This is a short story I wrote for my Writer's Craft class. It's written in two parts (this is part one). It's about a general about to lead her army into battle, and a deserter named Keenan. This material is copyrighted. Enjoy!
Roma tightened the leather strap around her shoulder, securing her metal-plated armour to her chest. One more battle. One more fight to win and then she could go home.
The armour was heavy across her body as she shifted her weight underneath it, adjusting so that it sat on her body perfectly. Throughout the war, her body had slimmed down. Muscle replaced fat. Bones poked through skin. There was no mirror in her tent, but she could guess how she looked. Tired. Hollow. Empty. There was no more fight in her. No fight left in any of her soldiers. This war had gone on too long- twenty years. She had only been born a month before it began.
But this was the last fight. One final battle and then the war would be over.
She slid her snug helmet onto her head, black hair tied back in a low pony. She left the strap under the chin undone and reached for her sword, sliding it easily into its sheath.
Roma finally stepped outside, pushing apart the flaps to her tent with an armoured hand. The brilliant sun bore down onto her, blinding her for a moment. Soldiers bustled around, loud clanging metal telling her that they were preparing the guns for the battle occurring in only a few hours. Noon. She had until noon to get ready.
“General Roma, we’ve been looking for you.”
Roma’s eyes flickered to one of her men- Gunner- followed by two soldiers. Between the two of them, a young man was pinned in their arms. He struggled against them, his armour stripped from his body, his remaining clothes torn and covered in filth. He looked like he’d been through hell.
She frowned. “What is this?”
Gunner’s face was unreadable, dirt streaked across it, spotting him like a leopard. “We found a deserter. Another soldier reported him. We found him running towards enemy lines.”
The man being held writhed and shouted, teeth bared, “Don’t be fools! We can’t win this fight. I was trying to save our lives! We’re going to die on this field!”
A coward. Not just a deserter, but a coward. Roma bared her teeth back at the prisoner, disgust etched into her features. “Take him to my tent and chain him up. I’ll question him.”
Gunner gave her a subtle nod, and the two men dragged the coward past their general.
“Listen to me!” the man shouted, still struggling. No one did. He wrenched his arm from one of Roma’s men, freeing himself. The prisoner lunged away from Gunner, whose sword was now drawn, and attempted to flee in the opposite direction.
But hours of sleep deprivation and sun exposure made him weak. He stumbled over the uneven ground, falling hard into the dirt. The men were quick to grab him and hoist him back to his feet, while Gunner swung his blade to kill. The prisoner closed his eyes, bottom lip quivering.
“Enough!” Roma hissed. “I told you to chain him in my tent. You are not to kill him.”
Gunner stiffened but stopped his sword before it could strike. He gave her another nod and followed her order, practically throwing the prisoner into the tent.
Roma tried to ease her tense muscles. Another deserter. What had her men so scared? What had they seen on enemy lines that would sway her most loyal men to run?
She waited until she heard the familiar sounds of shackles, and then the footsteps of Gunner and his men leaving, before she entered the tent again.
They had chained the prisoner to her bedpost, and the man cowered between her make-shift bed and nightstand. A coward indeed. She took a step closer to him, scanning his features. His face was set in hard lines, the beginnings of a scowl forming on his lips. His ruined shirt hung low and baggy on his body, exposing muscle and red peeling sunburnt skin. The general eyed him like a piece of spoiled meat- something she would feed to her dogs if he wasn’t careful.
His face looked just as mistreated as his body. Lips were cracked and bloody from sun exposure. His sculpted face was unshaved and blistered, accompanied by sharp cheekbones and jawline. In another life, she might have considered him handsome.
“What’s your name?” she said.
He stared at her, his dark green eyes assessing whether or not she was a threat. “You’re General Roma?”
“Yes.”
The man shook his head in disbelief. “The General Roma who killed her own father? The General Roma who led an army of a thousand men to glory? You’re the General Roma I’ve been following for the past five years?”
“Yes, that is me. Now I’ll ask you one more time: what is your name?”
“Keenan.”
“What is your last name?”
“Hilvilar.”
Keenan Hilvilar. She knew that name. He was the younger brother of Thaddeus Hilvilar, a soldier who had been taken by enemy spies a year ago. Keenan had sent her a letter, begging her to retrieve his brother, but the mission was too risky. She refused.
“Why did you desert your post?” Her voice came out quieter than she wanted. Keenan clenched his jaw at the question, obviously deciding how to answer. Roma was growing impatient. It wasn’t customary to interrogate deserters (more common just to hang them from a tree somewhere), but she was growing curious. He was her twentieth deserter, which was more than ever before. She was sure that they were going to be successful in this battle, and yet, her soldiers didn’t share half her confidence.
“I don’t owe you an explanation-”
Roma grabbed the hilt of her sword, drawing it from its sheath. As soon as she made the move, Keenan screamed, “WAIT! Wait- I’ll tell you! Just put your sword away.”
She didn’t. She pulled the blade free, lowering the tip so that it pointed at the hollow of the prisoner’s throat. “You’ll tell me, or you’ll die.”
“I’m a loyal soldier. I am loyal to my country. I am not a deserter.”
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t move her sword.
He sighed, the sound of an impatient man. “Yes, I abandoned my post. But before you kill me, let me tell you why! I think you already know I have a brother. When you refused to retrieve him, he began sending me secret messages. The last message he sent was a warning. He told me about a weapon the enemy planned to use that would kill us all. I told as many soldiers as I could to run- to try and save their lives. Please. I just want to save us. We will not win this fight. I’m not a coward; I just know when I’ve lost!”
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