Fear in a handful of dust
General Tyrpledge was riding his horse making an inspection of the City walls from a safe distance, his personal guard along with his adjutant following him from a respectful but close distance. He still could not believe he had been tasked with the sacking of Pyr, and if it came to that, its razing. The Castigator had been blunt in his orders and frugal in his explanations.
He had told him that the Patriarch was in league with a cluster of rebellious religious fanatics that wished for total domination of the Patriarch over the ruling council making the first move against peace and prosperity.
A messenger had shortly arrived bearing a message from the Patriarch, citing that the Castigator had been deemed unworthy in the eyes of God and that the Noble Representative, Lord Ursempyre Remis was the new Castigator of the Outer Territories. The General was dumbstruck, utterly flabbergasted at the turn of events, and did not know how to react.
The Castigator talked to him in earnest, urging him to uphold the Law, honor his rank and office, protect him and the Council as a whole and crush the rebels before they could take root firmly. Tyrpledge had asked about the Arch-minister, who had seemed a reasonable enough man. He believed he could intervene, somehow mediate, so that balance could be restored and things would not deteriorate into profuse madness at the speed of a rushing waterfall, as it seemed it definitely would.
The Castigator had informed him then that sadly enough the Arch-minister had been found dead, assassinated by the rebel scum, the henchmen of the unholy demon that posed as their Patriarch. Most of his staff were also cruelly killed, their skin flayed out to the bone, while the Arch-minister himself seemed to have been made the object of a ritual to the Deceiver, the False God. The Castigator expressed his demure belief that it been solely through divine will that he had escaped unscathed so timely.
The Castigator, with tears in his eyes had insisted that there was no better way to avenge the Arch-minister’s memory other than to bring those heathen scum that had infiltrated their society to their knees, grind them into oblivion and spread their ashes in the oceans.
The effect on the General was devastating; in one night everything that he had been taught, everything that he had built his life upon was crumbling down around him, around them all. The Patriarch, in league with rebels? Absurd! The very word had fallen into disuse, and was used only in an historical context of ages past, or in thought-provoking discussion that rarely allowed its participants to delve deeper into such subjects.
The notion of rebellion was indeed, taboo. It had been so ever since he had learned how to read and write. He thought to himself with bitterness that he might have been spared such skills, but then again, how would the army live and breathe without notices, requisition forms, and orders in triplicate?
And the Castigator, fleeing into the night, beset on all sides by danger and hounds sent out for his blood? All that, the design of the Patriarch, with the Noble Representative aiding him? Him, the most noble of the Lords, ruler of a family of great tradition and honor, an arch-demon in the flesh, thousands of men doing his bidding like minions? ‘Incredulous, inconceivable, unimaginable,’ the General had thought.
It was only until he had seen the orders, written and signed from the Patriarch, to have his army stand down and ignore the Castigator before him as a traitor and conspirator set to overthrow the Rule of the Council; to disarm the men and dissolve the Army peacefully, under the watchful eye of the procrastinators.
The letter had been signed and sealed by the Castigator of the Outer Territories as well, Ursempyre Remis, the acting Arch-minister Burge Freis, and that buffoon, the Procrastinator Militant, Gomermont. That had been enough to bitterly set his mind and order the immediate assembly of all fighting units. Once General Tyrpledge reaffirmed his army’s oaths to Castigator Olorius Menamon, he had ordered the army to march toward the City of Pyr.
They would march in a campaign to uphold the Law and free their land and people from the tyranny of evil men. Men whose sinister purposes knew no bounds and would stop at nothing other than the utter desecration of the Gods, the dissolution of the Law, and the destruction of their divinely crafted society.
As these announcements had been made in front of the whole army, the few procrastinators spread around the staging grounds having received word of the General’s orders fled with alacrity in an unusual sign of intelligence.
And so it had begun, the campaign that would forever change the history of the Outer Territories for better, or for worse.
The General had been musing on these recent past events for some time it seemed, because he could hear anxiety and worry in the words that his adjutant repeated in the same staccato manner:
“Sir, are you alright? Sir? Should I call for your physician, sir? Sir? Are you alright?”
Tyrpledge flashed red hot with anger, and suddenly violence seemed to seep from his voice:
“Gods dammit Guighan! I’m not bleeding to death, am I?”
The Major stood to attention crisply and bellowed as if he were still a young cadet at the Agogeia Militant:
“No, sir!”
Tyrpledge instantly relaxed when he saw the Major acting like a young trainee and managed a sigh. He turned to look at his adjutant, seeking eye contact:
“Guighan, this is not a parade ground. This is war. War between brothers, between family. If I am bristling with anger and exasperation, it’s not because of your stupid questions. It’s because of this stupid war. However, one must choose a side. And I chose what I’ve believed in all my life. If that fails us, then what hope will there remain?”
“Sir?”
“It was a rhetorical question, Guighan. Don’t fret about it. I was ensnared in thought. I still find all this impossible to digest; yet it seems I will have to.”
“Sir.”
“You must be an expert in terseness, Guighan. Let’s continue the inspection. I need to find a weak spot, something we could use to our advantage. If possible, I would like to keep bloodshed to a minimum. The insurgents could be hiding anywhere, posing as innocents and sheltered by anonymity. Unless they put a jester’s hat on with bell’s and whistles, our soldiers will be unable to differentiate between the enemy and the common folk. Though the distinction by the time all this is over could become a lesson in semantics. Carry on, major.”
“Sir.”
Major Guighan saluted briskly and rejoined the guards further back, where he relayed the order to continue. With that they set off, the horses picking up the pace of a slow trot, and the foot-soldiers following briskly behind.
For the most part, the insurgents seemed ready to hold their ground and the walls looked well defended, with no exceptionally weak points in sight. No significant breach had been made from the first shots of the siege engines, and the rest of them had barely began to be assembled at that point.
Once these were completed and a point of entry selected, they would fire a barrage concentrated on a specific point in the walls, hoping to tear it down and gain entry. His cavalry had made attempts at reconnoitering but had not succeeded in gaining much other than some fatal injuries and lots of worn out horses. It seemed that the men defending the walls would not be caught napping so easily.
The General from this distance could see the milling masses of men, assembling to receive their orders for the day, cleaning their swords and tending to their armor and shields. He could see the pike-men polishing their halberds in an almost ceremonious fashion.
The bowmen were stretching the chords of their bows, testing their tension limits and filling their quivers with arrows. The swordsmen were up and about ready to be called into action, their longswords a mirror sheen, their chain-mails and helmets a steely dull gray.
The General was pleased with what he was seeing; the men were following orders, adhering to protocol, and going about their business as usual. As if this was one of many exercises, as if they were not marching for war against their own people. In a rare moment
in his career, the General did not know what to make of that. Did his men care not at all? Or was their sense of duty overshadowing their other emotions? That remained to be seen.
The outlook of his army, he deemed, was a professional and determined force ready for action. But some of the units though required special attention, because of their special nature and their special abilities.
The men of the vaunted Thorax regiment were still trying to put on their monstrously over-sized armor; they were huge burly men encased in thick sheets of plate metal, almost impervious to arms, even against steam rifles. They would form the front line of the assault, to cover and shield the men behind them.
And far behind, at their maximum range, while all the rest of the army was preparing for battle, the crews of the steamers were making sure their machines would be ready when called upon.
Everything seemed as it should be; everyone seemed professional, going about their work. It somehow felt wrong for an army to be this distant, so indifferent to an enemy that was in fact their own people, though wildly misled and utterly wrong in their decision to upset their way of life with shattering consequences. Or so Tyrpledge felt. He didn’t know and could not know though, what his men thought and felt. He’d have to wait for them to show their true demeanor and spirit in the ultimate test: battle.
When battle would be joined, the true feeling of his men would emerge. Beyond wrath and blood lust, beyond the will to survive and in doing so kill a man, would they show remorse? Guilt? Would they stay their hands in a moment of doubt? When they would see their own brother coming at them with ax and sword, would they judge him wrongly, the animal inside having the final word? When all this is said and done, will there be victory? Or nothing but loss? It would be for the Gods to decide. Himself, as General of the Army of the Outer Territories, he decided he would follow his own path to the end.
His look was now veritably sullen, withdrawn. He had reined his horse to stop its trot. He was not even looking at the walls now or his men, or any of the machines. He was looking at his own hands with the gloves taken off, fearing that somehow blood had already soiled them. The blood of his own people. But their lives were forfeit now, he knew, the very moment they decided to carry out every unholy blasphemous act ever imagined. What did they hope to gain, other than seed war, bloodletting, misery, and hate? He could not fathom. He could never remit their folly now. They may have dug their own graves, but the thought that he would have to fill them saddened him immensely.
He looked up again, squinting slightly at the bright light of the suns. He noticed from the corner of his eye Major Guighan approaching almost sheepishly, a trait that usually provoked his anger and irritation even though he did not consider himself an irascible man. It was probably because he expected men around him to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Major Guighan was his adjutant so he was supposed to stay close to him, advise him, and confide in him. How could he do that from all that distance? He was an exceptional logistics officer, very capable at handling personnel and men via manifests and report forms, but his communication skills were somewhat sub-par. Perhaps the Major was for some reason intimidated by the General or his rank and office, but that would not do for the position he currently held, in the General’s opinion.
When the Major approached him at a respectful distance as if the General emitted some kind of aura he did not wish to step on, he saluted crisply and asked him in a most professional, clipped tone of voice:
“Sir. You seem to have stopped here for no apparent reason. Is there something of specific importance at this part of the walls, sir? You also seem to have lost your color sir, if I may add. Perhaps you are feeling ill? Should I fetch the physician, sir?”
Tyrpledge turned and stabbed the man with his eyes, his face a mixed expression of exasperation and wild disbelief. The General was thinking he would give the Major one last chance before he placed him at the front of a Thorax battalion, with no armor whatsoever. With evident effort to restrain himself he replied:
“Should I require a physician, Major, I will ask for one myself. Unless of course I’m bleeding to death. But that’s the reason you are my adjutant, it seems. You always remind me blissfully that I am not bleeding to death. You accomplish that with your hollow remarks and repetitively inane questions. I will ask you just this once Major, to act accordingly and spare me the dung. If there is something of import to be said, say it. If you think a question in matters of tactics and strategy is pertinent, ask. You’ve proved to be an efficient man. Now, please prove to me you are an efficient soldier as well. There will be death around here by nightfall. Don’t ever ask me again if I’m feeling ill.”
Major Guighan stood stock still as the General’s incisive remarks made their way to his heart and mind. Before the General could turn his gaze elsewhere, the Major managed to speak:
“I will not, sir. I realize now I had been wrong to assume you were a cold hearted bastard, sir. I could not bring myself to speak openly to a man who seemed not to care. I know differently now. With that being said, I believe we have made an extensive examination of the walls and no notable weaknesses have been spotted. The patrols will try again at nighttime, though we are not expecting any hopeful results. The men seem to be ready as they’ll ever be for such a fight. Should we return to the staff tent and plan our tactical approach on the matter?”
Tyrpledge was stunned to hear the man speak his mind after all this time. He believed no one had called him like that since he had become the General, and he also felt kind of hurt that a member of his staff would think him so. It actually meant then that the others thought so as well. He guessed the Major would make amends though. After a somewhat awkward moment of silence, Tyrpledge replied:
“I’d never thought I’d pass for cold-hearted. Very well, Major. Tell the guards to lead on, and stay with me for a change. Tell me what you think about our approach.”