“Survival is an arduous process, especially if you don’t know what you can and can’t eat. One good rule I’ve learned from surviving all these years is that if it runs from you, you can eat it. Probably.” - ??

-[1]-

“Conscience can be painful.” Grand captain Altair was saying while sat on a chair under a big parasol under the canopy of an even bigger tree. “Yes, conscience can be painful, but so can a mangled wound, or a ruptured arse for that matter.” 

Captain Limlic who was sat opposite Altair snickered, revealing yellow teeth as he placed one of his wooden cards on the table between the two of them. Altair placed his feet over the table top and leaned back on his chair, enough to place his green eyes on the dark skinned teen who stood behind him and smile.

“Why do you think of that, Captain Drack?” Altair asked. “How come I’ve heard more men complain about conscience to me rather than something more pressing like a wound?” 

“I don’t know sir.” Drack murmured back. 

Altair shook his head in mock disappointment. “They come complaining about conscience because that’s how men attempt to heal it. They think telling me, or anyone for that matter, will somehow rectify the evil they committed. They think the fact that they acknowledge that what they did is wrong means they aren’t bad men.” 

Drack zoned out. The Grand Captain was back to blabbering again. You’d think they hadn’t burned down, and pillaged entire villages with the way Altair talked so casually, with all smiles, and light green eyes full of good intentions and humor. 

He’d met the captain four years ago, and sometimes, Drack wished that Grand Captain Altair had left him to die all those years back. In truth, four years wasn’t that long, but it felt like it. Felt more like eight years had passed more than anything.

Eight years of fighting, rape, burning, pillaging, debauchery, disease, blood, gore, smoke, sweat, death. But no, it was just four years. But that didn’t make it any less terrible. Sometimes Drack had a hard time believing that only four years had passed.

“I swear, ever since you joined our company, we’ve had nothing but good luck, Drack.” The Grand Captain was now saying. Somehow the topic had changed to this and Drack wasn’t sure when it had happened. “I always said you had a knack for luck.” 

“No such thing as a lucky man.” Captain Limlic croaked in his grating voice. 

This was perhaps the first time Drack had ever agreed with Captain Limlic, the old fucker. 

Altair on the other hand waved away Limlic’s words dismissively. “Why, we’ve been so successful and glorious ever since you joined us, Drack.” The grand captain continued. “Not to mention the fact that you work so hard to keep some of our company alive.” 

“We’ve been glorious?” Drack asked with furrowed brows. 

“Of course!” Captain Altair said significantly, causing the jagged gray scar on his face to twist as he smiled. “Now go get those unfortunate spawns ready to start marching again.” 

-

Drack sat on a collapsed tree trunk in the forest littered with tall trees, disobeying the grand captain’s orders. Not that it mattered. The others, the teeneagers around his age and the much younger kids knew what to do. He’d trained them well these past years. Many died still.

There was no one around. Maybe this was his chance to leave. Many men of the company had done so. Deserted. Run off during the night and never came back but something had kept Drack from doing the same. Sometimes he’d lie to himself and say that it was because he wanted to protect the others. Those scared teens around his age and the even younger kids, but Drack had come to learn better over the years.

He hadn’t run away because he’d seen how utterly callous and merciless the world was ever since he was young. It was a scary thought being out there In the world all alone, no one to look out for you, even if it was someone like Altair. There was a comfort in being a part of this company of mercenaries. He was safe from many things for the most part.

For a while, Drack sat there. Under the canopy of all those trees, the odd click or rustle of the forest and far off sounds of the wind and men filling his ears. Somewhere in those sounds he could hear the screaming of women, children, men, animals, or the odd crackle of a house on fire. The smell of the forest filled his nose, some of the scents were odd, others were comforting. Somewhere in those smells was the scent of smoke, of burning corpses that smelled too much like cooking meat, or the rustic smell of blood, or kicked up dust from trampling.

Drack wanted to leave.

Unfortunately, i'm too much of a coward to even do that, he thought, standing up despite the fact that he wanted to stay sat there. Maybe forever.

But he needed to go warn the others despite the fact that they’d come to expect the worst each time. Better to know than not know still, he supposed.

-

Captain Drack’s camp was full of over a dozen kids of differing ages. They loitered around the area, some inside the haphazardly placed tents, some up the trees and sat on their branches. Others sat on the ground littered with foliage or on wooden logs. 

Some smiled slightly at his arrival, others were indifferent or had far off looks in their eyes, a rare few looked at Drack with scorn. 

It was still relatively early in the morning, around eight. Remnants of a big extinguished campfire still remained in the middle of the tents from last night. 

“Good to see you sir.” Drack heard Arnfried say from his right. He was near a tree, leaning his back against it. “I thought you’d finally run off into the night.”

Drack never understood why the teen called him sir, despite being only one year younger than him. He’d even told all of them that they could drop the formalities but Arnfried had kept at it. Drack couldn’t be sure if it was out of respect or disdain. He didn’t care either way. 

“No running off into the night for me.” Drack said, looking at the sixteen year old teen. “I just had an early morning meeting with the Grand Captain.” 

“Too much of a coward to even run away, eh Captain Drack?” He heard another voice. A teenage girl a year younger than him. She was laying on a patch of grass to the side, looking up at the beautiful pillars of lighting piercing through the trees’ canopy with her dead blue eyes.

“Don’t be so surprised Aoife.” Arnfried added. “Cowardice has gotten our Captain this far.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You know, I could have the two of you hanged for all this shit talking.” Drack said, sitting down, but he had no intention of hanging anyone. 

“I reckon you’ve seen your fair share of hangings.” Anfried said, fiddling with his dagger. “So no.”

“Thought you’d say it’s because we’re good friends.” Drack remarked.

Silence. No one talked for five seconds. He’d left the only good friends he had to burn.

Drack stifled a sigh as he scratched at his cat-like left ear. “Get everyone ready to march.”

Good friends with them. Probably never. They all saw him as nothing more than Altair’s dog, and they all hated him. For good reason too. They might have not respected Drack and hated him but they could at least follow orders. Disrespect with words was tolerable, but disrespecting his orders… they knew better than that. 

“You could make him stop.” Arnfried said, hesitantly, “you could make him spare some people.” 

Aoife made a sound between a scoff and a snort at that. 

Drack looked down. He didn’t know what to say. 

“It's all a part of Ahura-ilah’s design.” A new, familiar voice said. 

Drack glanced up and saw a feminine looking boy two years younger than him. He had shoulder length white hair and ears slightly longer and pointed than the average person. There was a time when his ruby red eyes were pure and bright, and they still were even now, except there was a hint of something else in those eyes. Something more sinister. Madness perhaps?

“All a part of God’s design. These things we do?” Arnfried repeated, a deep frown on his face. 

“Indeed.” The feminine boy said walking up to them, his robes ruffling. He spoke as if he were a teacher talking to ignorant students. “If none of this was a part of the Goddess’s inffable design then it wouldn’t happen. If those people that were sundered and burned didn’t deserve it, then the goddess would have prevented our hand.” 

Arnfried's light brown eyes twisted with bewilderment, horror, and disgust all at the same time. This did not bother the other boy in the least.

There was no helping this priest, Florian. This Drack knew very well. The boy had his temple burned down, the priests all killed, and even some of the practitioners, and now the boy was a part of the very company that had done it. Forced to join. Perhaps it had all happened too fast, too quick for him to process. So much so that he resorted to using his religion to try and make sense of it all, twisting it so it could fit the twisted things that had happened.

That’s what Drack thought at least.

“If you believe Ahura-ilah is wrong, then raise your hand to try and defy her plans yourself. Though, it is futile to resist the ineffable.” Florian said to Arnfried, before turning his red eyes to Drack. “You understand the futility of it all, don’t you, Captain Drack? You know not to raise your hand against the goddess’s designs. You and the Grand Captain are one of her many hands, so I’m sure you understand well and truly.”

Drack did not meet his eyes, instead, he looked at the golden embroidery around the collar of the boys robes. 

“Get everyone ready to march.” He said a second time that day, in a tone that implied that there would be no more chit chat. 

Arnfried and Aoife walked off without a word, before they started barking out orders. Florian smiled at Drack, red eyes gleaming good naturedly as if everything he’d just said was normal and fine. 

The boy bowed to him slightly before stalking off.

Drack was left there to his own thoughts as a commotion started stirring up around the camp as people prepared to leave.

Florian had always been respectful and gentle to Drack. Perhaps out of everyone In the camp, the young boy had treated him the best. Florian was the most trustworthy. When given a task, he did it without question or reluctance.

That gave Drack a start. The only person who truly respected him was insane. Perhaps that said a lot about him in turn.

And, if what the boy had said was true. If Drack was one of God’s many hands, then he feared for the world. Feared for it greatly, if any of these others hands were not unlike him.