Defeat in Victory

[Nectorist 7347]

Viktor Sarkozic is gone.

---

 

"You know, Viktor, it really isn’t good for you to be down here. We’ve talked about this before.”

 

The young Sarkozic looked up to the cool, stern face of Owyn. Despite the darkness of the flat, ashen landscape around them, illuminated only by a burning bush a few yards away, the prophet’s face shone with a soft glow, making his sharp features easy to make out. The man’s great voice boomed across the landscape, as if he were speaking from above, yet it was also as gentle as a lamb. 

 

"You retreat from the challenges that God sends to test you far too often. It is not in the making of a man, a duke, a faithful Canonist. Being a boy is no excuse. You ought to expect better of yourself. I certainly do.” The prophet’s tone was more forceful now. While still not mean, Owyn was certainly tired of now having had to repeat himself several times over. At least by Viktor’s count.

 

Spoiler

The arms and armor he bore were antiquated, yet the boy could tell that they were ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

 

"I understand. I don’t mean to come here. Well, I do, but it’s more comfortable sometimes. It’s quiet and I feel safe.” That he did. The night sky- it was always night here- reminded Viktor of a summer dusk in Adria, his favorite time of day. The light had not yet vanished from the sky, but it had seeped away to such an extent that only the faintest traces of the nearly-set sun were visible through the clouds. It was not quite like the overcast before a rainy day, another favorite of Viktor’s, but it was close to it.

 

"You need to be kinder, dear Owyn.” Lady Edyth’s voice was soothing, and with a large palm she ruffled young Viktor’s hair. The boy didn’t mind, though. She was a nice woman, bathed in an apricot-colored light that made her seem sort of like an angel. Viktor had never seen an angel before, but if he did they would probably look like Lady Edyth. “The poor boy has gone through a good deal- at such a young age, too! And you wonder why he is so stunted in mind and speech?” Well, maybe she wasn’t always nice, Viktor thought.

 

Spoiler

Although she stood proudly, the woman swayed gently in the wind like trees atop a hill. While her face and tone was kindly, her words were far more barbed.

 

The Prophet Owyn glared at Lady Edyth, pointing an accusatory finger at her. While he made no move for the weapons at his side, the great prophet grasped his hand so tightly around the shaft of his spear that Viktor thought it would shatter.

 

"Don’t you try to poison him with your sweet words. You’ve filled his mind with sin since the start. Why else do we have THIS?” He pointed to the burning bush. “Or HIM?” With a wide arc, he pointed to the third and final friend, Vladimyr.

 

Vladimyr was technically Viktor’s friend, at least that’s what Lady Edyth told him, but, as guilty as he may have felt for it, he could hardly look upon the thing. More in the shape and form of a beast than of a man, Vladimyr hardly spoke, hardly moved, and hardly made a sound. Whenever Viktor came here he simply saw his third friend standing upright, staring at him with a cold glare. Sometimes Lady Edyth joked that Viktor made other people feel the same way with how he stared. Prophet Owyn could hardly tolerate the man’s presence. 

 

Spoiler

 

As Vladimyr stood there, devoid of warmth, Viktor had to frequently remind himself that once, long ago, the shadow had helped him in a time of need.

 

 

Lady Edyth scoffed, or at least that’s what Viktor assumed it to be. From her, it sounded like the small laugh you would hear from a friend trying to make another friend’s tasteless joke seem humorous. She lifted her hand from Viktor’s hair and twirled about to face the boy. She rolled her big, blue eyes as she threw up her hands in defeat.

 

"I don’t know why you keep Owyn around, poor Viktor. What comfort did he give you after the horrors you saw when you were but a babe? What care does he show now for your plight? Is his way really the best to follow? Will you just ‘tough it out’ now that you have lost?” Her incessant talking and questioning annoyed him. He hated that she kept bringing those things up. She was his friend, yes, but it seemed that every time he came one of them demanded that he kick out another. He didn’t want to kick any of them out.

 

The prophet’s eyes went alight with rage as a great torrent swept through them. His massive, calloused palm reached for the hilt of his blade. With a blinding flash of light, a great many beams of sun rays emitted from the sword as it was slowly drawn from its sheath. The dark land around them, now basked in the holy light of the Prophet’s blade, was lit more brightly than a summer’s day. For a moment, Viktor shielded his eyes so that they could adjust. 

 

"Pagan witch! You speak as if you care!?” Vines of white clouds effused from the blade, surrounding Lady Edyth, who began to scream. She clawed at her face, which began to redden with each passing moment. Not just a flushed red, but a violent crimson. She was boiling alive.

 

Viktor always hated it when they fought. He covered his ears to try and blocked out her cries of pain, but they filled the very earth he had created. The sound came from everywhere, and it wracked his mind as much as it did his ears. He wanted it to stop. He hated the noise. He tried to bury his fingers in his ears to block it. He could still hear it. Try as he might to shut his eyes closed, all he could see was the woman’s skin peeling from her face. The man’s ugly snarl as he tortured her.

 

Then all went dark and Viktor could not hear a thing.

 

He didn’t mind the empty, blank pocket of his dream that he found himself in. He could walk around on what felt like soft, flat ground. He heard nothing, saw nothing, and felt nothing, but the darkness he walked through calmed his heart. It beat more steadily again. His ears, which had been throbbing in pain, did not hurt so much anymore. He could breathe easily.

 

Eventually, a small bit of light could be seen near what Viktor assumed to be the endless cavern. He continued to walk towards it. It took a while, much longer than the boy thought it would, but eventually he reached it. The light, which bore no source, shone dimply on the shadow of Vladimyr, hunched over beside a white wall. Almost frenzied, the beast looked up to him, then off to the right, then to the left, then back.

 

"I got rid of them for you.” His voice came out as a hoarse rasp, a horrible, gravely tone that did not assuage Viktor’s fears in the slightest. His heart again caught in his chest, but he felt frozen as he stared down his friend. “They’ll be fine by next time.”

 

Spoiler

The hunched figure of Vladimyr made him look even more inhuman than before. Viktor could at least be thankful that it seemed his friend was too skittish to do anything to him.

 

Vladimyr’s thin, spindly figure began to slowly, laboriously, unfurl. The beast rose to its full height- several heads taller than Viktor, who himself was tall for his age- until his head nearly hit the ceiling. With his small, white eyes, the beast glared at the Sarkozic from atop his mountain.

 

"You lost.”

 

Viktor blinked. Lost? The battle had been won. Even now, he could hear the cheers of the men of Adria in the distance, see his father’s fist raised triumphantly as the last of the Aaunic soldiers fled, smell the carnage of a battle won. But with each passing moment, the sensations of victory grew ever-fleeting as they were whisked away from Viktor, who, try as he did, could not follow them.

 

The world about him changed. The darkness fled as the setting sun replaced it, its fading light cast over the trampled fields of the Lower Petra. It was the sight of victory. Bodies of men, women, children, and horses lay strewn about. In the distance, the rising smoke of burnt-out hovels drifted into the air. A few scavengers, crows and peasants, shuffled about the field as they looted. Above them all stood Vladmiyr, a giant invisible to them all save Viktor, who he kept his eyes locked with.

 

"You fought well and nobly for your father’s cause. You’d fought no war before, yet you were able to fell a man on the field of battle. Your father’s armies, victorious, won the day, and the people of Velec were, mostly, allowed to welcome back their friends and family with cheers and open arms.” 

 

The beast pointed down to a cluster of lifeless, unmoving bodies, all stacked upon another like wood built for a pyre. Viktor neared it, each step feeling like an eternity. He dreaded the sight of what would be revealed, even if he could guess it already. There was a reason he could not revel in victory, yet sense its horrible aftermath. There was a reason he was here, now, and not back with his father in Velec, being praised for his conduct in his first battle.

 

He saw himself, crushed beneath a shattered supply cart, gasping for life. His face, bloodied, matted, and scarred, was nearly unrecognizable, but on his chest he saw the sigil of the eagle. Limbs missing, plate punctured, his life visibly seeping from him, what Viktor saw was not himself, the boy who had so willingly and loyally followed his father into battle, but the dying remains of a butchered animal. His nightmares had come true.

 

The boy forced himself to look away as he wretched onto the ground. He did not want this. Not this end. Victory could be forsaken, all of Velec could be forsaken, why had he lost? Why must he lay perishing, forgotten, left to rot on the lifeless battlefield of victory while everyone else could live? Tears fell freely from his eyes as he desperately looked up to the hulking figure of his friend, wishing for some answer.

 

"You should’ve listened to your friends. They all told you what would come. You knew it yourself.” The beast seemed amused as it spoke, its boldness having returned. It paced around the battlefield, poking at dead bodies amusedly. “You lost, Viktor. Try as you might have to be dutiful, brave, noble, whatever it may have been, all of it came to this end. It’s all it ever could have come to.” 

 

The world about them changed again. They returned to the dark field where they had begun, but now that too had shifted. Fires burned all around. Trees sprung from the earth as they too were caught alight. Ghastly, shapeless figures danced and sang around their unholy pyres as they cheered for victory.

 

"DOWN WITH THE FALSE LORD OWYN!” Cried they.

 

"DOWN WITH THE VILE LADY EDYTH!” Cried they.

 

"PRAISE KING VLADIYMR, HE, OUR SAVIOR!” Cried they.

 

Viktor frantically looked around, but as the landscape twisted and turned, he could not see but flames and shadows whipping and whirling about. He staggered forward, backward, any direction possible to find Lady Edyth and Prophet Owyn so that he could save them, or they could save him. His staggering broke into a ceaseless sprint, but as he ran, pursued by the dancing servants of Vladmiyr, his eyes caught the empty silhouette of a man donned in thick armor suspended in the sky.

 

Spoiler

The great spirit of the prophet lay in perpetual rest as it was frozen in contemplation of its defeat. Whether by its own despair, or by Vladmiyr’s hand, it would not awake until the next dream an eternity away.

 

He continued to run, and soon he outpaced both his pursuers and the flames that had engulfed his dream. Darkness shrouded the lands of his world again, and the boy, breathless, stopped a moment to rest. He doubled over, trying to fill his lungs with air, but the oxygen was caught in his throat, and he doubled over, clawing at his neck in the vain hope that he could breathe. In his struggle, he looked up. Inches from his face, appearing where it was not moments before, were the unblinking, withered eyes of the fallen Lady Edyth.

 

Spoiler

Although the eyes of the burnt husk of Lady Edyth followed Viktor as he walked, and a few ragged breaths could be heard from her gaping maw, he knew that she could do nothing now.

 

He could not scream, but with his strength, the Sarkozic leapt to his feet and ran again. For miles and miles he ran, trying to wake up, trying to find safety. In the distance he saw a light, so he pursued it. Another few minutes passed, and as he chased the source of life it grew ever-brighter. Finally, as he was finally shrouded by the rays of light, he fell to his knees again, breathless.

 

"All of your running, yet you still end up here.”

 

It was Vladimyr’s voice, nowuntainted by a beastly form. When Viktor lifted his head, he saw the man himself. His friend’s humanity had returned to him, and the king that Viktor saw was simply an old man, perhaps twenty years his father’s elder, sitting atop a throne flanked by a pair of guards. Garbed in the fine attire of the Heartlands, yet sitting before a flag that bore allegiance to none, the king spoke more.

 

Spoiler

Atop the throne sat Vladimyr, no longer a beast, staring down at Viktor with an arrogant contempt. His friend was now triumphant; here he reigned unchallenged, and for it Viktor would never be the same.

 

"This is your life now, Viktor. You were given the choice to avoid war, yet you blindly ran headfirst towards it. Even if bloodlust did not drive you, the principles you believed to be noble caused you to meet your failure, one that you will never recover from. Learn this as I, your friend, King Vladimyr, give you my blessing.”

 

The king lifted his scepter and pointed it at Viktor.

 

"Your efforts led you here. You tried to be noble, like Owyn, to be kind, like Edyth, to be proud, like your mother, to be good, like your father.”

 

Red flames leapt from the scepter of the king. They fell around Viktor and shot upwards into the sky.

 

"You need to get matters done, like me.”

 

On the fields of the Lower Petra, Viktor awoke with a gasp. His throat ached for water. He could barely see the stars of the night sky. He had not the strength to rise, nor to reach for the sword at his side. His whole body ached, from head to foot, but there he sat, alive. Several moments passed before he heard a muffled shout a few paces away.

 

"Hey! I’ve spotted one over here! He’s still breathing- bring the wagon!”

[zuziee 3213]

Austina’s knuckles were white with grief as a woman prayed and bargained from above, watching in silence. 

[Beamon4 1646]

A frantic Heinrik ordered numerous patrols to find the missing Crow, days past to months and hope began to fade with it. Nonetheless a glint in Heinrik’s eye assured him that his son survived on somewhere.

[craneia 98]

Nadia Samardzic prays within the walls of her home in Adria - the only thing she knows to do after not seeing her friend's face among those who returned to the beloved duchy following their victory. With shaking hands and tears streaming down her face, she pleads and bargains with God - begging for him to allow her dearest friend to come home.