Glen

The soft Spring of War

-Prelude-

Part I

If the Cofol Steppe and desert were open flat dull country, or at times monochromatic, the valleys leading to the Yeriden Basin, were peppered with multicolored fruit trees, from plums, pears and olives to oranges and lemons further east, at times creating small lush smelling forests, in the otherwise similarly flat terrain.

The land dried up, if one traveled south and moved away from the mighty river and its tributaries, turning again into a fine yellow-grit desert, until the Queen’s Oasis waters sprouted out of the gold sands, just before the south mountain routes the lonely Sadofort guarded. Speaking of routes, the one unfairly given the moniker ‘Merchant Path’ was still used, the old Imperial built coast avenue once leading to the ruins of Oakenfalls, before heading straight down towards the old Xi Yil Castle, from where legendary Radpour is rumored to have started his one-thousand day journey across the Great Desert that brought his chariots to Rin An-Pour.

The buzzing of flies, hornets, bees and other blood-sucking, sting-enamored bugs was the icing on the cake, as far as Glen was concerned. While Sen-Iv might have looked at everything with happy eyes, after the blandness of the road and harshness of climbing the soft slopes leading to the canyon, the same that had brought them into Raoz proper again, after almost two months on the road, Glen knew that by returning to civilization hassle-free times were over.

Problems loomed large ahead.

Enemies, not in the spirit of angry debtors, or livid fathers, but honest to god real assassins.

He had to set himself straight, be on his best game and make no mistakes here.

Aye.

Be one step ahead of everyone else, anticipate every minutiae and plan accordingly at least a day ahead. Even two…

“How much?” He asked, eyes ogled in utter shock, snapping out of his reverie and Marcus who had never found a grimace he didn’t like, crooked his mouth up and down, the nicks and cuts where he’d dry shaved himself with a sharpened dagger, still bleeding.

A procedure so barbaric, Glen had opted to leave it to a professional barber.

Provided he’d any coin left, when they finally reached Rida.

“A gold per head, milord. Half that for the animals, with the exception of the donkey. That’s one gold Eagle as well.”

What?

“Leave that darn thing behind!” Glen bellowed, incensed beyond reason. They were gonna get stranded in the bloody middle of bugs ‘n frogs country, before even starting their final approach to Rida.

“Even then, do you have the coin, milord?” Marcus queried.

“Fifteen gold,” Glen repeated glaring at him. “To let us climb on a couple of pieces of wood, he tied together once ten years back and never bothered to repair and then drag us across the river. A thirty minutes job. One hour tops!” He sighed livid. “And how it is fifteen with eight people, when two of them are dwarfs for all that’s holly! Don’t they get a discount, or something?”

“Potato-potato, milord. The man has a fixed commission for himself,” Marcus explained patiently.

“Hah! Tell him to stick that potato up his arse!” Glen yelled loud enough for the smirking ruffian watching them from his stupid raft to hear; with the even stupider label that read ‘cheap crossings’, adding with his voice dripping righteous indignation. “And let’s just call it highway robberies, since that’s what it plaguin’ is!”

Glen could smell a nasty crook the moment that ruffian got close.

And he could tell a thief from across the stinkin’ Yeriden!

No one talked for a couple of minutes, the animals lashing with their tails, snorting and farting, flies buzzing annoyingly, that is until a palm caught them flat-footed on a nappe and squashed them dead.

“I can’t swim,” Stiles blurted out, finally breaking the stalemate.

“Huh? You were a god-darn pirate!” Glen growled angry, as he was contemplating the idea, the tributary a mere eighty meters from bank to bank. The slave girls whipped their heads towards his affronted manservant surprised and a little angry.

“On a ship, milord,” Stiles corrected him, devastated his apparent ‘secret’ was out. “There was no swimming involved.”

Oh, boy.

“Right,” He said grimacing and eyed the pregnant waters again, then the man waiting by the large raft, a smug smirk on his provincial face.

Fuck.

I have to use that dagger to shave myself.

Half an ear can be explained away, a butchered up face… not so much.

I guess Sen will get to sleep a couple of days in the streets.

Rain season seems rather mild this year, thank the gods.

No biggie.

“Will he accept stones?” Sen-Iv asked and most didn’t even hear her, since she had relapsed into whispering mode again.

“What was that dear? Stones?” Glen cracked a smile. “Yer joke probably got murdered in translation.”

Sen produced a tiny purse from an inside pocket, the cloak shouldn’t have. On a second read of the situation, it was Iskay the redhead that had given it to her from behind.

That redhead was sneaky.

“Diamonds,” Sen-Iv said.

This time everyone heard her, despite the noise coming from the river.

Glen stared at the tiny purse intrigued.

“Show me one, Sen.”

She opened it, taking her bloody time, pulling at the tiny cords extra carefully and then used a well-shaped thumb and index finger to fish one out. The small gleaming crystal sparkling as if breathing.

God darn it.

That’s a fuckin’ diamond!

“How many of those do ye have in there?” Glen asked, trying to keep his cool, but failing.

Sen-Iv frowned, as if thinking about it, whether it was an act, or just for their entertainment Glen had no idea, before answering.

“Around fifty.”

There were a couple of loud gasps, Glen being amongst them, a ‘get the fuck out’ from Marcus and an actual whistle from Stiles, following her admission.

“Are you sure?” Glen asked, still numb at the amount of wealth carelessly carried around, next to a deep-flowing and sloped riverbank.

Imagine dropping that.

The horror.

“It might be forty eight exactly,” Sen answered, a little embarrassed. “I rounded it up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Glen told her soothingly and jumped near to hug her shoulders with an arm, while snatching the purse away with the other. “You don’t actually carry this on you all the time right?”

Sen bit her lip, in a very distracting manner and nodded.

She was.

“Why would you risk—?”

“To fix my costume,” She replied hanging her pretty head, adding in a breathless whisper. “The one I wore that day, to help you sign the contract.”

“Right,” Glen replied, loud enough to cover the curious murmurs that erupted at the revelation. That was too much information. “Those were real diamonds.”

“They tend to fall off,” Sen explained. “And I need to have the costume ready, in case I’m present at a Valimae Lilt, since we’re so near the sea.”

“The fuck is that?” Glen blurted, busy looking inside the purse and the sparkling beauties.

“Ahm, it’s a dance, Glen,” Sen replied, genuinely shocked he wasn’t aware of it. Why? Glen wondered. Is it because I’m an islander? “Women are supposed to take part in it, for good fortune.”

Right.

Glen glanced at their group, listening in to their conversation rather engrossed and saw the same surprise on everyone’s faces, but for the two dwarfs. Norec looked unhappy to even be there and stared miserable at the river and Fikumin rolled his eyes, large nose covering his mouth almost, before replying.

“It’s an old Empire custom, the three kingdoms moved away from it, Glenavon.”

“Why is that?” Glen asked keeping a diamond and binding the cords tight, to secure the rest, before placing the purse in one of the many inside pockets of his own coat.

“It’s a lively dance to the vile Abrakas,” Fikumin explained, casting a scornful glance at a glaring Sen-Iv. “The Cofols of Greenwhale, are enthusiastically tolerable to the worst of old rituals and habits, as you’ve come to realize.”

Grimaldi Dato agreed to get paid in a diamond, plus a striking ruby Sen just happened to have in a small gems box, she carried around as well. Glen called him a reprehensible thief to his face and all but swam across right then and there, but no one else wanted to follow and Grimaldi holding all the cards and rafts in that spot, the second raft steered by his oldest son Sireno, a young Lorian that looked as much a crook as his old man, finally got what he wanted.

“We should use both rafts,” Glen complained, walking back and forth while the rest were loading their animals and tied them up on the rail of the crude raft, its lower portion made of a hollow yellow wood, they called bamboo. “For the price.”

“Two rafts,” Grimaldi repeated his favorite quote of the past twenty minutes. “Twice the commission,” A big toothy grin at the end of it. “Double the price. Or you can swim.”

Marcus shrugged his shoulders and only Norec appeared mildly annoyed at this brigand of a captain of sorts. The latter questionable as they were gonna pull at the long rope tied at the other bank to make the crossing, so not much actual piloting was needed. The whole business in fact, appeared to Glen to be nothing more, than a clever scheme to legally rob honest folk off their purse.

“Everyone is a plaguin’ crook,” Glen commented, thinking out loud and the girls started laughing, thinking it funny for some reason. Stiles nodded vindicated, or absolved and Marcus just grunted. Even Sen-Iv usually restrained, had loosened up enough to allow herself half a smirk in public.

“It takes one,” Grimaldi deadpanned, after they had had their fill. “To know one, Mister Glen.”

Glen frowned and went to answer him, but caught riders approaching out of the corner of his eye, from the site of the unseen large stone bridge, about five kilometers away. He’d missed the sound of the hooves due to the river being this close.

“That’s a big group,” Grimaldi commented greedily eyeing them. “Hop aboard lads, my son will take care of them. You too Mister Glen, there’s plenty of room left. I told ye, we won’t need the second raft.”

Glen grunted, boots half sunk in the muddy shallow water and walked towards the edge of the raft, now packed with animals and people, intent to climb aboard. Easier said, than done. Stiles gave him a helping hand, the former pirate’s face tensing up as he pulled him hard. Glen huffed and puffed, cursing in between like a drunken sailor and finally managed to get on the unstable floating vessel that had as much resemblance to Reeve’s ship, as a rock has with an old turd. They were both round and hard sometimes, but not always and in this particular case, they both kinda floated above water.

Floated used loosely in this instance.

“Water is coming up!” Glen shouted at their Captain, taking his time to raise the anchor.

“Too much load on the raft,” Grimaldi explained casually, his face flushed from the effort. “Nothing critical yet!”

“I don’t feel reassured Mister Dato!” Glen retorted, eyeing the water splashing on his boots. Over his left shoulder the riders grew in size as they neared; about twenty of them advanced to their ragtag dock and the four huts afore it, at a steady but slow trot he could now hear, along with the sounds made by their mounts. Their snorts and neighs coming rugged and at short intervals. As if the animals were spent already.

Were they coming from the bridge? Why not cross there?

Glen paused and turned to look at them more closely, the warning coming from his honed instincts impossible to ignore. Or perhaps he was already on edge.

“Can you make out their armour?” Marcus asked, sucking at his teeth nervously.

“Not yet. Help him with the anchor,” Glen ordered him.

The lead riders came to about fifty meters from the huts and cut their speed, seeing the few locals watching them, then as if given an order half of them charged ahead in a wave, the rest following at a steady trot, while reaching for their bows. Because they all had one. Glen had seen their likes again at Hellfort and felt acid burn his stomach.

Despite numerous survivors giving their personal accounts on the battles coming before the siege of Rida, it is difficult to piece together where the conflict started, what was a skirmish and what wasn’t. Spread out into a large territory, between the Yeriden tributaries and fought for at least two days that we know of, it is now widely accepted by most scholars that it was Prince Nout that used Esterlams Crevice to cross Yeriden and flank the Duke’s forces, right when they had the win within their grasp. The initial rushed and failed feint on the first day of the battle, done by his older brother Prince Sahand, either an elaborate ruse, or a sign that the Khan’s forces were operating on a different timetable and had different goals.

-

Lord Sirio Veturius

Circa 206 NC

The Fall of Heroes

Chapter VII

-Prologue-

(Duke Gideon of Raoz,

‘The Siege of Rida’,

A ‘feint’ near Threeriver Bridge

and the battle of Esterlams Crevice

-Day one-

Last month of Spring,

189 NC)

“Get us out of here, Captain!” He anxiously ordered Grimaldi, who’d just managed to get the stone anchor out of the water with the help of Marcus. Grimaldi raised his head and looked at the group coming towards the locals and frowned. It wasn’t a full blown charge, as their horses seemed shot, but it was close. “Hurry up ye fool!” Glen blasted him and looked about the five by four floating raft for cover.

There was nothing there, he realized.

“What’s gotten into —” Grimaldi tried to say, but then arrows whistled as they fell out of the sky, their initial approach hidden by the sounds of the pregnant river. Two of the locals went down immediately, another got nailed at his groin and doubled over with a scream that chilled their blood, but the rest missed, with a couple striking water a foot from the raft.

“MOVE GOD DARN IT!” Glen bellowed and went to pull at the ropes to get them moving himself, with Marcus following. That seemed to get Grimaldi out of it and the captain shoved him away, to start tugging at the rope.

The moment their raft started moving away from the bank, the next volley came and the first Cofol scouts fell on the stunned locals like wraiths. Glen saw no other details of what was happening on the river’s shore as one arrow hit Sireno, the young man still standing dumbfounded on his own raft, going through his right thigh. He groaned grabbing it and stumbled forward, just as another three arrows reached Glen’s raft. Two of them finding deck this time.

Fuckers found the range.

“Son!” Grimaldi yelled seeing the young man plummeting head first on the deck of his own raft, now left behind them at the docks, with another two arrows on his chest. “No! GODS NO!”

The dismayed captain let go of the rope, reached the protective but simple wooden rail, under Glen’s incredulous glare, went over it and right into the flooded river, trying to get back to help his child. A horrible idea, thankfully Glen hadn’t attempted earlier. The current too great, pulled him further away in an ever increasing looping arc from the shores, until he gave up and went under. Glen and his friends watched him drown silently, all in the space of a couple of minutes.

Even less than that.

Good grief.

We’re all gonna die.

“GET MY SHIELD LAD! STILES GET OVER HERE!” Marcus barked taking charge of the deteriorating situation, snapping him out of his despondency, just as another volley came from the approaching second group of scouts. Glen ducked and went for the boxes with their supplies, arrows hitting the flooded deck of the raft, some breaking, others getting stuck. He rolled, brackish water splashing him in the face, put his hand on the large square Legion shield and lugged it out of the tied up bundle.

“PULL!”

Glen turned and rushed back to Marcus and Stiles, the two of them heaving hard, veins popped on their necks and turning fast a dark shade of red. He gave the shield to Stiles who turned and wore it on his back as he was standing last in the line. Glen went to sit in front of them both, but Fikumin stopped the former thief putting a hand on his knee. Norec was standing right next to him.

“Help the women,” The dwarf told him, returning his glare.

Huh?

Glen turned just as one of their mules, coughed up blood and whined pathetically, before dropping on its knees, five arrows skewering its back.

“PULL!” Marcus barked again.

Glen had to move and he did.

“Get cover at the horses!” He yelled to the girls, feverishly checking at their animals binds himself, the raft shaking right and left, up and down, the river roaring under their feet, their mounts snorting and neighing scared, Marcus always barking, keeping the tempo as they reached the middle of the river and fresh arrows dropping right and left, rattling his frayed nerves.

“PULL!”

Almost all the Cofol scouts had lined up at the bank and were firing arrow after arrow towards them. Thankfully, they were slowly, but steadily moving away from them now. At the same time they were a very big target of course. So in the next half hour, they lost another two animals, a horse and a mule, before they reached the other bank; all of them exhausted, even Glen and the women that hadn’t done much pulling, other than helping right at the final meters, when Stiles had collapsed totally shattered.

“They are gonna use the other raft,” Marcus growled, and tried to spit down, before realizing he’d a dry mouth.

“Aye,” Glen agreed, puffing his cheeks out and seeing no other way around it, he started untying the animals. “Sen get the girls to spread the supplies around. You’re are riding with me. The girls will get your mare,” Glen ordered them quickly, while the rest were catching up their breath, trying to recover from the effort. He checked on their remaining animals thoughtfully and then added. “Leave the donkey behind.”

Glen had had enough with it and the sinister animal turning its large head around, stupid mouth all big teeth and mauve lips, agreed letting out a dissonant, as much as vindictive deafening bray.

HEE-HAW!

Glen vowed that day, to never again allow Stiles steal animals unsupervised.