The Justiceers - Part Four: Chapter Eleven
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
Part Four: Prefinished Business
4.11
Erick Forsithe tore forwards, one thudding placement of his oversized steel sabatons at a time, sensing inside his heart that this would be his last battle.
The man’s life had been of most severe pain, so apparent by the density stowed within his body's fascia, the way his chest ached so plainly for no reason except that he remained alive another day. He’d never felt at home in his body, nor this world, its mechanisms of such overt cruelty and injustice.
It had been called Earth.
A time of warlords claiming themselves kings, women surviving in purest suffering throughout the land, with men ruling over and terrorizing every last heart and soul; their own most of all.
This station wherein Erick found himself was one of placement, he’d been assigned to this role in life because of fate, origins of birth mattering most in this backwards land. To be free was a luxury none were told hold on this planet of such ruthless self-deception, lost to the ways of spirit, with even those who found its truth in their heart torn down by all the hatred. Everyone was brought to this level of twistedness through suffering wrought.
Erick’s name was to be known because of his boldness, the way he’d throw himself into responsibilities placed upon him with trust in himself and those by his side, fearlessly accepting what he could not control.
No one knew it was because he’d always been a woman.
His soul was not fit for this form, or this world, and the surrender he’d undergone in allowing himself to live was empowering by oddest means; he didn’t care about anything.
‘Why not?’ he’d often think.
‘What does it matter anyways? What have I got to lose?’
Charging into this muddy field, beside the friends he was quite aware would soon be dying before his eyes, feeling the ominous weight of knowing; not only were they facing a most overwhelming and overpowering opposition, it was only because of the blindest callousness and egomania of their leaders they were here to begin with.
Yet, choosing to make his stand regardless, and fight for his honor and that of his brothers alone — is where Erick found purpose.
The way he’d not cared for his life, how he so longed to be something he never could ‘in a millions years’, was for this. So he could be courageous in this very fight. He would save someone he loved today, and Erick knew it.
This would be massacre — there was no doubt on either side.
Every last survivor would be executed, this was known, it was the way of war in this ancient land of empire. Still, something in him felt of pure awareness, thinking of the friends beside him and wondering who it might be. His presence here would save one of these here today; someone he loved the very most.
The battle went on far longer than anyone might’ve expected. Erick had been furious, leading his men to victory in their defeat; glorious in their resistance.
There weren’t many left, and all had been separated, opposing forces surrounding and closing in on each last soul.
Erick had called out to his brothers then, a shout to be heard by the gods themselves, and his soul in the sky — feeling in his heart it would matter, that he could change something — that man had said it with more vigor than his words had ever carried in his lifetime.
“Let them know who we are!” is what he’d shouted.
There hadn’t been a choice but to scream it, so coming from within, yet when he’d heard the responses in return from beyond the crowds of his enemies, those men he had come to love through all of the terrors they’d endured and inflicted together — he knew exactly why he’d done it.
They would not die alone today, and neither would he.
It was here the crowd around Erick had birthed a wave of murmured gasps, some sense of great significance found by even himself in that strangest moment, before their mass had parted for him to see.
There they’d been, the King themself, come in heed of the mighty call Erick made. Removing the conical-steel helmet upon his head, so draped in its finest golden chainmail; he was beautiful, Erick had not known what he was feeling as the King approached, armed with his great blade.
There was respect in his gaze, a knowing within this King of the rightful leader inside the man before him, clearly having sought an enemy more worthy than those who’d called themselves royals in this land.
Erick’s heart had been pounding right out of his chest as he raised his own blade, when he’d felt himself surge forward from that strongest inner-push to lunge first, striking high with his most furious blow.
King Arthur was mighty, and practiced, there would be no fiercer enemy in this world.
They’d fought there for more time than any one soldier would believe, or dare to recount in honesty, their fear of Arthur’s vengeance so swaying their memory. No matter the struggle, or what his soldiers might’ve perceived as some portrayal of weakness, he knew better.
This common man was no man at all, he could see something within them. Arthur’s eyes portrayed this recognition, something activating within him; changing the man.
Erick knew it coming before it had, feeling it build beneath the surface of their struggle, a sense of looming finality on the nearing horizon; not only to this most glorious dance, but of his own life, as if it had all been leading to this single place in time.
When the blade had finally pierced his chest, driving deeply through his heart, and King Arthur had been so close to his face. It was in his eyes. He’d seen something beneath even the man within the King, deeper still, a sign of soul.
It was felt in Erick, something he’d not believe real, at last; at longest last.
Some sweetest love he’d felt in his most dream swept moments as a child, would bring him this very sensation of the heart. It was this man all along — the King. He’d never loved anything more, and as Erick began to slip away, all he could ask himself was the question.
‘Why do I love him so?’
Miriam Lightfoot awoke in her chamber, the surviving drudges from last nights proclivities surround her, feeling into a sensation within her chest she’d not had in a longest time.
She’d laid there, running again through her dream, and it’d all come back — so much at once, lifetimes — pouring into this person, so barely a human being, completely lost to their soul.
Miriam, the woman she’d been so long ago, had seen that very thing.
It took some time to unpack while she’d lied so still, listening to the thrumming lifeblood of The Valkyrie pumping around her bed-chamber, feeling that darkest presence which had become her all-around. Yet inside her chest, and the feelings found in that dream, were notions of the life she’d led as Miriam Halafax amongst The Periphery — its sights beginning to come back to her.
When Arthur Katrinus had left Miriam after they’d first met, in that time-space which now felt like fifty lifetimes previous — she’d asked her Gods a question, ‘What is it that Arthur truly is to me?’ — the end of that cruelest life had been seen most clearly from her waking state, carrying along with it the very same feelings which Miriam had held within her heart all along to only realize in Arthur’s embrace, bringing her back to sensations most craved by strangest means. A part of her had just known it back then, saying it in those most plain words to herself.
“We’ve been fucking each other over for lifetimes.”
Miriam also knew she’d loved it every time, some sickest part of her enjoying it all from on high, learning so much about the heart through pain and separation from the one who would make her feel whole.
At this moment in time; aboard The Valkyrie in her parlor of wickedness. Miriam Lightfoot had found something come back to her mind that would make her cry for the first time in thousands of cycles, to feel like a little girl again, every horrible thing she’d done coming to be seen along with it.
She had remembered Arthur Katrinus’ face.
