18
Oct
The third installment of a 30k word short story set in The Four Part Land. It takes place 400 years in the past from the time of Tarranau and Chloddio, and details the collapse of Hymerodraeth Heula, the Empire of the Sun.
Two months had passed since that first call to vengeance, and it was now late autumn, and the training was on well apace. The flow of new recruits had almost stopped, for which Locsyn and the others were grateful, but every day they looked around at the mass of infantry training in the squares, and wondered how many of these newcomers would survive the first battle. While none of the veterans had had experience fighting against the soldiers of Niam Liad, all of them had faced the similar hit and run tactics of the raider kings of the northern mountains. For a large army, it was frustrating in the extreme, as the warriors would jog up, toss a few spears, and then sprint away, always retreating and giving ground until they were backed up against the mountains, and then the raiders just disappeared into the tors, going to ground in the many caves and crevasses. At least this time, the soldiers could be forced to defend their capital. If that hadn’t been the case… Taflen shook his head and let the though dissipate. Getting worked up months before the campaign started served no one.
The winter months passed in much the same way, day after day of training, but now the officers were confident enough in the new recruits skills to let them engage in squad level skirmishes. Due to their skill, the squad of Gwewyr, Locsyn, Gwyth, and the others was often used as a measuring stick, not that it made the poor recruits feel any better. Llofruddiwr alone could often ‘kill’ the opposing squad of six men, and the veterans would send him out there, then take bets on which of the young soldiers would be the first to fall to the dancing assassin. It was a lively business, and made the bar conversations all the sweeter as Rhyfelwyr or Taflen recounted how he had fleeced an officer or two to pay for the night’s drinks.
A new light had come to Gwewyr’s eyes, and each evening, he found it a little harder to return home to the five families, of which he was now the head. The camaraderie of the army, of veterans who had seen it all and lived to tell about it, that was where he felt at home, not among a household full of noise and fury. But he owed a duty to his family, to his lost brothers, and how could he let the remaining children grow up without a father, without someone to hold the house together? As the day marked for departure grew nearer, the burden began to weigh heavily on him, and his performance on the sparring ground and training the recruits suffered visibly. Locsyn and Rhyfelwyr had looked at one another and shrugged. They knew what was going through Gwewyr’s head, but they weren’t sure how to help him. This struggle was one for him and him alone, for a friend’s shield turns aside emotions not at all.
In the end, it was the wives at home who decided the matter for Gwewyr. They had noticed his predicament, well before Gwewyr had, and spent many hours discussing it. And so it was that when he returned home one evening, a month out from the campaign, that he was confronted by all five wives, and told in no uncertain terms that he was going, and that he better stop moping around the house. They were fed up with him acting like a little child whose favourite toy was in danger of being taken away, and that they could survive without him just fine. After all, how’d he think they got on when the brothers went out on prior skirmishes and battles? Gwewyr thanked them all profusely, wrapping each in his arms, and there was a small celebration that evening, although it ended poorly when Gwewyr’s wife slipped out of the room crying. She had seen four husbands die fighting, and had thought that with Gwewyr’s retirement, she was finally past the danger of losing her husband. Now, that danger had once again surfaced, and she had agreed to countenance it, and that was too much for her. Gwewyr knew of whence the tears came, and emotions struck at him too, memories of five boys playing in the street, toy soldiers off to imaginary wars. Gasping, he grabbed the strongest liquor in the house, and began downing it straight from the bottle, hoping that a drunken stupor would cleanse his mind of all that ran through it. It didn’t, and Gwewyr ended the evening on the steps of his home, bawling out his eyes, looking very much an old and broken man.
14
Oct
This is the third in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels.
Sighing, he settled himself down for the night, for although it was early, his planned arising and departure would entail a short rest, and he needs be fresh on the morrow to lead out those others who travelled with him. And so, when Annwyd awoke in the pre-dawn darkness, he did not need to clear his eyes as he struggled into the hide armour and heavy pack that he would carry. Striding out to the eastern edge of the camp, he looked ahead, watching for the rising of the sun as the others gathered at his back, and Bwrw Eira Ddyn stood to the side. The first arc of the sun crested the far horizon, a golden glow that lit the sky, and Annwyd Arwedda cried out “Hymdaithwn!” as he marched down the frozen plain of the tundra, his spear lifted high, both pointing the way and in a gesture of farewell to those who remained behind.
Two days passed, and then another, as Annwyd Arwedda and those with him left the high winter grounds of the Fferedig Ddynion, and began the march down to the Afrada Dirio, that giant belt of burned land, scoured into a desert by a frigid winter and a blistering summer. Riven of all but the hardiest creatures, it was across this plain of battered ground that the travellers would head, cutting through the northern end to reach the warmer and softer land beyond.
Much as Annwyd despised travel across that stretch of ruined earth, he recognized that it served as a better shield to him and his people than any that he could carry. The inhospitable terrain warded away those who would attempt the journey, and made moving large bodies of men impossible. Thus it was that no army had ever attempted the Fferedig Ddynion, even at the height of the Empire of Bhreac Veryan and their warrior legions. Yet Annwyd wished to lead his people out, across this scarred terrain, and to do it in mass, the migration of a culture from a harsh and cold climate to a warmer, more lenient land, regardless of those who stood in his way.
Annwyd felt marginalized, both as a people and as a person. He was placed on the fringe of his own culture, partly through his own actions, yet his whole nation was an afterthought, a bare hint of a thought amongst the greater countries. He had spent some of his youth travelling amongst them, and those he had spoken to had not even known the name of his people, nor cared. The Fferedig Ddynion were a footnote, an afterthought. They existed simply to give a name to a place on a map, and Annwyd wished to teach those callous people what that name could do, and that it was not a name to be ignored and forgotten. Annwyd Arwedda’s pride had been trammelled, and he would stand it no more.
His mood was shared amongst the people with whom he travelled, strongly enough that they would leave their homes and their normal lives to journey with him, and just maybe form the core of his support as he returned to lead his people. Thus they strode across the land, a thin, straggling line of men and women under heavy packs, and wrapped deep in fur, Annwyd’s hope to finding a new home.
Two weeks into the journey, and the pilgrims stood astride a spine, a low ridge of hill that ran down through the Afrada Dirio. To the west stood the mountains from which they had come, distance and cloud hiding all but the barest details of the white plateau, while to the east, the land sloped gently down, foreboding at first, but the farthest sight of the eye showed land tending towards the genteel. A smile of pleasure broke out across Annwyd Arwedda’s face, and those of his compatriots around him. Once more he cried forth “Hymdaithwn!”, and he led onwards towards their new home.
The land beyond the wastes called to them, and each step after they had seen their goal was faster than the one that preceded it. Their food ran low, but such was their faith in the eden that they approached that the travellers merely pressed on faster, and Annwyd spent his moments always searching, peering for that first moment when they began the passage across the boundary and into the healthy, green lands. He wished to be the first to see their new home, and always strode tall and proud, first in the line, even when others should rightfully have taken that scouting position.
12
Oct
The second installment of a 30k word short story set in The Four Part Land. It takes place 400 years in the past from the time of Tarranau and Chloddio, and details the collapse of Hymerodraeth Heula, the Empire of the Sun.
A month had passed in training when Locsyn came over to tap Rhyfelwyr on the shoulder, an expectant look showing through the massive handlebars of his moustache.
“You’d better come for this.”
Bemused, Rhyfelwyr followed Loc through the barracks to the front gate, where an elder was trying to force his way out of the grip of a squad’s worth of six soldiers. Four of them had lost their helmets, three had blood or broken noses on their faces, and all were showing some kind of bruise or battering, and when Rhyfelwyr saw who it was they were holding, he understood how it had all come about.
“Gwewyr, leave off man. They didn’t know, okay?”
The elder turned and shot Rhyfelwyr a glare full of menace, but it softened quickly, and Gwewyr straightened, brushed away the hands holding him, and dusted himself off. With a last glance back at the squad who had been sent to retrieve him, he strode over to Locsyn and Rhyfelwyr, and pulled them towards a quiet corner near the gate.
“Look, I’m not going to leave the wives and kids behind. I’m trying to feed five families, now, and it’s hard enough to make it all work without being dragged off to fight some damned fool war that doesn’t matter to me.”
Locsyn patted him on the shoulder. “We know, Gwewyr, we know. We’ve helped you often enough. What’re you doing here, anyway? You retired out two years ago.”
“I’m not retired any more, lad. Not according to those jumped up pricks. No more pension, not until I do my duty one last time and go off and get killed under some snotnose who can’t tell his left foot from his right. Course, even if I do survive, it don’t matter. I just die when I get back here and the families have shattered. No thanks.”
“There’s no one else, Gwewyr?” Rhyfelwyr looked at his feet for a moment.
“They’re all dead, remember? Four out of five brothers, lying pretty in the family grave. Oh, sure, the pensions help the wives a bit, but not enough, and I don’t trust anyone else to keep order in that place, aside from me.”
Locsyn looked at Rhyfelwyr, who nodded at the thought. “Look, why don’t you come back and train. It’s six months on full pay, maybe a little extra if we can talk to the paymaster about it, and then you just disappear the week we’re heading out. It’s a little more money in your pocket, and you aren’t going anywhere. Has to help a bit, doesn’t it?”
Gwewyr looked thoughtful for a long moment. “Maybe, lad, maybe. I’m not sure I can go back, though.” He looked down at his hands. “I haven’t touched a blade or a spear since the day I furloughed out.”
The other two nodded, then each put one arm around Gwewyr’s shoulder and gently led him towards the gate into the barracks. “Don’t worry about that. The recruits will be so scared of you they’ll just drop their blade and run the first time you spar with ’em. We’ll make sure of that.” A slow grin spread across Gwewyr’s face as they walked inside. “I like that.”
Gwewyr quickly fell back into the habits that had helped him stay alive across many a battlefield, and even the others were impressed by how many little tricks he brought to the sparring grounds. Stepping on a retreating fighter’s toe, tapping at their elbow with the spear, or closing the distance and using knee strikes, Gwewyr seemed to have an unending fountain of varying attacks, and soon Rhyfelwyr and the rest of the veterans were sparring with him, hoping to pick up the tricks.
7
Oct
This is the second in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels.
He waited as the messenger cleared his throat, drawing out the time before he first needed to speak. Finally, the message was ready to be spoken, and it was begun. “The council has reached their decision in the matter of your wish to journey beyond our traditional lands and into a warmer climate, along with those who might follow you. You are ordered to heed their decision in all of its particulars, and that to break them will result in the punishment of your corporeal body and your mind, and that they wish to remind you of these things before you hear the decision that they reached.”
Annwyd Arwedda exploded. “Enough! Tell me of their decision, now!”
The messenger shook his head, then resumed speaking. “As you will. You are granted the right to take a party of thirty, of able-bodied men and women, and traverse the lands to the warmer country, and, once there, establish a settlement within empty or freely given land, and live to the best of your abilities for one year. Each sextile, you will send a courier back to our home here, carrying reports of your progress, and at the end of that one year period, three council members will arrive, to examine your situation and determine whether it shall be allowed to continue. Further rulings may change these initial offerings, of course, but for now, this is how you are bound.”
“And if I do not?”
“You well know how you are treated then.”
“Then I should take myself to the council?”
“They expect you after the mid-morning meal.”
Annwyd Arwedda waved his goodbye to the emissary, and returned to his tent, pondering how well he had been manipulated. His was an expeditionary party, nothing more, the same as the Fferedig Ddynion would send to their various hunting grounds, to see how many of their populace each could support. His was simply one more hunting ground, even if it was outside of the norm. It would also lessen any support he might have amongst those who stayed behind. After all, who could remember a man who last spoke to you a year past? It was a neat solution to their problems, for if Annwyd refused to go, he knew it would appear as if he had refused to follow through on his own ideas, and that, too, would undermine his support.
And so Annwyd found himself waiting outside the council tent as the remnants of the meal were cleaned away, waiting like a man who had been brought to heel. He would grumble and burn inside, but to show his passion to the outside world would lessen him as a man, and so he placed a pleasant smile on his face, and entered the tent at a spoken word. Nodding to the council, he placed himself at the centre of the circle, rather than at his normal seat as one of the young members. Once more, he found himself face to face with Bwrw Eira Ddyn, but this time, it was all to be couched in ritual and ceremony.
The ritual began, Bwrw Eira Ddyn gesturing as lesser men lit the smoky fires that would carry their blessings upwards, to those who must hear them. He intoned in the old language, the language of naming and of the proper place of things, and asked for the blessing upon Annwyd Arwedda and those who would travel with him, and sent the prayers of all Fferedig Ddynion to the aid of those who travelled far, in hope that they would find a great bounty at the end of their journey.
Even Annwyd found himself swept into the grasp of the ceremony, for even though he felt poorly towards Bwrw Eira Ddyn and those around him, he still believed in the gods above, and that this ceremony was crucial to his designs and desires. And so he gave of himself to the final crescendo, adding his voice in full tongue to the prayers and entreaties of the council, begging the cold eastern wind for a safe passage, wherever it might lead him.
Afterwards, Annwyd began the process of gathering his things and his followers, those thirty men and women who would be allowed to travel with him. Much had already been done, and so it was mostly informing all that they would leave on the morrow at sun up, and giving them their last day amongst the greater clan. The mid-day meal passed, and he had completed all of the tasks set to his name, and so spent his time checking and rechecking his pack and weapons and armour, testing each a thousand times over. While his hands worked, his brain wandered, running back across those cold hunts he had spent across the tundra and glaciers of his home, running through the icy mountains in search of the beasts that lived upon their slope. The time that he had fallen and tumbled, his foot slipping on a patch of ice, only to fetch up against a boulder that had broken his shoulder. That moment when his first spear cast landed true, bringing down a large buck with a single throw. It had been considered a mark of luck for him ever since, and he still wore the animal’s teeth on a string about his neck.
5
Oct
This marks the beginning of a 30k word short story set in The Four Part Land. It takes place 400 years in the past from the time of Tarranau and Chloddio, and details the collapse of Hymerodraeth Heula, the Empire of the Sun.
The crowd roared, a rolling thunder that spread out from the centre and echoed back off of the buildings surrounding the square. Today, they had come to hear an announcement from their lord and ruler, and they were incensed by what was said, for Niam Liad had risen in rebellion against the rightful rulership of Ymerawdwyr of Hymerodraeth Heula. Now the crowed cried out for blood, for vengeance, for a sacrifice of those insolent peons to the empire of the sun. The Dialedd Lluydd, the army of vengeance, was being prepared to crush this rebellion, and Ymerawdwyr had called for new recruits to come join. Swept in a tidal wave of passion, young man after young man ran to the army barracks and begged to joined. Today, enlistment in the army would run to the highest totals seen in decades.
Rhyfelwyr looked at the mess before him and sighed. All these new pups, wanting to be soldiers. That just meant more work for him training them, and more people who didn’t have a damn clue what they were doing getting killed on the battleground. He glanced over at Locsyn, where the same expression was written on that soldier’s face.
“We’re in for a right mess, aren’t we, Loc?”
Locsyn spat onto the ground before answering. “Better believe it. Now lets go get drunk before the officers find us and make us train those louts.”
“Good call, good call. Get the others?”
“They’re already there.”
Rhyfelwyr nodded, and the two soldiers set off into the backstreets of Bhreac Veryan, wending their way to a grungy old bar tucked away in an alley. Shouldering aside the mat that hung in the doorway, the two sat down at a table with three more men. The youngest of them was in his late thirties, and all had the weather-beaten look of men who had spent too much time outdoors. For a while, none spoke, but a conversation seemed to be carried on nonetheless, in gestures, glances, expressions, and shifting in their chairs. Finally, the largest of the squad, a giant named Gwyth, looked at Rhyfelwyr and spoke.
“Alright, what is it?”
Rhyfelwyr drained his mug, wiped his face, and then answered. “We’ve got six months, maybe seven, to train thousand and thousands of new recruits, them march them halfway across the damn continent, and then fight against Niam Liad skirmishers in their home countryside. I’m just not looking forward to it, is all.”
Taflen spoke at that. “Much as you might like to have us believe that, Rhy, we know there’s something more going in there.” Taflen glanced around the table, at each of the four faces, finishing with Rhyfelwyr’s. “You think they’re going to break up the squad, don’t you? Promote us all to sergeant or lieutenant, give us each our own. I hope the officers aren’t that stupid.”
Rhy shrugged. “They’re officers, and they’re twenty-three and never seen real battle before. What do you expect?”
“A little better sense than that, at least from the veterans further up. Anyway, don’t worry about orders like that coming down. We’ll deal with them.”
Llofruddiwr perked up at that. “My dealing?” he asked.
Taflen blanched a little at that. “I’d rather not. We’d run out of officers in a hurry.”
Llofruddiwr shrugged, then downed another mouthful of beer.
The conversation drifted away into other matters, and the night stretched long as the soldiers drank.
Days and weeks passed as the squad was used to train the youngsters. The very basics of marching, of holding a weapon, of moving in formations. Rhyfelwyr despaired that any of the recruits would become soldiers, or even live past their first five minutes with the enemy. Each time he’d spar with one of the kids, a flick of the wrist, a simple block with a shield, and the openings he found were large enough to drive a herd through. And he’d go back to the bar and hear the same reports from Locsyn, from Taflen, from Gwyth, and from Llofruddiwr. Although he expected that from the soldiers being trained by Llof. The man was a wizard with the blade, and with the other assortment of weaponry that he kept tucked away within the folds of his armour and his cloak. Even the cloak was a weapon: it had weights sewn into the hem so it could be used to catch and trip opponents.
30
Sep
This is the first in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels.
Ice flowed out from the western mountains, a glacier that had existed for so long that no one could date its origin. Nor could they date those of the people who lived upon it, the Fferedig Ddynion, a culture so apart that it did not interact with those around them. Instead, they preferred to stay behind their barrier of dead and wasted lands that cut them off from Tri-Hauwcerton and the other greater kingdoms, confident and complete in who they are.
Only a few explorers had returned from that icy land, and spoken of what they knew of the Fferedig Ddynion, and so those of Bedwar Barthu Dirio regarded them as little more than a curiosity, a place that was of mild interest and no import, and that could safely be ignored. Perhaps they had been right, once upon a time, but now things were different, and a new man lead the tribes of the Fferedig Ddynion. He named himself Annwyd Arwedda, chosen at his fifteenth birthday, and it suited him well, for he was a creature of both the cold of hate and the fire of anger. He was a man of stature no greater than any other, but a will as cold and pure as crystalline ice, and a resentment built of a heat strange in such a westerly man. He saw the plenty and the wealth and the comfortable living of those to the east, and wished that for himself. A home that he did not need to build every night, a fire, an abundance of food, these he craved far more than any great treasure, and he vowed he would gather these adornments to him.
Annwyd Arwedda stormed across the packed snow, breath freezing against his face as he threw aside the flap of the tent and stepped inside. The Elders of the Fferedig Ddynion thought to stop him, to make him stay here and live as he always did. That was why they had called him to the meeting tent at this late hour, and why he stormed with rage. And so he threw the tent aside, and saw them formed in a sitting circle, and he glared, refusing to sit and standing with arms crossed, waiting for one of them to speak forth. Bwrw Eira Ddyn, the unspoken leader of this gathering of equals, waited for Annwyd to sit, and gestured for him to do so when he did not. Seeing as nothing would transpire with him still afoot, Annwyd took his place in the circle, arms still folded in defiance.
“It is good of you to join us, and we are sorry to have called you from your wife, but others amongst us felt we should speak to you this night.” Bwrw Eira Ddyn spoke with a firm voice, age only tingeing the edges. “You wish to move our people to a warmer land, a land of greater plenty, is that not so?
“I would only take of them those that would go.” Annwyd knew well that if enough of the young went, the old would have to follow, for without the young, the old could not hunt enough food.
“You speak one, and act two. You would have us all go, down to a valley where the land is warmer and men grow plants in the ground, and you would coerce those who do not by taking their food and their shelter. Is this not so?”
Annwyd growled. “I do what I think is best.”
“We had noted that amongst your actions. You proclaim it rather loudly, even without being asked. You have thought through the disruption this would cause, the possibilities of our people being ill-suited to a journey of this kind?”
“We journey from here to the north sky, and we do it well! What could a simple walk have for us that a mountain cannot contain? It is well within our grasp!”
“And when ice and tundra give way to battered earth and bloody rock, you know enough to hunt, do you? To feast, to forage, to find shelter, amidst a new land? And you will teach those of us who need to know these skills before we depart?”
“Yes, I do. I have spent years living along the edge of those lands, then pushing deeper. I am not a fool that discards his home for nought but a whim. I already teach some of those who would go. Others will learn from them, and from me.”
“And you have the agreement of those of our new land? They will accept our arrival with equanimity and grace, and leave us room and time to adapt?”
“I work the same miracles as you, Bwrw. None! Do you wish more than to toss questions at me like spears at a mark, or do you have no substance hiding beneath that thicket of hair?”
Bwrw Eira Ddyn waved at Annwyd, as if he was of no matter. “Go, go then. You are clearly determined. We will debate what shall actually happen after you leave. You will be informed in the morning.”
Annwyd Arwedda rose a furious man, and stalked to his tent, spine rigid with stung pride. He would not sleep this night, his mind caught in a web of all the things that might be, could be, may be. He would wait at the entrance to his home, and when the soft tread of a messenger arrived, spring to his feet and fling it open, speaking only one word: “Well?”
31
Jul
So, I’m back. After two months traipsing around Europe and having rather a lot happen to me, I’ve finally made it back to the USA, gotten over my jetlag, and decided to start writing again. And that means all the good things I’ve got planned can get off the ground again. I’ll be giving the Writer’s Carnival a kick in the pants and getting that restarted, and this time I won’t be going anywhere without internet access for the next nine months or so. Flash fiction postings will resume Monday morning, but as a treat over the weekend, I’m posting a short story from The Four Part Land. It’s called Tattoos, and concerns a general, and just how strongly he feels about the men under his command. And now, without further ado, to the story!
I have tattoos. Lots of them. They’re all over my arms, my chest, my legs, my feet, my back, even my hands. The only place that doesn’t have them is my neck and face, because I didn’t want to go there, not yet anyway. They started just over my heart, some twenty years ago now, and have spiralled out from there ever since. Each one is tiny, only two small words, each etched closely to the one previous, filling the space and leaving very slight patches where the pink flesh beneath can be seen. It makes my body an uncomfortable mosaic for many to look at, especially those who know what the tattoos signify. Right now, I’m adding the next three, over down near the end of my right leg, just above the ankle, taking up one of the few spots that hasn’t been marked yet. Maybe tomorrow or the next day I’ll need to add another one. I don’t know. I’ll just wait for the call to come through, and see what it tells me. That will determine what I do. Always has, really. Every time it happened, I knew when I had to add some more, but never quite how many. They’d tell me afterwards, give me the list. No one really looked at me straight then, they all thought I took it too seriously, took the loss and the pain a little too permanently. They’d shuffle away to leave me be, and I’d add the tattoos. Way back at the beginning, there were only a few at a time, often just one or two. I kept them small, even back then, since I knew there would always be more. Only way I could get away from it was a way I wasn’t going to take, and so I just ended up with more and more of them. These days, if something goes wrong, I need to add a hundred or more of the damn things. That will take me days sometimes, and if events hurry along, I don’t have the time to add them before more come along. Worst feeling ever, seeing that list just get longer and longer, and knowing what it means. You’d think by now, twenty years further on, that I’d be used to see those lists, that I could just shrug them off and say “oh well, it was worth the cost”. Still can’t. Don’t really think it will ever be worth the cost, at least not to me, but those higher up think it is, and sometimes, when I can pull myself away to look at the bigger picture, I do have to agree with them. After all, I don’t want to have that happen either, and this is how you prevent it.
I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Argoll Filwr, a commander in this army, and these tattoos I’ve been talking about are all the men who’ve died under my command. Twenty years ago, I was a newly promoted soldier, just given my first leadership position over a half a squad of men. I felt responsible, but I was also young and ready to go. Leadership meant moving them forward, always forward. Not too much thinking about going the other way back then. After all, I was in the best army in the world, and we would win every damn fight, every damn time. Naïve, that was, but at the same time, its what the soldiers needed. They didn’t want to see me thinking and wondering whether this was a sound position or whether I might be killed out there. Morale mattered more than strategy. Then they started dying under me, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen, at least, not without remembering them in some way, and not just in a blood-money pay-off to the dead man’s family. That’s where the tattoos came from. I’d never forget them then, not if I could look down and see their name written on my chest. It has helped me remember, and I can still point to each one, and tell you where and what happened when they died. At least, all of those I was there for. Those I wasn’t, when our forces were separated or I was sitting up here, in command in the back, I had those who did see tell me, in all the best detail they can recall. I commit that to memory, to carry around at least a little of them still in this life.
At one time I thought about something to do with my name and theirs, combining the two perhaps, adding their last name to my own. I got that from the story of a man who’d been captured as a prisoner, treated fairly by those lower down the ladder, and then killed and eaten by those up near the top as a show of bravado. One of the men lower down took his name in memory…. beautiful gesture really, just not something I could do. Too many people were going to die for that, and so it had to be something manageable, but still something that would remind me of them every day. Thus the tattoos; small, unremarkable perhaps, but certainly full of meaning. There is a lot in that meaning, I’m just not the one who can describe it. A kind of catharsis happens when that needle goes in, almost as if the dead are watching and approve, and that lifts a little of the burden off of my shoulders.
Let me tell you about the first time that ever happened, and just what lead up to the event.
*********************************************************
There were six of us that day, myself and five others, sent out as a brief patrol around the army. It was a cold, blustery day in late autumn, and there was already snow on the ground, just enough that our steps crackled and slowed. We could probably be heard for miles around, the way we walked. We were basic soldiers, not real scouts, and this close to home we were hardly worried, chatting and talking pretty loudly, the mingled sounds of our voices and footsteps scaring birds and game out of the woods that we trudged through. On top of all that, our gear clattered and banged, although less than normal because we’d wrapped the exposed metal in cloth to stop it from sticking to and burning our skin with frost.
Despite the cold and the wet snow that would melt and seep into your boot, chilling your feet, we were still having a good time of it, although a lot of that had to do with a few of the men, me included, heading out on patrol with some strong drink hidden among the heavy clothing we had wrapped ourselves in. By then, two hours into the patrol, all of us were well warmed and fortified against the encroaching cold.
We were a typical patrol group in those days, six men comprised of one leader, two men with shields, javelins, and short swords, two with bows and arrow, and a third lightly geared with a short-bow and lighter arrows, but designated as the group runner, always the man sent back to report if the patrol found anything. The bow and arrow he carried was as much to make the enemy slow down if it tried to chase him as anything else.
The situation back then was that we were engaged in a desultory border war with the next country over. The border was a big plain, shot through with forests and farmyards and cattle-herders, and neither side had ever formally marked out the line. Thus, you’d get situations like ours, where two armies would sit there, posture at one another, maybe raid the other side a little, but mostly leave the people in the middle alone. Both us and them relied on the cattle and the grain they produced for a fair amount of our food supply, and neither really liked the idea of a famine all that much. Because of that, winter time was actually when most of the raids occurred. All the cattle was inside, the food was harvested, and as long as the ground didn’t get churned up too badly, it wouldn’t be damaged much for the next growing season. That was why we were out here, in the cold and the wet, looking to see if the other side was planning on raiding in this area and reporting back to base if we saw anything, and I, as the junior officer within my squadron, got the patrol duties.
We were only a short distance into the patrol, which would have come out the far side of the forest and looked across at the band of farms out beyond. Trudging through those woods, voices soon appeared from the left and from the right, quiet ones, but close enough to be heard. They were probably talking a bit too loudly for what they had in mind, but we were pretty clearly not all there, and had been making enough noise to cover their approach all on our own. As soon as we stopped and noticed the sounds of men talking, I yelled out “Run!”, and all of us broke, formation gone as we ran back for camp. The men with shields threw them to the ground, javelins following as they lost weight in an effort to speed ahead. The runner went out at a sprint, almost flying across the snow. I was in the middle, ahead of the two who had been carrying shields and behind the three men with bows. Behind me there was a sharp cry, and a brief glance over my shoulder showed me one of the shieldmen down on the ground, having slipped in the wet snow. I ran on anyway, knowing that he was a prisoner or worse. Then, I called it courage to run away from a man I was supposed to lead, even when I knew the runner was the one who would get through. He’d already outdistanced the rest of us and was clear of the woods. There was one last open area, another brief set of trees and our camp. Then he simply slumped down and leaned against the nearest tree, his legs almost collapsing under him. I kept running, because I couldn’t see what he could.
I saw it soon enough. The entire open space between the two sets of trees was filled with troops, and the troops weren’t ours. I collapsed heavily to the ground next to the runner, just wondering what to do. Fighting might get one or two of them, but I’d be dead, and even captured, I thought I was more good alive than dead. So I sat there. I still remember what that day looked like. The runner and I sat in the edge of the forest, cold and damp creeping up through our clothes, the weak late-autumn sun blocked from where we sat by the canopy above our heads. Out in that sunshine, the opposing army marched. Rusty chainmail and stained leather creaked and clattered, the din of an army on the march. They were spread out in battle order, advancing across the open ground and into the trees in close-knit progression, those in the vanguard already out of sight among the branches.
This was it then. The end of our country. There were enough men here that without the warning that a patrol could have given them, there would be no hope for the army at home to be fully ready in time. We would be crushed, our king and kingdom swept away like a log in a torrent. I looked back to the runner, and saw him sitting there, head in his hands, his shoulders heaving as he could no longer bear the sight of the army marching past.
The three men with bows had run on ahead, corralled in the field by the army they had run right into. Being tied down as prisoners, their bows lay on the ground next to them, quivers held in the hands of the soldiers standing over their prone forms. One of them looked back at me, slumped under the tree on the edge of the woods, waiting to become a prisoner. His face was twisted from the angle, but even at a distance I could see the humiliation showing through his eyes. He turned away after a moment, face down into the ground, looking away from the rest of those few of us who had been on his side. The soldiers tying him up looked at him as he lay there, and let him be, just taking his weapons away. Bound only across his arms, he could have stood and tried to escape, but the bowman was not even on his feet for many long minutes, lying there in the snow and the damp.
The last shield bearer, the one who had not fallen prey to the treacherous snow, burst out past me. He was still fleeing, weapon up, a cry forming at his lips, fleeing right into the side of the enemy army. I think he was going to try and take a few with him before dying. It certainly looked that way, with his reckless charge into the flank of the marching troops. I watched him run by, pinned down under the weight of my own sorrows and made no move to stop his futile charge.
It is, like many of my memories, an image that I can recall as easily as the time it happened, and to this day would rather be rid of than remember. Several bowmen, a squad marching to the goal of taking our land, turned at an order from their commander. Bows raised and arrows nocked in smooth succession, the twang of the bowstrings as the arrows flew free, the colour of the sky overhead, it all forms a single, almost still image. It unfreezes a moment later, the arrows thudding and screeching as they hit the armour and punch on through. One of them got him in a vital area, and the shield bearer didn’t last long. I think he was dead almost as he hit the ground. He fell some thirty feet from where I sat, and his blood ran freely for a little, staining the snow crimson, a dark counterpoint to the white snow. The bowmen resumed their march, not even stopping to retrieve the arrows. That would be the job of the workers in the baggage train that came behind, picking the dead clean of all that he possessed and throwing it into the empty carts that would be filled with the leavings of those who had died on the fields of battle.
The runner and I sat there for over an hour, and the army marching past never broke stride, never slowed, and never acknowledged that we existed. Eventually they would, sending a few men from an older, reserve battalion to bind our hands, collect our weapons, and march us to the back, where they would hold us as prisoners until the fighting was done. The runner and I would have a wonderful view of the campaign that unfolded, held by the reserve battalion, poised to be called into battle should the need strongly arise, but otherwise content to watch it unfold from afar. I was surrounded by old soldiers, men who had fought on the other side of the war from me for several decades. Some had served for longer than I had been alive. One of them spoke of something called “one land”, a phrase that would come to be common place in the years that followed, but had not been heard on our side of the border. It was a simple phrase, but wrapped up in it were layers of meaning that I probably still do not understand. At the root lay this: Our two countries bled one another, day by day and year by year. Neither grew the stronger, and so the killing continued, a battle of attrition out of which neither could win. Even if one did, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, the winner bled so near to death that he could not assist himself to the rewards of the victor. However, as one land, the killing would stop, the farmers would no longer flee in terror as armies trampled their grain and sheep underfoot, and fed off of the land the families of the farmers needed for food and money. It would finally stop, and we could be one land. Culture and customs varied only slightly on either side of the border, and we spoke the same language, although their accent was truly barbaric, a rough guttural attack on the sweetness of our tongue.
I never could get the sight of that lonely body out of my mind, not even after seeing a field of the dead, mostly men from my country, fallen as they had defended her against the attack of the aggressor nation. Each time I looked down upon another corpse in the snow, there lay my shield bearer, arms splayed, weapon dropped from his grasp and bloodstained, the hilt dripping when lifted from the snow. After a time, he even began to invade my dreams, although I think he was more a symbol of all of the men who I had witnessed die. I would sleep and find myself with my eyes locked on that single moment, his sword held high, defiance and daring allowing him to charge on even as dead raised their bows against him. It would stay like that for hours in the night, neither going forward nor backwards, simply that one moment. There had to be some way for me to remember what he had done, a way that would be permanent, at least while I was alive. As a captive I had few options and no money, although there was the odd barter between myself and the soldiers holding me prisoner. One morning I walked out and asked them for a needle and some black ink. The sentry standing guard over our little pen looked at me, shrugged, and yelled at a comrade to get the supplies. The ink was clumped and coarse and the needle was dull, but some hours later, I had his name tattooed over my heart, the first one that I ever did. Even the runner who had seen that same event did not seem so affected, and looked at me strangely as I pushed the needle in. A few years ago, I had to renew that tattoo, faded with age and with wear. I went through the shops of the town, looking for a coarse ink and a dull needle. I would walk into stores and ask for their cheapest ink and their dullest needle. Proprietors looked at me and shrugged, resigned to what I wanted, for by then I had stopped by many times, always in search of a needle and ink. I sat at a mirror in my home, shirt off, tracing the order of the tattoos from the newest back to the oldest, faded and over my heart, and I pushed the needle in again, renewing the covenant I had made that day so long ago, sitting in the snow.
As you can tell from where I am speaking to you now, “One Land” did work, successfully defeating the country I was a soldier of, and erasing it from the maps, although not from the minds or the ideals of many. The victorious living made no demands for payments, and almost no looting, killing, or debauchery took place as they marched through the city. Instead, there was a parade, an instalment of our ruler as a subservient monarch to theirs, and little else, except for the disbanding of our army. Theirs moved in as a replacement, keeping the peace and behaving themselves admirably. The conquerors would let those of us from the defeated side join their army, although we were dispersed among much larger bands of their soldiers. Ever since then, I have fought on their side, keeping alive the idea that I still fight my country, and that I still serve my homeland, province of an empire though it may be.
My duty requires that I watch men die, that I order them to die, and that duty and the covenant in a cold, damp tree in the snow also order me to remember them. I began here, over my heart, old, faded and roughly done, a prisoner’s needle and a pot of cold ink. I learned the techniques as I spiralled outwards, ever larger rings across my breast remembering those who fell under my command. The tattoos become clearer as they move outward, finer needles, better ink, and a steadier hand all contributing. Each has their own snapshot of memory too, a little spot where they are held dear. It is not always the moment of death that is the memory. It has been a smiling face as they receive promotion to the next rank, the tears of a man who hears that his wife has died in childbirth, or the image of a face at a window, looking out into the pouring rain. I recite each one, starting from the beginning, whenever a new name and face is added to the memories. By now, it is a long process, but one performed as a ceremony over the newly deceased, and at the waning of the full moon, the fading away of a good life as the light flickers, and dies.
It is a long process for me and one that is soon to be over, as my time in the army comes to an end, but the memorials will remain, a last honour to soldiers left behind and forgotten by all but a few. My next step will be to write their stories, their stories as I knew them. One moment to capture a man, to preserve him in time so that his name does not die, and he does not become a carving on a rock, but is remembered for what he was. I will start, as always, with my shield bearer, lying in the snow, the impetus behind my new life.
I’ll never forget his name, not while it is right here, tattooed onto my heart.
24
Apr
Breaking an Empire was a short story I set out to write to bring Unfolding a New Continent up to the world limit I wanted it to be at before I started editing. It was supposed to be 25,000 words of backstory as to why the two main kingdoms of The Four Part Land hate one another so much. Effectively, it was a longer take on those history segments over on the main page. It turned out quite differently than that, for me. Oh, the story went where it was supposed to. I couldn’t change that without rewriting the setting. But I didn’t expect the six characters to mean this much to me. Every other time I’ve finished a longer piece of work I’ve been happy. It feels like a great accomplishment, and then with a little polish it’ll be great. This… this feels a little more like a loss, like closing the chapter on something that shouldn’t quite yet be over. I think much of that feeling stems from the fact I couldn’t give them a happy ending. They were born to lose, and I struggled against that by the time I got to the end of the story. I found myself writing the last battle and wanting them to win, and so although I’d thought long and hard about killing them off, I couldn’t do it.
30,000 words from when I introduced them, here is the conclusion to the story of Rhyfelwyr, Locsyn, Taflen, Gwyth, Llofruddiwr, and Rhocas. I will miss them.
The Veryan line was forced back a step, as the mass of Lianese soldiers pushed up the hill. Gywth cursed, finding himself fighting a man even larger than he was, and the Veryan soldier had to use his shield to block three straight blows from the heavy. On the fourth, Gywth caught the incoming strike on his shield, holding the arm up above the heavy’s head. Seeing the opening, Taflen stepped forward and thrust into the exposed armpit, severing the vessels there. The heavy collapsed backwards, blood pouring from the wound. Another came towards the soldiers, and this heavy was struck down in the same manner, having not seen Gwyth and Taflen use the tactic. It required great strength and effort and luck, and even the mighty giant was tiring as the battle drew on. He and Taflen had amassed in front of themselves a pile of corpses, but around them the line was being pushed back, and back, as arrows and javelins arced overhead to strike down upon the Veryan soldiers. The shield wall was holding, safe from the projectiles, but even so, the numbers were dwindling, and it bowed dangerously inwards where the Lianese heavy infantry had struck. Most of them were gone now, but they had done grievous damage to the western half of the Veryan ring, and troops had been pulled from the east to shore up the sagging lines.
Llofruddiwr found the pickings easy against the more lightly armoured Lianese troops that were now the main foe. The heavies had given him much trouble, for his usual style of twin long-knives worked ill against men encased in such plate, but he had found the openings, and a small pile of them lay dead before the assassin’s feet. Now, against these conscripts and foot soldiers of Niam Liad, Llofruddiwr found openings came freely, and he struck and struck and struck again, each thrust from his blades dropping another Lianese soldier. Soon, he had built a low wall of corpses about him, and those who still dared to challenge him needed to climb over it, exposing themselves to Llofruddiwr’s flashing knives. He paused in his swift slaying, looking about to see that he was a lone Veryan soldier, a bastion out amidst the sea of Lianese, and only his fearsome skill and the shaky morale of the Lianese had kept him alive. The shield wall was some ten paces behind him, engaged with Lianese soldiers. Bursting over the wall of corpses, Llofruddiwr ploughed into the back of the Lianese, his long-knives sweeping open a path to the Veryan lines. The Veryan wall split for a moment, allowing the assassin to dive through, and then closed up again, shields once more overlapping as they faced down at their foes.
The battle was hours old, and still the Lianese came up the hill, sending their nation’s men in a great tide that would break again and again upon the firm rocks of the Veryan wall. But such resistance had a terrible price, and now the backs of the Veryan soldiers were nearly at the ring of wagons that marked the last stand. The firemages huddled within those wagons, fearful and exhausted. Most were still asleep, not recovered from their efforts of the morning. Those few who were awake could barely move, and staggering to their feet made them faint and ill. There would be no help from the firemages this day.
Squads had broken and died, and now men fought shoulder to shoulder with those they did not know, and only the ferocious discipline of Glanhaol Fflamboethi kept the shield wall whole. The conscripts from Niam Liad threw themselves against it in a fury, urged on by their officers. The Lianese commanders could sense that the tipping point was near, for both sides fought with a fury born of desperation and exhaustion, and soon the facade of one force or another would crack, and that would mark the end of it.
The Lianese skirmishers had all but exhausted their arsenal of arrows and javelins, and now the only ones that came over the line were pulled from the bodies of dead soldiers. With no more glass spheres, the few Veryan soldiers who were not in the line, including many of the cutters, had taken to throwing back all of the javelins and knives that they found, and this took a toll upon the lightly armoured Lianese soldiers. Cutters and quartermasters and scribes and those others who supported the army but did not normally fight had donned armour, and many were in the front ranks of the line, trying to hold back the Lianese soldiers.
The Lianese pressed hardest against the western shield wall, a pressure that had never relented from the moment the heavy infantry had bowed the line. Only by retreating in measured steps had the Veryan soldiers recovered the shape of their wall, and now with the battle reaching its peak, the line was often but two soldiers thick. Wounded men who could barely stand were going back into the lines, holding shields in both hands as they staggered into place. They could not fight, no, but perhaps they could block a blow or three, and when the time came, their crippled bodies could take a strike to save the few unharmed soldiers left.
It was at this point that shouts came from the eastern wall, and it bowed dangerously, pressed backwards until the Veryan soldiers stood against the wagons. The Lianese had snuck the few remaining heavy infantry around to the eastern side of the hill, and brought them up through the press of conscripts. Formed into a wedge, they smashed into the centre of the Veryan line, and broke through. Conscripts began climbing over the wagons to get at the wounded within the ring, and only a ferocious defence by the officers and the cutters shored that hole in the line. The force of heavy infantry had split into two, each seeking to turn the end of the circle they had broken.
Rhyfelwyr saw what they were doing and shouted at his squad. Breaking from the line at a run, the five soldiers shot across the narrow gap to find themselves athwart ten heavies. Gwyth, Rhyfelwyr, Taflen and Locsyn formed into a short shield wall, and pressed against the heavies, using all the skill they could muster to blunt the strength of their advance. The Veryan soldiers around them fought desperately, stemming the tide of conscripts who followed behind and around.
The breach held, for the moment, but even a lightning glance showed Rhy that the soldiers fighting at the wagon wall were soon to fall. If the line did not throw out the Lianese interlopers and once more form the circle about the top of the hill, the battle would be lost. Growling out orders, Rhy pushed the squad forward, driving his sword into the gut of the enemy before him again and again. The blows clanged away off of the metal, but it stole his foe’s balance, forced to reach down to defend himself, and so when Rhy slammed his shield into heavy’s helmet, the soldier fell over backwards, stunned and off-balance. Taking advantage of the confusion and poor footing the fallen foe caused, Llofruddiwr leapt from his perch atop a wagon onto the backs of two of the heavies. Heavily armoured though they were, the helmets had not been designed to stop an upward thrust from behind, and Llof slammed his long-knives under the helmets of the heavies, pitching them to the ground, dead in an instant. A fourth heavy fell, this to a crushing blow from Gwyth, and the others tried to step back and regroup. Locsyn and Taflen did not let them, stepping out of the shield wall for leaping strikes at the unprotected joins on the back of the knee. Two more fell, and then it was five against four, and the squad swiftly overcame these brutes, sending their spirits winging away.
Once more against conscripts, the soldiers of Bhreac Veryan closed the gap in the shield wall, once more securing the perimeter about the wagons. Rhy spared himself a glance to where the other force of heavy infantry had been. There, the Lianese soldiers had made a better go of it, for they had taken two to one or three to one from the Veryan troops, and the line was ghastly thin, barely able to withstand the mass pressed against it. The Lianese were ill-trained, farmers, peasants, sailors, men who had never been in a fight before in their lives, and they faced a hard core of Veryan veterans who had been campaigning for months. But the Lianese outnumbered the Veryan soldiers by a great margin, and on the strength of those numbers, the Lianese would likely win. Rhyfelwyr sighed and shook his head in sadness as he parried away the attack of a foolish boy and cut him down. Two kingdoms were being broken today, for Niam Liad would take generations to recover from the scorched earth and murdered manhood that lay all about, while Hymerodraeth Heula was fighting against the oncoming twilight, for the military might of Bhreac Veryan was scattered about this unnamed hilltop, dead or dying.
The Veryan army had lost eight out of ten men and from up above the thin ring that protected the wagons was no more than a shadow against the horde of peasants. Greater still was the army of corpses that lay all about, for the Lianese had lost so many men they were forced to carry the dead down the hill just to have avenues of attack. Bodies were piling up at the bottom of the hill, forming great mounds of waste, and it was into this scene that a brilliant flame burst, arcing in a wide band over the heads of the Veryan soldiers and down into the Lianese mass. One of the firemages had risen, and Rhyfelwyr turned his head to see Rhocas staggering, his face drawn with a look of starvation, but his hand upraised as the flame jetted out into the Lianese soldiers, incinerating many. Rhocas played the fire in a slow sweep, burning a hole in the Lianese attack that gave a few moments of respite to the tired Veryan soldiers. Then the firemage turned his attention to the mass of flags that signalled a Lianese command post. A great ball of flame flew from his hands, floating overhead to smash down upon the officers, spraying fire and sparks everywhere. Crying out in joy that the firemages had come to save them, the Veryan soldiers pressed down the hill, the sight of the flame giving them new strength and purpose. The morale of the Lianese had been severely weakened by the horrendous losses of the day, and the combination of fire and renewed assault by a foe they thought was nearly finished broke the Lianese, and the conscripts turned and fled down the hill. With no officers and precious few regular soldiers left to command them, the rout became total, as the Veryan charged after, breaking those few pockets of resistance.
Rhocas had collapsed into a coma after the ball of fire, and was convulsing upon the ground as cutters sought to aid him. They tried all manner of treatment, and were able to still the jerking of his limbs, but the mage was wan and pale. The cutters carried him off to the wagons, where he was laid down under a thick blanket. They would wait and see, for there was little they could do.
Rhyfelwyr looked about the remains of the camp, and at the field of death that the hill had become. It ran red from the very summit down to the base, grass stained and sticky with blood. He was sore from many nicks and bruises, as were the others in his squad. Gwyth, as was his way, had several deep slices, but none appeared to have truly harmed the giant. They were amongst the lucky few. Most of Glanhaol Fflamboethi was dead or dying, screaming out their last breaths in anguish. Even the firemages had not made it out unscathed, for protected as they had been by the cutters and the officers in the very centre of the army, when that attack had broken the ring, skirmishers had managed to slay several of them where they lay. This was no longer an army. At best, it was the broken remnant of one, but after today, Rhyfelwyr thought that no one who had been here could fight again.
That night, he and the squad gathered the belongings and the weapons and the armour from their friends, and stacked them high in wagons no longer needed for food. Then the bodies of the Veryan dead were formed into a massive pyramid, and a firemage, still shaky and weak, played flame across its face. The funeral pyre lit the sky for miles around, and even the fleeing Lianese stopped in their tracks to look at the column of fire that split the night. Rhyfelwyr wished he could say a prayer for the dead, but he had nothing within him now, merely an empty shell, scourged clean of any thought. As the pyre burned on, exhaustion claimed the Veryan soldiers, and they sank down where they stood, and as they slept they became indistinguishable from the dead about them.
The next morn no one stirred, and it was only as the sun reached its peak in the sky and began to descend that the first of the Veryan soldiers rose from their sleep. Gathering their belongings and forming up into a long column, Glanhaol Fflamboethi marched to the north. Rhyfelwyr’s squad had been broken apart, and each man placed in command of their own, but it was understood there would be no fighting, for neither side had any more stomach for blood. Nor did any of the men of Rhyfelwyr’s squad. They would turn in their blades at Bhreac Veryan. Rhocas woke late that day, sitting up in the wagon in which he had been laid. Movement was difficult and breathing more so, and he would live the last few years of his life as a cripple, for the strain he had placed on his body that day was too great.
The sun set that night as it had so many others, but this night it set on Hymerodraeth Heula and the dreams of men.
22
Apr
3500 words today, perhaps my best day writing for this story. Another day like this, and the story will probably be over. The goal is to finish it this weekend, once that is done, it means the end of Unfolding a New Continent, which I can then begin to edit. That will be a rather fun experience, working on my second book and getting it ready for publication. Of course, I need to do more of that on my first as well, I appear to like writing a lot more than I do the other work that goes with being an author. Enough of me wittering on, here’s 3500 words of Breaking an Empire.
The next morning saw the squad taking their place as part of the vanguard of the army, leading the march south, towards their foes in Niam Liad. Rhyfelwyr fell into the steady pace of the march, giving his mind leave to wander. He had spent many a day in such a state, and today he wondered at his own state. He was, charitably, heading towards late middle age, and had been fighting for a great many years, but he had nothing when he went home. He had no house, no family, and his only friends were those with whom he had been fighting for so many years, the squad. At this point, they were his only connection beyond himself, and, he reflected, he was probably theirs. The squad had been through so many years together, resisting all attempts of the officers to promote them or break them apart, but all they knew was the camaraderie and chaos of the battlefield. Rhy pondered what it would be like to have a family, to find someone who loved him, to have a child he could play with, to know peace. He sighed and shook his head. That dream should have died long ago. He had made his choice, enrolling over and over again, well past the required years of service. At the end of each campaign, he was offered retirement, and each time he turned it down, instead walking back out into the field, sword and shield in hand. Perhaps he was too afraid of civilian life, or of what would happen to him, but, whatever the reason, he turned away from peace, and back to war.
Rhyfelwyr’s thoughts continued on in that vein for many hours, and his face was still pensive when the tents went up that evening. Locsyn and Taflen saw the expression and exchanged glances, knowing full well what it meant. Everyone in the squad had had that look at times, even Llof, although with him it was hard to tell what it had meant. The two of them grabbed Gwyth and went to find a fire to drink at, leaving the sergeant to his thoughts. Llof, as usual, was nowhere to be found.
From then on, the days passed in thick profusion, until Glanhaol Fflamboethi stood but a few days outside the walls of Niam Liad. Now, close to their enemy’s citadel, the officers tripled the patrols, sending them out in profusion and in strength, less patrols than they were raiding parties. With the information from Llofruddiwr, some of those patrols went north, looking for the army that came along behind the Veryan forces, seeking to trap them. Reports came back from all of the scouts, confirming what Llofruddiwr had guessed: Niam Liad was occupied by archers and airmages, and to the north lay the great mass of the Lianese troops. The army settled down and dug a small fortress out of the rock and earth, building fortifications around atop a hill while the officers sat in conference and debated strategy and tactics. The debate lasted many hours, and it was early in the morning of the next day when Rhocas arrived, bearing orders for Rhyfelwyr and his squad.
“Come back to us at last, have you?”
Rhocas shook his head. “Other way around. Your squad and a few more have been assigned to me to keep me and some of the other mages safe during the upcoming battle. Mostly from archers and Lianese mages, or as a last reserve. We head for Niam Liad today.”
Rhy nodded. He’d known they would go for the city first. That was the mistake that the Lianese had made, thinking they could get to the Veryan soldiers before the city fell or was destroyed. The Lianese army might destroy Glanhaol Fflamboethi afterwards, but Niam Liad would be a ruin too. “Burning?”
“To the ground.” Rhocas turned and departed, to gather up the other squads that would join with him. Rhyfelwyr looked at the other soldiers in the squad, and they began packing their belongings, readying themselves for today’s march. Tomorrow would be quite a day.
The next morning saw the whole army on the march. Today, the scouts were pulled in tight, well within shouting distance of the main body of the army. There was no point in losing soldiers, not now. The firemages were spread out amongst the army, little knots here and there, spaced well apart so that the airmages of Niam Liad could not strike them down all at once. Rhyfelwyr knew that he and his men were supposed to do all in their power to keep the mages alive, even including sacrificing themselves to stop incoming weapons. They were the only hope the army had of making it back up the peninsula alive.
The land around Niam Liad was rolling plains and moors, grasslands that had once been full of grain and cattle, but were now burned to the ground. The ash crunched underfoot, as not quite burned stalks shattered and broke. Taflen wondered at the significance of marching to war on a bed of ash, and thought that someday he would have to research and write on the matter. Today was not that day, and he gripped his shield tighter, looking over the rim at the sweeping expanse of the city before him. He could feel the strong breath of the wing, and a tang in the air that had to be the salt from the sea, and he wondered at the Lianese love of archery, in such a windy clime. Then again, there was no cover for hunting here, so bow and arrow would be the only way.
Glanhaol Fflamboethi shifted its formation, changing from a column to a line abreast, facing Niam Liad. Atop the ramparts distant, Locsyn could see the dancing pennants and deadly soldiers, each preparing in their own way for the day to come. The numbers of men standing atop the wall was few, but some of those were airmages, and there may well be more down below in the courtyards. Despite the consistent failings of the Lianese soldiers, Loc thought they might still have a trick or two up their sleeves. Looking down towards the city, he could see a series of brown patches cut into the earth, making up a ring about the walls. They were range markers, and when the Veryan soldiers crossed that line, they could expect to be showered with arrows. Further in, there were more marks, and those must designate the javelins. Good thing that the Veryan troops would not close with the city.
The horn sounded once, then twice, and the Veryan soldiers moved forward at a slow march, shields held high and facing to the front. The Lianese watched them come, and upon the battlements they readied their bows, placing quivers against the crenellations and waiting for the order to fire. Glanhaol Fflamboethi strode closer, pride stiffening the posture of all the soldiers within her, until they stopped a hundred yards outside the brown marks. Another horn sounded, and the mages turned inwards, gathering their strength for the first attack on the city. The battle paused for a moment, until the first of the giant fireballs arced upwards, aimed not to strike the walls, but to fly high overhead, and come down within Niam Liad.
The first wave launched, the mages disappeared into the squads surrounding them, taking up sword and shield like normal soldiers as the army shifted itself about, disguising their positions with the movement. As the fireballs closed with the city, great gusts of wind rose from the walls beneath to meet them. The howling gales were able to push back some of the fire, but more crashed within the city, and from their vantage point, the soldiers of Glanhaol Fflamboethi could see buildings catch alight. A cheer went up from the gathered troops, and with it another round of fireballs. These were attacked earlier by the airmages, and less of them made it through to Niam Liad.
A triple blast sounded on the horn, signalling a change in targets for the firemages, and this time, as the first wave of fire arced upwards, a second wave of long sheets of flame sped outwards, aimed to scour the battlements of any who stood there. Treating the fireballs as the primary targets once more, the airmages were able to stop almost all of them, but they turned their attention to the sheets of flame too late, and while they were able to blow holes in a few places, the sheets swept over the wall, catching many of the soldiers who were on guard, and some of the airmages. Others jumped backwards, flinging themselves off the walls and into the courtyards below to avoid the scorching blast. Dead or injured, it mattered not, for they were out of the fight for now. Seizing the moment of distraction in the Lianese ranks, the firemages of Bhreac Veryan expended themselves, launching wave upon wave of fire into the city, spreading it out so that it would catch in all the many quarters and cantons of Niam Liad.
Another cheer rose from the soldiers of BhreacVeryan, for before them burned the capital of their enemy, a golden glow reaching up to touch the sky. The soldiers left on the walls turned inwards, racing down from their positions to grab buckets and try and dampen the fire, that or flee the city on the trading vessels in the harbour. Either way, it mattered not. Glanhaol Fflamboethi had achieved their goal, breaking apart and punishing the rebellious cities of the southern peninsula. Only Horaim was left standing of those who rebelled, and perhaps that would be changed on the way north. It would take decades for Miath Mhor and Niam Liad to reclaim their former prominence, if the inferno continued to rage as it did now.
Once more the horn sounded, this time the call for retreat. Work done, the army turned to the north. There was one more battle they must face this day, and without the firemages, who were too exhausted to offer more than token assistance. Rhyfelwyr had been forced to catch Rhocas after his last blast, for the young man had fainted to the ground, along with all of the other mages about him. Now, they rode back amongst the supply wagons, tended by the cutters, the mages ashen-faced and shivering, their bodies expended. Rhyfelwyr thought that some of them might not make it through the day, their bodies so exhausted that they would fall into the sleep from which they would not wake.
Now it was the turn of the soldiers of Bhreac Veryan, for they had to fight their way to the north through the bulk of the Lianese army, and that would be a trial the likes of which they had not faced before, for the army that stood across from them was far larger than they, at least in numbers. Somewhere, the Lianese had been able to conjure thousands more troops out of thin air, although Rhy and his squad suspected that the numbers had been inflated with many sailors and farmers brought in from the surrounding lands, and that only a small core of the army was well trained in the arts of war. Still, there was one cause for worry: Llofruddiwr and others had reported the presence of a new type of soldier, Lianese heavy infantry covered from head to foot in armour and carrying large shields, with each holding a flail. There were only a few hundred of them, but they marched at the head and centre of the Lianese forces, and would likely be used as a block, while the great numbers of the Lianese wings swept around and into the flanks of the smaller Veryan forces.
The officers of Glanhaol Fflamboethi had not given up hope of avoiding the battle, or at least choosing the grounds on their own terms, and so the march away from the city was angled towards the eastern coast, in the hopes that they could slip around the end of the more ponderous Lianese forces. Hours passed from that morning’s engagement, until a cry went up from the scouts on the western side of the Veryan army. They had finally been spotted by a scout from Niam Liad. Thus warned, the officers of Glanhaol Fflamboethi began hunting for a location that would let them make a stand, and found one in a small hill that gave a good view of the surrounding countryside. It would offer a little in the way of advantage, and perhaps delay the Lianese assault, which would give the firemages more time to recover, and perhaps even become a factor in the battle, although that was wishful thinking, as far as Rhyfelwyr and Talfen were concerned. Today would be a battle won or lost on the strength of Veryan arms.
Officers spread out amongst the men, positioning the squads in various ways, forming a ring about the crest of the hill, with the wagons and the supplies drawn up at the very peak. The soldiers started digging with a will, forming a shallow trench perhaps five feet in front of their lines, mounding up the extracted dirt into a small wall. It would provide little protection against the arrows and javelins of the Lianese forces, but it should dent the strength of their charges. Likewise, the wagons at the top of the hill were drawn into a circle, where they would be the last fall back should the army need it. If the fighting reached the wagons, though, the battle was lost for Veryan, and the soldiers would likely fight to the last man, for after the campaign so far, no quarter would be given nor asked.
Rhyfelwyr and his squad were placed to face westward, the direction from which the main thrust of Lianese soldiers would come. And come they did, in a wave that spread across the horizon and made the numbers of the Veryan soldiers seem paltry and few by comparison. But that wave also gave the Veryan soldiers hope, for, as Taflen pointed out, the soldiers on the wings carried little in the way of weapons or armour, and some seemed to have nothing more than daggers, clubs or sickles. The morale of those troops would be low, and they would break easily. If only a few firemages were available to cause that break. Locsyn returned from where he had gone to check on Rhocas, and shook his head. None of the mages were awake, and most still had the ashen face and shallow breath of one on death’s doorstep.
Had the Veryan soldiers been given more time, they would have turned the hill into a killing ground, with strong fortifications and a field of caltrops scattered before the trenches, but with the Lianese soldiers coming on, it was all they could do to finish the trench they had laid out before them, and position themselves in the deep shield wall surrounding the summit.
It was late in the afternoon by the time the Lianese soldiers reached the foot of the hill. There, they paused, letting the wings circle round until the base of the hill was engulfed in Lianese troops, although the eastern side of the hill was facing only ill-armed conscripts with a thin screen of skirmishers in front of them. The western side of the hill looked down on the heavy infantry of Niam Liad, each swathed in glistening layers of metal and wood. With just a glance, Gwyth could tell the armour would take many a direct blow, and so he told his comrades around him to go for the joins of the armour, where it would be weakest. Rhyfelwyr and the others nodded; it was likewise with the insectoid Veryan suits. Both armies waited there in silence, until the call sounded from within the Lianese lines. The heavy infantry led the slow march up the hill, for there was no way they could charge.
Rhy thought for a moment, then shouted. “Tip the heavies into the trench! They can’t get up!” Indeed, it looked as if the armour weighed enough that that would be the case, and Rhy sincerely hoped it would be. As the front line of the Lianese soldiers came up the hill, the skirmishers began to release their javelins and arrows. Shooting and throwing uphill robbed the projectiles of some of their strength, and the Veryan soldiers were able to catch most of them on their shields, but some few got through, leaving gaps in the Veryan line that were filled from behind, the wounded dragged back to the cutters. The Lianese forces closed closer, and a horn sounded. The Veryan lines took two steps backwards, contracting. Rhyfelwyr looked to his left and his right, nodding at Gwyth and Locsyn, and each withdrew a glass sphere from the pouches hanging at their belts. Each soldier had been issued two spheres for today, the last from the army’s supplies. The Lianese lines had sped up to a slow job, and had almost reached the shallow trench.
A strident note flew overhead, and the Veryan soldiers threw the spheres. The glass containers crashed into the faces and visors of the Lianese troops, showering them with shards and glass dust, leaving them in milling confusion, breaking the momentum of the charge. Wishing they could take advantage of the mess, the Veryan soldiers hung back, for the glass dust took no notice of friend or foe, and could easily blind Veryan troops if they charged in too soon. The front lines of the Lianese stumbled back down the hill, faces bleeding and barely able to see where they were going, taking with them some of the dangerous heavy infantry. Gathering themselves once more, the Lianese stepped into the trench and over, and as they did so, the Veryan soldiers roared and charged, slamming into the Lianese with all the momentum that the extra two steps up the hill had given them, using their shields as battering rams to knock the Lianese troops backwards and down the hill. Most of the Veryan front rank fell down, launching themselves fully into their foes, but into the chaos stepped the second rank, and their swords played havoc with the scattered and befuddled Lianese soldiers.
On the eastern side of the hill, the skirmishers were unable to stand the force of the Veryan charge, and they broke, leaving the conscripts to face the might of the Veryan veterans on their own. The conscripts wavered, but held for a time, the sheer numbers of them providing a counter to the skill of the Veryan soldiers. A single soldier might kill three or four of the conscripts, but if his sword got caught or his shield fouled, then a Lianese would leap atop him, using weight to bear the Veryan soldier to the ground where he could be overwhelmed. Seeing what was happening when they fought as individuals, the Veryan soldiers on that side of the hill regrouped, falling back into the shield wall. This served them much better, for the Lianese recruits had no training in how to break a wall of this kind, and without shields or armour of their own, they had little chance against the heavily armed and armoured Veryan soldiers.
On the western side of the hill, matters were much more dire. The initial charge had bowled over or killed a great many of the heavy infantry and the supporting troops, but, much to Rhyfelwyr’s dismay, the brutes were standing back upright and marching forwards to rejoin the fray. It appeared their armour was not quite as heavy as it appeared, and that they would have to be killed after all. Pressed back by the numbers of Lianese soldiers, Rhyfelwyr and his squad fell into the shield wall next to the other Veryan soldiers, slipping back into the old rhythm of front ranks defending, second ranks stabbing over and around. Rhyfelwyr felt Locsyn behind him, and grinned, for this was a dance the two men had perfected many years ago, and as Lianese soldier after Lianese soldier came forward, they fell to the trickery and exquisite timing of the two old soldiers. Until before them stood a heavy infantry, his massive shield covering the entire left side of his armoured body. Swords flickering in and out, the two soldiers sought openings in the guard of the Lianese soldier, but none presented itself, and the heavy countered by striking with his flail. Unlike a normal weapon, which he could catch on the edge of his shield, Rhy saw that if he did that here, the flail head would swoop over and continue its motion, striking without impediment. Up and down the line, the heavies were entering the fight on the side of Niam Liad, and the situation was looking grim for the shield wall of the Veryan soldiers.
21
Apr
Here is one of the short excerpts from Unfolding a New Continent, the next book in The Four Part Land, that I’m currently working on and that Breaking an Empire is also a part of. I’ll have a flash fiction piece tonight as well, as I get back into the writing groove after a weekend away.
There was little that could be said about the man who stood in front of them that day, for the soldiers saw nothing more than a nomad under the dark hood that covered his face. From what was remembered, he was normal, a man of average height and unremarkable features. Perhaps the only thing that stood out about him was his hands, large and with bony fingers that protruded from the edge of the robe that he wore. That was all, according to the reports that came back from the scouts afterwards. He was a meaningless man, and so the patrol brought him into the camp, where he could be interviewed and poked and prodded until the reason that he stood alone on a hilltop in the plain sight of ten thousand men became clear. Especially when those men were members of an army who had declared war on the nation that had birthed the nomad. It was a strange thing, they concluded, that he stood there. It was only later that they found out how and why and where, and by then all of the information would only serve to decorate the pages of the history books, but that was an important task too, and so the tales were written down, knowledge passed on through the annals of history.
With little known about the nomad, he was brought into the tent of a junior lieutenant, one who would interview captured soldiers and other men. What transpired from that point onwards, well, perhaps people do know, perhaps they do not. All that is understood is that within minutes, the bivouac of the army’s commander, as well as three of his most important generals, had gone up in flames, and in the centre of that ring of ash was found the bodies of all the men who had been in those tents, plus one more: that of the strange nomad. It was said that he was sent in as an assassin, or that he had come of his own free will, but people knew little indeed about his habits even after that assault. His name was never written down, his tribe was unknown. For all that was known about him, he could have been a spirit come from the desert to protect the land upon which he had died. That idea was led credence when the desert roiled up in a great sandstorm, one that lasted for two days, pinning the camp beneath yards of thick, clogging ash. Many men died in their tents, trapped as the cinders slowly filled the exits and buried the soldiers, leaving them to gasp their last underneath the burning sands.
Eventually, some brave few souls left the camp and fled back to civilization, and it was they who brought home the tales of the terrible man and his fire, and the following storm that buried the army beneath a blanket of white ashes. People scoffed at the soldiers’ tale of the spirits of the land fighting back against those who marched across them, but when it became autumn and the army had not yet returned, then they began to listen. When winter passed with neither word nor note, listening became proclaiming, as speakers rallied to the notion that the land itself had swallowed their brethren. When winter became spring, and an expedition sent to find them returned empty handed, then it became lore, and that lore was written into the books. Those who cross the Burning Sand, it is said, will feel the wrath of the spirits of the land, for theirs is the way of silence and of death, and all who cross them shall suffer wrath.
And so it was that those who had seen the great burning became old, and began to die, and the tales that they told slid from lore and history into myth and legend, as those who came afterwards believed them not, and saw not a desert that could swallow whole an army. And so the passages were excised from history, and shifted into the realm of the forgotten knowledge, those things that had been true once upon a time and were now little more than stories to be told about an old and infirm age, without the learning of today’s great men. Why, even today the army sets out on a march across the Burning Sand, full of hope and vim that it will conquer the ancient enemy on the far side.