Fallen Eagle-Chapter 12: Shouting the Loudest

As the last merchant wagon crested the distant ridge, becoming a final speck against the shifting twilight, a fragile quiet settled over the fort. Theodorus turned to his men. He needed to seize on the flickering flame of hope his drastic actions had instilled in them. They needed to see action. Immediate action.
“The tower has been a sickly plague pit for the last month. This changes now.” His voice, devoid of the afternoon’s fury, cut through the weary quiet like a cold blade. Every head snapped toward him. “Sergeant Leonidas. You and your men will clear the upper floor of all personal effects. Strip it bare. Then, lay beds of fresh, dry hay. I want it done in one hour.”
Leonidas, who was rapidly learning that to serve this commander was to exist in a state of constant, managed surprise, processed the order in a blink. He bowed, a sharp, precise movement. “Yes, Captain.” He turned and barked at his men, his voice a thunderclap that shocked them into motion. “You heard the Captain! Move!”
“The rest of you are with me.” Theodorus led them to the first floor they so dreaded, their steps hesitant as they followed behind him. He let them take in the space and the despair that coated every inch of it before he spoke.
“We are cleaning this space. And we are cleaning these men.” The order was met with a wall of terrified silence. The men’s gazes darted from the fever-bright eyes of their comrades to the cold, implacable face of their commander. He turned to face them, his own face a mask of disappointment. “You are soldiers of this Principality. These are not strangers. They are the men who stood a watch for you, who shared a fire with you. We will not let them die in their own filth. We will give them the dignity of a clean bed, and we will nurse them back to health.”
The fear in their eyes did not vanish, but now it was at war with a burgeoning shame.
“Every mattress, every scrap of bedding on this floor, will be taken to the courtyard and burned.” Theodorus dropped the bombshell into the quiet, his voice leaving no room for argument. “The floorboards, the walls - every surface will be scoured with soap and water until it is immaculate. You will not sleep until it is done. And your day tomorrow begins at dawn.” He fixed them with a stare that imprinted the reality of the situation upon the men. “If you wish to get any sleep tonight, I suggest you begin right away.”
All old bedding and beds were thrown out, Theodorus didn’t even allow the better parts of it to be used as fodder for the horses. A common, unhygienic practice practiced with normal habituacy. A sacrilege in this situation, where the chance that the contagion could leap to their most valuable animals was a real possibility. Under his unforgiving eye, the men hauled the reeking pallets to the center of the courtyard, creating a pyre that burned with a foul, thick smoke, a ritual cleansing of the garrison’s shame.
He divided them into teams with brutal efficiency. Ten men were given the precious blocks of soap and tasked with scrubbing every inch of the barracks, their hands raw, the lye stinging their eyes. Another ten washed every personal belonging, from spare tunics to belt buckles, in great basins of water. When Leonidas ed the upper floor was ready, Theodorus gave him the final, most bizarre order of the night, raising his voice to be heard over the din of work.
“From this moment forward, all water in this fort - for drinking, for washing, for cooking - will be boiled. Failure to obey is not a lapse in discipline; it is an act of sabotage against this garrison, and it will be punished as such.”
The men were too stunned by the day’s onslaught to muster more than a weary compliance at the bizarre, tyrannical order. Their silence the limp acceptance of the defeated. One Theodorus was not satisfied with.
“Am I understood?” he asked, his voice deceptively mild. A tired, wavering chorus of “Yes, Captain,” answered him.
“I SAID, AM I UNDERSTOOD?” he roared, the sound echoing off the stone, a physical blow of sound and will.
“YES, CAPTAIN!” The shout was a unified cry of frantic pain.
“Good.” He turned to the mountain of a man at his side. “Sergeant Leonidas.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“You will establish fire pits for boiling. Post a guard at the well. Ensure compliance. No one draws water until it has steamed. The basins of the men working inside are to be emptied and refilled with fresh, boiled water every quarter of an hour. Am I understood?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Captain.” Leonidas nodded his assent. He and his men moved toward the storeroom with brisk, professional efficiency.
The work continued deep into the night. The courtyard became a hellish workshop, lit by the sputtering glare of every torch they possessed. Theodorus was a demon of micromanagement, his sharp orders a constant goad, keeping the men moving despite the profound ache in their bones. That, and the desperate, gnawing need for sleep, drove them on. It was a terrible waste of resources, depleting nearly their entire stockpile of firewood and half their torches and candles in a single night. But this wasn’t about conservation. This was a psychological siege. It was a message, burned into their minds with fire and exhaustion, that the old world of apathy and filth was dead. That he wouldn’t tolerate a single night spent in these appalling conditions. Not while he was their commander. And if that meant forcing them to work through the night, he wasn’t above doing so.
In the twilight hours of their work, Orestis, now a common soldier, approached Theodorus. His former apathy had been scoured away, replaced by a hollowed-out, cowed obedience. “Captain, I have finished,” he said, his voice a raw whisper.
He had spent the last hours single-handedly ministering to the sick and wounded. Theodorus had used Orestis’s grim task as a tool; any man he caught slacking was immediately dispatched to “assist soldier Orestis.” The effect was electric. The fear of that intimate, terrifying work was a more potent motivator than any whip.
“All the men have been fed and cleaned,” Orestis ed, his eyes transfixed by a memory. “Their fevers… have cooled a little.”
The sick men, cleaned and wrapped in fresh linen, had been moved to a sheltered spot in the courtyard, but they couldn’t spend the night there, much less stay there indefinitely. A permanent solution was needed. Theodorus’s gaze swept over his exhausted soldiers and settled on two men who were leaning on their brooms, they might have been genuinely exhausted, but Theodorus had already identified them as men with a honed reflex of avoiding effort whenever possible.
“Christos. Georgios.” He called their names from across the courtyard, his voice sharp and clear. He had already memorized every man’s name. “You will assist in moving the sick and injured to the new infirmary.”
Their “Yes, Captain,” was a delayed, unenthusiastic grunt. Theodorus sensed they would be among the most difficult to temper.
“Is there a problem?” His voice was dangerously quiet. He was growing weary of having to constantly drag discipline from this demoralized rabble, but he had been handed a flock of sheep and ordered to forge a pack of wolves. He had to bear with it.
“No, Captain.” The pair straightened at the cold menace in his tone.
“Where will the infirmary be, Captain?” Orestis asked, his voice still hesitant. “On the ground floor, by the supplies?”
“No, Orestis,” Theodorus replied. “Your former captain was right about one thing. It is not wise to have sickness near our food, nor to have its humors fouling the air our troops must breathe each time they enter or leave the tower.”
Orestis looked confused. Had they gone to all this trouble to scour the barracks, only to move the sick back in? Or would the captain force them to sleep in the lean-to with the horses?
“They will have my quarters,” Theodorus announced.
A profound silence descended upon the courtyard, broken only by the crackle of the fires. Every man stopped his work, turning to stare. Demetrios rushed forward, his face a mask of alarm. “My Lord, you cannot! To expose yourself to such-”
“Calm yourself, Demetrios.” Theodorus raised a hand, forestalling the protest. A faint, hard smile touched his lips. “I did not say I would be sleeping
with
the sick. I will be sleeping with my men, here, on our newly cleaned floor.”
The reaction was immediate. A wave of stunned murmurs erupted through the garrison. Their commander was vacating his own quarters for the sick and choosing to sleep on the floor among them. It was an act that flew in the face of every tradition that separated noble from commoner.
“You three.” Theodorus pointed to Orestis and the two slackers. “Carry the sick to the upper floor. Place the wounded on one side of the room, and those with the flux on the other. We must separate them, lest the humors of the wounded be fouled by proximity to the pestilence.”
Dysentery was not an airborne disease, but the principle of quarantine was a lesson he wanted to drill into his garrison until it became instinct. Under Theodorus's watchful eye, the three men gently carried the first sick soldier up the tower steps. Every man in the courtyard turned to watch the slow, solemn procession. Theodorus let the spectacle hang in the air for a long moment, letting the image burn itself into their minds before his voice cracked like a whip. “Get back to work!”
After the men were settled in their clean beds of hay, Theodorus drew Orestis aside. “These men will need care through the night,” he said quietly, his voice for Orestis alone. “They will need to be fed, their clothes changed, and their bedding kept clean. This work is yours now. This is your chance to make amends. Your redemption.”
“Yes, Captain.” Orestis looked at the doorway to the new infirmary, his face pale with weary resignation, but his voice held a new strand of iron. That was enough.
It was deep in the night when Theodorus finally deemed the work acceptable. As the men stumbled into the barracks, the psychological impact of the night’s ordeal hit them. They were not returning to a nightmarish cesspool filled with the low moans of the dying. The air was clean, smelling of soap and woodsmoke. Their fresh straw beddings, laid out on the scoured floorboards, felt like a luxury. And there, lying out his own simple bedding among them, was their new captain. The man who had descended on them like a hurricane, turning their world upside down in a matter of hours. The man who had abdicated his own room in favor of the sick, and now slept on the floor like a common soldier.
As Leonidas’s men had learned, their new captain did not jest when he spoke of starting the day at dawn. Theodorus and Demetrios woke before the sun had even considered rising, the act of leaving the comfort of sleep a herculean task.
“Go, wake Leonidas. He knows what to do,” Theodorus whispered to Demetrios, rising from his bedroll in a single, fluid motion. He stretched, the faint pop of his knuckles the only sound in the gloom, and worked to school the drowsiness from his face. To be a great commander, one first had to be an exceptional actor. Theodorus was settling into his part.
Most of the men slept like felled logs, dead to the world. Leonidas proved hard to rouse, but once awake, he executed the silent routine with grim purpose, his men falling in behind him like shadows. Together, they stood over the sleeping garrison, a pack of wolves waiting for the signal. Leonidas glanced at Theodorus, who gave a single, sharp nod before descending with Demetrios into the pre-dawn chill of the courtyard.
“ATTENTION!”
Christos’s eyes snapped open. The sweet dream of Agape, her warm breath on his neck, was viciously torn away by the savage bellow. “WAKE UP, YOU SCUM!” His head whipped around, his heart hammering.
Was the fort under attack? Now? Fucking now?!
He was just getting to the good part; The miller’s daughter had been practically begging him to come inside her.
“RISE AND SHINE, YOU DAMSELS!”
“GET YOUR ARSES MOVING!”
Christos saw them then - the five veterans who had come with the lunatic captain, screaming at the top of their lungs like a pack of furious gulls.
Ugh, really?
The sun wasn’t even up yet. He couldn’t see his own fucking hand in front of his face. Didn’t they say they’d wake up at dawn?
“ASSEMBLE IN THE COURTYARD! NOW!” It was the big one who screamed the loudest, the one built like a goddamn Titan. And he looked angry.
Oh shit, he’s looking right at me.
“Why haven’t you moved, maggot?” Christos realized with a jolt that he was the last one still on the floor. Everyone else was scrambling downstairs as if the tower were on fire. He tried to get up, but his foot slipped on a loose bit of straw, and he went down with a clumsy thud. The four men who were always with the mountain surrounded him, their sudden laughter a barrage of mockery.
“Looks like the pretty princess needs her beauty sleep!” one jeered.
“Did your mother not teach you how to stand, boy?” another spat.
“Leave him be,” a third chimed in with a cruel grin, “he was probably dreaming of milking the goats again!”
Fucking lackeys.
Christos glared up at them as he rose, his face hot with shame and fury. They were only brave because their daddy was here to protect them. The mountain seemed to take exception to his look.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. any sightings.
“Is there a problem, scum?” Leonidas’s voice was a low rumble as he took a step forward. “I’m not sure I like that look in your eyes.”
Yeah, yeah, you’re fucking tall. But guess what, buddy?
Christos rose to his full height, meeting the man’s gaze levelly.
I’m taller.
He saw the flicker of surprise in the giant’s eyes and felt a flash of foolish pride, just before a fist buried itself in his liver. The world folded. The air vanished from his lungs in a silent, agonizing gasp, and he doubled over, clutching his side.
“Go to the fucking courtyard,” The Sergeant growled. “Now. And never look at me like that again.”
Christos gasped for air. “Yes… Sir.”
“Address me by my name and title, maggot.”
Shit, what was his name again?
“Y-yes, Sergeant Leonildas.”
The vicious kick that followed caught him on the side of the head. There was no thought, only a blinding flash of white light and the sound of a roaring ocean inside his skull. The floorboards rushed up to meet his cheek with a splintery kiss. He groaned, the sound distant and disconnected from his own body.
A voice echoed through the roaring in his ears, seeming to come from the bottom of a well. “It’s Sergeant Leonitas, scum.” it seemed to say.
When Christos managed to pry his eyes open, the world swam, a nauseating blur that resolved into two towering, identical giants looming over him.
“Sergeant,” one of the lackeys said, a note of caution in his voice.
“I know,” Leonitas replied. “We’ve wasted enough time.” He turned and spat on the floor next to Christos’s head. “Get up, Stratiotes.”
Shit.
If seeing one giant was scary, seeing two was nightmare fuel. Christos scrambled to his feet and trudged toward the courtyard, his world still tilting, every step an agony.
Everyone was assembled like little lambs, even that idiot Georgios. Christos, his head pounding and his world still slightly tilted, trudged over to stand by his side. Maybe they’d pick on that fool instead. Everyone stood shivering in the pre-dawn chill, their eyes fixed on their little shepherd. Christos wasn’t sure the boy-captain could even reach his chin. But he gave frightening death stares, and he was giving Christos one right now - a flat, unnerving gaze, like he wasn’t looking at a man but at a tool he was deciding how to use. Christos swallowed hard.
The commander turned his eyes toward Sergeant Leonitas.“Is there a problem, Sergeant?”
Damn, his voice was creepy as hell too. He was a proper noble, all right. Probably got where he was by kissing a lot of boots. Or maybe he was just born lucky, like all nobles are.
“It was dealt with.” That was one way to put it. Damn the bastard.
The little lord seemed satisfied. Or maybe he didn’t. Christos couldn’t tell; the boy had a mean mug on him and hadn’t smiled once since he’d arrived. Not that he blamed him. This place was a stinking pile of shit. Well…maybe not so stinking now. Oh shit, he was saying something.
“-ou think you know what it means to be a soldier.” The Captain’s voice was low, yet it carried to every corner of the yard. “You are wrong.” He began to stalk the line, his unnerving gaze lingering on each man. It stayed on Christos a beat longer, and a familiar, bitter resentment coiled in his gut. He was already being singled out. As usual. “ I will disabuse you of that notion. You are sheep. And I am your shepherd.” He paused, letting the insult hang in the air. He knew how to milk a moment, that’s for sure.
“You will learn. Under my command, we do not aim for the minimum. We aim for excellence. Your duty is to be early, to train hard, and to conduct yourselves with a discipline that shames all others. There are no breaks. There is only duty.” He gestured with his chin toward the gaping breach in the wall. “And your duty starts now.” He pointed to the empty expanse south of the small hill the fort was placed on. The valley stretched out before them, a great green expanse.
“We will build a latrine. You have lived in your own filth for far too long.” The lordie kept talking, his voice a relentless drone of bizarrely specific orders. Something about digging it a hundred paces downwind from the well and the Tower or whatnot. Christos didn’t catch any of it. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What the fuck?” He whispered.
“Shut up, you idiot,” Georgios hissed, elbowing him in the ribs.
“What the fuck did you say?” Christos growled, turning on him.
“Is there something you wish to share with the group, Stratiotai Christos and Georgios?”
The courtyard went dead silent.
Fuuck.
“Uh - no, Captain. We are sorry,” Georgios babbled, looking ready to throw himself at the captain’s feet.
The boy’s cold eyes settled on him. “Stratiotes Christos?”
“No, Captain.” Christos gritted his teeth, which the little boy didn’t seem to take too kindly. He ambled over to their position on the line, and the air grew thick with his presence. “You were late to the assembly, Stratiotes Christos. Quite a bit, in fact.”
What? It was a minute, two at most! What a load of bullshit.
“I apologize, Captain.” he said anyway, knowing he had to keep his mouth shut.
“Apologies are useless. Do better.” Theodorus turned to the rest of the men. “From now on, the last soldier to the courtyard for morning assembly will volunteer himself for a new, mandatory, rotational task. At the end of each day, the latrine ditch must be covered with a fresh layer of earth to seal the excrement. Today, that honor falls to you, Stratiotes Christos.”
What?
He was going to make him shovel everyone’s shit? Like a common slave? A familiar flare of white-hot rage burned through him. He wanted to scream, to smash his fist into that smug, noble face, to choke the life out of this little boy and beat him into a bloody pulp.
The Captain noticed. Of course he noticed. “I asked you before if there was a problem, Stratiotes Christos. You said no.” He stepped directly into Christos’s personal space, so close Christos could see the faint stubble on his jaw. He was daring him. “Have you changed your mind?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Christos saw the mountain and his lackeys close in behind him, waiting for him to make a mistake.
Littles shits
.
“No, Captain.” he ground out, his eyes blazing into the dirt at his feet.
“Good,” was all he said before he walked away, already moving on. “We have ten shovels, so you will split into…”
Christos didn’t hear the rest of the speech. The rampaging thoughts in his head were too loud, a roaring storm of humiliation and hate he couldn’t shut out.
What followed was hell.
They were split into two groups. Ten men would shovel, ten would rest, and then they would alternate. It was utterly simple. It also made Christos want to kill himself. The commander didn't shout; he stood over the lip of the deepening ditch, his arms crossed, his voice a low, relentless metronome. “Faster. Deeper. Again.” he would say, setting an utterly sadistic pace. They weren’t digging a hole. They were digging a grave. For thirty minutes that stretched into an eternity, they heaved earth as if there was gold under it, muscles screaming, the raw wood of the shovel handles raising blisters on their palms.
Then, the command came to switch. Christos stumbled out of the ditch, his back a knot of fire, and handed his shovel to a waiting unfortunate. They had lied. There was no rest.
“Line up!” Sergeant Leonitas bellowed, and the real nonsense began. Standing at attention until their legs trembled. Turning left, turning right, about-facing until the world spun. He stalked the line like a hungry wolf, grilling everyone for the slightest infraction - a slumped shoulder, a wandering eye. He took a special pleasure in torturing Christos, he was sure of it, his voice a constant, grating presence in his ear at least twice as often as for anyone else.
Food breaks were a short, glorious reprieve. To Christos’s surprise, the little lord himself oversaw the distribution, watching as his servant, a frail old twig, ladled the thick mutton stew into their bowls. He noticed the portions weren't equal; bigger men like him got a larger share. It was the only logical thing that had happened all day, and he devoured his food like a starving dog.
The work resumed after the meal, but the brief rest and full belly had only made the exhaustion deeper. The men moved like they were trudging through honey, their shovels rising and falling with sluggish, leaden strokes. Christos saw the commander watching them from the edge of the pit, his expression unreadable. After some time of watching the pitiful struggle, the boy-captain did something that made no sense at all. He unbuckled his brigandine, handing it to his servant, who heaved a great sigh. Then, he picked up a spare shovel, strode to the edge of the ditch, and simply slid down into the muck with them.
A stunned silence fell over the work site. Every man stopped, shovel half-lifted, to stare. Christos was baffled. What kind of noble grabs a shovel and jumps into a ditch full of common soldiers? He watched as Theodorus started digging, his movements clumsy and inefficient, nothing like the practiced rhythm of a man used to labor. But he didn’t stop. He heaved and sweated, his face pale with strain, pushing his frail body with a quiet, stubborn intensity that was almost frightening. He worked without a word, just another man in the mud. The men weren't as sluggish after that.
Late in the afternoon, Christos was back in the ditch, his body screaming for mercy. He drove his shovel into the earth and hit a buried rock. The jarring impact shot up his arms. He grunted, trying to lever the heavy load of dirt and stone out of the hole, but his muscles trembled and refused to obey. Just as he was about to give up, another shovel slid in beside his. He looked up to see the commander, his face caked with dirt and streaked with sweat, his fine tunic ruined.
Theodorus looked at him, his gaze neutral, as if their confrontation that morning had never happened. “On three. Together.”
They heaved, and the stubborn load of earth flew over the side. "Good work, Stratiotes," he said, his voice a low rasp. "But we’re not finished yet." Then he simply turned and went back to his own spot in the ditch, leaving a puzzled Christos behind.
By the time the commander finally called a halt to the day's torture, Christos was a wreck of aching muscles and frayed nerves. He had never felt this broken in his life, not even after one of his pop’s drunken ‘teaching lessons’. He was trudging back to the tower, replaying that moment with the boy-commander in his head a thousand different ways, when Georgios started whining beside him.
“My arms feel like they’re going to fall off. I don’t think I can lift a spoon, let alone a-”
“Just shut up, you idiot.” Christos grunted.
As they reached the tower entrance, a figure stepped out of the shadows. The colossal Sergeant stood there, leaning on a shovel, a wide, predatory smile stretching across his face.
Christos stopped dead, his blood running cold. He’d forgotten. In the haze of exhaustion and pain, he had completely, blissfully forgotten.
“Ah, Stratiotes Christos,” The Sergeant said, his voice dripping with false cheer. “We were waiting for you. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on your… honor.” He held the shovel out, the gesture an undeniable command. With a feeling of profound, bottomless hatred, Christos took it.
“What should you say when someone does a favour for you?” The Sergeant asked, eyes alight with happiness.
“...thank you, Sergeant Leonitas.” Christos replied, his voice as hollow as his gaze.
The Sergeant’s smile turned a bitter, hard thing.
As the last rays of sun bled from the sky, Christos worked in a bubble of quiet, seething anger. The only sounds were the rhythmic scrape and thud of his shovel tossing fresh earth over the day’s filth, and the soft whisper of the wind. A few paces away, the furry-moustached, Tatar-looking lackey stood guard, a silent, impassive statue against the deepening twilight.
Christos heard footsteps squelching in the mud, then a much-needed bloom of torchlight pushed back the darkness. Quiet words were exchanged, but he couldn’t give two shits. His world had shrunk to the scrape of his shovel and the burn in his shoulders. He didn’t know how much time had passed, only that he still had quite a bit of the foul-smelling trench to go. His mind was a numb mantra:
next shovel, next heave
.
It was the captain’s quiet voice that cut through the night. “Stratiotes Christos,”
His head snapped around. Sure enough, a slight figure held a torch against the encroaching darkness, his face lost in the swaying shadows of the small island of light. Surprise jolted through Christos. Why was he here? Did he come to mock him as he shovelled?
“My men tell me your weapon is a billhook.”
The question was so out of left field that Christos stumbled over his words. “Uh, y-yes, Captain.”
“Why?” It was a deceptively simple question. But one that didn’t have an easy answer.
“It was what my family could spare…Captain.” Christos answered, the topic leaving him weary.
“Your family are shepherds, are they not?”
Shit. He actually remembered the answers from that stupid questionnaire.
There were thirty men in the garrison. Did he remember all their stories?
“... Yes.”
“Yet they don’t have a single spear to fend off wolves?” The captain’s gaze was even more sinister in the flickering torchlight.
Christos didn’t have a good answer, so he didn’t give any. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
“You don’t have to answer me. But that billhook,” he narrowed his eyes. “Is a disgrace. I will not have a soldier of mine carrying a farmer’s tool into battle.”
Christos’s hands gripped the shovel handle so hard the wood groaned. He turned his whole body to face the boy. He was angry. No, he was absolutely fucking furious. Always mocked, always insulted, always told he was worthless. And now this boy, after forcing him to shovel shit, was here to twist the knife. It would be so easy. It was dark. He didn't have his lackies with him this time. He had a shovel. No one would ever have to-
“Do it.”
The whisper was a ghost in the dark.
“What?” The word escaped Christos, his eyes widening involuntarily.
The captain took a step closer, stepping into arm’s reach. “I am alone. Everyone is asleep. You have the means,” he nodded toward the shovel, his eyes glacial and unafraid. “It would be easy. No one would have to know.”
He… he had read his mind. He had come alone. Not by accident. But on purpose. It was like he could see straight into the ugliest parts of his soul. And that… that was more terrifying than any beating. More terrifying than his Pops.
“I… I apologize, Captain.” The rage inside him didn’t just vanish; it was extinguished, doused by a cold, primal fear. He looked down at the dirt, finally understanding. This boy wasn’t like them. He was operating on a different plane entirely.
“I told you before, Stratiotes, I don’t want apologies.” The immense pressure suddenly lifted. The captain’s glacial stare thawed. “I want you to do better.” He placed his torch in a sconce on the latrine’s wooden frame. “Not because you fear me. But because you want to be better than you are.” The soft, steady tone was a stark departure from anything Christos had heard from him.
“I know what it is to feel the world has stacked the odds against you,” Theodorus said, his gaze distant. “So you rage. You shout. You break things. You think if you are loud enough, someone will finally care.”
He was looking at Christos, but it felt like he was talking about someone else, someone he knew intimately.
The world seemed to fall away, the sounds of the night fading to a dull hum. The only thing that existed was the commander’s quiet, steady voice and the impossible truth in his eyes. A truth Christos had thought was exclusive to himself. But the commander, somehow, someway, understood. As impossible as it sounded. He understood.
“But you don’t show your worth by shouting the loudest,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. “You do it by proving them all wrong.”
Christos was transfixed, unable to muster any thoughts, let alone words.
Theodorus took the shovel from his limp grasp. “Get some rest, Stratiotes Christos.”
“But-”
“I want you to be the first man at assembly tomorrow.” Theodorus clapped a hand on Christos’s shoulder, a firm, grounding pressure. When he still hesitated, Theodorus’s voice became edged with command once more. “Go. That is an order.”
“Yes, Captain.” Christos said, bowing low, mind reeling, his tone truly respectful for the first time.
He retreated, his mind reeling, leaving the captain to finish shoveling his punishment in the dark. Demetrios, a silent sentinel who emerged from the shadows, took the torch into his hands and dutifully held it until its light finally guttered out.
Christos didn’t sleep that night.