Forgot to finish these.
Writing that last fic made me realise I never finished this one.
[Sieze your chance]
A Marcher should die on their land, or at least on some land. Claim that land with their blood and spit in their enemy's eye. Guess I get to die stuck between two Leaguers' arses in a pile of the fallen. Never was an appropriate sort of person. I look at Catherine to my right, fat lot of good that bone-setting potion's going to do her here, gave her the wrong bloody thing.
...We're at the gate. There's some fool of a monk marching out without his weapon, claims he's a healer. I ask him what he's going to do if the front lines come to him, then offer him my spare dagger. There's always one daft sod like that, so I always have a knife handy...
I stare at the the barbarian's line as they stand in place. Little blue gits, lined up like skittles. All it would take is a few quick troops to nip round the side and we could roll up their entire line. If for example, we'd not got stuck here, bleeding our way to the Labyrinth's gate. It's as good for us the Thule are too bogged down to try it, our flank's just as open. Even the ones they had watching us have legged it to the front. Might as well exercise a touch more vigilance before the Labyrinth claims me....
...We're through the palisade, marching in good order. Shouldn't be that much left now if they left that gate unguarded. As the first few companies get through, we see maybe a dozen Thule, if that, marching around some standing stones ahead of their main army. Well I'm a bloody Landskeeper, and I know what a standing stone means. Power. I bellow a warning, that we've got maybe two minutes before they take the site and we need to hit them now! I'm not the only one to have twigged to it, and there's twenty, thirty troops who've got enough Vigilance to see what's got to be done. We charge...
There's a whispering off to my side. "Pete Keeper! Pete!". I manage to twist round a bit, and I see Vaznetti with his hand on a potion. Blueish-green, like spruce. Dad always said elixir vitae would "spruce you up", I guess I got the pun habit from him. "I'm not badly wounded, I can still move", the cardinal mutters. "If I feed you this, can you get the rest of them up?". My eyes dart about, seeing if there's any guards left. None too close, I think we've got a chance at this! "Aye", I reply. Catherine's been faking worse wounds too, tells us she just needs that balm on her arm and she can fight.
...We've hit the regio, smashing into those bastard sorcerers and cutting them down, but the army behind us hasn't moved in. Idiots! The ritual's the only point for being here, if we don't seize the stones now the Thule will just send in another coven and end up with mana coming out of their pointy grey ears. We're surrounded, and I've got no space to work. All I can do is strike out at the nearest barbarians before the wounds are too much and I collapse on top of a tiny, angry, dying Leaguer...
Vaznetti shoves the potion between my lips and I drain the bottle, spitting it onto someone's bloodied back. I risk another quick look, there's nobody really paying attention. My potion goes into the nearest soldier along with a warning to sodding well stay down until I make a break for it. There's someone next to me with a wound to his side, ragged, bloody, broken maille links stuck in it. I have to pick them out one-handed, because my other arm's stuck. I tell him he best be quiet as I stuff a bandage crudely into the wound, packing it. I can't do much else than stop him dying right now, can't reach the Vervain bottle without giving myself away. I can slap Catherine's balm onto her busted arm though from here. That's the last we can do lying on the floor.
I curl my hands around my weapons, buckler in the left, sword on the right. They won't win this for us, but they might keep me alive while I do my job. I push myself up, recently-clotted wounds making me grimace. Drop the sword, shove the potion into the wounded, hiss at them to get up, get up NOW, feed potions to anyone who's got them. Someone's yelling my name. One of the Thule's caught on, I can see him staring down at me as if he can't quite work out if we're a threat or not. I knock the top off my patient's potion and dump it down his throat, yelling for him to get the fook up as I grab my sword. The orc comes at me, hits me in the chest. I wince, but the armour takes the worst of it and I know something he doesn't. I know I've stored a bit of the Summer in my sword-arm. I scream at him, cutting low into his thigh, feeling the magic turn icy fear to blazing rage, pain to determination. His leg snaps, flesh and bone cleft by my strike, and he collapses.
I don't really notice, I'm already running. More people, more potions. Some of them are up now, and fighting. There's a Marcher or maybe a Leaguer next to me, I can't be sure which. "Watch my back!" I cry to him as I check over Ed. He's in a bad way, and I don't want to think about how much blood is on the floor round him. There's time though. I bought him time with those potions. That's what Prosperity is. It goes around, it comes around. He mumbles that he's dying, but I warn him he can shut up. I'm here, I'm doing my job, he is not allowed to die right now and he better stop whining or the bloody Vervain's going up his arse. That shuts him up and gives him a distraction while I dose the stuff over his gut. The Hospital's going to need to see to that one but he'll be fit to fight for a while. And we just need a while to reform, hit them in the back. We can do this.
There's more of us up and fighting, but I'm passing some now I can't save. As I look up from poor Marsh's dead eyes I realise there's too many of us here, more than the few who charged. Those arseholes finally caught up with us, we're in for a chance! There's more physicks coming in, but too bloody late, thank you so much for ambling your way down here. We've got a line now in front. There's space for me to get to bandaging, I hear someone calling the ritualists over. You do the job in front of you, as Bill would say, and what's in front of me is a mess of wounded and a horde of Thule. I can see Alan, the boy's fine. Watkin too, yelling as usual. They'll do the job. Not like them gutless bastards before. I drop down by the nearest casualty, check for a pulse, and do what I can to stem the bleeding so she won't die before I get some Vervain into her.
And since I've told a lot of people what that PLV was now...
[Let me burn]
I look out through the woven reeds that make up my prison. A man kneels on the floor before me, pleading. Pleading that is was his mistakes that cost us so dearly, he should be in this wicker man not me. There’s a shadowy figure stalking about the room, and it’s creeping me something terrible before I remember that Harald’s with me and I’d asked him to go and read anything he could. Good lad, he’s got his eye on the job in front of him while I’m still trying to work out what I did to get here.
“Sir, it was my fault, I was the General, I should be in there not you!”. The priest shouts back, “Nonsense! He didn’t give us enough support in the Senate, and we lost the Mournwold! The land cries out, it breaks!”. It’s probably for the best that I’d be expected to look shocked and guilty at this point, whether or not they can see my expression. My thoughts return to a talk with Barak, the Civil Servant in charge of the Visions. Telling him how I see myself as using every tool, every skill, every plan I have to protect and better the Marches. Seems my soul remembers its duty, or maybe its debts.
Barak said there’d be a choice, and I can see it here. Me on the pyre, or the General. He’s as willing as I must have been, maybe more so with all that guilt. On the other hand, I don’t know how I failed here, or even if I did. All I know I was Senator. It may not have been my fault but it was my responsibility. And fucked if I’m going to shirk my responsibility like that weasel Bridget. I was better than that, I am better than that, and I’ll carry that through to the next life with Pride.
There’s a serenity in knowing you made this choice before, and you can’t screw it up.
“No, this is my sacrifice to make. I shrive you, Edward Archer, I take your sins onto myself that you might be redeemed. We need fighters like you if we are to take back the Mourn.”
The friar approves, even as he berates me for my failings. Edward rises, and steps back. Mercifully, I black out before they throw the torch on the pyre, and awake with both shock and Pride in my thoughts. Let me burn, I’ll rise again. Like a cornfield torched at harvest’s end, I’ll come back firm and strong.
[Sieze your chance]
A Marcher should die on their land, or at least on some land. Claim that land with their blood and spit in their enemy's eye. Guess I get to die stuck between two Leaguers' arses in a pile of the fallen. Never was an appropriate sort of person. I look at Catherine to my right, fat lot of good that bone-setting potion's going to do her here, gave her the wrong bloody thing.
...We're at the gate. There's some fool of a monk marching out without his weapon, claims he's a healer. I ask him what he's going to do if the front lines come to him, then offer him my spare dagger. There's always one daft sod like that, so I always have a knife handy...
I stare at the the barbarian's line as they stand in place. Little blue gits, lined up like skittles. All it would take is a few quick troops to nip round the side and we could roll up their entire line. If for example, we'd not got stuck here, bleeding our way to the Labyrinth's gate. It's as good for us the Thule are too bogged down to try it, our flank's just as open. Even the ones they had watching us have legged it to the front. Might as well exercise a touch more vigilance before the Labyrinth claims me....
...We're through the palisade, marching in good order. Shouldn't be that much left now if they left that gate unguarded. As the first few companies get through, we see maybe a dozen Thule, if that, marching around some standing stones ahead of their main army. Well I'm a bloody Landskeeper, and I know what a standing stone means. Power. I bellow a warning, that we've got maybe two minutes before they take the site and we need to hit them now! I'm not the only one to have twigged to it, and there's twenty, thirty troops who've got enough Vigilance to see what's got to be done. We charge...
There's a whispering off to my side. "Pete Keeper! Pete!". I manage to twist round a bit, and I see Vaznetti with his hand on a potion. Blueish-green, like spruce. Dad always said elixir vitae would "spruce you up", I guess I got the pun habit from him. "I'm not badly wounded, I can still move", the cardinal mutters. "If I feed you this, can you get the rest of them up?". My eyes dart about, seeing if there's any guards left. None too close, I think we've got a chance at this! "Aye", I reply. Catherine's been faking worse wounds too, tells us she just needs that balm on her arm and she can fight.
...We've hit the regio, smashing into those bastard sorcerers and cutting them down, but the army behind us hasn't moved in. Idiots! The ritual's the only point for being here, if we don't seize the stones now the Thule will just send in another coven and end up with mana coming out of their pointy grey ears. We're surrounded, and I've got no space to work. All I can do is strike out at the nearest barbarians before the wounds are too much and I collapse on top of a tiny, angry, dying Leaguer...
Vaznetti shoves the potion between my lips and I drain the bottle, spitting it onto someone's bloodied back. I risk another quick look, there's nobody really paying attention. My potion goes into the nearest soldier along with a warning to sodding well stay down until I make a break for it. There's someone next to me with a wound to his side, ragged, bloody, broken maille links stuck in it. I have to pick them out one-handed, because my other arm's stuck. I tell him he best be quiet as I stuff a bandage crudely into the wound, packing it. I can't do much else than stop him dying right now, can't reach the Vervain bottle without giving myself away. I can slap Catherine's balm onto her busted arm though from here. That's the last we can do lying on the floor.
I curl my hands around my weapons, buckler in the left, sword on the right. They won't win this for us, but they might keep me alive while I do my job. I push myself up, recently-clotted wounds making me grimace. Drop the sword, shove the potion into the wounded, hiss at them to get up, get up NOW, feed potions to anyone who's got them. Someone's yelling my name. One of the Thule's caught on, I can see him staring down at me as if he can't quite work out if we're a threat or not. I knock the top off my patient's potion and dump it down his throat, yelling for him to get the fook up as I grab my sword. The orc comes at me, hits me in the chest. I wince, but the armour takes the worst of it and I know something he doesn't. I know I've stored a bit of the Summer in my sword-arm. I scream at him, cutting low into his thigh, feeling the magic turn icy fear to blazing rage, pain to determination. His leg snaps, flesh and bone cleft by my strike, and he collapses.
I don't really notice, I'm already running. More people, more potions. Some of them are up now, and fighting. There's a Marcher or maybe a Leaguer next to me, I can't be sure which. "Watch my back!" I cry to him as I check over Ed. He's in a bad way, and I don't want to think about how much blood is on the floor round him. There's time though. I bought him time with those potions. That's what Prosperity is. It goes around, it comes around. He mumbles that he's dying, but I warn him he can shut up. I'm here, I'm doing my job, he is not allowed to die right now and he better stop whining or the bloody Vervain's going up his arse. That shuts him up and gives him a distraction while I dose the stuff over his gut. The Hospital's going to need to see to that one but he'll be fit to fight for a while. And we just need a while to reform, hit them in the back. We can do this.
There's more of us up and fighting, but I'm passing some now I can't save. As I look up from poor Marsh's dead eyes I realise there's too many of us here, more than the few who charged. Those arseholes finally caught up with us, we're in for a chance! There's more physicks coming in, but too bloody late, thank you so much for ambling your way down here. We've got a line now in front. There's space for me to get to bandaging, I hear someone calling the ritualists over. You do the job in front of you, as Bill would say, and what's in front of me is a mess of wounded and a horde of Thule. I can see Alan, the boy's fine. Watkin too, yelling as usual. They'll do the job. Not like them gutless bastards before. I drop down by the nearest casualty, check for a pulse, and do what I can to stem the bleeding so she won't die before I get some Vervain into her.
And since I've told a lot of people what that PLV was now...
[Let me burn]
I look out through the woven reeds that make up my prison. A man kneels on the floor before me, pleading. Pleading that is was his mistakes that cost us so dearly, he should be in this wicker man not me. There’s a shadowy figure stalking about the room, and it’s creeping me something terrible before I remember that Harald’s with me and I’d asked him to go and read anything he could. Good lad, he’s got his eye on the job in front of him while I’m still trying to work out what I did to get here.
“Sir, it was my fault, I was the General, I should be in there not you!”. The priest shouts back, “Nonsense! He didn’t give us enough support in the Senate, and we lost the Mournwold! The land cries out, it breaks!”. It’s probably for the best that I’d be expected to look shocked and guilty at this point, whether or not they can see my expression. My thoughts return to a talk with Barak, the Civil Servant in charge of the Visions. Telling him how I see myself as using every tool, every skill, every plan I have to protect and better the Marches. Seems my soul remembers its duty, or maybe its debts.
Barak said there’d be a choice, and I can see it here. Me on the pyre, or the General. He’s as willing as I must have been, maybe more so with all that guilt. On the other hand, I don’t know how I failed here, or even if I did. All I know I was Senator. It may not have been my fault but it was my responsibility. And fucked if I’m going to shirk my responsibility like that weasel Bridget. I was better than that, I am better than that, and I’ll carry that through to the next life with Pride.
There’s a serenity in knowing you made this choice before, and you can’t screw it up.
“No, this is my sacrifice to make. I shrive you, Edward Archer, I take your sins onto myself that you might be redeemed. We need fighters like you if we are to take back the Mourn.”
The friar approves, even as he berates me for my failings. Edward rises, and steps back. Mercifully, I black out before they throw the torch on the pyre, and awake with both shock and Pride in my thoughts. Let me burn, I’ll rise again. Like a cornfield torched at harvest’s end, I’ll come back firm and strong.