Ruthless: Path of Conquest

Dave looked around the packed room.

He was surrounded by a crowd of people now, all waiting with rapt attention for the Fisher King to begin his speech.

Only Dave already knew at least something of what James was going to say.

Memories of the fateful night flashed through his mind again.

“Are you afraid to kill us, Dave? It’s the only way you’ll escape this place alive…”

He heard the words in the voice of the vicious thing that had possessed Amalia’s body—and had to suppress the inappropriate urge to smile. She was back. By the magic of this insane new world, the lively, courageous, perhaps overconfident woman who had eagerly rushed into the forest was alive again—or near enough that Dave could accept the new, Vampire Amalia as a close substitute.

She’s not your fault, Dave, he had told himself over these last days. You didn’t have a choice.

But the weight had still felt heavy on his shoulders, if somewhat less so than it had immediately after he had awakened following the battle.

Now James had cut the feeling of loss almost in half. Amalia was not dead. Thirteen others had survived, too, after a fashion. Death was not necessarily permanent anymore—though it had been for some of those who served under Dave, even in the Haunted Forest.

But for them, that had apparently been a choice.

As the new Amalia had explained it, the dead had a choice presented to them when a Necromancer attempted to raise them as a Vampire. Rise again, or remain in the afterlife—which she claimed she did not remember. She only remembered that she had chosen life.

Focus on the future, he thought. This was almost like a second chance. Next time, he would do whatever it took to prevent any unnecessary loss of life for his side.

The Fisher Kingdom was a new, small country. It could scarcely afford to lose people.

The next threat to the people here could destroy this place…

Before he could go anywhere with that thought, Dave saw James had stepped forward and moved to the center of the stage. Mina followed close behind her husband, almost protectively.

James looked as serious as befitted the occasion, and Dave wondered if he had lost sleep over the outcome of the battle too. Even though James had just given him good news, the loss of the dozen who had remained dead was a serious matter. And the King was the only one who arguably carried more responsibility for the battle’s events than Dave.

Dave felt James’s eyes meet his, and the officer forced himself to smile—probably more of a grimace, but he could not see his own face—and nod at the commander in chief.

I know you’ll do your best to honor them.

Whether the Fisher King felt any guilt about the battle or not, he certainly gave a damn.

Maybe that’s why he seemed to work himself half to death reviving people. Dave had heard about that from his friend Sam. The way Sam had described it, James’s blessing started to look like he was giving up some of his life force after he had done a few of them.

James pressed close to the podium and began to speak.

“Friends, citizens, we gather here today to mourn the deaths of our brave soldiers. Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Valued friends and neighbors.”

His voice boomed out all through the room and beyond. Dave could hear it coming from outside of the room as well as inside. James must be using his powers to broadcast it to the portion of the crowd that had been unable to fit inside the community center. Even the courtyard between the community center and the apartments was full of people today. Despite losses, it seemed the Fisher Kingdom just kept growing.

The King continued. “They fought to protect our young country from invasion by evil spirits. I won’t talk about the specifics of the battle aside from that today. I know that many of you are still feeling the impact of the fight, or of the presence of those spirits.” He seemed to make eye contact with Dave for a moment as he spoke those words, but it was hard to be certain.

He was distracted, because at the same time that he thought James had looked at him, a murmur had risen from the crowd. The word “miracle,” in a dozen or more different voices, was the only thing Dave heard distinctly. These were some of those who had been revived, Dave recognized. One of the side effects of having one’s life saved by the Fisher King seemed to be a new, slightly more fanatical level of loyalty.

James seemed to ignore the interruption. His voice continued at the same cadence and volume.

Dave ignored it too, as best he could.

“I know that some of you will be feeling lost right now,” James said. “We’ve lost a group of valuable, irreplaceable people. I know what it is to lose someone important. My father died when I was a kid.” He sighed. “Since the world changed, it seems the losses just keep coming. But I can tell you from personal experience that those who have died are still with us, in a sense. I want to share a little about the people we’re saying farewell to.”

James began telling anecdotes about each of the dead.

Dave was surprised to find that James seemed to have some touching snippet about each person who had died. It seemed unlikely that the Fisher King could have known all those who had lain down their lives.

As the stories went on, it became clearer that he had not known all of them. In several cases, he was clearly repeating a story that a friend or family member must have relayed to him. There were a couple of stories from Orientation about people with whom James had not shared an Orientation, for instance.

They were effective nevertheless in restoring some humanity to the humans in the closed caskets.

“All these different stories,” James said. “The one constant we see with all the dead here is their courage. We lost some of our best in this battle. But as I said, they’re still with us in a sense. They will never be completely gone. Not as long as we remember them. Not as long as we’re still here.” He pounded his chest with one hand as he spoke. “Those we have lost will always be with us. They have watered the earth with their blood, so that their bodies have become a part of it. And their spirits will live on in our hearts and in the spirit of this place. They died out of love for family, friends, and neighbors. That love lives on.”

Then he cleared his throat and seemed somehow to make eye contact with everyone in the room at once.

“They will be far from the last casualties,” he said. “We have entered into a world of conflict. The ugly war of all against all that emerges when society collapses. The glory of that is that we are the ones who will restore order and build a new world, a new civilization, a new nation, for our children and their children. The tragedy is that it means these brave individuals will not be the last to die to preserve our peace. Survival and success will require the best and most committed efforts from all of us. The men and women we bury here today—” He turned to the coffins, assembled off to his left side, at those last words—“gave the last full measure of their devotion for us. To give us the chance to live. It is up to us to continue forward and ensure that those losses mean something. For those who feel touched by these losses, whether you knew the deceased or not, there are therapists who have volunteered to be of counsel.”

Dave sensed rather than saw that a handful of people somewhere behind him were moving as if to indicate that yes, they were the therapists. Before he learned that Amalia was still alive, he probably would have wanted to talk to one of them himself. Now he was not so certain.

It feels like some life has returned to me, he thought. And he couldn’t help but form his lips into a bittersweet smile. That was exactly what had happened to Amalia. Some life had returned.

Then he zoned back in to the speech. He realized that James had continued talking.

“Any dead is too many dead,” James was saying. “A dozen of our bravest are lost to us forever.”

There was a quiet murmur from some in the crowd at this, as if people were wondering if James had miscounted.

In answer to the murmur, James continued, “Fortunately, we were able to save some from the afterlife. With the magic of the new world we have entered into, they were raised from the dead as Vampires.”

The door behind James opened then, and Amalia and the other thirteen Vampires emerged onto the stage behind James, standing very calmly in the afternoon sun.

That’s one myth busted, Dave thought. Sunlight apparently did not kill Vampires.

There was further murmuring from the crowd.

Dave turned his head and he saw that some people in the back row were getting up.

He thought he recognized them, but at first, he could not remember where he knew the faces from.

Then it hit him: it was that new arrival, Cyrus, and a few of his religious followers who had arrived immediately following the battle.

I’m surprised they bothered attending the funeral at all, Dave thought. Incredibly rude to walk out in the middle…

James cleared his throat, and the murmur of the crowd diminished.

“The option of an attempted resurrection will be made available to anyone who willingly fights for the Fisher Kingdom,” he said. “I understand there may be some religious or philosophical objections to this, but where possible, we will always consult family members before we perform this procedure. Anyone who is willing to have their personal preference recorded can see Jeremiah Rotter, the council’s Secretary, to provide that information. If we have your preference, we will not need to ask family members their thoughts first.”

By the time he finished speaking, the chatter had died down. People had realized that James had not done anything outrageous, and some of them seemed to be looking at the Vampires with envy. Dave had noticed it before, but in the light, it was more obvious: the resurrected all looked as good as or better than they had looked in life.

That might be some kind of red flag, but on a surface level, at least, it was appealing. They still moved like themselves and spoke like themselves, too. Some of them smiled or waved at family members among the crowd. Dave could see the wheels turning as people considered whether they wanted to be brought back to live on as an immortal Vampire.

A few months ago, this would have been preposterous. The stuff of an Anne Rice novel.

But now, judging from the looks on people’s faces, it would undoubtedly become commonplace.

Cyrus and his people left nevertheless, even as the King continued speaking.

“There is a magical item that is consumed with each vampiric transformation,” James said, talking more quickly as if he almost wanted to brush past this detail. “This costs System Credits, and it is not cheap. However, given that it is the difference between life after death and permanent death, we will figure this out. We will raise the money one way or another whenever it is necessary. Returning to the main subject that we’re here for, sadly, not everyone wished to be raised from the dead. We know that they chose not to return, because the magic item was destroyed, but no Vampire was created in exchange.” James sounded like he only had a tenuous understanding of the necromancy process. “So we still suffered losses.”

He listed the names of the truly, permanently dead in a low, reverent voice that nevertheless made its way to all parts of the room.

“We will all mourn them. I hope you will also take comfort in family, friends, and neighbors. The lost live on in all of us.” James paused for a moment as if weighing his next words carefully. “But if you have feelings that you cannot share with anyone, or that you believe you can’t overcome in any other way, you can also come and share them with me. I made all of the decisions on the evening of the battle. Every single choice that led to this outcome was mine. I believed, and still believe, that what we did was necessary to stop pure evil from swamping our country.” He made definite eye contact with Dave then.

It would sound hyperbolic, except I was there, Dave thought. I know what those things were like. Pure evil is an understatement.

“The weight of the responsibility rests squarely on my shoulders—and only on my shoulders,” James said.

Dave felt the words were aimed at him, though he knew it was absurd.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it did feel as though a weight that had partially lifted from his shoulders earlier became even lighter. He was not burden-free, but then, he had not felt truly light in many years. But he knew instinctively that what was left was something he could carry.

I can do it. The next time these people need me, I won’t fail.

“Let us have a moment of silence, and then our pallbearers will begin moving the first of the coffins to their graves.”

The room became so quiet that Dave imagined people might be holding their breath rather than break the sudden stillness.

Then James made a hand motion of some sort, the pallbearers stepped forward, and the world seemed to start moving again.

Dave watched as the rest of the funeral played out as expected. The coffins were relocated to their permanent homes in the ground, and loved ones were invited to step forward, say a few words, and shovel soil onto the remains before James buried them the rest of the way. His control over the earth allowed him to smoothly shift the ground to cover over the tops of the coffins with just a wave of his hand.

There were not many people to step forward as bereaved, and most of them did not say much, but there was a quiet dignity to the process. Like reclaiming some sense of normalcy.

Dave had no loved ones to bury. He would have gotten up to help bury Amalia, his friend, if she was not standing there on the stage, looking healthier than she had pre-vampirism.

But the ritual of burying and honoring the dead would always have a certain power to it for Dave, as it undoubtedly did for the hundreds of other people who took part in the ceremony. There was a closure to it.

It struck him, as the earth moved to cover the first coffin, that these dead would be remembered for at least as long as the founding generation of this new country lived. Probably for as long as James himself was remembered.

The Fisher Kingdom had its first martyrs.