I daydreamed about some sort of angry message demanding the surrender of a castle, and decided to write it out. Then I somehow wrote a snippet about a soldier besieging that same castle. The events below take place in some nondescript 'verse I smoked up in half an hour, but I tried to keep things somewhat consistent.
IT was high noon when they finally made their choice known. It all started with a sound that was felt more than heard, like an extra beat in the steady rhythm of Umida's heart. The gates burst open, and then the Consularies were on their feet all around her, shouldering their shriekers, falling into line with the usual calm precision. Her feet took her to her place in the second row, then her hands did their usual thing – cartridge, pan, barrel, ball, wad, ramrod – while her eyes observed the keeper infantry trooping out and fanning into formation. Those, she knew, would get to her last. First, if the Jumhuriyat forces got lucky, there would be cavalry, and some time to get back behind the lines.
They didn't get lucky.
It was hard for her to get a good look such as she was, with the sun in her eyes and the dust obscuring the field – but it seemed as if dappled patches of noon-light and shadow erupted from the keepers' green-clad ranks, and sped forward with a swelling wail that grated on nerves she didn't even know she had. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yulduz pale.
Dust sprites. Somewhere in the vicinity of each blur, she knew, would be a keeper soldier pumped to the gills with battle-stims and forbidden magics, his image smeared and torn from him by the signs on his wargear. Do keep calm, she told herself. This is a job for us. We are the Second Consulary Reconnaissance, bright and bold, and we have the longest range with our rifled muskets. It's up to us. Do keep calm.
She counted the blurs with a practiced eye. There were twenty-three in all, and the first would enter her range in about fifteen seconds. They would wait longer after that, to get as many as they could with the first volley – she estimated they would only get four volleys off if they got lucky.
They didn't get lucky with that, either.
The sergeant, Rustam, held them for eight seconds – she counted – before giving the word. The first row spewed gunsmoke, then knelt. One blur of the four that veered for them instead of the Third in the ridges to the north or the mass of stubs to the south flickered and faded. She saw the sprite tumble like a ragdoll, propelled by the inhuman momentum it had attained. Their turn. She took aim over Timur's head. Waited for the sign. Fired, feeling her shrieker's familiar kick. The glare made it impossible to see if she hit anything, so she got to reloading again as the first row stood up. She heard them fire, then kneel. She hefted her rifle again, and saw that her life was over.
In that moment, it all seemed so clear to Umida, as if she was observing the scene from outside her own head, perhaps from one of the ridges behind her – oh, what she would give to be there now. Here, the Consularies with their black coats, their tall hats, their gleaming brass buttons. There, the displaced images of the dust sprites, rippling with the light of faraway suns. In front of her, Timur, with his crooked nose and his sharp jawline, Timur with whom she argued Council politics just yesterday. And there in front of him, a footprint, still billowing with little whirlwinds of dust.
He was thrown against her feet, dead – surely he was dead. Nobody can lose this much blood in so short a time and live. To her left, Yulduz fell, missing an arm, even paler than she was before. On instinct, she whirled round, and the glare was finally gone. The sprite's image was there, but she looked upon it and saw through the lie. Her shrieker pointed at the spot forward and to the left of it like an accusing finger. The sprite, which had just finished its U-turn, took a ball to the throat and went tumbling forward to stop at her feet, and she clubbed it savagely with her stock.
Then she felt something, and began turning to shield herself with her rifle, praying desperately that this time, this one time and never again, please, there will be no need for it again, some stroke of luck would save her.
She didn't, as it goes, get lucky.
Curiously enough, she felt no pain. The world just spun and spun until she fell flat on her back, squinting into the sun. The rifle had gone somewhere. Her fingers felt numb, and there was a strange lightness in her head, so that it bobbed up and up until she was looking along her body, at her stomach.
She had known before that they were rather long, but she was still surprised to see how long exactly. There were what, three – no, four meters of it, she estimated quickly, glistening white and red, coiled over the ruined front of her coat and trailing off into the dust. She found herself strangely curious about the slick texture of it, reaching toward it with her cold, cold fingers, but then the sun dimmed and the green-tinged darkness burst forth from behind her eyes and she was gone.
*****
She came to in an airy medical ward, awoken, it seemed to her, by the familiar thundery smell of sigil disinfectant. The smell had pervaded her dreams, which had all turned to rumbling clouds, but would give her no rain no matter how she begged. Her throat was dry. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak.
Then cool, strong hands held her head, and water poured down her throat. She drank, and drank, and drank until she choked again and coughed water all over her sheets. Her caretaker chuckled quietly at that.
- Up, then, are we?
She turned her head to look at him. Her first impression was that of extreme tiredness – the man had patchy stubble, bags under his eyes, creases marking his otherwise fairly young face. The crow's nest of his wiry black hair and the deep set of his eyes did nothing for this impression, making him look for all the world like the dark-eyed revenants on the walls of the Old Palace. Still, under all that, his smile was kindly enough, and she found herself smiling weakly back.
- Good, good. I was beginning to get worried. You really were a bad case, you know? You were lucky – a case of these new scrivened insets arrived just before you did. I had to cut out a meter of your intestine, if that's of any interest to you – I put it in an icebox to show you, but you took your sweet time sleeping it off, so I had to throw it away.
The grin became wider. Umida felt like laughing – she was alive in this room filled with storm–smell, and now there would be real storms and real rain and real sun and she would go to markets and eat cherry sorbet and attend drills and get yelled at by sergeants again – a tinge of concern went through her at the thought of Rustam, but was quickly drowned out by her growing elation. She felt like hugging this sleep-deprived mess of a doctor, like pressing her fingers to his skin for him to see that they were now warm, warm.
Instead, she just let them twitch slightly under the covers.
- How long – her voice was still hoarse – How long?
- Nine days.
- Then the Keep..?
- Gone. Awakoum spoke the word and it's gone now. - He looked unsettled. I will be too, she decided, when this feeling passes.
- My platoon?
He paused.
- Can't tell. Lots of casualties here. Probably not good, though, I have to tell you.
Umida smiled again, this time grimly.
- Don't have to tell me, I've been there.
He nodded.
- Yes. Now. I have a few more patients to attend to. Would you like to go back to sleep for a while? A nurse will come around in a few hours to change your bandage.
- No, I'll be fine. And thank you.
He nodded again and left, shutting the glass doors of the ward behind him. She looked around properly for the first time: there were seven other beds around her, two of them occupied. With some trepidation, she lifted her covers: there was just a loose white shirt split at the sides and the bandage there. She patted her stomach gingerly. Ow. Alright, so I won't do that again, she thought.
Leaning back down, Umida pontificated the inevitable scar. That'll show that braggart Yulduz, she told herself, imagining a walk down Grand Market Avenue with just a chest-wrap around her torso, her black soldier's coat thrown carelessly over her shoulder, pretty young things admiring her toned stomach and her new battle–scar, market guards tipping their hats to her with respect, stall-keepers offering her discounts – a veritable bucket of cherry sorbet – an evening of cold beers and dice at the Ball and Rod, perhaps a pleasant enough night as well, should anyone likely catch her eye...
Then she remembered Yulduz falling, armless and paler than marble. Shaking her head, she dove back into the giddy thoughts, where that image couldn't find her. Perhaps I should get a tattoo around that scar, she thought. Some thorns, or maybe a severed creepvine, to show that I got it under the walls of Patimat's Keep.
She fantasized like this for another half-hour until sleep again overcame her.
With this I'm mostly interested in whether my sentences seem too long or hard to read, whether it's easy to comprehend what's going on in my action scene, and whether my description of being injured feels apt. If anything else feels wrong, I'd like to know, too.
To the Lady Patimat, by herself styled Heir to the Locked City, First Among Equals, Mistress of the House that Shines Above All Others, by us styled Betrayer, Murderess, Guest – killer
Word has reached us that you excuse your crimes by saying that they were committed in the name of Love. You shall, then, be amused to hear that the devastation which we shall wreak upon you shall also be done in that sacred name.
It has occurred to us that you think yourself a hero in this play of dust, and that you feel that the lives of lessers are but a small price to pay for a happy ending. Let us then remind you of them, so that you are informed of the magnitude of your crime. They were:
Hassan Faradhi, who loved Messim who waits for him now in a house full of silence
Kasim al-Arani, who loved his people and gave an arm and an eye in their service
Mariyat Fatim, who loved light and and air and traveled sixteen lands of ash for this love
Ionatan Hurion, who loved the Mountain, which is now bereaved of her last son
Nuriyat Never - Blind, who loved her soldiers and was beloved by them in turn, whom you hated with a low hatred for her honesty and her honor
Those five entered your house as guests, and left as corpses. While you have already given us much to drink from the cup of grief with your disgusting and deplorable attacks on our soldiers, with this act you have exhausted our patience, of the magnitude of which we mortals make no boasts.
For the lives and loves of those five, and the lives and loves of all others who are dead for the sake of your vanity, whose stories we shall never now know and whose merit is now beyond our reward -
For the lives and loves of those who have trusted us with their safety and entrusted us with the force of their labor -
With this missive we profess unending hatred for you.
We hereby declare that we shall bring down your house, unravel and end all that reside within, and leave that place forever desolate, as a reminder to all who would dare mistreat our ambassadors and endanger our citizens. To pay no more in life or love for the demise of one such as you, we shall accomplish this by speaking the word that is not to be spoken. To prevent this, you must return to us the bodies of our ambassadors, and submit yourself to the judgment of the Final Court.
You have until sunset.
Signed on the roots of the Mountain by the Council of Four, of the Jumhuriyat:
Awakoum
Farida
Bulat
Hakim
With this, my primary interest is if this feels threatening enough, and if there's some way to inject additional pathos into it.
But anyway, I would be interested in any other comments as well.
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Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 312757 times)