When Heroes Die

“They always warn you that one day the ghosts of your past will come back to haunt you. I didn’t expect the execution to be quite so literal.”

— Last stand of Dread Empress Massacre.

I don’t know what you expect, Mabli.

I expect you to think, Aeth.

You always say that when you have news that I won’t like.

The harvest was particularly good this year.

Doesn’t mean anything for us. The Empire took what they usually taxed, then paid extra for as much as they could without starving the city on top of that.

Think about what that means. I don’t even need to use Forecast to tell you that this is part of some bigger plot, Aeth. If we act now, it will come back to bite us later.

So it’s another no for a major raid, then. Morale is flagging.

We can’t just storm the palace and expect no resistance.

People are losing their faith in us.

Complaints don’t make your ideas any better.

If we don’t get a big win soon, the rebellion will fall apart. Even us heroes fight among each other.

Go find that friend of yours and work out your frustration. Either in a spar or between the sheets.

That doesn’t solve any of our problems, Mabli.

It’s not all grim. The city is slowly falling apart as the Black Knight pulls out his officials. He was last seen in Foramen, contending with the goblin uprising. Furthermore, not only is the Watch willing to support us, but we’ve made contact with malcontents in other parts of Callow. They’re just as eager to push back the occupation as we are. Step by step, we’re winning, even if it doesn’t feel that way. You’ll see.

That eagerness doesn’t amount to anything if we never choose to act!

Leave the thinking to me, Aeth.

It hasn’t worked out so far.

Why- How dare you! Every day is another day I spend sparring against the Eyes of the Empire. I’ve built up our little rebellion. Kept us going on a budget that couldn’t buy half a loaf of bread. All you’ve done is-

I pulled away from the beam and picked up the musty old book on my lap. I slammed it shut with more force than necessary, then stiffened.

Hurriedly, I set my ear back against the wood.

Is this it, then? Is today the day we split?

I- no, Mabli. It isn’t. But perhaps we sh-

I breathed out. Good, they hadn’t heard me.

I set the leather-bound book back on the shelf to my left. Sullivan had told me there was a chance people would become suspicious if I didn’t look like I was busy while I was here. So I’d asked around for a book to read and ended up with a copy of the Book of All Things. I’d been tempted to ask for something more useful, but refrained from doing so.

It wasn’t as if praying would help us escape our predicament.

Three months.

Three whole months of the same godforsaken arguments, and in that time nothing had changed. Aethelred — the Faithful Warrior — and Mabli — the Reluctant Strategist — continued to bicker, but never came to an agreement on anything.

Well, nothing that I considered important to me, at least.

The heroes had split into two different groups. Half followed the Faithful Warrior, and the other half listened to the Reluctant Strategist. More mistakes were made on missions. Different rebel groups tripped each other up.

There had been a whispered undercurrent speaking of desertion that even the orphans had picked up on.

It was not all discouraging news. Kids had been allotted more duties. The Faithful Warrior had caved in to some of the Reluctant Strategist’s demands, and we were now also used to scout. That had come with lessons which I’d barely benefitted from.

Living on the streets had taught me all that I needed to know about how to watch out for trouble.

Sullivan was often away on missions and thus unable to tutor me every evening. I was forced to do my best on my own. Hearing him regale me about the rate of success of those excursions when he was around was disheartening. His missions weren’t any less successful than others, but there wasn’t much in the way of meaningful victory either.

Maybe we’d have a lick of a chance if our leadership wasn’t so useless.

I snuffed out the candle on the desk beside me, picked up my bowl and padded out of the room. I dropped the bowl off in the makeshift kitchen, then headed through for whatever task I’d been assigned for the day.

Messenger work.

It was my favourite duty. It didn’t take long for me to deliver whatever it was I needed to deliver to whoever it was that needed to receive it if I took the right detours. That left me with some time to wander off on my own before I was expected anywhere else. Scouting allowed the same freedom on paper, but in reality involved a fair amount of standing in one place.

“Now, little Cat, don’t go running off with one of your new ideas,” my minder admonished as she pulled the blindfold off.

I turned towards her, looking up and blinking as my eyes adjusted to the light.

“Somebody should outlaw being so tall.”

The blindfold didn’t do much. It hadn’t taken me long to discover the locations of more than a few safe houses. Even with multiple exits and dropoff points, they couldn’t send us far away from the safe houses without someone noticing the oddity of the blindfolds. Being located within otherwise abandoned parts of the city only earned the rebellion so much leeway in this regard.

I doubted that I was the only orphan who had figured that out.

Not that I bothered to speak to the others much.

It was just another example of how the rebellion’s current leadership was unable to achieve anything significant.

“You’re more trouble than most,” Cassandra harrumphed, brushing her vomit yellow hair out of her dirt-brown eyes.

“Our fearless leaders thought that scouting was smart,” I defended.

“And that every other idea of yours was terrible,” she muttered.

“That’s rich coming from them.”

“You’d make an awful hero with your attitude,” Cassandra snorted.

I bristled and gave her a glare.

“It’s not hard to beat our current lot.”

“Oh, really. What kind of hero would you be then?”

“A Knight or a Squire.”

The new kinds of heroes hadn’t lived up to their fancy Names. I would rather be one of the old ones. Those Names had a proven track record of success.

“You seem more of a nosy little Thief to me,” she drawled, then bopped me with a chubby finger on the nose.

I exchanged a few more barbs with Cassandra before scampering off.

Thoughts of desertion plagued me. Three months of doing nothing. I hungered to make a difference, to act, to do anything other than sitting on my hands.

Was today the day that I left the rebellion?

Was today the day I tried to start a new rebellion?

Was today the day that I tried to do everything alone?

Memories of my time on the street came back to me.

… No.

As much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t think that I would be able to survive another winter on my own.

That didn’t make the thought any less tempting.

It wasn’t as if I had any real friends among the rebellion.

I ducked and weaved my way towards one of the many open plazas frequented by traders on the Marketside of Laure. They were often used as a place for chance meetings between different rebel groups. I took faster, riskier routes, skirting the territory of more than one den of thieves in an effort to save time. Message for a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker.

On and on it went.

One more message delivered. Then the next. Then the next. I’d long since given up on trying to make sense of them. It wasn’t like it mattered. I’d heard enough to know that we weren’t going to fight any time soon.

It wasn’t long until I was finished with delivering my messages. The bricks were scorching from the harsh rays of the late summer noonday sun, but the blistered soles of my feet had long grown used to the mistreatment. I ignored their complaints in favour of doing something for myself. There was an hour or two before I was expected to return. Plenty of time for me to snoop around places where I hoped something interesting might occur.

Maybe I’d learn something important.

Perhaps then I’d be able to help.

The past few years hadn’t been kind to the sprawling avenues of Whitestone that marked the way to the noble district. Tall walls had been erected around the more expensive houses and guildhalls. A thick, crusted outer layer of paint peeled itself off the barriers. They had been defaced and repainted so many times that I wasn’t sure if there was more paint than wall. I wasn’t sure why they made the effort. Everyone knew of the cracks in the masonry hidden beneath the surface.

It felt as if they were putting paint on a goat and calling it a horse.

An unknown tune graced my lips as I searched for something significant.

I was halfway towards the palace when I heard it.

Scrape.

Clank.

Scrape.

Clank.

I glanced around for somewhere to hide. My eyes settled on one of the nearby hedges that had grown wild from inattention. I darted under the cover to wait. It was probably the noble’s guards, clad in their usual polished mail shirts. They had their own watch separate to the rest of the city that liked to catch and beat girls like me who had funny ideas like snooping around the nobility. Well, it wasn’t just me. They beat anyone who didn’t wear clothes that cost more than three months room and board. Assholes.

A moment later and my breath hitched.

It turned out that I was wrong.

Clad from head to toe in menacing black plate, the Legions of Terror marched their way down the avenue.

What are they up to?

I waited until the sound of their boots faded away before trailing furtively behind at a distance. I did my best to remain in the shadows, but there wasn’t much point to it. The streets were deserted. The Legion cut a straight path through the city, then marched through the open portcullis out of the city walls.

Long forgotten words whispered from the dusty shelves of my memories.

He'll pull the Legion out next, just you wait and see.

The Faithful Warrior had said as much, and yet even seeing it happen I was doubtful. What was the benefit of this? The rebellion was collapsing — as much as I hated to admit it — and the Dread Empire was winning this joke of a civil war. There wasn’t a good reason for them to retreat.

Either way, this was a change of pace. I’d finally learned something of worth. If I moved fast enough, perhaps I could deliver the news before anyone else? I smiled at the thought.

I looked up at the sky as the last of the Legions passed through the open portcullis. Drat. My shoulders slumped. There wasn’t much time. Being late meant listening to another dull lecture from one of the few sisters that were hiding out with the rebellion. They never missed a chance to drone at me, it didn’t matter what news I returned with.

I legged it towards the gathering point with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. I didn’t bother with subtlety, considering that the Legions had already left. The guards might cause me trouble if they caught me, but they didn’t normally risk visiting Lakeside. Those that did, ended up with a red smile carved into their necks. It wasn’t long before I was back within the relative safety of the run-down buildings and didn’t need to worry about them breathing down my neck.

The sound of a scream brought my to a halt.

That was Cassandra.

I tensed.

What should I do? What would a hero do? I wanted to be a hero, and a hero would try to help.

I looked around for something to use as a weapon. One of the many rocks? No, the reach was awful. My eyes passed over a shattered window frame and a loose plank. Neither made for an acceptable weapon. The first was liable to see me cut up with splinters, and the second was too unwieldy to fight with for someone of a proper stature. I spotted a broken pole resting against one of the walls. It looked like it had once been used to suspend a tent, but for now it was good enough.

I seized the pole and started to sprint towards the noise, with the pointy end positioned away from me to my right and tilted towards the ground. Sullivan would never let me hear the end of it if I accidentally impaled myself.

Down one more street, then round the corner to the meeting point.

I halted.

“Stop fighting,” the gruff voice of a man with sergeant’s stripes complained, “it’ll be over much faster if you don’t resist. Less messy as well.”

The man was broad shouldered, towering at least two heads taller than me, with black hair tied up in a neat ponytail hanging over his shoulder. He had Cassandra pressed up against the wall of a nearby building, with both of her wrists grasped tight above her head in one of his meaty hands.

She let out another shriek.

“Get off of me, the Legions won’t-”

Step.

Step.

Light on my feet, I was careful not to rest my soles on any of the rubble. Cassandra spotted me over the man’s shoulders. Her brown eyes widened. Her cheeks were red and splotchy.

Cassandra’s hair danced as she shook her head vigorously from one side to the other.

“Didn’t you hear,” he laughed, “the Legions cut out and left today. Now shut it, there’s nobody around to hear your-”

I gripped the pole in both arms and swung, putting my full body weight into the motion. It slammed into his head.

Crack!

It jolted forwards into the wall.

There was a dull thud.

“What the-” he growled and spat dirt out of his mouth.

I stepped back — doing my best to keep my breathing measured — and prepared to swing once more.

The air whistled as the pole hurtled towards him.

He turned, dropping Cassandra to the ground as he did so.

“You’re going to pay for that, you little shit.”

His palm came up and caught the pole within his hand. The other reached towards his sword.

I released the pole.

The man stumbled.

I darted forward. Moving in close was a terrible idea, but I didn’t have a better choice. I couldn’t let him draw the sword.

His other hand changed targets and swung towards me. I ducked low, only for his left knee to send me sprawling to the ground. Small chips of rubble dug into my back. The pole came down, then shattered into a shower of splinters against the dusty stone floor.

I felt a sharp sting in my right leg as one of them tore a hole through my grey cotton trousers. I winced, then pushed the pain aside.

A boot headed towards my face.

I rolled to the side, only for the other boot to miss taking me in the gut by only the width of a hair.

I let out a shaky breath.

“Get away from her, you monster, she’s only a kid!” Cassandra shrieked, shoving the guard from behind.

The sergeant stumbled, letting out a ragged breath. He turned and swung. There was a harsh crack as his hand slapped Cassandra against the face. She staggered backwards and slammed into the broken wall behind her with blood trailing from her mouth.

“She interfered where she shouldn’t be. Can’t have her live to talk now, can I?”

I darted forward and grabbed at the sword sheathed within the scabbard hanging from his belt.

I pulled.

It didn’t come loose.

I tugged a second time, desperate.

The damn thing was jammed inside tighter than a newly minted merchant’s purse.

Cassandra let out another scream.

The sergeant grabbed my right arm. My heart thundered.

“Got you now. I’ll see th-”

I twisted, dropped low and shoved against him with my shoulder. Even with the extra muscle I’d packed on in the time since I’d joined the rebellion, it still felt like pushing against iron. My other hand came up and jabbed him hard in the ribs. He grunted and loosened his grip. I twisted again. My grey cotton shirt tore, but I still broke free of the hold.

A weapon.

I needed a weapon.

My eyes fell upon the broken splinters of the pole. I scrambled across the floor towards them.

I let out a yelp as the heel of a boot took me in the back, sending me sprawling across the floor. There was another slap behind me, then another shriek. I spared a brief glance over my shoulder. The sergeant had struck Cassandra once more.

I took a measured breath, seized one of the arm-length splinters in the palm of my hand, then stood with it positioned behind my back.

The sergeant let out a laboured breath and turned his attention my way.

There was a scraping noise as his blade came loose of the scabbard.

Step by step I retreated.

It was not looking promising.

Step by step, he cornered me.

He darted forward and thrust with his blade. I evaded, seeking shelter behind the broken wall of a collapsed building. Sparks sprayed as the blade clanked against the masonry.

He thrust once more.

I dodged.

I could feel the heartbeats shave off my lifespan as the blade nicked my earlobe. He pulled back, tried to swing, I ran beneath his guard then kicked backwards, sending him sprawling towards the ground.

His grip loosened on the blade.

I turned, and scrambled towards it. My fingers seized the handle, only for the man to tackle me to the ground. The blade clattered against the floor.

It felt like I was buried beneath an ox.

I twisted, tried to escape his grip once again. The blue of his eyes met my own.

His left hand came up and squeezed my throat. His right leg came down upon my stomach, pinning me further.

I let out a hacking cough.

“Anything you want to say before I stick you like a pig?” he grunted out.

Flecks of spittle landed on my face. The man’s breath smelled worse than the local fisher monger.

His eyes drifted away from me. His right hand released me. He reached towards the sword.

The splinter!

“Yes,” I choked out.

He ignored my reply and leaned over further.

With one last heave, I jerked upwards. There was a sickening squelch as I slammed the splinter through his eye.

He reeled backwards, roared, released my throat.

The sword clattered to the ground again.

I took a hacking breath and wasted no time, grabbing it by the handle, then thrust the blade towards his heart. There was little resistance from his leather armour before the edge carved through his flesh.

“I wonder what your friends will think when they hear you got done in by a twelve-year-old girl,” I hissed, before pulling the blade loose and scrambling backwards.

The man gave his best effort to catch me, but even he knew that his end drew near. I watched as he cupped his hand against his chest. I watched as blood seeped through his armour and matted itself against his fingertips. I watched, even as his breath became ragged.

As he groaned.

As his eyes clouded over.

There was a dull thud as his corpse full to the floor.

The fight was over.

“Cat. Are — are you okay?” she spoke to me in a low voice, making soft, soothing noises.

Shoulder’s tense and muscles at the ready, I swung the sword towards Cassandra, before realizing who it was.

“Careful, it’s me!” she yelped.

“It’s not murder if he was going to kill us first, right?” I laughed.

She stared at me as if I was a wild animal. I hunched my shoulders.

“I don’t think that’s our biggest worry,” she let out a strangled laugh in response, “come on, let’s head back.”

She reached towards me and laid her palm over the back of my hand. I felt a tug on my fingertips. I released the blade into her care with some reluctance.

“What about the other kids?”

“I’ve already returned them. You were late again, so I had to come back and wait around.”

There was something off about how she spoke. I wasn’t sure what. Maybe she was worried about me?

“I promise that I’m fine.”

Cassandra gave me a look, then grabbed my hand and led me away. No more words were said.

“No blindfold?” the guard asked at the basement trapdoor.

“We need to speak to one of them,” Cassandra said cryptically.

“Some kind of scuffle, then?” his muddy brown eyes pierced me.

Another frown.

“She killed someone who tried to assault me,” she replied.

“The man was asking for it,” I insisted.

The guard clammed shut.

It seemed that was enough to satisfy the brute’s curiosity.

We passed from one group of people within the hideout to another. At some point, the two of us were separated.

Looks kept being directed my way.

My fingers kept grasping around an imaginary hilt.

It wasn’t long before I found myself in a room I’d never seen before. Documents were piled into neat stacks on shelves to either side. A desk with four chairs around it occupied the centre of the space. A map of the city was pinned to the surface of it.

Two figures stood on the opposite side.

One of them beckoned me closer.

I found myself standing in the towering shadow of a broad faced man with golden hair that flowed like the finest of silk threads. There was a woman standing beside him. Later, I was told that she was only a few years older than me.

My first impression of her said otherwise.

She looked far, far older than that. Almost as if she was in her late fifties. Her face was creased with lines and wrinkles, and a bone deep weariness had embedded itself within the grey of her eyes.

They were the heroes.

The ones I’d been listening in on.

“Let me take a look at you kid. Come on, I don’t have all day,” the Reluctant Strategist snapped.

“So you’re here to kill me?”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Kid, what gave you that impression,” she raised a palm, “you know what, no, don’t tell me. Just come closer.”

I did as she asked. She seized my palms in her own wrinkled hands and gazed deep into my eyes. A prickling sensation ran down my spine. I felt like an onion that was having its layers peeled away. The Reluctant Strategist gasped, then fell back into her chair. She looked as if she’d aged another month.

“Now that that bout of paranoia is over,” she growled, “I can confirm that she isn’t spying on us for the Black Knight. She is, however, earning a Name.”

“I am?” I blurted out.

My shoulders loosened.

“You are,” she confirmed.

“Can you tell me what it is?” I asked, smiling at her.

“No. Only that if events proceed apace, you should have it sometime within the next year.”

“Are you certain?” The strangled words came from the Faithful Warrior.

“Absolutely,” she turned towards him. “Well, what do you say now? Even when you try to keep the kids out of the fight, they still end up involved.”

Words were exchanged beyond that, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I was too excited. A Name, I was finally earning a Name.

All I remembered was that the two of them argued over whether there was a way to keep me uninvolved. The Faithful Warrior put up a token resistance before giving in. The Reluctant Strategist seemed satisfied at her victory. She’d convinced him that there was no ending my involvement in the parts of the rebellion involving combat when I’d already started to earn a Name.

It wasn’t long before I was escorted out of the room.

Cassandra was there waiting for me. I told her the news. She gave me a tight smile, but there was nothing happy about it.

All at once, the energy bled out of me.

I let out a ragged gasp, my shoulders loosened.

Cassandra said something.

She spoke again.

I didn’t hear what she said.

There was a numbness to me.

Cassandra led me gently by the hand towards a room with proper bedding. She left soon afterwards. It was a different room. It wasn’t the room that I shared with the other orphans.

Memories of the fight came back to me. Was killing always like this? Was death always like this? So tense in one moment, then nothing only a few hours later. Life, gutted out like nothing more than a candle in a storm. I felt as if there should be more to it. More than just the aches and pains wracking my body, or the faint echo of a handle grasped tight within my fingertips.

I left the room and began to wander.

It didn’t surprise me when I found myself in the room that I used to practice with Sullivan. There was nothing to see from one side to the other. The room was still bare. I sat down on the empty floor. I didn’t expect him to be there tonight, but that wasn’t a problem.

That room felt like the closest thing I had to a home.

So I loitered there on the packed dirt floor, lost in my own thoughts.

Sullivan arrived only a quarter of an hour later.

“Heard what happened,” he stated.

“Does it always feel like this?” I asked.

There was a rustle of fabric as he sat down across from me.

“You’re going to need to be more specific,” Sullivan replied drily.

“Killing. So tense, full of energy, then a numbness much later.”

“Only in battle. It’s different if you make the decision cold.”

“Did I do the right thing?” I reached up and brushed my hair away from my eyes.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t feel any regret… remorse… or anything. He was trying to hurt somebody. It’s just that…”

“You’ve been told all your life that you should feel bad about it.”

“Exactly.”

“And what do you think?”

“That somebody probably should’ve stabbed him sooner.”

Sullivan snorted.

“I’d have made the same choice.”

Oddly, that comforted me. Sullivan wasn’t a friend exactly. He was closer to a mentor, but… that wasn’t quite right either. Most of the time, it was almost as if he echoed my own thoughts back to me. He wasn’t around often enough for me to think of him as a proper teacher. He would give me a few pointers, but then left most of my learning to me alone.

What he was, though, was somebody that I could relax around. He was funny and approached problems with a level of pragmatism that I could appreciate.

We shared a few more words before I left for my new room.

It wasn’t long before I dozed off to sleep.

The call to arms was given only a week later, and it was less than an hour before the palace was seized. The remaining guild members barely put up a fight. It didn’t surprise me. The guards only put up a token resistance before surrendering. The guild members would have stood on their own if they chose to contest our claim.

The quarrelling between the Faithful Warrior and the Reluctant Strategist had thankfully ceased in the aftermath.

I was unsettled.

For all that it was being touted as a rebel victory, everything about it tasted wrong to me. I felt as if there had to be a cost — a sacrifice — for it to be a victory.

There had been no cost here.

There had been no sacrifice.

We hadn’t won, we had been given a gift. Now all that remained to be seen was how long it took for the poison to set in after we’d eaten our fill. At least I wasn’t alone in those thoughts. While the others celebrated the victory, the Reluctant Strategist appeared as worried as I felt.

And so as the celebrations died down, I stood upon one of the palace balconies and stared out into the distance. A gentle breeze rustled between the leaves of trees. The smell of lavender suffused the surrounding air. I allowed myself to be drawn into the moment, savouring it for what it was.

There was a storm gathering somewhere beyond the horizon.

I could sense it.