As the day passed, the three of us found ourselves heading towards Kathbury. It was still as bright and colorful as the days before, though without the bustle. The clouds hung overhead, sparsely covering the morning sky. Dew settled on the grass on the side of the roads, dripping occasionally like they were their own tiny raindrops. Lais stood opposite Kalom from me as we strode ahead one-by-three and without speaking. It took a while for us to prepare for the meeting, and for Lais to chastise what she perceived as idiocy at me not bandaging my wounds. I knew she was right, it was a careless slight on my part. Should have known better in any case, I've seen men lose limbs that way in Brazil, their flesh blackened, rotting. The puss mixing with the things crawling in the wounds, it's not a pleasant image, and by the way she reacted, it was clear that Lais knew all too well what happened after that. The light breeze rolled over the hills, making a teal sea of waves and rustling the tree branches high above head, the sound reminded me of the ocean breaking across rocks. Lais’ was wearing another green dress, not dissimilar to the one she wore when we met the first time, perhaps a weathered ‘copper’ color is the best description. I was wearing the new- or the new yet worn out clothes that Kalom bought for me. Why Gregoris men decided to return the belongings they snatched by the front door was a little worrisome. Immediately upon seeing it, I had thought the man who came to tell us to go see their boss had left a ‘surprise’ for us in the knapsack bag left behind. But upon opening it and seeing the clothing and groceries, I was still suspicious, but clothes were clothes. Kalom himself opted for the same clothes he had on yesterday, but Lais, giving her brother a dangerous stare, had hastily turned over the blood stained outfit and found a pair of brown pants and shirt instead.

  “Nelson,” Kalom started, “you sure this guy wont pull another stunt like last night?”

  He placed his hand on his side, rubbing at the stitches. Lais swatted his hand away from the area,

  “I’m not telling you again, stop touching it. Your hands are filthy, you could get an infection.”

  “I’m wearing a shirt over it, my hands can't infect anything.” He harrumphed.

  “Lais is right. You should be careful, even if you don’t get an infection, rubbing it’ll probably loosen the stitches.”

  Kalom turned to me, wide eyed. “Maybe. But let's not forget that you are part of the reason I have them in the first place.” He gave a devilish smile as he said that.

  I shook my head, grinning in agreement. He had me there, so I thought to simply keep my mouth shut. Lais can handle it herself.

  “Anyhow, I don’t trust Gregori. Not yet.”

  “So why’re you taking us to see him? You have a death wish?”

  “No.”

  “So then?”

  “I want to see if he can be trusted.”

  Lais butted in, “I still don’t like the idea. However, if you can best him in combat once, I suppose he's not that good of an opponent.”

  It wasn't meant as an insult to me. However it did home nontheless. That fight was sloppy, ammateur at best. And I could still feel Lais' blow upon my cheek even then. But that reminder was an important lesson that was worth keeping.

  Kalom nodded in silent affirmation ro her remark. The wooden facades of the town buildings were dry, despite the wetness of the ground, and took on a rustic feel as we passed by them. The scent of earthly ozone mixing gradually with the villages wafting out of baked goods and incense from several of the residences. It kinda reminded me of my stint while based in Japanese-controlled Singapore, though we were headed out to another location back then; Kangar. I didn’t want to remember that, even Kangar was too much for me to bear remembering, Even now. I turned my thoughts to something better instead. An older memory that deserved some time out of its cell.

  As the three of us continued to further march into town, the steps gradually in my ears turned from soft paces into a cadence, and the ringing began. A song was being sung, and I smiled a little.

  For all-in-all we trudge ever on

  Through bush, field an’ river

  Left-right-left again, headin’ towards forever

  A sten in hand, worth what you can

  As much ammo as can give’er

  Shoot the reds, as they fled!

  Sealand lives forever!

  We marched on for what felt like a month. February the eleventh I think it was when we finally camped out. The rain hadn’t let up for a week by then, and the earthy smell of the mud had made me sick to my stomach. Luckily, the Mess Sarge, ‘Cook’, was always there for our little merry band of Ne'er-do-wells. He was stirring a big cast iron pot he stole from one of the locals back in Frenchman territory to the south, near the Brazilian border. The woman didn’t give the pot up willingly, but Cook let his pistol do the talking for him. That pissed off a lot of the other guys, due to the fact he had used their canteen supplies to wash the blood off. The pot was boiling from the fire underneath it. We had no fuel to burn, nearby jungle wood was soggy, crumbly to the touch. So we made due with cigarette cartons and spare smokes we had lying around. It made the air reek of acrid, but it was alot fucking better than mud and jungle. Cook was making the most vile, disgusting gruel I ever did see, you see despite his title of ‘Cook’ we gave him that name as an insult. But maybe Arab's didn’t get comedy like we did. He proudly accepted the nickname without hesitation. I remembered that he would always wear that old apron we picked out for him back east. He couldn’t wear it with Judge around, old vet’ was a stickler for ‘proper uniform’.

  “Whisper,” he said, beckoning me over. “You want to try some, eh?”

  chuckling nervously, I began looking around at some of the others who were sitting on logs nearby. We had ‘Curly’, the ginger haired Sten gunner on hand, as I said before he was a right prick even with his dead-on aim. And the person sitting across from him, a woman. She was darker skinned, pacific tan. And her dark black hair and oddly aryan blue eyes made her stand out even among our motley crew of mercenary degenerates. Her name was ‘Poppy’, she chose the name herself. She was the company’s mechanic and repairwoman, and also usually my only lifeline between a working radio pack, and Judge chasing me down with a blunt object to smack me over the head with, for “yet another broken radio”. That was my job back then, long before Judge passed the torch of commissar my way, I was a radio-operator. Callsign; ‘Whisper.’

  The two of them shook their heads, and pointed down to the MRE’s they were scarfing down. Curly put his hand around his throat while pointing to Cook's stew with the other.

  “You pricks ain't no help.” I said. Turning back to Cook I sighed wearily. “Alright, chef. Hit me with whatever you made today.”

  “It is Cook, not chef. You know this.”

  “Yes, yes I do. Now pour me a fucking bowl so I can eat your slop already. We’ve been on the move for eight days, I’m hungry.”

  With a grimace of disdain, the fat Arab took one of the wooden bowls he had on hand, and ladled a helping of the watery mixture into it. Handing it to me, I examined the bowl. The gruel was the color and consistency of porridge but the smell which wafted from it held a dire and almost malicious quality to it. Handing me a spoon, Cook went back to stirring and occasionally adding salt to the concoction. He looked like a witch at a cauldron. Acted like one too.

  I sat next to Curly on the log, and spooned a portion of the ‘food’ into my mouth. Resisting the urge to gag, as the sensation of what felt like pepper and wet dog food intertwined around my taste buds like a garrote wire. Swallowing, could have sworn that I teared up a little bit.

  His black fatigues, the S.C.F. standard color for grunts, was stained with mud, mostly around his ankles, but his wrists were no better. Though, due to his messy eating, he had food on his collar as well. My own habits weren't any better at the time, quickly chowing down on food was expected in the company, given we literally lived in warzones where every moment not getting shot at was a luxury. A vacation lasting maybe an hour or so.

  “So, Whisper,” It was Curly who spoke.

  His nasally almost panicked voice was normal, and after knowing him for a few years most people who he met would eventually stop asking if he was “alright” when they heard him speak.

  “Heard We’ll be moving out to Brazil again soon, the boys in management said they’re pissed about the whole ‘genocide’ thing.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I don’t see why. They get paid, we get paid.” I replied.

  Curly sneered. “Well of course you don't care, black-hearted blondie that you are. But the pencil pushers do. Their reputations on the line, here.”

  “Curly, is this gonna devolve into you bringing up that holocaust thing again?” I jeered his way.

  Most people weren’t close enough to Curly to know he was Jewish. I unfortunately was, both in age and time served in the company. So his rants about our mortal enemies in Atomwaffen always ended up back in the second world war, despite it being a long distant memory in terms of history. Literally over a 'hundred years ago. As we sat there, the occasional mosquito landed on me, the buzzing ringing in my ear like static. White noise, a radios annoying snow mimicking the berserk and ever-changing harmony of some song unsung. Radios were fickle, and the old ones I used back then were relics even by then. Curly's beloved World War two the origin, and the ones who killed his kin-folk; the source of our only voice in the jungles with the outside world.

  “Please don’t get him started on that shit, Nelson.”

  The voice was not exactly deep, but maybe harsh. Still a woman's voice but not one belonging to some diva or the cashier from your local store. Poppy was looking our way. Her eyes were filled with tire, and the bags under her eyes said as much. The bright, blue eyes of a woman who hadn’t slept well for quite a long time. She looked so strange in the company uniform. She was usually always wearing that grey boiler suit when working in the motorpools at company run bases. The change in clothes didn’t suit her, both aesthetically nor comfort wise. She rarely voiced her dissatisfaction on the topic, but the other guys as well as me and Curly knew that the fatigues were tight around the chest area. The collar buttons were shit quality and the fabric didn’t breathe right either. Luckily for the rest of the black sheep of the S.C.F.: Crossroads, our medic Croaker, Angel and Bad-Moon, they all kept their mouths shut. I say lucky for them, because in a one-on-one, Poppy could and would kill you for less. She’d done it before.

  “Every time you even mention the word he always starts the same shit, why do you keep tormenting us like this?”

  “I’m a glutton for punishment.” I gave her a sly grin, and she threw the nearest rock on the jungle floor at me, missing.

  “You're a dick.” She exclaimed.

  Curly chuckled grimly. “You two are like an old married couple, just without the fucking or the timeshare. If you're done flirting, eat so you got the strength to keep walking."

  He was right, much to my chagrin given my choice of food. Poppy nodded in Curly’s direction, and went back to devouring her low quality macaroni and cheese from the brown and red pouch she held. Curly had one too, though his housed gravy and chicken.

  I ventured back to the present as the voices chimed in my ear. Looking up to see that we had entered the town center, Noticed several people were gathered around an ornate, marble fountain. A man stood atop the rim, his right foot casually stepping on one of the decorative porcelain turtle statutes which lined it. He was talking to the crowd before him, speaking in a frightful, panicked way. The tone gave people a sense of unease, and every so often the people who stood below would gasp or cry out in horror at what he said. The people of the crowd were a diverse mix. Different hues of greens and red clothes contrasted by the brown coats and hoods. A bizarre yet oddly poetic blend of classes, all standing together to hear the same words of a mad preacher in the street. A scant few women and men wore pink garb, dresses to be exact, and again both sexes. By the design, I guessed they were from the brothel.

  “I saw it,” he cried. “I saw the scene with my own bare eyes. Brondi, thousands of the scum, washing over the marshlands as a tsunami of arrows and shields!”

  He wore a cared for, but not pristine, red coat with splotches of mud and dust caked on in some places. His brown leather pants, much too big for him, were belted up with what looked like a length of rope. Even his shoes, or rather moccasins, were equally filthy and rugged. His chestnut hair, which many of the Cird had, was short and barely covered his pointed ears. But his green eyes caught my attention with the redness of them, bloodshot and dry. He had clearly been sleeping not at all, or possibly under the influence of narcotics. That was my initial observation anyhow as we passed the throng by, and onto our destination. With one last burst of vigor the stranger cried to his audience, captivated by the story;

  “Eli, the treacherous Brondi king that he is, has killed the little folk! Believe me, believe me!”

  The polished metal streets reflected the blue above as a puddle of silvery grey, debased by colors wholly foreign to its identity. The buildings we passed, no less beautiful than before, thought noticeably more decorated. The brothel's fa?ade now lied with blue streamers gently floating in the breeze, several other places too had these fluttering lapis shaped ribbons dancing away the dawn hours in silent remorse. The town had taken on a somber tone, as if reeling.

  “What are all the streamers for?” I turned to Kalom as I asked.

  He didn’t look down, instead still looking straight ahead. His voice was calm, tense but not with vigilance, rather a slight discomfort if anything. His eyes, from the little I could see as he walked slightly ahead of myself, were dulled as if in memory.

  “It’s a holiday the nation celebrates thrice a year. Cihm-ar-dath.”

  “I’m guessing by the color, it’s a day of remembering the fallen?”

  Kalom did look down at me upon hearing that, Lais included. They were a little surprised at the guess. Supposed they never figured a mercenary would know or give a damn about remembering brothers in arms. That was a normal reaction, even back home we were often accused of being heartless cold-blooded killers on a corporate paycheck. But back in the field, we had our own ways of carrying friends along with us, if not in body bags; in memento. Bad-moon used to pry teeth out of some of the men’s skulls before they were shipped back home by corporate. He got caught by our sawbones, Croaker, a few times while in the act. But when everyone learned why he did it; we couldn't tease or yell at him about it. He was from the Iron Confederacy out west of Galton. His people believed the best way to remember and honor warriors was to carry their spirit into battle to continue the fight. Strange ritual from a stranger culture. But there is something romantically macabre ‘bout stringing together a necklace of your friend's molars, so they can keep kicking ass right by your side, long after they're worm chow. Even Judge, stickler he was for rules; only politely asked Bad-moon to stop the perceived desecrations, and allowed him to take their dog tags instead. He agreed, mournfully. I recall a conversation we had once, following the incident. He was helping Cook gather some roots to boil for supper, and I joined to help out, or rather was pressured into helping by Cook who threatened me with intentional food poisoning.

  Bad-moon had on him the necklace, about forty teeth at the time, and three dog tags. They dangled from his collar as we both groveled in the dirt, looking for ingredients. Can remember the feeling of the soaking mud, wetting my knees as I rummaged through the moist, rough textured terra preta by a tree for anything remotely edible. We had very little knowledge about what was and was not safe to eat, so we had to just pick and choose, and hope to whatever god was watching that Cook was in the mood to actually ‘inspect’ the finds.

  “So,” I started, “why teeth?”

  He said nothing at first, concentrating on pulling out a particularly tough specimen of deep-rooted plant from the ground. The soil of the ground blended into his fatigues, covering his legs and abdomen in dirty, moist jungle. Finally, after a few minutes of his war against nature, he managed to free the roots and he tossed them into a pile we had made. Sighing in relief, he replied.

  “My people do it when we cannot recover our dead.”

  “Back home in the plains?” I asked.

  “Yes. No. My people are not from the plains originally, like most of the first nations in the Confederacy.”

  Didn’t understand it, and even though I never voiced that, he could tell I was confused. The smirk he gave when he saw I was at a loss, it was a smile one couldn’t forget. It wasn’t a happy one. Disappointed, sad even.

  “You know nothing about the I.C.?” He asked in reply. His tone spoke to his sincere question, inquisitive.

  “Not much. All I know is that it’s where all the Indians went after the 'Black Spring' way back when. Judge taught me that at least.”

  He chuckled, looking up at the dark canopy above. The trees, a blanket of dark clouds dimming the sun from view.

  “Well, my father said that our people are descendants of the Cree. I’m not sure where they are from exactly, my family though was from somewhere near the North-west passage, just across from New Zion. Ever heard of it?”

  “Yeah. It’s Mormon territory, and Eskimo even further north if I recall.” I affirmed.

  “Well, apparently, long ago there were many different tribes all spread out over the continent. Each had different ways of honoring the dead. Burial, pyres, letting birds eat the corpses or putting them on platforms in the air.

  “And?”

  “Well, after the unification, all the old ways were let go of. And new traditions were started.”

  I took a second to process that, and he noticed.

  “Yeah, I can read your thoughts. It was absolutely not unanimous, but it was for a good cause in the end. Despite the elders decrying it at the time. My father was one such nay-sayer.”

  “Aright, but where does this go from tribal mumbo-jumbo to collecting dead men's chompers?”

  “You know, you sound like that dink, Curly, more and more as the days pass.” He gave a rye grin as he said it.

  I laughed at that one, he had a point. “Must be rubbing off on me.”

  He was no saint. 'Moon Was one of us. He knew it too. the ‘Black Sheep’ of the S.C.F, some of the most socially unstable yet functional mercs in the companies employ. ‘Moon himself was a figure well known across multiple units, mainly by his name. “Bad-Moon” was a racial nickname he wore with mild annoyance but begrudging acceptability. It was both a codification of his ‘otherness’, and his prowess in combat. Bad-Moon, literally meaning lunatic. I never thought he was crazy, nor did anyone really. But just like how my name was Whisper despite my regular screaming into a faulty radio, his was just as ironic. I later would learn in my few remaining years of serving alongside that man, he had a college education. Though in that world, being learned was about as useful as a loaded magazine without a gun.

  “But to answer your question, Whisper. One of the new traditions was that, since war was so chaotic in the plains, we rarely could collect the dead from no-man's-land. The Mormons would often make sure of that, so we had to find a new way to honor the dead in combat. Thus bringing their spirit with us a ’la teeth was a quicker, yet respectful alternative to just letting them rot.”

  I said nothing, looking away for a moment. It was an awkward silence, one which I later hated myself for. But I didn’t want to say anything to offend that tradition of his. Couldn’t. It was normal in our mad world. Cold, calculated and efficient, yet profoundly sacred. Even to this day, still knowing jack shit about the Confederacy other than what ‘Moon had told me on occasion, that little sliver of war-time humanity sticks like a knife in my gut. The natives, giving up everything for a united people, still always at war with anyone and everyone else. And even through the blood, the trenches and the artillery, chose to bring their brothers just a few yards deeper into enemy territory in spirit if not in body. It made sense in a way, that when war is everything you know, the guy next to you is like a surrogate of some brother you never had, or a friend even. You might hate the guy, or not even know his name, but he still watches your back in return for the same. You still wind up dead in the end. But at least you accomplish something, even if it's just sentimental nonsense. I certainly wouldn’t go through the trouble of stringing together a necklace of bone, but bringing memories, both good and bad perhaps; still let the dead stay by you in some way.

  As the three of us kept towards our destination, I looked up at those blue strands of memory, and wondered in silence at what spirits did they carry. Was each one for a specific person, as a tooth or a tag had been back on Earth? Were they the silent waves of an ocean, forgotten in body, yet their soul remained? Or was it shallow, a blue ribbon replacing a yellow or black? As we passed the shops and stalls, each flying several of these streamers, one brushed up against me momentarily. Neither of the siblings noticed, but when it made contact, the silky soft fabric lightly caressing my cheek almost made me speak aloud the words I could not say. A gently spun memento of pain for those I left behind on that battlefield in the Pacific, in a far off land. In Kangar. It was unworthy of me to say the names of those who died there, they deserved to rest, and the memories were better left unspoken. Instead, all I could say in a moment of weakness, and against my better judgement;

  “Stay with me.”

  Lais turned to face me, Kalom stopping mid stride.

  “Did you say something, Nelson?” She asked.

  At that moment, I saw myself back at that camp in Brazil. Flanked by not a couple of elves, but a mechanic named Poppy and a ginger haired sten gunner. Behind them; a hard-assed commissar wearing a trench coat, Cook with an apron that said ‘kiss the chef’, the word chef scribbled out. Croaker, the six-foot grey skinned Medic with no lips stood beside him. And sitting next to myself on a rotting jungle stump, eating an old MRE, was Bad-Moon. Wrinkled dark skin, wearing a necklace of my fallen brothers. Our fallen brothers.

  I smiled, and shook my head. “Nothing, just a nice memory is all. Let's go find Gregori and get this over with.”

  Thus we continued onward to the town's construction district, and to whatever awaited us within.