The Fields of Fire

Chapter 14: Michael Branton

He was dreaming about her. Who else would he dream about? It was strange to him, a dream about dreaming. Him and her, lying together on the floor of a T-34 Scout aircraft, the only place on earth where they knew their Sargent would never find them. He never talked openly about their future, because it seemed so silly, but he tried to get it across. He couldn't help but imagine a cottage by the coast, he couldn't keep out the smell of burnt cookies he knew he'd fail to make properly, he was powerless to force away the possibility of having those brown eyes forever. In this dream he didn't want to wake up. He'd already done that before. He already woke up from those hazel eyes, from that deep brown hair, from a laugh that overpowered every sense of restraint in his body. He'd woken up from a girl who was bravery and courage shaped into the body of an angel. She was dead, but in that dream she was alive. So for the white ahead of his eyes he resisted, and for the feelings of her body diminishing to the ever potent cold he fought, until finally the sound of her breathing was gone, and he could only hear the howl of the northern wind.

He opened his eyes and saw the grey sky above him, a thin flurry of snow coming down on his nose. He couldn't hear any hustle and bustle of the wall, or the camp that he'd marched off to. He realized he had to move, he tried to roll himself onto his stomach but felt himself roll a lot farther than he thought he would. He caught himself on his hands. His fingers dug bitterly into the snow, before he summoned the coordination to look  to his left and see that he'd rolled off of a pile of bodies. Billind. He saw the Jolly Man's face wholly devoid of life. The memories of exactly what had happened previously had rushed back towards him.

He tried to pull himself to his feet, but he stumbled awkwardly backward onto the bodies of his dead fellow soldiers. He was still groggy, he wondered if it was the poison. He got up slower this time. Upon standing, he took stock of where he was. He could see the tents had been packed up, the fires had been put out, and the loghouse was utterly abandoned. They're attacking. He got up and bolted the way he thought that he'd came. He was running, as fast as he'd ever run before. Like a sprinter at the track. He stumbled and slipped across the newly fallen snow before he saw the path open up to the wall. He looked and he could see men in fur skins hiding behind trees waiting for their attacks. He ran out into the clearing between the wall and the trees and then he turned around, "WAIT! WAIT WAIT!" He could see the Tribesmen lowering their bows, he turned to the wall and shouted as loud as he could, "Don't shooot! Don't shoot!" He saw the glint of stainless steel against snow filtered sunlight as the soldiers lowered their rifles.

He could see the man with a beard step out onto to the area of cleared trees beneath the wall. He had a bear skull ontop of his head, and was covered in a fur hide, cradling an Alzcan assault rifle in his arm. The woman with a bow quickly stepped up next to him. She had two and a half wolf skulls on her shoulder, and a crows feather behind her ear. She lifted her bow, "You're dead."

He threw up his hands, "That seems to be a pretty popular theme these days, but I'd really prefer it if I weren't."

The bearded manned turned to her, "Kill him right this time."

She shook her head, "I already did. I put a poison arrow in him."

"Maybe you missed."

"I didn't miss, I saw it draw blood"

"Well than how is he still alive?"

"I don't know."

"You probably missed"

She shook her head, "I put an arrow with enough poison to kill a giant into his calf, so I didn't miss. Now we can argue if it should have killed him, or you can give me the chance to kill him right this time."