Men – Dogs

A Spirit Poem

Dogs of war are marching onward, treading

boots through mud and slum. Left then right and fall

in line to fall like leaves when judgment comes

like Autumn colors flashing, bursting. Fireworks –

men rejoice at season’s change, the turn of

tides, the conquered hill or plot of land in

sacred name of God and virgin. Somehow

overlooked are Mary’s tears of sorrow.

God has many faces – Egypt’s god of

Death has arm of man and head of dog.

The Fall of the Pharaoh

A Spirit Poem

She arrives, light-foot, from reminiscence.
Dusting the heiroglyphs with grey wings
that travelled ‘cross the waste – a distance
not to be braved with trifling things

in mind – she finds the Pharaoh, enthroned
on a pile of lies, dog-head held low.
Crook and flail fall from hands like bone,
and drops of bloody Nile flow

from sapphire eyes – he sees the rose
she brought in thorn-scarred hands before
his throne – and, knowing what he chose,
he abdicates, and opens up the door

which hides his kingdom. Then, from around
his neck, some rusted glyph descends
and clatters – shatters – on the ground.
It meant “Restraint”: and so it ends,

the reign of the Pharaoh whose name began
with “R” – and one day, minstrels will sing
how he fell, not by swords, but the ashen fan
of Juliet the Warrior Princess’ wings.

Chapter 1: “A Town Called Pay”

He closed the fragile binder with care and reverently placed it in its own silhouette.

Where that binder sat was the only place on the run-down bedside table that was free of dust. He had read from the collection faithfully every night since he had found it lying in the Dead Place, and though he might sit up in the darkness for an hour reading and re-reading the same story for an hour or more, he always ensured that he placed the binder in the precise location it had sat the night before, if necessary taking great pains to dust that spot – and only that spot – before laying the stories down to sleep. He hoped, by taking this sort of care, that they would at least sleep in peace. He most assuredly wouldn’t.

Dreams of the Dead Place always ate at his slumber like great, pale, wakeful worms. They gnawed as he slept, riddling his rest with holes through which swollen faces peered and cried in agony. The boy was always there at the end, toddling after him on shaking legs crying burbling words that sounded like “daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy” until he finally awoke, soaked in his nightly libation to the god of terror. Even in sleep, it seemed he would never be able to escape that place; yet, in a sick sort of irony, it was the Dead Place that had provided him with his only true escape.

The binder. It was a simple, white, three-ring binder with a faded sticker on the front that read “Do not disturb. Already disturbed.” Next to the words was a deranged cartoon face with triangular green hair. He almost felt guilty some nights before he opened it, feeling as though he was violating some sort of plea not to read. He consoled himself in the knowledge that, at this point, he was likely far more disturbed than whomever had originally owned the binder – more disturbed, maybe, than even the green-haired adhesive man.

The binder’s previous owner had obviously been a writer of some sort, and it was filled with stories of all sorts. He desperately wished he knew the writer’s name, but an unlucky fire had burned that possibility away forever. When he had found it in the house in the Dead Place, the upper right corner of the binder had already been burned away, and for some reason, the writer had placed his name in the upper right hand corner of every manuscript. The only clue he had to his savior’s identity was a letter “D”, the only letter of the name that had survived. Below that single, stubborn letter were only the letters “ENG”, closely followed by a sequence of three numbers, and the date at which the stories were typed. His heart had raced for a brave second when he had laid eyes on the dates, before he saw that they were at least two years before the Desolation. He had a fondness harbored deep in his chest that the author had somehow survived the Desolation and was wandering the desert somewhere on the other side of the Dead Place, searching. He had an even darker fantasy locked away somewhere within him that the author’s little brother was the toddler in his dreams. He kept the binder’s silhouette clear at his bedside in a subconscious, psychotic hope that somehow he could preserve what little was left of the child’s sanctity – and the author’s, had he suffered the same fate.

The piece titled “Shei of the Starry Eyes” was his favored read, the escape he returned to again and again. I was where he had taken his name – like all the others, he had lost his original name when the dark angels fell from the sky. He still recalled his naming day with vivid accuracy.

***

He had gone to Ms. Moses like all the others, with a copy of the story in hand, to ask her blessing in bestowing his new name. It had taken her what seemed like hours to read the papers, but when she had finally finished and moved the papers away from her face, her eyes were white.

When Ms. Moses’ eyes went white, everyone listened. It was the unspoken rule of Pay. Her eyes only went white when she was channelling the spirit energies, and one did not ignore the spirits. She had spoken and asked him what he wished to be.

He had replied, “Shei.”

She had gazed at him for a moment, twitching silently while piercing him with her unblinking bone-orbs, before saying: “Not the name… what do you want to be?”

He had glanced over his shoulder at the new girl, the young beauty who had not yet found her name, and he knew the answer. He smiled inside and responded again, with a confidence that shook him to his core:

“Shei.”

He knew somehow that he could die under the stars for her, fighting the monstrous hordes of decay with a primitive blade to avenge her hazel stars. He had aspired with all his being since he had found the binder to become even a fraction of the man with the ice-fire eyes. Her appearance had only strengthened that conviction – the scars on his knuckles stood blatant and proud,  jagged flesh tattoos reminding him of just how much. He could not remember much of what had happened when he first met her, but apparently he had he had beaten off several silverfish with his bare fists to defend her. No one went up against a silverfish with anything less than charged shot, except for Ms. Moses.

She had responded with the answer he had hoped to hear. “If Shei you are, then Shei you shall truly be.”

He had beamed, and the others had begun to applaud, but Ms. Moses had continued to speak. Her eyes were still white.

“This name is strong,” she had said, her voice now duplicating itself in lower tones and whispers. She began to twitch more noticeably, and everyone had taken a step back. The energies Ms. Moses channelled, while generally safe inside her body, could occasionally break free if the spirits or her emotions found enough strength. Everyone still remembered the raging ruin that had occurred when the owl had died. But though her long-nailed hands shook and gestured upwards and downwards as if trying to whip up a violent wind, and the dust around where she sat cross-legged began to stir of its own accord, the spirit powers did not break free. Instead, they forced words from her mouth that had not been heard since Johnny K:

“It must be tested.”

The entire tent had fallen silent as the grave. Ms. Moses’ brown-skinned body had swayed back and forth, her arms extended fluidly upwards as she lost herself in the sway of some invisible, dead wind and spoke again in multiplicity. “This name means – ” She began to breathe in short, gasping breaths, and her hands flew downward to the dirt. She extended the middle finger of each hand and began to dig out rivets, carefully and intently, until a shape was almost formed. Then her stomach had seized, she had doubled over with a small whimper, and her hands had destroyed the shape with a vengeance before flying into the sky again and waving back and forth like calloused banners. Three times she had done this before finally, just as some were beginning to wonder how long Ms. Moses body could withstand such an extraplanar onslaught, her middle fingers touched. She had jerked sporadically as if she had completed some sort of circuit, but her fingertips did not move from their resting place until the fit had subsided. All the others had crowded just a tiny bit closer to see what she had drawn in the dust: the picture was of a leaf. “This name means, to make things grow,” she said. Though she had muttered it under her breath, mysterious whispers had echoed the words from the tent’s every hide and carapace wall. “To create,” she continued, “to make life.”

Slowly, steadily, Ms. Moses had looked up at him. Splinters of bone pierced his mind as her eyes met his, and he had felt every word of her command.

“Show me.”

He had looked at her, wondering what she meant. She spoke again, and he felt the ethereal white splinters in his brain swell and subside with every rise and fall of her voice.

“Show me, and the name will be yours. Otherwise, it was never meant for you.”

He had to have that name. That name was what had kept him trudging through the desolate wasteland that was their home, what had kept him fighting to survive the silverfish and direcats and all the other demons of mutation that roamed the outskirts of Pay. That name may have been given to another being in a paper world by another man, but it was his, he could feel it in his stomach and his arms and his head and his groin, everywhere had screamed that that name was meant to be his. If Ms. Moses said he had to prove it, then so be it – he would prove it.

So he had focused. He had looked directly back into the brown woman’s white eyes, though his head had screamed at him not to. The ethereal splinters had dug deeper and deeper into his consciousness, but still he would not blink. He could hear voices in his head, a multitude, as if each one of the imaginary splinters contained voices whispering the sorrow of a wounded world. Some cried out to him in vain for help, for healing, but others whispered secrets to him. Many secrets he had not been able to understand, as they were whispered in tongues he knew not how to speak or comprehend, and others were too dreadful and deep for his petty mortal mind to fathom – but the tears streamed down his face from their presence nonetheless. A few secrets, though, had been clear as day, whipping past the insides of his ears and behind his eyes in words and images. They had told of magic, of songs, of other worlds and other times in which Shei meant other things, where he was other things, and other men who possessed friends and faith and a gilded lute.

In his mind, he had held onto that lute . His fingers had stroked its silver strings, and he had begun to sing. He had been able to see his voice from the corners of his vision. His gaze had remained fixed defiantly on Ms. Moses’ pair of bone-white prophecies, but his voice had been in vibrant color. Its color was green, and it had come from his mouth in tendrils that drifted in the same invisible wind that had blown Ms. Moses’ hands on high. The wind blew in front of her and all around her, and the wisps of green from his voice had almost concealed her eyes from him at one point, but he had found that he was able to will them where he wanted them to go. So he had bid them to follow the dead wind, but not once had he allowed them to obscure the stabbing white eyes – he had somehow known that if he broke the stare, he would have proven that he did not have the will to possess his name. He had noticed, though, that the wind, after it had passed by Ms. Moses, wrapped itself in a small, intangible whirlwind around her staff, which had lain behind her propped up against the wall of the tent. Made of simple, dry deadwood, the staff was nonetheless the iconic emblem that had gained Ms. Moses her title. All of Pay had seen miracles of energy spring from that staff.

On that day, they had played witness to yet another, though it was not by the will of Ms. Moses.

By the strange power that can only be invoked by a name, he had found the force of will to drill his own gaze into those blank eyes, though he had almost blacked out from the pain in his head by doing so. He would never know what those eyes had seen; but, on that day, he had forced them to see him. He had broken through the spirits for but a split second, and in that split second he had seen more of Ms. Moses than he ever might again. He had spoken into her mind, saying but four simple words:

“I have a name.”

He had broken the contact then and turned his gaze instead to the staff. He let forth a single, pure note and had held it upon the air as he commanded the green energy to invade every crack and knothole until the staff shone with it. Then, with all the strength he had still possessed, he had compressed every verdant particle into a single location: the stub of a branch, broken off long ago. His song had ceased, and the green had dissipated. Every eye on the room had been fixed on him, including those of Ms. Moses, now their usual murky green. Then someone had gasped, and every eye in the room had followed the trajectory of an outstretched arm and finger to see a new bud spring forth from the branch stub. It had slowly unfurled itself and fallen away to produce a new branch – small, and soft, and undeniably green. The branch had then produced a leaf, and that leaf had produced a second leaf. Then, after watching and waiting for what had felt like a lifetime, the growth had ceased.

That day had been the first time he had experienced many things. He had seen Ms. Moses smile, a true smile, showing a shade of white that everyone had secretly agreed they preferred to the forbidding ivory of her spirit eyes. He had seen tears on his friends’ faces that dripped joy rather than sorrow or the fermented salt wine of a year’s frustrations. And he had heard another call him by his name.

***

The reverie faded, and Shei discovered himself lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Possessing true, full memories was still something he was getting used to, and the images often consumed his mind for minutes, even houra on end as he relived them. Like all other living humans he had encountered, any memories from before the Desolation were nearly nonexistent. He had apparently set his binder back in its place, so he resolved to attempt what little sleep he could get with his brain in such an excited state.

He found, without much surprise, that he could not find his way to the gates of slumber. Restless, he stood and, treading quietly so as not to wake the others, exited his room and strolled down the long hallway leading to the door. Over it was a sign that blared red through the darkness, bidding him to “EXIT”. He realized how lucky he truly was – that sign was the only one in the building that still had enough battery power to shine. He pushed the metal bar and burst into the cool night.

He counted himself lucky yet again – he could see it clearly from the door. The battered green sign, illuminated from underneath, read in bold white letters, “Welcome to PAY”. Long before Shei had come trudging to them, binder clutched in hand, the people of Pay had salvaged the sign from the Dead Place, bringing it back to their meager outpost-village on the outskirts. There they had erected it to stand as a banner to rally around, an anchor to remind them of the fact that they were real – that, once upon a time, that sign had held another name. A fuller name. But, like all of the survivors that now rested in her bosom, the town had forgotten its old name. It had been partially burned from the sign during the Desolation, leaving only the first three letters: PAY. It was poetic, truly.

Of the few memories shared by any of the survivors, they all shared one: a mysterious force of persons that the people of Pay simply called “the wings”. That was all that anyone could clearly remember about them: the wings. Not a single face, not a single voice, but the wings were always there, embroidered in midnight thread and reaching across sewn shoulder badges as heavy boots trod the streets, promising in their filthy rubber clomp-tongues that one day the Eagle would die, and theirs would be the only wingtips to stretch from sea to shining sea and then some. No one could remember what the Eagle stood for either. But they could remember the wings. The town of Pay had a mantra, a sort of prayer that they would chant in unison at the end of every event of importance. It was the first prophecy that Ms. Moses had ever made:

“The wings, one day, fly back to Pay; and the price shall be paid in blood, that day.”

A dark promise. One that, despite the terror that they felt when they recalled the black-thread feathers, every forsaken survivor in Pay waited on to be fulfilled.

Until that day, though, they would wait and survive, as they had for three years now. Shei had been walking slowly toward the sign, and now, as he finished with his reminiscing, he stood in front of it. He felt so small. Though the sign was barely taller than he was, he still felt like a child next to it. The sign of Pay was a great judge, and he stood before it, hearing it silently inquire: “Are you worthy, Shei of the Starry Eyes?” The voice sounded mocking in his head when it spoke his name, and he had no idea why. He stared at the bold white letters, and suddenly he felt as if he were back in Ms. Moses’ tent again, trying to withstand the onslaught of her pale, prophesying eyes. The fate of his name was on the line again, and he had no idea why. He merely knew that, under the watch of the banner of Pay, he must prove himself once more.

He began to sing; but this time, rather than staring defiantly into the white, he chose to close his eyes and listen to himself in the darkness. His song carried no notes of vengeance, or pride, or any other such petty tones. He sang instead a mournful melody, a dead-world dirge that carried the collective sorrows and hopes of a generation forced to scrape up every microscopic piece of their being from barren earth and the pathetic splinters of a life that was no longer theirs. Even the basest, most simple piece of their identity  – their own names – they were forced to scrounge from the refuse of a dying world.

“What’s in a name?”

He started at the sound of the voice, though he did not open his eyes. It had been the faintest of whispers, barely within his range of hearing, but there had been no mistake in its words. He realized that the song still poured from his throat, louder than he had realized. Like any of his songs, it had no words – he remembered no songs from his former life, so he simply sang in wordless melodies – yet it had its own structure of syllables, harsh and light sounds with vowels and consonants that began to piece together into a puzzle that almost resembled language, though he could not understand it. Then he heard the whisper again. Behind his eyelids, he could see the swirling green energies he created, but as the whisper entered his mind he saw a whisp of white dart through it, eddying and swirling with every syllable:

“What’s in a name? For that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

His eyes snapped open and darted to the ground as his song ended on triumphant, echoing syllable. He and the banner of Pay beheld, in mid-bloom, a single flower. Its petals were many, starting separate and then moving in a slow spiral inwards. The color of the petals was a soft, moist red. Its stem, as if realizing that such beauty was too great to be put so easily upon the earth, grew thorns. He stood in wonder for a moment, imploring his mind to tell him what this stunning flora was. To his surprise, he received an answer. The single syllable slid from his parted lips:

“Rose”.

A light flashed in the distance. He looked up nervously to behold a person walking his way from the opposite end of the yard, holding a lantern. After peering in its direction for a solid minute, he was finally able to make out the gentle sway of chestnut hair, messy from sleep, and the equally gentle sway of a pair of slender hips clad in purple denim. His heart jumped to his throat, and then returned slowly to his chest, pounding on his ribs as if seeking escape. His scarred knuckles ached dully from the sudden increase in blood flow. Of all the people that could have followed his song into the night, it was her.

Without his realization, he was humming beneath his breath. Gone equally unnoticed, the rose at his feet opened fully, spreading its petals wide. At the base of each was a barely perceptible network of white veins. The whisper returned:

“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”

He reached down and plucked the rose from the dry dirt. He pricked his finger on a thorn, but he barely noticed.

He was too excited to tell her that he may have just found her a name.

Chapter 2: Juliet the Warrior Princess coming soon.

Prologue: “Shei of the Starry Eyes”

“The song of steel echoed through the cool, sun-soaked air typical of an Autumn afternoon, each clash ringing over the poorly tended barnyard, the few acres of growing land now supporting a gently swaying ocean of tall weeds, and the borders of crooked wooden fence, bouncing off of the numerous farmstead buildings. But this Autumn afternoon, all this rustic beauty went unnoticed. This Autumn afternoon was lost in the depths of despair and dire tidings. On this Autumn afternoon, the song of steel carried within it the notes of sorrow and loss.

To one side of the barn, two young men, barely more than boys, sparred with a pair of longswords. The first was heavily muscled, his long black hair hanging down his back in a thick braid. His eyes, a blue so deep they bordered on indigo, were fixed on the other boy – who, despite the first boy’s superior size, was driving him back.

The second boy was thinner and somewhat shorter, with leaner muscles; but, despite this, he swung his weapon with a speed and ferocity that belied his frame. His dark brown hair swished around his face and brushed the tops of his shoulders as he moved, darting back and forth over a pair of crystal blue eyes, burning bright beneath thick, dark brows.

A third person, a man appearing somewhat older than the others, stood watching with his arms crossed. His persona was calm and controlled, hinting subtly at the intelligence and wisdom of many years. His facial features were sharply defined, looking to have been sculpted by some master artisan: piercing green eyes flecked with yellow followed the fight scene, never blinking, and his blonde hair flowed like molten gold all the way to the small of his back, barely managing to conceal a pair of ears tapering to a gentle point at the tip.

The smaller of the two boys continued to gain ground, advancing relentlessly, hammering at his opponent with unreal rapidity. The larger boy leaped backward, establishing distance and lowering his sword, signaling an end to the fight. But the other boy kept coming.

“Shei,” the first boy said breathlessly, “stop it, we’re both tired.” If Shei had heard, he gave no indication. The shadows on his face only deepened, and the furious blows persisted. “Shei!” the first boy said again, louder, but Shei showed no indication of letting up. “Shei, snap out of it!” He was yelling, but not a word seemed to penetrate Shei’s consciousness. There was pain and fury etched visibly in every line of his face, and the look in his eyes when they flashed from behind his hair would have caused the strongest of men to quail. He was not in control, the larger boy realized; and suddenly, he found he was afraid.

“Shei!” he screamed, swinging his blade with all the strength left in his shaking arms. The two swords clashed so hard they threw sparks, restoring some distance between the two combatants. Shei finally seemed to regain some semblance of a hold on himself, as he didn’t continue to attack; but the fury was still there, the look in his eyes still dangerous as he stood, chest heaving, still in battle stance.

“Aaron,” snapped the blonde man. The larger boy turned his head slightly to pay attention, his braid swaying to the side but his eyes remaining cautiously fixed on Shei. “I’ll take him,” the blonde man said. Aaron hesitated for a minute.

“Alond, he’s more tired than he knows,” he objected. “We can’t have him exhausted when…”

“He needs to release this,” Alond interjected. After another moment, Aaron nodded, then cautiously stepped aside as Alond took his place, drawing a pair of long knives. Flawlessly crafted, the handles were ivory and pearl. They had no hilts; the entirety of each knife was one flowing curve, and the blades shone like polished silver. Aaron, tensely watching the new fight begin, hoped that no one would get hurt. The knives, like their owner, were Elven. Being such, Alond had fighting skills that many humans could only dream of achieving. His lithe frame moved like liquid lightning; graceful, fluid, and so fast that, at the peak of his performance, the eye could barely follow. Aaron had most assuredly never beaten him, and had never even seen Shei come close. But today, as they danced amongst the dirt, rocks and fallen leaves, Shei’s sword moved faster than it ever had before, whirling about to parry every strike, cast aside every thrust and foil the flashing Elven knives time and time again.

Within his own body, Shei felt as if he were not moving of his own accord. All he could see in his reeling mind was her face. He had been everywhere, seen every sort of horror. He had felt the hot, heavy breath of a wolf twisted and possessed by a damned human spirit. He had seen the dead walk in droves behind an army of necromancers. He had been to the legendary kingdoms across the salt sea as they were consumed by the Great Shadow and had fought, in the company of the soldiers of the Sentinel and the Brotherhood of the White Flame, his worst nightmares brought to life. He had watched the face of the last druid as he was consumed, in blood and darkness, by the deep powers he had sought to pervert. But nothing – nothing – he had experienced held the most insignificant candle to what he had finally come home to.

It hadn’t been seeing the village he had grown up in half-destroyed, its people mysteriously vanished. Nor had it been the knowledge that they could have been there to prevent it, had they not continued on their quest to vanquish the great evil. None of these things had driven him to his current state. It was what they had found upon returning to his home, in the barn he now fought next to.

He had left her behind, though it had killed him inside. She had a fiery will, and feared nothing when she was beside him; nonetheless, he had told her that it was too perilous to accompany them, that he didn’t know what he would do if he lost her. She had just pierced him with those stunning hazel eyes and replied: “How do you think I feel?” In the end she had kissed him and let him go; and he had fought to stay alive, had kept going to the ends of the Earth and back, in the knowledge that he would come back to find her there, waiting for him. And so he had. He had found her, less than an hour ago… hanging from a rafter in the barn.

The heavens only knew how long she had been there, for everything else had been lying in ruin so long it was gathering dust; but, through some cruel sorcery, her body was unchanged. He barely remembered cutting her down. All he remembered was holding her, the girl he loved, brushing her brown hair back from her face as cold and pale as china. All he remembered was the utter futility, the heart-rending helplessness he had felt as he said her name over and over to no avail. All he remembered was looking into the eyes that she had thought to be so plain, but he had thought to be the most beautiful things in the world: living stars that now ceased to shine.

Alond suddenly found himself thrown back, caught off guard, and fighting as if for his life. He spun on one heel and slammed both knives into Shei’s sword, knocking it aside, then leapt back, nimble as a cat, to await Shei’s next move.

The younger boy let out a scream of frustration. Then, abruptly, it all went out of him, and he sank to his knees, the tears beginning to stream down his face. His body began to shake violently, wracked by grief and silent sobs. Aaron was kneeling beside him in a heartbeat, embracing him like a brother, his own eyes glistening as the other boy cried into his shoulder. Alond, not the emotional type, put his knees to the dirt nonetheless, laying a comforting hand on one of Shei’s quaking shoulder

Minutes passed like this until Aaron finally spoke. “We all loved her, Shei,” he said, “though neither of us like you did. And I know that you will never stop missing her. But there’s only one way for you to do something about it.” He grasped each of Shei’s shoulders firmly and held his trembling body at arm’s length so that their eyes met. He hardened his expression just enough to let his brother at heart know that he was serious. “Make them pay, Shei.” Shei took a second, shoving his sorrow aside once more, then nodded wordlessly. Aaron smiled and pulled Shei into a bear hug, patting him on the back. “There’s the Shei I know,” he said. All three of them stood up, and Alond clapped one hand on Shei’s shoulder.

“Your father would be proud,” he said, smiling one of his rare, perfect smiles. Then he added, in a softer tone, “She’ll always be with you, Shei. Always.”

* * *

A few hours later, as the setting sun lived out its final moments and the evening chill started to seep into the skin of the world, Alond spotted them. Sitting atop the peak of the barn roof, he could see for miles with his Elf eyes. They would not have the advantage this time.

‘They’ were a surviving remnant of the first dark army that the three friends had fought. The battle had taken place at a place called the Aard Fortress, in company with Aaron’s brother and the Royal forces he commanded, as well as the nameless druid who had, with his last breath, given Shei, Aaron and Alond’s weapons their elemental magics. Before they had left their country for the far East, before they discovered that they were the three Warriors of the Prophecy, before they had defeated the great evil once and for all, they had fought these things: men, twisted and corrupted by the dark power until they were nothing more than bestial shadows. Not all of them had been destroyed in that battle, and once the three warriors had returned to their homeland, the surviviors  had caught their scent. They had been pursuing the friends at several miles’ distance ever since. From what they had been able to put together, those same survivors – now regrouped and on the warpath – had orchestrated the attack that  devastated the village – the village that Aaron and Shei had grown up in, the village that had given Alond a place while his kind was no longer accepted in most of the world.

‘They’ were the ones who had hanged the girl. And now they were going to pay.

It seemed an eternity before Alond whispered, his breath frosting in the cold air, that he heard them. Naturally, Shei and Aaron could hear nothing – those pointy ears weren’t merely for show – but they sat and waited faithfully, crouching in silence behind a massive woodpile, most of which Shei had spent his summers splitting himself. The rich, spicy scent of cedar hung close and heavy around their heads, a small, wistful ruffling their hair and rustling the thin blanket of dried, broken leaves. The sky, a blue so deep and dark that the depths of the ocean could have drowned in it, was dotted with blazing pinpricks of light, their brilliance remaining undiminished despite a full moon that shone as bright as day, washing every detail in eerie white light.

Finally, after the longest twenty minutes ever experienced, the enemy came into sight. They looked even worse than they had at the Aard Fortress; the fall of the great evil had left them no power, and they had begun to decay. They were hunched over, with skin as pale and grey as snowclouds. Their faces were warped into permanent expressions of hellish hatred, showing teeth filed to points and self-inflicted scars. Some were merely ghastly impressions of men; others were like walking beasts, bent over close to the ground, with fingernails grown in to thick black claws, their skin rough and cracked. Flowing over and through the ruins of the farmstead, the first of them charged into the vast barnyard like a great wave. There were more than the three friends had expected: two hundred at least, and they were not stopping. It appeared that they were going to raze the stead to the ground until they found what they were looking for.

Shei charged at them then. Abandoning all restraint, he vaulted over the woodpile and ran into the teeth of the oncoming mass. He let out a cry that few men have had the misfortune to hear, or utter. It was as if a stopper had been pulled from the heart-shaped bottle that contained all the grief, sorrow, love, and loss that one man could possibly bear. He was to them, sword at the ready, before the first brute’s jaw had time to drop. With naught but a swish, a flash, and a sickening slice, the first head rolled… and the chaos ensued.

Alond and Aaron followed him into the fray. Aaron’s sword swung wide and strong, cleaving bodies left and right, shearing through the evil ranks like a sickle through summer wheat. Alond’s knives were like twin snakes; biting, striking, faster than the eye could move. But it was Shei’s blade that spearheaded the annihilation. Their efforts to stop him were futile, for he fought like a madman, or a man possessed, blazing a trail of blood and gore through the tangle of bodies. Many tried to flee at the mere site of him, for the fires of hell itself burned in those ice-blue eyes, and every deadly blow he struck was struck with the fury and power of a fallen god, or a friend betrayed.

For what felt like hours the fight continued, and though each of the friends was worth ten of the enemy, their inferior number began to take its toll, and they were steadily driven back.

“Shei, Aaron!” Alond called over the cacophony; “We need to fall back to the barn; it’s or last defense!” Hearing him, the two younger boys turned and ran for the safety of the old red building. Alond and Aaron ran full speed through the heavy wooden doors… and Shei, still outside, shut the doors behind them, throwing down the thick iron lock-bar.

Initially meant to keep livestock inside the building, it would be impossible for any man – or elf – to break. “Shei!” Aaron yelled, realizing what his friend had done. “Shei, open the doors, now!”

There was a window beside the door, but it was too small to climb out of. Alond raced to it and peered outward. “Shei,” he said, his stern, patronizing tone betraying hints of panic. “Shei, don’t be a fool!”

Aaron shoved in beside him, staring wide-eyed from the window at the infuriated enemy racing closer to his friend. “Damn it, Shei!” he screamed angrily. “What do you think you’re doing? What…?” His voice trailed off as Shei turned… and smiled at him. A broken smile, bearing every word, every apology that he didn’t have time to say, failing to hide it behind the pain of a life no longer worth living. “Shei…” he whispered desperately as his friend, his comrade, his brother at heart, spun around to face the things that had burned his heart alive in one fell swoop.

He fought on for longer than anyone would have believed possible. Not a one of the bestial ranks reached the barn alive. His strength, his speed, and his endurance were superhuman. It was as if he had eyes in the back of his head, as if someone were whispering to him, telling him how, when and where to move. He fought to the last of his strength. At the end, as their ranks finally overcame him, he raised his head and cried her name to heaven as he disappeared beneath the last crazed fragments of the enemy.

For years afterward, Aaron and Aldon swore that he was not alone that night. Her eyes, those living stars that shone once more, watched him from on high, and every time he struck, she struck too. Alond had been right; she would always be with him. Always. And now, their souls were displayed together every night for all to see; the stars and the sky. Her eyes and his. Always.”