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Chapter 14
After what seemed like an entire day of formation planning, battle strategies and logistical drivel we were finally dismissed and allowed to leave. By the time we left the tent, all the Towergunners had left their bays and were positioned at the roads leaving camp. The hissing noise their engines made was grating to the ear, but was something everyone got used to. At the camp’s main road other companies were marching off to wherever they were being sent off to. I could see some of their faces; they all had the looks of frustration on them.
The same look that even I and the officers of the 3rd
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The perimeter we formed was basically still the Hammer formation but with us surrounding the Towergunners and the Captain. Lurti and Trosdig were then called off to an officer’s meeting; ironically now that I wasn’t a scribe I had felt rather envious of my replacement Leris. All these events, the expression on the Captain’s face, it all felt rather intriguing. Why was the General ordering us to arrest Lord Rubin Gavlin? And why did it need roughly 600 soldiers and 3 of Da Vinci’s war machines to arrest him? I ask Varkii and the rest in my squad and they felt the same. “When this is all over, I want to have a long chat with the Captain” Varkii says rather angrily. One of the older soldiers in the squad Joram puts his hand on Varkii’s shoulder and calms his down. Joram was a rather quiet soldier and also one of the oldest. He was bald but his eyebrows were white giving us an idea of what his age was, h
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Emerging from a group of bushes, emerge twenty men, all of them armed and all looking rather filthy. Their tunics were caked in black stains while various insects were crawling around the bird shite that covered their cloaks. The only thing that looked clean in their outfits was a single large lavender strap tied to their elbows. “Identify yourselves strangers!” Varkii shouts at them. One of them raises his axe and points it at us and shouts “I’ll ask the same of you Remanian pig!” the stranger replies. “They’re Barbarian mercenaries” Pal’lacon murmured. We had faced down some of their kind before, many Barbarians mercenaries or sellswords as we called them were used to bolster Persian ranks during the war. I hear Pal’Lacon muttering some old Latin curses, but then h
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So I do the only thing I can possibly do at this moment, end his suffering; I draw my carbine and shoot the dying boy’s head, which is soon followed by a kick to the face from the knight in front of me. … “The only son of Caesar that has the right to be a successor is the son that has served as a Knight of Remas.” It was something that was taught in every school house. A Knight was a hero, he was what every young boy aspired to become. But these knights that were standing in front of me weren’t real knights; they weren’t the war heroes that every soldier cheered for whenever they rode into battle. These were the arrogant scum that everyone secretly or som
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“This was your first battle wasn’t it?” she asked as she pulled out the 3 inch long piece of shrapnel lodged to my right leg. I grunt in pain of course. “Yes” I reply while trying to hold in the pain. She laughs a bit and applies a concoction of herbs and plant jelly on the wound. “So, what was it like?” She asks. The moment those words enter my ears, I vividly remember the events that had transpired that day, the smell of Lurti’s vomit, Trosdig’s whistle, the heat wave that accompanies every cannon shot and finally the feeling of a sword going through the insides of another man. “You’re about to vomit aren’t you?” she asks me. “What?” I reply, slowly realizing the anxiety and fear beginning to crawl its way out of my mouth in the form of the oats and fish I had earlier this morning. “
How it Ends Chapter 19
“You think it’s odd how the whole camp is not worried after those attacks?” Pal’lacon asks me as we lazily look at the storm slowly filling up the valley with water. “A few angry unpaid mercenary barbarians turned bandits are not things to be worried about, I bet the others are more worried about missing Mistress Raletia’s dance show back in Iasi. After all, we did survive the Persians.” I reply. Pal’lacon nods his head and lights up his pipe again. “That’s not what worries me, I just don’t want to watch another bleeding farm boy get shot in the head” “You weren’t the one who shot him, old man” I reply while throwing stones at the mud. “I’m sorry Molag, I understand you’ve never done that---” “Done what? I’ve killed dozens if not hundreds before I killed that boy. What’s another nameless person on my list?” I find myself rather surprised at the outburst. “Sorry, it’s just
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“Pup! Wake up! Get up you stupid turd! We have only a moment to gear up until the Captain arrives!” I wake up to the sight of Varkii’s mouth spewing saliva at my face. A headache pierces through my head as I pick myself up off the moist dirt. The rain was still pouring but the camp was in full alert, a dozen Centurion whistles could be heard along with the shouts of their owners to accompany them. I could hear Trosdig’s rough voice in the background, ordering the 46th Cohort to gear up. I pick up my shield, tighten my sword belt and wrap my rain cloak around me. Varkii tosses me my helmet and I catch it. A piece of shrapnel that was still stuck to it pricks my hand, ma
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“Reform lines! There’s another one!” Trosdig screams while trying his best to balance himself on a pilum, while aiming his carbine at a single large barbarian. The man charging at us was covered in a large brown cloak and he seemed to be nearly twice the height of a normal man and he was covered in burning bolts from the cluster shells. The barbarian wasn’t carrying any weapons at all and he ran in a limping manner. I join the others and fire at him, but nothing seems to faze him. The gunners also begin firing at him, but he just kept lumbering on. One soldier throws his pilum at the barbarian hitting him on the left shoulder, it barely seemed to hurt him. “Throw pilums!” Trosdig screams again. A few more pilums hit the barbarian, but he continued to move. A cluster shell detonates above the barbarian, coating him in more burning metal bolts and yet he still lumbered on.
How it Ends Chapter 22
I wake up inside a horse drawn wagon beside other wounded. I pick myself up and stagger out of the wagon, the smell of factory smoke and urine and feces fill the air, city smells we called them. I guess we had returned to Iasi then. “Molag!” it was Lurti calling. “You’re finally awake” He says while handing me his water bottle. “I was out?” “Nearly a whole day, you’ve been asleep since we left Gravlin Valley.” “What happened?” “We had to fall back, the Company lost a hundred men.” “What? They were just damned scavengers?” “I know but those strange weapons, the ones that charged at us. We were not prepared for that.” “Providence’s name, what were those things anyway?” “I don’t know brother, let’s get you to the tent, we need you rested.” Lurti brought me back to the squad tent where we first stayed during the end of the Long War. It was as messy and unkempt as when we left
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