- First Breath
Ferrino Castronelli lay beneath the sharp brown brambles of a Wickermore Tree, overlooking a valley's edge, the night before he was to start a war. The long limbed youth, not a year's past two decades, adjusted his aching back against the prickly wooden trunk as he looked up, judging the inky black nothingness blotted with stars above him. The only sound, other than the patter of bugs and frog-song, was the cracking of his fingers. A violent popping of the knuckles, ended by a heavy frown pulling the idleness from his lip, and grabbing his attention to focus from the ephemeral fog he was lost in.
Shaking the haze from his head, he furrowed his brow, prominent on a tight lined face such as his, let out a heavy sigh, and detached himself from the cosmos above to cast his eye down into the valley below, filled with a sea of tents waving back at him.
The sea simmered red and blue across the horizon. Touched here and there with glints of gold and copper thread. Some waves higher some waves smaller but far too many to count.
Little metal fish, seen only by torchlight kissing their steel armor, swam between the tents in pairs of two and four and six and eight.
Ferrino watched them. Studied their currents. Their tempo of step, the currents they swam, and the timing with which they did so. When they switched, who slept and who swam. How they fed and where.
All night he did this, memorizing their movements, their patterns, as best he could. Tens of thousands of fishes there were, born with steel teeth and scales of heavy chain. Some fish were thin and shiny, with long sharp swords and gilded scales. Others were lumbering brutes, fit with large blackened, broken scales and tails moulded and barbed, sharpened and spiked with the heaviest metals known.
All that and more swam between the waves of cloth that drowned out the countryside in red and blue. The shores of which lapped up at the walls of the valley it sat in. So large it was, its waves touched even upon the Eastern Mountains in the furthest visible distance across him.
On the morrow, it would be Ferrino’s job to dive in and catch the biggest fish in the bunch. Wrestle the bastard with words and convince it to lead its school east toward those frosty peaks instead of the swampy freelands they sought to drown.
“Last chance.”
The voice was deep and gravelly. It rolled out from behind the Wickermore’s wide stump, heralding a giant of a man who melted from the forest brush in robes of varied green and black. He took two massive steps to easily close the distance toward Ferrino, yet still held a respective distance behind the lounging.. fisherman. “Evermore Inn is a quarter day ride….” The looming man’s voice was surprisingly gentle as he removed his hood. The light of Ionia’s twin moons touched his pale, scarred face and bone white hair. His eyes were a deep blue nearly black. Teeth sharper and longer than your average set. More of them too. They crowded an already too wide smile. Thick pink lips cut with old scars framed the maw. He ran a bloody forked tongue across them. “What I wouldn’t give for some heavy mead and mutton stew. Warm bed and the like.”
It was funny. For a man so scary, Ferrino couldn’t help noticing in their short time working together that the big man really loved life's simplest pleasures. He could kill a man before the victim found the breath to plea for mercy but the pale monster also enjoyed a roasted cafe in the morning with scrambled keze-eggs and spiced peppers. Maybe there was a lesson there. The lounging youth cast a lazy gaze toward his mystical compatriot. “Take a seat, Bedlam.”
The big man took a half-step back, stunned, if only for a moment. “Kwalati.” he cursed in his mother tongue with a voice laden in awe.
Ferrino rolled his eyes. He thought the big man had gotten used to his voice. He guessed it did take people quite a while, despite his own best efforts to put as little inflection in his words as possible. It's not necessarily that his words were very good, that is the quality of his vocabulary and usage of it but rather the quality with which he spoke. His ability to move air with cheek and tongue and teeth to produce words with a truly.. beautiful sound. His dancing tone was unique, unknown but inviting. Mystifying and hypnotizing. Haunting yet demanding. Music without a tempo. Song without chorus. Siren made man. They called him “Silver-Tongue” for it.
Silvertongue himself always thought these people were overly dramatic fops in need of escape from the pressures of reality in the form of an idol and stories of him to tell yet even the born-and-breed killer himself, Bedlam, shook his mighty head and admitted. “Still gets me, that voice of yours. It's damned.. Unnatural.” His massive shoulder rose and fell, “but in a mighty impressive sort of way. ”
Ferrino shrugged back. He was never much good at anything else, his voice the one great gift. Born with it. They say the mid-wives weeped at the sounds of his wails when he was pulled from his mothers womb, but again, it all sounded like bulldung to Ferrino. To him, his voice wasn’t supernatural, everyone else's were simply subpar. He would’ve been a masterful politician, he mused on occasion, if he had ever given a shit about the practice. Instead, he spent his days being paid by some to use his voice to ruin the lives of others.
In this case, the employees were a nice literal community of peaceloving fools called the Morven Freeholds. Looking at the ocean of an army before him, sloshing toward the freeholds these past few weeks, with flags totally unknown to this region, Ferrino was going to have to get to work if he was going to save them, and his paycheck.“Watch the guard with me, will you? I’d like to learn their schedule.”
“You know this ain't where my talents lie.” Bedlam put a hand behind his back and, defying basic physics, pulled an immense warhammer from within the endless folds of his formless cloak. He tossed the hammer down, fitted with a braided handle, thick stem nearly his own height, and a chunky head like a lump of molten lead. It didn't seem sharp but Ferrino had seen it do some mighty impressive things, unnatural ones too. It landed with a resounding thud. The pale giant plopped to the ground a moment later. A dog beside its master. “You should find little Lemy, or Kara.. if you can stand the heat.” He chuckled at his own joke. Kara was a pyromancer of the Natural Arts. Mighty illegal in the Ionian Empire, but mighty handy too if you didn’t find the practice unholy. Ferrino found religion unholy so to him it all felt square.
Bedlam rubbed his big eyes and leaned in toward the arrangements of tents and battlements, dark eyes squinting to try and spot guards. “They do this business better than I do, those two, I just kill.. and protect.”
“I’d prefer you.” In truth Ferrino would prefer Lemy, but that no-good huntsman took Kara with him scouting a different sea. Not too far from him and Bedlam, only couples day ride and hike across the thin stretch of mountains in the distance. Only their sea had waves of green and yellow, not red and blue. “Lemy’s gone scoutin’.. tricked Kara into coming with him.”
“Oh is that how it happened?” The big man laughed like distant thunder. “Never seen them two walking with Lem leading, but…Whatever you say boss.” He scratched his backside as he continued, “they seem pretty tight.”
“Lem and Kara? They grew up together.” Ferino cracked his neck, an ugly habit for when he was uncomfortable. “Makes sense, them two.”
Bedlam punched Ferrino’s bony shoulder. “The guards, you git.” He shook his thick head. “These tinheads walk tight, quick. They don’t look like the fooling type, even with your fancy voice, especially come daylight…” Bedlam seemed to soften his voice as best he could. “A man in love is often not a man in league with his greater duty.”
“And what, in the ever-loathing Devils Above, is that supposed to mean?” Ferrino hated it when Bedlam tried to school him. The big guy had been following their little merry band of three, he, Kara and Lem, ever since they busted the pale bastard out of some town outhouse the villagers had tied him up in. They were afraid of him. All he wanted was some ale and a warm bed. When Ferrino cut his bonds though, then the big man wanted more. He took what he wanted and the villagers paid for it, painfully. “I mean really, you fancy yourself some sort of, philosophying butcher?”
The giant of a man just shrugged again.
“Yea, well, from what I’ve seen and heard, I’d say you should stick to the butchery.” It felt cruel to say, but Ferrino always hated being talked down to and the big guy didn’t seem to mind. He reminded Ferrino of the stump to a wide tree. You could just hit him over and over and he’d barely even scratch. Body and mind. Sometimes though, Ferrino worried Bedlam was more like a bomb. Only time would tell.
The giant just nodded a few times at the comment to his butchery, then tilted his head down at the red and blue. “Biggest army I’ve seen.” He looked down at Ferrino. “You seen one bigger, ever?”
Leaning his head back up to the stars, away from the giant, Ferrino took a peak back into the ephemeral, all he heard then were the screams and cackling of fire. Whipping flags and faster lashings. Searing pain against his back, a brand burning upon his chest. Laughter thick with vile mirth. He whispered, “Only once,” screwing his eyes shut tight, then opening them wide as possible. “But the size of an army doesn’t really matter, so long as you can get at its head.” He stood and shook out his long legs, dusting dirt from his back.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Bedlam rose with him and thumped a fist into his meaty palm. “And cut it off.”
“Or convince it to bite better prey.” Ferrino winked back with a sly grin.
- Lapille and His Latrines
The sun rose proudly over the army of the Ionian Empire. Green and gold tents flapping in thin precise lines, gripping the edge of the snowy Western Ridge. From horseback and at his lengthy distance, Colonel Lapille could imagine the mountains were the peaks of a mighty crown and the army banding its lower ridges, thick gems of emerald and gold. A true treasure.
He carried a wide grin of pride, kicking his black stallion into gear to ride out ahead of the supply train that had been his previous charge. Out on onward toward his new, perfect force.
An army. Oh how much Terrance Lapille, recently risen to the right of Colonel, loved an army. The order. The discipline. It was perfect. The zenith point of mankind's might. Mother nature made too kneel.
“Sir, I’ve had a quick oversight of the camps as the supply wagons have been coming in..”A nasally, all too familiar voice cut the smirk from Lapille’s lips. It continued.“and, well.. the latrine sinks for barracks eight to twelve.. are, well, overflowing.” The colonel felt his temper rising.
The septum-clogged voice weaselled further into his ear, slowly growing louder as it approached. “It would seem that poor discipline and a general lack of understanding in regulation-standard education from Captains onto to their Privates below them,” the tiny man took three gasping breaths, fighting to force air into his lungs so that they may better match the tempo of his brain, "has lead to a chain-of-command oversight on the importance of educating new levies on their own proper fecal migration.”
The Colonel sighed deeply, a headache looming in the distance. He took another deep breath to calm his rage, barrel chest pressing against engraved armor of green painted bronze and golf-leaf crested steel. The wall of a man turned to face the biggest thorn in his side he ever let fester. An administrative clerk seemingly no larger than a well fed greyhound.
The little man wore overlapping ropes of black and dirty white, drowning his tiny figure, and a large box of a hat in black and white to match.
The black and white thorn babbled on, “Put simply, Sir, it stinks. They were not dug deep enough. Not near regulation standard. We need prop-”
“Enough, Mentus. Enough.” Lapille said, raising a wide palm. He was always told he had a voice for command. A voice that demanded attention and respect. His mother joked it was because his lungs were just so damn big. A dig at his weight, he later realized in adulthood.
Still, Mentus, with all his fervor, bent his head, silent in response to Lapille’s whipsnap voice of command. A funny sight considering the large box of black and white fabric the dunce wore as a hat to signify himself as High Secretary.
“Apoligzes, Sir.” the tiny man shuffled in his massive robes, small pack donkey fighting to keep pace with Lapille’s mount. “-but this.. sanitary issue must be dealt with, fecal overflow can spread disease faster then a whorehouse in Cantibourgh. We simply mus-”
Colonel Lapille grabbed the reins to Mentus’ horse and stopped both their mounts. He stared down at the secretary with his cold yellow eyes. When he spoke it was slow, clear and cruel.“Write orders for the men of each respective barrack to have their own latrines cleared and redug dug to proper regulation standards, ration shortages if they refuse, make the Captains clean the mess while the privates learn just how deep six feet really is.” He clicked his neck. “Whippings for further encouragement if progress slows.”
The big hat bopped back up and down. “At once sir, at once.” He moved his mount to leave, then stopped, and added with a hint of a sneer. “The camps simply must look their best for when his majesty arrives to lead our.. righteous charge into the Morven Freeholds.” Mentus' pale green eyes, deep set in his wrinkled tan face, rippled with rage. “So many unlawful farmers in need of bloody justice, and, if I may say, you’re just man for the job.”
Eyes of pure white and pale gold met green and eggshell. “How kind of you to say, Mentus. Let me offer you some advice from the many bloody years of my service that make me so perfect for this job.” Malice soaked into his words like ink on a cloth. “-When that righteous charge begins,” he leaned down at the face beneath the hat. “I hope you realize, the stench of an overworked latrine is nothing to that of a rotting corpse.” The quiet rage simmered in his smooth, sharp baritone. “much less a sea of them.. so many faces, so many lost.. unrecognizable."
Fear paled Mentus’ visage as he clicked his donkey into a cantor. “Well said, Sir.” The secretary set off then, to deal with his latrine problem. The Colonel eyed him with a wary gaze as he went.
Shaking his buzz cut head, he looked down at his time-teller, a recent innovation that was all the craze in the capital. Took him a few weeks to work out the ol’ bugger but eventually he got it down. Still a few sunspans before luncheon, the hands of the dial toward him, enough time to survey the camps once over, maybe twice.
With a satisfied huff, Colonel Lapille slapped his proud smile back on his wide-set face and looked out over his greatest joy once more. The perfectly lined tents, the scuffless armor.. The.. well, what was that?
Atop a ridgeline, nested within the upper reaches of the Western Mountains, Lapille could just make out the glinting light of sun reflecting off an eye-piece. An armyman like himself could be sure of it, but who in their right mind would ever climb such dangerous peaks, and merely for a quick view? His mind pounced.
Scouts? Savage hillmen? Or a spy of the Crystal Crown, surveying, or more likely judging, his camp for the arrival of their emperor. As he raced through the possibilities..
It was gone. Fast as it had appeared in his vision. The Colonel didn’t move, he barely blinked. He watched till his eyes watered, but the flash did not return.
Probably just his nerves.
- The Practicality of being Immoral
“Tits, it's cold!” Kara threw back at Lem as she marched through ankle deep snow barely within view in front of him. He watched her wrap another heavy fur over her shoulder, icy flurry pelting her towering frame from the right.
Lem followed close behind. He mused on a witty response, she was a pyromancer after all, as he packed away his cylindrical eye-piece. They descended a snowy cleft pocketed with large finger-like grey boulders that reached up at the sky.
The image of those flapping tents and marching killers hindered his imagination. He could not scrub the sight from his mind. In all his years of living, a little under thirty with more than half spent scouting regiments, Lemmellion Ogoti, Lem for convenience and security, had never seen an army as grand.
The Ionian green and gold. Perfect lines of tents, stretching along the base of Stoneblade Peaks until he could see them no further. The perfect rows went on forever.
He had been seeing much more of their banners scouting the North Fork these past months. Riding all over, never staying in the same place long, like they were looking for something.
It appears they all found each other. A grand amassing of the martial Ionian Forces. They knew, the four of them, that an Ionian force was building on this side of mountains. The team, Ferrino mostly, thought it was the perfect bait for these strange northern invaders garbed in red and blue.
They didn’t expect half the bloody army of the largest nation in the known world to be building here, and for what, the thought made him sick in the stomach.
Lem would be scared well past shitless, if it wasn’t for the women he followed down the mountain. A subtle beauty. Tall, strong yet, a loving caring woman. one he could not live without. An angel made flesh. She looked back at him, opening her soft, wonderful lips.
“TITS! Motherfucking tits! It is cold! Damned freezing! I hate the bloody cold. How did those other two greasy weasels get the easy work.. again!? TITS!” She turned back and continued stomping down the mountain.
Sharp gusts of wind cut across Lem’s dark round face, framed by the thick hide and fur of his cold weather jacket. His mouth worked blood into his lips, “I wouldn’t want to be in Ferrino’s position! Who knows what these Northern bastards want, but.. Bedlam definitely got the best deal! Simplest at least.. His kind doesn't do much else!” it strained his voice to be heard above the wind. It was hard for them to have a conversation with it all, but this was the most Kara had spoken with him since they slept together. Even if what she was saying was mostly expletives.
“Dumb shit-eating brute! He’s practically become Ferrino’s personal Shadow!” A long braid of red hair slapped him in the face as Kara whipped around to face him. “Damn that man Ferrino, and his ridiculous plans!” She lurched forward, getting real close to Lem then. Her breath, hot on his face. His knees nearly gave out, and not from the hike. “We got the money from the Morven folk,” She whispered, practically in his ear, “Why don’t we split, spend the gold on something nice for just us too, and be done with this business.”
Lem gave a sly grin, “scared after seeing all that green and gold?” As if he wasn’t a hair short of terrified himself. Women liked men who were confident in the face of adversity. At least, that’s what he’d been told. He was never much of a flirt, but it seemed worth a shot, despite circumstances.
Kara did not look amused. “There’s a difference between being scared and damned practical.” The wind died for a breath.
Those words cut Lem the wrong way. “And sometimes the line between practical and immoral is much thinner than I’d prefer.” He brushed his tangled hair back into the folds of his furry hood as Kara laughed down at him.
“The melodrama, Lem, it's sickening.”
“We're not criminals, Kara. The Morven Freeholds are good people, honest folk.” He set a hard look in his eyes. They burned matching Kara’s fiery orange-red gaze but he did not let up. “We were paid, now we do our part. We don’t backstab and double cross. Don’t kill unless we must.” he huffed an indignant breath. “We are not criminals.”
“Then what are we?” The wind picked back up something fierce then. Kara shivered, gave Lem a stare colder than the weather and turned, continuing to hike toward a thin path between two of the many peaks around them. “Three armies, two nations, one independent freehold of bloody fools and a deadly mountain range crawling with savage hillmen for a border wall!” The Red beauty threw her fur draped arms up in rage. “Only fuckin’ Ferrino Castronelli!” She hopped and slid with graceful rage further down the mountain toward a yawning cave that would shelter them from the cold, and lead them back to Ferrino and Bedlam.
Lem followed in her wake, as he always had.