Chapter 508 Settling Ashes (1/2)
CHAPTER 508
SETTLING ASHES
Three days had passed since the battle, already named 'The Battle of Extinction', had ended. Though three days, in plenty of circumstances, might be a lot, for this specific occasion it was hardly so. At first glance, nothing seems to have changed. The landscape, running all the way from the Eastern Mountain Pass over to the threshold of the City of Sun, remained ravaged, grass of green nowhere to be spotted. Stench still permeated, one so bad nary a soul could approach it without retching out on the side. Swords, axes, shields, armors, all ilk of crafts lay strewn about where once a road lay, and where once the green fields pleased the eye.
Smoke, still, reigned supreme; it billowed out, dancing in the faint winds, curving and bending, converging into the sky. Some places still burned, some were finally ceasing, and some were stretches of soot and ash.
Corpses beyond count decorated the entirety of the plains outside the City of Sun; hundreds of thousands, piled into countless mounds, friend and foe alike lying next to one another, both cold and rotting. It was hard to look at the sight and not see the stars before passing out, hard to take it all in and accept it -- after all, just three days ago, all of these dead were among the living. Still whole. Alive. Breathing.
It would take months just to clean up the bodies, Lyn realized. She stood just outside the city gates, watching the river of people stream in and out, each bearing a mask covering the lower half of their faces, each pair of eyes that met her hollow and empty. A ghastly sight, perhaps one just as bad as if she were to look out onto the field itself; for however many died a physical death, many would die a mental one before these lands were renewed.
Her dark eyes seized the entire landscape, most of which she could not see as it was doused in black dots and shimmering pieces of steel and iron, and took a mental picture of it. This was war. No heroics. No bards willing to romanticize it. At least, not just yet. She knew, however, that with the passage of time, and with the closing of the wounds, stories and songs would spring out. Just like they did when Lino fought in the Battle of the Isles. Just like here, back then and there, corpses lined the ocean's waters. As far as the eye could see.
Yet, now, nary a decade later, hymns are sung about it on a daily basis. Some praising his valor, some his endurance, some his will and spirit, some his dashing appearance... all things he precisely lacked in those moments.
How much of written history, then, was actually true? Are there any tales of battles and wars that are not embellished by the penchants of the clever?
”... you alright?” she turned to the side and saw a distorted face of a man she'd like to call a friend if he wasn't hellbent on being pettily jealous. Ty, similar to her, was draped in the black cloak, a hood hung over his face.
”Better than them, at least,” Lyn replied, turning back toward the carnage. ”You?”
”Could be better, could be worse,” he replied casually, taking a deep breath and immediately regretting it. ”Fuckin' hell, we need to ask some proper cultivators to blow this stench away.”
”Nah, leave it be,” Lyn said. ”It's a good reminder.”
”My memories are a reminder enough,” he said. ”I pray there are cultivators who can make those go away.”
”My, I didn't take you for an easily disturbed person, Ty. Or, perhaps, was that only the front you put up in front of the Lady?”
”... like the one you're putting up in front of me now?” Ty glanced at her, his gaze mellowing somewhat. ”Aye, something like that.”
”... what's happening in the Castle?” she asked, looking away quickly.
”Silence.” Ty replied. ”Not a mum left the walls for three days. No one's allowed in, not even the Lady nor the Bearer.”
”... the ending,” she mumbled. ”Was rather... anti-climatic. Is that what it means to be strong, Ty? To simply appear on the battlefield where hundreds of thousands have died... and end it? If so, I envy it.”
”... I doubt he's very much proud of it,” Ty said lowly, sighing, Lino's face flashing inside his mind. ”In his mind, I've no doubt, he was too late. Take how heavy your heart is, and then multiply it... countless times over... and you've arrived at the point of how he'll remember this.”
”... I've heard some cities are already celebrating our victory.” Lyn said. ”Perchance, we should drag them out of their ivory towers and throw them into reality.”
”Leave them be, Lyn,” Ty said, putting his hand on her shoulder gently .”I doubt you'd force even your worst enemy to witness this, let alone some innocent people.”
”...” she said nothing as Ty turned and walked away, no doubt heading back to the Records Room to help. That was also where she should be right now, sorting through countless parchments, marking exactly who lived, who died, who got rich, who got poor, whose cultivation progressed, whose dwindled, and whose disappeared completely.
However, she had no strength; she couldn't. Not right now, at the very least. It was still too fresh. Perhaps, she mused, Ty was right; her title of the Lady's second-hand was wholly undeserving.
**