With His Majesty's Royal Guard

[mrshad]

((Author's Note: At the request of a few friends, I have decided to post this story in the Ryzom forums. It is an on-going work, and chapters are posted as time allows . I originally posted one of the segments here : http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16271, but I think the title and forum were wrong. Updates are posted first on the Pegasus Foundation public forums, located here: http://www.pegasus-foundation.com/forum ... 95&posts=5.

I welcome and sincerly hope for feedback and honest criticism. I am a bit too much like Narcissus, and a healthy dose of reality from time to time make me a bit less irratating.

Thanks to all that read through it, in comparasion to what is normally posted, it is a bit of an epic .

With all that said, on to the story))

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“You are authorized to complete the mission, Captain.” Liccio Chiando’s voice rumbled in its usual commanding cadence.

“Of course, sir” the Captain replied.

“And captain,” the General continued, “I certainly expect you to win. You know defeat here will not be tolerated.”

“Yes sir, I know.” Captain Chiangi said.

“Not only must they be defeated, you must make them suffer.” The general’s whole countenance became much more focused. “You must make him suffer. They must be shattered so that not only will they not be able to cross the borders of the Hidden Source, they must fear the very thought of it.”

“They will know the wrath of His Majesty’s Royal Guard,” the Captain answered.

“Very good,” continued general Chiando, “and if you should find him alive, please bring him back to me. You are dismissed, Captain. May Jena bless you and your men, and bring you home safely and with victory.”

Those were the customary words when sending a Matisian force into battle. Captain Chiangi gave the Matisian salute, and left the General’s chambers. The benediction rang a bit hollow this time. This was not about stopping the Kami heretics from spreading their lies across Matia, nor was it a mission given through Jena’s priests. This was an act of revenge, both for the Matisian people, and for the General personally.

General Liccio Chiando, the Supreme Commander of Matisian Forces, Royal Counselor, and Hero of Matia. The man was a legend in his own time. He was largely responsible for the successes the Matis have had against the kitin, and his strategies have protected Matia for decades.

He was named after another hero, one of the last standing during the kitin invasion. The grandparent and great grandparents of those now living in Yrkanis would tell stories of the great Liccio Serenci, and the wall of kitin corpses he built around him. It was large enough to delay the kitin advance, allowing many Matisian families to escape through the portals to the safety of the Prime Roots. Many of those that survived the exodus named their children after Liccio Serenci; many more now living in Yrkanis honor Liccio Chiando in the same way.

General Liccio Chiando reached his balcony in time to oversee the Third Contingent of His Majesty’s Royal Guard leave the gate of Yrkanis. He had no doubt they would return, and that they would be victorious. They were the best trained homin on the face of Atys. He was frustrated that he could not lead them personally. He was frustrated at the complacency and bureaucracy the Royal Council had developed in the years since the last attack. But most of all, he was seething in anger that one of his most trusted would dare betray him. There was nothing more that the General wanted than to make the traitor bleed with his own sword.

But leaving Yrkanis now would be tantamount to suicide.

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There is darkness in every homin heart.

This is one of the basic tenets of life on Atys. Even the most pious Matisian priest harbors some dark hatred or secret lust. It is this darkness, if allowed to grow, that turns a homin from Jena’s path and into the trails of chaos and ruin. This is true for everyone from the noble Matis King to the basest of Fyros mercenaries.

There is darkness in every homin heart.

It was Sergio Chiangi’s job, as captain of the Third Contingent of His Majesty’s Royal Guard, to find those that have succumbed to their personal darkness and bring them to justice. In a world full of people who are scant steps away from straying from the path, Sergio Chiangi was employed full time.

By order of His Royal Majesty, through the command of General Liccio Chiando, it was the sworn duty of Captain Chiangi to lead the Third Contingent from the Matisian capital of Yrkanis to the desert wastes of the Hidden Source. Although nothing really ever made Sergio Chiangi happy, this particular mission would bring with it a certain amount of satisfaction. The latest report brought news that the Hell Raisers, a bandit tribe of cast offs and outlaws, were in violent dispute with a group of Fyros settlers that called themselves the Woven Bridles.

The details of the conflict were not important to the captain’s task; these were lawless bands that did not recognize a need before engaging in violent conflict. Their own inner darkness had consumed them so completely that they simply killed when it seemed like less effort than trying to talk. There was a popular assumption in Yrkanis that a tribe of Fyros settlers would be more civilized than the normal criminal scum one found in the desert. However, it was unlikely that the Woven Bridles left the Fyros lands by choice, and it was very doubtful they came to Matia to more freely worship Jena.

The best solution would be for each group to annihilate the other, so that when the Third Contingent arrived, all that would be need to happen was to fend off the carrion eaters and collect anything valuable these criminals might have acquired. The best outcomes are the rarest, and Captain Chiangi did not spend much time entertaining the thought. After all, his men needed the combat experience, and he needed to bring back a particular captive. It would be even better if it were a pair of captives.

The Third Contingent marched past Tower Bridge Rock, the typical landmark that signified where the area called The Knoll of Dissent began. The Kitin hoards still held a significant presence here. This was the front line during the last invasion attempt. Half-buried insectoid carapaces protruded from the ground like tombstones. Around these small monuments of victory stood the first line of defense against another attack, the elite Matisian Boarder Guard.

The Matisian Boarder Guard took in only strong Matis, and service with The Guard made a Matis much stronger. A term of service typically ran for ten years at a time. The isolation, the constant battle, and their well deserved sense of superiority meant most of The Guard held most city Matis in slight contempt. There was nothing close to violence towards a visiting Matis, and of course shelter and defense would be provided to a Matis who came in to the fort. But even if the weary traveler found the place safe, he probably would not find it friendly. Sergio, however, had served with The Matisian Boarder Guard before joining and leading the Third Contingent, and he still had a few friends here.

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War is a terrible thing.

But, it is not the worst thing.
To see your wife or husband or daughters or sons enslaved and killed is worse.
To see everything you have spent blood, sweat, time, and tears building be destroyed, is worse.
To live in constant fear of a devastating attack from an enemy that will not be placated by anything less than your total annihilation, is worse.
To suffer and die when the resources you need to live and prosper are being denied to you by an armed group of crazed thugs is worse.

But the fact remains war is a terrible thing.

So, how did I end up here, leading a platoon of Fyros outcasts against a band of Matis outlaws? I am not really one of either, and in fact, I really had more in common with the Hell Raisers than I did the Fyros settlers. If war was such a terrible thing, why did my life seem to consist of one battle after another?

I am, or was, Captain Antocho Chiando, Commander of the Second Contingent of His Majesty’s Royal Guard. I had more military honors than anyone did my age, and, with the notable exception of General Liccio Chiando, I was the youngest Matis to command part of the Royal Guard. There were many in Matia that ascribed my quick rise to my performance in the battle at the Slough of Demons, and there were many others that said it was due to having the great General for an uncle. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

I have since been released from His Majesty’s service. Perhaps released is too amiable a word. I believe my official status in Yrkanis is ‘in exile on pain of death’. As it turns out, leaving your command on the eve of a raid on a bandit outpost does not look good in after action reports, especially if your contingent is routed because of the sudden lack of leadership.

Our lives are the culmination of choices and consequences. We don’t always make every choice for we which receive the consequence, but for the most part, the actions and results are ours and ours alone. By consistently valuing certain actions or outcomes over others, we build lives that reflect what we believe most strongly. Sometimes, though, the entire course of a life can be changed by one decision in one instant. When I had the choice between greatness and happiness, I chose Mia.

Miaccia Visti, daughter of the honorable Bergio Visti of Davea. Like most young Matisian ladies, Mia grew up learning the treasures and dangers of the forest. She was more than capable of taking care of herself in and around the Majestic Gardens. In fact, she was so capable of taking care of herself; she had, more than once, taken care of me.

The details of how Mia and I made it from south of the Fleeting Gardens and into the good graces of the Woven Bridles have little bearing on the present conflict. Right now, the Hell Raisers were being led into the kill box of Fyrision auto-launchers and flame weapons. The Hell Raisers set their camp just north of the scenic Virginia Falls. The cliffs of the falls provide an excellent vantage point where an observer can easily get advanced notice of an approaching threat, or a vulnerable target.

Unfortunately for the Hell Raisers, they had incurred the wrath of a Fyros tribe, and moving around the desert is as natural to a Fyros as swimming is to a Tryker. It took two days of sneaking behind dunes and moving though shallow, dried out riverbeds before we reached the falls. We were now too close to the base of the cliffs to been seen by their look-out, and too well concealed to be found by their patrols.

Virginia Falls is one of the few watering holes in the desert of the Hidden Source. Many tribes and clans have laid claim to it over the years, and none have held it for long. In Fyros, it is typically the women that collect the water. Since it is trivial in the other lands of Atys to find water, this seems to outsiders to be something of an unimportant task. In Fyros, it is a matter of life and death. Not only for those depending on the water to live, but also for the cunning and lethal Fyros water hunters that risk their lives collecting it.

Several days ago three water hunters left the Woven Bridal settlement, four days ago one of them returned. She was naked, and blistered almost completely from the sun. The fingers on her left hand flopped uselessly back on forth as she took each stumbling step. As soon as the guards saw her, she was rushed into the healer’s tent. In the space of a few hours, her skin was healed and her fingers set.

She gave the account of how she and her sisters were hiding from a pack of huge torbak that roam near the falls when they were surprised by the Hell Raisers. The water hunters fought the bandits, and killed many, but they were eventually subdued. They were taken to the bandit camp where they were beaten and assaulted, where two of them gave in to the torture and eventually died. The Hell Raisers celebrated the arrival of their unwilling guests with drunken revelry, and when they had passed into alcoholic slumber, she dragged herself to the edge of the pond, slipped in, and swam away.

She said she couldn’t remember much of the trek to the settlement, she just kept walking long after the pain flooded out every other feeling. Neither the sun nor the kitin nor the cuttler stopped her from returning home. After she was healed, she begged to join us in the bloody revenge that she knew would be visited upon the bandits. But the settlement already had too few water hunters, and to risk one on a military assault was foolish.

My plan was so simple that it was almost cliché. A pair of Heavy gunners would wait until the enemy patrol returned to the camp leave their concealment and fire a few rounds into the camp, hopefully killing a couple of bandits. That part went off perfectly. We heard the distinctive report of Fyrisian heavy rifles and a pained scream that told us the rounds found at least one target. The gunners made sure they were seen and then ducked around an outcropping of rock in the cliff wall.

This, of course, drew the entire the gang. Bloodthirsty, brutal and strong all describe the Hell Raisers. Intelligent does not. A hit and run attack in the middle of the day does not cause them to wonder, because it is exactly the sort of thing they would do given the opportunity. The group of thugs ran right into a hell storm of fire and rockets. The hollow rush of one auto-launcher after another delivering its payload reverberated from the cliff face and out over the open desert.

As stupid as they were, they knew when to take cover. Sometimes, flat on the ground is as good a protection as you can get, and that is exactly where they went, exactly as we knew they would. That was when our squad of Cleavers ran into their flank. Double-bladed Fyros long swords have a peculiar whistle as they arc through the air to slash flesh from bone with devastating effect. Primarily, however, they are used as piercing weapons; the split blade design makes an effective blood groove and creates wounds that are difficult even for skilled healers to mend.

The auto-launcher bombardment, of course, ceased out of fear of harming our own. Wounded and confused, the Hell Raisers turned to fight the swordsmen, there were only ten, or so of the bandits left alive. Our artillery men abandoned their launchers in favor of short lances and rushed into the melee. It is a strange thing about combat. You know there is noise raging all around you, but you don’t really hear it. Either the sound of your own heart beating in your ears drowns it out, or it doesn’t seem important enough at the time to listen.

The melee ended quickly, and the sound came back to my world, and I heard the last moans of the dying, wounded bandits. I heard the sound of our healer chanting the words that would coax the sundered flesh of our men back together. I heard the sharp crack of an explosion from a long rifle, and I heard the gurgling yell of Dean Ibiraan, my lieutenant in this campaign.
The left side of Dean’s face was ripped to shreds, and his jaw dangled from the tendons still attached to the other side of his skull. Blood was streaming down is arm and chest as he dropped, face first, to the ground.

“Take cover!” I ordered, though I didn’t need to, the soldiers knew what was happening and were already running for shelter, some of them dragging their wounded brothers with them. A few more shots made holes in the desert sand, like tracks from an invisible xerx following the last few men to make it under an overhang in the cliff.

Dean was still twitching in the sand, but it was too late to do anything for him. The sniper on top of the cliff was very good at hitting a stationary target. A bit of heroics here might get us out without anyone else ending up like Dean.

“Listen, Cexius,” I said to the artillery man next to me. “I am going to run for the bandit camp on the other side of the cliff. Have all the gunners aim their launchers for the landing at the top of the cliff. Fire away as quickly as you can.”

Cexius gave me a grunt that I had learned meant agreement, and he and the artillerymen shouldered their auto-launchers. A few of the men mumbled “Good luck.” I took a few quick breaths, and sprinted out from under the over hang. The desert sand slipped from underneath my boots, and the desert sun flooded my vision as I left the shadow of the cliff. Then there was the soft thump of a bullet burying itself in the sand nearby, and the high pitched zing of a round bouncing off the rock wall, and the uncomfortably close whistle of shot passing near my head. And then there was the unimaginable pain of my calf muscles being ripped open, my shin bones blown to fragments, and me being pitch headlong, carried by my own momentum, into the sand.

I would like to have said that my life passed before my eyes, and I was thankful for the time I had on Atys, and the time I shared with Mia, but all I could really see was white hot pain. Somewhere beyond the veil of agony I heard explosions that could only come from auto-launchers. As I was still alive enough to recognize the noise, and knowing I was a perfect target, I had to suppose the artillery had been successful. And that was the last thought I had before I released my increasingly tenuous hold on consciousness.

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The breath of flame
To take away
Sear the wound
Sear the soul
Sear the heart
Ash and sand
Rest thy hand
In the shade
In the stream
In the wind
Thy battle is done

-Fyros Funeral Hymn


General Chiando had a place on the High Matisian Council, but on that morning, he was not there.
General Chiando had troops to inspect, but on that morning, no platoon would find him.
General Chiando had his customary breakfast waiting for him, but on that morning, it would go cold.
General Chiando was cold as well. General Chiando was dead.

Death in Atys is a strange thing. Everyone goes through it. There is pain and terror and confusion for all involved. But, for some, its permanency is not assured. Flesh can be mended and the soul restored through the healing arts of the priests of Jena. The Karavan priests insist their power over death is not magical, that it all consists of manipulating natural principles and that anyone who wants to put in the time and study can learn how to do it.

Of course, the Kami demons have a similar ability, and they claim that it is the focusing of natural energy that forces life back into decaying flesh. They say any homin that will exercise the patients and concentration required can learn the art. So far, the homin have learned a great deal from both the Kami and Karavan about natural laws and natural energies, many homin have learned to miraculously heal grave wounds, and coax even the smallest spark of life back to full health, but no homin can restore the breath of life to a companion who has past beyond the veil.

That skill was wholly in the domain of the Karavan and Kami masters, and they charged heavily for it. Typically the price was a debt of service, paid after the homin was restored but before he could do anything else. For those who live dangerously, a promise of aid could be obtain in exchange for the drops of energy-imbued sap crystals that were commonly used as currency on Atys.

But whatever the cost, and whatever the motives, the ability for the deities of Atys to raise the dead depended on someone dragging the body of the fallen to an altar. And, although someone else knew General Chiando was dead, that person was not very likely to help him. Matisian political disagreements often ended with one of the participants missing. It was rare, however, that the General was the incapacitated party.

This was not the first time the General had died. He fervently hoped, however it would not be the last. Having the soul ripped from the flesh is a painful experience, even after one has been disencorporated. The deceased soul had to spend considerable focus maintaining itself near its recently vacated body. The constant battle against whatever force that was trying to drag the soul away caused a great deal of agony. But, the soul who surrendered to the pain was lost, and could not be restored.

So, the General struggled on, only dimly aware of what surrounded his body. He knew he lay somewhere west of Yrkanis, and he was aware that someone had moved his body shortly after he died. Of his death and the events leading up to it, he remembered nothing; simply that he was leaving the Lakelands embassy when everything went dark.

Death on Atys is a strange thing, and being dead is even stranger. The deceased have very little knowledge of what happens near their corpse. Occasionally, they come back and report that they could see the face of a loved one, or that they heard a cherished voice, and that gave them the strength to fight off whatever oblivion waited for them. The difficulty wasn’t that free floating spirits could not see or hear, but that there was far too much for them to see and hear. Atys itself was alive, and had much to say to the newest occupant of the spirit realm. While inhabiting flesh, light entered the body through the eyes, but spirits were sensitive to light from every direction. That much information to a being in pain would typically prompt them to forget everything about the experience.

The General had no idea where he was. He remembered needing to meet the Tryker ambassador after speaking with the insufferable Yrkanis intendant. But now, there was only the pain, and his body on the ground, and the sound of the forest, and the gingo in the woods. He remembered something about a tryker. Was he supposed to meet someone? There were people coming. Was that now, or something that happened earlier?

The people that surrounded his body were indeed in the present. The decaying mass of flesh and bone that used to house his soul was being moved, and the General had little choice but to follow it.

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Atys is an actual, living thing. It is not comprised of a collection of rocks and dirt and water, it is a cohesive living organism. Or at least that is what we are told. You can’t always trust the words of the supernatural powers that preside over Atys. The Kami and Karavan rarely deceive us outright, but they almost never tell the whole story the first time around. But, if Atys lives and grows, it might think and feel too. I know for certain that it bleeds.

The thick, dark, amber blood of the living planet; it isn’t a substance you can get easily. There are some harvesters that can coax many useful things to appear on the surface of Atys. It is through their labors that we have managed to rebuild what little of our civilization we currently have. There are a fewer, perhaps the less sane among them that brave the eerie depths of the Prime Roots in order to find materials that grow closer to the heart of Atys, materials that are more pure for that proximity. These resources are in high demand and even a handful of them can make the intrepid harvester wealthy. Out of these, bravest and most foolish miners, there are only two who dare descend close enough to the beating heart of Atys to gather drops of its precious blood.

Yesterday, one of them died.

I will not delve much into the story, or identity, of my recently deceased supplier. Taking the blood of Atys is a capital offense in all the homin lands. Even the Fyros, who do not flinch at covering the desert sands with liquid fire, find making Atys bleed to be distasteful. Destroying the reputation of a homin of his skill, not to mention the reputation of his surviving family is something even I would hesitate to do. I will say, however, that of all the homin races, only the Matis are close enough to the rhythm of life that guides this planet to be able to draw its blood. And, of all the homin races, only a Matis would be greedy enough to sell it.

The surviving blood-taker now has a corner on a very exclusive, but very lucrative market. And I have four vials of the most deadly poison ever discovered. Touching the stuff is almost instantly fatal. Rumor has it that if a blade coated in the blood pierces the armor of a Karavan trooper, it is just as lethal to the alien as it is to any homin. I wouldn’t put it past anyone that has the stomach to use the substance to actually try and kill a priest of Jena. I know that for the right price, I would take the job. Can you imagine how much I could increase my fee if it were known that I actually killed one of those preening outsiders and lived to advertise about it?

That future will have to wait. The present has provided me quite enough to boast about for the next few months. The great Matisian General, Liccio Chiando, is dead. I killed him. Of course, you don’t just bring something like that up at a party; but word has a way of getting around, especially when the target is someone as visible as the General.

The how of it was relatively straightforward. All of the powerful people on Atys know each other. All of those people have had to remove certain problems in order to get to where they are. This puts an enterprising assassin in an interesting position; some would call it blackmail, I call it networking. I know the Tryker ambassador to Matia. I helped his younger brother (the only witness, coincidentally, to a surprisingly large embezzlement scheme the ambassador had running before his appointment) into the lake around Fairhaven after a long night of drinking. Sadly, I was not available to help his brother out of the lake, and his body washed up on the shore a few days later; providing a decent meal for those horrible goari that are far too plentiful on the Lakelands’ beaches.

Everyone is surprised when I tell them that Tryker are capable of fratricide for political gain. Somehow, homin have this notion that we are all too busy drinking or dancing or swimming to be bothered with plotting and murder. That idea is laughable. Tryker are devoted, first and always, to individual freedom. If a law is written, many of us would break it just out of principle. The ranks of the various pirate gangs in the Lakelands grow daily. Murder is only wrong if it happens to someone you like.

So, I made a visit to the Tryker ambassador in Yrkanis. No one who knows me is ever happy to see me. It usually means I am there either to complete a contract or to collect payment. Since the ambassador did not currently have a need for my services, he naturally assumed the worst. There was the customary explaining that if he were indeed my target, he would already be dead. With that out of the way, I requested that the ambassador invite the General to the embassy to talk about troop placement on the Loria border, or some other official sounding request. After the heated negotiation over the exact size of a suitable bribe, a deal was struck, and I was told that I could expect the General in two days time, late in the evening.

That particular moment in time passed about twenty minutes ago. The General, of course, left his cloak with the embassy doorman; I retrieved the cloak, and applied a small bit of the blood of Atys to the collar. The General concluded his business, picked up his cloak, replaced it on his shoulders, and made his way out of the building. The General had been an exceptionally strong man, as he made it out of the embassy before teetering and falling to the leaf-covered ground.

The embassies in Yrkanis are in the mostly deserted southern quarter of the town. Few people visit there, and those that do are usually heading for the bar on the west side. This worked out very nicely for me, as not only did my patron want the General killed, he also wanted the body. I quickly bound the feet of the body together and began to drag the corpse east. There was a small gap in the fence through which a Tryker could fit easily. A Matis might make it, if he didn’t mind squeezing a bit, and I didn’t think the General would be all that put out.

The idea in my head was to take the body through the trees south of the city, west over the hills, then cross the road into the thick forest outside of Natae, and south to my destination. It was a good idea, right up to the hills. I don’t know if there is a larger pack of gingo anywhere in Atys than in the hills west of Yrkanis. Of course, the sound of something moving in the darkness drew their attention, and I dispatched three of creatures before deciding that being alive and a bit less wealthy was better than being dead, but with a good reputation.

Besides, this might be salvaged yet. I knew the gingo wouldn’t touch the poisoned corpse. The scent of the blood of Atys repels any warm-bodied animal. The kitin don’t seem to mind the smell of it so much, but then, the story is that the first kitin were found in the Prime Roots, and they might be more tolerant of it.

If I can make it to the outlaw tribe that calls themselves The Turn of the Tide (Jena only knows why they think that is a fear inspiring name) I might be able to convince them it is in their interest to help me recover the corpse of a great Matisian hero.

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[mrshad]

Rawr lay propped up in a corner of his den. Rawr knew he was small for a kipee, but his den was still quite a bit larger than he would ever need. That was fortunate, however. If his den were any smaller, his Boy would not be able to fit in it. Rawr’s primary duty, he knew, was to protect his Boy.

Rawr stood guard against all sort of evil things. He scared off the ragus that prowled outside the den. He made sure the vorax under his Boy’s bed stayed under the bed while his Boy was asleep. Rawr, of course, never needed sleep, he never needed food, and he never needed exercise. He had all the energy and strength it ever required to make sure his Boy was safe.

His years of service had not left him without scars. He had lost an eye years back when his Boy bit it off, for reasons Rawr still did not understand. Rawr was also lost part of one of his legs during the incident with a hastily closed door. Fortunately, prompt intervention by the Lady kept the wound from becoming fatal. But, on the whole, his service had been fulfilling and pleasant. Each morning, his Boy would take Rawr exploring, and Rawr would guard the Boy each night. Rawr found comfort in this routine, and had no thought of leaving his post. Rawr knew, however, that his greatest challenge yet would be to protect his Boy from the noises outside of his den tonight.

His Boy woke up after what Rawr knew to be an explosion. It shook the walls and floor of his den, and Rawr slumped over onto his bad leg. His Boy crawled out of bed and picked Rawr up, just as the Lady entered his den. The Lady spoke to his Boy briefly, and Rawr knew there was worry in her tone. The Lady took his Boy by the hand, and she, his Boy, and Rawr left from his den into the room next to it. Rawr knew that this was where his Boy usually ate, but it did not seem to Rawr like his Boy was going to get a meal.

The Lord joined the trio in the room. Rawr knew it was still dark outside, and it was strange that his Boy was being allowed to leave the den in the dark. But, Rawr had learned over the years that the Lord and Lady usually knew best, and it did very little good to argue with them. Rawr knew that the Lord had a large pack that he was wearing on his back. This usually meant the four of them were going on an adventure somewhere, but his Boy did not seem very excited at the thought tonight.

The Lord knelt down, and looked his Boy in the eyes. “We have to go away for a while, son. It might be a long time before we can come back,” he said, “follow your mother very closely. You will have to be very quiet, and very brave.”

Rawr knew that anytime the Lord asked his Boy to be brave, there was something worse than the vorax under the bed to fear.

The Lady knelt down, and wrapped her arms around his Boy. She whispered in his ear, “Stay close, dearest. Hold on tight to Rawr, and follow me as quickly as you can.”

The Lady picked up a pack similar to the Lord’s, and the four of them ran quickly out of the room, into the forest night.


There was light and heat, but no noise.

Rawr knew he had fallen to the ground. He knew one of his legs was on fire.
Rawr knew that his Boy was on the ground with him, and he thought it was odd that his Boy was not trying to get up. Over the years, his Boy had fallen down often, but he always got back up.
Rawr knew the Lord and Lady were close by, but they were not coming to help his Boy, nor were they trying to put out the fire that had finished burning off his leg, and was now consuming his shell.
Rawr knew something was very, very wrong.

Rawr knew that he had failed to protect his Boy.

And then, Rawr knew nothing.

[mrshad]

Jena does not always protect the innocent.
Nor does She always guide the virtuous to victory.
It is far more common that the well trained and well equipped carry the day.
I have yet to see a prayer turn a spear tip.

The Matis have long held that the King should act in Jena’s stead. We certainly accept that he is not always all-knowing and wise. But a good king should always try to do whatever he can to protect his people, and to do so with patients and grace. Of course, the King can not be every where at once, so his officers and councilors are there to inform him and carry out his will.

There are, of course, breakdowns in this order from time to time. There is never a guarantee that the king has the best interests of his people in mind. There is even less of a guarantee that his councilors are doing any more than furthering their own ambition. But, this is what passes as politics in Matia. The order of the kingdom is often maintained by the blood of the innocent.

It was never enough for the General just to drive an opponent out of their stronghold. He had to have his adversary completely annihilated.

When I was Lieutenant Chiando, platoon leader of the third platoon of the First Contingent of His Majesty’s Royal guard, I was tasked with providing perimeter containment during an attack on a bandit encampment in the Slough of Demons. It was my job to make sure bandits attempting escape were captured, or preferably, killed.

There are torbak in the Slough of Demons that are larger than any mektoub; and the violent gibbai tribes attack anything that makes a noise they do not like. So the battle would become a two front engagement between the forces of bandit raiders, and the forces of Atysian nature. Fortunately for the third platoon, the forest creatures do not take sides.

I, like all of the platoon leaders in the First Contingent, had three weeks of warning before the attack in the Slough. Considering the area my platoon was expected to patrol, I thought it would be wise to acquaint myself with the area before hand. It would have been entirely inappropriate to take my entire platoon into the area that long before the assault for a couple of reasons; first, because it would obviously alert the bandits to our intent, and second, many of my men would be killed or injured in the attempt.

Matis children learn early how to move through the forest quietly, and which creatures really are more scared of a homin than a homin is scared of them. I was able to move through the forest as well as most Matis, but to learn what I needed to about the Slough of Demons; I knew that I would need a guide.

Among the many forces in His Majesty’s employ are the Forrest Runners. This group not only knows how to move quietly through the forest, but quickly, as well. They know the names and habits of every forest dweller, from the Zoria missionaries that inhabit the Fleeting Gardens, to the terrifying beast Zatchel, the prowls though the Grove of Confusion. They specialize in getting from one place to another while employing the least amount of violence. They are the best scouts, spies and guides anywhere in Matia, and Miaccia Visti was one of them.

It used to be that Matis females, especially the daughters of prominent nobles, would spend their time plotting their rise through the social ranks of Matis life. Money, beauty, fame, power, and politics would all play a part in that game. The dispassionate observer might ask how the ambitions of the Matis females differed from those of the Matis males. The answer was that the females used power as a means to get adoration and influence with their peers, while males used adoration and influence with their peers to get more power.

Of course, much of that changed with the swarming. When civilizations crumble, all that keeps a homin from death is what that homin can do by himself. Rare is the tailor that can not skin a bodoc, and rarer is the aged politician that can not win in a duel. This forced self-reliance, and the Matis emphasis on excellence in whatever task we pursue, has lead many of the Matis females into the ranks of the Royal Forces. The plotting and backstabbing still goes on, obviously, but a great deal more weight is now given to what useful skills a homin possesses over the cleverness of the cut on their latest outfit.

Miaccia Visti always dressed for the occasion. As our goal was to sneak about an area that was swarming with torbak without becoming a meal, she had the foresight of wearing garments that were constructed completely of plant material. I, of course, trying to impress the scout that was assigned to lead me, wore combat armor crafted from the skins and teeth of fiercest animals of the forest. Sure, it was smelly, but nothing quite said “admire me” like a breastplate made from an ocyx shell.

We met up at the gates of Yrkanis. The Forrest Runner liaison officer introduced us quickly, and then left us to our mission. One of the perks of being related to the General is that requests to other departments were often completed with a lot less paperwork. Scout Visti suggested, politely, that the Lieutenant should find something less cumbersome for this mission. I said I had been wearing this armor for years, and it felt like a second skin. Miaccia shrugged, and she was off; heading south at a loping jog that reminded me of how mektoub move. By the time we reached Davea, I wanted nothing more than to lie down and die. I settled for putting my combat gear in my pack and I purchased a set of light traveling clothes similar to my guide wore.

“Second skin, huh?” Scout Visti remarked when she saw my new attire.

I was spared the need to come up with a retort by the timely intervention of a male voice calling out “Mia!”

The Matis the voice belonged to was well dressed, older, and slightly rotund for a Matis. He was also the Intendant of the city.

“Father!” Scout Visti answered and practically pounced on the man with a happy embrace.

“I heard you might be stopping by Davea, dear. Why didn’t you come and see me?” the Intendant said, with exaggerated hurt in his voice.

“Had I known we were going to make a shopping trip out of this visit, I would have come straight over, father,” Scout Visti said, while giving me an accusing glance.

The Intendant looked at me, as if it were the first time he noticed me standing there. “And Mia,” he said, returning his gaze to his daughter, “who is this one.”

“Oh, father,” Scout Visti started, assuming a slightly more formal air, “this is Lieutenant Antocho Chiando, Of the Royal Guard. Lieutenant, this is Intendant Bergio Visti of Davea; my father.”

I gave the Intendant the salute required to his office. He returned with a nod of his head and said, “Ahh, the General’s nephew. We have heard about you, Lieutenant. I assume you are with my daughter for official business, then?”

“Yes sir,” I answered, “a reconnaissance mission. I am afraid I am forbidden to share more information than that.”

“Of course Lieutenant,” the Intendant said, “I completely understand. I do not want to keep you to from your task. Mia, take care of the young Lieutenant. We would hate for something unfortunate to happen to him.”

“I will,” Scout Visti said, as she gave her father a kiss on his cheek.

I had an uneasy feeling that Scout Visti was rather specifically assigned to this mission, but once again we were off. I had planned to make camp near bluffs that mark the end of civilized Matia and let the traveler know they are entering the lands known as the Fleeting Gardens. But again, I underestimated the speed of Scout Visti. We crossed the breadth of the Fleeting Gardens well before sunset, and set up camp on the hills that overlooked the Great Bog.

[mrshad]

There is a haunting kind of regret that comes from finally having what you have worked very hard to obtain, and then letting it go in favor of something fleeting and empty. It is a deep and dull ache that never really leaves you. Time never fully heals it, and success never really makes up for it. In every idle moment, and behind each victory lies the echo of what might have been.

That kind of regret stalked Sergio Chiangi. He tried very hard to fill his life with activities designed to keep his mind occupied. He scheduled his days so that he could not fall into the trap of wondering what to do next and thus be caught by that specter of melancholy. To the outside observer, Sergio Chiangi appeared to be driven by ambition, but the truth was he was hiding from his own thoughts.

Early in his career, his desire not to dwell on what he had lost served him well. As a young solider, he would volunteer for extra guard duties, cleaning details, camp patrols...anything that came up. He was the first to arrive for morning drills and the last to leave combat training. This, of course, got him the attention of his superiors, which naturally lead to promotions.

Captain Chiangi was effective. He lead his contingent where they needed to be, when they needed to be there. He made sure they trained hard, that they were well supplied and that they were reinforced properly when they had to engage the enemy. For Captain Chiangi, combat was a numbers game. If his side had more in men and arms than the other side, he would win. If not, he would hold a defensive position until more men arrived. Those who knew him described him as efficient and competent, but never inspiring or brilliant.

Captain Chiangi never had friends or close associates. An effect of trying not to remember what caused the most regret was that he rarely thought about things that brought him joy. He found surrogates for happiness in performance reviews and after action reports, his duties and obligations gave him structure and purpose, but not enlightenment or peace.

Still, every night, just before he gave himself over to sleep, the memory of what he might have had crawled back into his brain. Every morning, before he could even sort out where his clothes were, Sergio wondered if any Kami magic could move him back in time; to change the events of a single night. Fortunately for him, this morning he was rescued from his reverie by being annoyed at his current hosts.

The Matisian Border Guard has interrupted his march to the Northern desert. He had hoped to camp with the Guard for a night, and then he and his contingent could move on. But, for the past ten days he had been held in the border outpost, by order of the Davea Intendant. Captain Chiangi hated waiting.

A corporal he did not recognize came to a salute just inside his tent.
“I have a message for you, sir,” the corporal said while holding a rolled piece of paper.
“Thank you, corporal,” said Captain Chiangi, as he took the roll. “Carry on.”
The corporal left the tent, and the Captain read his message:

“By Order Of His Majesty and the High Matisian Council:
Captain Sergio Chiangi, you and the Third Contingent are to return immediately to Yrkanis. The group of outlaws known as The Turn of The Tide has captured General Chiando and is holding him for ransom. You are hereby commissioned to engage and destroy these outlaws, as His Majesty absolutely will not cede to the demands of common robbers. Returning with General Chiando is of paramount importance.

His Majesty and The High Council have absolute confidence in your ability to complete the mission.

May Jena bless you and your men, and bring you home safely and with victory.”


The seal of the High Council was affixed to the letter. The idea that he was finally going to be on his way battled with the irritation about wasting his time. He and the Third Contingent left Yrkanis only a few days ago. Now they were being told to march back. The Contingent would complain, of course. It was the nature of soldiers to grumble. There would be smart remarks about running around in circles or testing His Majesties new roads; maybe a new marching song about running up a hill and running down again. In the end, the Third Contingent was filled with men that would follow orders, and if the Captain wanted them to break camp and head back, that is exactly what they would do.

The Captain finished getting dressed, left his tent, and found his Top Sergeant.

“Assemble the Third, Sergeant. It seems we are needed back in Yrkanis.”

Top Sergeant Peli had the Third in marching columns just after lunch. This was not going to be a tactical march. Some irritating beasts occasionally prowled the road between the Border Guard camp and the capitol city. If they were very fast, they might make it by morning.

Walking was particularly irksome to the Captain. Survival on this was not a pressing concern. The road was safe and open, and no orders that needed to be given. Simply place one foot in front of the other…again, and again, and again. Until his attention began to drift, as it inevitably did in these quiet moments. The sunlight through the trees, the birds pushing their way out of the ground, the scent of new life in the wind. And her name, which had become, for him, a word describing every regret he had in his life, fell from his lips, “Miaccia”.

“Say again, Captain?” Top Sergeant Peli asked.

“It was nothing, Sergeant. Keep the columns moving. No stops until we get home,” Captain Chiangi answered, and tried again to keep his mind occupied.

[mrshad]

The Great Bog…Any romance that starts overlooking a festering, stinking pit is going to be one that lasts.

Scout Visti, either having decided that it would soon be too dark to carry on, or having correctly appraised me as not fit to continue our journey, began setting up camp. I had spent weeks at a time in the field with my platoon, but even so, I found Scout Visti’s camp a bit rough. We scavenged some long branches, leaned them against a large tree, and threw a well-oiled bodoc skin that Scout Visti carried in her pack over the edifice.

“This is home for the night, then?” I said, eying the structure suspiciously.

“The skin will keep the rain off of us and our scent to ourselves, Lieutenant,” She answered as she ducked under a flap into the structure. I followed her in.

We feasted on a couple of handfuls of dried fruit and strips of capryni jerky. Having been too busy trying to catch my breath during the trip, I took advantage of the relative calm of the situation to have a conversation with my guide.

“So, tell me, Scout Visti, what is the great bog like? What sort of things should we expect to find here?” I asked as I removed the cap of my water bag.

“Well, there are the sentient plants that grow all over Matia. Those aren’t a problem if you leave them alone. The arma and the yelk are the primary grazing animals here. Be careful with the water, there isn’t a clear source close by.”

I put down the water bag after my fourth gulp.

“Sorry,” I said. “You were worried about something smelling us. What else is around here?”

“There are gibbai near here, though how they got here is something of a mystery. Somewhere in the center of the bog, there is supposed to be a large pack of gingo, but I have only heard about them, never seen them myself. The real worry is the torbak. They don’t usually come this far north, but I don’t want to risk it.”

Torbak share qualities with many of the forest inhabitants that make post-swarming life in Matia so interesting; four legs, huge teeth, thick skin, and a seemingly insatiable hunger. They have been known to stop feeding on a recent kill in order to chase prey that was still moving. Torbak are Atys’ way of controlling the yelk population, and both the primary argument for and against the idea that Jena had a plan for us when She created us. Using a horrible monstrosity to destroy a wretched stinking nuisance seems rather clever. Not creating either one in the first place, however, seems altogether wiser.

But, they were out there in the darkness. Scout Visti and I trusted our lives to a piece of dead animal skin. If it had not been for the exhaustion incurred by the day’s trek, I think worry would have kept me awake. As it was, I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the ground. I woke up to Scout Visti poking me with one of our lodging poles.

The morning light pushed its way through the canopy to dance with the shadows on the forest floor. Scout Visti was standing above me with a branch in her hand, her pack was ready and leaning against the tree that hosted us through the night.

“It is past time that we were on our way, Lieutenant.” Scout Visti said.

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” I asked between yawns.

“You looked like you could use the sleep,” She answered.

“Thanks,” I said, as I used my spear to push myself up.

“You should probably wear your armor today, Lieutenant. There is a pretty good chance that we will find something that will try to make a meal out of us.”

“You might have mentioned that before you took down the bodoc skin,” I said.

“You should have been up earlier. I promise I won’t look,” she said, smiling.

Matisian heavy combat armor is made to fit against the skin of its wearer with a tolerable amount of discomfort. But, if one tries to wear clothes beneath the armor, the clothes bunch and begin to chaff against the skin, quickly turning tolerable discomfort into real pain. There was nothing to be done about it. I tried to put the tree between Scout Visti and me as I pulled my clothes off and stuffed myself into my combat armor. I checked myself over to make sure everything was in place; I had everything but my helmet. My official reason for not wearing it was that it limited my peripheral vision and made it difficult to breath. My real reason was they look awkward.

And then we were off, heading south into the great bog at a considerably slower pace than the day before. Scout Visti was tense, and intent on seeing anything before it could see us first. We skirted around a camp of exiled trykers that called themselves the Ecowarriors. Not that they were a particularly violent group, but they were likely to have tied to the bandits in the Slough of Demons, and the less they new about us, the better.

We followed the ridge of a ravine. That way we were safe from at least one direction, and it was much more difficult to surround us. Scout Visti was really very good at being able to see without letting herself be seen. We watched from a distance as a few torbak circled and killed a large arma. Their high-pitched whistle alerting the rest of their pack to the kill. That was when I hit in the head with a brick.

When my head cleared enough for me to see, I found the brick was really a large furry hand attached to a long furry arm that connected to a dark furry body. That body was poised to take another swing at me when is suddenly stopped, stood straight up and stared at Scout Visti. Scout Visti was standing up, staring right at the creature. Neither one was moving, though Scout Visti did look like she was mumbling something.

I was not sure how long the staring contest was going to last, but I was sure of an opportunity when I saw one. I picked up my spear, leveled it at the creature, and ran until I felt the blade of my weapon pierce the creature’s throat. The bones in the creature’s neck turned the blade slightly, and I let the spear follow its new course until the point emerged from the back of the creature’s neck. The new angle set the blade sliding across arteries in the throat, and I pushed the weapon until the cross piece stopped my momentum. Dark blood gushed out of the wound, plastering the creature’s fur to its skin. It fell to its knees, clawing at the blade in its neck. The creature turned its gaze to me, opened its mouth in a futile attempt to breath, and dropped to its hands.

The art of using a long-spear is when to follow the lead of the weapon, and when force it through. I kept pressure on the shaft of the spear, forcing the creature’s head to the ground, a rapidly-growing pool of blood beneath it. The creature started to convulse, fell onto its face, and finally, it lay still.

Before I could clear the blade from the thing’s neck, I heard Scout Visti behind me.

“It’s a gibbai. They are originally from the Zorai jungles. They are thought to be intelligent, and I am told they can be taught to speak. I know for certain they are cunning and violent,” she said.

I put my foot on the gibbai’s skull and jerked the weapon free.

Scout Visti walked closer to me and continued, “Their dark coloring and irregular shape make it easy for them to hide, but that isn’t an excuse. I should have seen it earlier, I am sorry, Lieutenant.”

“That was amazing stun magic,” I said between breaths, “Is that something that is taught to all of the Forrest Runners?”

“We all have the opportunity to learn it, yes.” she answered. She touched her fingertips to my forehead where the gibbai hit me, closed her eyes, and whispered a few light verses. Pure life pulsed through her hand and into me, and the pain was gone.

She opened here eyes and asked, “Is that better, Lieutenant?”

“…uh…yeah,” I said in wide-eyed awe, “and call me Toch, please.” I cleared my throat and looked away; at the body on the ground. “Does our furry friend have anything on him worth taking?”

Scout Visti searched the body, and found a well-made necklace. The amber and seed was dug from the forest, and we figured the piece was probably taken from the corpse of one of the bandits. Scout Visti said the skin and bones of gibbai were too frail and thin for anything practical.

The rest of the trip was comparatively quiet. We could hear the torbak, and ran across the remains of their meals, but we didn’t come face to face with any of them. Soon, we were close enough to see the bandit camp. It looked well-established. Its eastern border was the shear cliff of the ravine, and on the west were tall hills that had been dug out to from precipitous drops.

The bandits appeared to have been there some time. They had been able to construct actual houses and fences. The ground had been cultivated, and we saw a corral holding a pack of arma. We skirted west of the camp and continued south until we had circled around it. We didn’t see any guards, but we still took care not to be noticed.

The south end of the camp emptied into a draw that ran west between to large hills. As we were making our way around the camp, we also noticed a break in the natural walls that was bridges by a low fence. Likely too high to scale easily, but a ladder could be put against the inside to make a quick escape route. I sat down on the protected side of the hill to think.

“Scout Visti,” I began, “If you had to lead an entire contingent here, which route would you take?”

“The same way we took,” she said as she took a seat beside me. “Despite our little entanglement, it really is the safest path. When we are alone, please call me Mia.”

I smiled and then asked, “So, in your opinion, the main force would likely have to attack from the north, right?”

“Yes, I think so,” Mia said, “It would be very difficult to lead a large group around the west side without being detected by either the bandits or the torbak.”

“And what about the gibbai?” I asked.

“I think they are smarter than to attack a large group of armed Matis. We shouldn’t have to worry about them.”

The attack would almost have to come from the north. The bandits would be expecting that, of course, and be ready. But the attack wasn’t my concern. I had to keep the bandits from escaping once the battle turned against them. There were two exits, and I had to keep both of them covered, and have part of my force making sure that nothing else attacked us while we were there. I needed a way to limit the bandit’s options.

“Did you grow up in Davea, Mia?” I asked conversationally.

She was staring out over the low valley, watching a small herd of arma graze. “Yeah. My father was the Intendant of Davea before he married my mother.”

“I am surprised that we never met earlier.” I started. “My family owns a large parcel of land just north of Davea. From what I understand, my uncle decided that he would rather fight than till, so he gave up his part of the inheritance to my father.”

“I kept out of sight as I was growing up.” Mia leaned back on her hands and rested against the hill side. “But I am familiar with your family’s property. The Peli family owns a plot to the east of there, right?”

“Right,” I said. I noticed that even though she was reclined, she was still watching the arma. “I bring it up because we used to trap ragus there quite a bit. We would hang a carcass from a tree, and as it rotted the ragus would trot over and eat the bits that had fallen off. I would spear the thing and hold it, while my brother would run up with a long knife try to stick it through the heart.

“We tried once to bury the bait, thinking it would last longer that way, but ragus are powerful diggers. We came out only to find an empty pit.”

“You are going somewhere with this story, aren’t you?” she asked as she turned her head toward me.

“Can torbak dig?” I asked.

She looked at me as if she were beginning to doubt my sanity. “Not very well, their claws aren’t really made for it,” she answered.

“I think we need to enlist your arma friends into serving His Majesty’s will.”

Arma are pathetically stupid creatures. My theory on how they survive on Atys is that they are simply too big to kill easily, and one of them can feed a pack of predators for a week. I suppose the arma are proof that it is possible to obtain peace by giving your enemy what they want. Mia and I killed a lot of them that day.

It was dreadfully easy. Mia would paralyze the creatures with magic, and I would run the blade of my spear between the ribs, through a lung and pierce the heart. After that, it was a matter of waiting until they collapsed as the lung filled up with blood and their heart stopped. We killed five of the beasts as the rest of the heard went on eating.

Arma are made to be very sturdy. They have long bones and strong tendons to support their huge frames. There bones were often used to make poles for dwellings and hafts for axes. Mia and I crafted a litter from their skins, and fashioned a couple of shovels and picks from their bones and teeth; the rest of the carcasses where roughly butchered and placed on the litter.

There were stagnant pools of water that weren’t fit to drink from unless you were about to die if you didn’t. But, they did suffice for washing the gore from our arms and hands.

“The rest of this plan will probably have to wait until after dark,” I said as I dried my hands on the shirt I took out of my pack. “We should probably get some sleep now, while we can.”

“Alright,” Mia said after she finished washing her hands. I tossed her the wadded-up shirt. “I will keep an eye out while you take a nap. I will get you up in a couple of hours.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to go first?” I asked.

“If I did that, you would try to do something noble and stupid and let me sleep for the rest of the day. Then I will be digging most of what is sure to be a very big hole by myself.”

Matisian heavy combat is also hard to sleep in, but I wasn’t going to try to change without any cover, and even if I wanted to, my shirt was wet and bloody. But, I tried to get some sleep in a small cleft in the hillside that was partially covered by half-eaten bushes. True to her word, Mia shook me awake, and I stood watch as she napped.

She had the ivory skin of all Matis, but hers was slightly freckled from the sun. Her dark hair fell in wild strands across her face and neck. Her lips were no longer set in the grim concentration of keeping us alive, and now looked warm and soft. The approaching night changed the light from bright yellow, to fiery orange, from soft pink to lavender-gray. I watched as the shades played across her skin. And though I stood a very attentive watch, I was not a very good guard.

Fortunately, darkness came before anything could find us.

And with the darkness came time to get back to work. Mia was right; we had to dig a large, deep pit. We drug the the litter full of arma parts just west of the fence that shored the defenses of the bandit camp, and there we started to dig. It was stressful work. We did not dare have any light, and we had to work slowly to minimize the amount of noise. The marshy ground move easily, however, and with a few hours of labor, we had a pit almost as deep as Mia was tall, and about as wide as my spear was long.

Once we had it dug, we filled it again. At the bottom we threw in some arma meat, and then we covered that with a good layer of dirt, then some more arma meat, then some more dirt. We filled the entire pit that way, scattering the remaining dirt around in hopes of avoiding any obvious signs that we were meddling. My thought was that the meat would rot, attracting torbak to the site. The torbak would dig for the meat and get at some of it, while their traffic would dig up a bit more, keeping them coming back to the area. With any luck, the torbak would be around to help us guard a potential exit point when the assault came.

We finished our work just before dawn. We sunk our tools in one of the deeper pools and followed the same path out of the bog as we did going in. No gibbai this time around. When we reached the foothills above the bog, it was nearly mid-day. Exhaustion overcame modesty and cleanliness and I changed into my light clothes again. We didn’t rest for there long before moving again. It was well past nightfall before we made it to Davea.

“You are welcome to stay the rest of the night in my father’s house, Lieutenant,” Scout Visti said.

“Thank you, Scout Visti, I think I will,” I accepted.

“Unfortunately, I will probably not be joining you for breakfast,” she said. “My commander needs to meet with me just after dawn, and I know how you like to sleep,” She smiled.

“Will you do me the favor of guiding me and my men during the assault, Scout Visit?” I asked, with only the barest trace of formality.

“I would be happy to, Lieutenant,” Scout Visti said brightly. “I will bring it up with my commander in the morning.”

I had a warm and comfortable bed that night, but I hardly slept at all.

The morning came, and I had breakfast with the Davea Intendant. We politely discussed the affairs of the day, talked about politics in Matia, and my little excursion with his daughter. He asked if I was going to be seeing her again anytime soon, and he seemed pleased when I expressed my hope that I would.

I left the house of the Intendant dressed in my armor and made my way back to Yrkanis to brief my platoon.

[mrshad]

The First Contingent marched south. General Chiando himself led us. This whole ordeal seemed oddly personal to him. As was typical with this type of operation, the Intendants of all of the cities in Matia were instructed to closed the city gates, and not allow anyone to leave until they received word that the contingent had passed by. The success of the assault relied heavily on surprise.

Five days has passed since I returned from my last trip to the bog; and here I was, going back. Just as well, my bait pit wouldn’t have lasted much longer. At least Scout Visti was with me. Right after getting back to Yrkanis, I sent a message for her, asking if she had authorization to act as a guide for my platoon, inquiring about her health, expressing my hope to see her soon. Generally, trying to sound both friendly and professional, and likely failing at both. But, she came anyway, so I obviously didn’t scare her too badly.

The predators that would attack a handful of homin gave a whole contingent wide berth. We moved quickly down the royal roadways that crossed the Majestic Gardens. Still, moving a whole contingent is not like moving alone, and the soldiers had to eat, and set up camp; and above all, arrive with strength to fight. We stopped at the narrow strip of land that was typically identified as the southern edge of civilized Matia, and the beginning of the area call the Fleeting Gardens.

We set up camp in a long line, stretching from the western cliff to the eastern cliff. We hoped to catch anyone trying to warn the bandits by sneaking past us during the night. The First Contingent had always been known for our discipline, and the sort of common rowdiness that occurred with less prestigious units was entirely out of place within the First. Nothing got past us that night, not that someone didn’t try. A small squad from the second platoon pursued an unidentified Matis female into the forests south of Avalea, where they finally lost track of her and returned to camp.

In the morning, we formed into marching lines and moved south again. We all knew we would see combat before we would see sleep. The march became something like a procession. Every man somber, most of them whispering prayers from time to time. Not that they were afraid, they were simply trying to get ready to do what they had to do. Killing a homin, particularly a Matis was not something that could be done lightly; even when you knew they had it coming.

We crossed the Fleeting Gardens and rested for a while on the foothills above the Great Bog, very near where Scout Visti and I had camped nearly a week earlier. General Chiando called the platoon leaders together.

“Lieutenant Chiando, I want third platoon to lead us into the bog.” The General started.

“Yes, Sir,” I said. I caught the eye of the first platoon leader, he did not look happy.

“Lieutenant Chiando has been this way before, and he was the only platoon leader that had the forethought of requesting a guide,” The General must have noticed. I wonder if he knew how much he wasn’t helping me right then.

The General rumbled on, “Toch, let us know when you think we are as close to the bandit camp as we can safely get without being detected. Then, take third platoon and get yourselves situated. We can only give you half an hour before we need to start the assault.” I hated when he called me Toch.

We formed into tactical columns. Third platoon leading the Frist Contingent, I was leading third platoon, and Scout Visti was leading me. We circled around the Tryker camp, but kept to the ravine edge as much as we could. There was much less worry about being attacked than when we were alone, so Scout Visti moved at a faster pace.
She eventually crouched and stopped. I gave the signal for the columns to halt.

“We are here, lieutenant,” she whispered.

I motioned for the First to take their position, and whispered to my platoon sergeant to get third platoon together. I took third platoon away from the rest of the First Contingent and we circled out to the west and then turned south toward the bait pit. The torbak were there, all right. Lots of torbak. I motioned for my platoon sergeant.

I whispered my instructions, “Take three from first squad and stay here. Keep out of the way of these things. If the enemy makes it over the fence and past the torbak, do your best to stop them, and send someone to let me know. We will be almost directly south. I will send help as soon as I can.”

We had to wade out into chest deep muck in order to avoid the feeding torbak. The water and filth and stink seeped in between the small gaps in our armor. Bits of wet debris were trapped between our skin and our armor, rubbing a bit rawer with each step. The platoon didn’t say anything, but I knew what they were thinking.

At last, we made it. We clamored up the slope that formed the north side of the draw. I had second squad line up on the ridge with their rifles and auto-launchers; and sent third squad to the opposite side to do the same. They had a good, clear view down into the draw, and there was very little risk of them shooting at each other from that angle. Fourth squad was placed at top of the draw with pikes. They were the last line, and ran the highest risk of being hit with our own fire. But, they were good men, they all were, and I had to trust the riflemen would stick to their zones. I kept Scout Visti and what was left of the first squad with me to act as runners. We waited for what had to have been an hour.

The Artillery signaled the start of the assault. A huge barrage lasting several minutes ignited the night sky. Fiery cinders flew into the air above the encampment. Screams and shouts were mixed in with the explosions until then the shelling stopped. There were still cries of alarm, pain, and terror coming from the camp, but over the screams we could hear, like thunder from a far-off storm, the battle cry of the First Contingent. The blood was pounding in my ears.

“Let them come,” I said, probably louder than I should have “and we will give them Jena’s reward to the faithless” My men grunted in a quiet cheer.

They did come. A stream of men ran out of the southern gate and made their way up the draw. My men knew to wait for my command before opening fire, and I knew to wait until as many as possible were in the kill zone before tipping them to our location. I waited until I heard the first cry of surprise from the first set of cowards to meet my spearmen.

“Give them Death!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

The hillside exploded. The rapid staccato of the rifles marked the time between the bone-shaking blasts of the auto launchers. Shouting confusion enveloped the men running up the draw. Those near the end of the line ran faster, tripping over the dying and wounded in their way. Those that were close enough to the top to see the spearmen tried to stop and turn around. The competing currents of homin just made finding a target easier for the riflemen, and the bunched up groups allowed the artillery fire to have devastating effect.

The ambush only lasted a few minutes. The initial confusion stopped and the bandits in the draw took what cover there was to be had behind bushes, large rocks and the bodies of their own fallen. We started taking small arms fire, but we were in position on higher ground. Still, there was a risk to my men. Trying to pick off hidden, scattered targets with ranged weapons is difficult. If your target is on a ridgeline, however, silhouetted against the night sky, the task is a bit easier. I had no doubt we had killed the main group already, and now I had to finish the job while keeping casualties low.

The stream of homin fleeing the south gate of the city had slowed to a trickle. Several shots a minute were coming from positions in the draw, and fourth platoon would return fire as they found targets. Moans and cries from the wounded filled the area, punctuated by the occasional scream of a new victim. We needed to end this. I sent runners to third and fourth squads instructing them to be ready to charge on my order. I knew the message made it when the firing stopped. I heard the rustle of my men storing their firearms and retrieving their short swords and knives.

I only had my long-spear and a sidearm with me. I planned on bounding down the hillside, so I left the spear lashed to my back and pulled out my pistol. I got to my feet and crouched down. Blood rushed to my head, and everything seemed almost unreal. I could make out the landscape in the darkness. I saw, or though I saw where the enemy survivors were hidden. My men, I knew, were ready.

“Charge!” I yelled, as I jumped from my position and ran down the hill. I heard the platoon yell and run down behind me. I heard the shots of enemy gunfire, but they didn’t seem real to me. The sounds of my men falling to the ground were equally unreal. I just kept running toward the closest flash of light that signaled an enemy position. A Matis male was lying behind the corpse of one of his fallen comrades, using it for a weapon rest. I pointed, still running, and shot him in the face. I wonder now how I ever hit my target, but right then it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. The man gurgled, clutched his face, and fell on to his back where he lay there, twitching. I kept running.

I didn’t fire my pistol again that night. Third platoon swarmed in from all sides and skewered the rest of the criminals. When we met up at the bottom of the draw, we felt our part in this task was almost over. I sent first and second squads to the bait pit, and put fourth squad to work rescuing our wounded and recovering our dead. I went with third squad to secure the southern border.

Third squad and I moved up into the encampment. It was devastated. I could not find a building that was not either collapsed or burning. The fields were flattened, the bodoc were dead in their enclosure. I found a man and woman laying on their sides with large packs on their back. A young boy lay dead near by, holding the charred remains of what had to have been a kipee doll. Something wasn’t right.

I made my way west, toward the bait pit. There was indeed a ladder against the fence between the hill-walls. At the bottom of the walls and the fence were rows of sharp spikes that were chipped out of the large shells that were sometimes found in the area. I climbed up the ladder and looked over the fence. The torbak were still there, growling and snarling. I couldn’t see anything else in the darkness, there was too much light from the burning huts for my eyes to adjust.

Every homin learns a few simple cantrips. One of those is a basic light spell. I closed my eyes, willing energy to rush up from my legs, to my chest and through my outstretched hand. Words and whispers help some homin concentrate, but they are not strictly necessary. Concentration alone channels the primal energies through the flesh to materialize in the envisioned form. Or, at least that is what I was always told. Whatever the truth, I opened my eyes to see a ball of light hovering near my fingertips, casting a soft glow on the area outside of the wall. It illuminated a scene of overwhelming carnage.

The bodies of Matisian women were torn apart. Some showed signs of being eaten, others with fatal wounds from the great teeth of the torbak. The contents of their packs, mostly clothes and food, were scattered among the slaughter. The bodies of Matisian children with their small limbs torn completely away were in the collection. I retched, and my ethereal light mercifully winked out of existence.

I took a few minutes to compose myself and spit the bile out of my mouth. Then I crawled down the latter and grabbed the first member of my platoon that I could find.

“Go find Scout Visti and have her come talk to me. Then go to Sergeant Miachi and have him bring the rest of third platoon here,” I snarled.

I stumbled around the ruined of the settlement in a daze, kicking bits of rubble and slashing at burning posts with my spear. I came across a baby doll lying abandoned in the dirt and I launched it into the darkness with a savage kick.
“Lieutenant Chiando, Sir?” The voice of my platoon sergeant came from behind me.

I turned around to face him, “Yes, Sergeant?”

“Corporal Pibi said that you wanted to see me, sir. He also asked that I tell you that Scout Visti should be on her way,” Sergeant Miachi reported.

“The corporal told you wrong, sergeant,” I was growling now, “I wanted to see Scout Visti. I wanted you to gather third platoon. Where are my men, Sergeant?”

“They are assembling south of the camp, sir.” Sergeant Miachi clearly did not expect my mood.

“Good!” I snapped, “Now go and march them north of the settlement so we can be ready to leave.”

Sergeant Miachi gave me a confused look, “Are we not going to scavenge the encampment with the rest of the Contingent?”

I flew into a rage at that point, “NO Sergeant, we are NOT! We will NOT be participating in this massacre ANY LONGER! Now GO! Move my platoon to the north of the settlement, or by Jena’s LEFT TIT, I will gut you and make a shield from your ribs! Now GO!”

The sergeant left at a brisk walk. He was a sergeant in the most prestigious fighting force in Matia, and he certainly did not deserve to be talked to like that. The part of me that cared, however, was being soundly beaten by the part of me that was enraged. Scout Visti found me moments later.

“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant,” she said with apprehension.

“Do you know what we have done, Mia?” I asked in an angry hush.

“We have completed the mission, Lieutenant.” She said in a steely voice, “We did what had to be done.”

“Did it really have to be done, Mia? Did it?” I challenged, “These were not bandits, they weren’t fugitives, and they weren’t criminals. They were settlers. There were women and children and herds and crops here...”

I heard the footstep of many of homin behind me. I straightened up, and turned around to see third platoon marching past. Most were walking, some were limping, a few were being carried by their friends; but the ranks were full. I didn’t loose a single one. This did not make me feel better.

“They were hardly even able to fight back!” I half yelled after the platoon had passed. The men left through the south gate in order to delay us, they send their wives and children over the wall, where our pets tore them to shreds!”

“I know, Toch,” she said quietly, “I had my suspicions last week. I informed my commander, and he said to lead you on this mission. So, I informed my father, who promised to do what he could, but I don’t think he had enough time.”

“And why didn’t you tell me, Mia,” I more accused than asked.

“Because that would have left you with only two choices, Toch. You could have disobeyed the order and be executed for treason, or you could have gone through with the mission, knowing full well the target, and show yourself to be a monster. I didn’t want either one.” She said.

“But, you knew who these people were, and you went along with the mission.” This time I was plainly accusing.

“I suspected who they were, I did not know. The only chance of stopping the assault would have had to have come from the High Council or the King himself. That is why I talked to my father. I neither wanted the battle nor held the spears, Lieutenant,” she answered, anger creeping into her voice.

I knew she was right.

“Will you please attend to my wounded men, Scout Visti?’ I asked, as if asking were an apology.

She reached out, cupped my face in her hand, and answered, “Of course, Toch.”

And she vanished into the smoldering ruins.

I went off to find the General. I recognized his silhouette against the flames. He was talking to the leader of fist platoon, issuing orders to be quick about scavenging through the wreckage, placing our dead in litters, and finding a place to sleep for the night. I stood at attention until they were finished, and he walked up to me, smiling.

“Well done, Toch!” he said, “that was brilliant. No losses and the area was perfectly contained. Excellent work, my boy!”

I really wanted to punch him right then.

“General, these people were settlers, not criminals…” I started.

“Not criminals!” he yelled, “They most certainly were criminals. The defied the kings order not to settle in The Great Bog, as we could not protect them here. Then, they refused to pay the crown its due, claiming that since the royal armies could not protect them, they should not be forced to pay for their support.”

“Perhaps, they were right, uncle.” I said, trying to remain calm.

“Perhaps you have less sense than I though!” the general kept yelling, “if they were allowed to avoid taxes by moving south of the Gardens, then what would stop more homin from doing the same? Matisians would be scattered across the Verdant Heights, and our forces are far too thin to keep them alive. Make no mistake, dear nephew, these people were traitors. I knew their example would have left us weak and vulnerable, and would have ultimately destroyed what little of great Matis we have managed to piece together.”

“Who else knew about this, uncle?” I asked.

“Many of the council agree with me,” he said.

“Many, but not most.” I stated.

“No, Toch, not most. Most of the council thought we should try to reason with them. Perhaps step up recruitment and extend our patrols to the south in order to provide protection. ‘Expand the Kingdom’ they said. What they were to dim to realize is there are thousands of deaths every year in the Majestic Gardens, only timely intervention and costly bribes to Jena’s priests keep our numbers from dwindling right away. This is in ‘settled’ Majestic Gardens. It takes years of hard training in order to produce soldiers that can survive in the wild lands of the Verdant Heights. You should know this.”

For some reason, his explanation took the fight out of me. It wasn’t that I agreed with him, or that I forgave him for the deception. I think it was the realization that we had been used for an unjust end, and there was nothing to be done about it.

“Will we be trying to raise the fallen settlers, General?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No, we will not. They will be left here to feed the wildlife. They were traitors, Toch, they don’t deserve your pity, and they certainly don’t deserve our mercy.”

“I understand sir,” I said quietly, “will the First be staying here tonight?”

“Yes, I think Lieutenant Cuichini is securing a location,” the General answered. “Toch, Sub-commander Frenti was killed tonight. He ran into a hut to neutralize an enemy sharpshooter. As he ran in, one of their mages set the hut on fire with a spell. His body was nearly cremated by the time we found him.

“I am thinking of promoting Captain Anidera from the Second Contingent to take his place. I think you would be the best choice to replace Captain Anidera.”
I knew this was a bribe. There were platoon leaders who had more time in than I did. But, there wasn’t much choice. If I refused, my uncle would be suspicious of me, and it was not in his nature to deal kindly with those he did not trust.

“I would be honored, sir.” I said.

“I am glad to hear it, Toch. For now, return to your platoon and aid Lieutenant Cuichini in setting up camp. The men must be exhausted.”

I found my men in ranks, sitting on the ground, cleaning their armor. They really were preparing to march that night, and I knew they would have if I had ordered it. I was going to miss them. I found Sergeant Miachi and instructed him to help secure the area; and I told my men to set up camp.

Once everything was set up, I retired to my tent. I was changing my armor when I heard the tent flap rustle and saw Mia slip inside the tent. She looked tired, her shoulders were slumped, and her head was bowed slightly.

“Are you alright, Mia?” I asked.

She started, half whispering, “The intruder that we chased away last night was a messenger from the High Council. The guards opened fire before she could identify herself. Before the assault, she managed to reach the general and deliver her message. After reading it, the General returned it to her and ordered his guards to kill the scout and make it look like an accident. She escaped, killing one guard and wounding the other seriously. The general stalled the attack so he could send troops to look for her. But, they never found her. A scout that does not wish to be found will not be. She found me a few minutes ago. Her name is Scout Cizzo. She told me she read the message. It was an order not to attack.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“She is going to hide for awhile, and then make her way to our commander. She thinks if she shows up too soon, the General will have her killed,” Mia answered.

“What should we do?”

“What can we do, Toch? It is a high crime to break the seal of royal correspondence unless you are the person meant to receive it. We shouldn’t know the contents of the message. If we told anyone, then scout Cizzo would never be able to return.” Mia explained, her voice becoming emotional.

I waited for a few moments before saying, dismally, “I am being promoted, Mia.”

“I am sorry, Toch.” She replied.

I reached out, and took her hands in mine.

“After we get home, and get settled, perhaps we could have dinner one night.” I said, with as much hope as I could muster.

She squeezed my hands gently and answered, “I would like that, Toch. Let’s make it one night soon.”

[mrshad]

Your Majesty,
We are pleased to inform you that The General is our honored guest.
He will be pleased to remain with us until a few conditions are met.
For our hospitality, we require ten million pieces of dapper.
We also request a deed to the lands south of Yrkanis and north of the crossroads
Lastly, and most importantly, Your Majesty must issue a royal decree prohibiting homin in Your honorable Kingdom from aggressive actions against the kitin.

Our deepest gratitude.


--Ransom Note received by the High Council


There is a saying on Atys that it is always darkest before the dawn. The sentence has changed from a simple observation of the properties of light to a message of hope in difficult times. Captain Chiangi knew the truth, all soldiers did. It wasn’t really that the sky grew darker before dawn, but that the changing light made it more difficult to see. Thirty minutes or so in the pre-dawn and the eyes would adjust. That is why most attacks came right before dawn or right after dusk, in the hope that the enemy was either asleep or indoors.

The Third Contingent lay in wait around the camp of the bandits known as the Turn of the Tide. They were a small group of fanatics dedicated to the belief that the kitin were the rightful inhabitants of Atys, and were determined to turn the tide of the war back in their favor. They were typically the second or third children of noble families. They had usually received expensive educations and possessed abundant free time, but lacked guidance and self discipline. The Turn of the Tide was not a large or powerful group…very few homin were sympathetic to their cause, but they were able to waylay a few of the less well protected travelers of the royal highway.

Their inability to threaten to a major degree the affairs of the kingdom was all that spared them from total annihilation. The kingdom, quite frankly, had bigger things to worry about. But their ransom note and the missing General changed all that. An entire contingent was called in to wipe them out, and Captain Chiangi was all too glad to lead them. The Turn of the Tide had been so consumed by their inner darkness that their hate extended to all homin.

Captain Chiangi had done his reconnaissance. The camp was bordered on the north by a cliff, and they numbered at most about twenty. The Third contingent had them surrounded and vastly outnumbered. There was no chance that the criminals would survive. Captain Chiangi reached for his flare launcher.

The iridescent streak arced from Captain Chiangi’s location into the center of the camp and exploded with blinding light. The shockwave from the noise sent the local wildlife stampeding in all directions. The Third knew what was coming, and kept their eyes tightly shut until they heard the explosion. They knew their cue, and they ran into the camp with their short swords drawn.

The camp guards fired off a few wild shots. Captain Chiangi heard at least one round make an impact, but kept running. Some of the bandits were stumbling out of their huts in dazed confusion, and Captain Chiangi could see where a small fire was starting somewhere in the center of the camp. As he closed in on a guard, the guard pointed a small pistol at Captain Chiangi and fired a round. The bullet smashed into Captain Chiangi’s buckler, and the Captain plowed his shoulder into the bandit before he could take aim again.

The combatants stumbled back to balance, and when Captain Chiangi turned to find his opponent, he was close enough to see his face in the dark. The bandit was young, well groomed, and terrified. He certainly did not have the typical hard-bitten look that came form years of desperate living on the fringes of society. This young Matis obviously did not anticipate a serious, violent response to what he sure was a just cause. The bandit aimed quickly at Captain Chiangi’s face, and pulled the trigger.

Captain Chiangi felt a sharp sting across his left cheek, but kept circling toward his opponent. The recoil from the pistol gave Captain Chiangi an opening and he lunged with his short sword. The tip bit through leather armor, slid through the bandit’s skin and flesh, scraped across a rib, and guided the blade through the hollow cavity of a lung. The bandit dropped his pistol, fell to his knees and grabbed at the blade sticking in his chest. Captain Chiangi felt no personal enmity for the young man, but he did have a job to finish. The Captain kicked the bandit square in the face as he cleared his sword from the man’s chest.

And he was off again. Combat was a cold ritual for Captain Chiangi. Yes, there was the adrenaline, the blood rush that gave the muscles both strength and speed, but he never got caught up in the wave of battle like so many other solders did. He kept his mind clear and his vision broad, taking in the whole scene while dealing with the obstacles as they came up. Fighting was a means to an end, not the end itself. Still, he was quite good at it.

The fire in the center of the camp was blazing now, snapping, and crackling. Thick smoke poured up in a dark plume. By the light of the fire, Captain Chiangi found his next target, a Matis female firing shots at some of his men. Her back was toward him, and he moved toward her in long, quiet strides. Sergio grabbed her throat from behind with his shield hand, and held her steady as he thrust the blade, hilt-deep, into her side. She was small; her neck was warm in his hand. Sergio was surprised that he noticed the scent of her sweat and hair as he held her there for the few moments before she crumpled to the ground. Slick with her blood, the blade slid cleanly from her corpse.

Captain Chiangi advanced to the center of the camp. The battle was nearly over, he knew. The gunfire had become much less frequent, the solid crack of weapons on weapons heard less and less often. He stepped into the ring of firelight to find one of his own men standing over the body of a bandit. Gore snaked in stuttered spasms from a hole in the dead homin’s belly, and the soldier was bleeding profusely from a deep wound in his left arm.

“Go get that patched up, soldier,” Captain Chiangi said.

The soldier nodded mutely and trotted off into the dark. Captain Chiangi studied the fire, it wasn’t from a house or a tent, and it burned quickly…so quickly that even now it was starting to die down. The occasional flicker would let Captain Chiangi see deeper in the heart of the flame, where he could make out what he thought was a shape in the conflagration. There was something about it that prodded at his memory. Something he found almost obscene.

The realization came with both surprise and absolute horror. It was a pyre, part of a Frisian funeral rite that turned the body to ash. After a long and glorious life, the Fyros warrior would be commended to the skies on flaming wings. Alternatively, it was also used to keep someone who had died, dead.

Sergio had failed his mission. He was breathing in the ash of the great General’s body. The dishonor of it all caused him to fall to the ground in despair.

[mrshad]

The secret was hidden from the minds of most homin.
Hidden from the undisciplined and the uninitiated.
Hidden, certainly, from those that did not know how to seek.
The hidden truth, the real meaning, the soul behind the flesh, the spirit inside the tree.

Ascension was the goal, and meditation the path. To set aside the physical, and become pure spirit. To join Ma-duk, to attain Kamihood. The Fyros searched for answers in the deep places of Atys, spreading fire and death, ultimately bringing the kitin scourge. The Matis looked for truth in secrets of physical life, twisting the living creations of Ma-Duk into creations of their own design. The Tryker listened to the wind for answers, capturing what was free and forcing it to their will.

They were all wrong. The answers did not lie in, on or around Atys; but beyond it. Homin-kind had to leave behind their physical pursuits, their deep digging, their careful manipulations, their ingenious machines. Leave it behind, and move toward the unseen. Siouan-Chen had been in meditation for three days. No food, no drink, not moving and barely breathing. An altered state that allowed him to examine the workings of his own soul and identify the changes needed to attain Kamihood.

Meditation is not the peace-filled exercise that the uninitiated imagine. It is a constant struggle to keep the soul away from the flesh, but protected from oblivion. It is easy to get lost in the paths of spirit, and the discipline required to survive deep meditation takes years to develop. Siouan-Chen balanced between consciousness and destruction.

Siouan-Chen was not alone in this in-between realm. The souls of the dead of Atys pass through there briefly on their way to either that unknown land beyond or reunification with their bodies. But they were not his concern. The bodies of his students were in the same room as his, and their souls were close, as far as distance had any meaning apart from the flesh.

“Maintain your focus, and there is no need to fear,” he said to the souls of his devotees.

He flinched at the thought of saying anything. He had no lips, no tongue, no throat or lungs. The words came as thoughts and moved from one soul to another. Yet, his spirit was in the form of his body, and his mouth moved to express the thoughts. After all these years, he was still chained to the physical.

“The flesh is a curse, my children,” he continued, “pain and hunger, heat and cold, sorrow and death are all wages of the physical.”

Those that heard his homily were to acknowledge his words by shaping a syllable, either with flesh or though. None of his students were as far along the path as he, but they should all have been able to hear his soul send messages.

“shon” they chanted in unison.

“We have been clothed in flesh in order to learn to overcome it. Those that sacrifice the flesh will join Ma-Duk and attain Kamihood, those that do not will be reborn to start again.”

“shon” they intoned again.

“In this place we deny the flesh. We do not eat, we will not drink, we breath as little as possible. We welcome thirst and hunger and pain as reminders of the weaknesses of flesh. We master these weaknesses by separating our souls from our flesh.”

“shon”

“As we leave the flesh behind, we can commune with Ma-Duk, the Life-Spirit.”

“shon”

“Behold, my children, the Father of Life has spoken to me! We must lead others along the path of enlightenment. They must feel the love of Ma-Duk, and join with us in the pursuit of Kamihood!”

“shon”


“It is in pursuit of this command that I have brought an acolyte here, an uninitiated, even a Tryker soul. It has long been thought that the Tryker were incapable of exercising the mental discipline necessary to join us here. For the glory of Ma-Duk, I have found a way to detach them from their hedonism.”

Siouan-Chen directed the attention apprentices to a small, formless presence near them in the void. It reradiated fear and confusion, and was in obvious pain. The acolytes were surprised by this presence, and many of them were jolted form their meditation, gasping for air and clutching their heads in pain. To those that remained in the realm between, Siouan-Chen continued his lecture.

“From here, my children, we can help this being in ways that we never could in the flesh. With your aid, we can guide her and mold her, help her spirit evolve into a vessel fit to bear the will of Ma-Duk.”

“shon” the remaining students replied.

“Many will not understand at first. But Ma-Duk will enlighten them. Those that are loyal to Him, and to me, will be among the first to be received into Kamihood. For the glory of Ma-Duk.”

“For the glory of Ma-Duk” his students chanted.

[mrshad]

Sub-Commander Anidera,,

With this letter I regretfully tender my commission and impose exile upon myself.
I have failed His Royal Majesty; I have disgraced myself and the honor of the Royal Guard. Most of all, I have failed the General, and that failure has caused his final death. No apology or act of attrition will wash away the shame of my defeat.

Sincerely

Sergio Chiangi

--Final After-action Report from Captain Chiangi


“Sergeant Peli, the command of the contingent is yours. Return them to Yrkanis, and pass command to Sub-commander Anidera. Report to him what happened here, and give him this.” Sergio handed over the letter. Top Sergeant Peli took it with a sharp move.

“And what about you, sir?” The Sergeant asked.

“I am going into exile,” Sergio surprised himself with how calmly he said it, “the letter contains my resignation, and a short explanation.”

Sergeant Peli looked like he was about to say something, and thought better on it. There was nothing to say. This was out of character for Captain Chiangi. The proper protocol was to march the contingent back to Yrkanis, turn command to Sub-Commander Anidera, and face the inevitable trial. The likely outcome would be exile however, as death was saved for violent criminals. Captain Chiangi was just skipping the formalities. The Captain had failed, he knew it, his men knew it; and there was no point in trying to escape it. The General was lost for good, and Captain Chiangi was responsible.

“I will find out how the General came here. I will somehow send word when I find out,” Sergio said. “I will leave my armor and weapons with you, and I ask that you allow me to take one of the bodies of the bandits with me.”

“I understand, Captain. I wish you well, I really do. But, if I see you again, I will have to kill you. I will take the contingent back to Yrkanis. You will have that long to leave Matia,” Sergeant Peli responded solemnly.

“More than fair, Sergeant.” Sergio concluded.

Sergio ducked into one of the still-standing huts and stripped off his armor. He found serviceable clothes lying about and dressed himself. He left is armor, sword and buckler in a pile outside of the hut. They would be recovered when the contingent swept the area.

The bodies of the bandits were being laid in a row and staked to the ground. Stakes were formed from the thigh bones of bodocs. Raw meet was strapped to the stakes with the long ligaments taken from the beasts. A sure sign to everyone that these bodies where being left to the forest, and they should not be brought back. The scent of the carnage would bring carnivores before nightfall.

Sergio chose one that had not been impaled; the body of a blonde girl that was not too terribly mangled in the battle. Blood had soaked through her clothes from a deep wound in her side, and dried in dark stains that stuck to her skin. Sergio snagged on of the bodoc ligaments and tied the feet of the corpse together. With one last glance at the men that were once his to command, he set of toward nearby Avalea, dragging the body behind him.

As he pulled, the shirt the corpse slid up around the neck, exposing the the back of the body to the punishment of the terrain. The skin was quickly rubbed raw and burned bright red, eventually tearing off in small strips. Dirt and small pieces of bark stuck to the lacerations. Sergio smiled slightly at the thought of how much pain she would be in when she was raised. Less than she deserved, certainly.

Sergio had always been an introvert. He was constantly examining his own soul in order to push away the darkness in his own heart, or falling into the old trap of regret that haunted him in nearly every quiet moment.

“Pride,” he said aloud, whether to himself or to his supine companion, he wasn’t sure; and it didn’t matter. He knew two things instinctively. If he thought through his present course, he would certainly find a reason to give it up. He also knew that everything else in his life was gone, and without a reason, he would certainly die.

Avalea was not far. He and his cargo finished the trip before midday. Sergio dropped the body next to the silver Alter of Jena. Proximity to the alters was the key to restoring life to the dead. The Karavan priests need not actually be involved. The alter hums and glows a little, the corpse draws a pained and strangled breath, and death itself is pushed back. The miraculous had become common place in a war of the gods.

The girl gasped, and her eyes fluttered open. She looked back and forth in dazed confusion until her gaze rested on Sergio’s face.

“You?” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It was you.”

Sergio knelt next to her, and put his mouth next to her ear. Her hair was long and filled with twigs and grass collected on the journey.

“The life you have now, I gave to you,” Sergio said so only she could hear, “If you wish to keep it, you will do what I tell you. If not, I will tell the guards who you are, and you will be staked to the ground for the ragus to devour. They might even let the ragus have the fun of eating you alive, once they learn you were responsible for the General’s death.”

She looked at him in a blinking stupor. Sergio untied her legs, grabbed her arm, and hauled her to her feet. He led her off into the woods to the east of the town, supporting her stumbling steps with his arms, catching her as she tried to make her way. They looked, to any who were watching, like a close couple who only barely escaped tragedy, but were eager to be off again. And Atys was filled with people like that.

[mrshad]

There is an old Matisian fable that tells of a young Matis man who was loved by the common people, but envied and despised by the local noble. The young man was invited to the court of the noble, in order to be introduced to the noble’s three daughters, and choose one of them to be his bride.

There was the red-haired Vera. She was a fierce warrior and hunter, proficient with spear and sword. When she laughed, it was loud and full of life. When she ate, it was with zest, enjoying every morsel. Her breath carried the heated promise of the passion that would fill the life of the man she would marry.

Her sister, Niria, whose dark hair veiled her pale skin with mystery. She was clever and wise, her sharp wit honed by researching deep magic. Her talk was often filled with wry comments that were at once disarming and endearing. She would make a worthy bride to any man seeking to make his life in the royal courts.

And the third, the gentle Trissi. Her gift with molding the living things of Atys was extraordinary. Her blonde locks fell in front of her bright blue eyes as she tended to her endless gardens. Peaceful and loving, she would dote upon the man she married, and give every care to the children they had together.

So, whom did the young man choose? The story never really says. No matter what the choice, he would wonder all his days how is life would have been different had he chose one of the other two. What he desired at the time of choice would not be what he would always desire, and so the noble had afflicted the young man with a lifetime of regret and doubt.

Sometimes the kindest gifts are the cruelest.

Like all old fables, this one oversimplifies matters greatly.

Courtship and marriage in Matia are usually very formal affairs: introductions, chaperones, meetings at social events. The customs have served Matisians well for generations. Families remain together. Children are born and grow up with the guidance of both of their parents. The kingdom remains united and healthy. It is a good arrangement, as long as you are wealthy. But then, if you can’t find a way to make money in Matia, why should you be allowed to pass on your obviously flawed traits? Or so the thinking goes.

My salary as a Captain in the Royal Guard was hardly extravagant. It was, however, enough to provide a comfortable living. My family owned a large plot of land near the town of Davea, and my connection to the General gave me easy contacts within the highest ranks of Matisian society. In short, had I followed the accepted path I would have probably led a pleasant and comfortable life.

I met Mia in Davea for dinner a couple of days after returning from the battle in the Slough of the Demon. I dressed in my formal green and red uniform, complete with my new Captain’s bars. I thought I looked rather good. Mia, when I met her, was wearing white and purple gown. She fit effortlessly into the role of Intendant’s daughter, lovely without looking fragile; pleasant but never flighty. The look of alert seriousness never left her eyes, however, and she was every bit the Forest Runner in an elegant dress as she was in her light clothes.

Of course, her father sent a chaperone; it wouldn’t do for us to be alone together, after all. We talked about growing up near Davea. Laughing politely at how she would slip away from her tutors and past the gate guards in order to spend time in the forest.
“Why did you join the Forest Runners?” “How did you get into the Royal Guard?” They were conversations that seemed banal and obfuscating considering what we had already been through together.

There was a false shyness about the whole evening. We were torn between what we expected from each other, and keeping the forms that society expected from us. I wanted to talk about the consequences of the battle, but politics do not make pleasant dinner conversation; and there was always the fear of bringing up something that we should not have known. So, we kept the conversation light and pointless until the chaperone signaled the end of the evening.

We rose from the table, and she walked with me to the door. She offered me her hand and I kissed it. I wished her a pleasant evening, and left. Left feeling absolutely unsatisfied. We had something together; at least, that is what I thought. Perhaps it was the bond that all soldiers forge when they are in combat together, but I really felt like it was something more. The empty formality of the evening made me wonder if it was all in my mind.

I arranged to stay in the guard quarters for the night. The officer accommodations were surprisingly comfortable. I took off my uniform and replaced it with more comfortable clothing. After I pulled my shirt over my head, there was a knock on the door.

“Captain Chiando?” a messenger at the door asked, “This is for you, sir.”

He handed me a small wooden box that was tied shut with a length of vine. I took the parcel and dismissed the messenger, resting my back against the door as I untied the little box. There was a necklace inside. As I pulled it out, a small piece of paper leapt form the box and tumbled to the floor. I held the necklace in front of me, at eye level and arms length. The chain was from the forest, as well as the amber. It was well made, but certainly not a work of art. The amber was clear, though not brilliant, and the chain was polished, but did not have the silver color that the truly excellent seed had. The whole piece tickled something at the back of my mind.

I bent down to retrieve the note from the floor. Unfolding it, I read:


We found this together. I suppose that means we have joint custody.
I expect you to return it to me, tonight, on top of the large hill just south of town.
Be there in an hour.
-M


I stuffed the necklace in my pocket, fumbled on my boots and ran out into the darkness.

I tripped my way through the nighttime forest. My heart was pounding so hard all I could hear was the blood in my ears. My stomach was clenched around where my lungs should have been. Gingo and ragus were known to prowl around the hill, not that the though ever came to mind as I was jogging toward my destination.

Fortunately, nothing found me. The hillside was covered in trees. Skittish flickers of stars and sky filtered past the branches and leaves. It was just enough to illuminate the next trunk.. I won past the canopy and onto the hill top; open to the pale moonlight.

And there was Mia. Her face was all that was visible form her dark silhouette. I walked up to her, close enough that I could smell her hair.

“I see you found the place,” she said, attempting to be casual about this huge breach in Matisian protocol.

“I brought this back to you,” I answered, as I pulled the necklace form my pocket. I had to shake it a few times to untangle it, and then I let it dangle between us from my thumb.

She bowed he head toward me slightly. I draped the jewelry over her head, and I move my hand around the back of her neck to bush her hair out from under the chain. As she lifted her head again, she took a small step forward; and we were nose to nose, with my hand on the back of her neck.

Of course, I kissed her; and, of course, she kissed me back.

Her lips were warm, and soft and firm. She tasted like the wind and the rain of an early spring storm. Everything else that I had ever wanted in all the world fell away, and all that was left was her. She slid her arms beneath mine, and pulled her body against me. I felt her curves and her warmth through my clothes.

She pulled her lips away from mine, and I felt like my heart came out through my mouth. All I wanted was her, and she just took a piece of me away with her kisses. I tried to lean in for more, but she nuzzled her head into my chest.

“Thank you, for the necklace, Toch,” she said in a whisper.

“Thank you for letting me give it to you, Mia,” I said, speaking into her hair.