Hail to Our Infantry by Rainer PaskiewiczSUMMARY: When Avis starts to remember a past he never had, and a task he knew nothing about, what will he do? The winds whipped around his feet; throwing up the cape of furs he wore to keep warm. Smoke was drifting up form the battle field; the gray wisps dancing in the moon light like some dark spirits come to celebrate the dead. And there were many dead this night.
"Sir!" The runner huffed, leaning on his knees. Turning the man looked to the other side of the battle. Men in armor and men without fight side by side, great swords and hammers biting at their foes. Archers whose bow strings had begun to snap an hour ago rained blue fletched arrows down onto the advancing hoards. But it was the horde that truly drew his interest. Men all in dark armor, with equally dark blades fought side by side with demons wrapped in their own fell guards.
"Sir!" The runner pleaded again, "They have breached the right side. Commander Gaeth fears that his bowmen will be flanked, Sir..."
The man silences him with a brush of the hand. Lifting the massive sword that until now has lain quiet at his side......
"I hear that they are getting all sorts of strange reports from all over the world. Cities falling to pieces, forests springing up out of no where, at sorts of crazy shit." The worker said to his friends as they travel with the rest of the crew to the next orchard. "They say New York is complete gone."
"And I'm the king of Texas." His friend grunted in return.
Avis pulled his jacket a little closer, wrapping the scarf around his neck a little tighter, discomforted from being roused form sleep. The weather had been screwed up for weeks now. In the poles permafrost was thawing like a spring in New England and down here in the southern states it was starting to snow. But his memories told him this was normal, at least he thought they were his memories. They came from times he had never lived and places he had never been.
Why then was he still carrying around this wooden sword? It now sat cradled in his arms as he leaned against the corner of the truck's bed, wrapped in an old brown canvas. Underneath he could feel the finely carved wood, so exact in its detail that even the threads on the hilt could be felt as well as seen. Yet it was an ornament, created purely for show value. Why then did Avis feel it would be one of his most valued possessions?
"Hey Jimmy!" One of the works called, "Why do you think that guy in the corner carries that thing with him?"
Peering out form under this warm cap, Avis watched ‘Jimmy" shrug and then huddled closer to the sword. The blue jeans, worn thermals, and old long duster jacket barely kept the chill out of his body. He had been traveling like this for the better part of two weeks, moving day and night to the pull he felt in his mind. Something was drawing him east.
As the truck chugged down the road the boards that made up the walls of the bed creaked in their braces. The track they left in the freshly fallen snow was clear and visible, easy to follow with the naked eye. And it was the same snow that made moving about in the migrant trucks so easy. The owners of the orchard really didn't care who got on and off the truck as each stop, as long as many fruits could be pulled from the trees before a hard frost stuck.
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