The Ashes of Empire

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Commissar
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The Ashes of Empire

Post by Commissar » Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:38 pm

She'd never liked killing horses.

It wasn't squeemishness. Just the accursed noise. You buried a knife in a man and you did it right, and you got a low, gurgling grunt for your troubles, and that was more or less the whole of it. After that, you could be on with your business and trust the fellow to have the good grace to finish dying quietly.

Horses, alas, shared none of that pleasantness. Screeched like banshees, each and every one. There had been thirty head of horseflesh when the sellsword had begun her work that afternoon. Now there was half that number and the flies had begun to take notice. They'd drifted up from the sickly-smelling riverbed still choked with the bodies of His Majesty's something-or-other cavalry company with all the inevitability of the plague and made themselves comfortable on the cuts on her face, her hands, her legs. She spat and cursed, swatted them away. They settled on the dead and dying horses instead.

She kicked a fallen standard out of the way, purple and black heraldry that looked more like a bruise than a crest. Couldn't have said who it belonged to, and couldn't have cared to find out. It had been long years since she'd bothered keeping track of who they were fighting. Changed too often to be worth the hassle.

Her company, the Duke's Own Fourth, had come into sight of the river a handful of hours before dawn, and set themselves to crossing with the sort of determination that was more weariness than strength. Their feet had been aching from the march, and their stomachs from the lack of food, and they'd all but blundered into the dismounted cavalry company coming the opposite way.

Perhaps it could have been avoided, if they'd bothered with light, but no-one marched with torches now. Fewer mages then there had been at the start of the war, but that hadn't made anyone in the least more willing to help some robe-wrapped fool range in a fireball.

The melee had been a brief, bloody affair. Dismounted light cavalry stumbling into an infantry company? Wasn't any way that was ending well for the horsemen. The mud had crippled those few that had managed to drag themselves into the saddle, and swords and spears had done for the rest. Those who hadn't waded into the river had had the good sense to flee. Less so the riderless horses, to her eternal regret.

She tugged at the reins in her hand, pulled the latest protesting horse a little closer.

"There we are, there's a good fellow." A flick of her wrist, and the blade in her hand bit deep into the creature's neck. It let out a shrill, paniced whiny, and tugged away, eyes rolling in its head, blood pulsing out onto the earth. The sellsword let it go. Wasn't going far, anyway.

They weren't even proper warhorses. Could have found a use for them then. Mange-ridden ponies and ploughhorses, most of them, festooned with rotted saddleblankets and bent swords. Before the war, their riders would have been laughed away by bandits. The King's Own. Hah. There was a fine joke. Seemed the honour meant a little less for each would-be King of Tethyr that bestowed it. There wasn't even enough meat on the horses to be worth the attention of the company's butchers.

Shame, and there was no mistaking that. She reset her sword arm, and untied the next set of reins from the post.
May you live in interesting times.
Manticore, on Sun Elves wrote:Yeah, I'm pretty sure the racism is like a mating ritual or something. Like plumes on birds.

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Re: The Ashes of Empire

Post by Commissar » Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:11 am

"It was good work, and masterfully done." Daven Bisk was a plump man in half-plate with fatherly eyes and a face full of scars. He wasn't half the man he had been when the sellsword first took commission with the company - but perhaps he was three or four times the man. He was one of the few that had found food plentiful on the campaign trail, but it was a fool that mistook Stalwart Bisk's girth for weakness. The Foehammer's sword was a flash of silver on the dented steel of his shoulder plate, and he eyed the shattered township before him like a shipwright might have eyed a new-finished galley. "Tempus thanks you."

"And I thank Tempus." She echoed the old response with what she hoped was an acceptable level of enthusiasm for the old priest. "Though, I confess, I would sooner thank him for a deep drink and a warm bed."

"So ungracious, and after such a victory." Bisk tsk'd like an old woman. The sellsword wondered for a moment if he wasn't about to draw a serving spoon from his scabbard and rap her over the knuckles. He laughed instead, the sound booming from empty buildings like the storm that had shielded their approach the previous evening. The rains had moved on but the clouds lingered like children awaiting a treat, and Bisk's laugh did a fine job of muffling the sounds of looting. They passed a tumbledown butcher's, dead chickens in the yard and a wet thumping noise drifting from behind the walls. "You'll have your bed, dear girl, as soon as the Duke has his crown. Until then, are the flames not warmth enough? Where is your captain?"

"By now, Stalwart? Expect he's halfway to the ocean." And a sight luckier than the rest of these poor sops. "One of the outriders was out making water when we came over the wall. Got the rest of the patrol, but didn't see him until he was cantering on back to his post. He saw us, put a bolt in the captain when he was halfway on over the palisade. Dropped him into the river, clean as you like. Lieutenant's in command now."

"Mhm. A shame. He was a good man, and faithful to the last." The warrior-priest shifted his grip on the bastard sword he'd taken to carrying. "He died well. Take me to your lieutenant, then. I wish to hear of your victory."

He died facedown with a bolt up his arse. "Yes, Stalwart. This way."

The sellsword lead the way through the empty streets.
May you live in interesting times.
Manticore, on Sun Elves wrote:Yeah, I'm pretty sure the racism is like a mating ritual or something. Like plumes on birds.

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