The General gazed out over the sleeping city and then peered up at the starry sky, which, at this dark hour, devoid of light from sun or moon above or earth below, was at its most spectacular. He stared in silence at the stars for a while, projecting a cine-reel of accumulated memories through his head; recollections and experiences of such a vast array and of such boundless variety that to try to take all of them in, let alone even a fraction of them, would be both debilitating and incomprehensible to the mind of a mortal. Then the flickering projector in his mind settled, in the darkness, on one specific image, and on the cinema screen behind his eyes, this memory hovered.
He unwrapped the item he held from its linen wrappings and dropped the cloth to the floor. He then held the object therein aloft: an ancient Gallic longsword, ornate in design and lovingly polished … a sword that had once belonged to one of his dearest friends.
‘Ah Viridovix, my brother,’ he whispered to the night breeze as it caressed his body with the gentle warmth of a new lover. ‘How I miss you. How I miss you so. The wound opened in my soul by your passing has never fully healed, even though your flesh and bones have long since returned to the dust whence they came … as will mine, when my work here is finally done. But Viridovix, my friend, oh! Oh how I wish I could look upon your face again, and see that smile and hear that laugh, that laugh that lives on here, inside my head, inside my heart, even though it was carried forever away on a long-gone wind. You would be proud of me, I think; proud of all I have achieved and how far I have come over the years. I hope you would be, at least, even though I never was able to keep that promise to you, the one I made all those years ago. I never did find hearth nor home, nor wife nor child, so I never could bury this sword of yours. And so I have kept it with me all these long, lonely centuries. It has served me well; not as a weapon but as a beacon, a flaming brand when the shadows have crowded too closely around my soul and threatened to snuff out my little candle flame. At those moments I gripped this blade tight, closed my eyes, and travelled back through the centuries to a different time, when you and I talked of simple dreams, simple hopes and simple pleasures.’
The General paused here as he held the sword up, aiming its point at the evening star.
‘Brother! How I long to be with you again! How I long for it … oh, how I long for it. I hear your voice sometimes in the whispered secrets passed between trees in the wind, or your laughter in the gurgle of water rushing over rocks in a small stream as I kneel down to drink. I only wish that we could talk in the words of man once more, that I could have your guidance and wisdom as a lodestar by which to steer this vessel of mine through the howling tempest that I must navigate. Guide me, brother, guide me! I know that your soul is still with me; I can feel your presence, so strongly sometimes that I must look around me with a focused gaze to verify that you are not, indeed, standing by my side. And now, more than ever, I need you.’ The General closed his eyes for a time, sifting through too many memories, and when he opened them again they were red and rimmed with tears; tears laden with undiluted emotion, and every one of those salty, glistening drops that ran down his cheeks was a swallowed razor blade, scoring a bloody passage through his innards.
Without saying another word, he wrapped the sword in its cloth again, tucked it under his arm and climbed back down into his empty room.
He was awake again at first light; over the years he had trained his body to function on absolutely minimal sleep, snatched at opportune moments between important engagements, strategizing, and the fighting of battles. As soon as he opened his eyes, from lying prone on his back on his reed mat he sprang in one acrobatic movement to his feet, and then dropped immediately down into a pushup position, whereby he started his gruelling morning callisthenics routine.
He had been at it for about fifteen minutes when there was a knock on his door. An electrical tingling in his nerves told him that it was one of his beastwalker troops.
‘Come in,’ he grunted between hard but controlled breaths.
The soldier who entered the room was a short, compactly built man of around twenty or twenty-one years of age, and he had a round face with unremarkable features. His shaved head was polished to a bright, gleaming sheen. He saluted the General with his left arm, because his right was missing – hacked off with a machete as a child.
‘General N’jalabenadou, sir!’
The General rose from his crouched position and saluted the youth.
‘Captain Biko, good morning. What news do you bring?’
He shook out the tension from his limbs and then strode briskly over to his clothes rack, from which he took a towel to mop the sweat from his glistening muscles.
‘Our scouts have sighted the mercenaries moving through the jungle,’ the young man replied. ‘As of now, they are four kilometres from the stronghold at T’Kalagelellerani, and they are moving in battle formation. Colonels Hubble and Mandela are awaiting your orders as we speak. They have not asked for reinforcements, but would you permit me to
