What had happened to color? Everything seemed awash in grey, darkening the entire color palette, oppressing vibrancy and contrast into a landscape of desolate monochrome. Where had all the color gone? Why did everything seem so dark? A permanent shade seemed to be cast across the lands, as if the very light of Apollo’s chariot had long ago fled this place. And maybe it had. Maybe time had spanned longer than she was aware of. It wasn’t impossible. Since arriving, one day bled into the next, periods of sleep and wakefulness no longer existed, barely enough changes between light and dark to denominate day and night, creating merely rotations, where one group or another was going or coming, taking a bit of shut-eye whenever possible before marching out again in the earliest of hours. Not even a breeze swept through to clear the stench or the clouds of flies. Maybe there was, and no one noticed, that its efforts were insignificant in ameliorating the cesspool of decomposition and despair. Nothing. There was nothing. The underworld as told in stories was never depicted so horrible a place as this.

The first twenty-four hours were a blur, and no such clairvoyance came as each day yielded to the next. There was naught but chaos and madness. And bodies. She recalled the very first body she saw. The bodies here were not like those from home, lovingly washed and cloaked, prepared for the afterlife with peaceful expressions. Not here. There was no description she could think of that adequately described the dead here. Often hewn into pieces, ground into the mud as they were trampled over by their own colleagues, or those of the opposition, eyes wide open for the flies to skitter over, faces locked into permanent horror. If left too long, vermin would burrow into them, scurrying from the gnawed holes and cavities they’d created when the body was moved. Or they would become meals for the carrion, or other opportunists of the animal kingdom. There was no dignity. No grace. No honorable burial. When able to do so, the deceased numbered so many that pits were dug, their bodies piled within them and burned to reduce the spread of disease and contain the lingering fetor of decay. In some instances, if the broil was bad enough, and the fires of discord raged hot enough, the dead lay thick as kindling on the ground, and just as intertangled. The dead always looked the same, and yet, completely different. She had not noticed it before, when the living light had departed the vessel of the physical body, leaving in its place a blank empty stare with eyes that saw nothing, and a dusky grey hue to the face. Here, it seemed so much more horrible, so much more exaggerated, so much more noticeable, even amid these ashen murals of carnage. Maybe that is where the light went...it departed with the souls of the dead, leaving the living behind to mire in barrenness where they could sample the taste of near extinction.

Had the gods abandoned mankind? Or this place? Or both. She asked herself the question countless times every day, wondering why the benevolent and merciful gods of the teachings had let mankind stumble into such conditions. Or was it mankind’s own doing? His own folly? What should men do but fight for that which was theirs? But which perspective was the correct one, when both felt justified? How could so much be lost over a line, a boundary, an intangible delineation that only half the parties had agreed to? And yet, here it was, the northernmost borders of Colchis, a kingdom in the Grecian realm known for its warriors, its love for battle, and combat prowess. How did anyone love this? How could one derive thrill in what could only be argued as the cryptic end of the human spectrum? How could one develop a way of life that suited a proclivity to this type of thing? It boggled the mind. All such benefit of societal advancement and polite display were gone. Long bereft of cordial banter, goblets of wine, fine feasts and the glitter of clean warm bodies adorned in all their sartorial magnificence, were these days. The charming and smiling men of the parlors and courts and utopian festivals were nowhere to be seen, their shells occupied by walking dead, vehicles denuded of souls, their grim expressions those of men preparing to meet their ends at the tip of a sword or lance or flail. How marvelously oblivious was everyone thriving in the world back home. How heedless they were of their gift to be there, laughing at parties, enjoying each other’s company over the long nights, afforded to them by the legions out here, bartering their blood and souls for such. She had been one of them. A life of unspeakable wealth and utter privilege, warm sunny mornings waking up in her illustrious and expansive personal chambers, garments laid out, hair dutifully brushed and styled by her attendants, delicious meals presented by the house staff, and her greatest worry; What piece would occupy her thoughts today. Which sculpture or painting or metalwork would she allot her time and energy towards? The depths of such ignorance astounded her even now. None of that existed here. None of it. The pristine peplos she’d come in barely survived the first few days, torn, dirtied, blood splatters, cold…. She could not forget the hard eyes on her of Helena, the chief healer, staunch disapproval painted over her benumbed features. She’d thrown a heavier canvas-type covering at Rene, and none too gently. ’Put that on. What the hell were you thinking? I could see you from two miles away, and so will the barbarians. You will be their first and favorite target. They will love nothing more than to see your pretty clothes and golden hair matted in red.’ It was in that very moment, Rene’s visions of humanitarianism combusted. It was in that moment, her preconceived notions of doing her part for the Grecian kingdoms came crashing down, the immaculate white bricks of her decorum and sensibilities toppling like Aphrodite’s temple left in ruin. The sturdy foundations of belief in altruism and inherent goodness would go on to be tested further, each day saw fit to chisel and dig, uproot and crush.

Rene of Nikolaos, the cherished baby of the family had asked for this, had spent weeks convincing her parents to grant them this blessing, that no greater service to one’s fellow man existed than to give of one’s self. That is what she’d told them. Determined to do her part. Or was it that at all? She wasn’t even sure now. She had been adamant that she wanted to get out into the world, to contribute in ways she thought best, to atone for her fledgling existence in the political arenas. But if she were being truthful, it was beyond that. She needed to find herself, to find some testament worthy of living for, some reason to value herself as she tried so hard to do, sans the shards of doubt and insecurity always managing to needle their way back into her resolve and perforate it until the last remaining bits of it crumbled and fell through her fingers. ...A self image reduced to shattered glass, the only remaining value lying in its jagged edges…. She thought she could pick up those pieces here, doing her part, supporting her fellow kingdom, as she supported herself, fashioning a scaffold upon which she could drape her significance. And it had come to this; an existence of perpetual shadow in which grisly visuals, bloodcurdling sounds and putrid smells assaulted the senses and inspired nausea and emesis. Everything about this place was an affront to life. Everything about this place screamed in anguish as hope was abandoned.

The healers and field maids were rarely at the front. Glimpses of conflict were caught from afar, most of the time. Rene found herself in the group of individuals who went to work when the throes of battle had concluded, moving in to collect the wounded for treating, bring water and bandages, assist the surgeons and salvage what they could of the last bastions of humanity. It was gruesome work, trudging through fields of severed body parts, strewn to and fro, crimson being the only color that really stood out across the vast landscape of cinereal butchery. But the sounds….the sounds instigated more visceral a response, more revulsion. The sounds of the many ways human bodies came apart stirred the most sickening of gastral reactions, assaulting the ears and taking hold inside the brain to be revisited over and over again, inciting abhorrent nightmares when one did attempt to desperately claw at anything resembling sleep.

Rene was not entirely sure what normal was in this place. The others around her spoke to the continuation of these border infringements, the constant need to hold the line under the periodic and assiduous efforts of the barbarian horde of the north, whoever they were, the faceless monolithic entity threatening to squelch them all, and their precious freedoms and grandiose lifestyles. How long had this gone on? How long had these conflicts remained? How long did Colchis have to endure an endless barrage of invaders? How long should they have to do so alone? Did they want to? Happy as they were to demonstrate their militaristic superiority. Even as Colchis touted its ascendancy on the battlefield, surely they grew tired of being perpetually tested. Surely they grew tired of sending their sons and husbands to rotate to the border to serve their time, and hopefully return home with their shields, otherwise, on them. While it was described as being an unceasing cycle for the Colchians, one they were well accustomed to and kept a solid grasp on, as of late, the tribes of the north had intensified their efforts. In that vast swatch of land directly north of the Kirakles Islands, Colchis held firm, blocking any nautical attacks by the savages, providing no safe landing for them to come ashore and moore their boats. What festered in the lands of the north to stir such ire as the brutality and burgeoning attacks? So exacerbating were the strikes, and so growing in numbers were the barbarians, that the position of the line nearly teetered in danger of slip.

The day had drawn like strands of molasses in the cold of early winter, elongating but never ending. Since the first beams of Apollo’s chariot had speared through the canopies of trees, tensions had been rising as taunts and jeers had mounted. More and more of the barbarians had gathered, until the far tree line was thick with them. Their bellows and howling echoing across the clearing to the Colchian camp, where the hundreds of eyes of Elimea’s Silver Soldiers stared back, edgy and shuffling their weight. Captain Heirimos of Elimea had sat easily on his horse that morning, beneath his plumed helmet, keen gaze leveled across the dark line of savages skittering up to the edge of the tree line, cloaked in furs and wielding weapons that seemed foreign in their hands. They were particularly antagonistic that day, and had been since dawn. His lieutenant, Neander, had shifted in his own saddle, beside him. One of their horses stomped to rid itself of flies, the other tossed its head, chomping at the bit momentarily. Their conversation was quiet, unperturbed by the stirring across the clearing. Perhaps it had been imprudence, to underestimate the barbarians that day. Perhaps they had merely presumed it to be another tussle, easily managed and subdued, like it had been so many countless times. But this would not be a day like all the others. It would not be a day in which Colchis would once again secure an easy victory over the heathens they dismissed so readily. Not this day.

The strain had compounded, the tension winding tight as a coil, so tight that it would snap should one so much as whisper upon it. Verbal exchanges and pelted items ranging from sacks of excrement to collected body parts had crept into the psyches of both sides, blistering until the purulence of violence drained out and tunneled into their minds. The heathens had emerged from the tree-laden ridgeline, and advanced towards the Colchian forward-most camp. Heirimos had called for the infantry to form, and the archers to be readied. Neander had galloped up and down the line, issuing orders and preparing both contingents of this station, the Colchian vanguard. The barbarians came at them with unprecedented ferocity, armed to the teeth with Grecian steel and hellbent on destroying the tyrants who had carved their lands out from under them. The infantry collided with them in a thunderous crack that split the heavens over Olympus, the clash of shields upon shields, swords upon swords and the guttural grunts of exertion of the men behind those implements echoed up from the clearing and ricocheted between the treelines before spreading through them in all directions like an auditory flood. The Silver Soldiers of Elimea met their foe with eyes forward and jaws set. When one was tasked with describing battle, it could have only been aptly labeled as chaos, a frenzy of slashing and screaming and stabbing, littered with the wet squish that insides made when they came outside, and the occasional high-pitched squeal of a horse as one of its legs was taken off with the swipe of a sword, or a spear plunged into its chest to topple it and get to the rider. For whatever reason, this day was worse. This day saw a level of bloodshed uncommon for border skirmishes. As if the heightening sieges had been preludes to this moment, the boorish northerners chose this day to hit hardest, like battering rams against the province of Elimea’s fighting force. Like magma, they pushed forward against the Silver Soldiers in a slow but all-consuming crawl. Hacking and slashing the Colchians in unparalleled determination, the fuel of their anger was more volatile than previously seen, their brazenness extrene. Little by little, Elimea’s regiment began to fall, the last of them fighting harder than ever to hold the line, weakening by the moment. The bloody fight roared on, shifting to the door step of the Colchian forward camp, several miles from their main base of operations, a fort constructed amid rocky unforgiving terrain where troops were exchanged for rotation, supplies were unloaded for stockpiling and redistribution to the front line, and weapons and armor were fabricated and repaired.

Half a mile back from the forward encampment sat the hospital tent, a semi-permanent construct, like that of the encampment, where the wounded were ushered and treated by the surgeon, healers and the αδερφή, the sisters they were called. But not this day. This day, the tent was largely empty, as the entirety of the forward forces had been swept up in the fierce havoc over land. None were available to move the wounded, none on the forward line could dare risk a moment without sword or shield, lest he perish while trying to drag others to safety. This day, the savages were truly that, picking their way through the carpet of bodies while the last of Elimea’s living fought with their bowels. The surgeon and healers had traversed towards the encampment to assist, leaving only three behind at the hospital tent.

One wounded man had been delivered to the tent though, the only one so far. Rene’s blue eyes trailed him as they carried him through the open flap, horrified, but unable to look away. In the week since she’d arrived, they came like this, with alarming frequency, missing arms and legs, or eyes, their cuirasses bloodied from penetrating wounds that had slipped between the components of their armor. Helena, the chief healer’s voice identified him instantly, Captain Heirimos, the commanding officer of the Silver Soldiers. The mood inside the tent blackened. Never before had a commander come through in such a condition. Rarely did they come through at all, usually sporting minimal wounds. But not this day. This day, a missing arm, crudely bandaged was the least of his worries. His belly was opened, and slippery red rope protruded from it. The soldiers that brought him reported briefly on the grave situation at the front, offering no further details, leaving the three women in the tent to do what they could. The chief healer, Helena, began issuing instructions to Rene and Ida, the only ones left. That was what Rene remembered. Those were the staggering bits of memory that surfaced in an otherwise blurry ocean of violence. The three had been working diligently on the captain, removing his cuirass and galerus, cutting away his linothorax to expose the abominable wound. Ida had leaned away from the table and vomited, and Rene felt her head lighten, black spots clouding her eyes. But Helena snapped at them all the same. She was Colchian, born and bred, and had spent the entirety of her life dedicated to the sword as Colchians did. She was unbothered by gore, and insisted on as much from the girls in her stead. All of such things, an entire day that had played out in slow motion, and simultaneously as if Hermes himself flashed it along, had culminated in the moment, this moment, where an artist from Athenia stood over a dying man on a table, struggling to hold back a wash of tears as the metallic stench of the crimson fluid covered them all, dripping from the gurney onto her feet, wicking its way between her toes, making them feel slippery against the soles of her sandals. What had she been thinking. She was thinking that she’d be ladling out bowls of soup and cups of water, that she’d be handing out blankets and teaching children to read. What the hell was she thinking.


'The surgeon?' Helena finally glanced up from where she was folding linens and submerging them in a wooden bowl of water which she would use to cover the captain’s protruding entrails, the man gasping and crying as he lay upon the table, the strain of his torture evident by the tension in his neck and face.

'All dead. Those who are left have fallen back to the fort. You must go now. They are coming,' the soldier cast a glance over his shoulder. 'It is folly to stay.'

'You heard him...we should go!,' Ida’s voice was frantic, her face draining of blood and appearing white as framed by short dark tresses. Rene was struggling to keep the bloody stump where a left hand had once been from flailing to apply a tighter bandage, her fingers sticky and vermilion in color, her own hands shaking, hands that normally molded clay, held charcoal, and guided paintbrushes across wood panels. Strained eyes lifted to Ida, then Helena.

“We can’t leave him….” Rene countered, surprised the discussion was unfolding.

'That man is as good as dead, he is not long for this world,' the soldier’s voice interrupted them.

“He’s your captain!” Rene shot back, eyes narrowing.

'He is moments from Elysium. You are not, but you will be if you remain here!' the soldier snapped at them, making no effort to curb his own adrenaline. Rene cast a near-pleading look to Helena, the older and wiser, surely she would see reason. Surely she could not leave a wounded man. Not like this. Helena’s lips were tight, her facade toughened by the years.

'He is right,' Helena spoke quietly. Ida did not need to hear it twice to agree. The young brunette, maybe a year or two Rene’s senior, instantly abandoned her position near the gurney and hastened towards the tent flap.

“You cannot be serious….you will leave him like this??” the petite artisan breathed. “The surgeon - ..”

'...is dead. The enemy advances….we will be slaughtered like lambs. They are not the innoxious villains of your bedtime stories. They are animals, and will not extend mercy because you are a girl. We have no choice…,' Helena’s voice was quiet, unflappable even still. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The northern tribes NEVER triumphed over Colchis’ warriors. They NEVER took the line, or made it to the encampment. But this day, they had, and they converged on the half mile spread between the forward encampment and the hospital tent.


There was something about standing toe to toe with one’s mortality. There was some profound melancholy, an anxiousness to come to terms very quickly with every aspect of one’s life, the triumphs and failures, the victories and defeats, the love and heartbreak, the magic of ordinary days, the trivial miracles taken for granted from seedlings sprouting out of the soil to the return of birds each and every spring after long winters devoid of their songs. In those fleeting moments, she thought of her family; the beautiful Dione, the charismatic and courageous Adrestus, the talented Cyrene, the studious Castor and the prankster Hyla. Her mother and father would weep, her father especially, unable to forget the look on his face when she first asked to go north in service to Greece. Dastros was a quiet man, with a perpetually thoughtful facade, and a tendency to think and contemplate before answering. Some part of her genuinely thought she’d be returning to them. She hoped they would remember her well. She thought of dear Emilia, the span of their friendship originating as small children. She would pray for her friend from the afterlife, that she and sister Persephone would honor the Xanthos dynasty and the people of Athenia and do right by them. She thought of Kaia, hoping the best for her newest but no less important friend, a lily cast among thorns and still finding the strength to bloom. And of her own life she pondered the likely conclusion. She felt as if she’d hardly started out on the journey, to become a famous artist, to shatter the glass ceiling that kept women from enjoying the privileges and distinction that men did, that she would have liked to find someone wonderful to spend that life with. But the gods’ plan was different from that of mortals. And should they decree this be the day that she and Captain Heirimos would cross the river Styx, then so be it.


“I will not leave this man to die alone,” Rene answered quietly, exhaling and trying to dispel the weighty dread inside of her as she watched the sand dwindle down in the hourglass of her life. “If it is the will of the gods, then I, too, shall perish.” She did not know what Helena said beyond that. The tent flap closed and the woman was gone, the words she spewed inaudible as she went, but the tone was more than enough to suggest context.

And suddenly, it was quiet. Horse hooves galloping away eventually faded into nothingness, leaving the petite blonde with bloodied clothes and dirtied face to cover the sticky tubes pushed through the captain’s abdomen with moist cloths. Rene wasn’t angry at herself for choosing this. She was angry it had come to this, unable to shake the feeling that cowardice had sealed their fates, that perhaps Heirimos could have been taken back to the fort as well, and at least given the benefit of an honorable passing, rather than left by his own men to languish in torment until the underworld’s minions came to claim him. Her lower lip quivered, fighting the urge to sob. While she’d agreed to this course of action, she was not immune to the effects of its totality. The strand of her life had a duration more finite than she would have liked, pulled tight by the Fates as they readied it for shearing. In the distance, she could hear the deafening herd of horse hooves once more, this time approaching instead of retreating. Her angelic face, even tainted with smudges of earth and a sweep of blood from an innocuous brushing, grimaced, the lamentations of a lifetime pushing tears out of her eyes despite her adamant fight to restrain them. Racked with full body tremors, she continued to work trying to clean the man’s wounds, fatal as they were, trying to apply fresh bandages and stop the bleeding, for what little crash course in battlefield medicine she’d acquired in the last week. It helped, to keep busy, to keep going, to forge on even in absolute frivolousness. It gave her something to do, some outlet to harness the hysteria that began to overtake her. Her hearing seemed like that of static, as if she sought to derive sound but through layers of cloth. The deep wild drumming of horse hooves still stood out as detectable, closing on the tent. It was intolerable. She couldn’t handle it. Yes, yes she could.

Were the gods capable of mercy, then let them extend such grace into this moment, should they see fit to. But Rene did not pray for mercy. Instead she prayed for something else; to die well. Not crying or sobbing or curled up into a ball. Not hiding like a coward, not shamelessly begging. If this truly was Ares’ domain, then let her prayers reach his divine ears, that he should see fit to extend the warm embrace of a combat death to her, a lowly artisan with nary a talent for war. Great Ares, let these thy final breaths of a humble daughter be in taken in your holy name.. She would die. That was certain. But she would do so extolling herself to the god of war as she went, offering the last moments in the realm of the living to his delight.

Quickly she moved to the where they’d piled the captains armor and weapons, until she uncovered the thick leather sheath, and within it, his sword. Rene had never held a sword before, never picked one up, certainly never swung one. She knew nothing of them, no technique, no forms, no thrusts or parries, nothing. She struggled to recall the countless times she’d watched her brothers Adrestus and Castor and Hyla, sparring with practice batons or dulled edges out in the gardens. She chided herself to think faster, trying to remember what some of their movements looked like, that she might hope to imitate them. Tiny nimble fingers wrapped around the girthy and exquisite handle of the custom sword, and with a bit of a tug, she unseated it from the snug depth of its sleeve and slowly slid it from the leather sheath. The thing weighed a ton. How could it weigh so much? Were all swords this heavy? Men swinging them made it appear effortless. No sooner had the entirety of the broadsword’s length been freed from the sheath did the tip of it drop to the ground where she’d failed to maintain an adequate grip. “Dammit!” she snapped at the thing, and herself, gripping it with two hands. Footsteps were approaching...oh gods...hurry….

Rene swallowed deeply, and summoning a heroic beckon of strength, she fought to heft the sword up into the air. It took every ounce of her fortitude to do so. She positioned herself in front of the table where the fatally wounded Heirimos still clung to life, shielding him from the form that was moments away from entering. She would do her best to put up a fight, for both of their sakes. She would fail, this she knew, but she would try, by the gods would she try. Her arms were weak, her hands trembling, the shiver transferring to the massive sword, shaking it as well. She gritted her teeth and fought to hold it up, to hold it steady, all five feet of her, her ninety pound frame wrestling with the blasted thing. Her hands, viscous with drying blood, were tight, grip white-knuckled. Her feet felt loose inside her sandals, the captain’s blood having saturated them and made them slick. It was hard to stand still, it was hard to keep balance. But she would. She would keep herself between the entrance and the captain, face determined, striking blue eyes hardening, ready for whoever came through that door…...