52

All for the Cause

She looked over the crowd before her, chest swelling with immeasurable pride, and head filling with the rush of infinite possibility. With a group like this at her beck and call, who’s to deny her?

It was an army. Her army.

The cheers and praises from the rallies alone were intoxicating enough, but this? Seeing them here, dressed in their many colours, raising their blades and maces and spears high into the air while chanting her name.

There wasn’t a drug strong enough to give this feeling. Even an entire room full of moon dust couldn’t compare.

Why shouldn’t she feel like this? They wanted her to do this. They chose her to be their leader. They willingly followed her. Why wouldn’t she take this all the way? Half measures achieve nothing, and if she was to clean out the rot, the filth, the corruption, she would have to burn it all down.

Many would die, but the sacrifice would be worth it. They’d remember her as a hero that did what she needed to.

Her time at Granther was well spent, and her families' funds had been put to good use. She found the right people, bribed them well, convinced them this was the right thing, and they convinced others.

Was it underhanded? Was it subversive? Was it what her enemies did? Yes. Yes to all. But that didn’t matter. In the end, the only thing that matters is victory. If it meant she would win, she would lie, cheat, steal, hurt, and kill to achieve it.

If you cling to morals and principles but it costs you your victory, it all becomes pointless.

It’s what they would want, after all. If not, why were they here?

She’d sacrifice them all, if she needed to.

All for the cause.

He didn’t want this. He never wanted this. It all felt like it started so long ago, when he was working the fires of the glassblowing forge. The days were long, and the pay was low, but he needed the money, so he never complained.

All for his family. They never had much. His wife was just a simple dressmaker, fitting nonsensical things onto the outfits that were in style. His daughter was still in school, working hard. Hopefully she’d do better than they did.

It’s all they could really hope for at this point.

Gorsen just wanted some better hours. Some time to see them more. When Sister Ezria started, she talked a lot about worker’s rights and better pay. Seemed good when it started. A lot of glassblowers, builders, smiths, and farmers joined her. It was more about sending a message than causing any trouble.

Then everyone else joined. Some kids who wanted an easier life. He couldn’t blame them, but some wanted it to be far too easy. Then the money came in, then more people with their own ideas.

Then others joined. Those who didn’t care for rights and fair wages. They weren’t here for justice, or accountability, or fairness. They just wanted to watch the whole thing burn down.

They originally wanted small changes, but these new ones wanted to change everything. A complete overthrow of the government and an installation of another. All through means that were probably less than peaceful.

Yet still, he followed. He followed as he always did. He followed during his time as a soldier. He followed when he forged glass in the furnaces. He followed now, as the real mob marched through the streets, with the old fortress set in their sights.

‘There it is!’ She yelled from somewhere in the back, taking an upturned cart as her stage. ‘The symbol of our oppression! How many of us have been subjugated by the chains of the mercenaries that claim to protect us!’ Her words were echoed with boos and jeers of the crowd, all aimed at the grey fort that stood ahead of them.

They followed the streets lined with the strange, unique and sometimes downright inappropriate public art pieces that dotted the fort. They dared not to touch the actual fort itself, so in an act of passive defiance, they placed the sculptures around it, like they were some form of ancient ward that would contain the plague of nonsensical things like sensible design. Some of the art pieces were creatively thought provoking, one such being a piece that was twisted picture frames within twisted picture frames. Possibly a look at how art twists itself to fit within boundaries, and how society places massive emphasis on the continual forcing of creativity within boundaries that the true meaning is twisted. A great piece that he wouldn’t mind being in his own home, provided he had the room and didn’t have to pay anything for it. However, this was beside another crude, misshapen statue of a man bent over trying to suck his own cock, possibly giving a message that art is shit. This would be a poignant message if that wasn’t every other art piece in the city in the last five years, doing nothing to combat the problem and only serving as another bucket full of slurry being tossed into the sewer.

The crowd stepped around them as though they were sacred icons, with some being tepid around a pair of trousers there unsure whether or not it is art.

One trio had found themselves arguing over the pair, and what the symbolic meaning of such a piece could possibly mean. Leave it to the average Savantian to never miss an opportunity to debate the art, especially if they’re in the middle of an angry mob.

‘They express abandonment. How this society will cast aside anything it deems of low value. Look at them! No tassles, they cover the whole legs, and only a single colour! No one would ever be caught dead wearing something like this! And now they’re here,thrown away for the whole world to see. Abandoned once their use has been fulfilled. Quite poignant, if I do say so myself.’

‘It’s obviously a symbol of freedom, casting off these societal norms that have been ingrained into us from our birth, cast off from our unnamed artist, representing a new form of freedom against the oppression that hides and contains our raw expression and the power of our sexuality. It’s not about the trousers, but the context of the trousers.’

‘Guys,’ a third member asked. ‘What if it’s just a thrown away pair of trousers?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s never just a “pair of trousers.”’

Their argument continued as the crowd marched around them, still chanting their slogans. Rage against the guild mercs who took advantage of their need for security.

Some of it was true. There was no doubt the mercs were imperfect, guided by their own greed rather than their desire to help. The problem was that all of these kids weren’t alive to remember what this city was like before they came around. Where there were so few guards that they may as well have not been there, and crime was at an all-time high, and what little there had been was so corrupted that they may have ended up being worse than no guards at all.

Right now, it just seemed like Ezria and her followers were just replacing one terrible situation with a worse one. No one eases into things anymore. No one takes time to see what works, what doesn’t, and see how things can be improved. Everyone just changes everything as fast as they can in hopes that something may work by pure brute force.

It’s all or nothing with some people.

Was there a word for that? Something like “revolution,” but instead you slowly change things over a period of time?

Maybe. He didn’t know. He was never any good with words. Ezria was always the one with the words. That’s probably why she’s the one standing at the centre of all this.

They marched onward. Maybe not a “march” exactly. It was more like a shuffle. Perhaps more like a confused stagger. There was movement, but it wasn’t at all fast, organised, and for some, not in the right direction.

He’d been in marches before. He was one of the first to march on Evandian soil, when they had the advantage, the wind at their back, and it seemed right.

Then everything went so wrong.

Supply lines dwindled as every commander had different ideas on what they were doing, given different orders by each of their superiors. The Hundred seemed more interested in fighting each other than their enemy, as they contradicted the orders of their fellow lords and endlessly argued over the minutia of details of subjects they had no idea about.

Perhaps they deserved to lose the last war, even if it felt like a slap in the face to all the good men he had to bury in those days.

The marching, the chants, the cries. He thought he put that all behind him. He hoped they would leave when the axe left his hand and the horns had been filed down. When he, his wife and his daughter settled here, and he hoped to earn an honest living doing the work Savantian fops thought were so far beneath them, but couldn’t be without.

Nope. Still there.

You can blunt it all you want, but a blade is still a blade, even if it’s a pretty shitty one.

Toss it, hide it, bury it. It doesn’t matter. It’s still there.

It’s just waiting.

File down the horns all you like. People still know why they were there in the first place.

He let out a sigh. One that was louder than intended, yet the noise of the crowd should have made it seem like a mere drop in the ocean.

One person must have heard it, as a hand rested on his shoulder, and a robed individual stepped by his side.

‘Have no fear, dear brother. Soon, all will be equal.’

‘It seems some people here are going to be more equal than others.’

‘Here? This pathetic mass of indulgence and vice? Hardly. No, this is no revolution. This is a purge.’ Other robed people seemed to walk out from behind the two of them, almost as though they came from nowhere, and filtered their way into the crowd. ‘You see, the corruption seeps into the foundation that this city is built upon. Revolution will do no good, as all is corrupted from its very inception. All has been tainted by vice, greed and vanity. There’s no saving something this far gone. What you need is to burn it all to the ground and start anew, with a moral foundation that exists beyond the self and all the desires of which that comes with.’

Gorsen caught a glimpse of what lie beneath the black hood of this stranger.

A pained face etched in steel.

‘You’re…?’

‘Come now, my brother.’ The crowd stumbled to a stop, and the gates of the fort loomed above. ‘And let the purge begin.’

Sister Ezria stood proud above an upturned wagon, face alight with street fires burning around them. She drew her blade and pointed it at the gates ahead.

The crowd cheered and rattled their weapons.

Some danced, some yelled, some cried.

But all were here, just waiting for their moment.

All for the cause.