Brother

The news reached the Mullen farm just after the sun dipped behind the Theron Mountains: the day before, National forces had opened fire on a gathering of demonstrators. The number and names of the dead had not been released, but according to a few protestors who'd made it out alive, there were many. In one corner of the small house, Damian's mother sat beside the hearth, unmoving and unspeaking. He watched her, in the dancing light of the flames. Her features were hard and her sallow skin drawn taut over them, the storm of emotions he knew was raging beneath her calm demeanor, almost completely hidden away, betrayed only by the way the corner of her thin mouth crinkled as it did whenever one of her boys was hurt or fell ill.

Two days earlier, Riley had ridden to town with his friends, a pack of university boys caught up in the wave of revolutionary ideals spreading across the continent. A dozen times over the last year Damian had told him to stop following them around, that boys like that got people killed; he prayed he'd been wrong.

Rising from where he sat at the dining table, Damian crossed to his room, favoring his right leg with each step. Though the room was small, he shared it with his brother, whose bed was still a mess: various clothes—cheap imitations of what his fancier friends wore—thrown across its bundled sheets and thin woolen blanket, a few books—penned by revolutionaries from countries where their ideals had resulted in the deaths of countless innocents—lay open on the sill of his window or dog-eared on the small chest at the foot of his bed.

Worry tightened Damian's already twisted gut as he reached beneath his own bed, dragging out an old army-chest, issued to him a few years back, before he'd sailed across the strait to risk his life in the defense of a foreign government, battling against the very ideals his brother, just a few years later, so staunchly defended. Undoing the clasp, he rummaged through his old military gear until he found the leather parcel containing his discharge papers and a citation he'd been awarded after the Battle of Newman's Bay. Tossing it on his bed, he fished out a faded infantryman's cap, a leather holster and a pistol he'd taken off the body of an enemy officer he killed across the strait.

Returning the chest to its place beneath his bed, he shuffled over to the dresser he and Riley shared, wincing as his leg protested its sudden straightening. Pulling on a warm pair of trousers and a thick shirt, he fastened the holster across his body, tucked the pistol into place against his ribs, and slid the parcel into a riding satchel he slung over his shoulder.

As he left the room, he found his mother standing behind the dining table, tying off a small bundle. Lifting her grey eyes to look at him, she gave a small, tired smile. "I've packed cheese, bread, some salted meat and a knife."

Damian took the bundle, placing it in his satchel. "Thanks Ma." He gently kissed the silvered crown of her head. "I'll bring him back."

"I know." Her voice cracked on the words. "I know you will."