Fallen

Fallen

Christopher Howland. 2002

We run at each other like mindless wilderbeast, set on a collision course by maddened, war-rutting Alphas. But in this conflagration the masters have removed themselves, leaving the hordes, mindless in their confusion and abject fear, to set upon each other in mutual slaughter. I see them, across the ravine floor; see them more clearly than the soldiers at my flanks. They swarm in such numbers they seem one body, flowing like silver blood across the landscape. I am consumed with fear. The warriors of my swarm, ill suited, ill trained and naive, are likewise afraid. But we run, brandishing repeating crossbows, belted together with crude rockets, their novelty flash powder replaced with Greek-fire. We run at them knowing they too are afraid.

I think of the fallen, those untold legions murdered in such battle. I feel them in the weightless space between each hoof fall. I feel they run beside us now, as we are somehow also dead, even if we prove otherwise in the mayhem, some vital part of life is removed with each kill, each reduction of our swarm. The Clerics recite tales of the afterlife, of paradise and limbo, such concepts so foreign here and now. I wonder, in fleeting catches of thought, do they tell us this to serve the Alphas? To encourage our willing charge into the charnel house? Or is it consolation, for our inevitable deaths? Perhaps they try to convince themselves, to reconcile their conscience for their part in this bastardisation of our species.

They seem as individuals now, the enemy. So close. The silver of their armour reflects ours; each of us given six pounds of alloy and one hour beside a forge, to fashion what we may, to create some illusion of protection for those parts we think we could not live without. Thus my breastplate, skull, jaw and claws are so sheathed, a partitioned strip of metal, stitched over leather, covers my spine. Those around me bear grieves and gauntlets; some helmed and some bareheaded, as though tempting a swift, clean fate. One and all guard the rutting hub of their groin, as do I, though for greater reason. The first chakra resides there, woven into the flesh, my link to the earth, the power it spills forth, and the avenue for such chi to infuse my vessel. It rises now, energy drawn up, into the torso, burning unlike any physical sensation, seething with anticipation.

Walls of meat and steel collide, a universal piercing screech above the clatter of death. Those of us who know run between them, slashing with bayonets, releasing a precious bolt upon those who remain solid in our path. It is like charging into a typhoon laced with debris, winds of confusion pushing us this way and that, too much danger to know anything but that immediately before us. Rockets bellow forth in black plumes, spiralling, arcing, falling into whatever mass comprises their latter ranks. Explosions are so distant as to be irrelevant in the immediacy of blood and pain… though one rocks the earth behind me; a rocket jammed and detonated in its tube, killing indiscriminately. Regardless, the void of souls is quickly filled.

We kill, and kill, and kill, detached from the meaning, the purpose, lost in the detachment of fear and conditioned repetition. Do as the swarm does. Do as fear requires. It is the detachment of insanity, for the mind cannot accept that we are here, that we are doing this.

Chi rises like lava, flooding the ley lines of bowels and midriff, like a swollen caldera. The next chakra burns. There is a fey light, golden amid the blood-spattered silver. Only I can perceive it, throbbing like a luminous heart muscle. With it comes some form of empowerment, yet also by its focus the rest of reality, if such a thing yet remains, recedes.

A flash of monochrome, momentary, as though life and colour are whitewashed to backlit grey. Then it is gone, and vivid death is immediately before me. Blood stings my eyes and it is moments before I realise that spray came off my blade, my kill, somewhere.

The art of war is the art of fallacy. We are murdered, you see. It is accepted that in battle some portion of one’s fellow soldiers will die. It is permissible, by the Alphas, to condemn so many. But not to predetermine who will comprise that portion. Mass murder is only condoned, only rewarded with our accompaniment to the slaughter, if death is by lottery, if we do not know if our head will be cleaved, or that of the brother beside us. We shall take risk, but not suicide. Thus the illusion must hold. However the true fallacy is that someone knows. The Alphas, who direct us here perhaps, who know the magnitude of loss. But we remain ignorant, and it is our ignorance that matters.

Our weapons are threefold. Crossbow, rocket and bayonet. Each of us has been issued one, identical to each other. The stock is the joining piece. To that are bolted the launch tubes of our rudimentary rockets, of which we receive only one. It is wise to discharge the tube at the joining of melee, for they are fickle and not robust. We never see whom we kill with such things. Their spiralling plumes descend far behind the beings we see and murder. The bow is fed by a narrow magazine above the shaft, one fresh quarrel falling into place each time the cord is redrawn. Thus we might readily attack those just out of reach, or too fearsome to approach directly. Up close, this close, the crack of release is insistent; a frenzy of wood spikes slapping meat. Last of all, the bladed spike affixed to spring release, to extend beyond stock and bow, to impale, slash and eviscerate with all the personal vigour that cannot be avoided in such conflagration.

In the complete creature, uninhibited, unrestricted by culture, fear or inhibition, chi flows from earth to crown. Conducted along ley lines of body and spirit, it passes through gates, or chakras if you prefer. Key nodes, illuminated and focusing energy; a combination of keys toward empowerment, so the Clerics would tell us. How any enlightenment could be found amid clouds of dust, smoke and shrapnel is beyond me. None the less, chi flows, gold pulsating from the earth in rhythm to my heartbeat, driving another chakra.

Monochrome, once again the deathly illusion. Prolonged this time, a surreal world parallel to the mayhem, in which the battle still rages, but seems a memory. Real only in a reflection of something that may have been… or may yet become. Here there is peace. Peace through violence. Through death. Is that what the fallen find? Is that what I deliver through death? Is it thus…

The madness, the killing. Energy swells, building in a well against the heart chakra, blocked by fear. The obstruction constricts about the chakra like a fist clenching an artery. Pain builds to desperation. If the blades and arrows riving the air about me do not bring death this inner clot surely will. An explosion of unconsumed, unutilised power given cause to burst out randomly. Then I remember some ancient words, given context in this: “To find safety, go to the heart of danger.”

Kill. Kill again, and kill as I run ever deeper into the heart of the enemy. My quarrels are all expended, blood clots over the bayonet, dulling its metallic gleam. The maelstrom rages densely, though I can find none of my swarm to either flank. Somehow this possession that drives me keeps me elusive to the killing stroke.

Then there is silence. The eye of battle, like the calm of a typhoon. Profound silence, around the painful thud of my straining heart, the momentary rasp of breath. Slivers of noise pierce the muffling blanket. Sounds of hate, death and escape. Momentary, shocking, then gone to the void. Chi suddenly flows. My heartbeat becomes… smooth.

Monochrome. So beautiful, so surreal. Yet so profoundly violent. The slaughter is unrelenting, but here the warriors all bear fatal wounds; severed throats, burned and shrapnel-laced flesh, arrows protruding from fist deep wounds. Yet still they kill one another, in a cycle of endless rebirth and slaying. Always there are more dead to be brought down by the collective fallen.

Chi surges forth in a massive wave, like a lifetime’s untapped emotion brought forth all at once, building like a drug-fuelled orgasm. Perception and reason are driven to the periphery as it subsumes chakra after chakra… until it bursts forth from the crown.