The Blue Cloth

Note: Well I'm back to being depressed which means I'm writing again. I don't know where I was trying to go with the story so I'm sorry if I wasted your time. Anyways if you make it through the whole story I appreciate you.

All characters and people mentioned throughout the story are 18+

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"Men, today, we fight for the glory of Mina! We claim what's rightfully ours, ordained by our god herself, Monona. The day I was born..."

"How long is his "royal majesty" going to keep yapping?" One of my soldiers asks, probably fed up with the same speech right before a battle.

"Most likely two more minutes based on his last speeches," I reply in an agreeing tone.

"I may just end up dying here, standing bored to death. Staring directly at these damn walls." The soldier says rolling his neck in annoyance.

But he isn't wrong about one thing. How the fuck did I end up in the sixth row of the front lines facing this city of Escea. This is our 40th day here in the outskirts of the city, besieging and battering its high city walls. For most men, this is their first time being surrounded by so much sand. The heat during the day is exhausting and the cold frigid nights leave our biggest men complaining profusely. No wonder there has been no army in history to ever conquer this city. But some dumbass in our country discovered, what do they call it, I believe, the blow shit up magic dust.

I'm the captain of my small unit of 50 men. As a captain, I have certain responsibilities and hold myself up to a certain standard. Both of those things I poorly neglected in order to fuck with one of our asshole Sergeants a couple of days ago. A couple of pranks and a few suggestive comments about his wife and here I am with my men, standing 550 feet away from death. It got a good laugh out of the men, but that led me to where I'm unfortunately am right now.

I mean, I've lived a good life, you know. Won some sporting games in my city of Withill, which allowed me to reach the rank of captain and be in command of a small regiment of troops by the age of 33, by far one of the youngest of the captains. But really, the pay was the nice part. Bought some farmland, prostitutes, you know, the usual.

However right now, none of that matters. As I look to the left and right of me, I can see my men, ranging from 18 to how have you survived for so long, basically looking in horror knowing that they may meet death today. It is horrible. We've been on the campaign for six years. That's six years away from their wives, lovers, children, parents, their home. And now they meet certain death in an already won war because I was being an immature dumbass.

"Sorry, men. You all have fought bravely. I'm honored to call myself your captain. You can curse me in the afterlife by nightfall but for this morning I pray to you all that we fight bravely once more."

"That sergeant is an asshole anyways Kalan. We will always stand with you." Erum, my second in command, say's reassuring.

"It's as good as any day to die. I won't have any need to pay my debts when we go back home. Fuck, those dice rollers." The lazy fuck and most talented medic in the army, Hentor says with his casual demeanor.

I give a slight smirk. The King finally finishes his speech. And the battle begins.

The first cannon volley of the morning rains down on the city. The sound is terrifying, almost hellish, and earthshaking. Even more so for the citizens of Escea, who have to hear those big metal balls hitting the walls. Fortunately for everyone around, our cannons take an hour to cool down or it risks overheating and the exterior cracking which may cause an explosion. That's one more hour my men are allowed to breathe without worry.

Two, three, four more volleys fire off. We can finally see the first signs of the walls about to fail. The back row of our army starts to cheer, my men prepare for battle. "Ready yourselves men, in two hours we meet destiny head-on."

The sixth volley finds home in one of the broken parts of the wall. Fortunate for my troops, that spot is towards the far left of where we stand. That means we won't be the first to enter the city, but we will definitely be the ones fighting the last resistance of what stands for this country.

I look back to see what commands the Sergeant and the other commanders are discussing. It should be an easy discussion. The walls have failed. We created a big entrance for ourselves. I know at least five regiments can fit through there. Then I hear it. The sound is worse than those damn cannons. The sound of our own trumpets and drums. The signal to press on. The signal to capture the city. The signal to fight.

In a collective large shout, my army, along with my men, make pace to the side of the broken wall. The night before, I told my men to hold back a little. Let other divisions get in front and face the resistance first. I'm glad they listened to me. The first divisions of our army reach the wall and they are instantly met with arrow fire. I see rows of men in front of me fall to the ground. That's only the men directly in my vision. Not counting the countless men who fell out of my vision.

The captains, including myself, order our men to form into a more defensive formation. Our war engineers so gracefully equipped the front row of men larger than usual shields to negate arrow fire. We press on, but slower. Almost inching our way for the last couple of yards. But the arrow fire continues. But for a couple of arrows bypassing the shield wall and finding home in either feet or the faces of our men, the shield wall does its job.

I take a quick, risky, glance, hoping an arrow won't fly into my face, looking to see where we were currently at. I can start to see the definition of the faces of our enemy. I clutch the hilt of my sword. "When the command comes in, follow me and break off to our right. We will fight this last fight together."

A collective, "heard, captain" is said. Then the command comes in to break off. Another loud roar is discharged and our army starts a head on engage with the enemy. All of my men, but for one dumbass who was instantly cut down by the enemy, breaks out to the right.

This is the best I've seen my men fight all war. The training has finally paid off. We protect each other's blindspots and fight with the intent to see each other the next day. The fight goes on for what feels like hours. The final men of Escea, fight to the last man. I can see my men getting tired, withering. But over time, we make ground. More of our forces are making their way into the city. Finally, our overwhelming numbers breaks their morale and they rout. Now the true horror for Eschea begins. The pillaging.

I took a quick look at my men. I believe about 35 of us are left. That is the best outcome I hoped for. I take a sigh of relief. Most of us are safe, for now. I look up at the sky. Thank our goddess, Monona. And follow the rest of the army throughout the city, pillaging and taking whatever we think will make us rich. Other men are doing some more, grotesque, activities during this but I can't abide by that.

House after house, I take gold, silver, paintings, and drink whatever ounce of wine is left. I try to find enough things to distribute to my men as an apology for putting their lives at risk when we could've been in the back, safe and sound. We reach what looks like the high-end district of the city. It sat upon a hill. I can view the whole city from here. This is probably the area where courtesans and priests live. Here is where our king will most likely collect his "taxes," from the men. I go in looking anyways.

I reach a house that looks like any other. I step through the door. I hear a loud and almost feminine sounding yell and see a sword slowly and recklessly attacking me. I block easily with my shield and bash my shield into the attacker sending them across the room. I look over my shield to view the attacker. My eyes go wide. A young, skinny, brunette hair boy, probably no older than 20. He's short like the rest of his people. But, he's, beautiful. His brunette hair was definitely worked on by someone earlier today. And those brown eyes draw me in. He, on the other hand, looks petrified. I don't blame him. Probably 30 minutes ago I was in combat with someone, or possibly a friend, he was talking to yesterday. And now here I am, a foreigner, at his doorstep. I stare at him for what feels like forever. Then a soldier from my army comes rushing in. I hear him say, "let's take him." I see the boy's eyes grow bigger in fear.

For reasons I don't know, maybe it was his beauty or how scared he was but, I draw my sword and bring the side of it to my man's chest. "No, not him," my head tilts to the door, "Go to another house." The soldier looks at me stunned. The boy looks on in horror. He's sitting, knees clutched to his chest, hoping the soldier, or I won't hurt him.

"What, Captain come..."

I stare at him, my unexpected and unusual seriousness catching him off guard, "I said, another, house." I flick my head towards the door again signaling him to leave. The soldier reluctantly leaves the house, running back onto the street to follow others into his pillaging.

I turn to the boy, my seriousness still intact. "What's your name?"

He's shaken, shivering, "E, em, e, Emili."

"What's your age? How old are you?"

"Tw, twen, twenty one." Fuck, He's fighting age, which means my king will enlist him into the army, otherwise known as fodder.

"Hide, Emili. You're safe. Take this," I unravel a small blue cloth from my gear. In my army, this signifies a ranking member has claimed someone for themselves. Which means no one in the army can't harm that person. So this should keep him safe. I hope. I hand him the cloth. I mimick, that he should wrap it around his wrist. "You need to find a place to hide but if someone finds you, show them this cloth. They won't hurt you." I back out of the house. I see the fear is still in his eyes. As I head out, I look out to where the wall is. I see the rest of the army streaming in. Another sigh of relief falls upon me. We've done it. The war is over. Six years, conquering two countries and now finally three.

I turn to the other side and I see my men awaiting my orders. I first take count of how many are left. I actually had it wrong. Thirty-six men are left. Thank you, goddess. "Go take what you can gather. Remember our code. We don't partake in those grotesque acts of rape. Our god Monona forbids it. We follow her."

"Yes, sir."

The pillaging goes on all day. The depth of the city takes us off guard. There were some small resistance forces left in the city. We made quick work of them. Taking most of them as prisoners who will eventually become workers or fodder in our army. But I keep falling back to the house Emili is in or at least I hope he still is in. My men look at me quizzically wondering why I keep backtracking.

Erum, finally asks, "why do you keep coming back to this house? What's in there?"

I lie, for now, "I found something that will pay off every one of our man's tax to the King. Tell our men to take as much they can gather. I intend for us to be the richest division in the army." I huff and smack Erum on the shoulder. To be fair, after meeting Emili, I collected enough items that I can pay off every man's tax. The only problem is I won't have anything left for myself. But I don't mind. My mind is only focused on whether Emili is safe.

As the night continues on, the army makes camp in the city. At least a third of the soldiers are passed out on the streets, others are still drinking and singing, and others are finding camp in one of the empty homes or making camp somewhere. My men decide to make camp in one of the grassy parts of the city. There are small thin seats that are attached to a chain-link which is attached to three poles put together. One of my men actually sat on it and started a swinging motion. His uncoordinated ass fell and incurred the biggest wound he had all day. There's also a climbing wall, some tubes I guess people slide through, and a random pole that has a long piece of leather with a ball attached to it. The youngest members of my men flung that ball around all night. I will say these Escea's invented some cool shit here.

After a while, I examine my men and most of them are asleep. I take this time to sneak off and go to Emili's house. I walk in and he's not in the front like the first time. I start walking through the house trying to find him. Then I realize this is dumb. He will probably just flee, if he's still here because he can't possibly recognize me.

So I say, in that awkward loud whispering voice people make, "Emili, it's me. I gave you the blue cloth earlier. Come out. You're safe." I take a couple more steps until I realize how stupid I just sounded. I sound like one of those dumb criminal characters I hear the storytellers from my city tell during the festivals.

I continue, "I have a plan to get you out." I don't have a plan.

I hear a whispering voice finally reply back, "you promise not to hurt me?" I hear his voice but I finally realize how soft it is. Almost sweet to the ear.

"I promise I won't. I know it's hard to trust me, but...,"

Then I see him appear out of the right corner of my eye. I turned to him. I bring my hands up showing him I'm unarmed. The fear in his eyes has subsided from before. Probably from coming to terms with whatever horrible fate he now expects to fall on him. But I hope to remedy that. I just hope.

I finally take him all in. He's so adorable, handsome, cute. No one is like him from my country. So small, fragile, delicate.

He interrupts my thoughts, "what's this plan?"

"I thi..." before I can even begin, a soldier kicks open the front door. A group of soldiers comes rushing in and the lead of the group is that bastard Sergeant who put me in the front ranks this morning. Fuck, fuck. They have to go through one room before they reach where Emili and I are standing.

They turn the corner and I hear, "oh look at who we have here. The man who survived certain death this morning, Kalan. I wonder, did you tell your men to not run full speed when we attacked? You know, I can have you put to court for that."

Fucking prick. He knows good well that my division was too high ranking to be put up front. He should be the one put to court for neglect. But I can't antagonize him right now. Not if he recognizes that Emili is from Escea.

"Ooh and what else do we have here," that bastard continues, "is Kalan harboring a civilian? Shouldn't he be in the group that's going to be distributed, captain?"

I look over at Emili. I realize he doesn't have the blue cloth on him. I panic and just blurt out, "this is Emili, he's from Oplua, you know, one of the small cities we took three months ago before we arrived here. The sergeant just nods his head as I continue, "He's my division's new cook. We, umm, took him on three weeks ago. That's why you probably don't recognize him yet."

The Sergeant and the rest of his men look at me skeptically, "so why is he with you here in this house?"

Before I could answer, Emili says, "food of course. I brought him along to find food."

"But there's plenty of our own food we set up around the city?"

Fuck, fuck but Emili continues, "his men wanted my countries food tonight. In honor of gaining this city."

Before the Sergeant could continue his questioning, a voice from outside yells, "Hey Tauri," That's the asshole Sergeant's name. "come with us to the King's camp. They still have the fire going and everything."

This stops Tauri in his tracks. He thinks and decides to just leave and join the fun, "you better watch yourself, Kalan. Or else the next battle, I'll make sure you're the very first into battle."

I say under my breath as they leave, "piss ant."

Emili speaks and brings my attention back to him, "Umm, I can't cook."

"That's no matter, we will..." then I remember the cloth, "Wait, where is the cloth I gave you earlier?"

"I, I..." Emili looks down. Hesitant to tell me.

"Hey, hey, you can tell me. If you're protecting someone, I won't hurt them." I say, trying to sound reassuring.

"Come with me." Emili leads me across a long hallway. The house is beautiful. Emili must come from a high-ranking family. A ping of guilt flows through me for a second. He shouldn't trust me. The men of my country just usurped his life and just gave him an uncertain life.

We finally reached a room in the back corner of his house which is where he was probably hiding. When we enter, I see an old man, with the same blue cloth I offered Emili tied across his chest, now stained with a sickening red color. "Can you and your men please help him? He was wounded during the pillaging tonight. I wrapped the blue cloth around him after your men came in again a pillaged the house," Emili pleads with me, "He was my overseer, and he was good to me while I was staying here." The pleading and frantic nature of his voice set me into action.

I pick up the old man, drape him on my shoulders and run off back to my camp. The man doesn't have long to live and my camp is luckily only four minutes away. Emili and I run off while I'm carrying the old man. As we are running, I ask Emili, "Your overseer? What do you mean?"

Emili responds almost out of breath halfway into our sprint back, "He, he took care of me. It's hard to explain. I'm not from this city."

Not from this city? I want to question him further, but we need to make pace to my camp. I feel the old man fading. "Try to keep up, we may only have a few minutes to save him."

We make it back in a short amount of time. When we first see the camp, I start to yell out, "Hentor, Hentor, Hentor! You lazy Fuck, Wake Up!"

Hentor storms out of his tent, half mad, half asleep, "Who just called me a lazy..." then he sees me and my predicament, "Oh shit, hurry up, in the tent, in the tent."

I rush out in front, leaving Emili behind. I get the old man into the tent and Hentor get's to work. "First assessment looks like he doesn't have long. The wounds are hours old. I need to do this alone, wait outside."

I come out of the tent, hopeful that there's now a chance to save the old man. But as I turn around, I see Erum interrogating Emili, with a sword inches away from the boy's face. "Kalan, who is this boy? What are these foreigners doing in our camp?"

"He's our new cook. His name is Emili. Have Holin teach him how to cook something."

"The fuck." Erum says under his breath but loud enough for me to hear. He removes his sword but he's still a little tense.

"Just get some sleep, Erum. Everything is calm. Emili, come with me." Erum tramples off in a fit. He's not as loose as I am. But his strict, tough demeanor helps keep things in line.

Emili follows me into my tent. My tent is more lavish than the others. By that I mean, it's only bigger by a small amount and there's a table. The Sergeants are the ones who start to get the good stuff. But, as I look back at Emili, his posture tightens up again. And the worried look is back on his face. "What are you going to do to me?" He says flustered.

I ignore his inquires and pick up some blankets and whatever soft I can find and lay them on the ground. "Sleep on my bed. You had a long day. Get some rest. Your overseer, as you call him, should be fine. Hentor, although a lazy fuck, is a great medic. Don't worry, just sleep." As I say my last words, I find myself taking my own advice. The second I laid down, I drifted off to sleep. The day was long, with no time to rest. My body reached its limit.

I wake up facing the morning sunlight leaking through the door flaps. Then it hits me, I fell asleep before Emili. My heart starts to beat at a slightly faster pace. If he left my tent, he would've surely died, been raped, or tortured by the crazed men in my army coming off the high of victory. I turn over quickly, my heart settled at the sight of Emili sleeping facing me. The sun illuminates off his body as if he were some sleeping angel. He still wearing his clothes from yesterday, looking like a martyr from one of our religious paintings. Then I notice his body is clenching. I discreetly move to where I can see under the covers and I see he's holding my short sword, with both hands, close to his chest. I chuckle at the sight. At least he didn't try to kill me last night. He would've been successful.