Legionnaire

When I woke up, there was a bright light above me.

For a second, I thought I was in a hospital.

I had to be.

My eyes were blurry, my body ached, and everything had that strange distant feeling you get when you wake up somewhere you don’t remember falling asleep. It had all been a dream. The mountain. The battlefield. The woman. The red sky. The ring.

One long, fucked-up dream.

Then my vision cleared.

Not a hospital.

I was lying in a bed, but not any bed I’d ever seen outside of a movie. It was heavy and old-looking, built from dark wood with thick posts at the corners and a frame carved with simple lines and worn edges. The mattress under me was firmer than I expected, stuffed with something that shifted when I moved. Not springs. Not foam. Straw maybe, or wool, or whatever people used before NASA invented memory foam.

A thick blanket covered me from the waist down. It was rough but warm, dark gray, with a faded black border stitched near the edge. Under that was a linen sheet that felt clean but scratchy against my skin.

I stared up at the light.

It wasn’t electric.

A fist-sized stone sat in a metal bracket above the bed, glowing with steady white light. No flame. No smoke. No cord. Just light.

“Of course,” I whispered.

The room around me was made of stone. Real stone. Large blocks, uneven in places, fitted together with pale mortar. The ceiling was low and arched slightly, with dark wooden beams running across it. A small table sat beside the bed with a clay cup, a folded cloth, and a shallow bowl. Across the room stood a heavy wooden door reinforced with black iron bands. No window. No curtain.

There was a chair near the door.

I slowly pushed myself up, expecting pain to tear through my knee.

It didn’t.

That made me freeze.

I pulled the blanket back.

My pants were gone. So were my boots. Someone had put me in a loose, off-white shirt and plain drawstring pants that looked like medieval pajamas. My right knee was bare beneath the fabric where I tugged it up.

No swelling.

No cantaloupe-sized nightmare.

Just a nasty scar cutting across the front of the knee where I’d split it open. The skin around it was pink and new-looking.

“What the fuck…”

I touched it carefully.

No sharp pain.

No grinding.

No fire shooting up my leg.

Just soreness. Deep and dull, like an old injury after bad weather.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and lowered my feet to the floor. The stone was cold under my bare soles.

I waited.

Nothing.

I put a little weight on my right leg.

Then more.

My knee held.

I stood there beside the bed, one hand still gripping the wooden post, staring down at my own leg like it belonged to somebody else.

“How long was I out?” I whispered.

There was a heavy bang at the door before I could say anything.

The door opened, and two soldiers stepped inside.

They weren’t dressed like the men I’d seen on the battlefield. No full black plate. No layered shoulders. No heavy helmets with narrow visors. These two wore simpler armor: dark leather jerkins reinforced with metal plates across the chest and shoulders, chainmail at the sleeves, and black cloth sashes marked with a silver-gray symbol I didn’t recognize.

Short swords hung at their hips, and each carried a spear that looked more suited for a hallway than a battlefield.

Guards, then.

Not the same kind of soldiers I’d seen on the battlefield.

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They moved to either side of the door and stood there like they’d done it a thousand times.

Two men entered behind them.

The first wore dark trousers tucked into polished black boots, with a fitted black tunic beneath a sleeveless leather coat reinforced at the shoulders and ribs. Not armor, exactly, but not civilian clothing either. It looked like something a soldier wore when he was somewhere safe enough to take off the plate, but not safe enough to relax.

A sword hung at his left hip. Plain hilt. Worn grip. Used. A dagger sat on the other side of his belt.

I guessed he was late thirties, maybe early forties. Close to my age, but with the kind of wear on him that made guessing pointless. His hair was dark and cut short, with a little gray at the temples. His beard was trimmed close, neat enough for military standards. A thin scar ran from the left side of his jaw up toward his cheekbone.

He wasn’t huge, but he was built solid. Broad shoulders. Thick forearms. Neck like a man who had spent half his life under armor. Like he didn’t waste movement unless movement was needed.

His eyes were dark.

Not friendly.

Not hostile either.

Measuring.

The second man looked like he should have been carrying a staff and yelling at hobbits.

Old. Tall, but slightly stooped, with long white hair tied back at the nape of his neck and a beard that fell down the front of his chest. He wore plain dark gray robes beneath a practical black coat with reinforced elbows. The cuffs were stained with ink, and several small leather pouches hung from his belt. A chain of little metal tags rested against his chest, each one etched with symbols I couldn’t read.

He did not look like a warrior.

He looked like an ancient government clerk who had personally denied paperwork to generations of soldiers.

The old man tossed a ring at me.

I caught it on reflex.

He gestured for me to put it on.

I looked at the ring, then at him, then slowly slid it onto my finger.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

His voice was thin and wispy, but there was authority in it.

I looked down at the ring.

Fucking magic.

“Yes,” I said.

The old man nodded.

“Good. Good. We have questions that need answers.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

The younger man spoke this time.

“That depends on your answers.”

His voice sounded familiar.

He held up a small stone.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Is that one of those stones that lights up?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “This is a truth stone. If you lie to us, we will know. It is in your best interest to be honest.”

“Fine,” I said, feeling panic start to crawl up my chest. “Ask away.”

The younger man studied me for a moment.

“What were you doing with the woman you were found with?”

“Trying to keep her alive.”

“Why were her clothes cut?”

“First of all,” I said, “I don’t like where this line of questioning is going. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Neither man spoke.

I swallowed and kept going.

“I found her bleeding from a wound in her chest. Right breast. Small hole punched through her. She was coughing blood, so I needed to find the wound and see if there was an exit. I had to remove her armor and cut the clothing away to get to it.”

The younger man’s expression didn’t change.

“She woke up long enough to hold a dagger to my neck,” I said. “Then she kind of instructed me on how to help her. Not with words. I couldn’t understand her. She pointed me toward the red-armored man across from her. I searched him and found two red vials. She pointed to the wound, so I poured one on it.”

The old man watched me closely.

“I passed out shortly after that,” I said. “When I woke up, there were men in the field. Torches. When I saw red armor, I figured it was in my best interest not to get caught.”

“And what did you do?” the younger man asked.

“I made a harness and dragged her as far as I could.”

“With that knee?” he asked. “I saw your knee. There is no way you made it far.”

I stared at him.

“You’re the commander, aren’t you?” I said. “The one giving orders that night.”

“Yes.”

I nodded slowly.

“Then you’re right. I didn’t make it far. Maybe two or three hundred feet. Maybe less. Felt like miles.”

“Why didn’t you leave her?”

I looked at him.

“You might have made better time without dragging her.”

“Because I was taught you don’t leave people behind,” I said. “I found her. I helped heal her. I guess after that, I felt responsible for keeping her alive.”

The younger man looked down at the stone in his hand.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Then he turned slightly toward the old man.

“His story matches what Isolde told us,” he said. “I am finished with my questions, Assessor Vale.”

The old man nodded.

Isolde.

So that was her name.

And she was alive.

I felt better after hearing that. Less panicked. Hell, I was proud of that. Dragging her through the mud with my knee torn to shit had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

“Where are you from?” the old man asked.

Oh shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

What do I say?

I had to roll the dice and hope this stone wasn’t one hundred percent accurate.

“Far from here,” I said. “I honestly don’t remember much. I had a really bad fall, and when I woke up, I was here. Found myself on the field. Then you know the rest.”

I trailed off, trying not to look nervous.

I kept looking at the stone, but I didn’t know how the fucking thing worked. I didn’t know if it glowed, changed color, screamed, or announced, Hey, this guy’s a fucking liar, stab him.

They looked at the stone.

Then moved on.

The old man asked, “You do not remember how you arrived here?”

“No,” I said. “I just woke up. At least, that’s all I remember.”

The old man studied me for a moment.

“It is not uncommon for someone who has taken a bad fall to injure their head,” he said. “Memory problems are rare, but known to happen.”

I nodded slowly, doing my best not to look relieved.

The younger man spoke next.

“The ring we found on you. How did that happen?”

“When Isolde”—I gestured toward the younger man—“requested I search the man in red armor, I touched his ring. There was this spark. Like electricity. It connected the ring to my hand. When I tried to pull away, it slid off his finger and onto mine. I tried to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge.”

I looked down at my hand.

“And I had other things to worry about.”

The old man nodded.

“Would you mind if we spoke a moment?”

I lifted my hands a little.

“I don’t see that I have a choice.”

The old man nodded again.

He and the younger man stepped into the hallway beyond the heavy door.

The guards stayed behind, watching me.

I stood there for a while.

That GIF popped into my head. John Travolta from Pulp Fiction, standing there with his coat open, hands out, looking around like he had no idea what the hell was happening.

Fitting.

Finally, I looked at the guards.

“Can I sit, or…?”

I gestured toward the bed and let the question hang there.

Neither of them moved.

I stood there in silence for a few more minutes, then did the universal motion of throwing my arms out, jerking my head toward the bed, and staring at them like, Come on, assholes.

One of them finally nodded.

I wanted to say assholes out loud, but I still wasn’t sure what kind of insults translated here or which ones might cross a line. So I just thought it while I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the other two to come back.

They’re going to kill you.

The thought tore through my brain.

Fuck you, brain.