A fantasy short story about war and regret by David Tombale: The Timekeeper's Story

The Timekeeper’s Story

The Timekeeper slowly stroked the boy’s blue black hair from his face and felt the slick sweat on his brow. The boy’s face was smudged with white ash, probably from the fires that still burned on.

The Timekeeper withdrew from the body on the table, noting sadly the holes in the boy’s sackcloth shoes and the rags that still covered his small frame. He walked to the window allowing the searing heat of the flames that were consuming the refugees’ newly made huts to scorch his skin. The guard on the tower turned his head to see the old master standing on the balcony, his short white hair blowing in a breeze that did little more than feed the inferno.

The Timekeeper sighed as he looked down on the battle. The trolls they’d grown in their labs so long ago were massed like a huge tidal wave breaking against the fortress’s massive stone walls but it would only be matter of time before they came in. All up and down the wall the human defenders ran barely keeping a hold of their large blasters while the trolls’ tank shells fell between them flinging some onto the cobbles or over the side into the waiting arms of their enemies.

The Timekeeper glanced down at his hands and thought sadly of a time when they’d held the first of the troll children. It had been such a wonderful time then, when humanity had stood at the peak of its powers, creating new life out of the myths of their fathers and now hearing those creatures howling their fury at the walls of the last human city in the world he realized all his work had been for nothing.

Unfortunately he could not stop. The defenders on the wall needed reinforcements and they needed what he could do for them. The Timekeeper turned his back on the war that had been raging on for over seventy years and when the guard on the tower turned his head to watch the old man return inside he could only wonder at how frail he appeared.

The Timekeeper returned to the boy’s side and laid his hands over his body allowing the white energy that still kept his aged heart beating to emerge. Its glow spread over the boy’s arms and legs seeking out his wounds and sealing them closed. Lastly the white energy restarted his heart and refilled the air in his lungs causing his eyes to spring open. The Timekeeper stood back as the boy rolled off the table and cast his eyes over the room. He soon found his blaster and ignoring the Timekeeper walked over to the corner and picked it up as carefully as another man would pick up a child.

There was an eagerness in the boy’s features as he looked over his weapon that pained the Timekeeper greatly but he reflected that it was far too late for regrets. The boy turned around stiffly and stood to attention his blaster on his right shoulder.

‘What are your orders sir?’ the boy asked him.

The Timekeeper glanced at him looking for any sign of recognition in the boy’s eyes but there was nothing in them, nothing at all. The Timekeeper felt all of his one hundred years in that moment but he placed a hand on the table behind him to steady himself and said, ‘Engage the enemy. Push them back from our walls.’

‘Yes sir!’ the boy responded.

He turned on his heel and left the Timekeeper staring after him. The Timekeeper went to the window and watched until he saw the boy run out in the courtyard and over to the stairs that led to the wall. In his lifetime the Timekeeper had raised over three hundred boys from the dead, one bloody battle after another until they couldn’t even remember their own names or the faces of their families and observing now as his own great grandson fired on the trolls that kept trying to rush onto the wall he couldn’t shake the feeling that the trolls might be right, maybe humanity didn’t deserve to exist anymore.

A science fiction story about war by David Tombale: Invasion

Invasion

There was still a sun in the sky when Doyle awoke. For some reason he’d imagined there wouldn’t be, not after last night. Not after those damn aliens had dropped bombs on their heads. He’d hidden in his foxhole listening to their boys fly past in their fighter jets while all around him explosions had torn up the hill they’d claimed just a day ago.

Doyle struggled out of his single man tent and saw a bunch of the boys sitting by a fire cooking up something so rancid that he was sure everyone in camp had already had a whiff.  Nunez looked up from the pan and raised his arm in greeting. Doyle waved back before walking off in the direction of the medical tents.

His best friend Mark Roberts had been hit by one of the Monoterrans’ plasma shells and he’d had a bad feeling all night about Mark’s wounds. As he moved through the camp he noted that there were a lot more empty tents than there’d been when they’d started advancing through Europe. Hell the living didn’t look much better, with plenty of soldiers carrying bandages around their heads and slings dangling from their slumped shoulders. It wasn’t supposed to have turned out like this, with half the regular army dead and farm boys like Doyle and Mark and these other poor souls left to pick up the slack. The recruiter in Doyle’s hometown had told him they were beating back the invaders.

When he finally found the medical tents Doyle could only think he’d been lied to. The screaming he heard didn’t sound like victory. No one should ever have to scream like that, like they were going to tear their throats apart and then there was the amount of activity he could see around the tents! Figures draped in white aprons and masks ran from one to the other blood covering them from head to toe.

Doyle had to push past one of these frantic figures just to get inside a tent. When he did he just stood there shocked at the chaos that confronted him. There were countless men and women jammed into that tiny tent, their narrow cots barely able to support their writhing bodies. One of the veiled figures turned around and grabbed him with a bloody mitt. They pulled down their mask and screamed into his face.

It took Doyle several seconds to make out her words. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” she yelled.

“I..I’m looking for Private Mark Roberts,” Doyle mumbled.

She didn’t waste a second and roughly pulled him to the back of the tent. She finally stopped beside a cot with a sheet pulled over what could only be a body. She turned to him with an impatient look on her face that vanished once she saw his expression.

He’d known; in his heart he’d known when the medics carried Mark from their foxhole that there was no saving him. The plasma fires had leaped hungrily at Mark quickly engulfing his entire body before their shocked unit had managed to snuff them out. Doyle reached out a shaking hand and grabbed a corner of the sheet. The nurse or maybe she was a doctor gently put a restraining hand on his arm.

“Don’t. You don’t want to see him like that,” she said softly.

“I do. He was my friend,” Doyle said.

She nodded her head and stood aside. Doyle pulled the sheet back to uncover Mark’s burnt body. Half his face was disfigured and the burns continued down to his chest. Looking at him Doyle could still remember how excited he’d been when they joined up. Mark had been such a natural during basic training, so eager to be a hero and protect his country. Doyle could feel the tears run down his cheeks and they just wouldn’t stop. The woman who’d decided to stay with him placed her hand on his shoulder.

While they stood there a siren began ringing somewhere in the camp. They both looked at each other in alarm. The woman promptly took off running, probably to prepare more sheets or cots for the boys who’d soon have them busier than they already were. Doyle studied Mark’s face and couldn’t help observing how peaceful he appeared even with all the damage to his body.

Who knows maybe that meant something? What Doyle did know for certain was that the war was calling.

“I’ll see you soon buddy,” Doyle said draping the sheet over his friend’s head.