Fallen Eagle

The field was littered with the dead.

It was no longer a battlefield, but a graveyard.

Theodorus stared out over the carpet of bodies with a hollow weight settling in his gut. He ought to have been used to sights like this by now. It was not his first time walking in the wake of slaughter.

Before being flung into this age he had only ever seen mangled flesh in photographs or the sanitised distance of books and screens, but since then he had seen more than enough of war’s medieval brutality to strip the varnish from any romantic notion of battle.

Yet this was on another scale entirely.

Hundreds of corpses were strewn across the slope and road, as if some invisible flood had broken and frozen mid-surge. The dead lay funnelled along the narrow way as if smashing headlong into the makeshift barricade they had thrown up at the rear of the battle, bodies piling where the wagon line had finally broken.

The barricade had never been meant to take the full weight of a thousand-man rush. It had been a stopgap, a deterrent to make them push forward, not turn back. That it held on for as long as it did was a testament to the fighting skill and the utter desperation of the men who had held it.

The enemy host had been devastated. Of the roughly one thousand mercenaries who had marched under rebel banners, five hundred now lay broken on the road, another fifty were on their way there, barely clinging to life, and the last fifty had wounds that might actually heal given time and care. Their vanguard, consisting of two hundred, had managed to force a path into Kalamita mostly intact, but in doing so had cut themselves off from their baggage train, supplies, and reinforcements. The remaining three hundred had fled down the road with most of the peasant levy.

Adanis Nomikos lay among the dead, but Philemon Makris had likely escaped against all odds. No one had yet found his body, and the silver goblet of House Makris had been seen raised aloft in the midst of the mercenaries’ suicidal final charge.

Of their own losses, their peasant levy had lost twenty men so far, their cavalry another dozen. Their elite infantry, the two hundred Crown soldiers and Royal Guardsmen, however, had paid the heaviest price of all: half were dead, another fifty barely clung to life.

The enemy baggage train was gone - their coin and grain, their spare arms, their tools - all spirited away with the column that had broken free. That their leadership, even if most of their officers were gutted, had somehow barely survived the devastating charge was the biggest blow of all.

The Crown had won an astounding victory and crippled the rebellion, but they had not ended it.

Good was not good enough. They had needed a miracle, and failed miserably. War was no neat sum to be solved in a war room weeks in advance. They had gambled on everything going to plan, and now the cost of that hubris lay rotting at their feet.

“It doesn't feel like a victory,” Poseidippus complained, voice low as he conferred with his brother and the Crown’s high command. “They made off with all the coin and supplies in the baggage train. Worse, Philemon’s alive, as is the northern cub.”

The last name caught Theodorus’s attention as he approached the group of officers. So Apostolos was alive. The thought might have brought anger had he been a younger man, but in truth he bore the boy no ill will. His quarrel had been with his father; he felt only pity for the son twisted around that man’s expectations.

“They won’t be for long,” the Doux said. He spoke with the cold certainty of a man passing out a heavy sentence. “Silvanus, take the cavalry contingent for immediate departure. Ride and harry the rebels from here to Funa. Feint charges, pick off animals, coordinate with Mangup for a sortie - do anything and everything in your power to tire and slow them down.”

Silvanus saluted sharply and turned away to see to the horses. He had taken three strides before Poseidippus’s next words caught him mid-step and made him pause.

“If we march at once, we can force a pitched battle and annihilate them,” Poseidippus said, voice edged with urgency.

“We have to bury our dead,” one of the captains cut in. His face was drawn into a grimace, eyes flicking to the rows of bodies not twenty paces from their council.

“We can leave some men behind for that,” Poseidippus replied, waving the concern away as though it were a logistical footnote.

Silvanus did not let it pass. “These men sacrificed themselves for this Principality. They deserve a proper burial. They died so we could leave.” Heat roughened his voice.

“The Principality must come before all else. The enemy is fragile and this is our best opportunity to wound them,” Poseidippus answered, utterly unmoved by Silvanus’s anger. “Do not let your emotions cloud your judgement.”

“The Principality is its people,” Silvanus said, each word hammered out. “And the warriors who gave their lives.”

“That is a childish notion. The Principality is the institutions and laws that govern us.” Poseidippus stepped forward, mouth drawn tight, unwilling to yield an inch. “Otherwise we are no different from those northern barbarians.”

Silvanus’s shoulders bunched. Theodorus caught him by the arm and held him back before he could close the distance. They could not afford to fracture here, not in front of the men, and not with the field still wet.

The Doux stepped between them, the weight of his presence alone snuffing out any spark that might escalate the situation as if he were blowing out a candle. “Enough.” His command was absolute. “Silvanus, you have your orders. See to them.”

He fixed his gaze on the Copper Sword, whose namesake blade was indeed slicked wet in coppery red. Silvanus stared back, unflinching, boots rooted to the churned earth.

“Silvanus,” Theodorus murmured at his side, his tone careful rather than forceful. The knight allowed himself to be reluctantly drawn away, though he threw one last, flinty glare at the Papadopoulos twins before turning his back on the command circle.

Only when they were out of earshot did he speak again, voice low. “It isn’t fair.”

Theodorus guided him toward his mount, giving him the small mercy of silence until his squire had brought the horse forward, letting the man think through the pain gnawing at him. “We had planned for everything,” Silvanus went on, almost to himself.

“No one can truly plan for everything. That is a lie we tell ourselves,” Theodorus answered, the bitterness in his own tone surprising him.

“I understand the need to strike quickly,” Silvanus said. His squire tightened the straps on his shield while he stared down at the gauntlet on his arm, flexing his fingers as though the metal weighed twice what it should. “But… they shouldn’t have died in the first place. If only I had…”

“Acted sooner. Killed more mercenaries. Spent more time reinforcing the wagon line to withstand a countercharge,” Theodorus finished quietly.

Silvanus’s head jerked up, startled by the thoughts voiced by Theodorus as if they were his own.

Theodorus offered him a lopsided, tired smile. “I know what you’re feeling, Silvanus. I share some of the blame too.” He let some of his own hurt bleed through, the knowledge that too many men he knew by name now lay among the rows of dead. It was his plans and his calculations that brought this about, but their blood that painted the muddy track.

“Then you understand why I cannot let the souls of my friends pass to the afterlife in an unbecoming fashion,” Silvanus said. Even as he spoke, he hauled himself into the saddle, knowing duty would tug him forward to follow the Doux’s command even while his gaze drifted back to the barricade lined with bodies. “A proper burial is the least that can be done for them."

“As well as not letting their sacrifice go to waste,” Theodorus replied, voice firming. “The best way to honour them is to use the lives they spent to save the Principality.”

He held out his hand. Silvanus leaned from the saddle and clasped it, armoured gauntlet closing over Theodorus’s fingers. Around them, horsemen swung into their saddles, ranks forming with a clatter of hooves and harness, every face set and grim, ready to chase and harass the fleeing rebels.

“I will see to their burial,” Theodorus promised. “In the capital, with the Metropolitan himself blessing their souls.”

Some of the stiffness bled from Silvanus’s shoulders at that. He managed a faint, genuine smile. “Thank you, friend,” he said, then wheeled his horse toward the road.

The column of riders followed in his wake, steel and hooves and dust, leaving the dead behind for the living to account for.

...

As Theodorus made his way back toward the command cluster, he spotted a single mud-streaked, wild-eyed figure being dragged forward between two guards. The man’s hands were bound with rope, and he wrenched at it with a stubborn, jerking rhythm - like an animal that refused to understand the snare around it had already closed.

“You will tell us everything you know,” the Doux was saying, gaze hard on the prisoner.

“I will tell you heathens nothing!” the man spat, chin lifting in defiance.

“There is no mercy for traitors,” Poseidippus added, stepping closer. His shadow fell long across the young man, who looked to be in his early twenties. “I will drag every answer out of you if I have to tear every last tooth from your mouth, leaving only enough for you to speak.” Coming from him, the threat sounded grimly believable.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the prisoner said, unflinching.

“You have already been disinherited, Principe,” the Doux replied.

Theodorus did a double-take.

This was the Principe? The realm’s heir and nominal leader of the rebellion? The only time Theodorus had seen him before, the young man had been clean-shaven and wrapped in royal purple at court. Now…

“You will live the rest of your life behind bars,” the Doux went on, voice flat. “For all intents and purposes, you are a common vagrant, stripped of noble blood in all but name.”

The prisoner stood there ragged and frayed at the edges, hair matted with mud, cheeks mottled with bruises, and the swollen marks of rough handling. Yet Theodorus’s eye was drawn to his collar, stiff and dark with dried blood, the stain spreading in a way that suggested blood had been sprayed atop him.

What in the world had happened to the Principe?

“This is an insult,” Alexios complained loudly, practically spitting the words. His voice carried over the creak of leather and the stink of blasphemy as the column trudged on. He directed his fury at Lustinianos, who drooped in the saddle like a sack of grain, guiding the reins with so little grace it was a wonder he stayed mounted at all.

“It is prudence, my Principe,” Lustinianos replied, beginning his familiar litany of half-truths and soothing lies.

“To hide me away at the rear of the command center?” Alexios fumed, eyes bright with anger. “How is that anything but an insult to my person, to my noble blood - to the leader of this very rebellion?”

“We are closer to the center of the formation, my Principe,” Lustinianos said. He attempted something like a bow atop the horse and very nearly caused the poor beast to stumble under his shifting weight. “It is the safest position of them all. You are near the heart of the army itself.”

“Decisions are being made ahead without my consideration,” Alexios said bitterly. He could see the distant banners and officers where the real nerve center of the host rode, those two damnable nobles conferring without even glancing back at him. “They don’t bother to invite me, don’t even feign respect. They are making decisions without me, hiding me away.” His hands tightened on the reins. “They have gone too far.”

“It is just for a little while,” Lustinianos tried again, his tone placating. “Until we reach Kalamita.”

“Yes,” Alexios said. “It will be.”

He spoke the words like a promise. The last residue of hesitation burned away. He would slit that viper Philemon’s throat and take control of his army once more.

Alexios’s fingers brushed the dagger hidden beneath his tunic, feeling for the reassuring weight of it. He had tucked it there at dawn and would keep it concealed until supper. He had watched Lustinianos closely these past days, memorising the little signals and phrases that marked a messenger bearing urgent news to Philemon’s tent. Philemon thought himself clever, receiving and sending secret messages in plain sight of the camp. What a fool.

Alexios would use them to slip inside his tent. Once there, killing the vermin would be, in his mind, utterly trivial.

The mercenaries - infidels one and all - would not so much as blink at Philemon’s death, so long as their pay continued to arrive. Alexios had come to understand their greedy little ways all too well during these past weeks in their company. They were a hollow people, he thought with contempt, a rabble bound by no true faith, answering only to the clink of coin.

A commotion suddenly sprang up among the trees, a low thumping rolling ahead of them. Alexios cocked his head, trying to pick it out beneath the murmur of the soldiers. He had no time to wonder at it before his bodyguards closed in, shields shifting as they formed a protective ring around him.

“What is happening?” Alexios demanded.

“Uh- I don’t know, your highness,” Lustinianos babbled, eyes wide and sweat beading at his brow. He looked every bit as frightened as the greenest levy. Alexios dismissed him with a curl of his lip.

“You.” He jabbed a finger at the nearest soldier, who hesitated only long enough to turn his head. “Tell me why everyone is on edge?”

“My lord, an ambush. Come, let us fall back to the rear-”

The man had not finished when the treeline ahead exploded.

Cavalry burst from the trees in a snarling wave of hooves and steel, the ground itself seeming to shudder under the impact as they slammed into the forward ranks.

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Chaos tore through the formation like a knife. The first line of men around the standard bearer crumpled under the charge, bodies and spears flung aside. The banner lurched, dipped, then disappeared altogether in a spray of mud and blood as horses crashed through. Men screamed. Someone’s shield went spinning away like a tossed coin.

Lustinianos let out a piercing, undignified screech, hauling at his reins as his horse danced and snorted beneath him.

Alexios did not scream. He grinned.

This was a sign. It had to be.

The enemy riders, sabres rising and falling, scythed straight for the knot of flags and officers at the command center - toward Philemon, Adanis, and their vile supporters, the very place Alexios had been barred from. That insult, that humiliation, had pushed him to the rear and, in doing so, out of the direct path of the killing blow.

Yes, they were being ambushed. Yes, men of his host would die here, skewered on foreign blades. But the brunt of it was falling into the cluster of commanders that had sidelined him - Adanis’s companions were being swallowed in the press, Philemon’s followers were vanishing beneath the crash of horses.

It was a sign.

God is just, Alexios thought, exaltation rising in his chest even as men shrieked and died around him.

“We must flee, your highness!” Lustinianos shrilled at his side, voice breaking. The man looked on the verge of soiling himself, hands fumbling on the reins as his mount snorted and sidestepped.

“Yes. Let’s,” Alexios said, nodding as chaos surged around them.

He turned his horse, beginning to pull away from the worst of the melee when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a familiar figure.

Philemon was stumbling through the wreckage, half-falling, half-running, pushing away from the slaughter with a desperate sprint that pleased Alexios until he realized he might survive.

Alexios’s blood boiled. Was this man truly going to slither free even now? To survive this deadly ambush despite being right in the middle of it? Was the devil himself protecting him, to ensure that command of the army would remain out of Alexios's hands?

He could not allow it. This was his moment. His destiny calling. The viper would not escape.

Alexios wrenched his steed around, driving his heels into its flanks as he drew the dagger hidden beneath his tunic. The blade felt solid and reassuring in his hand. It was time to tie up loose ends.

“My lord?!” Lustinianos yelped, having the misfortune to wander directly in his path, like a lamb delivering itself onto the Creator. Another sign that this was the correct path. “What are you doing?!”

He stared at Alexios as though he were mad to even draw a weapon. His gaze flicked from the naked dagger to Alexios’s set jaw, and understanding seemed to finally dawn on the wretched simpleton. “What are you-” he breathed.

Alexios did not let him finish.

He drove the long dagger up under the layers of cloth and flesh, straight into the fat man’s chest, angling for the heart. He felt the resistance, then the sudden, awful give. Lustinianos looked down in disbelief, mouth working soundlessly as the point vanished into him.

“Enjoy burning in the eternal fire, you disgusting insect,” Alexios said, twisting the blade.

A fountain of blood burst from Lustinianos’s lips as he toppled from the saddle, crashing to the churned earth below. A perfect strike to the heart, Alexios noted with cold, distant satisfaction. That he had also relieved the poor beast of such a burden was, in his mind, an added kindness.

His bodyguards stared, frozen, eyes fixed on the Principe’s tunic now spattered and blooming red, disbelieving that their master had just killed someone in cold blood so easily.

“You two.” Alexios pointed at the meanest-looking of the men flanking him. “Kill Philemon.”

They stared at him, stunned.

“But, Principe-” one began.

“No buts,” Alexios cut him off. “This is an order. You want the Lord to bless our realm?” His tone sharpened, dangerous as the dagger still slick in his hand. He had chosen these men to follow him from the capital precisely because they shared his great vision of a holy Principality. Unlike Philemon, he understood that coin alone did not bind men. Faith did. Ideology did. Those were the more powerful levers.

Both men swallowed hard and nodded.

“For Christ!” they shouted, lowering their visors. In the same motion they tore away the purple of their cloaks, casting the royal colour aside until they looked no different from any other mercenary amidst the chaos.

Then they spurred their horses forward, driving into the storm of steel and bodies toward Philemon, catching him before he could vanish, cutting off his escape.

More horsemen burst from the woods, and for a brief, dizzying moment Alexios’s position threatened to be overrun. Arrows and javelins hissed through the air around him, stitching the spaces between men and horseflesh into a deadly lattice.

Alexios did not flinch. The missiles were not meant for him, so they would not strike him. God would not permit it. It was that simple.

He drove his horse forward with his small entourage, pushing through the masses until he reached the center of the nearest mercenary contingent, which happened to be the pale northerners, daubed in paint and furs, who looked more like ghosts than men.

“Heed me, men!” he called, avoiding the choicest names he would have normally used for the heathen rabble. His voice rose clear above the clash and shouting.

“Our leadership has fallen, but the cause has not. Heed me and charge the infidels!” His tone thickened with a righteous fervour that felt as natural as breath. This was what he had been born to do: lead the flock, however wayward, into the embrace of God’s will. “We shall win the day if we show valour!”

The big, pale brute they called Ilnar regarded him without much expression, as if studying some curious insect. He grunted and said something in his own guttural tongue.

The translator, perched at his elbow, spoke. “He asks if you mean to charge blindly into the woods,” he relayed, unable to keep a faint irony from his tone.

“Our enemies are weak,” Alexios shot back. “Here we stand isolated and waiting to die.” He raised his voice so that those nearest could hear as well. “I will not sit and wait for death to come for me.”

He needed a swift, visible victory to claim what was rightfully his - the leadership of this host. The manner in which he accomplished it did not much matter, nor its danger. He was bound to win.

This entire ambush was in fact nothing more than God’s design, a storm contrived to cast down the unworthy and raise him up. The deaths of both his nemeses were proof enough of that.

The giant and his smaller second looked at him, momentarily taken aback by the vehemence of his words, as if struck by the sheer conviction and raw courage beneath them.

“Yes…” Ilnar grunted at last, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “Breaking through with a charge might be our way out of this.” He bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Very well. Lead the way, holy boy. Let’s put your valour to the test.”

Murmurs rippled through the ranks. Alexios felt their eyes on him, weighing him differently for the first time since he had joined them - as no longer merely a pampered princeling under guard, but perhaps something more.

He did not care in the slightest what such men thought of him. Their opinions were dust. And yet he felt a small satisfaction that they were finally beginning to glimpse the radiance behind him - God’s radiance, shining through his chosen vessel. They might yet be saved.

“Hmph.” Alexios scoffed, lifting his chin. “Follow me to glory!”

He turned his horse, raising his dagger like a standard, and called the painted warriors to form up, which they did with typical barbarian savage glee. It might be reckless, perhaps even foolish, to hurl themselves uphill against enemy lines, but that would only swell the legend when he shattered them.

He would take their loyalty by right of courage and victory and then turn this army, not against some coastal town, but against the capital itself. This cautious game of prodding at peripheral cities was a paltry move made by scared, whimpering nobles like Adanis and Philemon had been. Alexios would strike straight for the throat and tear his father from the throne.

It was on that glorious thought that he fixed his mind as he drove his steed up the slope, his bodyguards close at his heels, the rank upon rank of terrified peasants looming before them. Their line wavered, eyes wide, pikes shaking.

And it was on that same glorious thought that his mind remained when the ground dropped away in a rush of black earth and torn roots, plummeting him into darkness.

“Disinherited?” the Principe repeated, then burst out laughing, as though the Doux had cracked an especially clever jest. “He has nothing to disinherit me from that I truly value. My true Father does not concern Himself with mortal affairs. Your words are only amusing to me.”

“Take him away,” the Doux said, face tightening in a grimace.

Theodorus could imagine the Principe driving an entire garrison to murder simply by being forced to endure his presence.

“Unhand me! You will rue the day you lay hands on me!” the young man snarled, struggling against his bonds, spittle flying from his lips like a rabid dog. “You will be smitten away by Chris-”

Poseidippus stepped in and delivered a sharp, heavy backhand to the side of the Principe’s head, cutting the tirade short as his eyes rolled back, and he sagged bonelessly in the guards’ grip.

“Get him to the command tent,” Poseidippus said curtly, turning to lead the way. The guards dragged their unconscious, still-muttering charge after him.

Theodorus remained where he was, alone with the Doux amid the wreckage of victory.

“Do you believe he will talk?”

Theodorus could not shake the uneasy thought that someone as unhinged as the Principe might lie beyond any conventional method of interrogation. Madness did not always yield to pain.

“Poseidippus has a way of uncovering hard truths,” the Doux said, watching the little procession drag their prisoner away. “As well as dispensing them.” His gaze lingered a moment longer on the retreating forms. “Truthfully, the Principe likely knows little. He is a fool and a puppet. The true enemy is still at large.”

Theodorus noticed the Doux’s fist clench at his side before he turned, looming over Theodorus like a slab of hewn stone. “We must give chase. Organise the columns into something passable as quickly as you can so we can move out.”

“Yes, commander.” Theodorus snapped a salute, then hesitated. “There is the matter of the bodies, commander,” he added. “We can leave some of the levies and the workers behind to gather and cover them, then transport them to the capital.”

“The capital?” the Doux asked, brows knitting.

“For a burial,” Theodorus clarified.

“We will have to spare carts for that, Captain Theodorus,” the Doux said, frowning deeper.

“We cannot take the carts with us if we hope to catch the rebel host anyhow,” Theodorus replied. “We can order the men to carry as much food as they can on their own backs and load the rest on our fastest mules. The fallen can travel in the wagons. And it will send a powerful message to the people.”

“A message?”

“That we stand together, honouring their family's sacrifice. That this victory was bought with their blood, and the Prince looks after his loyal subjects,” Theodorus said. It was the kind of social engineering Medieval states had used for centuries, turning sacrifices and death into pretty stories of victory and honour. Their use sickened him on a personal level, but he was past such things. They would need every advantage they could fabricate, manipulative or not, to crush this rebellion. The dead did not complain. “It could strengthen our hand if we end up facing the Italians.”

“Especially if we come under siege,” the Doux followed the thought, calculating the benefits and the cost, morals and honour a minor factor in the overall equation.

He fixed Theodorus with a long, considering stare.

“Very well, Captain. See it done. But we move out in ten.” The Doux’s obsidian eyes raked over him once more before he turned away.

“Aye, sir.” Theodorus saluted his disappearing back and then set off at a jog, already sorting tasks in his head.

Everything was the same.

The crows circling overhead, patient and black against the sky. The flies gathering in thick, greedy clouds. The groans of the wounded and the thin, ragged cries of those unfortunate enough to have their deaths stretched into hours instead of minutes.

It was all the same as the Giant's Tear, Christos thought.

He had told himself he would do better this time. That he would be strong enough to protect the people he cared about, that he would learn the weight of a sword instead of flinching from it. But the man who had helped him when that first despair had set in, the one who had dragged him back from the edge and shown him how to stand, was now the body Christos had to scoop up off the blood-soaked ground.

He hadn’t changed at all. Like then, he had only been fooling himself that he had grown stronger.

He lifted Leonidas’s fallen form and heaved it onto the waiting cart, the armour and dead weight biting into his shoulders.

He felt like a fraud.

Leonidas had been truly strong, unlike him. Leonidas had stood where the fighting was thickest. And Leonidas had died.

Why had he died, and Christos lived?

It wasn’t fair.

Christos placed the body down among the others, then let his hand rest on the edge of the cart. He gave it a small, helpless punch.

“It ain’t fair.” Kratos’s voice simmered beside him, low and shaking. “It ain’t fuckin’ fair.” He eased Agapios’s body down as if putting him to sleep, with a carefulness Christos had never seen in the stubborn country bumpkin.

“It isn’t fuckin’ fair that those bastards turned around in a damn suicide charge!” Kratos suddenly exploded, the words ripping out of him. He punched the cart, skin splitting on the rough wood, slim fingers barely scuffing it. “They killed their own lot just to whittle down a few of us! Are they fuckin’ suicidal? Weren’t they supposed to keep going forward? What are those fuckin’ twats in the high command doing? They fuckin' lied to us!” he yelled at the cloudy sky, voice cracking. Men turned to stare.

“This is what war is,” Christos said. His own voice sounded strange to his ears, hard and flat, as if it belonged to someone else. “What being a warrior is. You don’t get to question your orders, because an idiot like you would never even think of how to defeat the enemy.”

“Maybe not.” Kratos leaned in close, breath hot against Christos’s ear. “But if this is what bein’ a warrior is - bein’ tossed aside like a sack of shit for nobles and their little games - then I don’t want none of it.” Venom dripped from every word. “I ain’t content to be some tiny tool like you, bendin’ over backwards to die on a muddy field with nothin’ to my name.”

Christos didn’t react. On the inside he wanted to scream, to grab Kratos by the collar and shake him, to smash his fists into the cart until the planks splintered. He wanted to howl that he agreed, that it wasn’t fair, that he was tired of watching people he cared about die.

But none of that would bring Agapios or Leonidas back. None of it would change the orders, the battlefield, or the way the world worked.

It would do nothing. Accomplish nothing.

“Then fucking leave,” he said instead, deadpan. “That just means you’re not cut out for what it takes to defend the innocent.”

“This,” he jabbed a finger toward Agapios’s pale, skewered body on the cart, “is what it takes.”

Kratos glared up at him, freckles standing out sharp against his flushed cheeks, as if they might catch fire. He rocked back his arm and swung at Christos, hitting him square in the jaw.

Christos didn’t so much as react. He just spat out a bloody phlegm without another word.

Kratos spun on his heel and stomped away, boots squelching in the mud, leaving Christos alone with the dead and his own thoughts.

“It doesn’t get easier,” a voice said behind him. It had a tired cadence he had never heard in it before.

Christos turned to see the commander standing there.

“Commander,” Christos managed. He couldn’t quite find the will to lift his hand in a proper salute. The Captain gave a small, crooked smile at the honorific, as if the title sat on him like an ill-fitting cloak, some cruel joke the world had decided to play.

“You always volunteer for the hardest work,” the Captain observed. His gaze moved over the men hauling corpses into the carts, shoulders bowed under the weight of brothers and comrades, faces set in grim, stubborn lines.

“Get tired enough and you don’t have to think,” Christos replied. “That’s something I learned at the Probatoufrorio with you.” He tried for a grin, but it came out half as full and twice as sad. The Commander mirrored it.

“With you and with Leonidas,” Christos added, the word falling heavy between them.

The smile died on both their faces.

“He was a great man,” the Captain said quietly. The lines around his eyes made him look older than his years, not that he didn’t normally. Spend enough time around him and it became impossible to treat him as just another young noble. The Captain knew too much, carried too much, for that illusion to survive.

“He was.” Christos forced the words out, throat tight. Silence pressed in on them.

“It should have been me,” Christos spoke his thoughts aloud to fill it. His gaze drifted back to Leonidas’s face. His eyes, even in death, were calm, as if he had always known this was how he would go. “He shouldn’t have been in the center. It was the most dangerous stretch, you don't put your captain there.” His jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “But he was too bull-headed. Said he’d take it on himself. If only he’d…”

Christos shut his eyes. He didn’t want to look anymore - at Leonidas, at the cart, at any of it.

“He made his choice knowing the risk,” the Captain said. “In a way, he took the coward’s way out.”

Christos’s head snapped up, shocked at the statement.

“It takes a different kind of courage,” the Captain went on, voice low, “to ask men to die in your place. To have them wager their lives on your decisions.”

Christos thought nobles had it easy, tucked behind the front lines, safe while others bled for their orders. The Captain wasn’t like most nobles, Christos knew that, but to say something like that now, here, with Leonidas lying dead on the cart… it felt cruel. He swallowed back the bitter retort burning on his tongue only because it was the Captain speaking.

“I can tell you don’t believe me,” the man said with a sharp, humourless laugh. He saw straight through Christos. He always did. “Many who aren’t commanders envy our positions as leaders. Many who are just feel relieved if they win a battle.” His eyes hardened. “Only those who understand the power of their position feel the strain of it. Only those who care for their men live with their ghosts. We feel every death as if a knife were being driven into our own hearts.”

Beneath the hard set of his features, beneath the practiced authority, Christos could see the hollow misery buried under the mask the Commander was expected to wear. Always in control. Always certain.

“Leonidas took the center because, for him, it was easier to know he’d be the one to die for his mistakes than to live with the knowledge that others had died for them,” the Captain said, his voice turning haunted. “He was a true leader. And he was a coward.”

Christos stared at him, wide-eyed, as the Captain’s hand settled on his shoulder. Tears slid down the his cheeks in thin, unsteady lines.

“Being a leader means letting those mistakes haunt your sleep,” the Captain said. His grip tightened, almost desperate. “It means finding the strength somehow, someway, every time you have to make a decision. It means to crush your doubts and your fear, even when you know you’re sending men to their deaths, even when you’re terrified you’re about to make another mistake. Over and over again.”

As suddenly as it had cracked, his face smoothed back into its iron mask, tears finishing their path across the skin. The effect was unsettling.

“This is what it means to become a leader, Christos,” he said quietly. “I won’t begrudge you if you choose to leave this path. It takes much from you.”

Christos drew in a long breath. Somehow, he found the strength to smile back at him, small and crooked but real.

“You warned me it would be hard, Commander,” he said. “I’ll stay on this path. I still haven’t proved myself wrong. And I won’t stop until I do.”

The Captain’s expression softened. He extended his hand. Christos took it, their fingers locking in a firm grip.

For a moment they simply stood there, the weight of their fallen friends pressed in on them from every side, but it did not drive them apart - it welded something between them instead.

Christos would not abandon the Commander to walk this road alone. He would become a leader in his own right, for himself and for all the friends who had given their lives while he still breathed.

There was no turning back now. Not for haunted men like them.