge. The judge approached the podium.

“We will forgo the usual services this evening,” the judge said in a reedy voice, his beard moving with the words. “There is a matter of heresy in this church, and it will be dealt with tonight.”

The doctor was led out, wearing battle fatigues, a pistol holstered at his waist. One eye was swollen shut and his face was a mass of bruises. He stopped in front of the statue and knelt. The priest placed a hand on his shoulder, and he stood.

“You have performed an illegal procedure. Can you reverse it?” the judge asked.

“I can, your eminence,” the doctor replied, head bowed.

“Once Berk Garvin has been cleansed of his heresy, you will do this, and the church will appoint him a wife with which he is to produce no fewer than three children.” The judge leaned forward. "Until such time as the court has proof that Mister Gavin's fertility has been restored you are to be considered an apostate."

The audience cheered, stomped their feet and shouted derision at Berk and the doctor.

The judge flipped a switch on the podium and the training yard behind the church showed in holographic glory in the front of the church. “Berk Garvin has committed heresy by attempting to render himself sterile before producing offspring. In doing so, he has forsaken the sacred pact to his slave, Armine Montoya, and her future family, for whom the church has lined up a suitable mate to produce offspring to continue her family’s penance.”

Berk stood. “And what about Hern versus Pritt?” he yelled. “Did the Holy Court find Hern had been forsaken?”

“Pritt had a wife who died in childbirth, and two sons, not yet breeding age, who died in combat, as did he. Hern was there, fighting valiantly to protect the Pritts, and had a small child left behind in care at the Pritt estate. Your case is nothing like that. You sought to purposely avoid offspring in order to get out of your family’s obligation to the Montoya family. That is sacrilege of the highest order, and an affront to Armine Montoya and the desecration of her name.”

Four priests approached and led Berk and Armine out to the training field. The judge’s voice was being broadcast out here, just as everything they were doing out here was being viewed in the holograph inside. “Berk Garvin, Armine Montoya, load your weapons, and take your places. The aggrieved shall have the cover to the west, the defendant the cover to the east.”

Armine looked at Berk who smiled and nodded at her. Sadness darkened his eyes, even as his smile remained. He slammed the magazine home and put a round in the chamber. Armine did the same.

“I think this might be goodbye, love,” he whispered.

The priests led them to opposite ends of the training yard. There were barricades and small walls spread about for cover and concealment. The priests went into a dugout bunker beneath one side of the field and the large autocannon on the wall of the church swung back and forth between the two combatants.

“Begin!”

Berk stepped out from behind the wall, his carbine at his shoulder. He squinted against the setting sun. Armine stepped out and dove for cover behind the next wall. “I can’t!” she yelled. The autocannon swiveled to point at her.

“You have to!” he yelled back.

She rolled out from behind the wall into a kneeling position. They sighted on each other and pulled their triggers at the same time. One shot rang out, the other was a light pop. Berk smiled. “Good girl,” he said, as blood spread across his shirt, front and back. He was dead before he fell. A cheer could be heard in the courtyard from inside the church.

“It is done,” the judge said. “Armine Montoya has defeated Berk Garvin. The Holy Court has adjudged Armine Montoya a free citizen and awards all properties and monies of the family Garvin to her name. Furthermore, Berk Garvin, dying in fair combat, has cleansed his soul of heresy and will return to the God of War.”

The doctor ran out to the training yard. “No! No! Now I can’t fix it! I’m cursed!” He reached for his pistol and Armine fired again, dropping him. Another cheer rose up from the church.

“Armine Montoya, the family and properties of Doctor Silvas are your spoils, for ten generations.”

“I don’t want it.”

The church fell silent. “You would desecrate the Silvas name?” The judge’s voice wavered in uncertainty.

“I don’t care about the Silvas name. I won’t take any slaves, and I don’t want his property.”

“You would turn your back on the God of War? The God that brought the entire world together under one banner?”

Armine slung her rifle and put her hands on her hips. “You really think an imaginary skeleton in armor did this? If you had read more than your holy book, you’d know there was no god. It was a nihilist group that infiltrated the governments of the nuclear powers and turned their own weapons against them. It wasn’t your god that slagged the planet, it was people; and they'll do it again someday.”

“Armine Montoya, you are hereby banished. The mention of your name or likeness is blasphemy. You are not to enter any city, town, village, hamlet or domicile in the land of the blessed. May you die alone and miserable in the wastes.”

“Suits me fine.” She walked to Berk’s body, took his carbine, and pulled the paper from his breast pocket and read it. “I’m sorry, my love. If this goes the way I think it will, I’ll be dead. Take your home back, your life. You are free.”

 “Thank you. I hope you’re free too.” She kissed his forehead, then walked out the back gate of the training yard.

A victor who claims not the defeated as their own property for ten generations desecrates their own name and that of their foe and is thus cursed for all eternity. Having turned their back to God, the land of the blessed is forbidden them. The defeated so cursed must be purified by offering themselves, their families, and their properties as a sacrifice to the priests of war. So demands the God of War.

— Book of War: Chapter 37, Stanza 20