Original Fic: Dak Territories - Meruk

[icarus_chained]

For  parthenon  's  All Parnassus table, which I claimed for the character of Meruk.

Title:  The God Asked
Rating:  PG-13
Universe:  Dak Territories
Genre:  Adventure/Fantasy
Characters/Pairings:  Meruk, Daes, Jung, Beren, Aruk
Summary:  My favourite scene of the story in my head. Meruk, Commander of the Order of Aruk, travelling with his now-mortal god Aruk, his last two men, Daes and Jung, and a prisoner from the Guild (the human agency serving the demonic forces) called Beren, faces both a physical crisis and a crisis of faith on top of a cliff. With one of his men almost lost, his prisoner not who he thought he was, and the revelation that his quest to restore his god is part of something much, much bigger and terrifying, Meruk is not having the best of days.
Wordcount: 2960
Prompt:  Calliope - Mystic/Divine Influence
Disclaimer:  Mine.

The God Asked

 

　

They waited. They shouldn't. Time was slipping away, a deadline in the most literal sense of the word, and his god only had so much left. They were days from the Shrine of Solinas, and Aruk could not afford this halt. But still. They could not move, not until they knew for sure.

Meruk stood on the lip of the plunging dry-gorge, staring down as much of its length as he could, down as far the first sharp turn. The cliffs stretched over him, the snaking path they had taken over the scree slope at their foot standing out in stark relief. If the gorge hadn't sliced through the valley, Jung might have ... Well, he might have stood a chance, but Meruk couldn't even think that loudly. Not with Daes standing just ahead of him, staring with serene patience down the gorge, waiting for his lost partner. Jung was alive, he'd said, with that frightening certainty with which those two spoke of each other. Alive, and coming towards them. So they waited.

"We need to go," his god growled suddenly, stopping his pacing to stand at Meruk's shoulder. Meruk winced a little. Daes, however, simply ignored the comment entirely.

"We cannot," Meruk tried to temporise, turning to face his god, wary of the anger and desperation that sparked in the gold-black eyes. Aruk was god of war, after all, and not exactly known for his ability to keep his temper. Even made mortal, he was too powerful and experienced to challenge. But they couldn't go. They couldn't. "Not yet, my lord. Only a little longer ..."

"A little longer!" Aruk exploded, and Meruk flinched, his hand tightening instinctively on his sword hilt. Not that he would ever dare strike his god, or even defend himself. Only instinct. That was all. "Based on what! The word of a lunatic who is neither god nor demon? Who can't know what he claims to know? Are we to risk my life on that?"

Daes turned at that, just a little, his grizzled face creasing slightly, and Meruk stiffened. But Daes said nothing, only shrugged in seeming exasperation before turning away, and he breathed in relief.

"My lord," he started, to try and explain, and stopped. Because to be honest he didn't know how to explain the strange connection that existed between the old campaigner and the young genius. Not magic. Not anything he understood. Just a kind of ... symbiosis, maybe. Just an understanding. Something that, in a world of gods and demons and their magic, Meruk blasphemously thought might belong purely to humans. To friends and partners and comrades in arms.

It was nothing the god staring at him would understand either, so instead he said the one thing the God of War would listen to, would take with the gravity it deserved. "My lord," he finished quietly. "Jung is one of your men. And he has fallen. We cannot just leave him, not when there might be a chance."

Aruk stiffened, raising his chin in affronted challenge, obviously wrestling with the age-old duty that was so much a part of him, and the fresh and terrible fear of death his mortality had brought on. Meruk watched the struggle in respectful silence, feeling again the strange combination of fear and loss and pity the sight of his mortal god had sown in him since this nightmare began. Disgust too, for the near-coward Aruk had seemed in those first days, as if without the shield of immortality he dared not fight a gnat. And yet ... as time passed, as his god settled into the travails of human existence, as he regained the courage and honour he was renowned for ... Meruk felt his respect growing again.

Like now, as Aruk nodded stiffly, not daring to say anything, and strode rigidly back up the trail to resume his pacing. Mortal or god, a warrior did not leave his brothers behind, not while they yet lived.

Sighing softly, letting his shoulders relax once more, Meruk turned back to the gorge and moved to one of the boulders on the edge of the scree-field, leaning back against it with a groan. Daes turned his head slightly to meet his eyes, and there was respect and gratitude in the old soldier's gaze. Meruk shook his head gently. As if he could have done anything else. Daes and Yung may be soldiers of Aruk, but first and foremost they were his men, and all that was left of them, at that. Even the slightest chance that Yung lived was enough for him to wait an eternity.

Daes nodded, and returned to his vigil. But he paused a moment to say: "He's coming, Commander. Not twenty minutes, now. Moving slow, is all. He's coming."

Meruk nodded calmly, and shrugged. As long as it took. With a faint smile, wondering what kind of damned luck had kept the young idiot alive this time, he settled in to wait.

---

 

Twenty five minutes later, Daes straightened in his watch, his eyes sharpening and a fierce, vindicated smile appearing on his face. Meruk pulled himself off the boulder in turn, looking automatically to see what had caught Daes' eye, and blinked at what he saw making its slow, painful way up the gorge. He hadn't know what to expect of Jung, not after a fall of that length, not with the prisoner tied to him all the time. For him to be bloodstained, maybe, having fought. Near dead, very possibly. Daes had said he was moving, so not in pieces, anyway.

He hadn't expected Yung to be battered but reasonably whole, clinging like a limpet to the prisoner's back as the stronger and apparently less injured man carried him slowly but surely up the slope towards their position.

Meruk had never thought he'd see the bastard again, whether or not he'd survived the initial fall, bound as he was. The prisoner had followed Jung over the edge, which admittedly had been Jung's fault. Blasted idiot's curiosity again. He'd have thought the man would have run as soon as he could, or tried to attack Jung and perished, though granted that had been a faint chance, given Jung's relative lack of skill in close quarters. The man had to know that if he allowed himself to be taken back, he was marching to his death, and not in sympathetic company. But it seemed all that was irrelevant, since apparently Yung had managed to charm the man into helping him.

That, or Beren, the Guild's second in command and now their prisoner, was plotting something. Which was by far the more likely possibility.

Back stiff, his hand firm on the hilt of his sword, hearing his god vibrating in anger behind him, Meruk followed Daes' madcap run down the gorge at a more sedate, cautious pace. Whatever was going on here, he was going to get to the bottom of it.

As soon as Daes had reached the lurching pair, Beren surrendered his charge with a smile, crouching enough to allow Daes to help the young man off his back, tipping forward onto his knees with a groan as the weight was removed. Daes, meanwhile, cautious of Yung's wrapped chest and obviously damaged ankle, helped his partner to the floor of the gorge, and set about intently examining his injuries, muttering fiercely and quietly to his patient as he did so. Jung, for his part, settled back against the rock with a tired smile, and settled his hand gently on Daes' knee, murmuring reassuringly back. Meruk felt a brief flash of envy for their instant connection, and pushed it ruthlessly aside, focusing instead on the business at hand. On Beren.

He clambered down the last few feet to stand over the kneeling Guilder, staring fiercely down at the man's bowed head until he deigned to look up, an expression of wry amusement in his eyes. Meruk glared.

"Commander," Beren panted, still pulling in air desperately. So close, Meruk could see the heavy bruising that covered his face and arms, and probably everything else, too. He might have been slightly more prepared for the plunge than Jung, having seen the younger man go over first, but no matter how prepared you were, you didn't survive a slide down a jagged scree slope and a dive over a cliff into a gorge with nothing to show for it. The Guilder was plenty hurt himself. Just stronger than Jung, and with no damaged limbs.

Meruk looked at him, panting on his knees at Meruk's feet, and then over at Jung, lying still under Daes' ministrations, the makeshift bandage on his chest parted to show the deep, vicious bruising that meant broken ribs at the very least. He looked at them, and the thought that this man might be using the injured Jung to further some goal of his own clawed furiously at his heart. Without pausing to think, he leant down to seize the surprised Guilder's shoulder and pull him roughly to his feet, before locking his hand into a vice-like grip and towing the prisoner down the gorge to the bend that had hidden him from view. And would again, until Meruk had gotten some damn answers out of the bastard.

"Commander, what ..." Beren started, and cut off with an agonised groan as Meruk shoved him roughly into the wall, and pinned him with a furious arm across the chest. Gasping, the man looked at him in pained bewilderment, and Meruk growled against him.

"You are going to explain some things to me, Guilder," he hissed, free hand taut on the grip of his sword. "You are going to explain them right now, or so help me, you will not walk away from this point!" The man blinked at him. Had the absolute gall to look surprised. Meruk snarled silently, and pressed harder on the bruised chest, eliciting a very satisfying gasp of pain. When Beren looked back at him, eyes hazed in pain, Meruk pressed his point. "You will tell me what machination led to return to us, Guilder," he spat.

Beren blinked, and shook his head with a frown. "It wasn't as if ... as if I could leave him there," he wheezed, labouring to breathe. "Only a kid, after all."

Meruk shook his head. "Not good enough," he snapped. "Gods above, exactly how much a fool do you take me for!" The man just stared at him silently, calm and tired and very battered, and suddenly Meruk was tired of it. Tired of the confusion, the terror, the paranoia that he knew in his bones was fully justified. This whole thing, his god made mortal by demon hands, he and his captured men set free to give Aruk his last year of life in company, Beren's capture and presence, Aruk's plan to regain his immortality ... none of it made any damn sense, and that could only mean one thing.

Something higher than gods was playing here.

"Who do you serve," he asked quietly, and Beren tilted his head, his eyes sharpening with sudden appreciation. Meruk felt oddly proud of that. "Who do you serve that you are willing to walk into death for their cause, for our cause." He frowned heavily, and added: "And don't you dare say you would serve Aruk! You've been one of the only two reasons the Guild and the demons it serves has not fallen to us years since. You and that damned cousin of yours! So answer me truthfully, Guilder!" His voice softened, then. "Answer me truthfully. Who do you serve?"

Beren smiled sadly at him. "It would be true enough, you know," he said softly, and Meruk shook his head in confusion. "That in this I would serve Aruk," he went on, quietly, watching Meruk's disbelieving face. "If a god, any god, were to die a mortal death ... The war would not end until either gods or demons or both were destroyed, and I don't fancy humanity's chances in the interim." And there was that wry little smile again, the one that made Meruk want to either punch him or hand him a drink. Cynicism came fast, these days.

"So why did your demons do it?" he asked harshly, remembering all to clearly the horror of watching the Thief Demon steal away the thread of his god's life, while Daes, Yung and he could only kneel and listen to Aruk's cries of desperation. No. He didn't think he would ever forget that, and the memory made him vicious.

"Maybe," said Beren, meeting his hot stare with one equally hard and uncompromising. "Maybe because they thought your god might be the only one who would learn something from it."

Meruk stared at him.

"They never meant to kill him," the Guilder went on softly. "Gellana, maybe, but Mellanie is a thief, not a murderess. She stole only his access to his years. If she wanted him dead, all she had to do was thrown them beyond reach altogether." He paused, softened. "The war needs to stop sometime, Commander. And Aruk was the best hope. They need him to become immortal once more as much as anyone. They just need him to see a few things first."

"That's why," Meruk murmured softly. "That's why you're here. To watch him. To watch us. That's why ... when we passed the Forest of Thieves, no-one even approached, though I know for a fact at least two bands followed us for a time."

Beren smiled. "Yes. Thought you noticed that one. Zen will be disappointed."

Meruk tossed his head dismissively. "Like I care what that bastard thinks!" he growled, but only from habit. Something still troubled him. Well. Everything troubled him. This whole thing. The games of gods worried him. He was a commander, a soldier. Not a mage, not god-touched. Just a soldier for his god. These games terrified him in their reach, their complexity, their terrible weight. A wrong move as a pawn in them could mean ... things he dared not think about too closely. Things he did not want to have to think about at all. So he didn't, and focused on the little niggle about the man in front of him instead, the tiny instinct that said he was hiding something else.

"Why you," he murmured, puzzling it over. "The second most important man in the Guild. Why you, when almost certainly ... almost certainly you will die." As a sacrifice on Solinas' altar, to bring the Sun God to grant his brother the gift of power once more, so he could wrest back his life from the demons. "You will die," he whispered again, looking into the Guilder's eyes, realising for the first time that it was something he did not want, something he was ashamed to do. An ignoble death, for a noble man. It went against everything.

"Yes," Beren said, very gently. "I might die. I probably will die. But even so, Shaiar will be waiting for me, and I'll have done what I was asked. It's not so bad." Meruk hid a shudder at the name of the Black God of Death, but did not take his eyes from the other man's face.

"Who?" he asked again, very softly. "Who asked you? Who would you do this for? Who do you serve?" Not a demon, he thought. To high, to far reaching a plan for demons. Not gods, either, for none would consider mortality as a tool, not for one of their own. Pride would not allow that. But that only left ...

"Yes," Beren smiled, sadly, the weight of many years of knowledge behind it. "I stand beneath the hands of the Sisters."

Meruk froze, shuddering. No. No. It could not ... but it had to be. It had to be them, to plan so far, to reach so far ahead. Only they could have seen. Time, Fate and Luck. The Sisters who governed all, who stood above gods and demons as they stood above humanity. And this man ... to serve the Sisters, one must by thrice god-touched, before the thirteenth year of life, each time by different gods. And there were only so many gods who would be so involved with humans.

"Who touched you?" he asked, morbidly curious, terribly afraid. The man's smile was different, now. Hard and distant, impossibly sad.

"Scrannon, Shaiar, Melae," he listed softly. The Plague God, the God of Death and Melae, the Lady of Healing. A story in three names, really, and far from a happy one. Meruk winced in sympathy. He'd seen the plague villages, twenty years back during the epidemics. He'd seen the kind of deaths found there. He'd take a clean death by sword, even fire, before he'd endure that.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it. Beren shrugged, dislodging Meruk's slack arm in the process.

"It happened," the Guilder said, distantly. "That's all. But the Sisters touched me then. The Lady first. For Shaiar to have let me go ... I was lucky, after all. And the Lady asked me for this. To go with you. All of you. To see you through." He paused, smiled, wry once more. "Even given the questionable hospitality. And I will, you know. See you through. All of you."

"Why?" Meruk asked, faintly, stepping back from the battered man. "Why?"

Beren smiled once more, stepped forward to stand beside Meruk, his gaze turning to the side, to the turn that blocked the upper slope from view, where Meruk's god waited with his men. Meruk followed it, and understood, even before the other man answered. He understood all too well. It was how he had lived his life, since he'd been all of seven years old.

"Because," Beren said, meeting his tired eyes once more, smiling ever so sadly. "My god asked it of me."

And when the gods ask, there is nothing for man to do but answer.