The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER TWO

The Empire commander lashed his zerta again and again as he galloped through the Great Waste, following the trail, as he had been for days, across the desert floor. Behind him, his men rode on, gasping, on the verge of collapsing, as he had not given them a moment to rest the entire time they had been riding—even throughout the night. He knew how to drive zertas into the ground—and he knew how to drive men, too.

He had no mercy on himself, and he certainly had none for his men. He wanted them to be impervious to exhaustion and heat and cold—especially when they were on a mission as sacred as this. After all, if this trail actually led to where he hoped it might—to the legendary Ridge itself—it could change the entire fate of the Empire.

The commander dug his heels into the zerta’s back until it shrieked, forcing it ever faster, until it was nearly tripping over itself. He squinted into the sun, scrutinizing the trail as they went. He had followed many trails in his life, and had killed many people at the end of them—yet he had never followed a trail as enthralling as this one. He could feel how close he was to the greatest discovery in the history of the Empire. His name would be memorialized, sung of for generations.

They ascended a ridge in the desert, and he began to hear a faint noise growing, like a storm brewing in the desert; he looked out as they crested it, expecting to see a sandstorm coming their way, and he was shocked, instead, to spot a stationary wall of sand a hundred yards away, rising straight up from the ground into the sky, swirling and churning, like a tornado in place.

He stopped, his men beside him, and watched, curious, as it did not seem to move. He could not understand it. It was a wall of raging sand, but it did not come any closer. He wondered what lay on the other side. Somehow, he sensed, it was the Ridge.

“Your trail ends,” one of his soldiers said derisively.

“We cannot pass through that wall,” said another.

“You have led us to nothing but more sand,” said another.

The commander slowly shook his head, scowling back with conviction.

“And what if there lies a land on the other side of that sand?” he retorted.

“The other side?” a soldier asked. “You are mad. It is nothing but a cloud of sand, an endless waste, like the rest of this desert.”

“Admit your failure,” said another soldier. “Turn back now—or if not, we shall turn back without you.”

The commander turned and faced his soldiers, shocked at their insolence—and saw contempt and rebellion in their eyes. He knew he had to act quickly if he were to quash it.

In a fit of sudden rage, the commander reached down, grabbed a dagger from his belt, and swung it backwards in one quick motion, lodging it in the soldier’s throat. The soldier gasped, then fell backwards off his zerta and hit the ground, a fresh pool of blood collecting on the desert floor. Within moments, a swarm of insects appeared out of nowhere, covering his body and eating it.

The other soldiers now looked to their commander in fear.

“Is there anyone else who wishes to defy my command?” he asked.

The men stared back nervously, but this time said nothing.

“Either the desert will kill you,” he said, “or I will. It’s your choice.”

The commander charged forward, lowering his head, and cried a great battle cry as he galloped right for the sand wall, knowing it might mean his death. He knew his men would follow, and a moment later he heard the sound of their zertas, and smiled in satisfaction. Sometimes they just had to be kept in line.

He shrieked as he entered the tornado of sand. It felt like a million pounds of sand weighing down on him, chafing his skin from every direction as he charged deeper and deeper into it. It was so loud, sounding like a thousand hornets in his ears, and yet still he charged, kicking his zerta, forcing it, even as it protested, deeper and deeper inside. He could feel the sand scraping his head and eyes and face, and he felt as if he might be torn to bits.

Yet still he rode on.

Just as he was wondering if his men were right, if this wall led to nothing, if they would all die here in this place, suddenly, to the commander’s great relief, he burst out of the sand and back into daylight, no more sand chafing him, no more noise in his ears, nothing but open sky and air—which he had never been so happy to see.

All around him, his men burst out, too, all of them chafed and bleeding like he, along with their zertas, all looking more dead than alive—yet all of them alive.

And as he looked up and out before him, the commander’s heart suddenly beat faster as he came to a sudden stop at the startling sight. He could not breathe as he took in the vista, and slowly but surely, he felt his heart swell with a sudden sense of victory, of triumph. Majestic peaks rose straight up into the sky, forming a circle. A place that could only be one thing:

The Ridge.

There it sat on the horizon, shooting up into the air, magnificent, vast, stretching out of sight on either side. And there, at the top, gleaming in the sunlight, he was amazed to see thousands of soldiers in shining armor, patrolling.

He had found it. He, and he alone, had found it.

His men came to an abrupt stop beside him, and he could see them, too, looking up at it in awe and wonder, their mouths agape, all of them thinking the same thing he did: this moment was history. They would all be heroes, known for generations in Empire lore.

With a broad smile, the commander turned and faced his men, who now looked at him with deference; he then yanked on his zerta and turned it back around, preparing to ride back through the sand wall—and all the way, without stopping, until he reached the Empire base and reported to the Knights of the Seven what he personally had discovered. Within days, he knew, the entire force of the Empire would descend upon this place, the weight of a million men bent on destruction. They would pass through this sand wall, scale the Ridge, and crush those knights, taking over the final remaining free territory of the Empire.

“Men,” he said, “our time has come. Prepare to have your names etched in eternity.”