#1    First Lesson of War

First  Previous      Next  Last

"Why are we here?"
Darastrix looked to the left to see who had spoken. A young man, a kid really, wearing a tin pot for a helmet and a burlap sack for armor. He shook his head.
Darastrix had recently become a retainer of the Redaln family, and thus obligated to fight. By Uelathi's Shield, he was eager to test his mettle on the battlefield. But, he was keenly aware that his enthusiasm was not shared by those around him. Poor sharecroppers, peasants, street urchins, rounded up by Count Olevi's press gangs; they didn't want to be here, about to taste battle for the first time.
The kid in the tin pot helm looked back, caught Darastrix staring at him. The retainer gave the boy an encouraging smile, nodding at him. The child tried feebly to return the look, but there was no confidence behind it. If he survives the first battle, it will be Vanya's doing, he thought.
Something had changed, Darastrix realized. The air had taken on an acrid quality, just barely perceptible. Before he even realized it, he was ducking beneath his shield. Fire erupted around him, around all the men there. His world, for a heartbeat, was pure, arcane fire. And then it was gone. From behind him, warmages were lobbing their own fireballs and lightning bolts as the Zotari militia came streaming over the nearby hills.
Darastrix lowered his shield and scanned the vicinity. Most of the men around him had perished, their bodies a charred caricature of their living selves. By his feet lay the tin pot. Hair and skin were burned into its dinted sides. He drew his sword. There was no time to dwell on death.