War Dog Rising (II)

Inside the house, Randess picked up his head at the sound of something familiar. It was a deep thrumming in the distance that his trained ears immediately picked up.

Cannons firing.

A flood of emotions overcame Randess as he listened to the enemy weapons: despair, anger, rage, sorrow, and finally, resignation. He wilted down onto the floor, right next to the barrels of gunpowder. He leaned his head back against the curved wood and sighed. A second later, a salvo of flaming cannonballs tore into the walls of the building, slamming into the barrels and igniting the powder within. Even with his eyes closed, he still saw the flash.

All around the Ripperwulf team, the town started to erupt. Fire fell from the skies in a wide arc like angry comets, punching into the buildings. The boys watched building after building explode; stone, wood, and debris raining down around them. Galen screamed as he pushed himself further. Somewhere along the way, his grip slipped, and he lost track of Conrart. Galen looked around for his teammate and saw only destruction and madness.

The front of an inn exploded just as a trio of Fire Swords had run in front of it. A flash and the world shook. The inn’s front was a blackened ruin, and the trio was no more.

A cannonball slammed into the road, bounced, and punched into a recruit taking cover under a building’s canopy. His head severed neatly from his body before the cannonball pierced the wall behind him.

Everywhere Galen turned, he observed the same familiar theme: his fellow soldiers being blown apart by explosions and cannon fire, caused by the same people he once took a vow to fight for.

Seeing no shelter in sight, Galen dropped his shoulder-bag of guns and sat down on the debris-riddled road. The final salvo was fired. To Galen, it sounded like the percussion section of a grand orchestra, blasting its finale before the curtains fell.

Two hours later, in the dead of night, the ruins still smoldered. What was once a thriving, prosperous harbor town was now a collection of smoking ruins. Entire buildings were blown apart, debris was strewn everywhere. Everything that could burn, did, but it burned with a slow, oily burn that barely illuminated anything around it.

Other colors did not exist in this wasteland of blacks, grays, and browns. Thick, gray smoke poured around the area, obscuring the town’s remains under a thick haze. Through this dimness, something recognizable occasionally appeared: a broken chair, parts of what used to be a bookcase, a child’s unmoving hand, reaching up as if for help. The bright plumes of red and orange blazed out from the slow fires in sporadic areas. The skies above remained black as oil; no moon or stars shone in this bleak night.

Eventually, things started to move, slowly and deliberately. Before long, sounds trickled through the air. People groaning and weeping, the soft crackle of burning wood. Eventually some of diminished vibrations turned into open screaming. It was the screaming that finally awoke Galen. He found himself lying in the street, covered by wood planks that had once been part of a floor. His entire body ached and throbbed as he slowly rose up from the ground. His clothing hung in tatters, and his exposed face and arms were covered in hundreds of small cuts. He looked down and saw that his nametag was missing, probably blown apart some time ago. He did not care anymore.

I’m alive, he thought.

As he looked around, he did not see the blown-out buildings or the wide-scale devastation; he only saw the bodies. Bodies belonging to other Fire Swords like him. Boys with their innocent faces looking at nothing and everything with wide, dead eyes.

This was not supposed to happen, he told himself. Then he realized, someone WANTED this to happen.

Through the thick curtain of smoke, Galen could see movement: other soldiers, wandering around in a daze. Some clutched their arms or limped around; others had their arms held against their sides, wincing as they breathed. He recognized that hollow look in the dirty, wounded boys’ eyes.

One boy noticed Galen and moved towards him.

“Is it over?” he asked.

Galen nodded, unable to form words.

The boy smiled, as if relieved. It was a strange, almost angelic smile that should have immediately set off alarm bells. Then suddenly, the boy pulled his pistol out, brought it to his head, and pulled the trigger. Galen did not blink as the side of the boy’s head exploded outward and the boy’s body fell to the ground.

Galen crumpled down to the ground once again, feeling his body scream as his backside connected with the road. A fresh wave of bright pain flashed into his head and blurred his vision. When it dissipated, he saw a tall figure standing over him. The uniform was familiar; it had belonged to a man that Galen both respected and loathed. A man whose invaluable instructions had led to Galen’s survival, and whose brutal means of teaching made Galen want to kill the man as well.

Adalgisal, his instructor.

“I didn’t know this was going to happen,” Adalgisal grimaced.

To Galen, the words fell too short.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Galen’s automatic functions processed even as his conscious mind reeled in shock. Unaware that as he sat on the ground, his hands searched futilely around for items of survival. One hand found an empty canvas bag; another detected the familiar feeling of a pistol’s handle. He took the pistol and shoved it into the bag before slinging its strap over his shoulder. He stood up and tried to focus his mind on gathering supplies.

A quick search bore fruit: a bag of powder and shot, then an old, but still usable knife. Even a waterskin that had somehow survived the slaughter appeared, and his hatchet miraculously still lay by his side.

“Are you thinking of leaving?” Adalgisal asked in an accusatory tone.

Galen said nothing. In his hands rested a book. He almost tossed it aside, but then thought otherwise. He slipped it into his bag.

“If you leave, they will hunt you down,” Adalgisal informed him in an almost conversational tone.

At that, Galen turned to face him. His hand darted into the bag and pulled out the pistol. In a mad moment, Adalgisal wondered if Galen had finally snapped enough to fire on him. Galen’s arm blurred and Adalgisal saw the gun being brought up and pointed at the boy’s temple. He heard the sound of a fingertip pressing on the trigger, making the springs creak in resistance. Adalgisal could see the hammer twitching.

“I’m not going back,” Galen said with tears in his eyes.

Adalgisal nodded and relented. Not out of fear for his own life, but for the boy in front of him. He deserved better; they all did. But he also felt an odd sense of pride. The training had been hard, but it had also proved their survival abilities.

The professional in the General wanted to praise Galen for surviving, yet simultaneously admonish him for considering desertion. His human side wanted to drop to his knees, to beg for forgiveness, and to urge the boy to run far, far away and find something out there better than this.

“Head west and stay there,” he ordered, knowing it was for the last time. “Stay outside the towns and villages. We have people there. Keep moving in the woods for at least a week before attempting to walk the roads. If they find you, give them a fight to remember.” It was the last piece of advice Adalgisal had to offer, and it was enough to make Galen lower his gun.

That was how Adalgisal would always remember the Ripperwulf Fire Sword known as Galen: the boy, filthy and bloodied, standing in the ruined street with a contemplative, yet lost and forlorn, expression on his face. His sidearm, once pointed at his own head, seemed to dangle from his almost-limp fingers.

The boy soldier pocketed his gun and walked away. Galen looked up at the skies with tears on his face. In a mad moment, Adalgisal thought about changing his mind and pulling rank, ordering Galen to stand down, to make Galen remember his place and his obligations within the organization. But he pushed the urge aside. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach and his soul, he knew how close Galen came to pulling the trigger. If it was not now, then it would be later. The look in that boy’s face told him enough.

Out there, he stood a better chance. Of what, Adalgisal did not know.

I trained him, he thought sourly, feeling nausea.

Mission Objectives

Accomplished

There has been some speculation that the Gunthering Harbor incident was deliberate: the wholesale massacre of over three hundred child-soldiers in a single battle. There are several facts to add credibility to this theory:

1. The assailants of Gunthering Harbor were never seen after this particular battle. The discipline and coordination required to lead such an attack against a military force is far outside that of a bandit gang or even several working in concert.

2. This is one of the few times such a large number of Ripperwulfs had been deployed in a fighting role in a singular operation. Previous assignments had them working in small groups, usually engaged in reconnaissance and indirect combat such as sabotage and harassment.

3. This was considered the first open deployment of the Ripperwulf Fire Swords, an already controversial decision even within its own ranks. The use of children was one thing; the training to make them into an even more efficient and effective fighting force was an incendiary decision that would undue decades of the Fire Swords’ fairly positive public image.

It could be concluded that this battle was staged to intentionally draw out the Ripperwulfs just for their destruction; or perhaps the Fire Swords simply used this as a pretext to see if the Ripperwulfs’ training was as effective as they had hoped.

—The Fire Swords: A Critique

In the aftermath, three particular people took a look at the massacre from a distance. The harbor streets reeked of burned bodies and cordite. An unsettling dark mist covered the area like a dense fog, making prompt rescue difficult. The screaming and moans had died down, but not by much.

Adalgisal looked down from his second-story balcony at the inn, his head held down in shame. This lodging was set atop the hill, overlooking the harbor town. The balcony gave a wonderful view of the river and the forests beyond–a strong selling point for travelers. It was one of the few buildings still standing after the artillery barrage. The cannons had fired and struck the building but had failed to ignite the explosives within. It did not take long for the barrels to be removed, and the place deemed livable, if just for a short time.

Below, the General could see the street being cleared with one section dedicated to collecting the bodies. Simply by focusing on any section of the street, he would view at least two bodies hiding in the debris. On one cleared section, he could see the bodies laid off in an orderly fashion, all covered by clean white sheets. Some bodies were so small that the attendants covered two bodies with one blanket for conservation. A pair of attendants walked around lifting up the sheets, trying to identify the remains underneath. Once identified the victims’ names were written on the boys’ foreheads in black ink. The attendants performed their duties in a cold, clinical manner, almost apathetic to how small the bodies seemed under those white blankets. The bodies of the opposition presented another matter entirely. Adalgisal allowed St. David to take charge of those, in hopes that Research and Sciences could ascertain their identities somehow.

It would be a long time before a full tally would be completed. There were still wounded being found. For that, he was grateful. He figured it would be another two days before Galen’s disappearance would be noticed. If Galen was lucky, he would merely be listed as “missing.”

Adalgisal looked up at the skies to figure out the time. Soon, St. David would arrive to discuss a few things. Adalgisal he thought about how best to get answers from him. He was too tired to physically assault the General. He thought about using broken glass instead. Adalgisal gripped the open bottle of hard liquor in his hand a little tighter. Suddenly, he felt a shadow enter the room.

“You knew,” Adalgisal said flatly, not bothering to turn to face the General. He could not turn away from the carnage below. “This was your endgame.”

“Not mine. Pyriel’s,” St. David said simply. “He had a plan, which we had suspected. But when we realized his plan would neatly serve our own agenda as well as his, we simply stayed out of his way and let it play out, without interfering. For all his intelligence, he does have a rather vicious side in him that bears monitoring. We’ve been watching him. But in this case, it served our purpose well.”

Fire burned in Adalgisal’s eyes, into his very heart. He blinked, but even when his eyelids closed, he could still see it all in vivid detail: the scorched bodies, so small, twisted and torn and half-buried in the debris. He drew out his weapon, turned around, held his weapon at arm’s length and took aim right at St. David’s head.

“Three hundred people” His thumb slowly moved the hammer back on the pistol. “Three hundred of our people! Gone! Like that! And WE killed them! For what?” he demanded, his voice rising. “Tell me! We trained them! I trained them! And they were led to slaughter like it was nothing!”

“Amusing.” A greasy but genuine smile of amusement split across St. David’s face. “Well, I suppose, after all this, you might actually deserve some answers. Though I doubt that knowing the truth will do anything to placate your misplaced anger. Very well. As I’m sure you may have suspected, a majority of the boys were already reaching or exceeding their limits. They were breaking down; their combat efficiency was steadily dropping. We had an increasing number of suicides even before they’d gotten onsite. Collectively, this entire batch was deteriorating well ahead of our projections.”

“And this was your way of handling them?” Adalgisal pointed at the flaming wreckage behind him with his free hand. “You could’ve sent them to Support. If they were exceeding the limits, Support would’ve handled it.”

“Support, as you well know, had already protested us reopening the Ripperwulf program in the first place. Their moral posturing serves no one.”

“That’s not an excuse for widespread genocide of our forces.”

“It is if their final act is the valuable data they’ve unknowingly contributed.”

Adalgisal wondered why he did not pull the trigger and be done with it.

“Let us be frank,” St. David went on. “It already costs enough to feed, clothe and teach a child, any child. It would be at least seven years from birth before they could work their way to an apprenticeship to any vocation their skills allow them. And even then, figure another ten or fifteen years before their contributions even begin to offset the mounting costs I’ve already mentioned.

“The Fire Swords offered to care for whatever orphans that they were given. We did it to present a good, moral image to show others—a pleasant fiction to show the ignorant masses that we’re not all about savagery and profit. But we became too successful in that image, and it cost us, cutting into the profits from our other ventures. Fitting the orphans for combat was inevitable even before our client commissioned us to reopen the Ripperwulfs.”

Adalgisal fumed at how calmly and logically St. David was presenting his case, as if addressing a class somewhere. But he also knew St. David was a slippery one, and while he might be telling the partial truth, Adalgisal knew well that it wasn’t the whole story.

“It’s more than that,” Adalgisal fumed. “It costs not only to feed, clothe and teach them, but also to care for them when they are wounded. Hundreds of already damaged Ripperwulfs would be expensive. So, you get your precious data, and we don’t have to deal with the mounting costs of caring for our own wounded.”

“Exactly,” St. David said approvingly. “And we get a viable, valuable harbor port, which will become profitable once we’ve rebuilt the area—not to mention the payment for each fallen soldier that Pyriel so cleverly put into the contract. It’s a win-win all around.”

“Except for the boys themselves,” Adalgisal pointed out bitterly.

St. David shrugged. “There are always casualties in war. It’s unavoidable.”

“You are forgetting something.” Adalgisal lowered his weapon, thumbing the hammer and gently easing it forward to safe. “This kind of thing is going to get out. Our forces will not tolerate this. You think the troops—our troops—will let you live after this? They’ll tear you apart for what you did!”

St. David arranged his features into an expression of sorrow. “General Pyriel was too free with the artillery,” he said in a rote, memorized way, as if reading from a script. “The plan he enacted was NOT the one he had submitted and that we had approved. He acted on his own, a rogue element, independent of what we wanted. We were duped by him, and we are truly outraged by his actions and deeply saddened by the loss of innocent life. We will rebuke him for his actions, strongly, but will continue to retain his services with confidence that he will act more fittingly in service to us in the future.” He leaned back and smiled. “So, any further questions?”

Mischa Pyriel looked at the massacre with his usual impassiveness. He was sitting on a chair on the hill, overseeing the clean-up operations. He found the teams operating below to be plodding, unmotivated. Their inefficiency irritated him.

At his side was an ornate table, which resembled an end table that would sit beside some nobleman’s bed. Pyriel was using it as a desk. On its surface lay his writing paper and pen. In his mind, Pyriel was composing the after-action report he was required to submit.

When the Fire Swords were hired for protection, the standard Fire Sword contract demanded death benefits be paid for each fallen soldier. He had done the math in his head long ago, factoring in the cost of replacing war materials, armaments, and supplies. The combined benefits from three hundred casualties would make a very tidy profit alone.

The Fire Swords would reap much profit from this endeavor, far more than they would have if the Ripperwulfs had survived without casualties. If the town chose to default on its contracts, the Fire Swords would just take over and essentially own the entire town as another profitable holding. Just as Pyriel had planned.

He turned away for a moment to look at his desk and the still-blank papers. In his mind, the after-mission statements were already completed. He did not have the mind or heart to think of his benefactors as his superiors. He did feel a sense of obligation to them; after all, they had given him the means to work his mind. Tactics and strategies that had once played out as fantasy in his young mind could now be made reality. Lesser children could still only dream of anything similar to their armies of toy soldiers. So many real battles awaited him. He felt his pulse race in anticipation at the thought.

As an addendum to his report, he reminded himself to query more about the opposition he had just faced. There was much more to this foe than he was comfortable with.

Galen dared to look back to see what he was escaping from. He could still smell the smoke and hear the screams. And he knew that he would forever hear them in his sleep. His wounds still ached, but his bleeding had stopped.

But I am still alive, he kept thinking.

It would be another ten miles through thick forests and rough terrain before he was comfortable enough to rest and finally tend to his wounds. He knew he would never be trusted with another combat assignment. This one was too bloodied, and he was too prideful to accept a mere support role. One did not need to be physically maimed or crippled to be written off as a Dull Sword. Worse, some eventually totally snapped and became utterly useless. Those were branded the Broken Swords.

He knew that he had dulled but was not sure if he was truly broken. Yet, he did not want to return to find out. Just then, he sensed movement at a distance and turned to run some more, fully aware that this battle would never be far away from him.

The Ripperwulf division has remained part of the Fire Swords’ legacy and its sin. On one hand, the Fire Swords did a service by taking foundlings and orphans under its care and training them with various skills. In many cases, they grew into productive adults who have gone on to become merchants, sailors and even minor political figures. Very few would openly admit their pasts, but would not deny them if asked.

On the other hand, the program still produced child soldiers. While they were trained to be far more efficient than cannon fodder, the moral and ethical implications are still unsettling. The Ripperwulf division only made such young soldiers worse and the debate more rabid.

What few surviving Ripperwulfs remain out there have had trouble adjusting to civilian life. Some have been reported to have committed suicide or indulged in self-destructive acts. Self-inflicted cutting and other forms of bodily harms are not uncommon.

—The Fire Swords: A Critique

Epilogue

Three Months Later

For a long time, the boy, Galen, kept walking, heading west, towards something. He was never sure of his destination. He just wanted to be away, and he took the best direction he could find. He had heeded his instructor’s orders. The first week, he had kept to the forests, living off of native fruits and berries. He moved at a deliberate pace, careful not to exhaust or injure himself, but brisk enough to keep ahead of whatever scouts might be walking his way.

It would be another week before he dared to leave the forest and travel conventionally. He was able to wash himself and his uniform at a local stream, and he wore his shirt inside-out to hide his insignias. He had kept his hatchet hidden in his bag. An outsider passing by would have seen only an average boy—a quiet, unblinking boy, tired from too much walking. He sometimes hitched rides with passing merchants and caravans. All he had to do in exchange was menial work: loading and unloading precious freight and occasionally cooking and cleaning. Sometimes he was entrusted with caring for their horses, in which he had experience. For the most part, the horses were more trusting than the humans.

He was dependable, quiet, and kept to himself. The few who tried to talk to Galen found him mute and oddly unsettling in his silence. During what passed as leisure, Galen would eat his food, unable to taste it. He idled away long hours staring at nothingness, remembering faces and bodies.

Vexed by ghoulish nightmares, he woke at all hours, sometimes only managing a few hours’ rest. Some nights, his cheeks grew red and raw from tears. Those nights, the weary traveler spent taking that old knife out and deliberately drawing lines on his arms with it. The small lines of blood stood out against his skin, the blood and pain reminding him that he was still alive. He was alive. And he hated it. The blood trickled out, the pain bloomed, and he would somehow have just enough energy to live another day.

For the past week or so, he had been on his own. He had walked most of the way, pausing only to rest and feed. There were no caravans to travel with, and he was leery of visiting any towns and villages. His shot and powder had been expended days ago, making his flintlock pistol useless. Somehow, he could not bring himself to throw it away. The knife had dulled considerably, and he could not find a good enough stone to sharpen it with.

For food, he had set traps, but he was not a skilled trapper, and he no longer had the patience to stalk for his food. His focus was gone, and so there were days when he slept hungry. If not for the occasional brook of clean water, he would have become dehydrated long ago. He came across the occasional patch of edible berries, but they were not enough for him to subsist on. For now, he walked around lifeless, daze, a hollow hunger churning inside him. Finally, whatever reserved energies that had once kept him mobile were expended. His legs stopped moving, and he dropped to the ground. Lying still, he felt an odd sense of relief.

Unable to track time, he didn’t know how long he’d idled before he sensed movement nearby. Behind him, he heard the sounds of two beings walking towards him. Alarms went off in his head but were quickly silenced. He did not have the energy or the motivation for a confrontation. His body felt exhausted, his knife had dulled, and at this point his pistol seemed useful only as a club. His hatchet remained the only decent weapon he had left. But as far as endings went, he knew he had seen worse. He was not even sure where he was anymore.

The travelers saw Galen’s body lying there and the movement paused. He heard a gasp of breath.

“Oh, dear. Are you all right?” he heard someone ask. The voice sounded young and girlish.

He ignored it.

A long snout sniffed around him. He felt the rapid puffs of breaths brush against his arms and legs. It was probably a very large dog. It was not uncommon to see people traveling with a pet, as a companion and as a protector.

“Get away from him, you!” the girl admonished it. The snout retreated. But he could still feel the animal’s presence nearby, guarding.

“I’m going to help you up,” the girl said to him. Gentle hands gripped his arm and hoisted him up almost without effort. Bright lights exploded through his eyelids, and he cringed.

“I may have to carry you,” the girl said almost apologetically. In the next moment, he felt himself lifted over the small girl’s shoulders, carried as easily as if he were a rolled-up blanket.

This can’t be. His eyes opened briefly, and he saw the ground alarmingly close to his face. The girl was clearly very strong. He did not sense her struggling with his weight.

Is that a tail on the girl’s dress? He wondered. Must be some sort of local fashion, he thought.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself,” the girl said in a conversational tone. “My name is Jeanette, and I’m taking you home.”