Beyond the Walls

The only light in the outpost came from the fireplace. It crackled and glowed a golden pattern of shadows across the wood walls. Joel sat at the table and faced Cyrus whose eyes were cast down, thinking. Outside, the rain thrashed against the roof in violent waves and thunder cracked down. Joel glanced at the hourglass at the center of the table. They had thirty more minutes to make a decision yet he and Cyrus had not uttered a single word to each other since the King’s guards had presented them with the news.

Joel cleared his throat and Cyrus looked up, supremely annoyed.

“What?” 

“We’re running out of time to make a decision,” Joel said.  

Cyrus shrugged. “So what?” He skewered a piece of sausage and stuffed it into his mouth. Then ripped up pieces of bread, dipped them into the soft cheese, and ate that too, his cheeks swollen like those of a chipmunk. 

“If we don’t make a decision soon, who knows what they’ll do to us,” Joel said.  

Cyrus rolled his eyes, and took a swig of ale. “For God’s sake Joel, we’ve been asked to go on a mission to kill a rogue guardsman who was so powerful that nobody in the kingdom was able to contain him. So yes, I’m gonna take my time to make a decision. To hell with them if they wanna rush me into it.”  

Joel sat back in his chair, he had already made up his mind. In fact, he was thrumming with excitement at the thought of a journey beyond the kingdom walls. Cadets had talked about it before, the creatures, the sights, the valor. It was why he’d joined the guardsmen in the first place. For an opportunity just like this. “What’s stopping you from accepting?”

“Well for one, I signed up to be a guardsman. Patrolling the kingdom, working for the royal court. I did not sign up to be some sort of night time vigilante that does all the dirty work and gets none of the praise for it. And then there’s the boy. Not only are we traveling outside the kingdom walls, but now we have a huge liability along with it. I mean, you saw him right? He looked like he would keel over any second.”

Joel begrudgingly agreed to the second point. Upon arrival at the outpost the guardsmen had disclosed the mission to them and then directed them into a damp cellar deep below the ground. And that was where the two of them had first laid eyes upon Peter. A tired and sickly looking boy, whose limbs were the width of twigs and whose skin was pale and sallow. The guardsmen had explained that the boy would be their eyes and ears for the mission. Allegedly, he possessed an innate gift for navigation and would be the one guiding them to their target. But by the looks of it, he couldn’t even stand on his own two feet.

“So we leave the boy here.” Joel said. “Problem solved. Think about it. You and I go off to defeat this so -called rogue and come back heroes. We’re set for life.”

Cyrus shook his head. “We can’t leave the boy. They specifically said we need to take him.  

“And if we don’t?”

“They will check the outpost after we leave. If the boy is still here, the guardsmen will hunt us down. If we let the boy escape on his own, they will still find him and bring him to us. And that’s if they don’t decide to kill us for some type of mutiny first.”

Joel chewed at a piece of bread and looked back to the hour glass. The sand seemed to have been moving faster than before, collecting in a pointed pile in the bottom vase. His heart thrummed in his throat. He couldn’t go on the mission alone. Cyrus needed to be there. Joel was confident in his combat ability but even so, a partner, especially one with the prowess of Cyrus was integral to his survival. In some twisted way their lives were intertwined from this moment forward, no matter what decision they made.

“Okay we really don’t have much time Cyrus, look at the—”

“Do you have a family?” Cyrus interrupted. Joel looked to find that his face had gone gray and dim. The sight of it unnerved him slightly.

He shook his head. “Not really. I was raised by my father until I was ten but he passed and the academy took me in. I guess in a way the academy raised me.”

“Do you have anyone who loves you?”

Joel felt a deep pit beginning to form in his stomach. A flush of anger touched his cheek.

“What the hell are you trying to get at?”

“Well, do you?”

Joel stayed silent. In his head he sifted through the people he knew and tried to gauge their feelings towards him. When his internal search came up pathetically empty he looked to Cyrus and quietly shook his head. “I’m sure there were people,” he whispered. “At some point.”

Cyrus offered a tight smile. “I didn’t mean to be cruel with my question,” he said. “I’m sorry.” The apology was rusted and awkward. His face looked different. The haughty arrogance, the dripping confidence, all seemed to disappear in an instant. He was utterly defeated. When he looked to Joel, there was glint of tears in his eyes.  

“I am the same. That’s why they chose us.” he said.

“What do you mean?” Joel asked.

“This whole time as we were sitting here I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why us. Why not the other guardsmen?” He shook his head. “It's because we have the least to lose.”

“I don’t understand,” Joel said. Yet he was shaken with fear as though his body was beginning to understand before his mind could connect the dots.

“This is a suicide mission. They don’t think we will make it out of it alive. They chose us not because we are the strongest or the smartest or the most capable. They chose us because we have no family that’ll grieve us if we don’t make it.”

A silence hung in the room. Joel felt his mind go still. It was true. Him, Cyrus, even the boy, Peter. The boy was alone too. Nobody with a family that was alive and well would subject their boy to the treatment Peter seemed to be enduring. The thought of the boy sitting alone in his cell left him breathless with grief. The boy who looked as though he had not seen sunlight in days, had not felt the touch of grass across his feet.  

The hour glass was nearing empty when Joel spoke.

“Well then so be it.” He stood up and lifted the hourglass and smashed it against the wall. The sand plummeted to the floor along with the iridescent shards of glass. Joel smiled at Cyrus, crooked and alive. “If that’s all they think of us then so be it. We will go and we will take the boy and we will find the rogue. And we will win.” his eyes glowed. “And when we return they will bow to us. To all three of us.”  

He stuck out his hand, and Cyrus rose clasping it in his own, his face ablaze. “In that case, call in the guards. I think we’ve made our decision”