Entrant B (1,075 words)
"Believe"
He knew she was a new recruit as soon as her shaking form took a place beside him in the line. With all the quiet desperation and uncertainty of a misplaced animal, she clutched at her weapon. Every little noise made her shudder, while her eyes roamed with intense deliberation across the landscape. On her cheek a fresh scar bit into the dirty skin.
“First day?” The question wasn’t to gain information. It was a formality, an introduction. A way of escaping the war that they all lived in, battle or no battle.
Her head bobbed with a short, “Yes.” The way her eyes riveted on him, he might as well have had ‘spy’ written on his forehead. Though he found no humor in it, he smiled anyway, trying to reassure her. They were in this together.
“So they’re recruiting girls now.” Another unnecessary fact, stated for sheer formality.
“They’re desperate,” she answered, making no attempt to defend them, but quietly sure of herself anyway.
They’re foolish, he thought. They’ve taken those we’re fighting for and put them on the front lines. He glanced up at her again. Her eyes were large and blue. In another world entirely he would have thought she was pretty.
The girl ran her fingers over the blade, he could see she was avoiding his eyes. She was humming a light tune, carefree and reminiscent, but at his words it caught in her throat.
“I’m still not used to it either.” It was what he told every new recruit, thought it was a half-lie. By now he’d grown so used to the war that he sometimes wondered what he’d ever do without it. Long, thoughtless treks and skirmishes. Being told what to do when one was too tired to think independently. And yet every time he found himself taking a life, he was shocked and appalled. Glimpses of life before the war frayed the edges of his careful existence. “I was a musician,” he told her.
But the girl's eyes were unresponsive, and he berated himself for offering such an abrupt, senseless piece of information. What difference would it make if he had been a farmer or a mercenary or a carpenter? If he had been her father or her first cousin? Identities were null on a field strewn with death.
In fact, there was no point in further addressing her.
Except for her blue eyes and high percentage of death. He wondered if she knew how difficult it was for a girl to slip into that same instinctive, brutal survival that had sustained him so long.
Then again, it wasn’t as if she had any choice in the matter.
“Our captain said that over half of Phalin has been taken.” She shook her short cropped hair and stared ahead, as if trying to see the part of the country which was no longer their own. “He said they’re destroying everything. Land, homes. Children even.”
This was not a turn of conversation that he had anticipated or desired. He wet his lips, pondering a response. He tasted the grit, blood, and the scab that was still there from three battles ago.
“I suppose that is why they are so desperate then,” he said at length. It was an idiot’s response, an easy escape. An intelligent musician would have at least thought of something clever, if not reassuring.
They both stared ahead now, nameless individuals awaiting further orders. Even though he wasn't cold, he wrapped both arms around himself.
“It’s better not to think of it.” Her eyes turned to him, looking for answers to the questions she didn’t even know. The words scratched his throat. “You know, the war. Our leaders will trouble themselves over solutions, victories, and failures. It’s not so bad if you just follow and obey.”
“Not so bad?” she asked uncertainly. “They killed both of my brothers.”
“I’m sorry.” As soon as he said it, he wondered why. They’d killed his brothers too. He wasn’t sorry. He didn’t even know how to regret anymore.
“If there is any chance that we can hold the land we’ve got, spare a few more lives from being mercilessly slaughtered, then it won’t be purposeless, will it?” It was a plea; for her, for him, for any higher power who might be listening. “They won’t have died for nothing.”
“No,” he reassured. “We’re doing the right thing.”
She sighed, and looked at the line ahead of her. “The right thing,” she repeated.
When his thoughtless words reached his mind, they unraveled. How had he once defined the right thing? Justice? Honor? Freedom? Now it was just the will to live. Forcing himself to reassure the young recruits so he wouldn’t feel as guilty when he saw their blood-soaked body fall to the side.
But this concept of right still gripped her, driving her to do things that would fill her mind with shock and horror.
A fog was creeping in, moving with damp stealth around their ankles. They would soon march, onward, towards a parasitical enemy, growing fat off of their own land. Death and torment might be the last thing her eyes rested on. Dark bloodstains soaking the front of her shirt.
He shook himself. It was wrong to feel emotional for another. It would distract him, and in this life, distraction was failure.
But she seemed so earnest.
“You’re afraid,” he stated. “Of course. But you still believe in your ideals.”
“I must,” she answered simply. “They’re all that’s left.”
He remained silent. The commander general gave an order, and they started forward. The fog dampened his clothes and made him shiver. She looked at him one last time, expecting something. A farewell? Surely not encouragement. Couldn’t she see he was beyond such trite words?
“Hold on to them,” he said at last. She nodded once, and met his gaze for the first time.
The musician remembered with a sudden pain what it was like to believe. The weapon hanging at his side could have been a musical instrument, he might have been marching to another town to perform and delight. A small smile crossed his face, a sincere one this time, and it hurt all the worse for it’s honesty.
A musician or a soldier. Neither were very different if they both believed in the same thing.
Taking a firmer grip on his sword, he broke his gaze with the girl and they started forward in stride.
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