Story #34 - Faced With Vision

Faced With Vision

It wasn't that he minded killing, it was that he didn't do it without reason.

Another soldier charged him after seeing his companion fall and he simply ducked out of the way of a cross-body swing and then whipped his hand in a wide arc to take the burly defender in the side of the head.

Not killing people was the preferable option, especially if it still managed to accomplish his aims. His superiors – those who thought themselves in that role, at any rate – disapproved of any mission where he wasn't willing to make a grand pile of bodies as a testament to his skill.

Fortunately, that same skill coupled with a complete lack of understanding about how a skinny young man could be the force of nature he'd become made his commanders wary and it was he who called the shots when it came to any kind of combative outing.

Truthfully, he had little knowledge of his own origins but knew enough to see that he was clearly different from those around him. Speed, strength, stamina - they had all been enhanced in him, though he'd call it perfectly natural. He'd never known another way, never had to feel the slow plodding of they pace they all walked, never had to know the terrifying desire for sleep they all felt.

They assumed he spent an hour or two each night in bed in his tent before he took up his rounds again, but they were only half right. An hour or two away from the staring eyes of the other men was a boon, but this “sleep” was not something he required or desired. The thought of turning off his brain, of leaving himself completely open to attack or poison just didn't seem sensible so he didn't do it. Why put himself at risk?

Of course, he kept that knowledge to himself.

In a nation at war, the generals would use every tool they had to come out on top and if they knew he needed no sleep, could go virtually without rest, then he would never have any. Besides, he needed time to think, time to consider his options.

It might be time to leave.

Another group of soldiers had spotted him and charged. For this mission he wore the tabard of his home country; the generals wanted these men to know who was attacking them, to know that they had an unstoppable force that could be unleashed at any time.

Dust puffed around the small group as they came, announcing their intended movements before they even came within striking distance. It was all so obvious.

A quick step to the side and the sword swing of the first man met only empty air. Pivoting on his heel he was around the grizzled solider and a driving his fist into the back of his head before the other four in the group even had time to react. Charging forward, he knocked them to the ground as though they were no more than rasta-sticks in a hard wind. Even only a matter of three steps gave him a speed and weight no man could expect, and these four were certainly no different.

They struggled but he aimed carefully, lashing out with hands and feet. Four precise strikes and he was done – five more defenders down but still breathing – a testament to his skill and restraint.

He'd done what the generals wanted; the camp was in chaos, but he had aims of his own. There were rumors that this commander, more so than any others that had come to the border, was a man of Vision.

Few enough such men remained in the world that it was worth looking into, and if the commander's battle record was any indication, finding out now just what he was might be critically important. Visioned men were typically of military stock, though some few did end up in thieving or the mercantile sphere, though those two amounted to nearly the same thing.

In some respects, he was just curious about a man who might possess something outside of the ordinary, someone who might be, in some small way, like himself. He'd been given speed, strength and stamina of a kind frightening to the average individual and that roused a desperate desire to control in those with power, but his sight remained unchanged. It was said that those with Vision could see the smallest detail or the largest battlefield without leaving their tents and could easily command armies of thousands or tens of thousands as simply as they would command one hundred.

The Protector had been a man of Vision, or so the legends claimed, but he had never put much stock in legends, since a creation such as himself was never mentioned, and he had to believe he wasn't the first.

It didn't take him long to locate the commander's tent. He considered a more secretive option than with the guards – with luck, he could scale the supply station that lay behind the tent and simply wait for anything of interest to happen, likely when the sun set, and he'd be able to get close enough to hear what was being said.

Still, he preferred meetings of face to those of fortune so he simply strolled forward, cracking the heads of the two med guarding the tent together and leaving them in a heap before stepping inside.

The commander had his back to the door; a foolish move on the frontier, but luckily for the man his death as not on the agenda.

“Ah,” the commander said, turning, “I was wondering when you'd get here. We have a number of things to discuss.”

Gazing into mirrors wasn't something he spent a great deal of time doing either on the field or back at the Capital, but he knew his own face and bearing well enough. How in the Protector's Eyes had this man managed to steal it and wear it for himself?

- D