Liberty Hymn (Closed)

[Ozoric]

Liberty Hymn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRnKJ1t3J-8)

http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mountainfortress.jpg


Sequel to the events of the Eiskalt War (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27138-Round-1-Part-A-Gisela).

[Ozoric]

The Drakengard. Sunrise. Potential and possibility belayed by portent. At the top of the tallest tower of the fortress, a Lancer reminisced. War besieged his calm. Reflecting on the darkness in the hearts of the men of Eiskalt, Ozoric Newalla tried to arrive at a conclusion he was happy to live with. Below, in the feasting hall, a prisoner.

“Not a prisoner…,” he corrected.

Stroking chin with gloved hand the strategist reached for the horn of the Stormhold. Long, impenetrable to all weapons, and built into the fabric of the place. Furrowed brow, wistful grimace, and heart sunk low. Duties not abandoned, even though usurper and enemy alike walked the halls of his hallowed home without reprisal.

“I wish he were,” he spat.

As the Stormhold sounded, calling in the dragons, the Lancer felt soul reverberate in his body. The essence of life in the Drakengard became, for a brief moment, his song. Only weeks prior Ozoric himself had overseen much of the operation in Eiskalt. There, men had become boys. Boy’s men. Women widows. Warriors’ wayward souls. The memories still haunted him, even though the populous of his home seemed to have forgotten. Moved on. Transformed.

“You have a habit of talking to yourself of late, Newalla.”

Ozoric turned sharply and reached for the sword on his left hip. His fingers flexed. Digits of intrepid heroism awaiting their due. When his reactions caught up with his eyesight, he eased off and folded his arms across his chest. The horn continued to echo in the air around them, the peaks of the northern Corone Mountains thunderous and black against the twilight of dawn.

“You have a habit of sneaking up on me,” the boy replied bitterly.

Aelfric, used to the sour words, shook his head. His bulwark figure, armoured head to toe was impervious to the lingering torment of the Eiskalt war that tore at his friend’s soul. Duty, however, had to remain in place. It had to thrive. In the Drakengard, it was everything.

“I am not here to indulge in cycling trivialities boy.” Once, perhaps. Not now. “The Knight-Commander has issued an order.”

“As ever,” he chided. Though he eased off from his sword, he remained eternally on guard. The Stormhold finally silenced its cries and left the wind as the only accompaniment to their engagement. It whipped around the tower like an unwelcome guest, slinking in corners dark and corridors unworked.

Raising a hand to silence Ozoric, Aelfric produced a document. The scroll inscrolled and its words spoke fables. Listening to his mentor with growing frustration unrealised, Ozoric heard only one word in thirty. Tobias. Immediately, his blood boiled and his spine tingled. Hatred instilled in his aching bones.

“I will not give that man light of day.” He would. He knew it. Despite it, he fought the commands given to him by those he could not deny. “I…no.”

Aelfric shook his head. “You will give Tobias Stalt the exact same hospitality you were afforded on the first day of your new life in these halls.”

“Life?” Ozoric shouted. He immediately bit his lip, voice thunderous on fell skies darkening in the moments between dawn and day and morning proper. “What life do I have here…?” Rhetoric was thick and ichors between the men.

Aelfric crossed the polished stone floor of the tower’s peak and rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The glove was titanic next to the lithe figure of the ‘prince’, who scorned his own life more than any other did. To see him loathe another soul was a new situation for the Captain. It was as interesting as it was worrying.

“Nobody will question your right to be a Lancer. Nobody will deny you the wings gifted by the coming bond. Nobody,” Ozoric pulled away, but Aelfric redoubled his efforts. “Nobody at all will usurp your ability and talent with words. Who else could ease that troubled soul into his prison without shackles?”

That was the poignant edge of the knife. The Drakengard was a new life for all who walked its halls. A penal colony first, anyone who became a citizen absolved. Forgiven. Born anew. Somehow, Ozoric Newalla could not quite come to forgive Tobias Stalt. The scent of plague in the air, of dragon’s blood was too strong. Too painful. Too inflammatory.

“I don’t care who.” Breaking from his mentor’s grip, Ozoric walked to the top of the stairs spiralling down into the black heart of the armoury and library. “I can’t.”

“Can’t,” Aelfric twirled about, eyes locked on the boy, “or won’t?” He shrugged.

Stepping back onto the tower, Newalla found himself torn.

“Irrelevant.” Pallid skin shone in twilight. Tattoos flared. Fists clenched. Uncertainty.

Aelfric shook his head. “Tobias was no more a soldier in the war than you or I. The only difference is, my boy…,” he trailed off. Gauntlet stopped pointing accusingly. Scowl turned to smile. Bearded and stoic glare into warming cogitation. “Tobias realised the error of his ways.”

Repeatedly Aelfric had bested even Ozoric’s intellect. The boy had seen to councils of war and crisis unfettered by reality. Whenever confronted by the ageing figure before him, a true trial began. The air cold and frosty seemed to burn his lungs as he struggled for breath. Weakness, morning, or nerves…he could not be sure.

“You want me to show him quarters…teach him the rules…show him the ‘forgiveness’ of the bastard Emperor?”

“Your father,” Aelfric continued. He shrugged. “Do exactly for Tobias as I did, and do, and always will do for you.” The truth of that cut deep and Ozoric found no strength to fight anymore. He acquiesced. “Can you do that?”

Whispers on the breeze turned swift to beguiling and badgering brisks. Taunted by the desire to jump from the tower and be free of his seemingly unbearable burden, Ozoric nodded. His white shirt, black slacks, and sabatons were ill-advised attire to remain for too long in the exposure of Corone’s wilderness. He would have said anything to free himself of it, but for once, he meant every word. His heart sunk.

“I will do my duty.”

“Free him from his cell a new man, Ozoric.” There was enough portent in the captains’ words to destroy every shred of doubt in the Lancer’s mind. “He has been waiting for his fate in a six by four tomb, a bed and water pale for company for three nights. Do you remember that?” He sniggered. “Do you remembered wondering why you were there, and what you had done to deserve such cruel and unusual punishment?”

Remaining silent, the boy turned to the east. Light danced over jagged peaks. Only the outline revealed the lay of the land, the detail obscured by luminescence and dragons darting in flocks’ wake dozens, perhaps hundreds strong. The Stormhold has roused them, and soon they would be unable to resist as fever turned to fervour turned to fire.

“All I remember is thinking ‘why?’” Ozoric Newalla’s crime was simple. He had been born. He had done nothing wrong. He would do nothing wrong. Circumstance, often enough, made enemies of gods and gods of heroes. He frowned. That was precisely why Tobias was six hundred feet directly below where he stood. Lost. Lonely. Confused. “I guess he did surrender.” Recognition of his ill deeds was good enough to allow Ozoric chance to examine the man…the monster…the menace.

“Good,” Aelfric barked.

Before words became weapons, the grizzled and beleaguered captain was gone. Ozoric, alone, found himself comforted by the Wiley winds. Silent, slicing dances of death. He pictured the moments the Valakut fell from the skies in cannon fire. He reflected on the dying citizens of Eiskalt, clutching necks and napes and nuances naughtily. Futile fascinations with lives unloved haunted him more so than any part he himself had to play.

“Good…,” he repeated.

Clenching fists, taught, pallid skin over gaunt bone, Ozoric made for the stairwell. It was time for man to mount malady, and for murderer, malefic, and monster freed into a life, Ozoric Newalla hoped very much, would mould and manipulate madness into magisterial.

[Tobias Stalt]

Sleepless nights had plagued him of late. Black bags had formed under his eyes as he scrutinized the stone wall with a restless gaze. Each crack was a different failure, each misshapen inch was an excuse. Both of the soldier's hands folded in front of his lips, and Tobias sat on a plain cot with bare bones accommodation. The water was a murky color in the mug that sat nearby, and the untouched bread lay on the floor now, picked at by mice and other manner of vermin.

The youth was emaciated not by force, but by choice. Pale and gaunt from many days of refusal to eat, Tobias had been urged by multiple wardens to take care of himself. Now, in solitude, he wept again. No tears streamed from his eyes, but he sobbed still.

The uniform of an Alerian soldier had been ruined and only remained a mocking testament to what he had done. He wore his shame in the open, though no one here had spat on him. It was all he could do not to scream. "Why am I here," he asked quietly, "and not before a headsman?"

He wanted to die; not because he hated life, but for what he had done. There was no justice in those lives taken; slaughter and crime in the name of advancement were his accolades. If there were a guard beyond the door, the man was stoic and without response to the pitiful queries of the condemned. Tobias must have asked the same question a hundred times in the span of three days, but no response ever came.

He had been stripped of his weapons, searched thoroughly and brought before a woman who had stared him down and questioned him on every aspect of the enemy plot and the strength of their numbers. Tobias could only assume that the forthcoming nature of his compliance had lent to their leniency.

It had been over a month since he had seen the evil consequences of his own actions.

In the streets, dead had blossomed like a garden. Yellowed and bloated, the bodies were put to the torch to prevent the spread of disease. Vile odors wafted across his senses, and he still recalled the bitter, disgusting flavor on his tongue when he tried to breathe. He still gagged.

"It's clear. I'm to be left til I've gone insane," he muttered, and his eyes rolled.

The walls never moved or changed, but he continued to find new flaws in them. There was was a drip from the ceiling that splashed on the floor every so often, and it played like a dull background music In his mind. Tobias began to wonder if he saw weakness around him, or flaws within him.

He stole a chance look out the window, but night had dimmed any view he might have of the world. Beyond, Corone was lit by hundreds of torches that stretched for miles, right up to the craggy mountains that felt like walls in their own right. Freedom was was a precious perspective, and Tobias lacked it abundantly.

He heard something like a roar in the distance, and Tobias glanced skyward. He had not seen a dragon close; the Drakengard had been careful to keep him far from where he might harm another, after the loss of one of their Valakut. It had seemed a shame. Tobias would have liked very much just to see one.

His hands stroked the bars thoughtfully, wistfully. He recalled those days before all this, when he had been a simple thief. Before he had met Jak Roth Rute, or Camille, or any of those damned assassins, Tobias had been a slave only to his accursed lack of money. Now, money was the very least of his worries.

He would have killed for her, once. Tobias remembered those last moments in the Command Camp on Eiskalt. Camille had pressured him to remain. The woman he cared for had taken a stance against everything he believed in, and she had become nothing to him. Without Camille to restrain him and counteract his foolish thoughts, Tobias was at a loss.

It felt empty.

"I don't want to die," he whispered, at odds with himself. "I'm losing my mind!" He screamed out at the horrific reality, and he banged both hands on the bars. "I can't even decide what I want on my own anymore!" He twisted and stormed the door. The impact sent a shiver through his entire body. "Do you know what that's like?" He asked. Pain in his voice implored anyone who might listen. "Do you know what it's like to lose control of everything?"

He slumped, dejected. Tobias remained on his knees, head bowed in defeat. "Do you understand how it feels to be lost...?"

[Ozoric]

By the time Ozoric arrived in the jail, it was nearly midday. The heat of the glorious spring day outside penetrated the Drakengard. In the darkness of the fortress, the air was warm and stuffy. Dust danced in the lancer’s wake as he wound through the labyrinthine network of tunnels. He passed cells long occupied by deserters, naysayers, and came at last to the newest inmate’s door.

“I wish I knew…,” he replied with a whisper. The maddened cries, protestations to ghosts and taunts echoed out into the corridor and crackled like lightning through to the other prisoners. Madness begetting madness, turning rumour into radian things.

“Do you wish to enter, ser?” the guard enquired. Wearing little more tha a brown tunic and black leather trousers, the sole guardian of the Drakengard’s destitute hovered by Ozoric’s side. He would have worn armour, had there been any need. The doors, Ozoric could see all too clearly, once forged in lava and dragon fire.

“Aye.” The lancer retreated a few steps. He clenched his fists. The desire to wipe the smirk off Tobias Stalt, and more besides was still strong. Though reserved, cold, and calculating, Ozoric Newalla needed somebody to blame for the death of the Valakut. Part of him died with that ancient, noble beast.

Locks undone and breaths baited echoed in the shadows. Things moved in the corner of Ozoric’s eye, tempting to stray away from his duties. He sorely wished to. Repeatedly, somebody old found himself or herself tested in this manner. Facing the same horrors, they inflicted on their own captors when they first came to the Drakengard. When his time came, it was Aelfric at his cell’s door. His beard burnt into his memory. His kindness into his soul.

“Look lively,” the jailor, with smarm, fell for cliché’s allure. He slapped his keys against the wood of the door, gnarled and ancient. It echoed riotously in the corridor, so it must have been jarring in the cell. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Before Tobias could raise his head, never mind stand up, Ozoric entered like a stampeding herd. He jabbed his hands into his hips, glared downwards, and let the thermals and convections about his body swirl in his wake.

“I do, as it happens.” He snapped. “Get up.”

Tobias did so.

“You are not lost. Let me get one thing clear before we proceed. I do not like you. I want to kill you were you stand, make you suffer, make you bleed, make you scream.” His eyes danced with hatred and then danced no more. “But here, in the Drakengard, we are all of us born anew.”

Sincere enough, Ozoric stepped to one side. He gestured at the door with a welcoming wave of his hand.
“I…can leave?”

“If your wish to join our ranks was sincere, less talk, more walk.” With that, Ozoric exited and made east along the warren. “I want you to tell me why you’re here. What cruel and unusual punishments have been inflicted upon you to drive you to such heinous crimes that come our stepping out into the midday sun, will never be spoken of again.”

This was Tobias Stalt’s singular chance to find absolution before his duties as a novitiate began, and his long climb to the top of the Drakengard hierarchy drained him of all will to flee. Here, just perhaps, the tortured soul would cease to be lost.

[Tobias Stalt]

Tobias stepped out from his cell and into a world uncertain. Ozoric offered him a kinder amnesty than he had dreamed of with a life among Dragons, but told him honestly as well of the hatred that boiled his blood. Tobias did not fault him for it. He never matched the fierce, draconic gaze of the youth, instead opting to stare straight ahead. There was great shame in meeting conviction, and Tobias was ill prepared. "I failed," he said clearly. "I failed my men by not seeing that filthy assassin for what he was. I failed to keep them from a war they should never have been a part of, and I failed the people of Eiskalt by bringing them a war they should never have suffered."

He was more open than most condemned criminals about his failings. Tobias' greatest grief was how tremendously he had allowed everything to go to shit. He reminded himself constantly, berated himself incessantly, and broke himself down dutifully. Not a thing anyone could tell him would make him feel worse than he already did.

It had lost him the thing dearest to his heart. "I waged a war against an innocent, civilian nation." As he spoke, he saw only Camille. It broke his heart. "I have nothing to lose, but what I have, I give."

The first step they took together was one Tobias wished he could forget. Legs tired from sitting had forgotten how how to walk. He stumbled, and the Wyvern Rider watched with tempered amusement as he fought not to fall face flat. Ozoric retained the decorum that had been requested of him, but he did offer a smirk of satisfaction. "And you will be glad for it," Newalla intoned as they ascended from the dungeon toward ground level.

"is it daytime?" Tobias asked absently, just before shielding his eyes from the sun as it assailed him from behind the newly opened door. "Belay that question," Tobias said hurriedly in irritation, and he promptly vomited. The heat of daylight felt foreign after so long beneath ground. The air felt as crisp as if he had never tasted it before. Freedom had never felt so... alien.

[Ozoric]

“Consider that an epitaph for the deeds of your past, Tobias.” Ozoric stared at the wrenching man. Now, free of decorum’s chains, he smirked. “Poison removed from the veins can be used to better serve your future. Bury it. Burn it. Turn it. Whatever you will of it, brandish it in the name of the Drakengard.”

It was a strange metaphor, but one that had served Ozoric well during his first gruelling months. Then, Aelfric had been in Ozoric’s position. Ozoric was twelve at the time he became part of the Drakengard proper. Months of near starvation and solitude had much the same effect on his body. It made him stronger. It made him appreciate.

“It is not, alas, daylight.” He gestured east, and then north.

The room ahead, much like other halls in the Drakengard was cavernous. Above, the rafters only gave hint of the roof’s limits. The darkness moved hinting at draconic wings or magic afoot. Ozoric had never been able to work out. It was as though parts of the fortress city were alive.

“I don’t understand,” Tobias mumbled.

Ozoric chuckled. “This is the hall of the Wyvern.” It was a simple name for a simple reason: at the end of the Wyvern Riders’ evening feast, they let the wyverns into the chamber to clean the hall of its bones and gristle. “Newcomers are always welcomed into the Drakengard through this chamber, and we shall rise to the loftiest heights – the Knight Commander’s Aerie, before dawn proper.”

Tobias’ narrowed his gaze and scrutinised the space beyond, and his captor come colleague.

“Just…how big is this place?”

A question like that needed a weight behind it, and Tobias did not disappoint. There was a purpose to his newfound sense of duty and penitence. Ozoric recognised it as the very same shackle that kept him here, bound, and blessed by the services he performed. Soon, the deeds in Eiskalt would be meaningless. Only what happened from here in mattered.

“Get a stride on and you may see a quarter of it before lunch,” was all the Lancer had to say on the matter. He walked on, quick time, and without looking back. His companions marched alongside, and as they passed various Wyvern riders, asleep drunk at tables or strategizing, he introduced them vaguely. “If not, you’re cleaning out the Wyvern pens well into dinner time!”