Legion of the Eye

Death and Ashes

It was midday, yet there was no warmth, the sky was overcast not with clouds and a promise of rain but with the smoke of fires and dust of battle. Rellin walked quickly, nearly ran infact while looking at the unnaturally darkened sky and the ravaged fields, he could never tolerate the horrors of war, some called him weak for it, but he had won enough battles and slain more than enough enemies for it to be mere empty mutterings.

  All around him was the bodies of the dead, human and the non human, loud screams of pain, of anguish, of loss and grief were all that could be heard from the throats of the survivors. Tears and blood flowed like a river, seemingly without end. This day would be written of in history as the day of ultimate victory, to Rellin though it just tasted of death and ashes.

Rellin continued walking quickly, until he nearly slipped on the muddy ground bringing him out of his dark thoughts, he tried not to think about the fact that it hadn't rained for months and therefore the only thing that could have liquefied the mud was the blood that coated everything on that field.

Dragging his mind away from such despairing thoughts, he looked up and saw the man he was looking for.

Adian, the Sun Lord himself with his  close cropped and famous red hair, stood tall and seemed unaffected by the battle, his armour looked as it always did spotless and unmarked by a blade, and Rellin felt a surge of envy toward his friend but he quickly killed it and thought we all have different gifts, all are important.

Adian saw Rellin coming towards him and smiled, he continued listening to the healer talking to him and gestured for Rellin to come towards him. The healer quickly finished what he was saying bowed to both the approaching Rellin and Adian and quickly walked away none too comfortable in the presence of such mighty men.

Rellin stopped in front of his friend and looked at him closely, though Adian looked like a man in his late twenties ,and he had his easy going charming smile on his face, Rellin could see the strain on his friend's body by the way he stood a bit too stiffly and the charming smile that didn't reach the cold eyes that Rellin was sure mirrored his own.

Adian dropped the smile and faced his friend squarely and waited for Rellin to speak.

Rellin considered letting the silence that was punctuated by those blood curdling screams continue but decided against it, he felt it unnecessary.

"So..."

"So..." Adian replied.

"We won" Rellin

"Yes we did" Adian smiled "the long years of war are finally over"

Rellin felt fury rising within and said "But at what cost?"

Adian looked at him and calm replied "at whatever cost necessary"

Rellin took a furious step forward and shouted at his friend "do you understand what you've done?, You manipulated powers you couldn't even begin to understand!. You have condemned..."

"Enough!" Adian shouted slashing the air in anger with his hand and finally losing that enviable self control of his, the sky and earth cracked with the anger of his power, and Rellin suddenly remembered he was talking to the most powerful man in the world and took an unconscious step back warily.

"Enough" Adian continued "what I have done is to give us a chance to finally live as people not only to exist as animals."

Adian closed his eyes and softly said "I have given our people hope for a better tomorrow, chance to live full and fruitful lives without living under the shadow of war and terror. What I have done simply...is to set us free."

Rellin shook his head, squared his shoulders and said "You have broken the rules, WE have broken the rules, we were warned not to do this, brother. We were warned, severely."

Adian looked at his friend and said "Well there's no point arguing about it, is there?. What's done is done. There's no going back."

Rellin shook his head "At least tell me why you did it brother, help me understand."

Adian opened his mouth to speak, thought about it, closed it, and stared off into the distance. Rellin turned to see at what his friend was looking at and saw people huddled and crying together amongst the blighted landscape, others were simply looking or standing seemingly at nothing, not totally aware of where or who they were, healers moving among the wounded bandaging, carrying the dead or offering comfort to the grief stricken who lost loved ones, which seemed to be everyone.

Rellin looked hard at the plains they were standing in, remembering when it was beautiful and a paradise, shadows of that beauty still remained in the gentle hills,the soft soil and tattered clumps of grass and wild flowers but even the plains now seemed a metaphor for humanity: torn, blackened, b****y and broken.

Adian finally spoke "Look at them Rellin, look at them well , they've been at war for so long, peace is alien and abstract concept to them. They can't imagine a time of peace because war is all they know. Their great-grandfathers were born under the shadow of this war and died under it. War is all they know, all they live for, our women are nothing more than breeders of children who are sent into war at the earliest opportunity. We no longer have any culture, no art, no beautiful creations and inventions, all we have to offer is our blood, our flesh and the biting taste of steel." He emphasized. "We are made for more."

Rellin shook his head and said " And it's cost was a betrayal of our allies"

"Better them than us, they weren't innocent anyway, we'd have lived as slaves under them" Adian shrugged.

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do and so do you" Adian countered.

Rellin looked at his friend, and would have believed him if he didn't hear the tremor in his voice. Looking down he saw his friend was clenching his fist, felt a pulse coming from him, then realisation came up upon like a wave breaking upon the shore.

Adian, the great Sun Lord of men was afraid.

Rellin thought about all their long years together, thought about the only thing that induce fear in a man so great...

"You are afraid of dying again aren't you? That's why you couldn't wait for the original plan, You just wanted to win at any cost?"

Adian smiled bitterly and replied " I had forgotten how powerful your powers of perception were for a moment" Adian paused, "Yes I'm tired of fighting for far longer than people can imagine, tired of seeing the blood of generation after generation decorate the halls of our enemies. I'm tired of an existence of fighting and gore but I'm tired and afraid of dying over and over and over and going to that Place."

Adian finally turned to look at his friend and said "I've been burnt alive, buried alive, drowned, beheaded but none of them are as bad as that place we go to when we die. I'm broken just like our people, Rellin and I will do anything not to go there again. Anything!"

Rellin remembered that Place, the realm beyond the gates of death, that realm of horror, tears, of inhuman shapes and beings, of darkness, of fire and cold and shuddered violently. He didn't know when he started gasping, feeling a tightness in his gut and hot tears came unbidden to his eyes.

Rellin collected himself, squared his shoulders, looked his friend in eye while tears rolled down his face and  said " I remember even better than you, I never had your skill with the sword nor has therefore I have died more times than you have, I have suffered more than you have and I still say that what you have done is wrong!"

Adian looked at Rellin, and shook his head with a smug smile tugging his lips "Why do you think the others and I didn't tell you of this plan? We knew your righteous and moral self would never agree to it and would have tried to stop it."

Rellin couldn't speak, he was shocked by what he had heard, everyone else went along with this insane plan?

Five of the Six Paragons planned this, he couldn't believe this.

"I refuse to believe Kesiria went along with this, how did you convince her?"

"I didn't need to, who do you think came up with the mechanics of the ritual, she convinced the rest of us that it would and told us not to tell you"

It was hard to believe soft spoken, kind and gentle Kesiria, the Paragon of Love and Mercy would do something like that, but centuries of dying and t*****e would change anyone.

Rellin again looked across the  plain and mounds of corpses, the survivors had started stacking them on top of each other, the biggest already several metres tall, too many had died, too little had survived.

There would be no burials, there wasn't enough hands to do the digging, the dead would burn today and maybe tomorrow.

Rellin turned to look at his friend, looked beyond the smug smile and pulsed the Sun Lord. If Adian felt the Pulse he didn't say anything, looked deeply at his friend and what he saw in his friend eyes and the return Pulse broke his heart.

Adian, Lord of the Sun, was filled with great grief and undiluted sorrow, here stood the great leader of men and he was broken completely, sapped totally of will to fight, tired of the centuries of endless fighting and death, broken all the more by what he did to stop the endless cycle of brutal fighting.

He was a drowning man and he took the closest rope to safety,not caring what was the end of it. He just wanted it to end.

Rellin knew in the deepest part of his heart he couldn't blame him, he was broken just as much as his friend, he'd probably have done the same thing, despite his angry words to his. All the same...

"We could have endured for a little while longer, brother, we could tried to wait for..."

"The Walker?" Adian shook his head "No, if The Walker was going to return to save us he'd have done so centuries ago, He made us believe in a lie, and abandoned us, the signs that he said would predict his return have come and gone, and he didn't come back. He is not coming back"

"But by doing what we've done we've made sure he won't be able to return" Rellin insisted.

"Yirev said if the war continued for another 10 years there won't even be a human race left to save. No brother, we had to do what we did, the Red star was fading, we had limited time to complete the ritual, it was now or never"

Adian looked southwards, Rellin knew he was looking towards the Temple of the Return, even though they were hundreds of miles away from it, he could point towards it unfailingly, he could feel it connected to him, they all could.

Rellin still looking the opposite away from his friend, suddenly looked up and felt it before he even saw it, the flash of purple lightning that cracked maliciously in the blackened sky, everyone on the plain looked up then surprised and fearful at this previously unseen display in the sky.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Rellin asked grimly.

"Yes" Adian said softly.

"Reality will not be the same, in this once beautiful place, You and the others have literally broken reality in this place"

"It had to be done, brother" Adian said with his eyes closed looking down, in shame and guilt.

Rellin turned to his best friend and said "Deep down in your heart you know this won't hold the enemy, they will find a way through"

"Maybe,maybe but it will give us time enough to heal and live"

Rellin furiously gestured towards the plain and survivors in tattered clothes, stacking the dead.

"What do we tell them, the people who believe in us to protect and watch over them, they think us Demigods, how can we abandon them?"

Adian seemed not to be able to meet the Paragon of Wisdom and Justice's eye and said "We tell them that we stopped the war, that they are finally free to live their lives to fullest without fear of war"

"And the soon to be broken land?"

Another flash of bright unnatural coloured lightning flashed before Adian spoke.

"A sign of the sacrifices made to ensure victory"

Rellin eyed Adian, with something close to anger.

"You really have thought of everything, haven't you?"

"The lies are simple, and close enough  to the truth"

Adian finally looked at the eyes of his friend "I can Pulse the anger coming off of you Rellin, and completely I understand, we are betraying our promise to the people and The Walker but it had to be done. If we still wanted to have a people, we had to do it"

Rellin controlled his anger as he was surprised he didn't feel Adian's Pulse, he looked at his friend's face and saw a desperate plea for understanding there written there and all of his anger just vanished like smoke in the early morning breeze.

"I can't justify what you've done brother but I understand it. It is done we can only move on and make a new beginning"

Relief washed over his friend's face and he looked like a man relieved of a great burden.

"So.." Rellin said looking around him "...where are the others?"

Adian looked sideways at Rellin and said "they left ,they didn't want to face what Yirev called 'your righteous anger"

Rellin looked at his friend and saw he wasn't smiling "You are serious?"

"Yes. I waited behind because I know you'll be furious and will want answers"

"Waited behind?"

"The others have gone their serparate ways Rellin, what we had to do weighed heavily on their minds, they needed space from each other and couldn't face your judgement, I waited for you as a courtesy. This is goodbye my brother"

Adian stepped away from Rellin and started going in another direction.

Something in their previous conversation tugged at Rellins mind... what we had to do weighed heavily on their minds...

"Wait!" Rellin screamed at the Sun Lord before he flew into the sky.

Adian turned to face him, and the guilt etched into face confirmed Rellin's suspicions.

"A Ritual like this would require a power source and a sacrifice, the Red star was the power source, what was the sacrifice?"

Adian, The Sun Lord, Paragon of Hope and Will, Lord of Men looked down at his feet, face wracked with enormous guilt and tears fell like rain from eyes unto the broken land. Rellin didn't care.

"ANSWER ME!"

"It was..." Adian choked with an unbroken line of tears streaming down his face "...It was...Kesiria" he finally managed to say.

Rellin moved faster than any man, faster than it was possible for any man to move and punched Adian. If Adian wasn't a Paragon his head would have been torn off his body, but instead all that happened was he flew 20 feet in the air and came down in a mass of armour and limbs, before he could gather his wits Rellin was upon him in a blur.

"Why. Did. You. Let. That. Happen"

Rellin raged, his punches landing on Adian's face punctuating each word with a blow as his spittle flew.

People stopped what they were doing,and looked on, not quite believing what they saw, Paragons fighting, or rather the Paragon of Justice landing heavy earth shattering punches on the Paragon of Hope, earth shattering because they could feel the shockwave reverberate all across the plain and Hope didn't lift a finger to defend himself.

Rellin stopped punching Adian and looked at the Sun Lord's face, the cuts and bruise from his blows were already starting to heal and were giving off mild steam, that deflated all the anger in him. He stepped back and he asked quietly.

"Why? did you go along with it?"

"I swear on The Creator, I would have taken her place and done it instead but she had already started the ritual  and she was the only one trained in the enemy's magic, was the only was learned enough to complete it, without causing great damage."

"You are our leader, you should be doing sacrificing for us! You coward!!" Rellin screamed and down came the unnatural purple lightning. Everyone else who was watching covered their eyes from the bright light. When they looked again, they saw masssive furrows in the earth all around the Paragons like some great mad beast had torn up the earth with it's claws, unsurprisingly, none of the Paragons were harmed.

Rellin collapsed to his knees both from grief and the toll the lightning took from him.

"That Lightning is wrong" Rellin gasped.

"I know, brother,this entire place is becoming wrong."

"I am so sorry, Rellin, so sorry".

Out of us all Rellin thought Kesiria lived up to her attribute the most. Gentle Kesiria she was the bravest of us all.

Rellin looked at Adian's grief stricken face and knew that if Adian could have taken Kesiria's place, he would have.

Adian slowly got to his feet, adjusted his scarbbard and said "This is where I part ways with you brother.  You will not see me within your sights again.

Forgive me for all the pain I caused you and even if you do not, I understand. Farewell, brother."

And with a mighty gust of wind he flew into the air faster than any bird, he flew farther away until he was nothing but a speck in the sky and then until he vanished completely.

Only then did Rellin, look down, cover his face with his hands and start crying. Great hacking sobs for the fate of the world, and the fate of a woman condemned to spend an unknown amount of time in that Place without time, enduring unimaginable horror and unspeakable t*****e for her love of the world.