Part Eighteen

       Hideoshi sloughed through the snowdrifts until he was wading beside Sergeant Degmah, tilting his head down to keep the snowflakes from blinding him. Puffing white breath into the snow flurry, Sergeant Degmah coughed.
        "Are the men alright?"
        "They're fine, I suppose."
        The sergeant squinted.
        "Suppose. Alright. Do you suppose you could
lead the main body of Third Company once we attack Kolov?"
        Hideoshi barely shook himself awake.
       "Well, you're gonna. I'll be directing things from the rear."
                 Of course he is!
Shoving his hands deeper under his armpits, Hideoshi huffed as he ploughed on through the snow, the blizzard without melting into a flurry of images within.
               "Degmah, help us catch the sheep!" Cried two boys as they darted across the alpine meadow.
"I'm counting the sheep so that our papas can know how many we can take to market."
       "You just don't wanna help!"
       "Counting sheep is helping, Hideoshi!"...
...Hideoshi spat.
       Of all people, he had to be my sergeant?

Part Seventeen

        As Hideoshi's eyelids drooped, his attention turned from Nevsky to forcing himself to stay awake, tossing his head and pinching his arms. But as a frigid burst shot through the passageway, his eyes widened, and his folded arms contracted.
       He glanced at Takashi, shivering, then at Nevsky. Still the same oblivious stare.
      He's right. We're probably gonna die-on a stupid mission.
      The blackness of the passageway faded to dark greyness flecked with white as the Third Company sunk into the snowdrifts outside. Behind, a sheer cliff. Before, whirling snow in the grey night.
      Great. All we've got to do is find a big, black thing in a blizzard at night.
      "Hideoshi!" Called Galen, shoving through soldiers until he caught sight of Hideoshi, "Sergeant Degmah wants you at the front of the column, since you're more experienced."
       Of course.
       "Sure thing, Galen."
       As he plodded forward through the snow, he took another look at Takashi and Nevsky. Takashi's eyes darted about as he rubbed his elbows, but Nevsky's eyes never moved as he tramped.
       Why do I even care?
       
      
      

Part Sixteen

Hideoshi tapped Nevsky on the shoulder, causing him to jolt.
"You scared me!" He hissed.
"Didn't mean to. Look at the walls."
Nevsky looked absently, then with attention, at the wall of the passageway.
"I see now," he whispered. "Some of the paint's chipped and flaking, though."
"Probably the dampness did that," replied Hideoshi.
"We've been tramping for hours!" Galen interjected.
For a long while the passageway led the Third Company steadily downwards, neither levelling out flat nor diverting in any other direction. Suddenly, out of the darkness the shape of a vast door, outlined by flickering torchlight stood gaping before them. The ground beneath their feet just as abruptly levelled out, transitioning from stairs to a smooth stone floor.
"Follow me," said Illari, whose shrill voice faintly resonated throughout the passageway, as he tiptoed through the door, bearing a lighted torch in his hand.
When Hideoshi and his companions passed through the door, they gasped. The room behind the door was vast, with a vaulted ceiling supported by colums arching far above their heads. Gigantic paintings of an ancient battle outlined in gold and silver were on the four walls of the room. Three vaulted doors stood before and beside the company.
"Boy! Which way!" Shouted the officers and the sergeants at Illari, who was gazing with upturned head at the magnificence surrounding him.
Illari started, then dashed towards the door on the left, his bare feet pattering across the stone floor. The members of the Third Company followed, many frustrated with the length of time they had travelled through the passages, to say nothing of their mission itself.
"I don't understand why," Galen muttered as he shuffled alongside Hideoshi, "why those Fairies said they want to fight evil, then they turn right around and say 'Oh, we'll just care for the sick and wounded'. Sound like inconsistent wimps that don't know what they're up to me."
"I'm not sure about that, but why didn't any Fairies go on this mission with us?" Takashi asked, glancing at his older brother. After several moments of silence, he turned to Nevsky, asking, "What do you think?"
Neither looking to the right or to the left, his eyes glazed in a blank stare, Nevsky said, "What of it?"
"What do you mean, 'What of it'? Do you want to get killed on a stupid, useless, wasteful mission?"
"We're all going to die anyway-I don't see why it should matter how."
Nevsky stiffened his jaw and his face paled, but no other reaction occurred as they tramped through the passageway.
"Why did I ever bother helping him?" Hideoshi pondered. "Now he's just as bad as if I'd done nothing. Nothing! He's hopeless!"
He took a quick glance through the corner of his eye at Nevsky. Nevsky marched as though oblivious to all, as though he were nothing more than a mere walking machine. At once revulsion, frustration, and pity seized Hideoshi at once, each attempting to dominate his will.
"What should I do?" His mind said.

Part Fifteen

"Sir," said Hideoshi, straitened himself as he addressed Sergeant Degmah, "we're on our way."
"Why the halt?" Sergeant Degmah demanded, folding his arms as he glared at Hideoshi.
"This boy knows another way down to the bottom of the plateau, sir."
"But he's a Valashian! Might be a trap!"
"Most of the soldiers here can't climb down a cliff, even if ordered to, sir."
"What of it? It's orders!" Said Sergeant Degmah. But lowering his eyes, he muttered to himself, "I don't enjoy thinking about that climb myself."
He raised his eyes to Hideoshi again, pulled at his beard, then ordered loudly," Halt, everyone! Wait for further instruction!"
After announcing this, Sergeant Degmah trudged off towards the tower in the center of Valash.
"I'm freezing! Why didn't you tell us about this other way back inside, Illari?" Galen moaned while stomping his feet and rubbing his hands.
Hideoshi looked around him. Most of the soldiers of the Third Company were moving about in a futile attempt to warm themselves while chatting, including his brother Takashi. Nevsky, however, stood still and aloof. His arms were folded tightly, his pale lips were pressed together firmly, and his glazed eyes stared into nothingness. Only his brown hair fluttered feebly in the icy wind.
"What's up with him now?" Thought Hideoshi.
"Nevsky!" Called out Hideoshi. But Nevsky remained unmoved, frozen as ice, without even the slightest flicker of an eye.
"Nevsky!"
No response.
Suddenly, Hideoshi understood, as clearly and sharply in his mind as an icicle is clear and sharp, Nevsky's lack of response, his bleak stare, his stiffened jaw.
"He still won't accept what happened," thought Hideoshi. "He refuses to face that he's by himself since his family's all dead, but he knows that he must-and he's petrified. He's built up a frozen fortress of ice around himself, his thoughts. A fortress that will shatter into thousands of bits that'll dissolve into nothingness upon the first hard blow."
Hideoshi slapped his tingling hands to prevent numbness, while staring at Nevsky.
"I don't know why, but I'll see if I can shake him out of this," he thought.
A slushing of snow caused him and the other soldiers of the Third Company to pause their thoughts and doing. Sergeant Degmah, red-faced and puffing his cheeks, waddled up to them, followed by several other officers. Then Sergeant Degmah halted, and rang out:
"Boy! Your secret way better lead us down to the plains 'cause if you're lyin'- you'll get it!"
"I'm not lyin'! Follow me!" Illari called shrilly, skipping blithely and waving his one arm, then marching off with a beaming face.
The soldiers of the Third Company began to march, following the officers and Illari's lead. Some shifted their packs on their backs, adjusting them for comfort and security, while others plodded with half-closed eyes and drooping shoulders. All soon fell into two uneven lines that wound through the streets of Valash before entering into the house that they slept in some nights before.
But this time, they entered the great doors directly across from the entrance, and descended the stairs that seemed to drop down into the ground directly in front of the doors. Down the smooth steps they tramped until they reached a passageway, while was lit with a pale, white light that streamed down from shafts. In the passageway were five doors, two behind the company, and the other three beside and before them. Illari dashed to the door on the left, reached for the handle with his one hand, and swung it open while dangling from the handle.
"You'll want lights," he said before striding into the darkness.
The subdued chatter that was present before subsided as echoes became prevalent, and the air grew thick and damp. Hideoshi, Nevsky, Takashi, and Galen stuck together during the gradual decent, though none of them spoke.
Hideoshi glanced about him, and, from the flickering orange lights, discerned that the walls were painted in vivid colours, such as red, green, purple, and yellow. At times he could make out figures-soldiers, trees, beasts, maidens- all on a dark blue background with gold stars, just like those painted on the vaulted ceiling in the house above.
"I wish I knew what the paintings were, what they mean, who made them, and why," Hideoshi thought.

Part Fourteen

"If we're both alive when this is over, I'll take you,".
replied Nevsky, staring half-dazed at Illari.
Hideoshi glanced at his companions, then motioned towards the heap of goods in a far corner of the hall.
"Let's get our stuff and go," he said.
Hideoshi, Nevsky, Takashi, and Galen shuffled over to the corner, and began to pick through the heap of sleeping bags and stuffed canvas bags to find their belongings. For a moment Illari stared after them, then crept back upstairs. Several other soldiers from the Third Company also dug through the heap, muttering various complaints.
"I don't understand why we had to get picked for this suicide mission!"
"We were supposed to git back home in the summer, and now it's dead of winter! We're just wastn' our time, gettn' killed for nuthin!"
"Five thousand reinforcements! Bah! Against a hundred thousand?"
"Hey, Hideoshi!" Called one after glancing up from a sack he was rummaging. "What do you think about this mission?"
Hideoshi's narrow eyes contracted together as he thought of a reply.
"How should I say this?" He mused, when words began to form themselves together in his mind, demanding to be spoken.
Hideoshi raised his eyes, and surveyed his companions.
"I don't mean to disrespect the generals, but this plan appears to be a waste of manpower, another desperate gamble to stave off defeat."
He sighed, hoisted up his canvas sack onto his shoulders, and continued, "But we've got to do it, anyhow."
The other soldiers finished packing in silence. Only the plodding and shuffling of feet echoed in the hall, as the soldiers of the Third Company began to depart to the western wall, which rose above the western edge of the plateau.
"How are we going to climb down?" Whispered Nevsky to Hideoshi as they stepped out into the tingling cold.
"Didn't they train you-" Hideoshi began to snap, when he realised the absurdity of what he was about to say.
"He-and many others-haven't been trained at all," thought Hideoshi. "They've just been snatched up from their homes, had a weapon thrust in their hands, and sent off to this chaos! A farmer from the Andre Swamps may be strong, but he's not trained in warfare. Not much, anyway."
"Can you climb at all?" He whispered back to Nevsky.
"I used to climb trees," Nevsky whispered.
A patter of feet, alternating between crunching on snow and slapping stone, sounded behind them. Hideoshi turned to look, and saw a boy, thin and pale, stumbling and bare footed, in pale brown bespattered coat that engulfed him, trailing them.
"Illari!"
"Let me show you the way! Let me show you!" Cried Illari, panting as he adjusted his draping coat with his one hand.
Galen narrowed his eyes and tilted his head slightly while asking, "What way?"
"There's a way down to the bottom, without climbing down. I've been there. I can show you. It's a secret."
Illari turned his face upwards towards the four. Hideoshi glanced around him, placed his hands upon his knees, bent down so that his face reached the level of Illari's, then spoke.
"Are you sure that it's secret?"
"Yes."
Illari rapidly withdrew his eyes from the piercing scrutiny of Hideoshi's dark green ones, and hung his head.
"It's true! I know! Will you believe me?" He said, suddenly clutching Nevsky's arm.
"You all are supposed to be moving! What's going on?" Shouted Sergeant Degmah as he stormed up to his men. His thin, almost transparent eyebrows twitched vigorously, his pale hair bristled, his cheeks puffed in and out, and his pale blue eyes appeared to have melted into their whites from the heat of his fury.

Part Thirteen

"We'd better go now," said Hideoshi while he jumped up, snatching up his weapons. Nevsky, Takashi, and Galen followed.
At the head of the stairs leading down into the city, Hideoshi glanced back. Lord Anomijah still stood where they had left him, gazing wistfully at them.
"Fairwell," Hideoshi said before racing down the stairs to overtake the others.
After tripping over charred beams and tramping through freezing slush, they arrived at the round tower. Other soldiers from the Third Company milled about, whispering rumours, crowding others to get closer to the tower, and glancing nervously at the tower door. Uncertainty tingled through the anxious looks, wide eyes, and fidgeting bodies of the soldiers, spreading from man to man. Then the tower door creaked, slowly opening.
Every man instantly stilled or quieted himself when that door creaked. Some could not exhale from trepidation or anticipation. Others stolidly watched, seemingly unmoved, but their eyes spoke of suppressed emotion.
At last, General Tacitus emerged from the dim shadows. He scanned the soldiers rapidly, then spoke.
"Soldiers of the Third Company, tonight, it will be your task to divert the enemy to the city of Kolov, which is ten miles from here, on the nearest plateau to this city. To do this, you will climb down this plateau, and run to Kolov. You will start tonight!"
The soldiers gasped.
But the soldiers checked their murmuring when General Tacitus spoke again.
"We are," he announced, "expecting about five thousand reinforcements in a day and a half, which is all the aid our consuls could muster at this time. If you do your task well, this diversion may give us a little time, time in which more reinforcements can be acquired. Go now, my men."
General Tacitus turned back, soon lost to sight in the dim tower. The tower door creaked shut behind him, shutting out the buzz that arose in the streets.
"Why do they always think that their schemes will save us?" Muttered Hideoshi. "They've only been a waste, a reckless waste of time and lives!"
Takashi grinned while saying blithely, "Well, the day after tomorrow the odds will be much better!"
"How?" Scoffed Galen.
"It'll be four to one instead of five to one."
"Takashi! Do you,-" said Hideoshi, "really think that that's much better?"
"Come on, now! You're too gloomy anyway. Always have been."
"It would do you some good to see the serious side of things. At least I know-"
"We'd better get ready!" Cried Galen.
Hideoshi, Nevsky, Takashi and Galen soon found the house in which they slept two nights ago. But now, their belongings were heaped in a remote corner of the entrance hall, while several Fairies were unpacking their own belongings, one of them the auburn-haired Fairy they had met before.
"I thought that your quarters were elsewhere," Hideoshi said.
The Fairy replied, " They were, but since your company no longer needs this place, we came here. It is a stouter building than the one we were given, not gaudy, and austere."
"I never associated Fairies with austerity," mused Galen aloud. "I thought that they were pleasure-loving, luxurious people. Your clothes certainly aren't plain!"
"Our clothes are more elaborate than those you have on, but they are made of wool, not silk, or satin. We appreciate and enjoy pleasure, but how can we retain a watchful guard against evil if we gave ourselves up to pleasure? Even the- the Mazovians are not so foolish."
He suddenly glanced over his shoulder at the stairs, then grinned.
"Illari!"
"Illari," said Nevsky. "So, he's fine? No more seizures?"
"He had several, but he is well."
Illari crept down the stairs, then glided across the hall until he reached Nevsky. He kept his eyes lowered at first, but his one hand crept out of the shabby coat he wore, and pinched Nevsky's arm.
"Hey!" Shouted Nevsky, flailing his arms, then staring at Illari. "Why'd you do that?"
Illari gradually raised his turquoise eyes until they met Nevsky's brown ones, before rapidly lowering them.
"Can I talk with you?"
"Sure," said Nevsky, puzzled by Illari's request.
With his only hand, Illari grabbed one of Nevsky's and tugged on it, pleading, "Come with me."
"I can't. I've got to go fight soon."
"Then I'll come with you!"
"You're not fit for war!" Exclaimed Hideoshi. "And-" memories of Nevsky's terror flashing in his mind-"you couldn't take it."
"I've seen people killed," said Illari.
Galen looked up in shock.
"You?" He said.
"Yes. Buildings fell on them. I even saw a man kill another-before the siege-to take his money. And mother killed herself when father left. I can go. I have no home. Nobody'd miss me if I died."
"This blasted war-even children are caught up in its madness," said Hideoshi, staring at the floor of the hall.
Illari spoke again.
"Never mind. I might black out-and that wouldn't help you. But, Nevsky, when you come back, take me home with you. Please."
Nevsky stared at nothing in particular. Home. What home? A charred ruin in a desolate swamp, its inhabitants now among the dead.
"I don't have one," he replied.
"Then we can make a home anywhere!"
Nevsky started, a new thought dawning in his mind.

Part Twelve

"But," Hideoshi inquired, wrinkling his brow, "weren't the Valashian soldiers captured and imprisoned?"
Galen nodded, still panting, with short and sporadic breath.
"Yeah, but those civilians-remember those women that spat on us yesterday?"
"I'd rather not-"
"Never mind then, but these Valashians are a mean, craven, knavish bunch!"
"Say!" Exclaimed Takashi. "Snow's falling, and the fire's fizzling out!"
Galen grunted, "Good."
Several more hours passed. Still the Karician army tramped up the road onto the plain before the city, until a bloody glow streaked the black eastern sky, colouring the Karician ranks.
Then, a roaring wave of a shout, the shout of one hundred thousand unified voices, rose and collapsed.
The center of the Karician lines parted, and a runner raced through the center, bearing a green flag.
"A truce!" Whispered the soldiers stationed on the walls of Valash.
The officers of the companies stationed nearest to the gate began to shout, "Open the gate!" When Nevsky shrieked. A shriek that stilled the entire plateau.
"The sky! The sky! Look at the sky!"
Everyone raised their eyes. Soaring above the city was a Fairy, a Mazovian. Six times he circled the city, before dropping something that gleamed like an iridescent glass star, then vanishing.
The star-like object hurtled down, dazzling all with its brilliant colours before it disappeared behind some roofs and crashed, shattering like glass. Everyone was turning back to what they were doing before, when a 'whoosh' sounded, buildings began collapsing, and an enormous fire billowed forth.
Soon, a terrible sight unfolded before the soldiers. As several buildings collapsed, they saw, tumbling or rolling towards the flames, as though they were being sucked into a. maelstrom, soldiers and civilians.
"What weapon could do that?" Takashi gasped.
Buildings had ceased to collapse, but the flames waxed in strength, leaping upwards, crackling as more structures and rubble succumbed to the heat. Still an overbearing wind of unnatural force blew near the center of Valash, bearing everything not rooted in the earth towards the golden-white center of the flames.
Suddenly, a crash thudded nearby. Wheeling round, Hideoshi cried, grasping his forehead, "The cunning villains! Now the Karicians are ramming the gate!"
"If only," he thought, "if I'd resisted that urge to look back! But, there's nothing to do now except-I must-"
"Fire!" Shouted the officers on the walls. "Don't look behind you! The Fairies will take care of it!"
Hideoshi mechanically took up his bow, fitted an arrow, drew back the taut string with his numbed hands, aimed at a Karician soldier, then released the string. Around him, Takashi, Galen, and many other soldiers did likewise. Cannons flashed, thundering as their cannonballs and shells crashed into the mass of Karicians below. Creaking, the great scorpions of the Karicians fired back at the base of the walls of Valash, chipping away at the stone.
For several hours this continued, until the Karician force withdrew to the far side of the plateau. A low murmur could be heard, and orange campefires seen, but nothing else could be discerned from the city of Valash.
Hideoshi had sat down, when he heard Nevsky say," Hideoshi?"
"Yes," he yawned.
"How can you kill people-I mean, I know it's your duty, but-without it bothering you?"
"I-don't really think about it. That is, I try not to."
"I've never killed anyone,so-"
"-You mean that you didn't-" Hideoshi began shouting but checked himself after looking into Nevsky's eyes.
"You don't belong here," said Hideoshi. "Maybe you should try to get assigned back with the cooks and stable-boys."
"You don't mean I'm not good enough, do you?" Nevsky said, trying to suppress the tears welling up in his eyes.
"No. You're too good. It's natural to be reluctant to kill another man."
"Then, why doesn't killing affect you?"
"Nevsky," said Hideoshi, "don't believe those fellows that say killing doesn't affect them. It does. But, with practice, time, or a strong sense of duty-never mind! I can't explain it!"
"May I sit beside you?"
Hideoshi nodded.
Nevsky brushed away a heap of snow before sitting next to Hideoshi. Before them, amid unscathed buildings, were smouldering heaps of blackened rubble. Lone pillars or empty shells of buildings stood among the rubble, their charred corners a mute testimony to the ravages they had undergone. Several Fairies searched among the ruins for the victims, while shocked Valashians wandered among the ashes in. bewilderment.
Hideoshi and Nevsky stared without speaking, until Hideoshi felt a shadow fall upon him. He turned round, then started.
"It is only I," said Lord Anomijah, who stood beside them.
"I," Hideoshi said, "did not expect to have the honour of meeting you again."
"Say!" Cried Galen as he strode towards them, "why have you been watching Hideoshi and Takashi?"
Takashi, who had almost dozed off nearby, started.
"Us! Are you sure?" Hideoshi said.
"Sure! Yesterday night, when you all were asleep, he sneaked in and stared at you two. When we were getting ready for the siege he spied on you. And, during the battle we just had, he watched you. I saw him!"
"I am guilty," confessed Lord Anomijah, whose eyes danced in a somber face.
"Why then, sir," Hideoshi said, "do you take such an interest in my brother and I?"
"I would keep my reasons to myself."
"But don't we have the right to know why? It can look suspicious."
"What is your family name?"
Hideoshi nearly jumped when confronted with this unexpected question, but steadied himself.
"Varri."
"Thank you."
"Why did you want to know, sir?"
"I have my own reasons."
"Will that always be your-"
Whistles screeched, while officers shouted, "Third Company to report to the tower in the center of the city at once!"