Scar

I was young then. A young man, perhaps a different man. As I walk down the hall of my home I feel the ache and the slowness and I remember what being that young man was like. That easy movement. That strength. Now I am paltry, and tattered. I hang from my bones and my bones are weak. I lower myself slowly into my armchair. The fire glows and the wood cracks and I remember that time.

It was not my war, but I was elite amongst my compatriots and I had been called to fight on behalf of another man's cause. Because that other man did not have the capacity. Because that other man had enemies that were too great for him to fight and his cause was just. Yes. It was just. I believe it be so. I do not know what that young man thought. Perhaps nothing. No, that's not right. I was a soldier. I had my pride, my narcissism. We all did. We had been chosen to slay giants. None of us knew why, none of us cared why. I remember a crying face and hands clinging to my knee and the repeated sobbing thanks. I remember that young man not caring but now, now it is the memory I treasure most. As I sit here in my agony and my desperation for the warmth of the fire to bring some relief I remember and I remember those tears and if I could still cry I would cry with that man for that memory is proof that my youth had been spent well.

Chosen to slay giants. No one said that, but it was what we believed. I laugh about it sometimes, the way we mythologised our enemies so that when we killed them, and we knew we would kill them, our acts would be that much greater. I remember how and when that myth was broken. The way we had stood around that great body and watched silently as she had died. She had not looked at any of us, just the sky. Later one of us, maybe Collins, had said she had died with dignity. Now I do not think there is much dignity in death.

To kill is to reveal your own mortality. I know this now and with each new tatter I know it with greater clarity. That young man had not understood, just felt that hollowness that could not be filled only salved. A wound that leaves a scar. I knew men and women who cherished their scars, the sensation of wounding that told them that they were alive. They are all gone now. Only I remain. I know. I know and I remember.

They killed us, too. They were made for it in ways that even the machines were not. They had the machines anyway. The controlled the battlefield the same way we did. I remember the rumours and lies and racist caricatures of their culture and the conclusions that it was these stories of children all bloody in the snow and berserker fugue states and raw meat that accounted for their success. We created the distinction, that we were constrained by civility and they had given into savagery. And so we were the better even if our victories were fewer. Our technology was of our own genesis, theirs was the cast-offs of the gods. And so we were the better even if our victories were fewer. I wonder now if they told these stories. Of course. All soldiers do. It was easier that way. I can do it no longer.

The paper of my eyelids parts and I am looking at the medal. My son had found it and decided that it should be here, sitting above the fire that is my only comfort. Like all fathers I was his hero until he grew and then his hero again when he discovered that story of my youth. So the medal must be here, it must not be hidden away. My daughter had said otherwise by my son was adamant and I could not bear to see them fight and so I had allowed it. And here it is, the heart of my heroism the highest honour all we have to give you. Awarded only for the greatest acts of valour and self-sacrifice. That is what they say. They award them so rarely now, so they do not become devalued. So that every new recipient can be presented to the world as Caesar, as Beowulf. As I was. They had pinned the medal to my chest and they had told a story and some parts of that story were true but some of them were not. But I remember that time.

The battlefield was tired. We were all tired. We had entered that war believing that we could end it, that our technology and our training and our money could reshape the battlefield as it had done before. We had not understood the geometries of that conflict and though I do not regret going to their aid I know that my only purpose was to kill others like me. They could no more change the shape of that war than we. Their tradition allowed them to serve as mercenaries from time to time, and that is why they were there. We acted in support of our allies but concerned ourselves without own ideology. We did not understand those we fought with, or why they fought. I remember the crying man and try to tell myself that it did not matter but it does.

It went on too long. We were too far away. I could not return home until it was over but there was no sign of ending and so the people slowly abandoned us. Yet we still could not leave. We had to achieve something, something we could call a victory. Slay the giants. But the giants always seemed to have the advantage. I know now that their situation had been desperate for a long time, that they had made a mistake early and that it had assured their defeat. It had not seemed that way. Whatever illusion there was eventually fell away and in that moment we pressed what advantage we had and we killed them and drove them back and killed them again and it seemed that we were the giants. We were the giants and the blood we payed seemed trifling. I remember that time. I was the tip of the spear. Collins was there, I remember. And Major Weeks and Penvise who we called Pelvis because her hips were so shapely even beneath the armour and the gear. Other men, other women. Names that exist at the periphery of my memory and faces that are clothed in mist. We were all there together and we killed and we died and we made a mistake. We pushed her too far and she came for us.

I remember the Hotel Terminus and I remember the dust swirling in the shaft of cold sun and the broken teeth of the tall windows and the sweeping staircase and the upturned marble of the floor. We had covered the door and I had turned away and Collins had said something and I cannot remember what he said and it pains me because it was the last thing. She was there in the door and her cable pulled Collins to her from across the lobby and she broke his neck mid-stride and when I raised my gun and fired she threw my friend back to me. I gouged out new wounds into the ground but achieved nothing and my gun was a dead weight and I snapped it in half because I knew my comrades had nothing to spare and I did not want to leave it. If Collins' gun had fallen at my feet I would have taken it but it had not. Perhaps things would have been different if it had. I do not know.

I had no gun. Neither did she. She had caught us unawares and killed a few of us and we had fallen back into some apartment complex. Someone had clipped her with a round and the jet of molten metal had wheeled between the layers of her helmet and ruined it. I don't expect you to believe that. We fought a running battle from the windows and through the walls on opposite sides of some upturned street. Her gun was different to ours, all kinetics and impact. She seemed to have limitless ammunition and she poured it into the ground and when I felt the building shift I knew her game and I shouted warnings even as the floor listed and the building sagged.

And the young man turned and ran against the slope muscles man and machine straining mind man and machine reaching and the young man moves he sprints and weaves and he does not slow not for a moment not for an instant and when the ceiling falls he falls and he slides and he rises so fluidly and when the ribs and spine of the hall collapse inwards the young man takes his gun and hefts it like a javelin and he throws it can you believe it he throws it and he dives dives through that same opening as the building scissors around him and he catches his gun with one hand and the other vaults him over some other obstacle and the young man is so fast he is so light as though he moves in accordance to his will alone and he leaps through the broken window into the cold and clouded sun and does not miss his stride and the young man is me my god it is me.

I clutch at my chest with my thin hand and I blink the darkness from my eyes and I stare into the fire. I lean back into the chair and breath. I grip the rests and push myself to my feet and turn away from the fire. For a moment I consider throwing the medal into the fire. My slow steps take me to the mantle and I pick up the frame and I hold it in fingers brittle like dead coral and I see my reflection in the glass. It returns to its place and I return to mine.

The Terminus, where we were first welcomed and where we had lived until the enemy had pushed too far forward. It was all we knew in this alien place and so we had run there the five of us and she had followed and she had killed Collins. Penvise wheeled around and stitched the lobby with her gun and the woman ran so hard and her arms were out to protect her head and she hit that old jukebox that we had marveled at when we had first arrived. It began to play though I do not remember the song. I remember that it played as Penvise fired her last shot. Then she was there on the balcony and I did not see what she did but Penvise dropped to her knees and then toppled forward. It was Ashby that saved me, her arm that dragged me to my feet and woke me. I took the last charge in its wrist mount and detonated it so close that I thought my teeth had broken.

They always speak of this moment as thought it shows my grace under pressure. I am not so sure. Even so she had paused and the three of us Ashby and Weeks we pulled back into the hotel. The hallways the Major had said we can take her in the hallways. Weeks was wrong and Ashby died and he tried to push his gun into my hands. He was sobbing and I struck him and he would not move so I left him there and he died.

I had nothing left but my knife and I decided that was best. She had to duck to enter and she stood before me with her kerambit clutched in her hand and it was so clean. Like she had killed no one. Her eyes were silver and she looked so young. So small in comparison to her compatriots. I raised my long knife. She half turned and brought up the hook of her knife. Her free fingers flexed in front of her cheek. I was too slow and her first strike was perfectly placed to slip inside my gorget and my collarbones. I dropped my head and her knife skittered off my helmet in spray of sparks. Then the initiative was mine and I used it and we fought and she was on top of me and my knife was on her throat and her fist struck the floor and the whole room rippled and we were sucked down and down. And she was bleeding, bleeding on me and she had lost her knife and she broke my arm but she could not break my neck. She trapped my blade in the joint of her elbow and crushed it but my shoulder hit and we matched muscle and machine and she was the stronger but I had the leverage.

Yes, that's right. I remember it. We stood apart in the cratered lobby me with my broken arm and she all covered with dust and staunching the blood with her fingers. We stood apart and then I stepped forward and I walked and I walked past her and I left that place.

I open my eyes. The fire has burned low. I stare at it for a long time. I do not know that girl's name. They call her many things now but never her name. Always in awe and yet never her name. As though using her name might dispel the legend. As though she is better that way.

The fire is cold now. There is a scar on her throat. I see it sometimes in pictures.