{"id":624,"date":"2012-05-03T07:37:28","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=624"},"modified":"2012-05-03T07:37:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:37:28","slug":"bloody-peasants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=624","title":{"rendered":"Bloody Peasants"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an excerpt from an upcoming Splintered Lands story titled Kingdoms in Conflict.<\/em><\/p>\n

\tIudas grumbled when he looked out at the scene before him. It was all just taking too long. Too damn long. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cGather up those bloody peasants!\u201d <\/p>\n

\tHearing his voice becoming annoyed, his men moved faster. They had long ago learned what Iudas’s annoyance could do to a person. Soon enough, the villagers had been gathered in from all the little farms that surrounded the hamlet, and tucked into a small mass in front of Iudas. He sighed at the pitiful looks and thin bodies. What a worthless lot of cretins he ruled.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cYou have been selected to join me, to fight for me, as we wage war on the horrid beast Insw\u00e1n! He has invaded our lands, burned down our villages, slain our people! He sends spies to take what little we have, to steal from us! Now we bring him retribution. And you shall be the agents of our retribution!\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOne of the peasants looked around, raised a hand, and spoke. \u201cBegging your pardon, lord, but we aren’t much of a retribution. We’re just poor farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tIudas gestured. A soldier rammed a dagger into the peasant’s gut, then ripped it sideways. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cAnyone else want to interrupt me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe peasants cowered in fear.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cYou’re learning. Good. That puts you above the village of idiots I burned down. With them inside of it, mind you.\u201d Iudas took a slug of wine from a skin hanging off his saddle. \u201cSoldiers, you know the drill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe healthy men were separated out from the rest, and a small cadre lead them off at a fast march, heading in the direction of G\u00e1rh\u00e9ap, Iudas’s capital. There they would be given basic weaponry and training. Very basic, sadly, much as Iudas wished he could do better. But his lands were poor in metal, and what little he had was not going to be wasted on illiterate peasants. They would be little more than fodder against the walls of Abbodd\u00f3m, anyway. <\/p>\n

\tOnce the new recruits were safely out of earshot, the remaining soldiers started pulling attractive women from amongst the rest who stood there. This was their reward, taken from every village captured. The prettiest of them all went to Iudas, although he thought that wasn’t saying much. Mud-covered farm peasants weren’t really his type, but he made do with what he could find on campaign. It was mostly just a form of tithing, anyway.<\/p>\n

\tShouts and cries began to echo around the little village. Iudas listened for a moment, then nodded. His men had been given strict orders to impregnate as many of the women as possible, rather than to harm them. After all, the world contained far too few people. The Breaking and the plagues that had followed has seen to that. <\/p>\n

\tPondering over what might have been if the world still stood as it once had, he took the peasant girl by the arm and lead her into a hovel. He was feeling gentle today. Mostly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an excerpt from an upcoming Splintered Lands story titled Kingdoms in Conflict. Iudas grumbled when he looked out at the scene before him. It was all just taking too long. Too damn long. \u201cGather up those bloody peasants!\u201d Hearing his voice becoming annoyed, his men moved faster. They had long ago learned what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-a4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":626,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=626","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":0},"title":"Village Fair","date":"May 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an excerpt from an upcoming Splintered Lands story titled Kingdoms in Conflict. \u201cIf that is a precursor to the battle for Abbodd\u00f3m, then we have already won. They die almost man for man with our poorer troops.\u201d H\u00e1lsung gestured at the carnage around them. \u201cYou're an idiot.\u201d Iudas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":627,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=627","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":1},"title":"Fire Slings","date":"May 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an excerpt from an upcoming Splintered Lands story titled Kingdoms in Conflict. Galdere muttered and cursed and shouted at the soldiers that reported to him as they struggled to fit together the second of the lever-armed devices. The technologically-minded soldier still hadn't come up with a name for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":652,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=652","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":2},"title":"Returning Home","date":"April 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The seventh and last installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One. Once Ellgis had healed sufficiently to use an axe, he set about building a raft, while Fryca organized their notes and belongings. Once both tasks were complete, they set out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":444,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=444","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":3},"title":"Creating a Magic System, Part 2","date":"February 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1\u00a0-\u00a0Part 2\u00a0-\u00a0Part 3\u00a0-\u00a0Part 4\u00a0-\u00a0Part 5\u00a0-\u00a0Part 6 Last time, I looked at how Strength and Prevalence affect both a magic system and a setting. This time around, I'm going to look at Style and Powers. First off, a little background on each. Style is how the interactions with magic are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tips"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":372,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=372","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":4},"title":"Born of a Broken Land","date":"November 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a sudden burst of flash fiction inspiration. Yes, I should have been writing NaNo (I didn't today), but I'll cope. Hope you like it. The earth split apart, and the seas rushed in, and where once there had stood fertile land, now no sounds could be heard but the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":284,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=284","url_meta":{"origin":624,"position":5},"title":"The L\u00e6ccan Continent","date":"September 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The continent of L\u00e6ccan is a wet, dismal place, overrun by swamps and rivers and mangrove nests in the south, and cold and eternally locked in the grip of snow and ice in the north. Foetid jungles and pestilent lands cover the northern slopes of the great mountain range that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tarranau"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}