“And, you turn that dial to change frequencies,” Zelaphiel said and took a breath. “Understand?”
Lieutenant Benasso nodded as he held the radio pack in his hands. Its canvas had torn in several places, and the hardcase appeared nicked by shrapnel, but as Zelaphiel showed while demonstrating its functions; that damage was superficial. The radio worked perfectly.
“You’ll want to get to the top of the hill,” the angel said. “That’s where you’ll find the best signal.”
“The west is crawling with Bastilhasians,” Zanon said.
Zelaphiel nodded. “I imagine so.”
“We can keep out of sight by staying low among the grass,” Benasso said. “These fields haven’t been cut in months and they’re not about to prowl every acre looking for straggler Atilonians. Not when they’re focused on Wenderguard.”
“Denato, what do you see?” Zanon asked, turned his head up toward the corporal that crouched at the pit’s edge.
“Bastilhasians,” he answered quietly. “Looks like they’re sweeping the field.”
“How many?” the lieutenant asked.
Denato swallowed and didn’t respond immediately.
“How many?” Benasso said again, louder.
“A lot.”
Zanon frowned and clambered up the slope. He stooped down as best as he could given his size and appeared to peer over the grass.
“More than I can count,” Denato said.
“More than a company,” Zanon added.
“Of soldiers?” Benasso asked.
“Knights,” Zanon answered.
The sergeant turned and slipped back down. “They’re serious,” he explained as he stopped beside the lieutenant and Zelaphiel. “They’re sweeping the hill in a line.”
“Over Medati?” the angel asked.
Benasso scowled. “Can we slip out?”
“If we’re careful and lucky,” Zanon said, “but not with baggage.”
“We’re taking the radio,” Benasso said.
“Of course, we are,” Zanon replied and looked to Zelaphiel. He frowned slightly, squinted his eyes, as if he was trying to apologize with the muscles in his thick face. “Meneghin….”
The angel suppressed his smile, and his snark. To see an NPC worry for him in that way was embarrassing. “I don’t expect you to carry me for the rest of my life,” he answered flatly. “If you see a chance to leave, take it.”
Zelaphiel looked up and saw Denato glancing his way. That smile he’d done so well to hide, then crept on his face. “Not going to cry for me?”
The corporal deflected his eyes. “You’re not a Highlander,” he said and returned to his watch.
“He’s a member of the 2nd platoon,” Benasso said.
“Honorary member,” Zelaphiel remarked. “I was just transferred in for an unlucky day.”
“And when you die for Atilonia, you’ll be a Highlander all the same,” Zanon said. “You’re better than I took you for.”
“Did you take me for a coward?” Zelaphiel asked.
“A stiff,” he answered.
“That’s funny coming from you.”
Zanon chuckled.
“This is goodbye, then?” Benasso asked, he looked hesitant.
The angel made a thin smile. “You’ve never lost a man, lieutenant?”
“No,” he answered quietly.
“I have,” said Zelaphiel. “I think, I wouldn’t mind seeing what it’s like the other way around. Be the one that’s lost, for a change.”
The lieutenant appeared to tear up.
Idiot, Zelaphiel thought.
“Let’s go,” Zanon said and patted Benasso on the shoulder. “That’s all we can spare for goodbyes.”
“They’re closing in,” Denato said. “But if we hug the ground, maybe… maybe we can squeeze through their net.”
Lieutenant Benasso placed the radio pack in Zanon’s arms, and the sergeant hoisted it over his shoulder. As Zanon climbed up the slope, the lieutenant stopped to salute Zelaphiel. The angel replied in the same manner and watched as the members of the 2nd platoon perched atop the grassy pit, crouched behind tall grass. They seemed to watch, and wait, until the moment came. Zanon delivered a silent signal by the gesture of his hand and they crawled one by one, their bellies down against the mud of the water-logged field.
Zelaphiel was alone.
He relaxed against the slope and sunk his ravaged legs in the rising water. His hands folded comfortably over his stomach, and he turned his face up to the sky, so as to feel the weight of the rain. The battle for Vultheras raged across the hills below, in Wenderguard and beyond. The notes of war amalgamated in a cacophony without distinction, punctuated only by the loudest explosions that rose clear above the rest. It was a familiar, like a nursery rhyme.
The angel opened his eyes and stared up at the dark clouds; watched the grass that swayed with the wind. “Should I just lay here?” he wondered aloud, as the thumping of plate sabatons grew louder in the ear. “If I don’t release this glamour, they’ll stick a sword in me for sure. Dying to NPCs isn’t good form, but what does it matter. Atilonia will win this battle. I can come back whenever I please, and interrogate Mathematzen after he’s stuck in his little box. Truthfully, I’ve had enough.”
Zelaphiel blinked. The dreary world he observed, shaded in the shadows of the storm, was contrasted by the colorful icons of his HUD. “No matter how beautiful it is, or how much it tugs at my heart,” he said and halted. The angel hesitated to speak his next words. “This place is and will remain… a game.”
“My lord!” Zelaphiel recalled his own panicked plea, and his ambivalent smile was poisoned. “My lord don’t go!”
“It is a game,” the angel said again; face hardened in anger.
The grass rustled loudly; the knights were nearly upon him. Zelaphiel put his feelings aside.
Activate Radar, he instructed his system through his thoughts.
A small circle blinked into the upper right-hand corner of his vision. He wished it to move, and so it did, from his eyes to a hologram projected in the palm of his waiting hand. The angel expanded the radar circle so that it extended several hundred feet, and he observed the line of red dots approaching the position of his white triangle marker. Three green dots had just broken past the line; it looked as if the knights would pass them by.
Then, the red dots closest to the 2nd platoon halted. They began to inch back up the hill. Zelaphiel’s heart quickened as he turned up his nose.
They’re going to be caught, he thought. They’ll die for certain.
And the angel recalled their smiling faces, those he first saw at the mess hall. Benasso had introduced everyone with such pleasure. Denato laughed and made jokes, and begged Medati for an extra helping of food; he thought he was clever. Zanon broke up a fight on the way to their truck, owing to his large size. Medati joined in and they wrestled the drunks. There were no injuries, due to their skill, as much to their kindness.
He recalled the lieutenant, as he served one last salute. The pretty lieutenant’s face was slashed open and bloody. His smile was ruined, not by his wound, but by his spirit; diminished and faltering. Zanon had done his best to offer his sympathies, but the man was a walking boulder, and had all the eloquence of stone. Denato appeared not to care, which was fair—they weren’t friends—but, his eyes gleamed with tears, not the rain. They weren’t soldiers, they were farmers; but they were brave.
They are NPCs, Zelaphiel wondered. They will live and die… and I will continue, on and on… in this never-ending life. What does it matter if they die? What is one more NPC against the untold billions?
It has nothing to do with me.
They’re imaginary.
These feelings are imaginary!
Zelaphiel lashed his hand through the radar in a fit of anger, and by the passing of his fingers it extended further. At the edge of the circle, a new green dot appeared. The angel blinked and held his breath, he tapped his finger to the blip.
[Matteo Venturi] read the dialogue window.Zelaphiel’s arms shuddered, sweat mixed with the rain and trickled down his face.
“If it was her, she wouldn’t hesitate,” the angel heard Alex’s voice in the back of his mind; Achlesial’s voice. “If it was her, she would win without a doubt.”
“My lord!”
“Wait for me.”
“My lord, don’t go!”
“I will return… I promise.”
Zelaphiel clenched his trembling hands into fists. “Hey, you’re going to be okay!” he recalled his conversation with Matteo. “I promise!” The angel reached into his inventory and produced a cigarette, but it bounced from his fingers and fell into the water. Tears welled in his eyes, and knights crested the top of the pit.
They shouted at him. The pattern on the radar changed, and those that approached the 2nd platoon instead diverted toward his marker.
“I’m tired of this,” Zelaphiel uttered. “I’m tired of this… uselessness. I’m tired of this helplessness.” He stopped, turned his head up to the rain. “I hate this feeling!” he shouted aloud. “I hate that even if I try, nothing changes! My effort doesn’t matter!
“Why did I make that promise?! Why did I intercede?! Why did I love that useless god?!”
A knight slid down the pit, sword pointed by both hands.
“F***!” Zelaphiel shouted.
“Disable glamour!”
