The Blue Moon - 9. Chapter 9

Rezak
Dimalos, Andiol Empire

Marshal General Rezak Vondau turned his head slightly and swept his eyes over the seminar audience. It was both amusing and disgusting to see how the people in the hall tensed up as soon as they noticed him watching. From the front row it was difficult to see those at the back, but the main thing was to send a signal to the others. A sign that the Marshal General was still alert and in control.

Recent developments in Dimalos might have led many to believe otherwise. Therefore, such thoughts had to be shaken from people's minds by all available means. The fact that he wasted his day off being bored in a ridiculous seminar at the Imperial University was part of that.

He had spent the last few days running from one public event to the next. Just to show that a few setbacks had not discouraged him, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army and supreme military commander of all Andiol.

Rezak Vondau admitted that he had made mistakes. His attention had been diverted to other matters, and the opposition had long been allowed to make their preparations in peace. Assassinations and sabotage had increased significantly over the past year. The citizens were becoming nervous and public opinion was demanding action, which meant that Marshal General Vondau could no longer remain in his role as a bystander.

Actually the opposition did not really stand in the way of his own plans. They were nothing but cowards, led by a childish idealism of a republic. Rezak did not like grand, lofty ideals. Even less did he like the fact that there was a faction in Dimalos that was independent of him.

That is why the opposition and its leaders, Tac and Olza Temogam, were such a nuisance. Unfortunately, even the shade commandos did not seem to be any help in tracking down the Temogam couple. The republican leaders were hiding like mice in a hole.

Rezak himself had nothing personal against democracy. He had long since stopped caring about ideologies. In reality, they played no part in the power struggle. Moreover, republicanism simply did not fit in with Rezak's own plans. The Emperor had to stay on the throne, there was simply no alternative. Or at least he had not yet come up with one.

However, it is likely that he was forced to use more drastic measures because of public opinion. The rebellious spirit of the opposition had to be crushed once and for all. It was a pity, because the republicans were a pleasant counterweight to the imperialists. Rezak secretly hated the latter even more. The rabid imperialists were a far more dangerous scourge than the petty opposition could ever be. For they had the power behind them to undermine and even overthrow him.

Marshal General Vondau looked at the list of attendees. Some politically unreliable guests had been marked on it. When it was time to move from the lecture hall to the ballroom and clink glasses, Rezak wanted to talk to some of them. Or someone else should do it. Rezak himself would rather concentrate on wine and women. Both of which he deserved after a tiring week.

When will this stupid show start? Rezak was annoyed that he had not thought to ask for a programme, only the list of participants. He could not even remember what the event was going to be about. Would it be a series of boring incidents from the history of the Empire or a tedious introduction to the geography of the Inhabited World?

Rezak looked for his young adjutant, but unfortunately he was seated a few rows away. Too far. Even if the boy had a programme in his pocket, it was impossible to ask for it without attracting unwanted attention. One of Rezak's opponents might think: Haha, the Marshal General is losing his grip! So unprepared that he hasn't even found the seminar programme.

He felt like spitting a big ball of gob on the floor, so frustrated was he. Rezak hated these long-winded lectures and the pompous social events that followed them. His position forced him to attend, accompanied by Dimalos' highest nobles, officials and senators. Those scheming fuckers in their fancy suits! And their airheaded wives, always giggling with their idle compliments when they saw the Marshal General. How much Rezak would have given if he had never had to meet any of them again. Those arrogant penguins, who surely didn't even know what real penguins looked like.

Rezak Vondau, however, knew. He remembered how he had collected penguin eggs as a child to satisfy his hunger. Very few of the kids in Camp Eighteen had dared to climb over the jagged ledges to the nesting sites of the spotted penguins. But he had, and survived the Hungry Spring. Many of his playmates had starved to death, but it had never occurred to him to share penguin eggs with them.

Feed yourself, not others, that was the law of the Camps, the harsh truth of the Wintry North. That was what his parents, whose faces Rezak no longer remembered, had taught him. In general, Rezak did not remember many faces from his childhood. People had come and gone. Who had died of hunger, who of cold, who of disease - it did not matter in the Camps. No one cared about the dead, all that mattered was the present moment and the hope of a new day, each of which could be the last.

New prisoners were brought to the penal colony along the rails from the south. Typically, they did not learn the ways of the North. They thought they could plan their future, negotiate better circumstances for themselves or rise up in revolt. Such delusions were just as likely to be fatal in the Camps as the deep hopelessness that often killed the newcomers very quickly. Few endured the rigours of the Wintry North, and those few were usually born in the Camps. Individuals like Rezak Vondau.

Having grown up in the penal colony, he was a stranger in the social circles of Dimalos. There was no place in all of Dimalos where Rezak could feel at home. He was unaccustomed to the capital's balmy summers, the burbling fountains of the great parks, the dizzyingly tall tower blocks, and most of all, its talkative and cheerful people.

In the Camps, no one had the time or energy for the carefree chit-chat that was favoured in Dimalos. Everything was announced in short, abrupt sentences. If there was nothing to say, there was silence. Rezak was used to it, and so the idle chatter of society drove him mad.

In Dimalos, it was only the women that Rezak was attracted to. He had to admit that the scantily clad ladies of the capital were a sight to behold. In the Camps, the women in their thick outfits were almost indistinguishable from the men. The cruel conditions also had a way of quickly disfiguring women. Their skin was smeared with coal dust and bitten by the frost. Their breasts were sagging from hunger and their backs hunched from work, making even young ladies look like old hags.

That's why the men fought bloody over the newly arrived females. Raping girls - and boys too - was common. Rezak had also been raped several times. The only faces he remembered from his childhood were those of the rapists. The one he remembered best was the last man, whose throat he had slit in the dark barracks. Since then, no one had ever tried to hurt him again.

If you wanted to get out of the Camps, there was practically only one way. Rezak had opted for that. As soon as he had grown up, he joined the Imperial Army of Andiol. Or, to be more precise, its penal battalion. Perhaps it was a desire to avenge the horrors of his childhood on some nameless enemy.

Rarely those who came by train were pardoned and allowed to return home. Instead, those born and raised in the Camps - well, they were deemed too rough for the South. Therefore, they were offered only the penal battalion. It was a choice between a miserable life in the Camps and virtually certain death in the Penal Battalion. Still, from time to time, a few people - usually young - made that choice and said goodbye to the Wintry North forever.

Rezak was one of those who left. One frosty autumn night he had been ordered to board a train with about fifty other Camp Eighteen residents who had made the same decision.

For the first time in his life, young Rezak had travelled outside the heavily guarded borders of Camp Eighteen. He had left behind the only place he had ever called home, knowing that he would not miss a single person there. Rezak's parents had starved to death from forced labour a few years earlier. He had neither been able to find a suitable girl to make it worth staying in the North for another bitter winter.

The train had been chugging along for what seemed like an eternity. A couple of stops had been made on the first leg to pick up men from other camps. Rezak and his comrades had crouched down on the carriage's drafty floor. Before the doors were closed, they had been given some water and food. They were also provided with thick blankets, which unfortunately were not enough to ward off the late autumn chill.

The men huddled together, their teeth chattering. There was nothing else to do but listen to the steady thump of the rails. The men of the North were not storytellers, for the harsh realities of the Camps made any story either too plain or too cruel to tell.

The only stories Rezak had heard as a child were dreamlike tales of the South, a beautiful and warm land of fairy tales. The prisoners brought to Camps had told stories that had always been tinged with a haunting longing for a home to which none of them would ever return. The stories had described wonders that Rezak had not been able to fully comprehend, let alone put into words.

The young men, freezing in the carriage, knew that their journey would not take them to the blossoming warmth of the South. The rails led eastward across the Great Grasslands. Their destination would be the land of the Never-Ending War.

* * *

After several days of travel, when the train reached its destination and the carriage doors were finally opened, shivering men stepped out. They were far from elite soldiers, mere cannon fodder to fill the ravenous maw of the god of war. Standing in line on the platform as night fell, Rezak did not mourn the seemingly certain loss of his life. Death would only be a deep, peaceful sleep without hunger, pain or cold, he had been told. It could not be worse than his miserable life.

Besides, Rezak felt a tickling excitement inside him, a feeling he had not experienced since childhood. While some of his comrades stared blankly at the ground, Rezak observed his surroundings with interest. The world looked different here than it did in the Camps. During the journey, they had peered at the changing landscape through the gaps in the carriage walls. For the first time in his life, Rezak had seen large trees.

Now the new world seemed even more astonishing. Even though the evening had begun to fade, the peaks of the great mountains could still be seen in the distance, as well as the surrounding hilly and wooded landscape. Trees were everywhere. Some of them swayed in the wind, already stripped of their leaves, others, still dark green, braving the approaching winter. All were equally nameless to Rezak.

Where he came from, the only plants remotely resembling trees were low-growing dwarf birches. In the Camps, all the really big trees were dead: thick trunks with branches pruned off, carried by trains from the south and east to the cold, unforested North.

While Rezak was looking at the trees, a tall, pale-faced officer wearing a military coat had arrived. He walked quickly along the platform, dividing the line of men into platoons and squads with a sharp, air-cutting hand gesture. Then the officer addressed them, shouting into a tin loudspeaker. He spoke of shame, of crimes and atonement, and of the glory that would follow. The words the officer used were lofty, but there was no enthusiasm in the way he spoke them. He doesn't even believe in them himself, Rezak thought. Soon he realised how right he had been.

* * *

The very next day they were sent on a march eastwards, towards the front. Rezak took his place in the line, moving along the frozen road. They walked for hours without rest. The pale-faced officer was no longer in sight, replaced by sergeants walking along the sides of the line. Their job was to make sure no one escaped into the forest. The first attempt had ended in a rifle shot. After that, nobody decided to try their luck.

The walk was hard and there were no extra breaks. The man in front of Rezak had wet his pants, which was a wiser solution than asking permission to stop.

Someone further ahead had asked for permission, and a brutal-looking corporal had smashed him in the face with a rifle butt. The man had fallen to the ground screaming, but the corporal had continued to beat him with kicks and the rifle. By the time Rezak had gotten past the unlucky man, he was nothing but a whimpering, bloody mass on the ground.

Rezak did not want the same fate for himself, so he marched silently forward, ignoring his chafed feet. Every time he was able to avoid the sergeants' gaze, he glanced sideways at the forest that lined the road.

The dark majesty of the great trees both frightened and fascinated him. What could be hidden in the middle of such a forest, and what would the trees look like in summer? There had to be summer here sometime, a real summer. Not a short relief from the seemingly endless winter he was accustomed to, but a summer with its flowering plants and leafy trees. Like the summer of the stories told by the people of the South.

After more than a day of almost continuous walking, their march came to an end. They arrived at a military camp set up under pine trees, its barracks not much different from Rezak's home in Camp Eighteen. The wind blowing through his clothes, the frozen ground beneath his feet and the grey, unimaginative buildings were all what he was used to. Were it not for the trees and the mountains looming ever closer, he could have imagined himself back in the Wintry North.

At the military camp they were fed for the first time since leaving the train. The soup was cold and thin, but Rezak ate with a good appetite. He was not used to much better.

After a night in the camp's barracks, the men of the Penal Battalion had been given another marching orders, this time to the front. Rezak had known little of the war in the mountainous east. None of those who had gone before with the Penal Battalion had returned to Camp Eighteen to tell of their experiences, and those who had come from the south knew little of the battle that was called the Never-Ending War.

Later, Rezak had learned all about this war and life in the fortresses on the eastern frontier of the Empire. He who, when he marched to the front, did not even know what the word 'fortress' meant, let alone what war was.

The men of the Wintry North were sent directly to the front line, a day's march from the military camp. They had trudged over the snowy slopes and through narrow mountain passes. In the distance, on the side of a mountain, they had spotted a dark fortress that Rezak later came to know as Rockhole. Finally, they had crossed the last pass and found themselves in a rocky, treeless valley.

* * *

This nameless valley became Rezak's home for two years. There, amidst the rocks and rubble, the last defensive post was built, and protecting it was the main task of the penal battalion. The second most important task was to launch an offensive and recapture the positions lost months earlier.

However, none of the men who had come with Rezak had ever seen those lost positions. It soon became clear to them that the mighty Imperial Army had lost its superiority during the years of war. There were no more victories to be won, and even holding the old positions was a full-time job for an army suffering from a constant loss of men.

Rezak shivered through the winter of the craggy valley, guarding his rocky position day and night, learning to use a rifle and load a cannon, fending off enemy attacks and taking part in mad and bloody assaults. Men fell by the side and new ones arrived to replace them. Such was the war of the penal battalion.

For some reason, Rezak managed to escape death each time. He obeyed his orders with discipline, mechanically doing whatever was required of him. So did most of the others, but almost all of them fell.

The road to promotion was paved with corpses. Many officers and sergeants also met their end with a rifle bullet in their skulls, so six months after his arrival, on the eagerly awaited eve of summer, Rezak was a corporal, then a sergeant, then a first sergeant. After a year and a half of successfully dodging bullets, he was noticed by his superiors. One of them in particular.

The grey-haired, tough-looking major never came to talk to Rezak, but his figure appeared on every occasion - so often that it could not have been a coincidence. It was not customary for officers of such high rank to visit the front line to inspect positions.

At first, Rezak had thought the major was attracted to him in that particular way. But the major remained just as gloomy and made no gesture to show his interest, so Rezak gradually abandoned his first guess. He was getting a little worried.

Then one evening, as Rezak was returning alone to his craggy valley from a briefing at the rear, the mysterious major was waiting for him around a bend in the path. Rezak was scared out of his wits, but he managed to salute the senior officer.

The major wore a greatcoat, but was bareheaded, ignoring the biting wind. Rezak was preparing to pass the man when he did something unusual and addressed him.
"Sergeant, wait a minute," the major said in a voice as dry and cold as the freezing air they were breathing.

"Major," Rezak managed to get out and waited.

The major's face was emotionless, and it was not easy not to tell his age. When he spoke, cold eyes pierced Rezak. "Rezak of Camp Eighteen. Son of the Wintry North, far from home. You have managed to survive for a creditable length of time in these harsh conditions. Usually, those who live here longer than others are either cowards or damned lucky. But you're always ready to charge the enemy or carry your wounded comrades to safety, regardless of the spray of bullets. Not because you are braver or more patriotic than others, but because you follow orders more literally than others. That is the mark of a good soldier, and that is what I value."

"Thank you, major, but why..."

"All in good time, sergeant. I'll ask the questions," the major said, his expression still blank.

It became quiet. Rezak looked past the icy eyes of the major. They reminded him of the Wintry North. Whatever the man wanted from him, it couldn't be good.

"Rezak of Camp Eighteen, what are you dreaming about?" the major asked abruptly. The shadows of the evening climbed ominously across his face.

"I have no dreams, major."

"Everyone has dreams. Some dream of beautiful women, others of wealth or power. What do you dream of, Rezak of Camp Eighteen?"

"How do you know where I'm from?"

The slap hit Rezak on the cheek so hard and without warning that he screamed.

"I will ask the questions," the major said coldly, but without raising his voice. "I repeat. What is your dream?"

"I don't have any big dreams. I just want to live, sleep warm at night and eat my fill," Rezak replied, not daring to rub his burning cheek.

"That's a good start," the major said in his emotionless voice. "I've been watching you. Watched you long before you paid any attention to me. I am known here as Major Vondau. You will soon be ordered to report to me at the regimental command post. Obey it."

The major was silent, sizing Rezak up like a warrant officer going through a list of equipment. This time Rezak knew not to ask unnecessary questions. It was not long before the major motioned for him to leave, slipping away into the darkening night.

* * *

The next morning Rezak woke up to an order from his battery commander: "First sergeant, report to command post without delay."

Rezak had never doubted for a moment that Major Vondau would keep his promise, but he had not expected it to happen so soon. He dressed quickly and wrapped his blanket in a tight roll, as they had been taught in their military training. Then he stepped out of the dugout into the chilly and misty morning.

The fog covering the valley was so thick you could almost scrape it off with a spoon. But Rezak easily found the path that led behind the front line. He could have run the path between the boulders in the pitch black. Each of them had been trained to do so. If the enemy managed to breach the position, it would be the duty of the last defender to deliver the message to the command post.

Otherwise the reinforcements would not arrive in time and the enemy could advance who knows how far. The whole war might even be lost. The Ksingi horde would raid and destroy Rockhole, Gloomfort, Grayfang and other eastern strongholds.

Or perhaps the Ksingis would march across the grainfields of central Andiol all the way to Dimalos. Rezak did not know what a grainfield or the capital looked like, but he knew his duty was to defend the eastern frontier of the Empire to the death.

In this foggy morning, he found his way to a canyon called the Last Pass, the only route out of the valley held by the Imperial Army. There, on the safer side of the pass, was the command post. It was as if the enemy was expected to take the rest of the valley one day.

It had happened a few years earlier, before Rezak's arrival at the front. The Ksingis had managed to break through the lines, extending their attack all the way to the opening of the Last Pass. The enemy had been beaten eventually, but not without many casualties. However, the former positions had not been retaken. The Imperial Army now controlled less than a third of the valley.

The lands far to the east of the valley were once part of Andiol Empire. Now those valleys and mountains were ruled by the Ksingis. Even entire cities had remained in the lost territory, most notably the great Pal Tandiei, the eastern gate of Andiol. It had been over fifty years since the city had been lost, but the older soldiers still entertained the younger ones with tales of Pal Tandiei's hanging gardens, its sculptural towers, and most of all, its women, beautiful as sunbeams and fierce in bed like the lions that preyed on these mountains. Rezak had never been to any city, but the stories of the wondrous, lost Pal Tandiei moved him just as much.

Once inside the command post, Rezak quickly found the right building, having previously made deliveries on the other side of the Last Pass. After waiting a moment, the guard informed him that Major Vondau was ready to receive him. With an unpleasant twinge in his stomach, Rezak entered the major's office.

The room was as bleak and barren as its master. Rezak saw no sign around him that might tell him more about Major Vondau. There were no ornaments or souvenirs on the shelf, no portrait of his wife or children on the wall. Even in the harsh conditions of Camp Eighteen, people kept personal items close to them, things that reminded them of who they were - or had been before they were brought to the Camps.

Rezak's salute went unanswered. When Major Vondau spoke, his voice was as cold as the last time they had met. "Listen carefully, I will not repeat what I said."

"Yes, major," Rezak murmured, realising he was afraid.

"You're wondering why you're here," the major said. "You are here because I need you. Well, not you exactly, but a young man like you. I need you to carry out my plans. What they are, you must not worry about that yet."

Rezak's nod was not enough for the major to answer.

"Do you understand?" the man repeated the question in his cruel, steely voice.

"I-I understand, major," Rezak managed to stammer. Now he was really scared.

"Good. You won't go back to your unit. From now on you are under my command. I've already forwarded your transfer papers."

Rezak gulped, he really didn't want to spend any more time with the cold-hearted major. "Wh-what?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Shut up, I'm talking now!" Major Vondau hissed through his teeth. "You don't know it yet, but I have drawn a great future for you. Follow my path and your name will be written in the stars. Disobey me or betray me and you will face a fate worse than death. Do you understand?"

Rezak replied that he understood.

Major Vondau glared coldly at the young first sergeant trembling before him. "Do you know why I chose you out of all the soldiers here? There is more than one reason. You have been through hardship, yet you are still an ignorant boy who has seen no more of the world than his miserable home and this front. You are clever, but not disturbingly so. I have no tolerance for smartasses. Above all, your best quality is that you take orders without hesitation. Even though you know this war we're fighting is as useless as I do. That is the humility and obedience I expect from my subordinates."

Rezak nodded. Even for an ordinary soldier like him, his time in the service had shown him that Andiol had no valid plan to defeat the Ksingis. The war had become an involuntary striving day after day. Peace was not negotiated because it would not bring back the lost territories. The alternatives were humiliation or waiting for a miracle. The Imperial Throne had chosen the latter.

"You don't talk too much. I appreciate that too," the major continued. "There will be a lot of things you won't whisper to anyone. One of them is my name. In the company of others, you still address me as Major Vondau. But when we are alone, you call me by my real name. It's Cors, Maendrym Cors, from the Wintry North, the Fifth Camp."

Rezak never crossed the Last Pass again to return to the valley where he had his first experience with war. Much later, he heard of the collapse of the valley's defences and how the enemy had managed to reach the gates of Rockhole.

By this time, he had been very far from the Never-Ending War. Rezak had already travelled a long way in the company of a man who had once been called Major Vondau. That was the name Rezak inherited later and by it he became known in Dimalos. His journey with Cors transformed Rezak to the mighty Marshal General Vondau to whom all Andiol bowed their heads.

* * *