Do you know why we call ourselves “forsaken”? The first of us did not create a name, for they did not set out to create an organization. When we found that we needed something to call ourselves, forsaken proved a good word because it did not divide us from the rest of the world. We are all equal in this blessing. Those of us who choose to call ourselves ‘forsaken’ only proclaim from the rooftops that we know it, but the knowledge is not ours alone. It was, in fact, a soldier of the fifth legion who named us – a mortal enemy. Never forget that even those who oppose us with all their might may truly be with us when the hour comes, for the truth is all around and within them.
We remember the name and words of Thom Gurin, a soldier, human, and forsaken mortal to the day he died.
This was in the years just after the catastrophe, and the Fifth Legion after their infamous flight from the gates of Pax was engaged in the nearly equally ill-remembered ‘March of the Burning Plains’ as the locals still call it. In the name of requisitioning supplies for their ‘continued campaign against the enemies of Atnia’ they took what little food half the towns still standing in the east of the country had left, torching those that didn’t hand it over willingly.
Now as horrible as that sounds, you have to understand what it was like back then. You couldn’t walk across your lawn without tripping over the goddamn bodies. It really did feel like the end of days, and like no one was going to make it out. What the Fifth Legion did didn’t exactly help the situation, but it’s hard to fault any of the people who just up and lost their goddamn minds. Them included.
But there’s this funny thing that can happen when people lose their minds and do something unforgivable. Sometimes they seem to get this irresistible urge to go and do something even worse. Years without a win on the run from everyone and everything holding a weapon (and looting from those who weren’t), the legion’s morale was dangerously low to put it mildly. I’ve talked to a few of them over the years. I was once told those years were “like wading through hell, only to discover when you think you’ve made it out that you’re one of the demons.”
Some killed themselves, others deserted, more just died and starved. Stopped fighting so hard when their lives were on the line. There wasn’t going to be a legion come spring unless morale improved. At the time the commanders were still deluding themselves that they were the last hope of the Atnian military, holding out until the time was right to storm the capital and take the country back. The legion could not disband.
So morale had to improve, and they needed an enemy they could defeat.
And so it was that a small village of goblin miners, Atnian citizens, was cast as a crucial source of supplies for the shadowy invader.
It was the night before this attack that Sergeant Gurin stood and gave his speech in the middle of camp, bellowing the first line so that all went silent.
“Live up to your name soldiers! Do they call us the Coward’s Legion for nothing?”
He paused a good long moment, perhaps surprised he had spoken at all, perhaps enduring he had the undivided attention of all.
“I’ve been thinking. Some of you look about ready to knock out my teeth for using the “C” word, and there’s a time when I would’ve felt the same. But I think it’s a badge of honor. Did any brave obedient soldiers survive the witchcraft and hellfire pouring from the sky at the gates of Pax? We’re cowards, and we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t. So why don’t we just save some weight on our packs and leave the weapons here when we move camp?”
He paused again, as if expecting an answer to his question, but was met with silence. Under the strict eye of military command even small expressions of doubt were harshly punished. Gurin is said to have appeared to get nervous during this pause, looking at the silent crowd and the glares of the commander. Perhaps the situation he had thrown himself into was finally dawning on him. He began shouting again with renewed strength.
“I said it! We’re cowards and scum! And we should have no shame in this, for so is everyone! We’re specs of unworthy dirt the gods found so onerous and foul we were cast off their shoes. And you know what? Good riddance! Fuck them, what do they know about the dirt anyway? We’re evil little forsaken scoundrels not even worthy of an explanation from the powers that made it, and you know what, maybe that’s a life worth living.
So why do we pretend it’s not when it comes to those goblins? Did they set fire to the sky above the gates of Pax? No. That was the work of an archmage or a god. No wretched, forsaken, cowardly goblin could bring about such a thing any more than we could. Perhaps they were once on the side of whatever monster caused that calamity, but who cares? None could stand against it anyway. We certainly didn’t.
So why are these goblins so worth hating? Speech after speech about how we’re finally gonna stick it to those weak, cowardly, treacherous, bloodthirsty bastards who pillaged our homes… And all I can think is ‘that’s us.’ And I don’t want to kill us…”
But they killed them. He trailed off as he bled from the arrow wounds that had been accumulating in his chest as he neared the end of his speech. The next day they killed the goblins, and in the months after that they killed more on the high of the first ‘victories’ of their campaign. After a while they killed their commanders, too, and they did change a little for the better after that. I like to think Sergeant Gurin’s words stuck with them.