"So there I was, covered in black, dead blood," Lokenth said, slamming down his wooden mug onto the trestle table, "And this nasty walking skeleton had a shield as well as sword. Well, he parried my attacks, or left me to blunt my damn sword against that damn shield, and all the while the other corpses kept pawing at me, and I had to keep hacking at them too. I didn't have time to think I might die, I was so busy with it all. Gray, murky pre-dawn darkness all around. Finally I danced away and cut apart some of the other dead men, and had enough space to deal with this champion of theirs. Still it was no good, the damn dead man kept me at bay with this fancy shield of his."
He looked around at the men he'd hired. Twenty-six of them, and most of them drunk, and they were listening with only a casual interest. Oblivious, he went on regaling them. "Then suddenly the sun peaked out through the treeline, and I managed to lop the skeleton's hand right off, sword went flying into the bushes. That didn't bother him none, though, and he kept raising that shield of his with each attack. Finally I held my sword in my left hand, and with my right I grabbed that damn shield of his and ripped it out of his grasp. Then I was able to cut the thing's head off. His eyes stopped glowing when his skull bounced on the ground a few times."
He finished his mug of ale. "I picked up that shield of his after. Wasn't no ordinary shield, but some storied item from long ago, and it was for that I got a letter of recommendation."
There were murmurs of hushed conversation then. He stood up from the table, patted his fellow soldier on the back and went to grab another hunk of bread from the ovens. He felt slightly confused.
A moment later his captain, Aldric, appeared by his side. The man was a grizzled, scarred old soldier with white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. "Sir," said Aldric. "Mind if I speak frankly?"
"Of course!" Lokenth boomed. "Always. Please."
"You're a warrior, so you'll be knowing about swords and fights. But, pardon my saying so sir, you might not know so much about soldiering. Now, most of us have known stuffy, honorable knights who couldn't give a damn about us, and you're not like that, and that's appreciated. All the same, they know about command, and it's plain as day you might have a lot to learn. You might stop trying to impress us."
Lokenth said, somewhat defensively, "I'm simply telling what happened. Anyone can rise, as I have. There's hope to be found."
Aldric looked at him a moment. "Aye, sir, there's hope, but not the kind you're selling. Most of us can't relate to your story at all. You think we ever had the luxury of roaming the wilderness, fighting undead and monsters, selling fancy items to high lords? Most of us is just peasants, sir. Bound to the land. We're not here because we wanted glory and riches, we're here because our lords commanded us to sign up, and we had no choice. Most of us would rather be on the farm, with our wives and children, with our fields and anvils and woodsman's axes. You think I have any hope of riches and honor, of being knighted? I'm just like the rest of us, sir. The gold we get paid doesn't get saved, to buy us letters and items and adventure. It's to get us cheap drinks whenever we rest, so we can obliterate the memory of the past and the terror of the future. That's all we can afford. Think any of us care about this war? !@#$, Sir, I don't even know who we're at war with, or why, and I don't care."
I don't even know who we're fighting either, Lokenth realized, or why.
"I'm not even from Arcaea," Aldric went on. "I was born in Arcachon, and when I was young I was fighting under Elerik Taim in the Battle of Soniel, against the invaders from the south. I didn't care then either, I was just there because I had to be. Now Arcachon is conquered, and we're fighting for Arcaea now, and it's all the same. One battle, then marching and marching, and more marching, and then another battle, and that's the life we have. We don't have heroic last stands against mobs of monsters, alone in the wilderness but for bravery and a sword and hope of a knighthood. That'd be easy."
"Easy!?" Lokenth bristled.
"Easy," Aldric said firmly. "We don't fight like that. We don't fight one-on-one against the evils of the land, nor can we run off and rest up and lick our wounds before choosing to fight again. We wake up, and one day the enemy forms up against us, and all of us together, we fight. Not against beasts. Against men. You ever seen a pitched battle, Sir?"
"No," he admitted.
"No. Well, most of us are lucky to survive them if we do, sir. The arrows come flying, flying in the hundreds and thousands, filling the air, and it's only luck if they don't punch through our eyes and necks and chests. The trumpets sound and the banners fly, and then the knights on horses come charging, and we get our commander telling us to hold the line, standing in front of hundreds of armored cavalry. While next to us, we see our mates, our friends, get slaughtered helplessly by the merciless arrows. Then the horsemen come, and some of them die on our pikes, and others hack us in two with two-handed-swords and impale us with lances, and still we have to stay, because we'll get killed if we run - by our own commanders, if not the enemy. Then it's a melee, and instead of mindless corpses, it's men just like us, armored and armed just like us, desperate just like us, and we have to kill them to survive. Have you even killed another living man, sir? Those of us who survive, we have to, and we have to live with that, and we get to remember the blood and the guts and the screams of the dying and the maimed, and wonder if maybe next time it'll be us. Or we have to charge a castle, and scramble up ladders, bolts and arrows and rocks and boiling oil pouring on us as we do. You've never seen that madness. All of us, all of us who been through a battle and lived, we have. We aren't none to be impressed by heroism. There isn't any, for us. And there isn't any knighthood awaiting any one of us, sir, not a one of us. Just survival. That's the only hope we have."
"I... I hadn't really thought about that," Lokenth said, taken aback.
Aldric merely nodded. "Best start thinking, sir. Now you've hired us, and your gold is good, and you're a good fellow. A lot like most of us were when we start out. But after the first battle, you'll know better why none of us care about your adventures. You can order us to march and fight with you, and we will, but not a one of us cares about the whys or who's of what we're fighting. And those of us who survive don't make friends. We'll drink with you, and joke with you, but we all know that tomorrow any one of us could be dead. A man learns not to become fond of anyone. Least of all his commander, no matter how he got his knighthood. Fact is, it's best you not fraternize with us at all. You get on your high horse, wear your armor, and shout the orders to attack, and we'll follow. You survive, you get to do it again. Just like us. You die, and we just get someone else to fight under, just like when we die, we just get more recruits to fight alongside, and none of us matter."
Lokenth looked down, frowning into his drink.
"Thanks for the drinks, Sir," said Captain Aldric, and when he left Lokenth was still looking down into the empty mug.
