There are many misconceptions about war. I was a soldier in a victorious army, riding a wave of victory. We were conquerors in a land which feared us. And yet, my memories are ones of fatigue and aching joints. We marched sullenly, each one of us absorbed in our own pain, and those who felt the need to make jokes were greeted with false laughter and hidden scowls. Feet, knees and hips are your enemies on a long march, and they stab at you from within. The weight of your pack is held as high as possible to keep the load on your shoulders, and in truth you only really notice it when it is gone, and feel the ecstasy of lightness spread throughout your body. When we stopped for a break, many would ditch their packs on the ground and lie down. I was always one to keep my pack on and remain standing. I put bronze to my pain and told myself that to down pack was my reward for completing the march, and would only be done when it was over. In truth, the pain of putting it back on was worse than the pain of carrying it.
Your eyes sting with sweat, but you cannot brush it away for your shield and spear are ever in your hand. We are in enemy territory. We take water at every stop. Shields are propped against legs and spears rested on shoulders. We drink carefully but greedily, and no-one needs to take a piss. When you’re marching hard through the mountains of Sartar, liquid only escapes as sweat. There is a pain that comes with marching through mountains that can take men out. Some of the men and women would mutter, “One last hill.” I would always tell myself that this would never end. “It’s over when it’s over” was my mantra, and it always came as a welcome surprise when it was. You always feel that you are about to fall, and everyone around you looks less exhausted than you, but you swiftly learn that you are all suffering, and that with a little courage and a little willpower others will always fall before you do.
When you’re marching in column, all you can do is look up. Mighty Yelm beating down upon your face is a source of hurt, not succour, and it is memories of his cursed face which have helped drive me to my worship of both Storm and Darkness. Only fool Yelmalians march gladly in full armour under His gaze. How I hate them, worshippers of Sun and Red Moon. It was they who dragged my father to the gallows for daring to earn our families living at their small expense, those keepers of slaves and deniers of Truth. It was they who brought me to this place, a small ford in an insignificant river that should have run with water but was unseasonably dry. There was no alarm, little caution, and the column advanced.
I was to the rear, being of the Beryl Phalanx, and the mainstay of our expedition to destroy some hill in Sartar which was a holy site for their thunder god, my Blessed Orlanth. Its significance was unknown to most of us, but I know it well now. The Hill of Orlanth Victorious is its name, and from this hallowed spot did Orlanth himself depart on the Lightbringer’s Quest in the Great Darkness. I marched willingly, but without enthusiasm, merely a self assuredness that came from faith in myself, my shield and my spear. My comrades were good men and women on the whole, serving out a career in the Lunar army in order to claim that parcel of land that the Empire would award them for a lifetime in service. For most of them it was a dream that died that day. I have wondered in times since how many families were led to destitution, just as mine had been by the death of a father or a mother. This day, many lunar fathers and mothers would perish.
When you dream of battle as a child, you imagine sweeping vistas and glorious charges across wide open plains. The first thing to know is that you can see almost nothing. The vast roar that marked the Sartarite ambush as they broke the dams that they had constructed was a remote sound. It began, and got louder, and in the seconds it took to pull you from your waking dream of a twenty mile route march, the huge wave had struck the column at the centre. Suddenly, echoing amongst the hills came the angry cries of Orlanthi hordes – a sound which would signify such elation to me now, brings utter terror when unleashed against you.
“Eyes Out! Eyes Out!” come the barked orders, and with parade ground uniformity, we all turn outward in a slight crouch, locking our shields together, spears resting on the tops. The noise is everywhere now, and a huge dust storm is kicked up as the barbarians unleash sylphs upon us. The confusion distorts your perceptions, and I nod my helm down over my face – the added vision it affords me to have it set back is meaningless: there is nothing to see. A battle scream sounds nearby, impossibly distinct from the general clamour. “Defensive Spells Now!” shouts the sergeant, and I bring them up in a practised order, countermagic, protection, shimmer. I cannot see to my flanks, and the effort of putting faith in those to my rear is almost overwhelming, amplifying terror to a heart hammering crescendo, but to turn away and ease your fear is to die. Then, I see the figure running towards me from the swirling dust. There are others, but I mark him as mine and meet his charge with my spear. The blade bites deep, beyond his desperate parry, but his momentum carries him onto my shield, driving my spear arm back. I am braced, however, and with a metallic crunch he falls back, mortally wounded and clasping in desperate panic at the bloody wound I have inflicted. But there are more, always more. The battle frenzy overtakes me, and I can remember little more before my escape…
I was exhausted. My lungs heaved in wracking gasps. A bewildering sense of suffocation as it seemed that I couldn’t get the air in fast enough. My shield was splintered – the bronze clad rim had sheared from its oaken base having taken too many axe blows. That last one was a Uroxi berserk, for sure. He didn’t defend at all, but he didn’t die either, and his ferocious attack had left me without a decent shield. My spear had broken long ago – all that remained was my scimitar and my shortsword. There were a few of my compatriots lying around, already dead, some still dying. I had already healed myself twice and could fuel no more magic. I looked for a new shield, but then quickly discounted it. This battle was over for me.
Quite how our column had become so broken up was a mystery at that time. The sounds that I heard would only take on an image with the benefit of hindsight. The loud roaring had been caused when the Sartarites had unleashed a self made lake of water that they had dammed in the hills above us. Once released, it rushed down its old course and struck our column nearly dead centre. The Beryl Phalanx took the brunt of it, for the lighter armoured Sartarites knew that we heavy infantry were their principal target.
We stood firm at first, but we were divided by the wave, many of us drowning in heavy armour before its surcease, and we were attacked on two fronts by the howling Orlanthi – our numbers splintered not once but twice. It was impossible to hold ground against the furious onslaught. In these conditions we had no real flank, and, in spite of our training and battle experience we were turned – inexcusable for hoplites. Our morale was crushed almost instantly. You could feel it, like a malaise borne on the wind as it pervaded our ranks. Everything that experience had taught us now turned against us – how many times had we forced an enemy phalanx into exactly this position? It had been our victories which informed us of our own demise, and our spirits waned as one. As soldiers turned away from their shield mates to take cover under the shield of another, what little order we had collapsed. I found myself amongst others, none of whom I recognised in the tumult, but by luck more than any sense of things, we had turned our back to the woods from which we had just marched. Maybe it was instinct or the intervention of some god, but we had turned out of the ambush.
As we backed up looking for a defensive position we were attacked from the front by fanaticised warriors. Our actions were completely defensive at first, and then, through growing desperation, more attacking in nature. My spear was broken, but its bronze head lay lodged in the chest of my assailant. As I was trying to draw my scimitar, I was knocked backward, and fell to the ground. A compatriot leaped into my place, and gave his life for the seconds it took me to regain my footing and draw my blade, but it was his body I stepped over to rejoin the melee. He wasn’t dead, but had not the will to cast healing magic on himself. I shudder to think of his fate.
We were falling – a man here, a man there. The Lunar army contains many female warriors, and we are trained to fight alongside each other as equals. Lunar society is very egalitarian in this sense, but there is something infinitely more disturbing to a man about seeing a woman impaled through her stomach by an enemy’s spear. I have seen many men die, some mere inches from my face, but the image of an unknown woman choking on her own blood always returns in vivid detail.
Then, a strange sense of calm in the midst of battle - we had prevailed, and our immediate assailants had all fallen. I pushed back my helm and heaved in dry air. There was smoke and dust in the valley below us and it masked the clamour. There were about eight of us left standing, and a few wounded. A few began to heal the others, but for me a new thought, almost crystal in its clarity had begun to take shape.
I was never meant to be here. Offered the choice between service in the army and service in the punishment battalions of the Danfive Xaron cult was hardly a choice. If I were to lose an eye or a limb, it would be in combat with an honourable foe, not for the imagined crime of daring to look at a woman or somesuch. As I saw the body of the dead woman lying before me, and shaking with exhaustion and fear, I pondered her fate on a foreign battlefield; her body picked at by crows and other scavengers or burned on a giant pyre, and wondered who would mourn her? - One more body amidst a pile of the dead. Thus did my plan take shape – I would join her in death, taking my place amongst my slain comrades, and from the ashes of this defeat would be born again, born to a new life of freedom. As we began a nervous retreat up the hill, none looked at the other. Fears of dishonour and cowardice were heavy on us all, and we would not see our guilt confirmed in the face of another. Back to the north, through the trees lie our salvation. We would live to fight another day. We marched northward and our hearts became lighter. No words were spoken, but shared gestures and food and water were exchanged. Some would return to find another company of the Beryl phalanx, thoughts of revenge utmost in their minds. Others no doubt thought as I did, but for different reasons. They had family and loved ones to return to. My family were already slain.
As dusk closed in, the spirits of light giving way to the dark I felt as if a blanket enfolded me. Blessed Night had come to hide our escape, and I would split from the group ere soon. A ghost of a smile played across my face in the gloom, but vanished swiftly when, in the distance, the chilling howl of a mighty wolf echoed through the darkness. Then, with a creeping chill that built from my guts to my heart, it was answered - from the east, the west and the south. The Telmori hunted us…