Now nowhere here

The young man’s first victory opened a whole world of possibilities on his travels, no longer would he be at the mercy of the wicked army’s disposition, in an indefinite wait that drained his resources. He started moving consistently through the days, picking some few paths with an enemy or two. It soon evolved into always opting for a route with at least one enemy, then two, then four and so it kept going. A new feeling arose within him, completely alien to his essence, growing for each enemy that fell to his blade. What prevented the boy from being effective in combat was an overwhelming fear, to hurt and be hurt. All of his tutor lessons, and the academy’s as well, were carved in his body and soul, locked behind his self-preservation and compassion. That impulsive, destructive and intoxicating sensation purged his head into oblivion, along the little emotional stability he had.

He stopped counting the days, caring only for a way to satisfy his bloodlust, even if that meant risking his own survival. The zealous caution that guided him and his brothers to the barren had been buried in the past. Before he could notice…

-

His muscles started to fail him, they had reached its limit over the last days, too numb from painkillers and damaged to act swiftly. The boy no longer felt the vital energy flowing through his being, nor the cold of the dusk or the heat of the night fire. He could only feel his fieriest feelings.

-

…Time had lost its meaning.

“Sloppy footwork, Dumbass!”, an energetic voice echoed in his head.

The boy regained his balance after evading a glaive thrust. He faced a skeletal ghoul, thin in flesh, bearing a single shield for its protection, the first of an upcoming gauntlet heading to his way. After a second strike, the human slashed the shaft of his opponent’s weapon and sprinted to close the distance, finishing it with a cleave on the ghoul’s neck, chopping slightly over his foe’s spine.

“No, Rookie! Swing with all of your body!”, the voice exclaimed.

“I know!”, he responded in irritation while he kicked the corpse to free his axe.

Two more came afterwards, a mauler and a dry-flesh bearing a pike. A violent hammer swing came for him, preventing him from repositioning. It was blocked by a metal buckler, but the impact traveled up to his shoulder. The pike immediately followed, rising to meet his neck. He aggressively leaped forward, stopping the lethal strike by forcing his chestplate into the tip, causing the attacker to stagger.

“Shields are weapons too, boy. You can pack a hell of a punch with them.”, bragged the rowdy voice.

The boy’s temper roughened further. He matched the next swing of the mauler with a direct shield bash, strong enough to twist the undead’s arm backwards and continued with a shield punch right at its ribcage, demolishing its core.

“Their tools are ours to use”, a raspier voice spoke.

His other opponent took a single step back in response but remained in effective range. The human approached without hesitation, dodging most of the defensive stabs of his opponent as a few grazed his skin. In a direct sequence, he dropped his arms and grabbed the pike using both hands, initiating a tug of war with the creature. The ghoul tried to hold its ground while the boy twisted the weapon to take control. After a short wrestle, the spear parted in two. The human bolted forward with the wreck in hand and pierced his opponent’s neck with its own blade.

“Very clever, young one”, it continued.

A musketeer challenged him next, entering combat a nimble lunge before the human could rearm. The boy retreated as he tried to fetch the pickaxe and hammer on his back. He used the tool to deflect the incoming barrage, spinning the head of the pickaxe left and right as the attacks continued. At the first chance, he changed his approach to press the enemy. The ghoul punctured his right shoulder during the advance just to be taken out by a hammer uppercut at its jaw.

“Mind your safety, young one”.

“Shut up!”, he responded.

“Ruuuuuude”

His blood boiled with each sentence. Next, a left-handed ghoul bearing an axe approached him. It landed a powerful blow at the boy’s right arm as he tried to defend, fracturing his bone on the spot. All of his wounds reverberated along it. The human lost some of his strength, opting to use his other arm instead, neutralizing the undead with a decisive pickaxe blow at the side of the skull.

“Precision, my pupil, is the key.”

“We’ve got to keep fighting”, spoke the elder’s voice.

A second swordsman arrived, moving a saber in a seamless flow of slashes onward. The boy grabbed his pickaxe by the flat end and held it as a protective baton, interrupting the ghoul’s onslaught within seconds. It fell to two hammer hits at its neck.

“Bwahahahahaha. This is the kind of creativity we need here.”

One more spearman appeared. It stabbed the boy’s right thigh. Down by a pickaxe hit at its forehead.

“You have it in you, Rookie.”

“I have great expectations for you, soldier.”

Axeman. Superficial slash at his waist. Disarmed, subjugated, head pulled out.

“Way to go, apprentice!”

“STOP!”

:At some point the collectors started growing again. They had been shrinking since he left the chasm region, staying at the same size every now and then, but never reverting to a larger form. He had steered back into the barren without knowing. He wanted to return to the Knight’s standard, or find the two soldiers that he saved from the wicked, just to have something to tie him back to the present. It was impossible to hide such a massive object in plain sight and yet even that place had been lost beyond where and when. Those thoughts barely disturbed him as he was far too mentally exhausted to be concerned with anything.

-

He continued on his journey in the barren, straying away further from the goal with each combat. Eventually, he found a Knight standard at the top of a plateau, it was the first since his unit left the desert. These landmarks were as simple as they could, a single towering mast with a frazzled flag tied at the top. They were used by the Knightly Order, as a guide on their faring, ensuring a precise and safe route within the enemy territory. Knights were a separate group independent of the human settlements, their role was to mediate affairs and transport supplies, sometimes people as well, over the demon lands. They were somewhat common in the desert, being one of the reasons he managed to find their way home back in the first expedition. Armies were forbidden from approaching them, as to avoid drawing enemies to the banners.

Being exposed to a man-made construction brought him back to a moment of lucidity. Perhaps the Order could return him home. There wasn’t a single wicked within his sight for them to ever complain. It was a single man, not an army, any person would understand the unusual nature of his circumstances and why he chose to trespass.

The pole was just a short stroll far from him. It was a plain pole so tall it disappeared in the sky when observed from below, a gigantic artifact completely isolated in the middle of nowhere. A thin block of paper was nailed to it, slightly above his eyesight, containing the last entries of an activity log.

“You should mind your own business, Rookie.”

Identification, Date, Content, Route, Destination

HTSHQ5487, Ennealuna 14th, Provisions, D-G8:B-C2, Headquarters

STSSF1304, Decaluna 13th , Food and medicine, B-C2:D-G8, Fellenesh

STSHQ3301, Alefluna 11th , Ivory, D-H7:B-A3, Headquarters

HTSHQ5521, Alefluna 13rd, Provisions, D-G8:B-B2, Headquarters

STSSF1307, Betaluna 10th, Food, water, wood and ivory, B-C2:D-F9, Fellenesh

HTSHQ5549, Cammaluna 12th, Provisions, D-G8:B-B2, Headquarters

STSSF1309, Monoluna 12th , General supplies, B-C2:D-G8, Fellenesh

The boy didn’t knew the exact date at the moment but he knew he remembered when his companions turned. It was around the tenth day of the eleventh moon, at least a full moon has passed according to the document. It could take up to another cycle for the next shipment to return, but to the foreign place that was their headquarters. Only the Order and their members knew where it was located in order to protect it against fiends and greedy humans alike, as they are the only ones that can provide basic goods to human settlements with an unwavering consistency. Some believe it exists in a distant land of green uncharted by demons, and that they may be growing their own food and supplies. It was unthinkable to expect them to take him over.

“Dammit”

His feet kicked the pole in frustration with all his strength, once, twice, trice, repeating it until he was satisfied, or up to the point that the pain made him walk away.

-

…He would never leave these cursed lands alive.

The wicked kept coming, each new contender slowly wearing out the boy along the voices that tormented his mind. Anger took control, bringing the worst of him to the surface. It forced the boy to attack aimlessly whichever moving being presented that itself in front of him. As soon as his latest victim fell, he readied himself to terminate the next. Within a minute or two, there was no one left. The boy stood still, searching nearby for any enemy, for who knows how long, only to be greeted by quietude. Not even the voices disturbed him. It was finally over. The beacon appeared before him…

-

He parted to the nearest height as soon as he could, trying to win the race against tiredness and misery. The boy sat atop the boulder and fetched many of the cloth stripes in his carrier that were once part of his mantle to patch himself up.

“Let’s call it a day.”

“Enough!”

“I don’t want my men to be worthless in the battlefield.”

“I said enough! You don’t tell me what to do!”

“You shouldn’t hurry to grow up, boy.”

“BEGONE! ALL OF YOU!”, he snapped as he stood up, “I’m tired of this! Stop talking to me! Haven’t you abandoned me? Haven’t you abandoned humanity? None of you have to deal with this anymore. You chose an easy way out. To surrender your life to our enemies. So why do you care? Why can’t you leave me alone? A lot of talking from people that don’t even have the guts to show up. I’m working my ass out here! Putting my life on the line! And you? Tell me. Tell me that any of you could last as long as I have. That none of you would give up by now, knowing that no one would come for your rescue.”, he continued to lash out as he waited for the voices to reply, “No? You can’t do it ‘cause no matter what you do, no matter what you say, it won’t fix what happened. And for what? The three of you were just a bunch of cowards? The people I admired couldn’t stand the weight of reality, is that it? Just that? The one thing that crushes us all was too much for you to handle? And you expected me to join in? Of course not, that’s why none of you told me. You knew I would stand my ground regardless of the consequences. And guess what? I’m still here. Doing what none of you could. Alone.”

-

These endless monologue became a routine. Each unanswered question and moment of silence further inflamed his rage. It was pointless. All of it. After all, his wrath was directed to a place and people that no longer existed, yet they were the only brakes left to resist his recklessness. It only came to a conclusion once his body reminded him of the aftermath of his latest battle. He indulged himself in a centipede later that night, just as he had been doing recently. They had become the foundation of his diet, at least once a day, always present at the dinner.

-

For a while, his only guidance was the presence, or rather absence, of the wicked that guarded the land, ever less common with each passing day. If he were at his usual self, he would have noticed the good fortune that this irony brought him but no, he continued to slay them indiscriminately. Occasionally he realized that the trees and rocks had become a rarity in the horizon. That was the usual sign that one was nearing the frontier. Once in the desert, he wouldn’t be able to find resources as easily as he had. It was wiser to take precautions and stock the whole carrier before the crossing.

His current landscape was as dull as it could be, with its only remarkable element being a tree about an extensive walk away from his current position, not a single wicked or even rocks. His constitution felt heavy since who knows when, a natural reaction to the excessive amount of injuries he collected in his warring enterprise. The taste of centipede was abominable for the boy’s palate, so much he almost barfed it out the first two times he ate them. Only after three attempts, he tried to cook its meat, making it hardly bearable to eat in a single sitting.

“Hell! This thing is disgusting anyway you try it. How do people even eat this crap?”, the boy complained after a large bite.

“You’re too young for these, kiddo. Wait till your next sun.”

It wasn’t much of a choice, either he consumed them for their anesthetic property or he would be forced into recovery for an undetermined amount of time. Later he would learn that the heat reduced its effectiveness, turning to eat them raw ever since.

-

The boy tried to find himself amidst the vastness of the barren. He returned his approach to observe using the pillars. Usually the surroundings were clear, with only one or two active wicked at far distance, and a couple remains of a ghoul in between. Ultimately he turned his gaze to the ground that he stood, at top of the rock, where blurry stains of soot lingered.

-

…Where began to drift. More often than not, the boy found himself at places that felt slightly familiar. Neither him or the voices could recollect when his surroundings lost their character. In the sparse intervals of his outbursts, the boy questioned if that’s how the other soldiers felt when they surveyed, prior to him taking the role, and if that was the reason they struggled with the task. Those memories awakened his wrath, distancing him even more from the present.

-

Sounds afar caught his attention. He could not discern if they were men, wicked or both, nor care about it. Being something other than him was enough since…

-

Never once had he considered the possibility of getting lost. No matter how similar his surroundings were, there was always a way to discern them, be it by a discrete shape or a monumental object such as the Order’s flat he saw in a distant yesterday, or the constellations in the night sky and yet, he had no idea where he could be.

“So here is where we meet our fate?”, resonated the old voice in the boy’s mind.

“Shut up! I’m not done”, the boy replied.

“My naive pupil. Pick fights you can win. This is more than what you can chew.”

“I can do this!”

“Sometimes you just can’t win, boy.”

“I won’t! I can’t! I WON’T DIE! NOT! HERE!”

Where was next? And before? When were those? He couldn’t, not with his mind scattered as it was. If only the boy retraced his steps back, tying the chronology of events shrouded by his disorientation back into cohesion, he could be able to find his whereabouts once more. All it takes is a foreign element that can beacon him back in here and now. Maybe, just maybe, it can destroy the illusion that…