Chapter Text
The cacophony around him was deafening. Swords clashing against swords, shields clanging and splintering, the creaking of the catapults as they launched, the explosions as their ammunition hit the ground, and all around him, the screams of the dying… He tried his best to block it all out. He didn’t have the capacity to care in that moment, not when he was fighting so hard for his own life.
A flash of talons, and then it all went black.
When he woke up, it was to find himself in the recovery ward of a hospital. It took him a while to remember how they had gotten there in the first place, but it slowly came back in bits and pieces, brief flashes of memory. Each one was a punch in the gut.
The war with Undar should have been nearly over. The desert-like region shouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in Hell against Octan’s military might. Though they suffered their losses, each battle had ended with Octan’s victory.
The battle at Southlake Point had gone wrong quicker than Cary could follow. It had been well on its way to another victory for Octan, for him, when...
When the demon showed up.
He hadn’t been able to see who had summoned it, but one moment it wasn’t there, and then the next moment it was. And it had started plowing through his men with ease, rending them apart with claws, tearing them apart with teeth, crushing the life right out of them with tentacles. It had taken him a while to figure out why his men weren’t even trying to avoid it, or take it down.
They could not see it.
Cary could though, somehow, and he had shouted like never before, bellowing out directions at a volume he had never before achieved to try to steer them clear of the beast. It worked, but only for a brief while. He could only do so much to protect his men from a foe only he could see. They all inevitably fell to the creature.
And then the demon was upon him, and he was fighting for their life. And then everything went black. And the next thing he knew, he had woken up here, covered in stitches, his left leg in a cast, and with his right arm in a sling.
“You were found by a courier,” a doctor informed him when the older man discovered him finally conscious. “You were barely still alive. How you managed not to bleed out, I can’t even imagine.” He handed Cary a cup of water. “Drink that slowly. We’ve been trying to keep fluids in you so you don’t die of dehydration, but it’s not so easy a thing to do for an unconscious man.” Cary obediently took a sip from the cup. The water felt so good going down, and he took another sip. Once his throat no longer felt like it had been thoroughly abused by sandpaper, he tried to ask a question. The doctor seemed to be expecting it.
“And what of my men? How many... how many of them survived?”
“Just you,” the doctor told him. Cary’s shock must have shown on his face. “The courier ran to fetch help as soon as he found at least one person still breathing, but there was no helping anyone else. Every other soldier had already long been dead by the time he arrived. It was a miracle we were even able to save you.”
Cary only nodded in response, the shock too overwhelming to find words. Every single soldier in his regiment. Dead. He knew he really ought not to be so surprised by that, given the situation they had found themselves in.
He had only one question ringing in circles around his head. How in the world had they survived? The doctor gave his good shoulder a gentle pat before leaving the room to let him process the bomb he had just dropped on the colonel’s head.
Alastar was slow to wake. Cary was in no rush for his twin to regain consciousness, not when he had such devastating news waiting to be told. But wake Alastar eventually did, and he wasted no time in trying to comfort his brother as soon as Cary had relayed everything that had happened. It is not your fault, he said. You did everything you could to save them. Fighting an invisible foe tends to leave everyone at a disadvantage.
“More than a mere ‘disadvantage’ though,” Cary muttered in response. And with no one left alive to back up his claims of a demon being at the battlefield, he knew they were in for a hell of a rough time once they recovered. His reputation was sure to be dragged through the mud, then tarred and feathered for good measure. Hell, he would probably be tarred and feathered, not just his reputation. How the hell does one get his entire regiment killed?
They started hearing the gossip the next day as nurses and doctors made their way up and down the halls, talking about the military officer slowly recuperating in the recovery ward. So incompetent that he got every single soldier in his regiment killed, they were saying. Laughing about it.
Cary could only sit and silently stew in his fury. It was not that long ago that these same idiots had been calling for him to get promoted straight to General, claiming he would win the war for them. Oh, how they had praised his tactical brilliance, his innovative strategies.
So much for Octan’s “rising star officer”.
“So how does one go about getting a thousand men slaughtered in a single day?” one of the nurses needled when he came to check on Cary’s bandages.
“I didn’t,” Cary snarled in response. “I did everything I could to save my men. One of the Undari summoned a demon to the battle. Somehow, I was the only one who could see it... They never stood a chance.”
“How very convenient,” the nurse drawled. “A demon only you could see, hm? I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be so bad at my job that I have to make up invisible demons to blame my failures on.”
The nurse didn’t see the strike coming, and scrambled out of the room as Cary roared fury after him.
It went on that way for another three days. Soldiers from another battle had been brought to the hospital—another loss for Octan, though nowhere near the wholesale slaughter that Southlake Point had been. Any soldier that was placed in the other bed in Cary’s room was only there for a short while before being removed. The colonel’s temper was becoming legend already, as he had taken to throwing whatever he could get his hands on at his fellow recoverees to get them to shut up with the constant questions and harassment.
It does seem to be quite the tall tale, Alastar lamented. If we hadn’t seen the thing for ourselves, I think I would have an impossible time believing it, too.
Cary heaved a sigh and dropped his head back against the pillow. “I suppose,” he murmured. Knowing that didn’t make the jeering and derision any easier to deal with.
And then on the fourth day they got another new roommate. The man was a bit on the short side, and was being supported by one of the nurses as he walked into the room. His head was wrapped in bandages. Oh, a head injury, Alastar murmured in sympathy. That can’t have been fun.
“Would have thought you lot would quit forcing roommates on us,” Cary grumbled, eyeing the new occupant of the other bed.
“We’re running out of beds,” the nurse sighed in response. “And this idiot here keeps annoying the hell out of everyone we bunk him with.” Said ‘idiot’ gave them a sheepish smile.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’ve been trying to rein it in, but I guess I got my marbles rattled harder than I thought—”
“Anyway his last roommate threatened to knock him out if he didn’t shut up and we can’t risk brain damage,” the nurse interrupted. “Yours is the only room with a spare bed right now so please play nice?”
“I will if he does,” Cary agreed, folding his arms across his chest to the best of his ability with one of his arms still in a sling. Stupid dislocated shoulder. The nurse seemed to resign herself to that being the best answer she would get, and left the room.
The two patients regarded each other in silence for a long minute, one curious, the other wary. “So uh. Can I ask what the ‘play nice’ was about?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Silence for another few seconds, then, “I’m Ben, but you can call me Benny! I was a battlemage in the 57th Division. The doctors said I should be good to go home in a few more days, which will be nice cause I haven’t seen the stars since I woke up here a couple days ago. I don’t think they’ll let me come back to fight again for a while though, if ever, it’s not usually a good thing for a spellcaster to get their brains scrambled, we kind of need those.” Cary couldn’t help the amused snort that escaped him. Benny grinned in delight. “So what’s your name?”
“Cary,” the soldier answered, finally relaxing. Alastar gave him a polite nudge, questioning, and Cary acquiesced. Benny seemed to be an all right sort. He hadn’t said anything about their ‘blunder’ yet (most of their other roommates didn’t even make it two minutes before asking), and it seemed the source of his former roommates’ annoyance was his relentless chatter. Mages were usually pretty smart, and as such, Benny would probably be a much better conversationalist than the soldiers they’d had to share their room with before.
Alastar switched out after only a moment. “And I’m Alastar!”
Benny stared in shock, jaw dropping. “Wow. Oh, wow! Janus twins! I haven’t met Janus twins in forever!”
It was Alastar’s turn to stare. He had met other Janus twins? As far as they were aware, they were the only pair currently living. They had heard of one other set of twins, but they were very old and died when Cary and Alastar were still children. Benny didn’t look old enough to have met them before they passed.
He did say he got hit in the head, Cary allowed. Maybe he’s just getting his words mixed up. Alastar murmured softly in agreement.
Benny blinked as though hit by a sudden realization. “Wait. Cary as in Cary Callaghan?”
“Yes...?” Alastar hedged.
“You’re the colonel whose entire regiment was killed, right?”
That does it. Cary forced his way back out again, glaring at the mage. “Let me guess, you’re about to say something along the lines of ‘blaming an invisible demon’—”
Benny shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve heard too many incredible things about you over the past year to ever think you could make such a disastrous mistake. No, I... I believe you, about the demon. I mean it.”
