But the humiliation he subjected me to, my family to. The fact he tempted me, seduced me – I rub at my arms, as if I can force out the memories.
You are to blame, a tiny voice in me says. You should have been more careful. You should have listened to your parents, rather than your friend. You should have kept yourself pure, instead of giving into curiosity. As soon as those thoughts appear, I push them away. No. I’m not to blame. I’m not at fault. He’s a Claymore, everyone knows what they do, what they are. He’s the one to blame.
He is.
One week later, the Claymores invade across the Hartson borders in force, attacking one of our outlying villages.
Perhaps my revenge had worked a little too well.
3
Desmond
The bullets ran out after the second village. I head the raid alongside my father instead with sword and shield and vest, with the intention to strike this wretched Hartson village until retreating.
The Hartsons had gone too far. My father had been hankering for a reason to fully attack them for a long while, instead of small skirmishes, and that opportunity came when they sent demolishers to the mountain estate in the south-east area. The villagers there had been confused as Graves construction workers set to tearing down one of the oldest churches in our territory. One that we used on a scarce basis for Claymore weddings and funerals.
Oh, my father had been furious. But not as furious as me. We sent all our best fighters to the church to fight off the Graves, but it turned out they were simply doing what they were paid to do, through a sub-contractor. Someone had paid them to wreck the church, and it was near rubble by the time we put a stop to the actions. Heated arguments and heated research later pinned the original contract as a request from the Hartson lands.
This meant war. Those monsters had gone too far.
Too many lives lost to their evil, too many good men and women of the Claymore lands who had suffered. The world would be a better place without them.
I watch as some of my men drag a shrieking woman into a smoldering building, ripping at her clothes, teeth bared in rictus grins. My father screams at them to stop.
“No! No rape!” He charges towards the men, who are a little too intent on their duty, but curse and scatter under the hooves of my father's horse. “Absolutely no rape, or I'll execute you myself.”
One man's sullen answer causes my father to whip out his sword, pointing it at the raider. They back off, and the woman, sobbing, tears away. My father doesn't look at her, doesn't check if she's okay, but stares coldly at his men. Checking for other would-be rapists with his shadowed eyes.
It's always been a stipulation of my father's raids. More than a few men resent him for it, but it's always been this way, for as long as I remember.
No rape. It's a shame some people tend to... forget in the heat of their hatred.
I search among our soldiers as well, determined to reinforce my father's policy, though of course, the deaths happen. Some of our own raiders are dragged down in isolated incidents, but mostly the villagers fight, scream, run, or die. I soon stumble across a lone vassal, a Lakemore, since he wears a white and cyan sash – busily tugging down his pants with one hand, pinning a pretty and naked woman with another.
“That’s enough, soldier,” I say, stepping into the picture. The man ignores me, too intent on his task, and I clout him soundly on the head, knocking him off balance. He curses and whirls on me, dagger at the ready, before he realizes who he’s facing.
“Sir.” His eyes are wide. “What –”
“You will restrain yourself from rape. Is that clear, soldier? Or have you forgotten my father's rules?”
“She’s Hartson,” he says, as if this is a good reason to rape. As much as I hate these people, that doesn’t mean we have to be the same as them. What they do to us – we don’t have to do the same back.
“I don’t care.” One glare from me gets him to scuttle away, although to my increasing anger, I see that he joins a pack of other men, entering a building where they’re rounding up the prettier women who were not killed or had escaped. Endorsed by my own brother, Rayse.
Thankfully, my father's already on it, though I know I have to back him up. The person I rescued from rape scrambles away without a word. I ride over to my father, and we end up having to kill one of our own men to reinforce his rules, but it does discourage the other men. Rayse, naturally, thinks we're cheating the men out of their rewards for coming here and risking their lives, but my father's having none of it. My younger brother's jaw locks in stubbornness, but he does obey. At least.
I continue to stalk through the village, attacking any fighting men, trying to control some of the plundering, though I know that the battle lust and spoils are what keep people going, what get them to come out here in the first place to fight.
When I catch up to my father again, he’s calling for the troops to gather up, drink and eat. “There’s another village across the woods,” he says, wiping flecks of blood off his cheeks. “We’ll hit that one too before dusk. It’s Rosewind territory – two miles from the Hartson estates themselves. We’ve never pushed so far before.” My younger brother, Rayse, grins viciously, like a wolf. He’s reveling in the carnage. I wish he didn’t.
“Father,” I say, accepting a tankard someone hands to me, “we should probably stop our advance. The longer we stay, the more chance they can muster up their fighters to combat us. Let us not leave the Claymores without a leader or heir.” I point to the three of us. Should my father die, along with me and Rayse, it has a strong chance to cripple our power back home. My brother's uncle in law will take over, but he's not a true Claymore. He married up.
“They destroyed something sacred,” my father hisses. “My mother’s buried in the grounds of the Fallow Church. My grandparents. My cousin.”
I raise my eyebrow at the mention of cousin. He's never mentioned one before.
“Generations and generations of us. I married in that church. You were to marry there too, when we located you a wife. Men fall, son, but that – that’s an icon these monsters destroyed.” Hatred flickers in his eyes, alarming and rabid. His men share it, and for one, the emotion feels alien to me. A part of me is exhausted. Tired of burning with hate, though it is always easy to stoke up. The memory of the sobbing, crying women and children stay with me. The memory of her stays with me. The woman I once thought beautiful, before her identity was fully revealed.
I shake my head, but I’m not leader. I can advise, but I can’t make the final decision. All I can do is make sure that my father doesn't die. That Bobby, yet to kill someone, doesn’t end up on someone’s sword or the other end of a bullet. I care a little less about my own brother getting impaled or shot, since we’ve been at odds with one another for a while. His bloodlust has always unsettled me. “I don’t recommend another village, father. We’ve razed their wheat fields; we’ve been in their lands for at least ten hours. We’ve had small pockets of resistance, and three people dead, but now they must be mobilizing big.”
He scoffs, and twenty minutes later, we’re marching, leaving behind a small trail of dead.