Syan
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The Wyrd of the Black Dogs
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Fantasy The Wyrd of the Black Dogs [OPEN]
- Thread starter Thread starter Syan
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Syan
Junior Member
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Chapter 1
‘Like Carrion Scavengers.’
Syan
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- One on One
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Merry
The camp slowly drifted through the hills, or it seemed to: the snow soft on its bracken heels—paler than the bright moon—serenaded the fellows to sleep. The watch duty, too, drifted half-awake and half-asleep, occasionally jolted by the sound of a passing animal or the lone howl of a distant wolf. They willed themselves to walk and, in the distance, seemed like ghosts emerging from the snowy mountains next to the camp. The torches on the borders and the flickering campfires cast them in a sinister light. There was little noise: the crackling of wood, burning up as a thin smoke that disappeared into the clouds; the soft chatter of those still awake, maybe the scribbling of a quill on a letter addressed to this or that beloved; and the rare sound of implements clattering together at the hands of the dutiful who clean their equipment. It was night-time. The tumble of two pairs of dice could be heard.
Near the camp’s borders, a torch wilting from a snowy assault, its bearer yawning and willing himself awake—fixed to his position, a chill accumulating on his body—and suddenly, he said, ‘Ho, who goes there?’ and was answered from a distance, at a low yell, ‘It’s me, Critch. Carry on.’ The torch was fixed to its place for a second, as if lost in confusion, before resuming its wavering. It dropped to a low angle as a man carrying a barrel trudged up to it. The man growled, although not out of hostility but from the force of exertion, ‘At ease, eh? Cold night, isn’t it, Critch. What say you?’ And the torch flickered again, in response. The man placed the barrel on the ground and wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘That sounds about right,’ he said. ‘Oh, that?’ He gestured at the barrel and gave its lid a slap. ‘Powder. Wouldn’t want it to soak un’er this weather.’ He fastened his coat together, shivering. ‘Real cold night. Carry on now, Critch, steady like that.’
The man—Merry, Lieutenant, sapper—swore under his breath and lifted the barrel again with a slight groan. Critch looked at him with an askew glance, suddenly more awake, as he mumbled, ‘If you need help…’ Merry shrugged, shook his head and made his way to the supplies tent wedged deep into the center of the camp. Everywhere there was the smell of faint cordite, lingering spice—cardamom, cloves and cumin—and pain from the cold air. The snow, powdery like the black gold in his barrel, shifted easily to his steps; impressions of his feet disappeared quickly. From the medical tent, he could hear light moaning: the product of injuries suffered at a light skirmish earlier in the morning. The Black Dogs had accidentally encountered a scouting party from the Yur tribe, a hostile people, and fighting had ensued. Further in, past the supplies area, he could see the command tent, a faint glimmer of light still seeping out from its interior. He would go there later, he decided.
The supplies tent was massive, hexagonal and striped in black and brown. The two heavy drapes of canvas that made up its entrance were swinging to the tune of the wind, but only lightly. He entered the tent. Inside, there were barrels of powder, crates and racks of weapons, tools and oils, whatever an aspiring mercenary would require. Food and other miscellaneous items were stored elsewhere, and so the room smelled almost entirely of powder and cordite. Merry loved that smell: it was familiar to him and gave him a feeling of homeliness. The cruel Cantons, on the other hand, could only be described as unhomely. To the left of the room, surrounded by racks, was a crafting table—to the right and all the corners of the room, there were the crates and barrels. He settled his own barrel somewhere next to its fellow compatriots and made way to the table. The room was lit by a large lantern, fixed to the roof of the tent and hanging from the center. The lantern was peculiar: it required no fire and emitted light without smoke or combustion, which was useful in a room full of combustible material. Merry had bought the thing during his last trip to Black Mountain, after the unfortunate death of his previous captain, with the company’s funds, of course.
On the crafting table, there were signs of previous—and ugly—craftsmanship: powder strewn about on its scored wood surface; a few nuts and bolts; and a poverty of cleanliness in general, judging by the scraps of cloth. The loose powder bothered him. ‘What is the quartermaster doing?’ he mumbled to himself before sitting down on the chair next to the table. Out of idleness, he took the black powder in his hands and let it sift through his fingers. He had worked with powder all his life. While some feared it, he was all too comfortable with the idea of exploding things. Even excited by it. Tomorrow, at daybreak, he planned to make great use of this black gold. The thought brought a smile to his lips. As he played around with the powder, the loose entrance of the tent came open and in shambled a figure.
Merry looked up: it was Critch. ‘Ho, Critch,’ he said, waving a hand in greeting, ‘what brings you here?’
Critch he saw was carrying a bottle and two small pewter cups in one hand. Snow still remained scattered across his shoulders and on his cap. He shook them off and looked at Merry. He was grinning. ‘Hey, boss. Thought you’d want a drink.’ He walked in and set the bottle and the cups on the table. ‘Before you ask, my shift’s over.’
‘You read my mind. A drink’s the right thing for a night like this,’ said Merry.
Critch nodded and took out another chair from a corner of the room, pulling it next to Merry. He took his seat and then popped open the bottle, pouring the liquid—an amber, almost incandescent fluid—into the cups. ‘Brandy. From Daruvan. A taste of home, lieutenant.’
‘Home,’ Merry muttered. He took one of the cups and tried to smell the liquid: he recognized the scent, a blend of pomegranate and some herbs. It was a bottle of Daruvan Special. ‘Salud!’ he said and took a sip. Anyone else in the force and they would have downed the cup in one go. That would have been a serious waste.
Critch followed his cue and also took a sip. He was a smallish man of a lean frame, in his early twenties, pale skin and not a single ounce of hair on his body: no hair even on the eyebrows, much less his head, face or body, which he described as a ‘defect of a magical experiment’. He was also a Varian’s-man like Merry but much more modest about his origins. Critch had been recruited into the Black Dogs by Merry’s previous division. He had come from a family of reddlemen and as a result he preferred wearing red-dyed clothes: even now, Merry could see bits and pieces of red flashing from in between his plate and fur. He was a junior sapper, rank of corporal and had been with Merry during the incident that led to his previous captain’s death and the collapse of that division; and he had been transferred with Merry, with a couple of other folks, to this new, hastily-made division.
Critch smacked his lips, leaning back on his hair. He said, ‘Home indeed.’
‘In this godforsaken place, s’all one can ask for. A tiny piece of home—’ he grabbed the powder in a fist, ‘and a fuckton of powder. We’ll bury ’em before they can even see us. And pick them apart, like carrion scavengers.’
Critch nodded. ‘We’ll do that.’ He took another sip. There was a brief, awkward silence.
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Merry out of nowhere. Critch questioned him and he continued, ‘At that time—and y’know what I’m talking about—I didn’t have much hope for making it out intact. That was a bad time. Now?’ He sniffed. ‘Still bad, but not so much!’ Although he was outwardly casual, the incident had shaken Merry and he still recalled every now and then, with vivid intensity, what had happened. It was someplace in Dreadgloom. A bizarre outbreak of the undead, via a rogue lich; the Black Dogs caught unaware from the reserve wing, and then pretty much routed as they fled; and the captain at the rear lines killed while attempting to retreat. He shook his head. This was not the time for reminiscing.
‘I don’t like thinking about it too much. What do you think about our new division?’
‘Shit,’ Merry said with a deadpan expression. ‘Especially the captain. Heard he’s some jerk from Jul.’ As a republican, he wasn’t too fond of the Julese: as far as he was concerned, they were a bunch of stuck-up, frilly barbarians. He hadn’t been introduced to the captain at any length, however, beyond the formal introductions in Black Mountain. Now that they had a commission, he shivered at the thought of working with the much younger man.
The commission was simple. Some tribe—known as the Ank tribe—from the Cantons had suddenly decided to rip through Cantons’ various mining colonies, depressing the trade of ores and, most importantly, pissing off some bigwig in the Empire. What the Black Dogs had to do was either eliminate the tribe, which Merry found to be a terrifying prospect, or dissuade them from any further intrusions into Empire territory. For that, the Black Dogs had about two hundred soldiers, most of them blooded in previous fights and, if not trained by a formal programme, were at least trained by time and experience. The Ank raiding party, on the other hand, consisted of three hundred to four hundred fighting men: poor equipment, poor training but, no doubt, lots of vigor and gusto. The two things this new company, with its low morale, seriously lacked. The new division, as far as Merry could tell, was still a patchwork of troops from various pared-down divisions; they did not have a feel for fighting with each other yet. Aside from that, they had also picked up several new recruits: Iun knows how they would perform, but Merry held little hope for them. The Ank party was set up some ways deep into the Cantons, so the scouts reported. The fighting would occur in narrow passages and caves but they still did not have a proper plan of action yet.
‘I haven’t had the time to meet some of the new people in the camp, lieutenant, but I recall some interesting faces.’ Sensing his superior’s rising anger, he changed the topic and said, ‘Say, where was the powder from? That barrel you were carrying, lieutenant.’
‘You weren’t there.’ His tone slowly began to grow angry. ‘The sappers were experimenting with some bombs, for tomorrow you see, but some shithead had left it out on the snow. If the powder’s wasted, who do you think’s got to answer to the quartermaster?’ He finished his cup with a swig, shook his head when Critch offered him more and got up. ‘You ought to get a few winks in. No telling what happens tomorrow.’
‘Aye, boss,’ and with that Critch capped the bottle and got up. They left the tent together before parting ways outside: Critch to the sappers’ tent, Merry to the command tent. He was curious about the light: he suspected the captain was in, and probably having an audience with some of the new recruits and other hangers-on. Merry planned on discussing the affairs of the camp and the plan of action for tomorrow’s battle. As he thought about it, he realized he was already next to the tent. Steeling himself, he went in through its flaps.
The camp slowly drifted through the hills, or it seemed to: the snow soft on its bracken heels—paler than the bright moon—serenaded the fellows to sleep. The watch duty, too, drifted half-awake and half-asleep, occasionally jolted by the sound of a passing animal or the lone howl of a distant wolf. They willed themselves to walk and, in the distance, seemed like ghosts emerging from the snowy mountains next to the camp. The torches on the borders and the flickering campfires cast them in a sinister light. There was little noise: the crackling of wood, burning up as a thin smoke that disappeared into the clouds; the soft chatter of those still awake, maybe the scribbling of a quill on a letter addressed to this or that beloved; and the rare sound of implements clattering together at the hands of the dutiful who clean their equipment. It was night-time. The tumble of two pairs of dice could be heard.
Near the camp’s borders, a torch wilting from a snowy assault, its bearer yawning and willing himself awake—fixed to his position, a chill accumulating on his body—and suddenly, he said, ‘Ho, who goes there?’ and was answered from a distance, at a low yell, ‘It’s me, Critch. Carry on.’ The torch was fixed to its place for a second, as if lost in confusion, before resuming its wavering. It dropped to a low angle as a man carrying a barrel trudged up to it. The man growled, although not out of hostility but from the force of exertion, ‘At ease, eh? Cold night, isn’t it, Critch. What say you?’ And the torch flickered again, in response. The man placed the barrel on the ground and wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘That sounds about right,’ he said. ‘Oh, that?’ He gestured at the barrel and gave its lid a slap. ‘Powder. Wouldn’t want it to soak un’er this weather.’ He fastened his coat together, shivering. ‘Real cold night. Carry on now, Critch, steady like that.’
The man—Merry, Lieutenant, sapper—swore under his breath and lifted the barrel again with a slight groan. Critch looked at him with an askew glance, suddenly more awake, as he mumbled, ‘If you need help…’ Merry shrugged, shook his head and made his way to the supplies tent wedged deep into the center of the camp. Everywhere there was the smell of faint cordite, lingering spice—cardamom, cloves and cumin—and pain from the cold air. The snow, powdery like the black gold in his barrel, shifted easily to his steps; impressions of his feet disappeared quickly. From the medical tent, he could hear light moaning: the product of injuries suffered at a light skirmish earlier in the morning. The Black Dogs had accidentally encountered a scouting party from the Yur tribe, a hostile people, and fighting had ensued. Further in, past the supplies area, he could see the command tent, a faint glimmer of light still seeping out from its interior. He would go there later, he decided.
The supplies tent was massive, hexagonal and striped in black and brown. The two heavy drapes of canvas that made up its entrance were swinging to the tune of the wind, but only lightly. He entered the tent. Inside, there were barrels of powder, crates and racks of weapons, tools and oils, whatever an aspiring mercenary would require. Food and other miscellaneous items were stored elsewhere, and so the room smelled almost entirely of powder and cordite. Merry loved that smell: it was familiar to him and gave him a feeling of homeliness. The cruel Cantons, on the other hand, could only be described as unhomely. To the left of the room, surrounded by racks, was a crafting table—to the right and all the corners of the room, there were the crates and barrels. He settled his own barrel somewhere next to its fellow compatriots and made way to the table. The room was lit by a large lantern, fixed to the roof of the tent and hanging from the center. The lantern was peculiar: it required no fire and emitted light without smoke or combustion, which was useful in a room full of combustible material. Merry had bought the thing during his last trip to Black Mountain, after the unfortunate death of his previous captain, with the company’s funds, of course.
On the crafting table, there were signs of previous—and ugly—craftsmanship: powder strewn about on its scored wood surface; a few nuts and bolts; and a poverty of cleanliness in general, judging by the scraps of cloth. The loose powder bothered him. ‘What is the quartermaster doing?’ he mumbled to himself before sitting down on the chair next to the table. Out of idleness, he took the black powder in his hands and let it sift through his fingers. He had worked with powder all his life. While some feared it, he was all too comfortable with the idea of exploding things. Even excited by it. Tomorrow, at daybreak, he planned to make great use of this black gold. The thought brought a smile to his lips. As he played around with the powder, the loose entrance of the tent came open and in shambled a figure.
Merry looked up: it was Critch. ‘Ho, Critch,’ he said, waving a hand in greeting, ‘what brings you here?’
Critch he saw was carrying a bottle and two small pewter cups in one hand. Snow still remained scattered across his shoulders and on his cap. He shook them off and looked at Merry. He was grinning. ‘Hey, boss. Thought you’d want a drink.’ He walked in and set the bottle and the cups on the table. ‘Before you ask, my shift’s over.’
‘You read my mind. A drink’s the right thing for a night like this,’ said Merry.
Critch nodded and took out another chair from a corner of the room, pulling it next to Merry. He took his seat and then popped open the bottle, pouring the liquid—an amber, almost incandescent fluid—into the cups. ‘Brandy. From Daruvan. A taste of home, lieutenant.’
‘Home,’ Merry muttered. He took one of the cups and tried to smell the liquid: he recognized the scent, a blend of pomegranate and some herbs. It was a bottle of Daruvan Special. ‘Salud!’ he said and took a sip. Anyone else in the force and they would have downed the cup in one go. That would have been a serious waste.
Critch followed his cue and also took a sip. He was a smallish man of a lean frame, in his early twenties, pale skin and not a single ounce of hair on his body: no hair even on the eyebrows, much less his head, face or body, which he described as a ‘defect of a magical experiment’. He was also a Varian’s-man like Merry but much more modest about his origins. Critch had been recruited into the Black Dogs by Merry’s previous division. He had come from a family of reddlemen and as a result he preferred wearing red-dyed clothes: even now, Merry could see bits and pieces of red flashing from in between his plate and fur. He was a junior sapper, rank of corporal and had been with Merry during the incident that led to his previous captain’s death and the collapse of that division; and he had been transferred with Merry, with a couple of other folks, to this new, hastily-made division.
Critch smacked his lips, leaning back on his hair. He said, ‘Home indeed.’
‘In this godforsaken place, s’all one can ask for. A tiny piece of home—’ he grabbed the powder in a fist, ‘and a fuckton of powder. We’ll bury ’em before they can even see us. And pick them apart, like carrion scavengers.’
Critch nodded. ‘We’ll do that.’ He took another sip. There was a brief, awkward silence.
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Merry out of nowhere. Critch questioned him and he continued, ‘At that time—and y’know what I’m talking about—I didn’t have much hope for making it out intact. That was a bad time. Now?’ He sniffed. ‘Still bad, but not so much!’ Although he was outwardly casual, the incident had shaken Merry and he still recalled every now and then, with vivid intensity, what had happened. It was someplace in Dreadgloom. A bizarre outbreak of the undead, via a rogue lich; the Black Dogs caught unaware from the reserve wing, and then pretty much routed as they fled; and the captain at the rear lines killed while attempting to retreat. He shook his head. This was not the time for reminiscing.
‘I don’t like thinking about it too much. What do you think about our new division?’
‘Shit,’ Merry said with a deadpan expression. ‘Especially the captain. Heard he’s some jerk from Jul.’ As a republican, he wasn’t too fond of the Julese: as far as he was concerned, they were a bunch of stuck-up, frilly barbarians. He hadn’t been introduced to the captain at any length, however, beyond the formal introductions in Black Mountain. Now that they had a commission, he shivered at the thought of working with the much younger man.
The commission was simple. Some tribe—known as the Ank tribe—from the Cantons had suddenly decided to rip through Cantons’ various mining colonies, depressing the trade of ores and, most importantly, pissing off some bigwig in the Empire. What the Black Dogs had to do was either eliminate the tribe, which Merry found to be a terrifying prospect, or dissuade them from any further intrusions into Empire territory. For that, the Black Dogs had about two hundred soldiers, most of them blooded in previous fights and, if not trained by a formal programme, were at least trained by time and experience. The Ank raiding party, on the other hand, consisted of three hundred to four hundred fighting men: poor equipment, poor training but, no doubt, lots of vigor and gusto. The two things this new company, with its low morale, seriously lacked. The new division, as far as Merry could tell, was still a patchwork of troops from various pared-down divisions; they did not have a feel for fighting with each other yet. Aside from that, they had also picked up several new recruits: Iun knows how they would perform, but Merry held little hope for them. The Ank party was set up some ways deep into the Cantons, so the scouts reported. The fighting would occur in narrow passages and caves but they still did not have a proper plan of action yet.
‘I haven’t had the time to meet some of the new people in the camp, lieutenant, but I recall some interesting faces.’ Sensing his superior’s rising anger, he changed the topic and said, ‘Say, where was the powder from? That barrel you were carrying, lieutenant.’
‘You weren’t there.’ His tone slowly began to grow angry. ‘The sappers were experimenting with some bombs, for tomorrow you see, but some shithead had left it out on the snow. If the powder’s wasted, who do you think’s got to answer to the quartermaster?’ He finished his cup with a swig, shook his head when Critch offered him more and got up. ‘You ought to get a few winks in. No telling what happens tomorrow.’
‘Aye, boss,’ and with that Critch capped the bottle and got up. They left the tent together before parting ways outside: Critch to the sappers’ tent, Merry to the command tent. He was curious about the light: he suspected the captain was in, and probably having an audience with some of the new recruits and other hangers-on. Merry planned on discussing the affairs of the camp and the plan of action for tomorrow’s battle. As he thought about it, he realized he was already next to the tent. Steeling himself, he went in through its flaps.
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Gears
Harbinger of War, Chaos, Death And Toast
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Arris trudged through mud and muck. Her boots and tips of her cloak where already in horrific condition, now coated in mud. Her boots where filled with holes, while the cloak was thread bare and covered in holes. Her fathers heraldry was faded, the twin blades forming the wings of a hawk. Arris was sure her father turned a blind eye to her squalor, his resplendent plate well shined, not a bit of mud on the dwarven steel. The muscle bound stallion he rode keeping him from the mud, the snow dropping on his plate. She had been holding a ridiculous looking parasol to make sure the armors shine was preserved for as long as possible. Hours spent waxing the armor for his arrival. The horse had been well scrubbed and cleaned that morning,
"Stay silent and do my bidding Bastard. I would prefer that you keep your parentage from them- I have had numerous wards over the years that have risen in the ranks of the Black Dogs. Do as I say and you could become something useless like a quartermaster or a scout- you deserve far less."
Arris stayed silent, simply nodding as she followed. hands wrapped around herself to keep out the bitter cold. She would need to brush the snow from his plate before they entered the command tent, then assist him with removing the armor as he spoke with her betters- which would be anyone here. He was right- this was far more than she deserved. When she had wandered onto his doorstep with the letter her dying mother had given to her, he had simply laughed and left her to the rain for a few hours- though the long trek to his mansion had made her used to the elements. He had left her in with grumbling, letting her sleep at the ashes of the kitchens fire- before explaining his "Conditions" in the morning. He had lost his previous master servant in a battle and was awaiting his patron lord to send another, so she could take the role until the trained servant could arrive. He needed someone who could keep his secrets and was obedient, and the shy bastard that had appeared on his doorstep was inconsequential- his spies making sure she had no one to spread his secrets to.
She had spent weeks cleaning his manor, serving at his lavish parties, and sending messages to his allies. The work was hard and her father was unkind, but she was fed and sheltered. With her mother dead, never introducing their family as they struggled in the city, she had no choice.
She craved the warmth of distant fire light as she continued the dreary march through snow and wind, tightening her hood over the bone white hair that peeked out of her hood- cut as to not attract any attention from her fathers drinking friends- they where repulsive enough, she shuttered to think of how they would react to something feminine in shape. She still wore the baggy clothing of the previous master servant- the arrow hole that had killed him patched, slightly adjusted so it better fit her. The only thing she wore with it was a necklace of silvery metal, fake rubies shining on the length. Her shortsword was secure at her side, the only item she owned that was well maintained- the dagger she kept in her sleeve of similar quality.
The horses footfalls announced their arrival- crunching as he passed, worst of the snow brushed off fathers armor and cape as he passed. He kept to a parade stance as he passed, sword gleaming at his side and helmet looking to the sky. Arris followed a short distance behind the knight, head bowed- searching the passing soldiers eyes as she carried fathers pack. The soldiers saluted the infamous hero, though he did not glance at them as he passed, waiting until a groom took his horse before entering the command tent. Arris carried his pack inside before taking her place behind her father- out of sight and unimportant- removing her hood as she accepted his helmet, allowing his golden hair to cascade over his shoulders while she cleaned it, listening to the conversation.
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