The Vow

Written By Big P

“I vow that I shall slay him.”
Koines stood up from where he knelt, the now dull knife which he had used for a chisel in his hand. Looking at the stone upon which he carved this ritual vow, he mouthed a silent prayer. He did not know to which God he prayed, just that he sought guidance from some higher power. Guidance, or, perhaps, salvation.
This was to be his last day.
A soft, playful voice rocked Koines from his praying, that of his boyhood friend, Macar. A talented Mage, supposedly, though Koines did not have much to compare him with.
“What was that, brother?” Koines said, turning around with a face tinged by contained annoyance.
“I had asked what you vowed.” Macar smiled at his comrade, jogging a bit to reach him.
Koines gestured to the rock, which jutted out from the mountain shrubs much like the mighty mountains around them rose above the pass.
“‘I vow that I shall slay him’. Hm. Who’s him?” The other man’s speech was marked by slight confusion, as it so often was.
“The Prophet, you dolt.”
“Ah! Right! I don’t suppose it's too hard. I heard he’s short, Koin. Short and scrawny, like most clerics. Old now, as well. One good shot from that fancy crossbow of yours, and it’ll all be over! His heart may very well give out as he sees you aim!”
Macar laughed heartily. Koines did not. He could not, not anymore. Not since he watched, just two days ago, as men he had known for years fell by the hundreds in a melee that shook the mountains. Not since he and the few remaining men loyal to Aurelia had been forced into the mountain pass that would no doubt serve as their graves. The worst part of it was the singing. As they camped, as they marched, as they killed, the Cultists sang. They were slow songs with lyrics that could not be heard over the din of the battle, but Koines could always make out one word: Mercy.
Ironic then, that not one of his comrades was taken prisoner.
Koines could not laugh, nor did he understand why the Mage could. As the two men spoke, snow began to gently float down onto the myriad of campfires that dotted the area. Around each, groups of four or five men sat, clad in their mail armor, all desperately trying to keep warm. The prevailing opinion among the men was that those who praised the medical impacts of mountain air only visited during the Summer months. Gods be praised, the Winter thus far had been warmer than usual, but being stuck up in the rocks was no picnic indeed, and the falling snow threatened an end to the warm spell.
It did not matter either way, as Koines saw it. The men, gathered around the campfires in their cold metal dressings, would not see another day.
“Ahem!”
Koines wheeled back to Macar, the frown of a thinker still on his face.
“I’m sorry?”
“You went quiet again. You have done that much recently. Why is that?” Confusion had wormed its way into Macar’s voice again. This time, it arrived with concern.
“Is it not obvious?”
“If we die, we die. Our names will be known in the history books as they who stood against the Cult and its lies and its ravagings. Macar Aetion! Koines Mulius! The men who fought on the mountain!”
“You believe we will win, then?”
Macar’s smile faded slightly, but refused to leave his face.
“No. Not at all. I said we will fight on the mountains, comrade, not that we will win on them. I know I will die. Chances are, you will too. But that is how it will be. In the meantime, you should laugh a bit. Stop being so quiet. I don’t want my last thoughts to be of what a bore you’ve been lately.”
The Mage clapped his old friend on the back and walked off to attend to something Koines could never guess at. His bones aching with cold, the young man kneeled to pick up his crossbow, feeling its woody weight in his hands. The son of a priest (not a Cultist one, mind you, but one of the Imperial Rites), Koines was of a slight build and unused to physical labor. While the other boys wrestled and boxed, Koines read in his father’s study. Naturally, this made him quite unsuited to the blade, but he never had expected to become a soldier. Nor did he expect his village to be razed by a marauding army of Cultists.
For want of any muscles on his body, Koines was given a crossbow, with various devices attached to it further easing the draw. Every day, after the Imperial’s flight into the Arys Mountains, the oncoming winter wind on their backs, Koines had trained himself. The books and scrolls he so loved fell out of his mind, and while the priest’s son had always been somewhat misanthropic, this sentiment had only deepened of late. Indeed, he spoke to almost no one.
Aside from the commanders, when they asked for him. And Macar.
He rather enjoyed speaking with Macar.
Koines brushed a dozen or so flakes of snow from the wooden body of his weapon, most of them melting at his touch, as he considered Macar’s words to him. The mountains around them were beautiful, maybe. Just as he lacked appreciation for physical activity, Koines lacked appreciation for art. This included the great tapestry that was Creation. On almost all sides around him, great peaks rose up, blanked by green conifers, tied together by bare walls of rock and dirt, topped with a coating of cotton-ball clouds. Despite the base, earthen colors of which they were made, the Arys inspired a sense of majesty among most of the men. A sense that they were small, ever so small, a sense no doubt deepened by the mortality everyone was feeling.
Behind them, the canyon thinned out sharply, nearly ending right there and then. Before them, it opened in a way quite similar to that of a whale’s tail, and while the Cultists would have to hike up to get to them, all the Imperial soldiers knew that it was hardly a bothersome incline and that they themselves were trapped. This position was not one found by tactical planning and the neurotic study of maps, no. It was one that, while trying to delay their end for just a day more, the battered Imperial force stumbled into. The Cultists, of course, were all too happy to prod them in the right direction.
Koines could see them below. A mass, an organism in itself, of steel and zealotry. As best as he could count, there were eight campfires for every one his comrades had lit. Gods only knew how many men that symbolized. A little under or over a mile stood between the two camps, and Koines knew well that he would have been killed yesterday if the Prophet saw what little remained of Aurelia, boxed in and starving within the pass, as any threat at all. Quite quickly, the misanthropy that speaking with Macar had always dispelled returned to Koines’ heart, especially as he looked upon the massive banners the marauders carried with them, each emblazoned with a uniquely mad litany. The priest’s son could not help his mouth from turning up in disgust at the sight, or rather, the thought that any thinking being would be so zealous and ignorant so as to stitch the ramblings of an egotistical lunatic onto 50 feet of thread.
Koines still dwelt on this thought as the singing started.
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Macar tightened his caligae around his feet quickly, the threads slick in his sweaty, carob-colored hands. Hardly anything could be heard around him as a thousand men scrambled for their arms, said last goodbyes, and prayed to their Gods.
Koines was right. This was to be their last day. But Macar would not go down silently.
Rising up from his bent position, he took notice of a group of men coming towards him. His warriors. His brothers. Nestor Trogus, Cylon Sellic, Stratios Decmus, and Antagoras Horatius. Every one of these men he had known since his time in the Tarracina Town Guard. The only ones to have survived this long, as well. Unwilling to dwell on this thought too long, Macar smiled at his men and embraced each of their hands in his before being compelled to say something, anything.
“Stay with each other. I don’t want any of us to die alone.”
Macar smiled, half-meaning it as a joke, but he knew in his heart he was dead serious.
The other men did not seem to get the attempt at humor.
Wordlessly, Cylon handed the Mage his Chalcidian helmet. Nervously chuckling that he would forget such an important piece of kit, especially now, Macar fitted it over his miniature topknot. The sweat continued to pour down, staining his tunic and causing his armor to glisten ever so slightly, but his companions did not seem to notice.
All the better. He could show no fear to these men.
“We must form up, Macar. All the other men are getting into their battle lines.” It was Stratios who spoke, his brass baritone known well to the Mage.
“I just need a minute. Form up without me, I’ll be back.”
After nodding to his warriors, Macar trod off until he caught sight of him. The skinny arbalist who had never held a weapon of war in his hands prior to the last two years, when war came to their village. Macar was not an intelligent man, and he knew it. But he knew that some were just not made for war. They were made to write, or to sing, or to pray. Even after all these years, Macar did not quite know what Koines was made for. He was always guarded like that. An infuriating habit for the ever amiable soldier, but even still, Koines’ melodic voice (an ironic trait for someone who refused to sing), made every word something to look forward to.
It was the only thing that made Macar think about surviving this battle, impossible as such a thing was, and Macar hated him for it.
Not truly, though.
Koines caught Macar’s eye first and turned to him with a frown.
“You should be marching.”
“But I am here, friend.”
“So you are.”
“Do you remember that first night?” Macar’s words came out in a rush of breath, his nerves getting the better of him.
“Pardon?”

“Right after the village was razed. You and I and the Town Guard and whoever else got away. We ran into the woods. Everyone was sobbing. I was sobbing. You were silent. Why was that?”
Koines’ frown did not leave his face.
“I was thinking. About what comes next.”

“You are always thinking. But surely you know nothing comes next. This is the end!” Macar raised his voice, shouting in Koines’ face. He was not sure what came over him, but it washed back out as soon as it thundered in. “I-are you afraid?
Macar found that he could no longer meet his friend’s eye.
“No. Yes. I don’t know. For all my thinking, I don’t know anything of death, aside from that I will meet Him soon. I just want to lay down and die now, really. Truthfully. So, I suppose I am not scared of death. I have thought of it too much to be scared of it. I’m scared of the dying.”
“I am terrified of the whole part.” At this, Koines smiled. Then, he laughed. A bird’s laugh, a tweet really. And it made Macar laugh too.
“Fulfill your vow, Koines. The Gods won’t like it if you don’t.”
Regaining a bit of his courage, Macar looked back into Koines’ eyes. He lingered there for a moment, before smiling, embracing his friend, and then marching out before he could feel the sting.
It had just begun to hurt as Koines called out to the retreating figure.
“Macar! You never told me your vow!”
The soldier did not answer the priest’s son. What was the use of making a vow when all you wanted to do was impossible?
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Macar could see them. That mass of bodies, a terrible intermixing of traitorous soldiers and particularly zealous farmers who wore nothing but their field clothes, carried nothing but a woodcutting ax, and thought of nothing but service to their snake-oil Prophet.
Were Macar not standing in the front of the battle line, he would be reminded of the fact that many in their own band looked very similar to the enemy just mentioned.
In his right hand, the soldier carried a gladius well worn by time. In his other, nothing. No shield, javelin, or anything of that sort, things his comrades carried with them now. But, on a battlefield, a free hand is perhaps the most dangerous of all. Nervously, Macar snapped with that hand in an almost mechanical cycle, causing a spark of flame to erupt, and then putting it out as his fist closed.
“You’re making me nervous, Macar.” Nestor spoke suddenly, breaking a silence only known to soldiers awaiting a charge.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Nestor nodded once, and the line went silent again.
Within ten minutes, the idea of silence became mythological.
The heroism of a battle is so often mentioned, and after his fair share of battles, Macar indeed fancied himself a hero. One that would not show fear to his comrades, one who would put his life on the line for anyone, and one who fought like a dragon no matter what he was faced with.
Truthfully, Macar was terrified and inches from soiling his tunic even more. He wanted nothing more desperately than to live, but even then, he showed no fear.
That terrible sound of metal probing into meat repeated over and over again in his ears as the Mage desperately stabbed into the torso of a Cultist who was now dead thirteen times over. Hearing someone or something shout behind him, Macar wheeled around, flame erupting from his palm to burn and bubble the flesh off of a nameless soldier.
Another kill, but one gained too late to save Nestor from the burning man’s blade.
Hardly noticing as the man he had known since first becoming a soldier fell, Macar turned again to clash blades with another challenger in this frenzied melee. The Cultist wore no helmet, so between his swings and blocks, Macar could not help from glancing at the man’s face. He was older, with a full, greying beard. A scar sat across his forehead, and his eyes were the brown of old mud. Around his neck, the man wore an iron Triskelion pendant.
As the Cultist tried to murder Macar and not be murdered in turn, he whispered the lyrics of a hymn.
Blade met blade once, twice, and then seven times before Macar tired of it. He did not want to look at this man’s face any longer. A face that desperately wanted to kill. A face that desperately wanted to live. Whispering an apology he felt was needed, Macar whirled his left hand and magicked the triskelion the man wore around his neck into a pointed dagger. Within five seconds, it was shot up and embedded into the Cultist’s brain.
Were he not worrying about far more important things, the Mage may have noticed the symbolism here, but instead, right behind him, he noticed another scream. Not unusual, but this one began as a familiar baritone before rising to the most haunting of sopranos.
Macar called out something, but it was drowned in the din of battle. He would have seen something, but he was blinded by the light of a thousand suns. Stratios was dead even before Macar heard him scream, followed soon by Antagoras, who did not even get to scream before his death. As Macar turned, so to did Cylon, who earned an ax to the back of his head. A mercy compared to what would have happened.
Blinded and deafened by the battle, the only thing Macar felt was his armor being welded to his skin, but for only a fraction of a second. Afterward, there was not even ash where his midsection once was.
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It was the most beautiful thing Koines had ever seen.
A beam of divinely white light, its edges made of a slight rainbow tint, was all that Koines could look at. He lowered his crossbow slowly, enraptured by the sight. The priest’s son was never one for natural beauty, but this beauty was not natural in the slightest.
But then the beam dissipated, and Koines looked to the man on the white horse.
As he did, unnoticed by all, what remained of Macar fell to the ground.
Koines knew at once it was the Prophet. But he was nothing that he was described as. Even when mounted on his steed, the Prophet was noticeably tall, his stature not at all being bound by age. He wore no helmet, exposing his auburn skin to the sun, as well as his short, black beard.
He was beautiful. He glowed with the divine.
But Koines hated him, for how could one not hate the man who was going to kill him?
Hesitating ever so slightly, Koines raised his crossbow up again. It felt heavy, just like the time he first held it in his hands. This feeling brought back memories of Macar. Where was he now? Koines knew the answer that, he truthfully and deeply did, but not even he was willing to follow that train of thought.
But it happened anyway.
He had known he was to die at the end of a blade since Tarracina was burned to the ground, but he could not escape the idea that everything was worse now. Macar was dead, his best and only friend. The light that shone on the mountains.
His was a true light, not like that of the Prophet’s. The light of Macar allowed life to flourish. The light of the Prophet turned good men into smoky whisps.
Koines felt numb all over.
And still felt nothing when he loosed an arrow.