By the time the sun had set, Emrick was still stuck in the camp outside Fovatia, anxiety fueling his every move. He hadn't taken his helmet off once in fear that someone would know that he didn't belong and no one had asked him to do so. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get out of the camp.
Every time he went to leave, someone called him back to help with something else, setting up a fallen tent or starting a fire or something else. It was supposed to be Modra's, the man he'd killed, break. He was supposed to be sleeping before he went on patrol again, but he was so desperate to go. His next patrol wasn't until the next day.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, hours after he had arrived, he gave up on trying to get out. It was only a night, he could do it if he didn't take off his helmet. His first decision was to find his tent and sleep in it before anyone noticed that he was out of place, but he had no idea where it was supposed to be. Instead, he spent another hour or so running around the tents, growing more and more agitated.
At the edge of the tents he was running around was a campfire, men and women laughing around the bright flames. Even in the stolen armour, he was freezing and wanted nothing more than to sit by a raging fire, but he couldn't. He had wasted enough time in the camp as it was. He needed to wait until it was his turn to patrol again and get moving towards Liman.
He had no idea what kind of state Isiah and Rina were in. Back on the river after the laboratory had been destroyed, he'd promised to follow them because Rina wasn't trained enough to look after them all on her own. But then he'd been separated from them and his promise had gone out the window.
"Hey! You there!" a voice yelled from somewhere to his right. He tensed, ready for someone to notice that he wasn't who he said he was. "In the helmet! Aye, you!"
The people around the campfire were waving to him, gesturing for him to come over. He almost turned and ran before realising that it would only make him look suspicious, something he couldn't afford in the middle of the enemy camp. So instead, he walked over to him and ignored the painful clenching of his stomach.
"Can I help you?" he asked the staring group of people. One passed a mug of amber liquid to another and suddenly, their strange smiles and stares made sense. They were drunk.
"Ya looked lost," the man who had yelled to him slurred. "Are ya 'right?"
He took a deep breath before he answered. "Can't find my tent," he answered, even though it made him sound like a complete idiot.
"Which Captain do you serve?" a woman asked.
"Captain Hilja."
"Gods, that's on the other side of camp!" she exclaimed and let out a drunken laugh.
He shrugged. "I got a little lost," he said.
The man waved him away. "Aye, so do most of us. We just share whatever tent we find. Not like we're going anywhere anytime soon, so what does it matter?" he said, causing the others to laugh. It wasn't even funny. "Sit, have something to drink. We'll help you find a tent later."
It wasn't like he could do anything else. With a sigh, he took the nearest available seat next to a bearded man who gave him a polite nod. "No, thank you," Emrick said when someone tried to hand him a mug of the liquid.
"Don't drink much?" the man who called him over asked.
"Aye, not a big fan of it," he answered with a shake of his head. Some of the others nodded like they understood and took big swigs of their drinks. None of them had their helmets on and he looked out of place, but he was still far too nervous to show his pale skin around their various shades of orange and red.
The man who called to him, a few years older than him with an unwashed birds nest of dark hair, gave him a big grin. "Yer accent's strange. Where ya from?" he asked, his voice altered by both the alcohol and the thick border town accent. Emrick wasn't the only one from the border towns in the little group, but he was still the only halfling among them. He never should have accepted their offer; he should have just gone.
"Huton," he answered anyway, knowing that leaving now would mean wandering around in the dark for hours. They would help him, at least, if they weren't too drunk to move.
The fact that they were the army that had been destroying Minisia appalled him. They murdered and wrought havoc on a daily basis and of a night, they celebrated it like they were the heroes from stories. They were proud of themselves, of what they had done. He could only imagine that the Askari armies did the same when they won. It was disgusting and only gave 6him more evidence to believe that the armies needed to be eradicated.
He could do it so easily too. No one would ever guess that he was the one slowly causing each person to panic and scream until they eventually died, but he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough for that and he needed to get to Isiah. Wiping out a small portion of the army would only waste time and in the end, wouldn't do anything. The battle for Fovatia had been won long before he'd arrived.
"Ah, Huton! Yer accent's pretty posh for Huton," the man said, but Emrick only shrugged. A stranger didn't deserve an explanation of his life. "I'm from Kuhon myself. Not too far, huh? What's yer name?"
If he told them the name of the man he had killed, would they recognise it or was he safe? "Modra," he said, biting down on his lip.
He grunted when a hand clapped down on his back. "Modra!" the man said excitedly. "Nice to meet ya! The name's Daan." He then introduced everyone in the little circle, but there were far too many names for him to remember. At least he'd been able to get away with a dead man's name.
A woman across the flames stared at him with a look he couldn't decipher. "What are you wearing your helmet for?" she asked.
He tensed, but before he was able to answer, a hand clapped his back again. "Aye, take it off, no need to be so formal here! The captains don't mind," Daan said and it didn't take much for Emrick to know that he wasn't going to be able to sit there without taking off his helmet.
Instead of protesting, as there would be no point and leaving would only make him seem suspicious, he unclasped the strap under his chin and pulled the helmet off. If they disapproved, then he would have a valid excuse to leave. There had been very few people who didn't care about the colour of his skin.
"Huh," Daan said when Emrick dropped his helmet next to his feet. "Don't see many of your kind around here."
He was so completely different to them, his pale white skin bright in contrast to the different shades of oranges and reds. The only sign of colour was hidden under his armour, the occasional patch of blue and orange, so pale that it almost couldn't be seen unless someone was looking for it specifically. "My kind?" he said even though he already knew what the answer would be.
"You know, halfers. Eh, yer still welcome here, we don't care. This is war, we need all the help we can get," Daan said with a shrug, not noticing how the words made Emrick sick to his stomach.
The others around the flames didn't care, drinking and talking amongst themselves. The only one who didn't was the stoic man on his other side. Every so often, Daan would try to hand him a mug of ale again, as if forgetting that Emrick didn't drink and he would have to wave him away again.
Sitting with them made guilt flow through him almost painfully even though he wasn't actually a part of the army. It was wrong, how cheerful they were, how happy they were to be at war with their only neighbour. They were killing and destroying and ruining lives, taking pleasure out of it just as he had expected them to, just like all the people from either side of the border who raided Huton when he'd been living there.
They were ugly people, disgusting. Emrick didn't enjoy killing, but if it was necessary, he would do it. War wasn't necessary and it certainly wasn't something to take pleasure in. All he wanted to do was leave, but where would he go? These people were supposed to help him find somewhere to sleep.
That didn't look like it was going to happen anytime soon. Those who weren't celebrating the war and needless murder were slowly passing out, snoring away around the fire. Everyone laughed at them but Emrick and the ever silent man next to him did nothing.
They were the kind of people who deserved to die for what they had done and at any other time, he would have done it himself, but he couldn't. Wiping out the armies was something Isiah would have to do. He was the Beast, he was the only one who could do it, if he agreed with what Emrick believed. It was a safe enough assumption that he did, but he wouldn't agree with Emrick's way of doing it.
When he stopped the war, there wouldn't be any need for armies or fighting or pointless death. They could disband them, although he knew neither side would completely. There was no trust between the countries, they would always have an army to defend themselves, but if they didn't use them, maybe it would be alright.
The hours passed slowly and all Emrick wanted to do was get up and go without asking someone to help him. As he began to stand, an arm against his stopped him and he frowned down at it. A cup of something sat in the hand near his stomach. "Have some water," the stoic man next to him said. "You look unwell."
He took it with a relieved sigh and sipped at it. "Thank you," he said. He was parched. How long had it been since he'd had something to drink? His bag of supplies was still on his back, luckily no one had bothered to point them out to him but he still hadn't wanted to make them noticeable.
"It's pathetic, isn't it?" the man asked, gesturing at the party around them. Emrick frowned in confusion and the man continued. "They celebrate murder. I can see you think the same."
"Aren't you a part of all this?" he asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow at the red-faced man with the salt and pepper beard.
He got the same look back. "Aren't you?" he asked and Emrick blanched. He'd almost given himself away like an idiot.
Instead of panicking, he shrugged and tried to act casual. "Unfortunately," he said.
The man hummed in thought. "Orvo," he said.
"Modra." Emrick continued to sip at the water offered to him, but eyed Orvo suspiciously. The man hadn't said a word until he'd tried to stand, as if that had been the right cue to start a conversation.
"The rest of them will be out soon enough. This happens most nights," Orvo said, gesturing to the sleeping people around. Daan was still awake, attempting to talk to the person next to him, but the words were so slurred that he found it easier to laugh at everything instead. "They find something new to celebrate and drink until they pass out."
Emrick sneered at them. "Why?" he asked.
Orvo shrugged. "Why not? It's war, they're bored and they want something to do. We're stuck here until the end of it, meaning they don't get to fight anymore, which is exactly why they joined."
"Isn't that why you joined?"
"Killing is the worst thing I could possibly imagine," Orvo said, tilting his head to look up at the starless sky. "Why did you join?"
When Emrick had been walking through the camp, he'd practised the answers to the most common questions he would get asked, including the one Orvo had asked him. His original plan was to give the generic answer of fighting for his country, but looking at Orvo, he didn't want to give such an answer. It felt wrong.
"To save someone I care about," he answered instead, his mind flashing to Isiah. It was the truth, for the most part.
"A noble choice," Orvo said, running a hand through his thinning black hair. It was a strange feeling, as if he sought the approval of someone he'd just met, but something tingled in Emrick's stomach.
He frowned and pushed it away, adjusting how he sat on the log. "You never answered me, why did you join?" he asked. "I told you why I did. It's a fair trade."
"I'm a doctor. I joined because I thought I would be helping people, but because I'm from a small western town they ignored my credentials and made me kill instead," Orvo explained and the casual tone in his voice changed to one of immense sadness. "I'm a selfish person, Modra. I chose to kill to save myself from whatever punishment I'd get for treason. I have killed six people and when this is over, I will kill myself."
The weight of the conversation made him feel sick, but it was something new. All of the people around him enjoyed what they were doing, but all Orvo wanted to do was help people. It reminded him of a more serious version of Isiah, but it seemed impossible for someone like Isiah to be in the army. And yet, he was sitting next to one.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Never in his life did he think he would say such things to a man in the army, but things changed. Maybe not everyone was exactly how he expected them to be. Maybe there were one or two good ones.
Orvo waved him away. "Not like you can change it, kid, that's how the world works. You're from the border towns, you'd know what it's like," he said, back to the more casual tone. "Just know this: everyone has a reason for being here, it's not just killing. Some might have joined for that, but not everyone. Not me and not you."
Again, he reminded him of an older version of Isiah. What he would have been like if he'd gotten the stones as an older man. It was strange, but Emrick couldn't stop himself from taking the words in as if they were something to worship, even though they were something he didn't agree with.
Before he got a chance to say anything, Orvo groaned and stood. "Come on, I'll show you somewhere to sleep," he said and held out a hand to him.
As they walked through the camp again, Emrick was glad that he hadn't said anything. He would have said the first thing that came to mind and in his confusion, it could have been anything. He would have argued that Orvo was wrong, that everyone in the army was a brutal murderer if his time in Huton had said anything, but even the thought of those words spilling out felt wrong. He didn't know what to feel. For the first time since he'd opened his eyes to the reality of the realm, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to believe.