Just something I've been working on...let me know what you think, m'kay?
Yesterday's Tomorrow
PROLOGUE
Peering through the fog, the boy stared into the valley at a blotch of red. Moving forward, his own steps took him by surprise; they were heavier, as if his limbs were not the same. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the uneasiness and stepped forward again. Without warning, a part of his mind that had been turned off switched itself on, illuminating all below him in great detail. The blotch of red morphed into an army all in red, humongous and with a complete battalion consisting of only catapults and their workers, yet something was wrong. They should have been confident, yet they all had a mask of fear stretched taut across their faces. Perhaps another army waited for them, one that put fear in them…
The sound of hoofbeats broke the boy out of his reverie, and his head snapped up to watch three score cavalry march onto the hill at the crest of the valley, accompanied by hundreds of hoplites and several scores of archers. Hurrying to the front, the hoplites in their polished gray formed a pincer formation, leaving a hollow in the middle. As soon as this was complete, the archers, clad in a vibrant green that gave the boy a headache, filled the hollow left by the hoplites as the cavalry in their own hue of midnight blue formed the outer perimeter of the pincer defining the formation against the grassy knoll they were perched upon.
One man stood at the vertex of the formation, staring through the fog down at the sea of red warriors in the valley. He looked across to his left and right, seeing the other two replicas of his formation flanking the army in the valley, prepared to attack at the signal. Wondering idly where the rear formation was, the man ensured that the formations in place were prepared with a cold assessing glance at each. As he did so, a man in the midnight blue of the cavalry appeared as he rode a weary horse up to the man. The man gave the rider a moment to catch his balance, and then asked, in a voice that belonged to a child, “Where is the back squad?”
Still swaying, the rider replied haltingly, “Sir, the back claw was wiped out- by something. I’m not sure what. It had a smell that was wonderful- it kept us in a reverie, and took us down behind the back hill while we were entranced. Luckily, I smelled my divorced wife-”
Putting a hand up, the man stared out at the back of the valley as if he could see through the fog to whatever horror it was that remained there, the man finally commanded in his odd, high-pitched tone, “Tell the other pincers to move towards the back so we will have a three sided attack- but keep an eye on that hill.”
On the back hill the boy was surprised to find that not only could he see everything, he could hear and- taste? it as well. He heard the man’s call to charge in that unnaturally childish voice, saw the three claws move down the hill with an unmatched precision, saw the red army adjust their phalanx to a three-sided triangle of order that almost equaled the pincers in precision, tasted the pincer’s moment of confusion. With a single split-second decision, the boy jumped into the air, to see a huge span of bat-like wings spread out in front of him. Swooping down onto one of the pincer formations, he brought a stream of fire down on the archers instantly killing them. Ignoring as best he could the screaming of horses and men and the pungent taste of their horrified fear of him, the boy took another swipe with his claws at the hoplites in their odd gray, instantly killing every one of them. Marveling at his precision, the boy took another swipe at the archers, taking them all out. With yet another, even better aimed, shot with his talons, he took out every member of the cavalry in a swing, wounding only one horse. With a small glow of satisfaction, he flew back up into the sky above the fog. That fog- it could easily be dissipated, but there was a reason not to dissipate it, if he could just remember…
Dismissing the errant thought, the boy followed a thermal down through the fog to hover above the red army. As opposed to the last formation in all its precision that had been terrified by the sight of him, here he actually…gave them hope? The scent floated up to him, tasting like honey, sweet with a slight sting to its flavor. Thinking more deeply, he vaguely remembered getting a command from another to help them. With a vague sense of satisfaction at having remembered, he shot out from above the red triangle and towards another pincer, this time using his newfound ability and ease of accuracy to flame the men to crisps, and somehow managed to keep the horses alive yet again.
Glowing with satisfaction, he wheeled towards the last pincer. Finally realizing their defeat, the last section of the attacking army turned around and hurried away. With a cheer, the phalanx in the valley whooped with admiration. Landing in the center of the formation, the boy felt himself shrink to his normal size. As soon as he was comfortable in his body once again, hordes of soldiers came to congratulate him for single-handedly taking down the three formations. The boy, however, shrunk back from them, finally realizing his atrocity, killing all those men, glorying in their lives slipping away. As the army made their way out of the valley, the boy walked away from them into a huge cavern and made the change back to the bat-winged flying thing and took off in flight, flipping, diving, rejoicing in the fact that yes, he could fly! Upon tasting the carnage on the battlefield, feeling he could hear the souls cry for release, though, he sobered, and knelt at their feet. With a look to the heavens, he sent a giant stream of flame across the battlefield, incinerating the bodies to ash and gone. For hours he stayed, lost in thought about each lost soul, until a stream of arrows rained down on him without warning. Though they bounced off his sides harmlessly, his wings were pierced and, writhing in pain, the boy felt himself shrinking back into his natural form, his unprotected state. As he lay on the ground in shock, another boy came up to him. In the same childish voice as the man that had commanded the attacking army, he bent over him and said, “Now you just weren’t ready, were you? I believe it is time for you to join those that you just incinerated.” Still standing over him, the other boy unsheathed a double set of blades and impaled them in the one on the ground. Tugging his blades out of the changeling’s flesh, he walked away.
Staring into the sky at the constellation of Renfad, the god of the underworld, the boy thought in wonderment, The fog went away…