The Old Guard: Yusuf & Nicolò (& a little Nile at the end)
The first time Yusuf dies, the siege has barely begun. He is on the wall, fighting back the first invaders, when an arrow that pierces him. It's white-hot pain coming straight from the sky, and he dies knowing that he's failed to protect this city.
The first time Nicolò dies is not in the glory of battle or the redemption of the Holy Land. It is in the middle of a field, amidst a rush of the cavalry, who don't notice or even care that they've crushed one of their own in the charge. He dies ingloriously in the dirt.
*
When they come back to life, they are both alone, left behind by their brothers-in-arms, waking with the memory of another whose death they shared.
The next time Yusuf dies, he is guarding the city gates as the invaders try to bash their way through. Their siege engines are making quick work of the city's defenses, shaking the very ground where Yusuf stands. Or perhaps it's his legs that shake. He must have come back to life for a purpose, but has he fulfilled it? He is asking this question as the gate splinters and a sword pierces his heart.
*
Nicolò convinces himself that he was only knocked out by the cavalry. Never mind that he bears no bruises, isn't even really sore after being trampled. Only the lord Jesus Christ, and his beloved Lazarus, have risen from the dead. To even think that he's among them would be blasphemy.
Nicolò is most assuredly not thinking such blasphemous thoughts when the city's gate falls. He rushes in with the siege, slashing his way through the infidels' ranks, his sword true. He buries it in the chest of a screaming infidel, too late realizing his enemy's blade has found him, too.
*
The siege has moved on by the time Yusuf shakes himself awake and finds cold steel still splitting him open. He tries to push himself off the blade but dies before he can free himself. At least this time, he doesn't have a too-real dream about his enemy.
Nicolò jolts back to life with a shudder. The infidel is still impaled on his sword. Nicolò pulls it free, his stomach roiling at the bloody viscera coating it. He can't look at the man's face, he can only fall to his knees in prayer. It's there that his throat is slit.
*
This goes on for some time.
They kill each other. Many times.
And then…
Yusuf recognizes Nicolò first. "Dream," he says in Tamazight, in Arabic, in Greek, miming slelep and pointing at the other man's face. "Dream," the man repeats, when Yusuf finally tries Sabir.
This does not mean they stop fighting. If anything, it ignites their rivalry, Yusuf assuming that his purpose is to kill this man, Nicolò assuming that God has cursed him with this demon. The siege goes on around them, but they have eyes only for each other.
(This will continue as the years go by.)
*
Their questions and assumptions do not change, not at first. What changes is all around them. The siege is successful, if you can call such a thing a success. The infidels are vanquished. The city's inhabitants, men, women, and children, are slaughtered. And Jerusalem falls.
As his army shouts that God wills it, Nicolò surveys the horror that surrounds them. It is too much. If this man he fights is truly a demon, then he would do more damage. Instead, this destruction has been wrought by his own side, and God surely couldn't will that.
"Stop," he says.
Yusuf stops.
*
They will tell Nile all this, bit by bit, as the years go by. They'll admit that they were both exhausted and starving, and anger can only keep one going for so long.
(Joe says that love can keep one going for much longer. Nicky calls him an incurable romantic.)
There is more, much more, to their story. There are days good and bad, decisions right and wrong, and many more choices that, frankly, could have gone either way. Nile will hear as much of it, or as little, as she wants. That is what their family means to them.