Leon Rosemary: The Crusader's Burden

  The tavern in Rome was alive with chatter and laughter, but for Leon Rosemary, the cacophony might as well have been silence. The nineteen-year-old crusader sat alone at a corner table, his slender frame hunched over a cup of red wine that he'd barely touched. At 5'9" with a lean build of 150 pounds, he appeared ordinary enough—brown hair slightly overgrown from his time in the field, green eyes that once sparkled with youth now dimmed by experiences no adolescent should endure.

  Three years had passed since the Second Crusade. The year 1150 marked what should have been a new beginning, but for Leon, time had frozen on the battlefield.

  He stared into the crimson liquid, watching it swirl gently as he rotated the cup. The color was too familiar, too reminiscent of—

  Blink.

  His hands were covered in blood.

  Blink.

  The tavern disappeared. The wooden table beneath his fingers transformed into scorched earth. The ambient chatter morphed into desperate screams and war cries. The Siege of Damascus surrounded him once more.

  A Seljuk warrior charged past, scimitar raised high. Before Leon could shout a warning, the blade connected with a fellow crusader's neck. The separation was clean—almost artistic in its efficiency. Leon watched in horror as his comrade's head slid from its perch atop broad shoulders, eyes still blinking in confusion as it tumbled to the ground. The body remained standing for two more heartbeats before collapsing in a heap of twitching limbs and spurting arteries.

  The air thickened with the metallic stench of blood and the acrid bite of fear. More Seljuk warriors converged, their blades catching the merciless desert sun. Another crusader fell, his intestines spilling forth like glistening gray-blue serpents as a curved blade opened his abdomen from navel to sternum. The man desperately tried to hold his innards in place, his scream a guttural, primal thing.

  Something changed in Leon. A familiar sensation—power surging through his veins like liquid fire. His vision sharpened, the edges of the world becoming crystal clear. Sounds separated and clarified. Time seemed to slow.

  His hand moved to the hilt of his longsword, drawing it with a whisper of steel on leather. The weight felt right. Natural. An extension of his arm.

  "Ignite," he whispered, lunging forward and driving the blade deep into a Seljuk warrior's chest.

  The effect was instantaneous. The man's eyes widened in shock before his entire torso exploded outward in a shower of gore and flame. Ribs became shrapnel, puncturing his comrades who stood too close. Organs vaporized. Blood sprayed in a fine, hot mist that covered Leon's face and armor.

  Leon smiled, a terrible thing devoid of joy—only savage satisfaction as the screams reached his ears.

  He pirouetted through the carnage, each swing of his sword ending in another explosion of viscera and bone. A head detonated like overripe fruit. A torso caved inward before blasting outward. Limbs separated and burned simultaneously.

  "Ignite!"

  "IGNITE!"

  His voice grew louder with each kill, each blast of magic through his blessed blade, until—

  Blink.

  "—eon? Leon? You alright? You've been staring into that cup of wine for almost ten minutes now."

  Sarah's voice cut through the memory like a knife through silk. Leon jerked upright, nearly spilling the untouched wine. Sarah stood before him, hands on her hips, her expression a mixture of concern and exasperation. As leader of their adventuring guild, she'd developed a maternal instinct toward all her members—particularly Leon, whose thousand-yard stare had become increasingly common.

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  "O-oh yeah, I'm fine," Leon murmured, his voice hoarse as if he'd been screaming. "Just daydreaming, that's all."

  "Daydreaming, huh?" A tall, lanky figure draped himself over the chair opposite Leon. Kennedy, the guild's mage, ran a hand through his perpetually disheveled hair and grinned lazily. "Must've been some dream to keep you that entranced. Was she pretty at least?"

  His attempt at levity fell flat as Leon's expression remained distant.

  "Kennedy, you absolute buffoon!" A sharp voice cut through the awkward silence. Queen, the defender of their party, stood behind Kennedy with her arms crossed over her ornate breastplate. Despite her diminutive stature, she commanded attention with her regal bearing and razor-sharp tongue. "Can't you see he's troubled? Not everything is about your base fantasies."

  Kennedy raised his hands in surrender. "Just trying to lighten the mood, Your Highness."

  "Well, try harder." Queen flipped one of her golden ringlets over her shoulder before taking a seat beside Leon. Though her words were harsh, she slid a fresh cup of water toward him with surprising gentleness.

  "Is it... is it the war again?" A younger, hesitant voice joined their circle as Adriana approached the table. Unlike the others, her armor was simpler—the standard issue of a knight-in-training. Her posture mimicked the perfect stance taught in the academy, though occasionally she would shift unconsciously, still growing accustomed to the weight of steel upon her frame. She looked at Leon with a mixture of awe and concern. "I've read about the Siege of Damascus in my studies, but the texts never... they never really tell what it was truly like."

  Leon glanced up at the young knight-in-training. There was something refreshing about her earnestness—her eyes hadn't yet seen the horrors his had. Part of him wanted to shield her from ever knowing, while another part knew that ignorance was its own danger.

  "The texts can't capture it," he said simply. "And pray you never have to find out firsthand."

  Adriana nodded solemnly, taking the seat on his other side with the careful precision of someone still mindful of every movement. "My instructors say that understanding the past makes for better knights of the future. That's why I joined this guild instead of staying in the academy—to learn from experienced warriors like you."

  "Experienced is one word for it," Leon muttered.

  "Damaged is another," Kennedy chimed in with unusual seriousness. "No offense, Leon."

  "None taken."

  Leon looked up at his comrades—these people who had become his family after the war. After joining the adventurer's guild, he'd found purpose in their simpler missions: clearing goblin caves, slaying troublesome slimes, protecting merchants from bandits. B-rank missions or lower, nothing that would trigger the darkness inside him.

  "It's fine," he insisted, though the slight tremor in his hands betrayed him. "The past is the past."

  "But it shapes who we become," Adriana said, her tone containing the rehearsed quality of someone quoting a mentor. Then, more naturally: "At least, that's what Master Reinhardt always tells us at the academy."

  "Oh, spare us the knightly platitudes," Queen rolled her eyes, though her concern was evident beneath the prickly exterior. "What he needs is action, not philosophy. When is our next mission, Sarah? Something to keep his mind occupied."

  Sarah consulted a small parchment she pulled from her pouch. "There's a request to investigate strange noises from an abandoned mine north of here. Could be nothing, could be something. B-rank at most."

  "Perfect!" Kennedy stretched his long limbs. "Just dangerous enough to be interesting, but not enough to get us killed. I've been working on a new frost spell I'm dying to try out."

  "You'll get us all frozen if your control is anything like last time," Queen scoffed.

  "That was ONE time—"

  "Enough, you two," Sarah interrupted before their bickering could escalate. She turned to Leon. "What do you say? Up for some monster hunting tomorrow?"

  "Will it be... very dangerous?" Adriana asked, excitement and nervousness warring in her voice. "My instructors said I should observe more before engaging, but I've been practicing with the sword every morning and—"

  "You'll be fine, rookie," Kennedy patted her shoulder. "Stick close to Leon. He's got enough combat experience for all of us."

  Leon looked around at his companions: Kennedy's easygoing smile, Queen's impatient but caring scowl, Adriana's eager and untested enthusiasm, and Sarah's leadership that held them all together. For a moment, the weight on his shoulders felt lighter.

  "Yeah," he managed a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I could use the distraction."

  He raised the wine to his lips and drank deeply, hoping the alcohol would dull the edges of his memories. The real battle wasn't against goblins or slimes—it was against the demons in his mind, the trauma etched into his soul from the bloodiest war humanity had ever faced.

  Leon found himself grateful for the noise as the tavern grew louder with the evening crowd. It was harder for ghosts to whisper when the living spoke so loudly.

  After a few drinks they decided to head out for there mission a cave has had strange noises coming out of it