Chapter 117

Marcus’s dreams swam with visions of all the people who’d tried to kill him since he’d been summoned to this world.

The Kobolds, Dwarves, Skegga, and even Skeever…the ratman’s crimson eyes burned with hate just as strong as his other foes.

And the last image…that of Nagoya. Disgraced and scarred – his scales melting off his skin as Marcus stared him down.

There was no fear gripping him. He was standing above the snake-man, eyes glowering with primal energy, forcing, willing the lizard to submit to his whims.

And behind him danced the puppets of the slaves, freed, and yet shackled to the whims of another. The world burned around them as they raised their spears and hatchets and maces, each one ready to bathe in the blood of their former Masters.

And he stood at their head with Mari – her voice telling him this world was a better world now. The world they would make.

The world he would make…

“Were you born as my brother,” the dark voice of Nagoya repeated in his brain,“we would have stood together to conquer this world. But the will of Akira and of Ming’bao has decreed that your soul inhabits the body of a creature of dirt. They have made you my enemy to test my resolve…

When then he woke up, he did so with a start, shivering as he felt his sodden limbs.

“Hey! Hey – Marc. Marc, it’s me.”

He had to blink through the reality of the unreal dream before he even recognized the true face of his love. Mari was sitting beside him, her body warm and inviting, while he was swaddled in a thatched coverall.

They were sitting in a tent pitched recently. Outside, Marcus could hear the whispers and murmurs of the Pipers who had managed to repel their force while Marcus floundered in the grip of Nagoya.

“The…the Pipers?” Marcus asked her.

“We did it, Marc,” she smiled, cradling his shivering body in her pale hands. “The relief force from Saku didn’t stand a chance. As soon as Marvin brought the Hakka carts to bear against them, they lit up like candles on a cake.”

“L-losses?”

“Not enough to shake our resolve,” she responded. “Maybe in the region of 200 men.”

“Two hundred…too many.”

“Weigh it up in the face of the generations that’ll be born free from the whip and the chain, babe, and you’ll understand why the people out there don’t blame you one bit for what happened.”

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She pulled away as he started to tune into their chatter around the tent – it was jovial. Weary, but high spirited.

Mari leaned back, her own body soaked with his sweat.

“They worship you now, y’know,” she chuckled, laying a foot on his leg. “They watched you take down a fucking Keth-Tari regiment almost single-handedly. Then the way Karliah hears it, you went toe-to-toe with a Prince of the Yokun himself. Keep it up and you’ll be about as famous as me, soon.”

“Nagoya!” Marcus shouted, rising before Mari pulled him right back down to earth and laid him down beside her.

“Ssh,” she said. “Yeah, he escaped. I heard Karliah’s report. No biggie. If anything, it just means we’ll have to put our little contingency plan into place sooner than we expected, that’s all.”

“If I can do it,” Marcus sighed, running a finger down her cheek. “I don’t know, Mari.”

“You can do it, boy,” she whispered. “You’ve done way bigger things already.”

Something strange was happening in his mind. He was looking at his girl, sure. But he was looking past the soft skin and glinting lilies of her eyes. He was looking past them and seeing another’s eyes in there – eyes that were all too familiar to him.

“Mari,” he murmured. “What’s it all about – all this? Making a better world? Or bringing down the Yokun?”

“Bringing them down will make a better world,” she replied. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Slavemasters don’t take kindly to their products being taken from them. And Empires built on the practice don’t exactly adjust well to a forced transition to a slaveless economy.”

“They do when they’re forced at knifepoint,” Mari chuckled. “And that’s exactly what’s gonna happen.”

“They’ll fight you tooth and claw and you know it.”

“Then we’ll wipe them out, and take what’s ours.”

Marcus pulled away from her suddenly, feeling his bones stiffen and his muscles contort.

“You’re talking about genocide here, Mari,” he said. “You understand that, don’t you?”

She stared him down, clearly bristling at the accusation.

“You don’t even know half of what I – what we’ve been through here, Marc. If you did –“

“Then I’d share you desire for vengeance. True. But that wouldn’t make me a good or fair leader. That wouldn’t lead to a lasting peace in this world.”

“But it would lead to justice. Come on, Marc, you must know-“

“Justice!” he laughed maniacally. “You know something? There were a few rats down in the Underkingdom who talked exactly like you. I’m sick of self-righteous freedom fighters and Imperialists who both know they’re in the right. I’m sick of sides having to slay the other to the man and claim moral superiority while standing on the bones of the fallen. When will you all see that this ends in nothing but blood for everyone involved? When will you stop standing on the graves of-“

The sound of her slapping him reverberated in his mind even though there were no walls to amplify it. He fell back, looking at her in anger before he realized she had tears pricking at the corner of my eyes.

“You know something?’ she scoffed. “That’s the second bitch I’ve had to slap tonight.”

“Mari, listen –“

“No,” she said. “No – you listen. I know what you’re saying. I know what you want. You want us to take Saku and spare the women and children, and the noncombatants. You want us to march their former slaves in there and pretend we don’t want to take the heads from their shoulders for the generations of children they’ve put in chains. There’s people out there who’ve sacrificed everything to get this far, Marc. There’s people out there who’ve watched their sons and daughters be scalped and flayed alive, their bodies bubbled and used for soap. I’ve fought too hard to let a single Yokunbastard off the hook. I made a promise to Jun’El. I made a promise to all of them that they’d have the vengeance they deserve.”

She grabbed his arm and put it up her shirt, forcing his fingers to trace the scars etched into her body.

“You’ve felt them, Marc,” she whimpered, keeping her lip stiff even as she wanted to cry out in anguish. “Tell me you didn’t feel hate when you saw the scars on my body as we made love. Tell me you could just look away.”

“Mari…I have to take my personal feelings out of this. I have to-“

“Not be a human?” she whispered. “If that’s the case, then it’s you who’s no better than them, Marc.”

He bowed his head. Still, in her eyes, he could see the seething hate he’d seen in Nagoya’s – eyes that were desperate to destroy the creature they perceived as ‘other’. As the enemy.

He wanted to be able to tell her that he had an argument against the pain that was wracking her body. He wanted to tell her that objectivity was the aim of a good General. He wanted these things – but he kept hearing Nagoya’s voice in his head, and feeling the shaking of her ribs against him.

So he said nothing. Instead, he just rose and opened the tent flap, leaving her staring after him after she’d only just got her back.

It was a fact he’d have to face. He saw it now more than he ever had. This wasn’t the girl he’d been with back home.

If this was some ratman down in the Underkingdom, he’d have seen her bloodthirstiness as a boon – something to be used. Hatred was, after all, the best resource a General had at his disposal.

But it wasn’t just some fledgling, crazy rat. It was Mari. It was the girl he’d loved his whole life. The girl he’d reunited with via committing thousands to the pointy end of a sword.

…and maybe he wasn’t the same man now, either.