Both Sides of Battle

[Samchu]

Ok so I know that I haven't actually put anything on here in like...I don't even know how long but I thought it was about time I made a comeback and tried putting some of my writing major to good use.

Anyway, a little backstory to this lil ol' fic o' mine. Basically the story is a fantasy war fic told from the perspectives of two characters - one on each side. One perspective will be told in the form of journal entry and the other in the form of prose (just to make things interesting).

I think that's all you need to know at the moment. As always comment / questions are welcome and I hope you enjoy it ^__^

Journal Entry One
March 8th 537 A.C.

If you’re reading this then one of two things has happened, either I’m dead, or the war is over. For your sake, I hope it’s the latter. As I write this, our country sits in its sixth year of conflict. I wonder how many more will pass before my entries cease.

My name is Timothy Sharptalon and I’ve just graduated from Telfren’s Military Academy. After tonight I will be a true member of Heiran’s military and I will have my first tastes of battle, vengeance and victory. If nothing else survives the bloodshed that follows, then let this journal serve as a record of our nation’s first and greatest war.
You may be reading this with doubt in your mind so I’ll do my best to ease it. I don’t want my words disregarded in case they serve some importance in the future.

Our Kingdom, Heiran, is little more than 500 years old; a fledgling compared to the four great nations that surround its boarders. All kinds of people live here; we are a Kingdom of immigrants, a Kingdom of those who seek better than what they have. It is a good place with thriving cities and strong economies. Unlike our neighbours, our people value the efforts of those who tend the farms and fish in the rivers. Honest, hardworking people. People like my family.

To say we had a life as good as those who lived inside the Wall would be a lie but to say that our lives were not good at all would be a greater one. We were paid well for our efforts, even if the crops were bad one year we never went hungry. The land we worked belonged to us and us alone and it was the same for all who lived in our farming settlement. Our lives were peaceful. We knew nothing of the stress and tension of the city-folk save for what we heard from the trade merchants who visited us. We never heard anything from the other villages. That’s why the attack was so devastating.

They came at night after we’d finished taking in the harvest. We heard screaming and when my father went to look outside, one of them grabbed him. Two more came and forced us outside with their blades. They dressed like bandits in dark, loose cotton, their faces hidden beneath scarves. They moved us to the centre of the village where other families stood together shivering. Children clung to their mothers’ skirts or hid behind the legs of their fathers. The babies were screaming but no one tried to silence them. We were too afraid to speak. We didn’t know what they wanted.

A man came, riding a stallion of black deeper than I’d ever seen. He rode to where we all could see him then pulled down his scarf so we could see his face. He had deep, coffee-coloured eyes, thick, arched eyebrows and greasy, black hair. His nose was long and hooked over thin lips. There was three-day-old stubble on his chin.

“Listen up!” His voice was crisp and young though his face was worn with age. He settled his horse and spoke again. “I am here for your sons. You may keep those who cannot walk. Hand them over of they will be ripped from you.”

Those who were old enough to think rationally offered themselves; their parents sobbing in their wake. I knew I would have to go but my father, like many others, held me back. One of the bandits came over to him and threatened to beat him if he didn’t let me go. My father responded with words I’d never heard before and was knocked to the ground. The bandit kicked his face until it bled. When he threatened to break his ribs, I went.
The bandit led me towards their leader. I was trying so hard not to cry or think about the fact that I would never see my family again that I didn’t realise my mother had screamed “Ira!” until my escort howled in pain and dropped to one knee. My sister of nine years stood over him, his weapon in her hand. Blood dripped slowly off the tip. She ordered me back to my parents then kicked the gash she had made in the man’s left shin as he tried to rise. As he fell, she attacked him with language so vulgar it would have made our father proud.

I ran to my mother’s open arms.

Their leader went to Ira with what I could only describe as amusement on his face. She pointed the blade at him and told him bluntly, “You can’t have my brother.”

“I have to take someone.” He was completely cool. I remember thinking, despite the fear and panic that filled me, that he seemed pleased.

“You take me then.”

Our mother pleaded with her but I don’t think she heard.

“Gutsy for a brat.” He looked as if he was contemplating her proposal but deep down I knew he’d already decided. “You put down that new toy of yours and you can come.”

She threw down the weapon and took the hand he offered to her. He swung her onto his horse and placed her between him and the mane. From there my memory fails me. They gathered their hostages and left our village only to attack others; taking daughters as well as sons from then on.

That was ten years ago. Three years later, our Kingdom declared war on a still unknown enemy. Each one of our neighbours swore innocence but declared our affair to be an internal matter and offered us no support. Trade continued unhindered. Their carts were never touched by our enemy.

Ira and the other children were sold to slavers and the coins received for their flesh bought soldiers and weapons to bolster the enemy’s ranks. In my third year at Telfren our enemy was given a name: Bal’Tran. Roughly translated, it means Shadow Snake in the old tongue. It is a fitting title and once its head is destroyed I will watch with pleasure as the body withers and dies behind it.

Now you know the truth of things. I feel I should add more but my time is short and my wrist aches. It has been a long time since I wrote so much and never so honestly. I will end it here. The dinner bell will ring soon and after that the graduates will meet and display their skills in combat, riding and archery. The Captains that arrived yesterday will watch us and decide who they wish to take to fill the missing numbers in their squads. The rest will form new squads. By day’s end I will have my Captain and my barracks. I will put them here if I’ve strength left before sleeping.

*

My Captain is a man named Brightalon. Another soldier and I will be joining his squad at Celene Barracks. We ride there tomorrow. It will take three days. I can’t wait.

[Lady Vulpix]

Wow, that was good! You should post here more often.

I'd really like to read the other side now.

[Lune the Guardian]

That was indeed enjoyable, and I wish there was more!

Are you keeping this as a short story, or are you making it into a full-blown fic? My understanding right now is that it's a fic in the making, that might shift between two different perspectives. Or at least, I hope it is It's too intriguing to stop expanding it.

[Samchu]

Thanks for reading! Yes this is intended to be a full-blown fic. It's a work in progress but I'm hoping that having it on here will encourage me to keep working on it. The first few chapters / entries are a little short because they're just introductions to the characters and the two backgrounds, once things start to kick off then they'll get longer, though I'm sure I'll throw a few short ones in too.

The second installment is in the works and will be available...soonish I guess. Until then!

[Samchu]

Unknown Location.
March 8th 537 A.C.

“So you can see our problem,” he circled the prisoner; a shivering, whimpering man pinned to his knees by the masked guards that held his shoulders. “The question is, what do we do about it?” He turned to face the woman who watched them from the shadows, her face hidden beneath his bandana mask. “I don’t see how we have any other options.”

The prisoner’s eyes widened as she nodded. He spluttered a thousand pleas, begging to have his life spared by the men he’d been paid to betray. He battled against the grip of his captors despite the many wounds that hindered him in a desperate attempt to save himself from a fate he knew was coming, a fate he had no chance of escaping.
When the blade tore the flesh of his throat, he finally, and permanently, grew still.

“Rats,” the man spat, as he wiped the blood from his sword with a ragged cloth. “Is there anything on this earth more pathetic?” He looked once more to the woman but found no one. “Never one to clear up the mess.”
“Shall we dispose of this one sir?”

He walked across the stone floor to where the head had landed and raised it by its greasy, black locks. A pallid face contorted with agony stared back at him. “The enemy’s getting closer to us.” He tossed the head to the guard who had spoken. “Send it to General Harrowclaw.”

“Yes sir.”

“And clean this mess up. I don’t want to see any more rats crawling around here.”

Ã

A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, filling in the room with an army of flickering shadows. A lone figure moved amongst them, studying the various pins stabbed into the map draped over the table before him. Shadows danced across his face, creeping into every crease and wrinkle they could find on his aging skin but he paid them no notice. There were decisions that needed to be made first.

“Do you intend to linger there all night?” he asked without looking up from the table.

A woman stepped into the room and pulled the mask from her face. “The traitor has been dealt with.”

“Good. Keiyren knows what to do.” He waited for her to move but she didn’t. “Is there anything else?”

“Some of the men are restless. They think we’ve lingered here too long.”

“And you?”

“I think the enemy has forgotten what we’re capable of.”

He waved her to his side and indicated the map before him. “They have set up patrols of the outskirts of Jaik and Taris,” he pointed to two black pins stuck the eastern side of the map, “that means they have one unit for every two villages in the third arc. They know we’re making our way towards Heiran’s heart and they’re trying to stop us.”

“Can we sneak men through to the more central arcs? Attack them from behind their defences?”

He shook his head. “Not enough to cause the type of destruction you’re thinking of.”

“Then we meet them head on.”

He paced before the fireplace, scratching his beard in thought. “If we do that, then we risk revealing our location to the enemy.” They had only ever attacked farming villages or new settlements with less than a hundred men to take care of. “We’ll have to take the entire town. No one can be allowed to escape and take word to the others. We have capture or kill everyone and that’s after we get past the Heiran outpost.”

“It had to happen eventually. You targeted their farms and they drew them into the heart. Now its time to move on to the next stage.”

He drew back to the table and traced lines across the map with his fingertips. “It would appear that you’re right. Time to come out of the shadows.” He took out one of the black pins and replaced with a red. “We go to Taris. The slope of the land should give us and advantage on the attack.” He pulled another map from beneath the table and unfurled it. It revealed a close-up of the region in which Taris sat. “Tell the men to rest for tonight, I will need time to plan our attack. Orders will be sent to you before daybreak.”

“Very well,” she bowed to him and made her leave.

He chuckled in her absence and returned the map to its hiding place under the table. “She’ll surpass me one of these days,” he walked to his desk and picked up the plans for Taris’ attack that he’d written earlier that evening. “A fine leader you will make, my daughter.”

Ã

Meira strode through the lavish corridors of her father’s estate with her mind lost in thoughts. He’s testing me. She told herself. He wants to be sure that I’m worthy of the title he’s given me.

She passed a group of men huddled around a game of dice and ordered them to their rooms. They scattered without a word. No one crossed General Gaurn. Pathetic maggots. Why can’t we have real soldiers? I bet we would be twice as formidable with Telfren graduates amongst our forces. She remembered what her father had said to her when she had mentioned it to him; “It is for that very reason that they cannot join us. We succeed through stealth and careful planning, they are taught to face battle head-on, to charge like mindless animals. Heiran’s generals care not how many men they lose, so long as our body count is higher. We cannot take such risks.”

“Maybe that’s our problem,” she thought aloud, tightening her, long auburn hair. “Maybe we don’t take enough risks.”

She stopped beside one of the doors. Her eyes never left the patch of floor in front of her but she could feel exactly where it was. Waves of something she had yet to understand crashed against her mind and part of her swore it could hear a young girl crying. Meiran’s hands fell to her sides and she stood there in petrified silence, her mind possessed by the unknown force. It seeped into her being, a foreign energy that pressured her limbs into movement, begging for her to release it. It‘s locked. It had never listened to her in the past. She didn’t even know why she thought it might listen to her now. It’s locked! It continued to press her. In the back of her mind she heard the child’s cries fall into pleading sobs. “Please let me out. Please. Please!” She clutched at her head, desperate to drown out the sound. She should have run; should have gotten as far away from that door as possible but something held her there. “Please! I don’t want to do this any more. I want to go home.” Her eyes were burning. “I just want to go home…”

Meira yelled and drove her sword into the wall just left of the doorway. A nearby painting swung from the force then sat still. Silence enveloped. “Just shut up,” she growled through gritted teeth. “Just shut up and leave me the hell alone.” She wrenched the sword from the wall and turned to the door. “I’m no one’s saviour.” She slid her weapon back into its sheath. “I can’t even save myself.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, so this installment was finished a little sooner than I planned. It's a little longer than the last piece and a lot different. So lemme know what you think and thanks to everyone who's read it thusfar.

[Lune the Guardian]

Whoa, that was a quick turn. I was under the impression that Meira was a confident bordering on arrogant sort, but the end of the chapter shows that she's got insecurities. What can't she save herself from? What bothers her?

I wonder why the war started in the first place. Are the Bal'Tran rebels that are tired of being oppressed or something? So far we've only seen the Bal'Tran doing dirty things... enslaving children, bullying small towns... It's strange, because their characters don't seem so evil. I guess I want to see the reason why they are fighting. They might have a good reason, but right now it just looks like they're a bunch of cowards trying to cause trouble. We haven't seen the Telfren graduates do anything bad yet, I'm sure it will come since this is a war, but right now it's a bit one sided.

I wonder if Meira is gonna be a wild horse in this story? She seems unsure about something and she doesn't seem to like the sneaky cowardly style. She did say she'd prefer to charge head on, and she does have a preference towards Telfren graduates. I guess we can't tell yet until we know the Bal'Tran's purpose.

So many things I want to know ^_^ Keep writing, this is cool!

[eevee-shayna]

Great story ^.^
Is the general's daughter really Ira all grown up, like in Zorro? Either way I like her, she has spunk. And I liked the font you used for the first chapter. Could you continue to use that font? KTHX!

<3

[Lady Vulpix]

A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, filling in the room with an army of flickering shadows.

I liked that phrase. And also the analysis about the soldiers and the risks. And the last sentence.

What's the "Ã " symbol supposed to be? Here on my computer it looks like the subset symbol.

Karin seems to have voiced all her thoughts. All I can say is that I agree with them.

Yes, I've been speculating about Meira's identity too, but I wouldn't want to get the answer to that question too soon.