In The Heat

In the heat of battle you are transformed. There is so much less to the world and yet you become so much more. The flesh may be weak, but the spirit rises up to be counted when death stares it in the eye. Once you have tasted that exotic and intoxicating poison, the life you lead dies. There are vestiges of something that sometimes resembles a life, but all it really amounts to is awaiting the next adventure in the jaws of death.

“I call it The Test,” I say before wiping the ale foam from my beard.

“And I call it Hot Air,” Balur grins at me and I shake my head at his friendly insolence.

We are holding court with young warriors. Not yet fully blooded, but about to be. I envy them all their first full taste of war, and I look forward to supping with those who remain. Celebrating the death of their frail and puny lives and a glorious rebirth as gods. For we are gods, those of us who will stand firm come what may, and give our lives over to the purity of war. Only gods are tested in such a way. Gods take life honourably in the pursuit of a better world. For the sacrifices we make, when we die, sword in hand, we are welcomed into the halls of our forefathers, the gods and legends who forged our kind in the stolen fires of hell, so that we can go forth, conquer and spread our strong seed.

Balur winks at me as he hands me another ale. He is a winker and a smiler. To look at him right now, you would think him a fool. He never seems serious, but I have seen his true self and he is as serious as they come. I am the other side to Balur’s coin, he is my lighter side. I am warmed by his humour and the sound of his laughter is music to my ears. We fight shoulder to shoulder. Always have. Over time, I have understood this to be our destiny. There are some things that are meant to be, and this is one of them.

“I hear the women of Fauldon are tall and fair,” Balur leans forward conspiratorially as he says this. 

“I ceased believing such tales long ago,” I say with a shrug, “women are women. Some tall. Some not so tall. But when it comes to fair, one man’s fair is another’s…” I look into my now empty tankard, shake my head to see if I can dislodge the word I was about to utter, it remains stubbornly hidden, “…not so fair.”

“They’re all the same in the dark!” chuckles Galdon.

Haug claps him on the shoulder, “not the Mist Maidens of Crax!”

I shake my head, but I join in with the merriment. I have an affection for the more far-fetched tales, in them are wisdom and truths. But I have yet to find the truth that resides within the triple breasts of the Mist Maidens of Crax.

“A man only has two hands, Haug!” Balur bellows, eyes glistening with the ale and humour.

Haug grins at him, raises his hands and squeezes imaginary globes either side of his head. The expression on his face as he suckles an invisible middle teat is too much and we collapse about the table in paroxysms of laughter. Later, before I close my eyes and sleep the sound sleep always granted me on the eve of battle, I return to Haug and the Mist Maidens, wondering if the truth is that we are forever hungry. That we will always want more. I have seen the worst of this in the mad eyes of the darkest of men. Their idea of more is the utter destruction of all they behold. Some men want the world to burn and for them to be the flames that devour everything and more.

I am awake before dawn, the considered and deliberate movements of warriors in preparation of the fighting to come are a chorus that greets my ears. I swiftly join the flow towards my next defining moment. My body thrums with an energy that lays dormant until battle looms. My sword is an extension of my spirit. A lightening conductor that channels elemental powers. I am all too aware of my weak flesh. I am but meat. There is something more to me than my flesh though. We all have it, but only a few of us bring it forth and use it. At first, I believed myself to be a berserker. Given over to a blind rage. And perhaps that was how it began. Bringing forth that part of myself but with little idea of how it worked. No discipline. No training. A dangerous mess that somehow prevailed.

Now I have honed my powers and I sharpen them still. I grow with every fight, almost as though I take on the energy and the power of those I vanquish. I think that may well be another truth. One I dare not speak, even with the closest of my brothers. Some things are best left unsaid. Many things are best left unsaid.

Leaving my tent I see snowfall. My brow creases as my mind fails to place what is wrong here. Winter is a distant memory. Snow does not belong here. The sky is a fierce red blackened and smudged into a travesty. I brush the snow from my vambrace and it smears grey. I look up and view the sky with fresh eyes. The unnaturalness of the sky is because it is on fire. 

I look around me and feel a terrible sense of unease at the quiet of our camp. Many of our number are looking out at that sky and attempting to discern its dire meaning. A sense of dread rises up in me for the very first time and I know that today will be unlike any day I have seen. I should relish this. I should embrace The Test, but there is a chasm between me and what awaits, and I do not know how to bridge it.

Then there is a sudden, piercing bellow that breaks the spell.

“Come on you maggots! Move! There is rotten flesh to feast upon!”

I feel the words more than hear them. They move me even as they appear in the world. I am back to myself even before Balur crashes his palm upon my back and says, “today is a good day to die.”

I turn towards his smiling face, and I nod despite myself. The bellowed words were his, I would know that voice anywhere. But they do not belong with the softly spoken words that follow. Those last words are only for me and they come from a different world. A different place. Balur’s words are opposing forces that will countenance only one victor.

Much of what occurs next is a matter of training and discipline. There is only one thing to do and we do it. As one, we move with a grace that men only find in the acts of war. Our actions come naturally, and they bring us to where we need to be. Not just the well-rehearsed battle formations, but also the state and focus of a warrior. 

I can feel my brothers around me. We breathe as one as we look out across the plain at those who would dare stand in our way. Every enemy is different, but underneath that painted façade, they are all the same. Flesh and blood. Worry and fear. A mass of incoherent thoughts and feelings that have not been mustered sufficiently for them to match the likes of us. It is not so much that they deserve to die, it’s that they’ve failed to live sufficiently and their disorder is their undoing well before we ever meet.

Today we face something totally alien to us. I stand at the vanguard and I look at the approaching ranks of warriors. I read them just as I have read a million warriors before them. They are the same, and yet they are not. I struggle to order my thoughts. These soldiers move in a way both familiar and unfamiliar, and that movement provokes in me doubt and fear. They are almost silent. Only the creak of armour and the crunch of earth under heavy foot. There is a solemn intent about them and I cannot mistake what it is; our complete annihilation.

I look out across their amassed ranks and then it occurs to me what it is I am seeing, I understand that this is what all our vanquished enemies have seen. They are us. They are a hoard of battle-hardened foe made into one, impregnable war machine. Now I see it, I cannot unsee it. I allow my eyes to bore into their formations. I single out individuals in an attempt to discern weakness. I see none. 

The meaning of this is so close and yet I cannot quite reach it. I close my eyes and pray to the gods of war. I ask them what this means. If these warriors are us, then who are we? That is my question to the gods and my ancestors. I hear laughter and fear I am mocked by my forbears for the weakness of my ignorance, but then I realise the laughter comes from the warrior to my right; Balur.

He is still laughing as he speaks, “how glorious!”

“How so?” I ask calmly, betraying the maelstrom within. I am nurturing a chaos that threatens to undo me.

“Don’t you see?!” he says far too loudly.

I do, but I do not want to voice my thoughts. They feel far too dangerous. A weapon for the enemy. “No,” I lie.

Balur nudges me and quizzes me with a curious expression, “we have conquered the world!” He grins at me, “now for the next test; we conquer ourselves!”

I see it now. And for all Balur’s brashness and superficiality, he is far wiser than me in this moment. We have come full circle. We have conquered the world. And in our constant conquest we never stopped to think about where it was all going. We fought. We won. We moved on.

We moved on without a backwards glance, marching away towards the next glorious encounter, leaving behind us a new generation of listless warriors just as hungry for battle as we ever were. No, they were hungrier than we could ever be. For they had vengeance embedded in their hearts and so they had far more to fight for than we ever did.

“Balur…” I say quietly.

“Yes,” he says, his voice tinged with an edge of concern, “what is it father?”

I smile as best I can, and I do not say the words that could only have weakened him. I do not ask him to leave the field of battle before the first blood is shed. I do not tell him to be careful. I cannot introduce him to defeat in such a way. That is not our way. It is not what was intended for us. This is our destiny and the seeds of this destiny were planted by our forefathers. This is The Test and we must face it square and true.

“Strength and honour,” I say the words we have always uttered before battle commences.

And my son retorts with a battle cry that echoes across our assembled ranks, sparking cheers and the clash of swords on shields.

Death or Glory!

Across the plain, our amassed children watch silently and sullenly. They fully intend to administer death, but there will be no glory in it. Not for us. Not for me. Now I face the end, I see that I was never a god, and that my destiny was to fight with all my might to save my only son knowing that I only have one dire choice left to me now.

I can die knowing my sweet Balur will see me fall, only to suffer the same fate as I. Or I can bear witness to the death of my son, see the end of the best of me before I am then hacked down like a wounded and cornered stag.

As the blood-roar goes up and we run to meet our end, the taste of defeat sickens me and I am blinded with the sorrow of my son’s ignominious end. An end we inadvertently brought about, marched inexorably towards without so much as a care as to what it was we were doing. 

A moment before we crash into the shield wall, I realise that I was defeated by my own blind ignorance. That war was not the be all and end all. That there always had to be a purpose to what we were doing. We should have known that our swords would one day be melted down to make ploughs. 

Now, as we meet steel with steel and search for the gaps and moves that will bring the metal to the meat, I come face to face with death and I see reflected in his gaze, my own eyes, and they are the eyes of a man who would burn the entire world if he could. All the eyes around me burn with that same murderous and nihilistic intent. They are as red as the sky and our hearts are as black as the smoke billowing up from the trail of destruction and despair we have sewn throughout the land.

Before death brings his bitter end, he takes everything from me. Everything. My friends fall one by one. And my son does not die a hero’s death. There are no heroes here. This is an ignorant struggle for a life that makes no sense in the aftermath of such slaughter. 

In the ensuing grief of Balur’s death, I return to the state that I encountered in my very first battle. I give myself over to the only thing that I know, only this time there is no rage, only madness. My sword is a red blur, and in the chaos I commit to those around me, I find another blade in my left hand. I go again and again and again, denying death his fun whilst doing his work for him. I am baptised in the blood of my own kind as my arms dance to the tune of my swords.

I don’t know how long I am like this. Only that I come out of the other side into a strange and awed silence. And I find that I am unable to see. I think myself dead until I hear the ragged sound of my breathing and the distant drum call of my slowing heart. 

Eventually, as I come back to myself, I blink my eyes open. The blood and gore of the fallen has matted them shut, but I noticed not as I tore them apart in my bloodlust. I realise this as I look down at the gristle and gore that extends from the tips of my swords to the hilts, and all along my forearms. Even in such a state of gruesome obscurity, I see that I have Balur’s sword in my left hand. 

The awed silence extends out as I fully return to myself and see where I am and what I have done. My reeling mind takes in the fallen. So many slain. I stand amidst a sea of the dead. And this sea is ringed by cliffs of warriors. All their eyes are upon me and I feel in them the humbled awe that has prompted their respectful silence. The red rage of battle is now gone and what has replaced it is a curiosity to me. 

I turn and see that those few who remain are from both sides, but are now one. They encircle me and look upon me as their reason for being here. I am their unification. I am broken, but they see me as whole. Something more than they dared we could ever be.

I nod, there is a truth here, and this truth is bigger than anything I could ever fathom. But it is a truth that I will now live and breathe. The truth is me. The truth is this land. As I nod, there is a change. A change in me, a change in these men. A change that is meant for this land of ours. I was defeated and I was taken apart on this battlefield so that this could be made possible. 

So that I could be made possible.

There had to be an end, before this beginning.

The stone of my warring heart had to be smashed open so that a true king could emerge.

“Arthur!” comes the cry from the assembled.

I raise my left arm at the joyous cries of my name. I hold my fallen son’s sword aloft and I promise him that with this sword and the might of my arm and the strength of my heart, I will unite this land and create a legend that will endure for eternity.