Chapter 40 : The Time of All Living Beings – To Be an Human 2

The mercenary called himself Rovan, although the name his mother had given him was still written on a small wooden token he kept tied beneath his shirt.

He had been seventeen when he left home, and his first ambition was not glory, adventure, or the thrill of battle. His younger sister needed medicine.

The village healer had told their mother that the girl's lungs were weak and that she would need treatment through the winter. The medicine was expensive, the family's harvest had failed, and the local lord's tax collector had already taken the grain they had hoped to sell. Rovan's father had died two years earlier, leaving behind a broken cart, a debt, and a household in which every adult had become skilled at pretending there was enough food.

Rovan had seen soldiers return from a border campaign with purses full of silver. He had also seen them return missing fingers, teeth, and sometimes entire limbs, but those details had seemed less important when he counted the coins in their hands.

He joined a mercenary company that promised regular pay and a share of the spoils.

Before he left, his sister gave him the wooden token. It was a crude little thing, carved from the handle of their father's old knife. She had scratched a crooked star into one side and insisted that it would bring him luck. Rovan told her that luck was for children, then tied it around his neck where she could not see him do it.

The company was not what he had imagined. Its soldiers smelled of sweat and old leather, their boots were often patched, and their captain spent more time arguing over wages than discussing tactics. The first campaign consisted of marching through muddy roads, guarding supply wagons, and sleeping beneath wet canvas. Rovan's shoulders ached, his feet blistered, and the food was so poor that he began to dream about his mother's bread.

He wrote home after his first month, telling his sister that the pay was good and the work easy.

He had received half his promised wages and spent most of it replacing his boots.

He did not mention this because his sister had written that the medicine was helping.

The first time he saw a man die in battle, Rovan vomited behind a wagon. The second time, he vomited after the fighting was over. By the third battle, he had learned not to look too closely at the faces of the dead, and by the sixth, he had discovered that he could eat while sitting beside a corpse if he was hungry enough.

He hated how quickly he adapted.

He hated it more when he realized that adaptation made him better at his work.

Rovan was not a natural warrior. He was too cautious to charge recklessly and too small to rely on strength alone, but he paid attention. He learned to watch the feet of an opponent rather than the weapon in his hands, to keep his shield angled toward the most likely blow, and to recognize the moment when a frightened enemy stopped thinking about victory and began thinking only about escape. He learned that the loudest men in a camp were not necessarily the bravest, and that the quiet ones often knew precisely how much blood a person could lose before he stopped being dangerous.

He also learned the value of a full stomach.

The company paid late, as mercenary companies often did, and promises from distant commanders could not be exchanged for bread. When the army occupied an enemy village, Rovan began by taking what the soldiers were told they could requisition: grain, dried meat, spare boots, and whatever could be carried without slowing the column. He told himself that the village would have been stripped by someone else if they had not taken the supplies. He told himself that the people living there had supported the enemy. He told himself many things, some of them even true.

The first time he saw a child clutching a sack of flour while a soldier pulled it from her hands, he intervened. He returned the sack, shouted at the soldier, and earned himself a split lip for the trouble. The captain reprimanded them both, then privately informed Rovan that if he wanted to spend his own pay feeding every child they encountered, he was free to do so.

Rovan was furious for the rest of the day.

That evening, he shared his ration with the child and her mother. The following morning, he marched with an empty stomach and a bitter taste in his mouth, convinced that he had done the right thing.

A month later, the company was cut off from its supply wagons in hostile territory. Three days passed without proper food. Men began arguing over scraps, and one of the horses collapsed on the road. Rovan watched a veteran cut meat from the animal's flank before it had fully stopped moving. He could barely look at the man, yet when the meat was cooked, he ate until his hands stopped shaking.

They reached the next village at dusk.

This time, Rovan did not intervene when the soldiers took the grain. He stood beside a cart and watched a farmer plead with

the quartermaster, explaining that the stores were meant to last until the next harvest. Rovan understood the man's fear. He understood the arithmetic of it, the careful counting of sacks, the way a single missing measure could mean hunger weeks later. He had grown up with the same calculations.

He also knew that if the company did not eat, it would be too weak to defend itself the following day.

He looked away when the farmer began to cry.

That night, he ate warm bread beside the fire, and for a few moments he was almost happy. The bread was coarse, the stew too salty, and the men around him were loud enough to drown out the sounds coming from the village. Someone began telling a ridiculous story about a horse that had learned to open the captain's tent, and Rovan laughed so hard that he nearly choked.

He had not laughed like that in months.

Later, when he lay down, he touched the wooden token beneath his shirt. The star had worn smooth at its edges, and the cord had begun to fray. He imagined his sister sitting beside the hearth at home, listening for news of him, and promised himself that the next time he received his wages, he would send enough money for her to eat well through the winter.

The next time never came in the form he expected.

The company changed employers twice over the following year. One lord hired them to defend a border fortress, another paid them to help seize it back, and a third promised them land if they captured a city that neither he nor his rivals had ever governed. Rovan learned to recognize the difference between a campaign that might earn a man a fortune and one that would merely leave him dead in a ditch. He became less interested in the reasons wars were fought and more interested in the reliability of the person paying for them.

He was not proud of this change, but pride was expensive.

His sister's medicine grew more costly. His mother began sending letters written in a shaky hand, describing the girl's worsening cough and asking when he would return. Rovan sent money whenever he could, but wages were often delayed, and the cost of replacing equipment, buying food, and paying the debts he had accumulated during lean campaigns consumed more than he expected. He told himself that he would go home once he had saved enough to ensure they would never need to worry again.

He began to think of that future as a place he could reach if he endured a little more.

By his fifth year with the company, Rovan had become one of its most dependable fighters. He was still cautious, but his caution no longer prevented him from killing. He could do it quickly when necessary and sleep afterward. He knew which wounds would end a fight and which would leave an enemy alive long enough to call for help. He knew how to search a dead man's clothes without looking at his face, and how to distinguish a purse worth taking from one that would cost more trouble than it was worth.

The wooden token remained beneath his shirt.

He touched it before every battle, although he no longer remembered when the habit had begun.

One winter, the company was hired by a duke whose lands were being threatened by a rival claimant. The duke promised generous pay, but the campaign dragged on for months, and the promised silver never arrived. The men grew restless. Some deserted; others began selling their equipment. The captain held the company together by promising that the final assault would make them rich enough to retire.

Rovan wanted to believe him.

The city they were ordered to take stood behind thick walls, and its defenders had enough food to wait them out. The duke's advisers decided that the city must be made an example of. When the walls finally fell, the soldiers were given permission to plunder.

Rovan entered through a breach beside three men he had known for years. One was a former farmer who still complained whenever the stew contained turnips. Another had a habit of singing when he was frightened, and the third had once carried Rovan half a mile after a spear wound left him unable to walk.

They moved through streets filled with smoke, broken carts, and people trying to hide what little they had left. Rovan took silver from a merchant's chest, a pair of boots from a dead soldier, and a sack of dried fruit from a storeroom. He did not think of himself as cruel. He thought of his sister's medicine, his mother's letters, and the money he was owed. Every object he took brought him closer to the future he had promised himself.

Then they entered a house and found an old woman standing in front of a cupboard.

She was thin, with white hair tied at the nape of her neck. A kitchen knife trembled in her hand. Behind her, a young boy crouched beneath a table, holding a small dog against his chest.

Rovan's companions began searching the room.

The woman raised the knife. She did not threaten them with words; she simply held it between herself and the cupboard, where a sack of flour sat beside a row of

clay jars.

Rovan recognized the look in her eyes.

He had seen it on his own mother when the tax collector came.

One of his companions told her to move. She did not. The man shoved her aside, and she struck the edge of the table hard enough to fall to her knees. The boy cried out. Rovan stepped forward, expecting to help her, but stopped when he saw the cupboard standing open behind her.

There was enough flour in the sack to feed a family for weeks.

He could have told his companions to leave it. He could have offered them some of his own silver and made the argument that the sack was worth less than the trouble of taking it. Instead, he glanced at the others, calculated how the argument would sound, and decided it would accomplish nothing.

He took the sack.

The old woman reached for it, and Rovan pulled it out of her hands. Her fingers caught the frayed edge and tore a small hole in the cloth. Flour spilled across the floor, scattering over the dark boards like pale dust.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then one of his companions laughed and told Rovan to hurry.

He carried the sack outside.

That night, the company divided the spoils. Rovan received less silver than he had been promised, but enough to pay his debts and send money home. The men drank, shouted, and argued over the quality of the stolen wine. Someone found a box of sugared almonds, and Rovan ate three handfuls before he remembered the boy beneath the table.

He put the rest in his pocket.

The next morning, the captain announced that the duke had been forced to withdraw his offer of land because the treasury was empty. The promised bonus would not be paid. The men cursed him, but the captain had already arranged another contract, and those who wanted to eat would march again.

Rovan marched.

He told himself that he had done what was necessary. He had not killed the woman. He had not struck the boy. He had not even taken the knife she had tried to use against them. He had taken flour from a city that had resisted his employer, and in return he had received money that would buy medicine for his sister.

The argument was reasonable.

It followed him all the way home.

When he finally returned to his village, his mother had grown smaller, and his sister was no longer a child. She had survived the illness, though it had left her weak, and she now worked as a seamstress in a nearby town. She hugged him when he entered the house, then stepped back to inspect his face as if searching for the boy who had left years earlier.

Rovan gave her the money he had saved. He bought his mother a new blanket, repaired the roof, and paid for a proper meal that lasted long enough for them to sit together after sunset. His sister laughed at his stories, his mother complained that he had become too thin, and the smell of fresh bread filled the house.

For the first time in years, Rovan slept without keeping his boots beside the bed.

He stayed for six weeks.

During that time, he tried to help with the farm, but his body had grown accustomed to the rhythm of marching, and he found himself restless when the days passed without a clear objective. The fields were too small, the work too slow, and the village's concerns seemed to circle endlessly around the same few problems. He loved his family, but he could not imagine spending the rest of his life waiting for the next harvest.

When the company sent word that it had secured a lucrative contract, Rovan packed his belongings.

His sister watched him tie the old wooden token beneath his shirt.

"How long will you be gone this time?" she asked.

"Not long."

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. She had heard that answer before.

Rovan left at dawn.

He died eleven years later during a retreat across a frozen plain. His employer had misjudged the strength of the enemy, the captain had been killed in the first assault, and the company had broken apart under a rain of arrows. Rovan managed to escape the fighting, but a wound in his side slowed him until he could no longer keep pace with the others.

He found shelter beneath the remains of a cart.

Snow gathered on his boots and crept beneath his armor. He pressed a hand against his wound, trying to stop the bleeding, and waited for the sound of approaching horses. He had no idea whether the men who had escaped with him were alive. He had no idea whether anyone would return.

He thought of his sister's face when he had come home. He thought of the warm bread, the new blanket folded at the foot of his mother's bed, and the way his sister had laughed at a story he had told her about the captain's horse. He tried to remember the last words she had spoken before he left, but all he could hear was her asking how long he would be gone.

He reached beneath his shirt and pulled out the wooden token.

The cord had nearly rotted through. The little star was worn smooth, and the wood had darkened with sweat and years of contact with his skin. He held it between h

is fingers, trying to imagine his sister carving it at the kitchen table, her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated on making the lines straight.

He had once thought that he would return home with enough money to buy a larger farm, hire servants, and ensure that his family would never again fear a failed harvest. Later, he had imagined retiring with the men who had fought beside him, building a house near a river, and spending his days fishing. Every time he approached the amount he believed he needed, something happened to move the goal farther away.

He had kept marching because he had never found a reason to stop that seemed sufficient.

Now, beneath the broken cart, he tried to calculate how much he had earned in eleven years. He remembered the sums he had sent home, the debts he had paid, the weapons he had replaced, the food he had bought, and the silver he had lost to dishonest captains. He could not arrive at a final number. His thoughts were growing slow, and the cold had begun to dull the pain in his side.

He closed his fingers around the token.

For a brief moment, he was seventeen again, standing outside his family's house while his sister tied the cord around his neck. She had told him it would bring him luck, and he had laughed at her for believing in such things.

He wondered whether she still remembered the promise he had made before leaving.

Then the snow covered his boots, the sky blurred, and Rovan's hand fell open.

The wooden token slipped into the snow beside him.

Elden carried the cold into the next life.

Yet those memories now existed alongside the lives he had experienced, rather than standing apart from them as though they were the only experiences that mattered.

Allowing the memories to settle without forcing them into a conclusion.