Leo's Last Battle

My name is Leon Percival Émilie de Ducasse; a name soaked with the blood of countless wars, and hundreds of lost comrades. The only glimmer, the only light left in me, is the one I am bound to. The one I promised to return to. The only thing that keeps me going is that sole oath I made: I will return to her.

Thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

“Leo,” I could hear someone calling my name in the distance.

Thump, thump.

“We’ve got to go!”

I blink awake, dirt and soot falling into my eyes, and for a moment, I’ve forgotten where I am. I was asleep, or at least, I think I was. There was a dream of something… or someone. I don’t remember, I can’t think clearly, I don’t even have the chance to get angry with whoever’s screaming my name.

Looking around, I try to get my bearings.

There’s a medic, he’s leaning over me.

Am I okay?

I don’t feel any new pains, just the constant, dull, throbbing pains I’ve become used to over the years. Of the nearly two-dozen skirmishes I’ve fought in, I have as many, if not more, scars, cuts, bruises and gashes littering my body.

I try to blink away the haze and fog from my mind. I’m focusing on the man’s lips, but I can’t hear what he’s saying, “What?”

“…got to go,” he grabs me by the collar, dragging me up, “now!”

My neck snaps back as the medic jostles me around. He’s trying to get me somewhere, where the hells are we?

We’re at war.

I remember now, it’s another battle. Another fight. Another strike to add to the tally of conflicts that bookmark the chapters of my life. They were the only thing marking Spring from Summer, the only thing that reminded me I was growing older. They were the only thing in my life until I met her.

“Sophie,” Through blood-crusted lips, I barely manage to croak the words out. The medic doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t care, he just keeps scraping my rear-side along through the muddy bottom of the trenches. He’s trying to get me, get us, away from the fire raining down from above.

Damned fool, he’s going to get himself killed, I think.

Thump, thump.

Mortars fall like shooting stars, leaving their place in the night sky far above, streaming down in rivulets of death and decay to the battlefield below.

Thump.

‘Leave me,’ I want to say, but can’t. I can’t abandon my promise.

A groan of agony escape my mouth.

Pain. I’m in pain, but from where?

I claw at the air, gasping to take a breath. I’m injured. The medic must have given me morphine, but it’s beginning to wear off. As I look down, tracing the lancing pain that’s shooting up my left arm, I see the source.

My arm isn’t there.

It’s not unmanly, uncourageous, or even cowardly to cry and scream like a wounded pup when you find your arm no longer attached. Maybe if I had been a younger, a more foolish man, I would have tried to suppress the shrieks of pain pouring out of me, but not now. Now, I’m too old to care. So I wail, cry, and scream. I feel the hot tears fall down through the scruff of my beard, mixing in with the blood soaked tunic. Then, it all fades to black.

“Leo,” A sharp slap across my cheek, “Leo, wake up.”

“What,” I’m trying to get words out, trying to reply, as I feel another biting pain in my thigh. My blood swells, I’m surging awake, ready to fight whatever enemy is upon us. I’m always ready to fight.

“Calm yourself, man.” A strong hand on my chest pushes me back against the dirt wall of our entrenchment. “It’s just more morphine, you’ll be right as rain in a jiffy.”

I think I’m being attacked, I try to resist, but the warm, soft embrace of the narcotic floods over me, and I slump back.

“Elphie,” My vision is still a bit blurry; I must have hit my head. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Leo, it’s me,” He smiles that sick kind of sadly hopeful smile. The kind that says “things aren’t okay,” when someone wants you to think they are.

“My… arm,” I glance down at where it used to be, not believing that it’s truly gone. I gaze at the empty space at my side. Sadness and despair well up from deep within me.

“It’s okay, Leo, I’ll get you back to med, they’ll get you sorted.” Elphie pats me affectionately on the shoulder.

“Sorted,” A gurgling chuckle bursts from me, “right. They’ll match me up, good as new.”

Elphie has a sadder smile now.

“Too bad the mortar didn’t take off that big nose of yours,” I return a grin.

He brightens up a bit, “Yeah, too bad, eh?”

Loaded up with enough morphine to sedate a small battalion, I stumble after my oldest friend as we scurry through trenches and tunnels. We need to get back to base. We somehow, got separated from the rest of our unit. I don’t remember what happened, and now isn’t the time to ask for explanations. Now is the time to run.

We crouch low as we traverse through the warren. The network is hard enough to navigate by day, much less by night. It was just at that moment when I was about to mention that I think we took a wrong turn, that we emerge into a large clearing.

The exit of the trench was slick with mud and rain. Elphie tries to dig his heels in, to stop us from sliding out. But I’m down an arm. I can’t stop myself as I tumble into him, sending us both sprawling out into the small gulley between two nesting hillocks.

Every bone in my body aches, every bruise and scar trumpeting a reminder that they’re still there and they still hurt, “Ow, my goddamned—”

“Leo,” Elphie sounds scared, that grim, solemn tone in his voice that sends a shiver down my spine.

I heave myself up from the mud, squelching as I try to see what he’s pointing to. I lean past his shoulder, he’s still half on top of me, and I look to see what has him frozen stiff.

I wish I hadn’t.

A beast stands before us. It’s four-legged, has a set of razor-sharp fangs, and black fur dark as night bristling along its back. At first, I think it’s a wolf; it looks like a wolf at first glance, yet there is one glaring, obvious difference.

The beast before us is nearly twenty feet tall.

I know what the monster is now, I just can’t believe I’m seeing one with my own eyes.

Fidelis Canem Majoris.

A supposedly mythical monster spoken of in fairy whispers and old wives’ tales. Most people don’t believe in such childish folly. Though most people go their whole life without seeing a monster from myth come to drag them across death’s door.

I thought I had seen it all, in nearly half a century of fighting and warring against the enemy, I thought nothing could surprise me anymore. How wrong I was.

“The…” Elphie is shaking now, trembling. He too, knows what it is, “the blood,” he whispers the words. “They say the beast can smell the blood and when there’s enough of blood, the beast, it, it…” He doesn’t get to finish as the canine lunges at us.

Lame as I am, when Elphie pushes off me, I sink deeper into the stinking mud. He’s a good friend, one of the better kinds, really, so I can’t blame him for trying to save himself without a thought for me. I would probably have done the same thing.

Unfortunately for Elphie, his howls of horror draw the beast’s attention as he tries to flee back into the trenches.

And in an instant, he’s gone.

With razors for fangs, the monster tears through my friend in the blink of an eye. I can feel my gorge rising as I watch the lower half of what used to be Elphie tip out from the beast’s great, bloodied maw.

I didn’t have time to react; I should have tried to get up in the second the beast’s attention was on its meal, but I didn’t. So I’m left with no other option than to lay there, crippled with fear, trying as hard as I can’t not to even breathe, not to move a single muscle.

Eyes big as saucepans, glowing with pale silver light, turn to face me. I can hear it pulling in deep lungfuls of air through its giant snout, it smells me, has my scent.

For a moment, I’m mesmerized by those eyes, and I think it’s funny. How many men have I killed? How many times have I avoided death? Too many to count. Fitting then, that my end comes not at the hand of man, but in the grip of a monster. For what better way to kill a monster like me than with a bigger, badder monster?

Looking up at the stars, I have only one regret at the end. That I didn’t keep my promise. I didn’t return to Sophie. I can feel the beast’s paws striking the soft soil now, thudding and reverberating through my whole body. I want to be brave in the end, but the fact that I will leave this world having broken the one promise I swore I would always keep, I start to cry.

The beast stops, naught but a few paces away from me and cocks its head to the side. Sheepishly, I crack one eye open.

I’m not dead yet.

The beast is distracted by something. Still not daring to move, I turn my eye in place to try to get a glimpse of whatever is capturing the demon’s attention. I can’t see anything.

Then, frozen in fear, and lying steps away from death, I hear it.

A high, screeching hiss, the falsetto song it makes causes my heart leap for joy.

My mount, my steed, my faithful companion. The animal I trust the most in this world, comes running. She must have scented out my blood and come to save me.

The canine barks out, howling in anger, its jaws snapping open and shut, hackles raised from head to haunch, wary of the newcomer.

Vibi flies through the night air, white fur and honed claws gleaming in the moonlight. Nearly the size of a draft horse, but with the agility to rival that of any animal, she looks beautiful silhouetted against the stars. She crashes onto the monster’s back, and though not even half the beast’s size, sinks her claws into it, like knives plunging deep through skin and into soft flesh.

The deafening howl of a wounded dog sends me reeling. Vibi caught it off guard, still, she won’t be able to hold her own once the surprise wears off.

“Vibi,” I wave my one arm from my resting place amidst the slush and filth, “come here, girl! Let’s go home.”

Vibi flicks her head toward me and gives a soft growl, annoyed that she has to come to my rescue once again.

“I know, I’m sorry, girl,” and I can’t help but smile as she swoops down to save me.

My face nestles between heavenly clouds of soft fur, only the occasional stench of a fishy burp ruining the moment. We make quick work of the trip home, what was a three-day march on foot, Vibi makes in just a few short hours. When we return to base, we’re met with a chorus of glee and triumph.

“Leo!” I hear her voice before we are even cross the yard. Sophie comes barreling out the front door, skirts a mess as usual, hair a tangle of golden locks.

“Mama, Vibi found Leo!” She says the words with such warmth that I can feel my heart melt. Then the doctor, chef, scolder of errant children, the head of the household, the grand authority, “Mama,” peeks past the door and smiles at us.

"I've returned, I came home, Sophie," I say the words, but Sophie is already smiling down on me, already scooping me up into her arms, joy and happiness dancing across her face.

It’s been nearly a week since I returned from battle, and things are going well.

The surgeon, Mama, was able to repair my arm, though the lost limb was never recovered. I was given a new one, a prosthetic. I’m hesitant at first, cautious of its unfamiliar brown color against my yellow plush, but after I check the stitching and see that it’s up to snuff, the arm starts to grow on me.

I can make this work.

I break the news of Elphie’s passing to Sophie, and as usual, she isn’t able to understand my words. And though we can’t speak to communicate, Sophie always knows what’s in my heart.

Or at least, I hope she knows.

No, I’m sure she does. She always knows how I feel, as long as I feel deep enough and true enough, she’ll know, and things will be okay. They’ll be okay because, even though we’ve lost one of our own men, we still have each other.

In recognition of my distinguished acts of courage, bravery and valor, I’m granted a coveted invitation to take tea with the court of princesses. We laugh, and exchange stories from different worlds as we sip the finest tea in all the cupboard. It’s an honor, and I love every second of it.

Sophie clutches me tight, and we fall asleep with bellies full of warm tea, and hearts full of love.

My last battle is over, this teddy bear is home now.