Waiting for Spring - Part I

Chapter Fourteen

Winter is here. Commander Nathaniel is dead. The arrow wound in his leg never healed. Even the herbalist retched when he removed the bandages, or so rumours have it. Marker is on his way from Adelaid and Theron have the command until his arrival. He won't wait for the new man he says. The boat is off on the morrow, an old fishing galley. Theron believes we will make it through the Thousand Isles.

The others are not as sure, they talk of mutiny. The Windsor Special Forces are not mutineers. The morale is just low. They give us food, but with each passing village they all stop believing. Mass graves and children nothing but skin and bones. Theron thinks we can end this at the Keep, but I am unsure we will ever get there. I guess I will know when morning comes.

-Excerpt from Patricia of Lillyfield's journal, Windsor.

"An eye for an eye they say, a life for a life. Who am I to judge the inept system of justice? Who am I to take the very law to my blade?

I once had a sister. Her name was Katarina. Heaven's eyes she had, tawny curls of her hair resting on her shoulders. It's strange how family can mean so much to someone when you have nothing left. I never even met my parents, they died they said, passed away after I was born. Katarina had always been like a mother to me when I was young, always been there to take care of me, even though she wasn't much older.

Miracles happen they say, despite who we are. Even the butcher of men can have luck and even the newly wedded woman can have misfortune. We lived in a small house; it was something I had earned through all my years of not being home. The demands of a soldier are hardship and pain, though it's nothing easily earned.

Women should not handle money they say, despite that, my sister did. A local tavern owner hired her as a waitress until he realised what skills she possessed.

We loved each other, we promised we would stay together forever, to never move away and to never get married.

My merciless captain had no wife, no children. His family was dead. He often told me how we two were alike. Captain Marker had always kept an eye on her, Katarina that is. He even proposed to her once. I thought the laughing would never stop that night, that night when she told me. Somewhat I felt sorry for him, the proud man rejected by his subordinated soldier's sister.

One day I got a letter, an emergency calling. They needed elite soldiers for a recon mission to the west. To serve the Windsor banner was my duty, my sworn oath. My sister knew I would come back, no hard feelings, no goodbyes, only an endless embrace of her arms that felt like serenity washing over me. Yet the barracks was empty, soulless. I waited for an hour, but none showed. The rain outside poured down on the streets as I walked back home, wondering, cogitating. You know that feeling, the feeling that tells you that something has gone horribly wrong, yet you do not know what. Like scars on your hearth they itch, sting you like bees.

You get used to it, the killing, and the sight of death. It was different now however, to see the greatest part of your life lay dead before you, raped and sundered. The worst part was not to see her cold body in my arms or the tears in the aftermath it was simply the regret. All was my fault, I brought this on her and now I can never forgive myself. Forever alone I am doomed.

It did not take long before I found the guilty one. Marker was not my commander or friend when he lay on the bloody table in my dark basement. I have never seen a man cry so much. He didn't deserve a quick death. He didn't deserve death at all. Eternal suffering awaited him or so I told myself as I poured salt in the wounds I had carved into his skin.

They call it justice, to throw a man into a large arena, and make him fight an evil he cannot win against. I still remember the faces on the balconies far above, the king and his son, all the nobles, my former comrades. I do not longer know what it took to survive, how I managed to save my soul that day. Perhaps it was determination, regret or justice. It changed me and soon after, I realized that my torture was just another part of an evil wheel of injustice. My actions blurred my mind. My time in the cell gave me plenty of time to think about what I had done.