Post by max on Sept 15, 2010 14:30:45 GMT 10
Title: The Other Side
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 629
Summary: Vignette from the keep at Castle Ratthausak.
Warning: Swearing an' violence an' generally poor writing.
Notes: There's a scene in wench Knight where Kel finds Loesia by the body of a dead soldier. She says something like, 'He was kind t' me, an' I killed him.' an' Kel says something like 'He was going t' give yerr t' Blayce.' an' then everything moves on.
ARRRRR.
__________________________________________
I've heard it told the women warriors are immortal – that they made some bargain with their gods for victory. Dunno how true it is though, the Tortallans do all sorts of mad things (did you know they even use birds as scouts? We'd noticed the creatures – you do: usually they disappear when they smell the monsters coming, and some of the wrongness seeps into your skin – and then a half day later the sentries were gone and we were gone and our boys kept being picked off like flies, the horses answering some call the way dogs hear whistles too faint for human ears to pick up) without their help. And we're the godforsaken ones, aren't we? Isn't that why we're willing to kill our own children to win a war? What could we know? Never seen a woman that tall before, at any rate, with that mean pigsticker and the feathers in her hair – she can't be the lionness, I heard them say her armour was red and in place of her eyes she has two stones, so she must be the other one – here to get the monster maker. He's pretty monstrous himself though, the Blight. That's what we call him when Stenmun's not listening, and f---, when did we ever sign up for this? Everyone grows up being told about the lands what had belonged to us until the Tortallans ate up pieces of four kingdoms in one lifetime, but I was expecting to go through to Frasrlund and kill people there. Not kids. Not our own. (Can't stand the way he whistles when he's picked one. He doesn't have to do it like he does. I know he doesn't. So did Frejs though, and he was flayed for it.) Loey isn't a warrior, just another kid who didn't want to die and had seen enough of the horrors of this world to know she wasn't going to make it out alive, but there she is, fighting off another man, her spear slicing neatly through his gut. Good girl, I'd tell her if she could hear me over the noise. Don't let them touch you. Loey isn't a goddess, she's just a girl two years younger'n'me who was so tired of holding everything in that even a brute like me was good enough to cry on. Glad I was too scared after Frejs was killed not to sleep with a sword under my mattress. I'd heard the talk. If the King wanted more of the machines we'd be the ones who'd be trapped under giant bones next. Dunno how the King expected to win the war without the gods on his side – lookit what happened to Carthak (and that girl wasn't a warrior either) – neither, but now she's in trouble – Ürs is too big a chunk of meat for her to take, and he's knocked her spear away like she's a ragdoll, and – and – f---, if we win I'm going to be killed for treason or something. I ate with that man. He showed me a letter from his sweetheart away in the Northwest even though I couldn't read it, and there's his head and here's his body and my sword, and Loey's got her spear back now, and I want to tell her I'll keep her safe only now there's my heart (how'd she get that tip through my ribs unless she'd known where it was in the first place) and there's my blood and there are her eyes (blue and beautiful and haunted through her falling tangled hair) and there's my sword on the ground, and my knees on the ground, and everything is going dark but Loey isn't immortal. Loey, I wanted –
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 629
Summary: Vignette from the keep at Castle Ratthausak.
Warning: Swearing an' violence an' generally poor writing.
Notes: There's a scene in wench Knight where Kel finds Loesia by the body of a dead soldier. She says something like, 'He was kind t' me, an' I killed him.' an' Kel says something like 'He was going t' give yerr t' Blayce.' an' then everything moves on.
ARRRRR.
__________________________________________
I've heard it told the women warriors are immortal – that they made some bargain with their gods for victory. Dunno how true it is though, the Tortallans do all sorts of mad things (did you know they even use birds as scouts? We'd noticed the creatures – you do: usually they disappear when they smell the monsters coming, and some of the wrongness seeps into your skin – and then a half day later the sentries were gone and we were gone and our boys kept being picked off like flies, the horses answering some call the way dogs hear whistles too faint for human ears to pick up) without their help. And we're the godforsaken ones, aren't we? Isn't that why we're willing to kill our own children to win a war? What could we know? Never seen a woman that tall before, at any rate, with that mean pigsticker and the feathers in her hair – she can't be the lionness, I heard them say her armour was red and in place of her eyes she has two stones, so she must be the other one – here to get the monster maker. He's pretty monstrous himself though, the Blight. That's what we call him when Stenmun's not listening, and f---, when did we ever sign up for this? Everyone grows up being told about the lands what had belonged to us until the Tortallans ate up pieces of four kingdoms in one lifetime, but I was expecting to go through to Frasrlund and kill people there. Not kids. Not our own. (Can't stand the way he whistles when he's picked one. He doesn't have to do it like he does. I know he doesn't. So did Frejs though, and he was flayed for it.) Loey isn't a warrior, just another kid who didn't want to die and had seen enough of the horrors of this world to know she wasn't going to make it out alive, but there she is, fighting off another man, her spear slicing neatly through his gut. Good girl, I'd tell her if she could hear me over the noise. Don't let them touch you. Loey isn't a goddess, she's just a girl two years younger'n'me who was so tired of holding everything in that even a brute like me was good enough to cry on. Glad I was too scared after Frejs was killed not to sleep with a sword under my mattress. I'd heard the talk. If the King wanted more of the machines we'd be the ones who'd be trapped under giant bones next. Dunno how the King expected to win the war without the gods on his side – lookit what happened to Carthak (and that girl wasn't a warrior either) – neither, but now she's in trouble – Ürs is too big a chunk of meat for her to take, and he's knocked her spear away like she's a ragdoll, and – and – f---, if we win I'm going to be killed for treason or something. I ate with that man. He showed me a letter from his sweetheart away in the Northwest even though I couldn't read it, and there's his head and here's his body and my sword, and Loey's got her spear back now, and I want to tell her I'll keep her safe only now there's my heart (how'd she get that tip through my ribs unless she'd known where it was in the first place) and there's my blood and there are her eyes (blue and beautiful and haunted through her falling tangled hair) and there's my sword on the ground, and my knees on the ground, and everything is going dark but Loey isn't immortal. Loey, I wanted –